If he hadn’t been taking heavy fire from demon weapons, he might have almost been optimistic.
“Simon,” Danielle called. “We’ve got Cabalists inside the building as well.”
Simon accessed her HUD view and saw the Cabalists, their tattoos and dress identifying them at once. “Where did they come from?”
“A hole in the floor. They just cut their way in.”
“Awfully convenient, don’t you think?” Nathan asked sarcastically as he fired a rocket into a knot of Darkspawn grouped near the machine.
Simon thought about that. “Leah said she was walking through the heads of a lot of people. Her friend Lyra is here. I wasn’t the only one she got a message out to.”
“Maybe we should have baked a cake,” Nathan said.
Simon readied his weapons. “You ready?”
“Yeah, mate. I’m ready. You lead and I got your six.”
With his sword in one hand and the Spike Bolter in the other, Simon stepped out from cover and marched into the face of the Darkspawn. The Spike Bolter chewed into their ranks and knocked them down. Before they could run, he was among them and he swept the sword through them. Limbs, heads, and entrails quickly covered the floor. He holstered the pistol and gave himself over to the bladework.
Nathan mirrored him, working in tandem to everything he did. Between them, they became a destructive force.
A Darkspawn threw itself at Simon, hoping to catch him on his blind side. If he’d had a blind side, if the 360-degree view of the HUD hadn’t been possible, the attempt might have succeeded. Instead, Simon met the effort with the crashing blow of his huge left hand and caved the demon’s skull in. Then he caught the falling corpse and heaved it into more demons in front of him, temporarily clearing the way.
He took more of the ground, moving closer to the huge machine. Darkspawn fired from gantries that surrounded the mechanism.
In the next second, a roiling ball of fire from a Cabalist hit in the center of them and sent them flying. Most of them were in flames and probably dead before they hit the ground.
“Do you see a door on that thing?” Simon hacked more demons and kept moving forward.
“I do,” Nathan said. “While I was dawdling around back here, I marked it.”
Simon accessed Nathan’s observations through the HUD and spotted the door. “Once we get inside,” Simon said, “getting back out again could be difficult.”
“In for a penny, in for a pound, mate. If Leah’s in that thing, we’re bringing her out. When you’re ready, you just give the word.”
“Ready,” Simon said, thinking of Leah and everything she’d gone through.
“I was afraid you were going to say that.”
Simon kicked, fought, blasted, and shoved his way toward the door. When he arrived, he found it was more like an airtight hatch that would be found in the Templar Underground.
Before he could open the hatch, a woman dropped out of the shadows and landed beside him. The demon’s horns and the tail she wore marked her at once as a Cabalist. Tattoos covered every square inch of her skin. Her right hand glowed slightly, and when she hit Simon with it, he thought he’d been struck by a battering ram.
He reeled back against the gantry railing and barely hung on. Before he could recover, she twisted and kicked him in the face. He fell back against Nathan, throwing them both off balance for a moment.
“Get her,” Nathan growled, and shoved Simon forward.
FIFTY-ONE
Anger welled up in Warren when he saw the Cabalist that attacked the Templar on the gantry. He recognized her as the one whom Merihim had picked over him. She still wore the hand that Merihim had given her.
“Warren,” Naomi said.
“I see her,” Warren replied. He knocked aside the Darkspawn he’d been battling, leaving it for Naomi. She covered it in a pool of fire that clung to the creature as it scrambled madly back toward its fellows.
With a single jump, Warren reached the gantry twenty feet up. When he touched down on the metal landing, she looked over at him. Savage glee lighted her face.
“Hello, weakling,” she greeted.
Warren didn’t say anything. She threw a ball of fire at him. He blocked it with a shield, then launched a fireball of his own. It struck her and burned her in several places. She cried out in rage, but began instantly healing.
“You can’t hurt me,” she told him. “Merihim has taught me more than he ever taught you.” She hurled a lightning bolt at him.
Already in motion, Warren drew the obsidian spear and thrust the butt to the ground. The lightning strike hit the spear and went through it, grounding out against the gantry. Warren had already shielded himself from it, but he didn’t know if the Templar would be protected.
Before the woman recovered, Warren thrust the spear through her skull and killed her. He levered her body over the side into the milling masses of combatants.
Looking back, he saw that the two Templar had entered the machine. Warren glanced back over the side, found Naomi, and telekinetically moved her to the gantry.
“We’re going inside,” he told her.
“All right.”
Warren plunged through the doorway, thinking of the woman Leah.
Once inside the machine, Simon found that his comm no longer connected him to anyone outside. However, he could get in touch with Leah.
“Simon?” she asked, and the note of terror and doubt in her voice hurt him.
“I’m here.” Simon stared down long rows of cubicles that looked like sleeping compartments in Tokyo train stations. They were miniature coffins with barely enough room inside for an individual. He tracked her signal to one of the compartments, then broke the lock and pulled the cubicle out.
Leah lay inside, arms crossed over her chest. She looked ill, but her eyes were open and she was responsive.
“Where am I?” she asked.
“Still inside the machine.” Simon offered her his hand and
