Goetia

wants.

“What artifact?”

Teeth.

“What kind of teeth?” Warren asked.

In Greek myth, Cadmus sowed dragon’s teeth and mighty warriors sprang up fromthem.

The answer astounded Warren. His mind reeled for just a moment. “Dragonsnever existed.”

“Yes they did,” the voice said. “Humans have just never recognized them forwhat they were.”

It doesn’t matter, Merihim replied. All that you need to know is thatKnaarl will he here looking for the dragon’s teeth. You have to come here andkill him.

In the next instant Warren stood once more on the balcony of his sanctuary. Pain from the acid rain ate into his shoulders. He grew conscious of Naomi pulling at him.

“Get in out of the rain,” she pleaded.

Warren turned and walked back into the room.

“What were you doing out there?” Naomi retreated to the bathroom and returnedwith towels. She mopped at the rain that still covered him and sizzled against his flesh.

“Merihim summoned me. I had no choice.” Warren seized her hands in his andstopped her toweling efforts. She was only spreading the caustic liquid. Blisters rose on his skin.

“You need to take a shower before you’re poisoned.” Worry pinched Naomi’sfeatures.

Instead, Warren concentrated and tapped into the energy that filled him. He found each of the burns and healed them swiftly till he was once more whole and pain-free.

Naomi gazed at him in a mixture of envy and admiration. She ran her hands along his unblemished skin. “I can’t believe you do that so effortlessly.”

The healing wasn’t effortless, though. Warren felt the drain and knew that hewould have to rest to replenish what he’d lost.

“What did Merihim want?” Naomi asked.

“He’s found one of the other demons. I have to destroy it.”

“When?”

“Soon.” Warren thought about the British Museum and how hard it would be tosneak up on the place. There was only one approach to the building, and the road to it was narrow and winding. The slim entrance to the courtyard was a perfect place to be ambushed.

“I can help you find a way,” the voice said. “There are secrets that evenMerihim doesn’t know.”

Warren didn’t doubt that. The voice had its own secrets. He just wonderedwhat the voice would do when their desires and needs no longer paralleled. He was just as much at the mercy of one as he was of the other, and he didn’t knowwhich offered the greater threat.

Simon worked out on the gymnasium floor. He flowed through the unarmed katas his father had started training him in since he could walk. It was there, on whatever space he had available to him, that he felt closest to his father.

He wore only sweat pants, went bare-chested and barefooted. Perspiration dappled his body and heat filled his muscles. His head was clear and he was more focused than he had been in days.

All he had to do was close his eyes to see his father standing at the sidelines or beside him. They’d often worked out together, going through theforms, then battling each other with empty hands or practice swords till one or both was rubber-legged and could no longer stand.

It was also during these times that Simon missed his father most. No matter how hard they pushed themselves, or how long they had been at a session, Thomas Cross had always seemed to have enough breath to speak.

Sometimes his father had offered only further instruction, or bits of history about the Templar Order and the various Houses. Hundreds of years of history—filled with wars and subterfuge and feats of derring-do—waited to bebrought to life with Thomas Cross’s natural storytelling ability.

Simon had been held enraptured as a boy and a teen, and sometimes even as a young man, by those stories. No one, it seemed, knew as many stories as his father. Even the ones he told over and over again, to illustrate a virtue or put a fine point on a lesson, held Simon’s attention.

But it was the ones about Simon’s mother that Simon treasured most. He hadnever known Lydia Cross. Despite Templar technology, she’d died in childbirthand had held her son for only minutes before death stole her away. Simon’sfather had told him that he favored her, and sometimes Simon would catch his father gazing at him and see the pain and loss in his father’s eyes.

Finished with the latest form, Simon stood and drew in a breath. He was aware of some of the other, younger, Templar watching him. A few of them were barely in their teens, and their youth had troubled him.

When the first of them had shown up in the care of other Templar, Simon had wanted to send them back. They’d slipped away from the Templar Underground, andTerrence Booth and the other Lords and Ladies of the Order had been understandably upset.

Taking the fugitives back had proven problematic. The first few that had been returned had quickly run away again. A few of them hadn’t made it through thedemon patrols the second time.

Simon had also found out that all of the young Templar coming to join him had been orphaned by the Battle of All Hallows’ Eve. Booth and the others protestedthe loss of the young Templar, but they’d been determined to come once they’dfound someone that could guide them to the hidden fortress.

None of them had come without sponsorship, and Simon had given up trying to find out who was responsible. Wertham and the others had remained closed-mouthed in the matter. In the end, Simon had stopped sending the young Templar back and had chosen instead to let them live among his group.

His group.

The thought stuck in his head and he recalled Wertham’s argument that theyshould start a new House. He was torn. It would be a fine tribute to his father. Thomas Cross had been one of the most loyal Templar ever to wear the crimson cross of the Order. Everyone knew that. Whatever problems the Templar had with Simon weren’t visited on his father.

“Lord Cross,” Anthony, one of the teen Templar, called out.

Simon wasn’t used to being addressed as such. His father had been Lord Crossof