“Just for the record, I don’t think it was you. It could just as easily havebeen one of those men that met us last night.”
“Whatever would they do that for?”
“To keep the Templar divided.”
“As if you couldn’t manage that on your own.”
Simon held off on an angry retort.
“Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to speak out of turn like that.” Leah lookedgenuinely regretful. “I’m just tired, and I wouldn’t like to see you throw yourlife away on a fool’s errand.”
“I wasn’t trained to throw my life away. I was trained to fight and sell itdearly if it came to that.”
“Do you know what your problem really is, Simon?” she asked in a soft voice.
Sensing that he was on dangerous ground, Simon chose not to answer.
“You still believe you can win this war.”
“What other way is there to think about it?”
Leah looked away from him. After a moment, she replied. “You make the otherguy lose just as much as you do. That way it’s a draw. Nobody wins.”
Simon didn’t know what to say about that. Even after everything that hadhappened at St. Paul’s Cathedral, he couldn’t let go of the idea of defeatingthe demons.
“Do you know what’s truly foolish?” he asked. “Fighting without thinkingyou’re going to win. The demons are the hardest thing I’ve ever faced, butthere’s nothing and no one that exists in this world that can’t be beaten. Allwe need is the proper advantage.”
She stared at him for a long time and didn’t say a word. Then, finally, shesaid, “Get some sleep. Soon.” Then she turned and walked away.
Simon watched her go. She was beautiful. He had recognized that the first time he had seen her on the plane from South Africa.
She was also an enigma.
That was dangerous.
After he had swept up the last of Kelli’s remains, Warren tied off the lumpytrash bag and worked hard to breathe as little of the stench of as he could. He carried the bag to the window and he heaved it outside. It joined several other bags at the bottom of the long fall.
The bag, like its brethren, burst on impact and spread Kelli all over the alley. For a brief time he watched to make sure the piecesof her didn’t try to get up and come back.
He followed up with a mop bucket and a pine-scented cleanser. When he finished, the gore was gone but the stench lingered as a pine-scented version of itself.
“I can’t believe you just did that,” Naomi said.
Warren picked up the broom and dustpan, looked at them and realized that he would never use them again, and tossed them out the window as well.
“I can’t believe you didn’t help. After all, it wasn’t me she attacked.”
Naomi regarded him silently for a long time. Warren grew uncomfortable with her intense attention.
“You’ve changed,” she said.
“I’ve lost my hand and been horribly disfigured. And you’re just nownoticing?” Warren shook his head. “Four years ago when this happened, I wasstill naive. When I was going through the worst of it, as I recall, you chose to stay away. It wasn’t till the First Seer, who is now dead after trying to killme, sent you to contact me that you seemed to remember who I was. I moved on and became someone else because I had to.”
“That’s not fair,” she protested. “It wasn’t like that. All of us hadto learn. All of us had to change.”
“You had company. The only friend I had, I just swept up in the dust pan andtossed out the window. Now that I think about it, maybe I should have let her toss you out the window.” The emotion of what he had just done hovered in theback of Warren’s mind. He didn’t let it get close to him or touch him in any waythat would make him weak. That was for when he was alone.
“All of the Cabalists wereand still areafraid of you. None of them talkwith demons.”
“If they did, they wouldn’t want to nearly as badly as they think they do.”
“None of them know what you know,” Naomi said. “What you know is incredible.”
“What I know is that if I don’t obey Merihim, he’s going to kill me.”
“But to kill a demon? Do you truly think you can do that?”
“I don’t have a choice.” Warren looked at her. “But you do.”
She looked at him without comprehension.
“I can’t do this without help,” he explained. “I need someone to anchor mewhen I use the arcane energy I’ll need to use to get to them.”
“If I help you…”
“Then I’ll teach you more than you know now.”
“Will you teach me everything you know?”
Warren looked at her. She was easy to lie to. She wanted him to lie to her. So he did.
“Yes. Everything.”
“Fulaghar has three bodyguards,” Warren explained. “All of them are olddemons with names. They’re not Dark Wills as Fulaghar is, but they are GreaterDemons who have earned their names.”
He sat across one of the tables in the abandoned restaurant on the second floor. All the tables and chairs were made of metal and glass. The paneling and other wooden furniture, including the bar, had been ripped out years ago by scavengers looking for enough wood to fuel a fire to get them through a long winter. The winters weren’t as long these days, and nowhere near as cold as theyhad been with the effects of the Burn taking place.
Besides that, fires drew the demons.
“In order to get to Fulaghar, I have to kill the bodyguards.” Warren couldn’tbelieve how calm he sounded as he talked about killing demons.
“You can do that?”
“I will. With your help.”
Naomi hesitated, obviously realizing that such action on her part didn’t comewithout risk. “All right.”
A small knot inside Warren’s stomach released. If she didn’t agree to helphim, he couldn’t force her. It would be impossible to take control of her willand still allow her enough autonomy to help him if he needed it.
“Then let’s begin.” Warren got up from the table and walked to an open areaof the floor.
