Warren swept his hand toward the man. The bullets immediately spun back toward the guard. Mushroomed and deformed from being fired, they wreaked havoc on the man’s body. Impelled by greater forces than mere cordite, the projectilesripped through the man’s body armor and hurled him backward a dozen feet. He smashed against the wall behind him andslumped to the ground. Only blood, bone, ripped flesh, and shattered Kevlar remained of his face.
Warren strode to the two survivors. “Shoot me and you die,” he told theguard.
The man hesitated, then dropped his weapon to his side.
Kill them all, Merihim ordered.
I don’t have to, Warren thought back at him.
I have told you to. They die… or you die.
“All right,” the man said. “What do you want?”
Warren stopped in front of the man and held his hand out. It hurt to move his arm, but he kept his right hand clenched and ready to unleash another spell.
“The book,” Warren said.
“No,” the man pleaded in a thin voice. “You work with the demons. You’re oneof the demon worshippers.”
Warren didn’t bother to correct the man. The Cabalists weren’t demonworshippers. No one alive on the planet was fool enough to think that the demons bore any goodwill toward humankind. Cabalists were fools who thought they could control demons.
The man wrapped both arms around the bag he carried. “Please. How can you dothis? How can you turn against your own kind?”
“My own kind?” Warren’s tone turned bitter and the old anger he had rearedits head. “My own kind didn’t care about me. My mother had me but cared moreabout learning witchcraft than rearing a child. I never knew my father. My stepfather tried to kill me when I was eight. After he’d killed my mother.”
The gunshots sounded in Warren’s head again. He should have died that night.But he hadn’t. Instead, he’d commanded his stepfather to shoot himself in the head. It was the first timehe’d ever used his power like that.
“The courts turned me over to foster care,” Warren continued. “I won’t boreyou with the abuse that I suffered there… among my kind.” He took in a deepbreath and shook his head. “In this world, there’s only me and you. And it’s abad day for you when I have power over you.”
Tears coursed down the man’s cheeks. “Please. You don’t understand. This isimportant. This is something we need to know that the demons don’t.”
That interested Warren immediately. Knowledge was power. Especially when that knowledge was about secrets. He’d learned that at an early age.
“The demons know everything, mate,” Warren said. “You’re a fool if you thinkthey don’t.” He grabbed the book with his left hand to leave his right free.Pain burned through his shoulder but he worked through it. With a wrench that nearly brought him to his knees, he yanked the book from the man.
The guard lifted his weapon and tried to bring it to bear.
Growling a curse, Warren thrust his right hand at the man and squeezed it viciously. Power erupted through his body and he knew Merihim was boosting his abilities.
The guard screamed in agony, dropped his weapon, and pressed his hands to his head. As he fell backward, his head and the Kevlar helmet blew up and spread over the wall behind him.
Warren took a ragged breath. Even after the horror of the past four years and everything he’d done in Merihim’s name, he hadn’t been prepared for the man’sgrisly death.
The other man collapsed into a fetal ball with his arms over his head. “Please,” he whispered frantically. “Please. Don’t kill me. I’m begging you.”
Warren felt bad for the man. Despite his resolve to see to his own needs first, he knew with devastating clarity how it felt to be alone and vulnerable. The man in the alley was both those things.
He was also too weak to make it back through the city without ending up in some demon’s gullet before daybreak. Killing him was merciful.
Warren knelt and placed his hand over the man’s chest.
“Please,” the man whispered.
“Sleep,” Warren said, when what he meant was die. The man’s ears heardone thing, but his heart heard another. It stilled within his chest and never beat again.
You should have let him beg more, Merihim said. Begging is music to my ears.
Quiet and contained, Warren pushed himself to his feet. “I have your book.Where do you want it?”
I’ll let you know. For the time being, keep it safe.
The absence of the demon in Warren’s head left a vacuum. It also left himfeeling dangerously fatigued. He forced himself to move and to ignore the pain in his shoulder. He wanted to get back to his sanctuary where his sentries could watch over him.
And, since he had the chance, he wanted to know what was in the book he’dkilled five men for.
TWO
Armored from head to toe in the magically reinforced palladium alloy armor his father and he had crafted when he’d gained his full size, Simon Cross pausedat the entrance to the underground parking garage beneath the Taylor & Loftus Building in the May-fair District.
“Confirm comm link,” Simon said.
“Reading you five by five,” Danielle Ballentine called back over thefrequency immediately.
In swift order, the rest of the twelve-man unit counted down.
Simon listened to them and tried to bank his fear for later. The emotion was never truly useful except as extra energy during an impromptu escape. But only if it could be successfully mastered. Otherwise it simply drove a man to foolish acts.
He wasn’t there for a foolish act. They were there to rescue teammates. Oravenge them.
Before stepping into the armor, Simon stood an impressive six feet five inches tall and weighed two hundred fifty pounds. Clad in the armor, he gained three inches and almost one hundred fifty pounds. The suit’s Nanodynemicroprocessors and “muscles” gave him the movement of an Olympic athlete andthe speed of a racehorse.
Smithed primarily of palladium, the armor had also been
