Youre too stupid to live, the other woman said quietly.
“She’s lived through this for four years,” Byron said. “Leave her alone,Julie.”
Heather was silently grateful for Byron’s interference. But she resented itat the same time. She hadn’t asked for help.
“The demons are real,” Byron said. “Most people don’t call them that.There are some who still think they’re aliens.”
“From another world,” the other man said. “Not from across the channel.”
Heather knew that. She’d talked to some of those people too. They tended towear aluminum foil hats and tried to convince her that the aliens were sending out thought-control brain waves.
“We’re down here foraging,” Byron said. “But we’re also looking for theknights.”
Heather remembered the stories about the knights too. When her friend’sparents had called them into the living room to watch the breaking news reports, there had been some coverage of the knights battling the monsters near St. Paul’s Cathedral.
There hadn’t been much. The reporting team covering the titanic battlebetween the knights and the monsters had been killed within minutes.
But the image of those knights, all of them standing tallmen and womenintheir gleaming armor, had left an indelible impression on her. The impression had been left even more strongly on Neil.
He’d only been twelve. He’d still believed in super-heroes and goodtriumphing over evil. During the early days when they’d been hiding out, Neilhad told her they needed to find the knights, that the knights would keep them safe.
The stories they’d heard about the knights guiding people out of London hadn’t helped. No one knew if the stories were true. Allthose who had managed to leave London had never returned.
Heather wouldn’t have, either. But she didn’t know where she would go. All ofher family, her parents and her uncles and aunts, had died. There was no other place to go. And there were rumors that other Hellgates had opened up around the world too.
“The knights aren’t real,” Heather said. The pronouncement came outautomatically. She’d told Neil that on several occasions. Neither of them couldallow to get their hopes up. She couldn’t get her hopes up.
“You don’t even know the demons are real,” Julie said. “The knights arereal.”
“Have you seen one?” Heather asked.
The young woman looked away.
“Thought so,” Heather said. However, she regretted her words immediately.
They walked in silence for a time. Heather didn’t want to stray too far fromthe neighborhood where she and Neil were staying. She had never known the city well, and too many things were wrecked that had once existed. Getting lost was easy.
She stopped at the next station. “I gotta get back. Neil’s still out theresomewhere. I need to find him before morning.” He might even have alreadyreturned to the building where they were squatting and be worried about her. It would serve him right.
“Sure,” Byron said. “We’ll come up with you.”
The two women protested his decision, but Byron ignored them.
Heather was grateful because she didn’t want to be alone. She couldn’t tellByron that, though.
They went up slowly and without the torches. There was just enough moonlight to manage to get through the foyer and to the door.
Outside again, Heather glanced along the street. Something slithered above her. Panicked, she turned and looked up.
A monster clung to the wall only a few feet above the entranceway. Moonlight splintered against its ivory grin. It twisted its head from side to side, and she felt it was showing off, letting her know that she didn’t have a chanceagainst it.
It tracked me, Heather thought helplessly. Before she could step back into the foyer or take a fresh grip on the weighted pipe, it leapt.
White light suddenly flared through the night and a whirring sound of metal on metal echoed around Heather. Stunned, she watched as the monster’s advancechanged in mid-leap. A silvery ball slammed into it, then spread into a delicate spider’s web that enveloped the creature. The bound monster dropped heavily tothe cracked sidewalk beside Heather.
“Get back,” a hoarse voice ordered.
When she glanced to her left, Heather saw an armored figure striding from the shadows. As the figure came closer, Heather made out the feminine form. She was over six feet tall. Some kind of metal covered her from head to foot. A blank faceplate disguised her features.
As Heather watched, the armor seemed to pulse. The night’s darkness drainedfrom the gleaming metal. By the time the knight reached Heather, the metal was silvery.
Above the tube-entranceway, more monsters clung to the wall. One of them leaped from the wall toward the knight Its jaws were wide open and its front forearms were poised to bring the jutting chitin blades into play.
The knight drew a long sword from her hip. Runes glowed along the double-edged blade. A gem or some kind of device mounted in the hilt glowed bilious green. The knight stepped forward and swung the sword in mailed fists.
After the blade met the monster with a great green flare that left spots dancing in Heather’s eyes, the monster fell to the sidewalk in halves. The fleshsmoked and showed burned spots.
Another demon had already been in motion and had leapt from the building as well. Unable to draw the sword back in time, the knight pulled one fist free and swung it backhanded at the monster. Just before the armored fist connected with the creature, it glowed incandescent green. Hooked spikes formed along the back of the glove. They sliced easily through the monster’s flesh.
Driven aside by the blow, the monster flopped to the ground. Before the creature could recover, the knight raised one of her feet over its head. A spike suddenly jutted out the side of the armored boot. Mercilessly, the knight rammed the spike through the monster’s head. The keen point not only punctured itsintended victim, but also passed several inches into the pavement.
When the knight turned back to the creature bound in the gleaming silverynet, she flexed her hand and made a fist Abruptly, the wire strands surrounding the trapped monster suddenly tightened and sliced through the
