Panic flooded Warren as he stood pinned in the demon’s gaze.
“Merihim sends his regards.” Kareloth opened his mouth and breathed a great gout of flame.
FORTY-SIX
Leah fell through nightmares. She didn’t know how many she visited—or created—because they all seemed to run into one another. They became a kaleidoscope of insanity that threatened to drink her down.
Every time she tried to gather her wits round her, to focus on what she knew to be true, the landscape of nightmares shifted and she’d be somewhere else. She most tried to cling to the memory of Simon Cross. She had touched his thoughts. She was sure of that.
But she didn’t know if he’d believe she was truly there or would remember what she’d told him.
The maddening jumps continued. She ran beside a soldier who tried to enter an exploded building for one of his teammates. She felt his panic as he shoved through the falling timbers and tried to avoid the hottest flames. His suit protected him somewhat, but the heat threatened his swirling senses.
“You’ve got to get out of here,” Leah told the man.
“Can’t.” The soldier caught hold of a sagging timber and shoved. A section of the wall fell away. “George is in here somewhere.” He lifted his voice. “George!”
“It’s too late.”
“It’s not too late. I’m not going to let it be too late. George is my mate. I told him I’d watch his back.”
A Stalker demon crouched in one corner. The creature bunched its legs, getting ready to jump.
“Look out!” Leah clawed the SRAC machine pistol from her side and brought it to bear as the Stalker leaped. She shoved at the soldier with her free hand, but it passed through the man’s body. In the next instant, the SRAC’s bullets speared through the Stalker’s body without a trace.
The Stalker hit the soldier and bowled him over, sending both of them sprawling onto a section of flaming carpet. The fire-retardant material of the soldier’s suit protected him from catching fire, but the heat consumed him.
Leah felt the man’s body burning. Pain raked angry claws through her flesh. She cried out in agony. Instinctively, she ran to the man and tried to pull him from the fire. He rolled and fought the Stalker, but Leah couldn’t get a grip on him. Frustrated and helpless, she watched as the battle continued.
Then a section of the ceiling fell and dropped on them, hiding them from view.
“No!” Leah ran forward, stumbled on the debris, and fell.
When she got her feet under her again, she stood chest-deep in the dank water of a cave. The cold water felt greasy against her skin even through her armor. The stench of death, decay, and raw sewage made the air so thick and almost impossible to breathe.
Her suit’s infrared system didn’t penetrate the gloom far enough to see any walls. She listened intently, not wanting to move until she knew if something else was in the water with her.
Movement slithered below.
Leah stepped to the side and drew the sword sheathed between her shoulder blades. Since she’d never carried a sword, she knew that she wasn’t herself in this incarnation. With a skill she’d never before possessed, she stood ready and waiting. For the first time, she realized that the HUD before her eyes had a 360-degree view of her surroundings.
In the next moment, three Templar surfaced in the murky water. All of them stood and drew swords. They ignored her and gazed around the cave. Simon wasn’t among them.
“Have you seen anything?”
It took Leah a moment to realize the woman addressed her. “No. Not yet.”
“Good. Maybe we escaped them.” The Templar surged forward through the water. “Joseph, do you have any idea where we are? This cave system isn’t on my HUD. We’re still beneath the city, I can see that, but I don’t know how we’re supposed to get out.”
“One thing’s for certain,” the third person, a man, stated, “we can’t go back the way we got here. We’ll be buried in demons.”
Leah slogged along after them. There wasn’t anything else she could do.
“There are a lot of cave systems and abandoned tunnels beneath London,” Joseph said. “Mining and transportation created most of the tunnels.”
“It was your idea to come here, mate,” the other man accused.
“Knock it off, Nigel,” the woman said. “We’ve got enough troubles without trying to assign blame for this mess we’re in.”
“Listen to you, Mai. What gives you the right to—”
She whirled on the other Templar and lifted her sword point to the bottom of his helm. “Lord Cross gave me the right to tell you what to think, you git. And unless you get with the program, I’m going to jettison you and let you find your own way out of here. Do you scan me?”
Nigel’s blank faceplate remained blank and featureless. However, through whatever power that bound her to the experience—dream or real-time, Leah felt his fear and anger. They were divided equally for a moment, but he gave in to his fear.
“All right, Mai,” Nigel said. “It’ll be as you say.”
“Good.” Mai lowered her sword. She turned away from him and started slogging through the muck again.
Leah hurried and caught up to her. “You know Simon?”
Mai didn’t break stride. “Of course I know him. This isn’t time for silly questions.”
“I need to get a message to him.”
“Tell him when we get back.”
“I don’t know if I’ll make it back.”
“You aren’t going to throw in the towel so quick, are you? Because if that’s the way you—”
The lizard-demon struck without warning, rising from the dark depths and lunging at Mai. The Templar’s augmented reflexes almost saved her as she threw herself to one side. The lizard-thing opened its mouth and popped out a barbed tongue that crossed ten feet of space in a nanosecond. Incredibly, the tongue penetrated the armor on the first attempt.
Mai jerked and writhed. Her panicked and pain-filled cries filled Leah’s
