Hellgate London - Exodus Part 35

Located next to the manufacturing plant that had closed nearly thirty years ago but hadn't yet been revitalized, the Turnbull Museum was a privately owned collection that extended visitation privileges to only a few. From what Derek had told them earlier, Geoffrey Turnbull had been something of an adventurer and had journeyed to the far corners of the earth gathering artifacts. His taste, and his collection, had been eclectic. An invited guest might find a shrunken head from the wilds of Borneo as easily as he could find Ashanti pottery or Mongolian trade coins.

However, what no one had known until lately, was that Geoffrey Turnbull also had a taste for the arcane. This information the Templar had ferreted out from the same doc.u.ment they'd gotten their hands on that had told them of Robert Thornton's cursed book. When they'd learned that, the Templar team hadn't exactly been excited about the prospect. The story about the book devouring Bruce was still fresh in their minds.

What the Templar were there to find was a hammer that was supposedly forged by a demon blacksmith. The entry regarding the weapon called it Balekor's Hammer. It was supposed to have the power to open gateways into the demon world.

The Templar hoped to use that power to their advantage. But, failing that, they wanted it safely locked away so the demons couldn't use it.

The museum occupied the bottom two floors of a six-story building. The upper four floors held small business offices and storage areas. If the information they'd received was correct, Turnbull had another museum holding even more exotic items secretly hidden in a sub-bas.e.m.e.nt level no one but the builders had known about. Wealth had its privileges, and the wealthy enjoyed their secrets.

Across the alley, the Cabalists entered the manufacturing plant.

Simon used the magnification application in the HUD to take a closer look at them. Their appearance, most of them looking like demons themselves with their grafted-on horns and demon-hide armor, put him off at once. He couldn't muster much sympathy for them.

The sight of the two women in the ranks of the Cabalists reminded Simon of Leah Creasey. He wondered why the young woman had left the Templar Underground, but realized that she might have been just as put off by the Templar as he was by the Cabalists.

Derek called for the scouts, then got them moving once again. They froze against the alley wall as a Blood Angel flew by overhead. Then they resumed their approach to the museum.

A thick chain secured the museum's main doors. The broken windows overhead offered mute testimony that someone had broken into the building, though. The occasional scream sounded somewhere out on the river.

Simon couldn't help thinking about the people seeking refuge from the demons. None of them had been trained to fight the demons.Or to survive in winter conditions when power to the city was nonexistent, he added. Even if some of them managed to avoid getting killed by the demons, they wouldn't make it through the winter months.

Some of them would be children like the two he'd rescued. That didn't sit easily in his mind. "Everybody go easy inside," Derek advised. "We may have innocents lurking."

The Templar acknowledged that, then Mercer gripped the chain in his mailed fists, pulled, and shattered a link. He stripped the chain from the doors and pushed them open.

Thirty-Nine.

Warren stepped into the darkness that filled the manufacturing plant. His physical senses relayed images of detritus and abandoned equipment, the sounds of the wind outside the building and the cries of the demons and their prey, the smell of must, and the biting cold that permeated the warehouse.

But it was other senses, ones that had grown steadily stronger since they'd left the Cabalist redoubt, that conveyed more to him than he'd ever believed possible. The new senses overlapped his accustomed ones, though, creating some confusion.

From the corner of his eye, he saw shadows of work and workers that had once filled the plant. The heavy steel pots that had carried molten gla.s.s in the past glowed cherry-red but held only shadows. The large furnaces were empty and blazing at the same time. Warren heard the whisper of voices, jokes, and curses, intermingled in the heavy silence enhanced by the layer of snow on the building. Heat mixed in with the cold, so hot and fierce that Warren wanted to take his coat off.

The past and the present were coming alive around him, intermingling so tightly that Warren had to work to focus on what was real. The problem was that it was all real. It just wasn't all rightnow. "Is something wrong?" Naomi asked.

Warren forced himself to concentrate on the present, on the winter and the abandoned premises. "No. I'm just making sure."

"Do you know where the Hammer is?" Tulane asked.

Warren did. The feeling that had brought him here wasn't lost in the confusion of present and past. "Below us." He pointed toward the east wall, the one closest to the six-story building across the alley.

"Below?" Tulane gestured at his security men.

The guards spread out at once, searching the premises with infrared goggles instead of using the night sight Warren had learned. Most of Tulane's guards were unskilled in the ways of the Cabalist. They were selected because of their guard experience and weapons proficiency. Still, some of them were progressing in the Cabalist teachings.

Warren closed his eyes. Immediately an image of the warehouse mapped inside his head. He saw the floor plan as though from the side. A glowing purple tendril sprang from him and tracked directly north, away from the pull that he was certain revealed the presence of Balekor's Hammer. He watched as the tendril moved through a door, down a flight of steps, and to a wall in the bas.e.m.e.nt.

There was no door, but Warren saw the hammer in a room-sized safe built into an adjoining room. Opening his eyes, Warren said, "Wait. We're in the wrong building."

Tulane glared at him. "You said the Hammer was in here."

"I was wrong," Warren said, but at the same time he didn't know how he could be wrong.

Several of the Cabalists exchanged worried glances. None of them had been happy about returning to the city, much less the downtown area where the demon activity was still so prevalent. "Which building is the right one?" Exasperation sounded in Tulane's demand.

"Next door," Warren said. "The Hammer is in-" Pain lanced through his head, so intense it temporarily made him blind.

Stop!Merihim's voice thundered inside Warren's head.

Dropping to his knees, unable to keep his balance, Warren threw up. Head pounding, stomach wracked, he noticed that no one tried to help him. The Cabalists all stepped back as if he were going to blow up. Considering the pressure inside his head, he thought that was entirely possible.

One of the security guards returned to Tulane and told him that the bas.e.m.e.nt was practically empty and that there was no sign of a hammer or any other tool in the room.

"Not this building," Tulane said. "It's next door." "The museum?" The guard sounded confused.

Naomi continued to watch Warren. He felt her eyes on him.

You can't enter the museum,Merihim said.That way is protected from me. And-now-from you. Tulane and the guards started to leave.

Stop them!

The pain snapped Warren to his feet before he knew it. He threw out his left arm, the one mottled with all the demon scales, and cast the power from him. Flames blossomed in front of the door, drawing Tulane and the guards up short.

"No," Warren commanded hoa.r.s.ely, and he knew it was Merihim's voice as much as his own.

The security guards yanked their weapons to shoulder and prepared to fire. One word from Tulane, and Warren knew that was exactly what they were going to do. "You can't go that way," Warren said. "It's protected."

Tulane studied Warren, and Warren could almost read the man's thoughts. Tulane was considering telling his guards to shoot.

"If they do," Warren whispered menacingly, "you won't live to see if they succeed." Tulane frowned. But he didn't give the order to fire.

"We can get to the Hammer from here," Warren said. "How?"

"Through the bas.e.m.e.nt. That way isn't protected." Head throbbing, feeling Merihim's power bubbling inside him, Warren turned toward the door leading to the bas.e.m.e.nt. For a moment he thought Tulane might have him killed then, but he heard their footsteps fall in behind him.

The bas.e.m.e.nt steps spiraled down into a room almost as large as the one overhead. The stink of must and disuse grew stronger.

More sure-footed now, Warren walked toward the wall. It was featureless except for a few cracks. A huge furnace filled the opposite wall, but it was cold and dark with disuse.

You must hurry,Merihim said.There are others who search for this prize as well.

"Who?" Warren asked.

Don't concern yourself with them. Concentrate on your task here.

Surveying the huge wall, Warren couldn't see an entrance or a secret door. He pressed his palms against the rock and mortar. He could feel the Hammer on the other side of the wall even though he didn't know how he could do that.

"You're certain the Hammer is there?" Tulane asked. "Yes."

Tulane barked a command to the security men. Half of them shouldered their weapons and approached the wall with knives, but it was quickly apparent they weren't going to be able to get through the wall quickly.

Kelli came to stand at Warren's side. She hadn't uttered a word in hours. No emotion showed on her face. Not even a flicker of interest at what they were doing. Warren took her hand and held it, drawing the warmth from her.

"Do you know what you're doing to her?" Naomi asked quietly. Feeling defensive, Warren said, "I'm not doing anything to her."

Naomi's dark eyes studied him. "If not for you and your control over her, she wouldn't be here."

"If not for Malcolm, I wouldn't have met you," Warren said. Sometime during the testing phase, Malcolm had left the house. Warren presumed the man had gone back to London, or had other duties at the house. "If not for you and Tulane, I wouldn't be here." "You'd be here," Naomi said. "The demon wanted you here."

One of the security team leaders told part of the team to go back upstairs and search for hammers and chisels, anything they could use to chop through the wall.

"The demon could have had me come here without ever meeting you," Warren pointed out. "You came to us for other reasons."

"What reasons?" Warren felt frustrated. All of his life had been dictated to him by someone. First it had been his parents. Then it had been foster care. Lately it had been his flat mates, with their needs and disregard for him.

Naomi shook her head. "I don't know." She paused. "Do you hear Merihim?" Warren hesitated.

"You do, don't you? You hear his voice." "And what if I do?"

"I don't know. I've never met anyone who could talk to demons."

Warren laughed bitterly at that. "But all you people want to do is talk to them."

"That's not true. We want to learn their secrets, that's true. But talking to a demon, listening to it without the proper safeguards, is dangerous. In all my studies, that's been one of the constants. Our literature and culture are filled with tales of men and women who have sold their souls to demons. Do you think that's all fiction?"

Uneasiness flickered through Warren. "I haven't made any trades, deals, or bargains."

"Are you sure?" Naomi gazed quietly at him. "When you were burning, when you were falling, don't you think it's possible you did?"

Warren couldn't remember those incidents. Everything had happened too fast and been too filled with pain.

"Somewhere in all that confusion and agony," Naomi said, "are you sure you didn't reach out to something to save you?"

"I didn't. I would have remembered something like that."

"Would you have?" Naomi took a breath. "Demons are filled with trickery, Warren. That's their nature." "And you want to be like them," he accused.

"No. I want to understand how they use the power they do. I can do a lot of good with it."

Warren sneered at her. "Is that why you're here? To dogood?" He shook his head. "Everybody is out for whatever they can get. It's not about power. It's about power over others. That's what Tulane wants."

If Tulane heard the accusation, he gave no sign of it. The security men who'd gone upstairs returned with a few hammers and crowbars. They attacked the wall again, pulling out rocks they chopped free. "You don't have to face this alone," Naomi said.

Warren tightened his grip on Kelli's hand. "I'm not alone." "She wouldn't be here if you weren't controlling her mind."

"I'm not controlling her." Warren looked into Kelli's vacuous gaze and saw that she looked right through him. George's words screamed into his mind again.

"You are," Naomi replied. "And you may kill her."

She's dead anyway,Warren told himself.She'll never make it out of the city. She's too weak. He felt guilty at once for his thoughts. But he didn't feel guilty for having her with him. He'd been alone all his life. Now that he had the power to change that, he didn't see why he shouldn't use it.

"Do you want to kill her?" Naomi asked.

Warren looked away from her, staring into the cloud of mortar dust that had formed in front of the wall.

He held Kelli's hand in his, afraid to let her go. "You're afraid," Naomi said.

Warren ignored her.

"I can see it in you," she continued.

Looking at her then, Warren demanded, "Are you going to tell me you're not afraid?"

"No, I'm not going to tell you that. The truth is, I am afraid. But part of me is starting to be afraid of you."

Warren felt a surge of savage joy crest inside him at that unexpected announcement. But it died the moment one of the security guards poked his head into the hole that had been made in the wall.

"We're through," the man said. "There's a room over there. Filled with a lot of stuff."

Excitement flared within Warren. He released Kelli's hand and started forward. He felt Balekor's Hammer on the other side of the wall. It felt powerful, almost overwhelming.

Tulane was there first. The Cabalist reached into a pocket and removed a flash. Switching the beam on, he peered into the room. Then he stepped back, nodding at the security guard commander. "Make the hole bigger."

Scratching noises drew Warren's attention. For a moment he thought it was coming from inside the room on the other side of the wall. Then he realized that it was a trick, an echo created by the size of the room. He turned back toward the furnace.

The scratching grew in intensity, coming from the hollow depths of the furnace. Several of the security guards faced the furnace as well and drew their weapons.

Light suddenly streamed from behind Warren. He turned back to the hole and the room on the other side of the wall, spotting a rectangular opening and a metallic figure that stepped into the room.

Then horrendous cries rose up from inhuman throats.

Spinning back around to the furnace, Warren watched as demons invaded the bas.e.m.e.nt through the furnace's chimney. Looking like insects, they poured from the furnace in flailing ma.s.ses and formed a skirmish line.

Get the Hammer,Merihim commanded.

Driven by pain, Warren turned back to the hole in the wall and instinctively put his hand out before him. Hepushed, and he sensed more than glimpsed the waves of nearly invisible force that leaped from his hand.

The wall exploded, caving inward in a rush of mortar and stone. The armored figure inside the room was thrown backward.

Warren went forward as the demons rushed the Cabalists.