In the meantime, all Leah could do was watch and wait to see what happened. She had no way of getting in touch with Simon Cross to discover if he was alive or dead. Lyra’s offer might not even be viable.
On the morning of the sixth day, Lyra Darius sent a message through the Internet channels set up inside each of the rooms. Eating dry cereal from a box and watching news footage of the invasion, Leah hoped once more that she saw something about the Hellgate that she—and no one else—had ever before noticed.
Letters printed across the television screen. LEAH CREASEY.
Leah picked up the room interface pad from beside her on the couch. She brought up the small computer application and wrote: I’M HERE. The device translated it into typed letters on the screen. She pressed SEND.
The television monitor blanked the news footage it showed from around St. Paul’s and brought up a fresh screen. Lyra sat at a desk in an office somewhere in the underground complex. The office location was known only to a handful of people. Leah wasn’t one of those people.
“How are you feeling?” Lyra asked.
“Better.” Leah hated the fact that she struggled un-sucessfully to focus on the image the way she used to. Things just looked different these days. She kept telling herself that her vision would improve, but she really didn’t think it would. Or that she would get used to it over time. She didn’t think that would happen, either. Constantly noticing what she’d lost terrified her and made her feel claustrophobic.
“Good.”
“I’m ready to get back to work,” Leah said before the woman said anything else. “I…I need to get back to work.” She wanted to say more. She wanted to tell Lyra that the business they were in didn’t really include a friendship basis.
Over the years, she’d gotten to know a few of the other operatives, but only on ops, never to go out and get a drink with. Their training precluded them from seeing one another after they went out into the world. Even a demon-infested one.
Safety lay in staying apart and getting together to secure intel or destroy something. Hit and git remained the only way they worked effectively. Staying in a dwelling made a target of agents.
“We’re going to see if we can accommodate you. I’ll meet you in the intelligence block in twenty minutes. Can do?”
“Can do.” Leah felt embarrassed about the excitement in her voice. As soon as the monitor blanked, she launched herself into motion.
Leah felt naked in street clothes and not in the black armored suit. For the moment, the doctor handling her case hadn’t cleared her for that, either. She wore jeans, boots, and a sweater against the chill in the room.
Lyra and three agents sat around a conference table. Leah knew the two men and other woman, but only tangentially. Computer hardware filled the walls, and the whole room hummed.
The tri-dee projector in the center of the table kept cycling through images of Simon Cross. Leah felt almost guilty watching Simon. It reminded her of how she’d taken advantage of his protective nature to get inside the Templar Underground and steal away with as much information as she could.
“As you all know,” Lyra said, “Control has come up with a working strategy regarding the Templar.”
“Not exactly a big fan of those armored goons,” one of the women said. “They tend to be in this thing for themselves, not out of any real desire to bring down the enemy.”
“Simon isn’t like that,” Leah said automatically. She’d spoken before she’d even known she was going to. She was immediately embarrassed. In for a penny, in for a pound, she told herself as all heads turned in her direction. “He’s worked to get civilians clear of the city, and to provide for them. If he could kill every demon in England single-handedly, he would.”
“Well,” Clarice Thompson said as she steepled her fingers against one another, “it appears as though someone is carrying quite the torch for the Templar.” She was in her early fifties, a thin woman with a pinched face and gray-white hair.
Leah forced herself not to respond to the comment. She liked Clarice, and she knew that if she were sitting in any seat but her own, she’d have felt the same way that the other woman did.
“Simon Cross,” Lyra said, “is different than many of the others. Just as Lord Sumerisle was.”
Clarice lifted her chin and dropped it. “I’ll defer that to you.”
Lyra returned the woman’s gaze full measure. “Good. This will go much more quickly if you do.”
A nerve twitched along the underside of Clarice’s jaw. All of the different teams within the organization remained separated. They didn’t work well together. They weren’t designed to. In theory, they all worked without knowledge of one another. Being together proved hard for them.
“Control wants to find a way to unite the Templar,” Lyra said.
“I thought they were united,” Bernard Carpenter said. He was in his early sixties, sleek and silver.
“No. Simon Cross’s arrival from South Africa split the Templar to a degree. We know that most of the Templar died at St. Paul’s.”
“And the rest of them are hiding out,” Craig Gordon snarled. In his late forties, he held a reputation as a master espionage player.
“We have a plan to change that,” Lyra said.
The statement, uttered so matter-of-factly, blew Leah away. She tried to wrap her throbbing mind around it. The pain in her head made her regret not taking her meds, but she’d wanted a clear mind for the meeting.
“We know there are at least two groups of Templar,” Lyra went on. “One within London and one—Simon Cross’s group—somewhere outside London.”
“Somewhere?” Carpenter echoed. “We don’t even know where this Cross fellow is?”
“We don’t.”
Clarice eyed Leah speculatively. “But you say that Agent Creasey can get
