“I will.” Marrick offered his hand. “Godspeed.”
“You, too.” Leah shook his hand, then laid a palm on the side of the building and swung over. Nanowire hooks slid out of her armor from her palms, boot soles, forearms, and knees. They bit into the mortar and held her like a human fly as she crept down the building’s side.
Three of her team met her at the bottom of the alley. Together, they ran away from Regent Street a block deeper into Soho District, then six blocks down. Crossing Regent there, they crept back up to the Apple store.
Carrying the Cluster Rifle she’d chosen as her lead weapon for the insertion, Leah crept through the shadows leading to the target building. The way the structures had been built along Regent Street, all butting into one another and standing shoulder to shoulder, hadn’t allowed for alleys. But with the carnage that had occurred during the invasion and the continued depredations by the demons, most of the buildings in the area stood Swiss-cheesed with holes and gaps.
She crawled over rubble, then made her way across debris-strewn floors. She’d deliberately chosen to enter on the second floor of the building adjacent to the Apple store. Once there, they crossed through shattered walls. They maintained radio silence.
Over the main showroom floor, feeling a vibration pulsing below, Leah pressed her left little finger against the floor, straightened her wrist, and fired a monofilament link through the concrete and acoustic on the ceiling below. The vid-link came online just in time to reveal the small puff of dust that floated down from the ceiling. That was the only disturbance that the penetration created. The small cloud of dust vanished before it floated three feet.
A quick survey showed that macabre machinery honeycombed the area. Leah had never seen anything like it. A rectangular mass of wiring and components, all of it looking jury-rigged instead of finished, occupied the center of the room. Darkspawn demons labored slavishly over it.
Bilious green and yellow lights flashed within the machine’s interior and made it look like the gaping maw of some great creature. Power umbilical cords snaked across the floor and threaded through the machinelike veins and arteries. For the first time, Leah realized the vibration she felt came from the machine below.
Looking up at her team, Leah held out her hand. Taggart took it, then the suit-to-suit stealth link booted so that they saw what she saw through the vid-link. All of them kept watch for demons.
A demon yanked one of the four hostages to her feet and shoved toward the machine. She didn’t go willingly. The Darkspawn slapped her with his gun butt and knocked her down. When they stood her up again, she swayed drunkenly.
Another Darkspawn fitted a collar around the woman’s neck. A moment later, a demon attached an umbilical as well. The woman fell backward into the arms of one of the waiting Darkspawn. They carried her to the machine. Another demon opened a recessed cubicle that slid out of the machine. Without care, they dumped the woman into the cubicle and closed the hatch.
Looking at the hatches on that side of the machine, Leah realized room for forty or more people existed within. Nausea twisted sharply through her stomach.
A shadow moved in front of her. It took her just a moment to realize it was in the room with her, not something in the horror below she was watching.
She retracted the monofilament snooper wire and reached for the Cluster Rifle as dozens of Stalker demons slithered out of the shadows around them.
“Run!” Leah ordered. “Back the way we came!”
Bright lights from energy blasts and muzzle flashes filled the room. The building vibrated with the assault. Leah pointed the Cluster Rifle at one of the largest groups of Stalkers in the room and squeezed the trigger. A salvo of missiles tore into the demons and blew her backward. She remained on her feet, but only just.
Pieces of shredded and flaming demons stuck to the walls. A cavernous hole opened in the center of the ceiling and started spreading. She took brief satisfaction in the destruction, but her survival instinct quickly eclipsed that success.
She ran after her team. Weapons fire from the demons below broke through the ceiling and shattered the surface. Sections of it buckled and dropped, leaving holes.
Then they reached the gap leading to the next building. Taggart stepped aside, pulled the pin on a grenade, and slipped the spoon. “Fire in the hole!” He counted down and tossed the grenade.
The incendiary blew up and filled the immediate vicinity with flames. Some of the fire clung to Leah’s suit, but she ignored it. The material was fire-suppressive. Once the flames burned through their fuel source, they’d go out.
Before they reached the wall breach that led to the alley outside, a Fetid Hulk rose up from the debris. Muzzle flashes and the flames briefly lit up the creature’s dark green scales. The demon lashed out with its clublike fists, dropping them like hammers.
Leah lifted her weapon, aimed at the center of the Fetid Hulk’s chest, and fired. Missiles streaked on target and blew the creature back several steps. Before she reached her downed teammates, another Fetid Hulk reared up beside her.
She tried to turn, to bring up her weapon and back away at the same time. Her back foot slipped on loose debris, but even without that, she’d known she wouldn’t have gotten away. The demon was too close.
Its huge hand closed over her head and one shoulder and punched her into the ground. A moment of incredible pain filled her, then she blacked out.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Hatton Cross tube station stood silent and empty, but Simon knew that didn’t mean the place had been left unprotected. Especially not with the secrets it held.
The familiar red, white, and blue sign advertising the London Underground hung askew. The windows held shards. Several sections of the train tracks under the cut-and-cover
