He stood and went to his sister. “We’re all right.” He embraced her briefly, but it was awkward because he felt the strength of her. Since she’d started changing, she’d also gotten a lot stronger than he was.
She looked at him. “I had to do this, Rob. I had to.”
He knew then that she must have read his thought, or maybe only guessed at them. “Shhhhh. Don’t. There’s no need to talk about this now.”
“You wouldn’t change,” she told him. “Even after the Cabalists told us about the power that was out there we could use. You didn’t believe them. I had to. One of us had to change so we would be safe.”
Rob didn’t know what to say.
“Even if you had changed,” she said, and stroked his cheek with her rough hand, “you wouldn’t have been as strong as me.” She smiled a little. “This is what I was born for, Rob. I can master the demons’ power. And I will.”
With a shiver, Rob stepped back from her. He couldn’t help feeling that he wished he could leave her. No matter what, he felt certain she would never again be the sister he’d known.
A hurt look filled her face.
Rob cursed himself for a fool, knowing if she could have read the other thoughts, she could have read that as well. He tried to think of something to say, but the words didn’t come quickly enough. She turned and was gone.
He followed her around the lake in the center of the cavern. Only then did he realize why the archeologists hadn’t found the chamber. Once the Burn had started, it had affected the River Thames as well. The river was down a lot from its normal depth. In fact, it was down so much that instead of emptying out into the North Sea, it was now often fed by that great body of water. The resulting mix of salt and fresh water had rendered the river water undrinkable most of the time. The survivors in London were dependent on wells and rainwater.
But the drain on the river had also uncovered the cavern. The lake wasn’t a lake. It was merely the residue of what had once filled the cavern.
Emily stopped abruptly and allowed Rob to catch up to her. A light glowed in the distance and reflected from the lake. The incandescent glow floated in the air and revealed two improbable figures.
Rob had never before seen a demon in the flesh. During the mad rush from London, he’d headed straightaway to his grandparents’ farm with Emily in tow. Later, while purchasing petrol for his car, he’d seen television footage of the monsters rampaging round St. Paul and Central London.
The demon had to have stood at least eight feet tall, and that was before the two horns on his savage forehead added another foot in height. Scars mottled his face, making his features even harsher. He was as muscled as a power-lifter, but his body was covered in red scales that looked as if they were on fire. Blue-green armor made of what looked like some kind of giant lizard scales covered his chest, arms, and thighs. He carried a huge obsidian trident in one hand and a sword scabbarded on his hip.
The woman with him was another cultist. She wore horns as well, and some kind of chitinous armor that covered her breasts and hips. Dark canvas trousers covered her lower body. Four horns jutted from her head, curling around from the back of her skull to almost make a protective cage for her face. She’d defiled her body, filling all of her skin that Rob could see with tattoos. Curved bone stuck out from her right forearm. The right hand was different than the left. It looked silvery-gray as it flashed in the incandescent light.
The woman prowled through the crypts, making short work of them as she reached in and dumped bones and rotting cloth or armor to the ground. Metal clanked as it struck the stone.
“That’s the demon I keep seeing in my dreams,” Emily whispered.
Those aren’t dreams, Rob told himself. Those are nightmares. He knew from the news footage he had scene, as well as the live reports from reporters in the streets, that the demon wasn’t as big as many of them were. But there was something inherently evil about this one.
“Show him to me,” Orrus ordered.
The cultist kept searching through the crypts.
“Find it,” the demon growled. “It has to be there somewhere. The Romans brought it here, then abandoned it because they thought it was cursed.”
The cultist suddenly froze, then withdrew with a gladius in her hand. “This?” she asked, holding the short sword out to the demon. “Is this it?”
The demon stretched forth his hand. Whirling purple embers leaped from the sword before he touched it. “Yes.”
Rob recognized the sword immediately. It was only two feet in length, but Roman soldiers had used the gladius to bring the world to its knees during their heyday. The capulus, the hilt of the gladius, was ornate, a mixture of inlaid ivory, lapis lazuli, and obsidian. Whoever had carried it had to have been an officer or a personage of importance.
Emily put her two forefingers and thumbs together to form a triangle. She peered through it at the two creatures—Rob didn’t want to call the woman human—in front of them.
The demon turned with the quickness of a cat. Its malevolent gaze came to a rest on Emily.
“Who are you?” the demon demanded.
For just a moment, Rob froze. Then he grabbed Emily’s arm and dragged her into motion. “Run! Now! Run!” He pulled her along beside him as he headed back the way they’d come.
They were never going
