“It’s not me,” Leah said. “They’re using me.”
“Who’s using you?”
“The demons,” Leah said.
“Timothy,” a burly man roared. “Who are you talking to?”
“It’s a woman.” Timothy never took his feverish gaze from Leah. “She’s dressed like one of us.”
“Timothy,” the burly man said in a calm voice. “There’s nobody there. Just put the pistol down. Before somebody gets hurt.”
A man and a woman crept up on Timothy from behind.
“They can’t see you,” Timothy growled. “Why can’t they see you?”
“I don’t know,” Leah said. “I don’t know how you can see me.”
“I want you to get away from me,” Timothy said. “I want you out of my head.”
“I’m not going to hurt you. I promise.”
“You brought the nightmares.”
“No.”
“Timothy, put the weapon down.”
“No, Sergeant. It’s this woman.” Timothy pointed at Leah. “She’s messing with all of our heads. She’s bringing the nightmares.”
The sergeant slowly kept coming. “Just take it easy, mate.” His voice sounded soft and soothing. “Nobody here is going to hurt you.”
“Can’t you see her?” Timothy demanded. “She’s standing right here.”
Desperate, knowing that the connection she had with the young man had to have been unexpected by the demons, Leah said, “Keep calm, Timothy.”
“Don’t tell me to keep calm!” Timothy exploded. “I’ve been watching people around me die for years! I’m tired of it! I’m tired of going out there every night wondering if I’m going to be the next one that gets his ticket punched! You can’t live like—”
The two people behind Timothy launched themselves at him. They wrapped him up in arms and legs and took him down to the floor. The big sergeant stepped in quickly and snatched the SRAC pistol away. Timothy fought to get free, but the people lying on top of him had him in cunning grips that he couldn’t escape.
He yelled and cursed, and struggled as much as he was able. “She’s here! She’s the one causing the nightmares!”
“Somebody get a tranquilizer in him,” the sergeant said.
Helpless, Leah watched as one of the captors injected the young man. He squirmed and cursed her, then his eyes grew tired and started to droop. Everything around Leah grew fuzzy.
“You’ve got to listen to me,” she told him. “I’m not doing this. I need help. You’ve got to—”
“—help me.” Leah blinked and she was back inside the sterile steel cage. Her heart thudded and pain throbbed at her temples.
The demon was gone, but its mocking laughter lingered.
Get control, she told herself. Calm down and think. But all she could think about was that somehow the demons had found a way to use her to get into the sleep of everyone at the complex.
FORTY-TWO
Simon helped log in the latest haul the Templar teams had brought in from the storage area. It felt good to have that much food all in one place. Crates, boxes, and barrels of the dry goods lined one of the caverns they’d claimed when they’d moved into the underground bunker.
“I have to admit, this makes things a little easier,” Sarah Kerosky said. She was in her early fifties and served as one of the nutritionists. “In addition to having a more rounded and balanced diet, it’s good that people are talking about how much we have instead of how we’re doing without.”
“I know.” During the past five days, since they’d returned with the first shipment, words of hope and encouragement to the Templar scavenger teams filled the redoubt.
“We’ve got meat and grains,” Sarah said. “The only thing I could wish for at this point is fresh vegetables and fruit.”
“Maybe in the spring,” Simon said. “I know big farms exist outside London proper.”
“Do you think those will be tended?”
“I don’t know. If they aren’t, it’s possible that some of the plants could have volunteered. Just come up with new plants from seeds that dropped in previous years. Plus, we have seeds now. We could plant those fields.”
“You’re talking about farming them?”
“No. That would be too dangerous.”
Sarah looked wistful for a moment. “They’d do better if they had someone looking after them.”
“There’s no way to make that happen,” Simon replied. “Not yet. But it’s something we can think about.”
“Someone’s looking for us, mate,” Nathan stated quietly.
With dawn just bleaching the sky behind him, Simon stood below the rim of a snow-covered hill overlooking the valley where the deer had retreated. Anger and helplessness surged inside him as he surveyed the dead deer scattered across the hillside.
At least three dozen animals sprawled in the snow. Their limbs were twisted and broken. Some of them had been decapitated. Others had bite marks on their bodies. The small herd had been massacred down to the last deer.
Mixed in with the deer tracks, demon footprints and hook marks shone in the gleaming snow crust. Blood stained the snow and melted it in places.
“They know we’re hunting the deer,” Nathan said. “So they’re going to try to starve us out by killing the herds.”
Simon had nothing to say. They’d become more vulnerable, and he’d known it would happen.
“What are we going to do?” Danielle asked.
Simon stood. “The first thing we’re going to do is harvest the meat here that we can. Send for extra crews to help take the meat. We can at least make sure that the meat’s not wasted.”
“That’s today, mate,” Nathan said softly. “This demon, whoever’s doing this, is going to come back tonight and find more of the herds.”
“We don’t have any choice about what we’re going to do,” Simon said. “The demons are escalating the stakes, so we’re going to have to do the same.”
“What do you mean?”
“When night comes on, we’re going hunting for the demons,” Simon said. “We’re going to be the predators for a while, not the prey.”
Harvesting the meat was bitter, bloody work. Simon rotated the teams between butchering the kills and keeping guard. Getting the meat back to the redoubt proved problematic. They had to make certain they didn’t leave a blood trail back to the sanctuary.
Inside the redoubt, the story of what the
