At first glance, Leah had thought the flying demons were Blood Angels. Those things were among the deadliest in the demon hierarchy.
These looked like pterodactyls from the natural history books Leah had studied as a girl. Back then, she’d loved the idea of dinosaurs and blamed it onSteven Spielberg’s movies. Velociraptors had been great movie monsters, but theypaled in comparison to the demons in London these days.
Instead of triangular heads, these flying demons had massive wedge-shaped heads that looked like they were all mouths and teeth. Horns clustered on the demons’ heads over their eyes and along the backs of their necks. No lips framedthe curved mouths. They were harsh, razor-edged beaks. The eyes were long and the pupils filled them, a certain indicator that they were nocturnal predators. Bat wings sandwiched massive bodies that had four limbs and tails that doubled the demons’ length. Mottled dark scales covered them.
Four of the demons descended in a diamond shape on the unsuspecting Templar.
Leah heard Simon’s warning cry over the Templar frequency she monitored. Sheput aside her fear and anxiety for the Templar and concentrated on the shot.
The onboard computer built into the small backpack unit she wore fed information to her helmet. Her sighting ocular flipped into place over her right eye as she lined up the shot.
In less than a heartbeat, the computer adjusted for the demon’s descent rate, the prevailing winds, the light, and the distance. Theocular pulsed and turned Leah’s vision blood-red to let her know she had targetlock.
Her finger caressed the Cluster Rifle’s trigger long enough to send a fullsalvo of missiles streaking toward the demon. The Templar were only then reacting to Simon’s frantic instruction.
Coolly, Leah shifted targets before the first salvo struck the demon. The Cluster Rifle’s tri-barrel chugged as it rotated and fresh missiles were loaded.After acquiring her new target, she squeezed the trigger again as the first target was hit.
All the missiles sailed true and hammered the mark. Leah had come prepared for quick takedowns. The missile sequence loads were comprised of a sabot round designed to penetrate a demon’s hide and explode the secondary charge within,Greek Fire, and a shotgun blast of palladium flechettes to slice and dice.
The flying demon buckled in the air under the impact. The flechettes opened gaping holes in the batwings and sliced through several of the smaller support bones. The wings turned to shredded meat. As the demon fell, the Greek Fire caught and it became a comet on the way to the ground. Only a few feet before the demon hit the ground, the sabot round exploded and blew a great hole in the center of its back.
Even then, when the demon hit the ground, it was still alive. It wobbled uncertainly on its back legs and focused on the Templar. The demon stood two feet taller than the Templar. Its serpentine neck lashed out as the wedge-shaped head split into a huge mouth.
The second demon was in freefall as well. Leah kept her attention focused on the two flying demons still in the air. Hopefully the Templar could handle them on the ground. The demons were more dangerous when they could streak in.
Unfortunately, she’d drawn the attention of the two surviving demons. Theyskirled high in the air, then flipped over like fast attack fighter jets and came screaming at her. Literally screaming. The noise was like fingernails on a chalkboard, and Leah’s audio receptors struggled to knock down the decibel leveland provide her with auditory contact.
One of them opened its mouth just as her ocular flared red to let her know she had the target. Roiling flame twisted from the demon’s mouth and rained downon her. She hadn’t seen that coming.
Free of the zombies, Simon ran for the nearest demon. It had its back to him and struck savagely at the Templar in the street.
Without giving quarter, Simon ran toward the demon. He sheathed the Spike Bolter and took a two-handed grip on the sword. Some preternatural sense warned the demon of his approach. It swiveled its massive head and tried to turn. A belch of flame hissed out over Simon as he swung the sword.
“Warning,” the suit’s AI said. “Critical damage taken.”
Simon set himself, almost blind in the fire as the HUD sensors struggled to keep up with the assault, and swung the sword. He didn’t aim for the demon’shead or neck, even though those were tempting targets, because they moved too much.
Instead, he cleaved through the demon’s spine. As long as a demon ordemonspawn wasn’t undead, basic anatomy applied. Provided an attacker couldsever the spinal column through the scaled hide, the damage would render the demon paralyzed.
The demon toppled, but it didn’t give up. It propelled itself forward withits front legs and managed to grab Simon’s left leg in its mouth.
“Warning,” the suit AI said in the calm female voice. “Structural integrityat risk.”
Although the armor was so form-fitting as to be unique, there were still hollow places. A Templar couldn’t gain weight without compromising his abilityto fit into his armor, but weight loss was sometimes a problem during a campaign. The hollow spaces also created weak areas.
To neutralize those voids, the Templar smiths had created a special hygienic chemical “liquid” protein that filled in those areas and flowed all around theTemplar’s body. That way if a Templar was in his armor for days or weeks at atime, the “liquid” massaged the body and skin, keeping both healthy. The fluidcould also be appropriated by the suit’s AI and used to patch cracks and evenholes from the inside in case of emergency.
It was also used to reinforce targeted areas to prevent damage from impact and crushing. Electrical impulses “hardened” the fluid in Simon’s leg andprovided extra strength.
Ignoring the pain in his leg, Simon reversed his sword and thrust it into the demon’s eye all the way up to the
