TWENTY-SEVEN
Cageslittle more than caves hewn out of solid limestone with a panel of ironbars slapped across themsurrounded Warren on all sides. He stared in disbeliefand stumbled forward to the nearest cage.
Since he didn’t have a hand torch, Warren used his own enhanced vision.
Inside the cage, a dead man lay sprawled on the floor. One of the skeletal arms was stretched forward as if his last act had been to reach for something. A metal bowl sat in the forward corner of the cage.
He knew the history of the place he was in. And he even knew a little bit about the history of sanitariums in England. He just never expected to see one.
There was no way to tell how long before this the unfortunates in the cages had been there. Long enough to die, that was evident.
“Warren,” Naomi called across the connection that stretched so thin betweenthem. Her voice was just the tiniest whisper in the back of his mind. Then again, “Warren.”
She tugged on him then, and he barely had to resist in order to keep himself at rest. He knew that if something happened to him she wasn’t strong enough topull him back by herself. That knowledge rekindled the sick fear in his stomach.
“I’m here,” he told her.
“Are you all right?”
As he gazed around the cages, Warren wasn’t sure he knew how to answer that.“So far,” he replied.
“Have you found Hargastor?”
“No.” Warren expanded his senses, trying to find the demon. He felt nothing.He also felt for the voice from the book that gotten him here. He felt nothing there either.
“Where are you?”
Warren took a firmer grip on the tenuous thread that connected them. He pictured the cave in his mind and pushed the image at Naomi.
Her startled gasp told him she had received the image.
You’re wasting time. Get on with it. The voice was Merihims, and thedemon sounded like he was standing at Warren’s shoulder.
“How do I find Hargastor?” Warren asked.
Hargastor is there. He searches for a legendary manuscript that Fulaghar believes is located there.
“Is it?”
That doesn’t matter. You were sent there for other reasons.
“And if I should find such a manuscript?”
You won’t.
The certainty in the demon’s voice bothered Warren. How could Merihim notknow about the book? Or did the book not truly exist?
“Warren?” Naomi called.
“I’m busy right now. Stay in touch and stay ready.”
“All right, but hurry. I’m getting tired.”
According to the information the book gave, there were four underground levels in the sanitarium. Like this one, the other three had been carved from the limestone. The book had brought up drawings of the underground sections and the sanitarium itself, but Warren didn’t know if he could trustthose records.
He needed a guide.
As he circled the cages, he gazed inside and felt for the aura of those who had died there. That was another skill that he had manifested over the last few years: he had an affinity for the dead and could tell from their bones something about what they had been in life.
The men in the cages had been murderers and sexual predators. Some of them had only had carnal appetites that hadn’t been accepted in Victorian London.Those appetites wouldn’t have been given a second glance in the present world.
Warren felt saddened by his tour.
Finally he stopped at one cage. He got confusing emanations from the dead man inside. There was a sense of loss and a sense of authority. The man had belonged to the sanitarium in more than one way.
Warren put his hand on the locking mechanism of the gate. “Shatter,” heordered. Arcane energy blasted through his hand.
The large padlock burst into pieces and fell to the ground. Metal tinkled against the stone. When he pulled on the gate, it opened on rusty hasps that screamed into the silence.
The dead man sat hunched in a corner. He had died sitting up. There had been no room to do anything else. An additional arm bone lay on the floor beside him. When Warren checked the neighboring cells, he found that one of the skeletons inside was missing an arm.
There was no doubt from where the dead man had gotten the extra arm.
An iron manacle encircled the skeleton’s right ankle. Wear on the bone showedthat the manacle had worn through the flesh. Whoever had put the man in the cage hadn’t fully trustedthe cage to hold him.
Warren laid his demon’s hand upon the man’s skull. “Wake,” he commanded.
At first nothing happened. Warren started to repeat the command, something he had never had to do before, when the skeleton shivered all over. Bones clacked and clinked as if someone had pulled a hammer down a xylophone.
The dead man’s skull, wisps of hair still clinging to the ivory bone,swiveled and looked up at Warren. Red malice gleamed in the eye sockets.
The skeleton moved with more speed than Warren had ever seen in the newly revived. It lunged at him with hands opened wide to stretch around his throat.
Simon knelt on the floor above the area where he believed the staircase had been hidden.
“You’re only guessing that the concrete was poured a few inches thick in thisarea,” Nathan said. “You could be wrong.”
“I know,” Simon said. “We’ll find out in a moment.” He drew back his fist andslammed it against the concrete floor. He immediately pressed his palm against the floor section and waited.
The HUD measured the sonic waves that went through concrete. The application was similar to ground sonar. The suit’s AI ciphered the various permutations ofthe information that came through Simon’s glove after the blow.
“Based on information available, the density of this material is less thaneight inches thick. It is backed by a wooden surface no more than an inch thick and probably made of oak.”
Simon smiled and sent the information around to the rest of the group. “Lookslike all we need is a little muscle.” He drew, his arm back.
“Wait,” Leah said. “There’s an easier way. You don’t want to risk injuringthe
