“Would you listen to yourself? This isn’t some chick lit drama. I’m trying tostay alive. And so are you. That’s why you’re here.”
Naomi folded her arms. “If I had any sense, I’d be anywhere but here.”She glared at him.
Without provocation, Kelli attacked and flailed her arms at Naomi. Caught flat-footed, Naomi didn’t have a chance to defend herself or move away.
Warren threw a hand out and pushed with all his might. The shimmering wave of force jetted from his fingertips and hammered Kelli.
The zombie suddenly looked as if she had been thrown through a jet engine. Pieces of decaying flesh and shattered bone flew toward the other side of the room.
For a moment, Naomi stood frozen. Then she doubled over and was sick.
Warren figured that everything had officially just gotten worse. He went to get a trash bag and a broom. And a dust pan. Looking at all the little pieces, he figured he would need one of those too.
TWENTY-FOUR
Simon stared at the blueprints of the Akehurst Clinic. He had downloaded everything he could from the computer database regarding the building. His eyes burned from the sustained effort over the last few hours.
“You should get some sleep.”
Changing his perception of the large wide-screen monitor in front of him, Simon spotted Leah’s reflection in the surface. She wore hospital scrubs, whichwas one of the more accepted modes of dress up in the underground fortress.
Simon wore gray sweatpants, joggers, and a navy muscle shirt out of deference to the civilian population. There were a lot of children within the walls of late. It still amazed Simon how they had managed to survive the last four years.
Bruises from the previous night’s encounter with the demons had turned a niceshade of blue and purple. In a few more days they would change colors and fade away.
“I could say the same thing about you,” he said.
Leah leaned her hip against the desk and folded her arms. She stared down at him. “I’ve got six hours of sleep. Nathan tells me you haven’t slept yet.”
“Nathan talks too much.”
“If you don’t rest, you’re going to lose your edge. If you lose your edge,you’re going to die.”
“Thanks for the pep talk.” Simon felt angry at her and knew that she didn’tdeserve his ire. What she said was the truth. He let out a breath. “I’m going togo to sleep in just a little bit.” He shook his head. “If I tried to go to sleepright now, with everything in flux, I’d just be wasting my time anyway.”
Leah directed her attention to the monitor. “So what’s in flux?”
Simon looked at her. “I thought you had somewhere to be.”
She lifted a speculative eyebrow at him. “Would you let me leave here? Do youthink I would leave not knowing if that manuscript that’s supposed to be in thatsanitarium is really there?”
Simon held her gaze for just a moment. “No.”
“I guess that means both of us are in a flux.” Leah studied the blueprints.“Where did you get access to all these blueprints?”
“The Templar have been involved in the architecture of London since the citybegan. All the files of every building, every house, and every railway tunnel are. in our files.”
“Where did you get the files? This isn’t the Templar Underground.”
“One of the volunteers from the Templar Underground brought a copy with herwhen she joined us. Having that kind of information has been helpful.”
Leah went back to its studying the blueprints. “The architects and buildersremodeled the building.”
“Several times.” Simon used the touchscreen to blow up various sections ofthe blueprints. “There appears to be an underground labyrinth under the buildingthat later contractors neglected to mention.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Probably so they wouldn’t have to bring all the underground sections up to code as well. It would’ve been expensive.”
“What did they do with the underground sections?”
“Walled them over for the most part.” Simon pointed at three different areas.“These used to be entrances to the underground In later blueprints” He touchedthe screen and the blueprints changed.“they’re not shown.”
“Could they have filled them in? When some of the older buildings developedflooding problems, it was easier to simply fill the basements with concrete and forget those areas ever existed.”
Simon shifted back over to the initial blueprints he had been studying. “There were four floors beneath the main building. An undertaking like thatwould have been huge. People would have noticed.”
“Why so many floors?”
“London has never been fond of her lunatics. The Victorian era was filledwith people who resented and rejected the sexual repression that was going on. According to the files I’ve looked at, if you had a relative who was ahomosexual, a nymphomaniac, or simply had another way of looking at the world that was considered dangerous or embarrassing, you could put them in Akehurst and plan on never seeing them again.”
“Lovely bit of history you found there. Gives me the chills.”
“The truly depressing part is the number of individuals that were lockedaway. Disappeared. And after they had finally died, they were buried unmarked in some graveyard for indigents.”
“I trust knowing this isn’t one of your hobbies.”
“No. I hadn’t known how prevalent the problem was until I accessed thesefiles.”
“Australia wouldn’t have existed if not for the London poor, thieves, prostitutes, alcoholics, and the great unwashed. But forthose who couldn’t get to Australia, I guess there was Akehurst.”
“And other places just as bad.” Simon brought up another section of theblueprint. “The four subterranean levels are all primitive. They’re not rooms;they’re caves carved into the limestone underbelly of the city. Iron barscovered the front of the caves.” Sour bile burned at the back of his throat ashe thought about the conditions Akehurst’s patients had sufferedthrough.
“That’s where Macomber said the manuscript was?”
“Yes.”
“And we’ve got to go there?”
“I have to go there,” Simon corrected.
Leah rolled her eyes at him. “What? And leave me here?”
“Actually, I was thinking that once I had the manuscript, you can be freed.”
“Awfully generous of you.”
“It is. Especially since I don’t know who tipped Booth off about Macomber.”
She frowned at him. “You’d be a fool if you
