Warren stepped into his pants and pulled a rugby jersey on. The combat boots took a moment longer. He roomed on the fourth floor. It would take a moment for anyone arriving at the building to climb the stairs.
Not winged demons, he amended. He glanced through the steel security bars that blocked the windows. Many of the buildings in the neighborhood had had those in place to keep out looters before the invasion. They didn’t draw any special attention.
He touched the coat Lilith had given him and it flowed over his body as if it had a mind of its own. Perhaps it did. He still wasn’t sure about that, but it had offered better protection than any of the body armor he’d worn. Just thinking of the obsidian spear brought it into his hand. It flew across the room and settled into place.
Warren reached into the messenger satchel he habitually carried, which contained various artifacts he’d created. He knew where everything was located simply by touch. An individual pocket held Blood Angel eyes he’d harvested and tied to his own senses. He sorted out four of them that still felt wet and slimy. Two of them had dried out.
He filled the eyes with arcane energy, mapped the way each individual eye was supposed to go, and threw them into the air. They paused in the air for just a moment as if sorting out the command, then flew into action. Two of them sailed through the window, and two shot away through the door to the room.
“Where’s Lilith?” Naomi asked.
“I don’t know.”
Naomi frowned. “Awfully convenient of her not being around while this is going on.”
“She doesn’t want anything to happen to me.” Warren opened his mind to the Blood Angel eyes, tapping into what they saw. “She still needs me.”
“Don’t be too sure about that.”
Warren was, though. Until Lilith got her body back to full strength, she’d need him to care for her and help her.
One of the eyes that had flown outside broke away and flew over the top of the five-story building. The other aimed for street level.
Dozens of Gremlins poured in through the building’s front door. Massive and vaguely human-shaped, they stood on wide, two-taloned feet. Misshapen and powerful, they were fierce foes in battle. Their flat faces held several beady black eyes. Three horns jutted from the tops of their large, bulbous heads and two others stabbed down from their square jaws.
The eye viewing the other side of the building showed more Gremlins coming in through the door on the Old Compton Street side. The demons breached the security doors without problem.
The two eyes inside the building sped down the two stairwells at either end of the main hallways. Since Blood Angels saw in the dark, they easily spotted the Gremlins surging up the stairwells. They arrived at the second landing.
As Warren watched, his mind desperately racing, one of the Gremlins spotted the eye hovering on the third-floor landing. The demon pulled his rifle to his shoulder and fired.
Bright light sizzled through Warren’s vision. Pain split his temples. He cried out.
“Warren?” Naomi took his arm.
Impatiently, and more than a little afraid, Warren brushed her off. “There are Gremlins in the building.”
“How did they find us?”
“I don’t know. They’re at the second floor now. We’ve got to get out of here.”
Movement caught the attention of one of the Blood Angel eyes outside the building. It spun and focused on a flying demon just before the creature caught the eye in its razored beak.
Another wave of pain shot through Warren’s head. He kept from crying out, but nausea swirled in his stomach. When the front door of the suite blew open, he raised the spear to defend himself.
Lilith floated before him. Her feet dangled inches from the ground. She couldn’t walk fast enough to escape. Her body had begun to gradually resume some of its shape and flesh, but that left her grotesque and weak.
“We’ve been found out,” she said.
Naomi cursed. “How did they find us?”
“Now isn’t the time for questions,” Lilith stated. “Warren, get the Book. If we’re going to live, we need it.”
Warren sprinted to the ornate desk he’d found and had zombies bring up to the room for him. He laid his hand on the drawer that held the Book and pulsed arcane energy into the lock as he spoke the code phrase.
The lock released with a series of audible clicks.
Out in the hallway, the demons had reached the third-floor landing. Then that vision blinked out as one of them shot the Blood Angel eye hovering in front of them.
Warren sagged against the desk for a moment, then got control of himself again. He reached inside the desk drawer and withdrew the Book.
Eighteen inches by fourteen inches and six inches thick, the Book was covered in virulent purple leather that had lines—by design or by accident—that looked like blood veins. As always, the Book purred liked a cat. An eye the amber-green of a cat’s opened in the center of the Book. Below it, a fanged mouth took shape.
“I am in danger,” the Book said.
“I know,” Warren said. “I’m going to get you out of here.” For a time, he’d believed that the voice he’d heard from the Book had been Lilith. But after she’d separated from the Book, it had still continued to talk to him. Lilith hadn’t given any explanation.
“Good,” the Book said. “I do not wish to be destroyed.”
“You won’t be. Trust me.”
“I do trust you, Warren Schimmer. Otherwise I would kill you.”
It was funny, Warren reflected, how many demons and people—and things—claimed to be his friend, yet offered to kill him if he ever betrayed them. But not funny in a good way. That tendency of the demons and demonic things reminded him a lot of how his life had been before the invasion.
He pressed the Book against his duster. Immediately, a pocket formed there and swallowed the Book. The eye watched him until the pocket sealed. For a moment,
