Despite his preparation and the four years he’d spent prowling through theobscene landscape London had become, Simon wasn’t prepared for the sight thatgreeted him. He pointed the Spike Bolter automatically and reached for his sword, then stayed his hand when he realized the quarters were too close.
“Hello; Templar,” the thing before him said. Once it had been human, but itwas warped and twisted beyond anything human now. Instead of four limbs, the creature had eight. All of them were arms. It stood on four of them with the other four raised before it. Reddish-violet scales covered it in the place of skin. Foot-long black mandibles thrust from its misshapen mouth. Jagged yellow teeth backed those, and there were far too many to be human. Two eyes remained on either side of its head, but they were farther apart than they should have been. They were also segmented and bulbous like a fly’s. Other eyes covered itshead like satellites to the main two.
“What is that?” Danielle whispered over the suit comm.
“I don’t know,” Simon replied. In the Templar Underground, they’d studied thedemons’ strengths and weaknesses. But they’d worked almost totally from storieshanded down over generations and the information had become bastardized.
They had learned more about the demons while battling them after the invasion. As it had turned out, their list of demons and what the demons could do was short compared to what they actually were and were capable of.
“The body has been possessed and corrupted,” Walter said. He was one of theolder Templar. He’d found his way to Simon’s group only lately. His primaryfield of study had been magic.
“That thing has taken over someone’s body?” Kevin asked. He was nineteen andstill training. When Simon had split off from the main Templar, Kevin had joined them weeks later. Like Simon’s, Kevin’s father had been killed in the massacreon All Hallows’ Eve at St. Paul’s Cathedral. In the beginning, he’d burned forvengeance, but he’d learned to pace himself.
“Yes,” Walter said. Wonderment filled his voice. “There are stories aboutthis, but none of them had ever been confirmed.”
Until now, Simon thought.
“What about the host?” Danielle asked.
“His mind was burned out when the demon took possession,” Walter said.
The demon cocked its head and made a series of anticipatory clicks that couldn’t have come from a human throat.
“You’re sure there’s no chance of saving the host?” Simon asked.
“None,” Walter replied. “His mind is gone. Whoever that was before the demonseized possession of him, nothing’s left of him.”
Simon hoped not.
“Where are the Templar?” Danielle asked.
Guilt flooded Simon when he realized he’d forgotten about the Templar they’dcome to save. But the sight of the demon had been overwhelming.
The two Templar lay on the ground to Simon’s right. Both of them had beencocooned in silken strands that looked as black as oil. Neither of them stirred. The only thing that told himthey were alive was the constant body temperature. Nothing dead would register on the suit AI’s sensors. Simon took heart in that.
He thought he recognized the blue and green coloring of the armor on one of the Templar. The other, gray over green, was new to him.
“Welcome, Templar.” The demon tilted its head. Yellow ichors dripped from itsmandibles. “We knew that some pathetic few of you still existed and chose tofight A few of us were sent to run you to ground.” The mandibles spread. “Ishall not be merciful. You will have a harsh death. Just as these two will.”
“Not today,” Simon said as he squeezed the Spike Bolter’s trigger.
FOUR
The Spike Bolter jumped like a rabid hound in Simon’s armored fist. Withouthis enhanced strength and training, he wouldn’t have been able to hang on to theweapon. Twenty-six rounds a second thudded into the arachnid-demon’s body. Hestarted them at the demon’s center of mass and allowed the Spike Bolter to trackupward. Even with the suit’s strength he couldn’t prevent that.
The bull-fiddle moan of the weapon reverberated inside the enclosed room. A moment later the demon’s screams joined the noise.
It vaulted toward Simon almost effortlessly. Green blood dripped from hundreds of wounds. One of the arms dropped away as the needle bullets chewed through it.
The arachnid-demon grabbed Simon and pressed its face against his faceplate. The mandibles clicked against the polycarbonate-based liquid metal that made up the faceplate. The composite material in its natural state was liquid, but when it had electricity running through itor magicit firmed up harder than steel.The suit’s AI kept templates stored in memory for the faceplate’s shape.
Small cracks appeared in Simon’s faceplate as the mandibles increasedpressure.
“Warning,” the suit’s AI stated calmly. “Possible breach.”
Simon’s vision blurred a little as the faceplate grew thicker. The fissuresdisappeared as if they’d never been. Simon brought his right hand up and wrappedhis fingers around the demon’s neck.
“You’re going to die, Templar,” the demon snarled. “You’ll never get out ofhere alive.”
Simon made no reply. He holstered his pistol, drew his sword, and whipped it forward. The blade cleaved deeply into the demon’s flesh. A moment later, thedemon went limp in Simon’s grasp. All seven of its remaining arms hunglifelessly. He cast it from him and it fell into a tangled heap in the corner among copy machines that were decades old.
He strode forward and put his hand on the nearest Templar. “Life signs,” hesaid.
“Accessing,” the suit’s AI replied. “ID confirmed. Elizabeth Stevenson.”
Simon recognized the name. She was one of the young Templar. If he remembered rightly, she would have been twenty-one, eight years younger than he was. She was of the House of Rorke, the same House Simon’s family served. And it was thesame one where Terrence Booth now sat as High Seat.
Numbers and values spun across the left corner of Simon’s vision superimposedover the basement scene. The heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration all fell within normal ranges for a sleeping person.
Simon guessed that was normal. The demon wouldn’t want a prisoner capable ofdefending herself. That was especially true of one with a Templar’s capability.
“Was the armor breached?” Simon asked. The only
