“His name is Warren,” Simon answered. If the suit’s AI hadn’t retained thatinformation from the two encounters he’d had with the man, he knew he wouldn’thave remembered. There had been too many things happening since that time in the basement four years ago and on the train Simon had arranged to take so many of London’s survivors from the city.
“Warren what?”
“I don’t know.”
“How do you know him?”
“The last time we saw him, he tried to kill us,” Leah said.
Nathan turned to her. “So you know him too?”
“Yes. But that’s all we know about him.” Though her faceplate remainedimplacable, her voice took on another timber. “We’ll know more about him nexttime.”
“ ‘Next time?’ ” Nathan snorted. “Maybe you didn’t notice, but that guy justbloody leveled a demon that was about to hand us our heads.”
“I thought you didn’t see it that way,” Danielle said.
“I was trying to sound convincing. I did sound convincing, didn’t I?”
Simon kept going forward and ducked into the next cell. The manuscript had to be somewhere up ahead. They were running out of places to look.
Rage and helplessness, both old and familiar companions, surged through Warren as he returned to his body. He’d battled both when he’d lived with hismother and stepfather, then again throughout his foster care. He knew what to expect from them.
But the weight across his chest was totally unexpected.
Weak and somewhat disoriented, Warren opened his eyes. Naomi lay stretched across his body. At first he feared that she was dead. Guilt ratcheted into the emotional cocktail exploding through his veins. If he’d stayed too long, if he’dcost her too much, he didn’t know how he was going to handle that.
A shallow pulse beat at the hollow of her throat. Her breath coasted across his cheek.
Tenderly, Warren moved her weight off his body so he could breathe easier. She slumped to the floor beside him. The fear didn’t go away. Just because shewas breathing didn’t mean some kind of brain damage hadn’t taken place. He’dseen several Cabalists suffer severe mental problems brought on by trying to get closer to the arcane energies the demons wielded.
On more than one occasion the Cabalist seeking to improve his or her understanding of those energies had been completely mind-wiped. When they’dreturned from the trances they’d undertaken, they’d been vegetables. Others lostmotor control of parts or all of their bodies, reduced to physical cripples that could no longer even care for themselves.
A few others hadn’t returned, but thingslingering impressions of thedead who had once lived in the house where the arcane procedure took place and demonshad come back in their stead. Usually those instances were just asdevastating for the Cabalists around those afflicted by possession of one sort or another.
The “lingering impressions”called ghosts by some, not because theybelieved in ghosts but because they lacked anything better to call themwereusually malevolent and displaced. Those impressions knew nothing of the world today.
Some of the Cabalists, those who believed in unquiet spirits, also chose to believe that the spirit world was trying to connectwith them to give them more information. Warren didn’t think that. The dead weredead and gone. That was the long and the short of it.
He forced himself up and into a kneeling position as he checked Naomi. He checked her airways and found them unobstructed, then watched the slow, rhythmic rise and fall of her breasts as she breathed. When he felt for her pulse, it was slow and steady.
Nothing appeared wrong.
“Naomi,” he called.
She didn’t reply, but one eyelid flickered a little.
“Naomi.”
Still no reply.
Warren slipped a hand beneath her head and shook her shoulder a little. She didn’t react. He felt tired and drained, as if he was going to fall over at anymoment.
“She’s all right,” the voice said. “She’s just sleeping.”
“How do you know?” Warren demanded.
“Because I do.”
“You’re a book. You don’t know everything.”
The voice was silent for a moment. “I’m not the book, Warren Schimmer. Thebook is merely a gateway, a conduit I use.”
“You said you’ve been locked away for years.”
“I was. I still am.”
Warren looked down at Naomi and tried to will her awake. He didn’t want to bealone right now. Not when he felt so horrid and about to throw up because he was sick and scared.
“How can you be locked away?” Warren demanded. “You’re here. With me.”
“No. That book is the key to allowing me to interface with this world.”
“What are you saying? That you’re not here?”
The hesitation stretched out again. “I’m here, Warren. In this world. Justlocked away from it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I was… bound.”
“ ‘Bound?’ Bound by whom?”
“The demons.”
“Why would they bind you?”
“Because I don’t want them to have the power here that they want.”
Warren thought about that as he held Naomi. “Could you have kept them fromit?”
“It’s possible I could have kept them from this world entirely.”
“How?”
“Now isn’t the time to go into that.”
The urge to argue and push for answers gripped Warren. He pushed that feeling aside and tried to concentrate on Naomi instead. “When will be the time?”
“I don’t know. There’s still so much you have yet to learn.”
Warren laughed at that, but tears rolled from his eyes. “I won’t have abloody lot of time to learn whatever it is you’re going to show me. I’ve stillgot two demons to kill. And Fulaghar.”
“I know.”
“Unless you know of a way I can destroy Merihim.” The thin hope dawned insidehim before he knew it.
“You have to be patient. Merihim sows the seeds of his own destruction. Thatisn’t for me to do. Nor you.”
“I’m bound to him.” Warren was conscious of the tears streaming down hisface.
“You don’t always have to be.”
“How can I separate from him?”
“Now isn’t the time for this.” “I don’t have a lot of time.” “Neitherdoes the world.” Warren wiped his face. “What are you saying?” “I’m here to savethe world, Warren. If events work out well, I’ll save you too.”
With Danielle at his side, Simon led the way through the passageway. They walked through the area where the demon Hargastor had been holding the
