“I’m disappointed.”
“Me, too.”
Nathan rubbed his face. His whiskery cheeks crackled under his armored gloves. “Anyway, Natalie is trying to think about things. But if she should come to you and ask you about letting her return to the Templar Underground—”
“She can go,” Simon replied. “Without question.”
“I told her that’s what you’d say, mate, but she’s nervous. I’m not used to seeing her like this.” Nathan hesitated. “There’s something else you should know. If she goes back, I’m going with her.”
Simon had known that was coming, but it was still hard hearing it.
“Just to take Natalie there and back again,” Nathan said. “She won’t want to stay. She just wants the baby—our child—taken care of.”
“I understand.”
“The problem is, given everything I’ve helped you do to Terrence Booth, he may not just let me walk back out of there.”
“When you go,” Simon said, “you’ll go under my protection. If he tries to keep you there, I’ll find a way to get you out.”
“I have your word on that?”
“You do.”
Nathan held out a hand.
Simon took it.
“Then make sure you don’t get yourself killed anytime soon,” Nathan said. “After you get us back, I’m going to need an uncle for my baby.”
FIFTEEN
At best, if we stay at the present rate of consumption, we can expect to remain viable for another five weeks. Is that what you’re saying, Lord Cross?”
Simon glanced at the seven men and women gathered in the small room. They were the ones who had stepped forward on their own. Each of them had divided up the Templar warriors and children they chose to represent. With so many of them now at the redoubt, several of them fell along normal House lines.
All of them had come to him over the past four years. None of them had been with him the night they’d reoutfitted the train and hauled the first of the survivors out of London. Simon didn’t hesitate telling them the truth because they’d joined forces with him after everyone saw how hard it was going to be.
To a man and a woman, each of the Templar in that room had known Thomas Cross and held to the Templar beliefs that they were supposed to help the downtrodden. They hadn’t been able to turn their backs on the men and women and children trapped in demon-infested London, either.
“Five weeks of food,” Simon said. “But that’s only if we’re able to take deer. I don’t want to depopulate the forests of wild game—”
“Nor do we, Lord Cross,” Genevieve Bowker stated. She was in her early sixties, but still quite formidable in her armor.
“—and I don’t want to take the chance of having a hunting party ambushed by the demons again,” Simon finished.
“We take chances every time we go into the city for supplies and clothing for the people we’re sheltering here,” Victor Carlyle said dismissively. He was in his early fifties, lean and fit. “You can’t protect us or provide for us single-handedly, Lord Cross.”
“I understand that,” Simon replied.
“Then we’ll just have to take our chances.”
“The amount of food we’re dispensing to the people is dangerously low,” Marta Grimes said. She was in her late forties, fit and competent. “They’re barely getting enough now. If anything, we need to give them more food. We can’t starve the children. They need food to eat in order to grow strong and healthy. They are our future. Ignoring that is potentially lethal.”
Simon knew and understood that as well. But he didn’t say anything. None of the people in that room thought they were smarter than him. They just compared notes.
“Nor can we ignore the needs of the Templar,” Micah Cuddy interjected. “The armor can compensate for physical weakness, but a malnourished warrior eventually makes a mistake that costs him his life or the lives of others.” He was in his early thirties. “Keeping the Templar well fed is the first priority.”
“Over the welfare of the children?” Marta Grimes looked ready to do battle.
“The Templar are our defense. A well-fed child is only going to make a better morsel for the bloody demons if they get past our warriors.”
“You don’t know that the demons are going to get past the Templar.”
“We know that the demons are hunting us out here,” Solomon Tremaine stated quietly. “Those men and women that gave their lives last night prove that.”
“They haven’t found us yet,” Marta said.
“It’s only a matter of time,” Cuddy told her.
All of them, Simon knew, were older than he was. None among them had ever questioned their place in the world, or his ability to lead. If they had, he would have gladly stepped aside. Maybe, he admitted to himself. It would have been good to have the burden of responsibility lifted from his shoulders, but losing control of what was going on in the redoubt on a day-to-day basis would have been hard.
He owed the Templar something after abandoning them when he had six years ago. He’d also given promises to the people he’d taken in, and the warriors who arrived to stand at his banner.
Most of all, though, Simon knew he owed his father. After the way things had been between them, Simon couldn’t simply step aside. His father deserved more than that.
“When it comes to time,” Simon said in a clear, controlled voice, “we have five weeks. Food is the problem at the moment. Not water.”
“What if we give the people a proper amount of food?” Marta asked.
“Then we’re down to four weeks.”
Marta locked eyes with him. “Is it worth it, Lord Cross? To plan for five weeks of slowly starving to death if the demons don’t manage to find us? Or should we live and eat as people do when they’re not saddled by fear for four weeks? If we have only a week before this place is discovered, how would you want these people to live that week? Hopeful? Or hungry?”
The headache Simon had nursed grew steadily between his ears. He was much better at tactics. And he’d
