The ATV got under way with only a slight acceleration. The heavy-dutysuspension, also an improvement over the old design, made progress almost smooth and rapid despite the debris left in the tunnels.
Templar manned the machine guns on either side of the vehicle and over the cab.
As he held the mask over Leah’s covered face, Simon leaned his head backagainst the side of the truck and tried to relax. Their complex, the one he’dhelp build with his own two hands three and a half years ago, was miles outside of London. Although the trains no longer ran, the tracks still remained.
While he sat there, he tried to think of the names of any enemies he might have made that would have troubled themselves to put a demon onto his trail. Or who would have been able to.
So far none of the demons had made the war between them personal. But a man, although he didn’t have a complete name, did come to mind.
The first time Simon had met him, he’d cut the man’s hand off. When he’dfound him again, the man had been wearing a demon’s hand in place of his own.
Simon wasn’t sure where to go looking for a man like that, and wasn’t certainif that effort would be all that helpful. Whoever the man was, he was powerful and deadly.
SEVEN
For the last eight months, Warren Schimmer had made his home in an older building that had been a brothel on Old Compton Street in the Soho District in the center of the West End of London. Back before the Hellgate opened and he’dbeen a part-time college student and full-time employee of minimum wage jobs, he’d walked by the place several times while shopping in Chinatown. Theprostitutes and their pimps had cleared out as soon as the demons had arrived. Locals had always claimed the area was going to Hell before, but they had no idea of how bad it would actually get.
The zombies he’d raised as his personal guard sat around him on the finefurniture. The building he’d chosen stood five stories tall, narrow and boxy.
In the early days, human squatters had tried to move in on Warren. But the zombies had stopped all those attempts. And there were occasional demon patrols, but most of them were Stalkers and others with minimal intelligence. The zombie presence indicated to them no human was there. A typical zombie could wander randomly through much of London these days. Warren’s skills kept his in place,preventing another demon calling them away. They weren’t good company, but atleast Warren felt safe among them.
The rooms were elegantly furnished in red lacquer and black onyx. Improbable portraits and carvings of Chinese heroes and demonsdecorated the walls. All of it seemed laughable now. There were far worse monsters moving through London these days than had ever been pictured in Chinese mythology.
Warren had chosen a suite of rooms on the fourth floor for himself. He assumed the room had been for special guests. It had a wet bar, which no longer worked but the alcohol supply was intact, a living area, and a balcony. He’denjoyed the balcony for a few days until he’d nearly been killed by a demon onceand almost shot by a London policeman a few days later.
It didn’t do to flaunt his territory to either side locked in the struggle.
So he’d pulled the steel security bars down and settled in to make the brothelhis home. With the zombies he left on guard there night and day, the building was clearly off-limits to anyone human that might want to steal what they could of from the desperate people who lived in such places.
Only Warren lived there now.
For a time, he had lived there with Kelli. She had been one of the three flatmates he’d had before the demon invasion. After Merihim had burned him andnearly destroyed him when the Cabalist contact had pulled him into this world, Warren had used his power to make Kelli his guardian. She’d become his zombiethrall, and lived only to care for him.
Almost a year ago, Kelli had given her life protecting Warren while scavenging for food. An Imp had shot her through the heart with some kind of weapon Warren still hadn’t managed to identify. After Kelli had fallen, allwithout a sound, Warren had used his power to raise her up again.
During the three years he’d held her in thrall, she’d lost most of herpersonality. Warren had never believed she’d had a personality anyway. She’dalways just been loud and argumentative in the flat. He hadn’t cared for any ofhis flatmates, and they’d suffered with his presence because he paid more thanhis share of the bills.
After he’d raised her from the dead, he’d brought her back to the brothelhouse. She hadn’t fared as well as the other zombies he’d raised. He’d noticeddifferences in the zombies he’d raised. The ones from the older graveyards, theones interred before embalming became a staple of most funerals, tended to fall apart quickly. If they were together to begin with.
Since Kelli hadn’t been embalmed, natural decomposition had set in. Magicslowed the process, but she was slowly and quietly going to pieces.
Warren could no longer truly bear the sight of her, but he couldn’t get ridof her either. With his childhood a shambles after the murder of his mother and his stepfather blowing his brains out in front of him, followed by a succession of foster homes where he’d only been a monthly stipend and not anything remotelyhuman, Warren clung to familiar things.
Books and movies were his favorites because both were passports to other places that he’d found far more pleasant than his real life.
