“I was told you wanted to talk to me,” he said.
“I wanted to thank you for bringing me here,” Leah said earnestly. “Youprobably did save my life. But I needed to talk to you about more than just those two Templar.”
TEN
“Have you heard of a man named Archibald Xavier Macomber?” Leah asked.
Simon stared into those violet eyes and thought about the name. Something worried at the back of his mind but he couldn’t pin it down.
“No,” he answered.
“Macomber’s a linguistics professor,” Leah said. “He was a child prodigy whenit came to languages. He traveled the world and worked on old scrolls, illuminated manuscripts, and other things that needed translation. He got quite a bit of fame out of the work he did.”
“He was on the American History Channel,” Simon said, remembering where he’dheard the name. “There were a series of specials that he did showing the flow oflanguage along trade routes.”
Leah nodded. “The Silk Road. The Salt Road. The Slave Trade. He covered allthose areas.”
Simon remembered then. Thomas Cross had loved knowledge simply for the sake of knowledge. When he’d been younger, he’d enjoyed watching several of thoseepisodesespecially the ones involving medieval weaponswith his father.
“As I recall, Macomber seemed to disappear overnight,” Simon said.
“In most people’s opinions, Macomber started to lose his grasp on reality.”
“I don’t recall that.”
“He started insisting that there were demons loose in the world,” Leah said.“He claimed to have uncovered proof.”
Simon remained quiet. Although the Templar had known of the demons’existence, even they had been hard pressed to prove their case. In the end their belief had cost them their fortunes. The king of France, Philip the Fair, accused the Templar Order of heresy and had prodded Pope Clement V to declare them to be heretics. As a result, they’d been stripped of their titles andprivileges in 1307. Philip drove the Templar into exile and burned Grand Master Jacques de Molay at the stake.
From that time on, the Templar had operated out of the public eye and away from the royal courts. But they had remained tapped into the aristocratic families and learned all the news they could of far-off lands. When an artifact or proof of the demons came to the surface, Templar were dispatched to recover them.
“Nobody wanted to hear about demons before the Hellgate opened,” Simon said.“The news broadcasts we’ve watched are still full of stories about aliens fromouter space and a global terrorism effort.”
“I know.” Leah frowned. “The group” She stopped herself. “The people I’mwith are still struggling with the idea of demons. Terrorists, or even aliens from another world, are far easier for most of them to understand. But some of the things Macomber was talking about, some of the writing he showedwhich a lotof people thought he’d made upis like the writing of the demons that are herenow.”
We should have known this, Simon thought. Then he realized that the Templar may have known it and chosen not to act on it.
“My… friends wanted to talk to Macomber,” Leah said. “They’ve beensearching for him.”
“Did they find Macomber?” Simon asked.
“We found him. He was in an insane asylum outside of Paris, France.”
“Why France?”
“His wife at that time was French. She wanted him sent there for ‘help’ sothe French courts would make certain she would get his estate.”
“She divorced him?”
“Not until the money was all gone.” Leah took a breath. “Macomber spent eightyears in the asylum. Four years ago, after the Hellgate opened, the asylums wereopened and those people were released. Nineteen months ago, he came to the attention of the group”
Simon resisted the impulse to ask what group that was.
“and efforts were undertaken to track him down,” Leah continued. “Last week,Macomber was found.”
“Where?”
“Inside Paris. He was living in one of the universities and had some of hispapers. He was working on the translations when we located him.”
“Translations of what?”
Leah shook her head. “No one knows.”
“What kind of shape is Macomber in?”
“He’s lucid. Intelligent. And convinced that he’s onto something.”
“He knows about the Hellgate?”
“They have one in Paris now, too.”
Simon was briefly taken aback. There had been rumors of other Hellgates, butthis was the first confirmation he had heard of the one in Paris. He imagined the Champs Elysees in ruins, andthe Eiffel Tower toppled and smashed like Lord Nelson’s Column in TrafalgarSquare.
“What is Macomber saying about the demons?” Simon asked.
“That’s just it,” Leah said. “He’s not He’s insisting he’s not going to talkto anyone until he talks to the ‘knights’ first.”
The knights. Simon let that sink in.
“Where’s your lady friend, mate?”
Simon paused the video feed on the old tri-dee that one of the salvage crews had brought in from one of their excursions. The crew had rescued it for the children who stayed with them till they were able to arrange passage out of Great Britain.
These days no ships or boats ran and such passage was scarce. Simon had heard that most of the vessels had been destroyed, but he’d also heard that there wereno safe places to take anyone. The demons were everywhere.
“Back in the infirmary,” Simon said. He sat in one of the small publicgathering places scattered throughout the redoubt.
The building had originally begun life as one of the fallout shelters built during World War II. In that war, all the children had been sent off to the countryside to get them out of harm’s way. Back then, the greatest thing aperson had to fear was a bomb landing in their house. Nobody had ever thought about demons pouring in through a Hellgate until it happened.
“Thought you might like a bite to eat.” Nathan placed a big bowl of oatmealon the desk beside Simon. “I know how you forget things like that.”
“Thanks.” The oatmeal smelled good and made Simon’s stomach growl. He scoopedit up and looked at the butter melting on it. “Butter? Hand-churned?”
“Hand-churned. Next time you’ll be getting your tea with cream and
