Hellgate: Goetia Read online

  The building had originally begun life as one of the fallout shelters built during World War II. In that war, all the children had been sent off to the countryside to get them out of harm’s way. Back then, the greatest thing a person had to fear was a bomb landing in their house. Nobody had ever thought about demons pouring in through a Hellgate until it happened.

  “Thought you might like a bite to eat.” Nathan placed a big bowl of oatmeal on the desk beside Simon. “I know how you forget things like that.”

  “Thanks.” The oatmeal smelled good and made Simon’s stomach growl. He scooped it up and looked at the butter melting on it. “Butter? Hand-churned?”

  “Hand-churned. Next time you’ll be getting your tea with cream and sugar in a china cup. And biscuits. Shall I fetch you a cushion?”

  “Ponce,” Simon replied as the unfamiliar feeling of a smile crept into his face.

  Nathan laughed. “There are still a few cows running round in the wild, and we’ve been fortunate enough to have a few people among us who know how to make do from scratch.”

  Simon knew that was true. The survivors they’d dug from the wreckage of the city had contributed as much to the sanctuary as the Templar. A few of them were even learning how to make Templar armor and use it.

  “So how is she?” Nathan asked.

  “She appears to be well enough.”

  “Did she say where she got that uni she’s wearing?”

  Simon briefly considered the uniform Leah wore. None of their technology had yet penetrated the suit’s defenses. “No.”

  “Do you want to take a guess?”

  Simon swallowed oatmeal. “My guess would be military.”

  “Not exactly what the soldier boys were wearing while they were fighting the demons in the streets.”

  “I know.”

  “But it’s definitely mil-spec.” Nathan smiled. His background, before the invasion, had been military. Although he didn’t want to choose between his military duty and Templar duty, Nathan had decided to follow the Templar. When he had been one of those assigned to stay in hiding, he had taken the command hard. “Makes her all the more interesting, eh? Popping into and out of your life as she sees fit. Telling you what she wants you to know.”

  “I don’t take her on blind trust.”

  “I didn’t say that you did.” Nathan looked at the computer chips on the desk. “But she’s responsible for this, isn’t she?”

  “She is.”

  “Want to tell me about it?”

  “Have you ever heard of a man named Archibald Xavier Macomber?”

  Nathan thought for a moment, then shook his head.

  “He was a linguistics professor who believed he’d found—and partially translated—a demonic language.”

  “Now someone like this, I should have heard of.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Simon took another bite of oatmeal. “Leah’s people—”

  “Who shall remain mysterious.”

  Simon ignored the comment in continued. “—found Professor Macomber down in France. He’d been in a sanitarium for the last eight years.”

  “Lovely.”

  “His wife had him committed once he started talking about demons.”

  “A lot of people talked about demons, mate,” Nathan said. “Normally most people would just walk on the other side of the street and talk behind the backs of those who admitted such things. Now it’s downright fashionable. What made Macomber so much the target?”

  “There was money involved.”

  “Ah, so it was financially rewarding to lock up the professor.”

  “Right.” Simon put the empty bowl on the desk. “I’ve been through the Templar files regarding Macomber. We—meaning the Templar—knew about Macomber.”

  “Then why didn’t we—meaning the Templar—talk to him at some point?”

  “It was decided that Macomber was too controversial and too public at the time.”

  “When was that?”

  “Twelve or thirteen years ago.”

  Nathan smiled. “I was still stealing kisses from the girls in the Underground. And you, as I recall, were planning BASE jumps off prominent London buildings.”

  “Not quite then.” It has been those BASE jumps that had brought Simon to the attention of the Metropolitan Police Department and almost caused a huge investigation. Simon hadn’t had any papers. There wasn’t a record of his birth on file in the country. He’d almost been deported as an undesirable immigrant. Only his father’s hand in the matter had smoothed things over.

  “You probably weren’t paying any more attention to the goings-on of the Templar intelligence department than I was,” Nathan said.

  “No, I wasn’t.”

  “So we must have missed mention of Macomber.”

  Simon nodded.

  “Even if we’d heard of him, we’d probably have ignored him as much as everyone else did.”

  “Probably.”

  “So why did your lady friend—”

  “Leah. Not my lady friend.”

  “My apologies. Why did Leah bring Macomber up to you?”

  “Macomber,” Simon said as he looked at his friend, “is in the hands of Leah’s people. Or will be soon. They’re sailing him in from the French coastline in a couple days.”

  “Sounds intriguing, but if they’re trying to be mysterious and everything, should she be telling you?”

  “Macomber is refusing to answer any questions about the demons. He wants to talk to a ‘knight.’”

  Nathan grinned. “Ah. She supposes that would be us.”

  “Yes.”

  “So are we going to talk to him?”

  “Macomber claims to know of a weapon that we can use against the demons.”

  “Advantageous. I don’t see how we can pass that up.”

  Simon silently agreed.

  “When do we leave?” Nathan asked.

  “Soon.”

  ELEVEN

  R ather than retreating underground as many of London’s survivors had done, the Cabalist Septs had taken up residence throughout the city in abandoned buildings. They put up wards that hid them from demonic eyes and from human ones. Occasionally the spells were penetrated by the demons anyway and some of the Cabalists were killed, but it was hard to observe the demons while the Cabalists were locked away and hidden.

  The observation groups tended to be small so they could move quickly. And so that losses were manageable when they invariably occurred.

  Warren and Naomi followed the Piccadilly Line from the West End to Islington. Once there, they abandoned the aboveground railway line and picked their way through ominously silent suburban streets until they made it to Enfield. At that point, they followed the Ponders End Railway line to Enfield. With frequent rest stops and pausing to avoid demon patrols, it was almost nightfall by the time they reached their destination. The only way to safely get around inside the city these days was on foot.

  They talked a little along the way, but both of them concentrated primarily on paying attention to their surroundings. They also shared the food Warren had brought from his sanctum.

  By the time they reached the suburb, Cabalist lookouts had spotted them and sent word to the others. A small group of horned and tattooed men and women met Warren and Naomi in short order.

  Naomi took charge of the brief conversation. Warren hung back to watch those who watched him. He knew that during the last four years he had become much talked about among the Cabalist Septs. None of them had ever talked to demons and lived to tell the tale.

  After brief discussion, they were once more on their way.

  First Seer Cornish held court in Ponders End in the Enfield district in one of the civic buildings surrounding Enfield Green. The building was austere and stark. Most of the windows were broken. The Cabalists living there had made no effort to replace them. Doing so would have drawn attention to their presence.

  Armed guards met Warren and Naomi at the main doors. The men and
women carried handguns in a few submachine pistols. The Cabalists preferred spells over weaponry, but not everyone was capable yet of using the magic that had returned with the demons. Those just in training were usually selected for guard duty and had to carry weapons.

  Despite Naomi’s protests, the senior guardsman insisted on searching Warren.

  “It’s all right,” Warren said. He stood still as the man searched him. “I don’t have anything to hide.”

  Naomi was still livid. “He’s here as our guest. The First Seer sent for him.”

  “I’m just doing my job.” The senior guardsman took the long dagger from Warren’s right boot. He slipped the dagger into his belt.

  Warren hated to lose the knife. It was his only weapon outside of the pistol he could use. He had never been much of a fighter, but over the last four years he had learned a lot. Still, he had no chance against the group around him. He had never liked feeling helpless.

  Even though his weapon had been confiscated, the senior guardsmen and the other security people seemed content to give Warren plenty of space. At least they didn’t try to restrain him. However, his reception strengthened his immediate impulse that he had made a mistake in coming to see the First Seer.

  What is your name?” Naomi demanded.

  “Cedric,” the grizzled old warrior stated. If he was uncomfortable about giving his name, it didn’t show.

  “Your job isn’t to offend our guests,” Naomi said sharply.

  “No, ma’am, my job is to keep the First Seer alive.” The senior guardsman removed a coal-oil lamp from a nearby peg and nodded toward the doorway. “If you’ll follow me I’ll take you to the First Seer.”

  From the look on her face, Warren knew Naomi wasn’t through with the argument. He touched her arm with his human hand and caught her eye. He quickly shook his head.

  Naomi shared her anger with him. She took her arm out of his touch and folded both over her chest. With a sigh, Warren turned and followed the senior guardsman into the building.

  The interior of the building had been gutted. A few remnants of papers and plaques—things that had once been part of the activities there—remained, but they were scattered. Smashed cases that had held civic awards and trophies hung on walls. Documents hung askew behind broken desks. Evidence of squatter nesting showed in piles of material gathered in corners and against the walls. Ashes remained of small campfires. The bones of small animals and empty tins mixed in with the debris.

  Cedric skirted the piles of refuse of and headed to a stairway that led down into the basement. More guards held positions at the entranceway to the stairs.

  The basement area was far larger than Warren would have guessed. Lit only by coal-oil lanterns, the hallways didn’t reveal much but Warren noticed evidence of expansion. Someone had worked long and hard to excavate extra space under the building.

  Part of him wondered how the work had been carried out. It couldn’t have been easy. Making the space required moving a lot of earth, and that dirt had to have been put somewhere. Signs of building would have drawn the demons immediately.

  A lot of effort had gone into the construction. Warren saw that immediately when he took note of the many hallways that shot off the main one they traveled. Cedric went without hesitation, twisting and turning along the path. Warren gave up trying to memorize the route when he realized that Cedric brought them back through the same tunnels more than once.

  The hallways also connected the basements of other buildings. Along the way, Warren saw various earthworks that he suspected could be collapsed to block of tunnels. Some of them could block off a tunnel at either end to create a deadly trap.

  The underground wasn’t just a sanctuary, it was also a carefully sculpted battlefield.

  Eventually, they arrived at one of the larger rooms. Coal-oil lanterns hung on the walls and filled the area with dulled yellow illumination. Someone had made an effort to turn the area into a reception room. Tables and chairs stood neatly arranged in the center of the room.

  A man, watched over by a half-dozen fierce looking men and women, sat at the center table and stared into a circular mirror on the tabletop. Although he’d hadn’t seen him before, Warren knew this was First Seer Cornish.

  The man was younger than Warren would have guessed. He was probably no more than thirty. It made sense, though. The younger Cabalists tended to have the most power. They harnessed it far more easily and more naturally than older Cabalists.

  As a result, many of the Septs and the Voices among them tended to be young. Warren had heard of many splits among the Cabalists over power issues. The youthful often commanded the raw power, but their seniors knew more about the demons and the nature of the magic they used.

  First Seer Cornish looked up. He had a thin, sallow face, but the tattoos were the first features most onlookers noticed. They were so black and so thick that at first Warren wasn’t sure what race the man was. His eyes looked hollow and glassy. Black and shiny rams’ horns curled on either side of his head. His scalp had been overlaid with demon’s skin that was mottled and covered in protruding spikes like those of a porcupine. He wore dark robes covered in symbols.

  Cornish turned away from the circular mirror on the tabletop and smiled a little. His gums looked black, and it wasn’t until then Warren noticed Cornish had replaced some of his teeth with demons’ fangs. Warren had never heard of the procedure, but he knew the Cabalists were using extreme measures to tap into the same power the demons used.

  “Naomi.” Cornish smoothed his robes with a hand. “I see you were successful in arranging a visit.”

  Naomi only nodded.

  Cornish turned his full attention to Warren. “I’ve wanted to meet you for some time.”

  Warren didn’t respond. Since he had entered the room, he’d felt uncomfortable. At first he had thought it was the circumstances he was there under. Now he realized there was an overpowering sense of wrongness inside the room. He wanted out.

  Cornish tilted his head a little and studied Warren curiously. “Do you feel well?”

  “I feel fine,” Warren lied. He opened his mind the way he had learned from Merihim and felt for the troubling sensation that lay within the room.

  Almost immediately, a powerful blow struck Warren hard enough to almost buckle his knees. Dizziness swam through his head. For a moment he couldn’t focus. Double images filled his vision. He felt hot all over and perspiration coated his skin. The scratches Naomi had left across his back during their earlier lovemaking burned like fire.

  “Perhaps you’d like to sit.” Cornish gestured to one of the chairs.

  “No,” Warren responded. He wanted out of the room. He knew that with certainty.

  A small smile pulled at Cornish’s thin lips over the demons’ fangs. Warren couldn’t help wondering if the fangs all came from the same demon, and if they actually helped the First Seer harness the magical energy that coursed through the city these days.

  “May I see your hand?” Cornish asked. He extended his own hands.

  Warren understood immediately which hand Cornish wanted to see. He didn’t move.

  “Please,” Cornish said.

  Instead of reaching out to the man, Warren merely lifted the gift he had received from Merihim. He held the hand open. Lamplight glittered along the scales.

  Curious and hesitant, Cornish reached for Warren’s hand. Tattoos covered the First Seer’s hands and even his fingers. Some of them glowed a deep purple that burned brighter the closer the tattoos got to Warren.

  The sense of wrongness vibrated even more sharply within Warren. The scratches along his back burned more fiercely. Before the First Seer could touch him, Warren rolled his hand into a fist. Cruelly curved claws sprang out along his knuckles. Warren gazed at the new manifestation in wonder.

  Cornish hesitated and withdrew his hands. “Has it ever done that before?”

  Anger and frustration swirled within Warren. Now was not the time for the hand to be independent o
f him. “Yes.” He lied guilelessly. But, in truth, he didn’t know if it was he who lied or the essence of the demon he carried within him.

  “You’ve been an inspiration to us,” the First Seer stated. “Although we’ve been successful transplanting some features of the demons, we’ve not yet demonstrated the success involved in your own transplant.”

  This wasn’t a transplant, Warren thought. Merihim claimed me with this hand. Still, he suspected that it wouldn’t be long before the Cabalists successfully transplanted other limbs. They were becoming too attuned to the wild magic loose again in the world.

  “Many have volunteered to undergo the process,” Cornish said. “Instead of success, all we’ve created is a series of cripples.” He paused. “Despite our best efforts to recreate the treatment you received, we’ve not been able to duplicate the result.”

  Warren concentrated and tried to bring the two images of Cornish together as one. He only had partial success. The two images resolved now and again into one, but for the most part they remained separate and distinct. Strangely, one of the images looked more human than the other.

  “We’ve managed several transplants that have all augmented powers and abilities,” Cornish went on. “But nothing like what I’ve been told you’re capable of.”

  “I don’t know what you’ve been told,” Warren said quietly.

  Cornish grinned and revealed the demon’s teeth again. His black gums gleamed. “I’ve been told you can speak to the demon. I’m also been told that, upon occasion, you can manifest the demon and channel its power through your body.”

  “No,” Warren replied. “I don’t speak to the demon. He speaks to me. And I don’t manifest him.” He didn’t want to discuss the power he was sometimes able to tap into. That was no one’s business. And it gave the Cabalists one more reason to be envious of him.

  “I think you’re being too modest about your abilities, though I’m not sure why you would choose to be so.” A note of irritation crept into Cornish’s voice.