But he knew what was coming when the policeman freed his sidearm and pointed it in Simon’s face.

  “Out of the vehicle.” The policeman signaled the other men to close in.

  Simon opened the door and stepped out. One of the men grabbed him and slammed him up against the Land Rover. He felt the muzzle of a gun burrow into the back of his neck. Confusion swept over him. He’d never been stopped outside the city like this before, and papers were seldom checked inside Cape Town except for foreign vendors and merchants.

  It was bad enough when they’d found the tusks, but when the soldiers found the bodies, things really got ugly.

  “That’s quite a story, Mr. Cross.”

  Seated across the long table from a lieutenant in the Cape Town Police Department whose name he hadn’t quite gotten, Simon massaged his bruised wrists. The men who had brought them in for questioning hadn’t been gentle. “I don’t know if I’d believe it myself.”

  The lieutenant smiled, but he looked tired and worried. “Luckily, you have the corroboration of several witnesses. And these men you killed were known poachers.”

  Simon nodded. He’d been in holding for hours, crowded in with several other stinking, sweating prisoners. He’d kept his clients separated from the riff-raff and out of harm’s way. Then they’d brought him in to be questioned. He hoped his clients were still all right.

  “Those witnesses aren’t used to jail,” Simon said.

  “I understand. I had them taken from holding shortly after I sent for you. Their statements will be taken, identification confirmed, then they’ll be released. Just as you are.”

  Getting released sounded good. Simon wanted a bed in a semi-adequate hotel and a few beers and shots to tuck him in.

  “Why was there so much security along the road?” Simon asked.

  The lieutenant’s forehead furrowed. “How long were you out in the bush, Mr. Cross?”

  “Nine days. We were scheduled out for two weeks.”

  “I see. Then you missed all the furor.”

  Fear tightened inside Simon again. During the long drive back to Cape Town he’d almost convinced himself that the poachers had taken a small story and blown it out of proportion. No one had talked to him at the police station, and none of the prisoners they’d been jailed with had been overly friendly after Simon had knocked two of them senseless for trying to intimidate his clients.

  “What furor?”

  “Apparently aliens have landed in London,” the lieutenant said. “The story is all over the news.”

  Aliens. “Are you sure they’re aliens?”

  The lieutenant looked at Simon curiously. “I haven’t seen them myself, but I’ve seen them on the news channels. I’d call them aliens. What would you call them?”

  “I don’t know. But it just sounds…strange.” Simon sat back in the straight wooden chair and wished he were home. He had no doubt that if he told the lieutenant what he suspected, though, he’d be kept for observation and not let out around sane people.

  “There’s not much footage of them beasties,” the bartender said.

  Simon vaguely remembered that the man’s name was Flynn. He was an Irishman, but he’d come to Cape Town as a mercenary nearly twenty years ago, lost a leg, and fallen in love with an Xhosa woman. They’d started Walter’s, a bar that catered to the locals and tourists, and provided back rooms for mercenaries.

  They were watching old footage on CNN on the tri-dee over the bar. According to the anchorman, nothing new had come out of England for the last fourteen hours. All electronic communication in the area had been cut off.

  Simon felt the need to get up and move, to be there instead of Cape Town. He’d already called the airport, but no one there knew when flights would be headed into Europe. So far, everyone wanted to stay home.

  And that was where Simon wanted to be: home. It surprised him that he felt so strongly. He hadn’t been back in two years, and hadn’t missed it. He’d made more friends and had more freedom in Cape Town than in London.

  The bar was a mixture of recycled, mismatched furniture. None of the pieces looked like they fit together, but the place was packed. Servers hustled between the tables and beer was served in bottles and cans.

  After leaving the police station, Simon had checked on Saundra’s whereabouts and discovered she was still giving her statement. He’d left a message that he would be at Walter’s.

  As soon as he’d hit the street, Simon had heard bits and pieces of the stories of the invasion that had taken place in London. If everything was to be believed, nearly everyone there had been killed and half the city destroyed.

  Simon kept his eyes glued to the tri-dee holo broadcast above Flynn’s head at the bar. Two channels were playing. One showed the news and another covered the soccer championships being played in Rio de Janeiro. Unbelievably, most of the bar’s patrons were involved in the soccer game, not the news.

  “Does anyone know where they came from?” Simon asked.

  Flynn shook his head. “A mothership, I suppose. Though nobody’s saying.”

  “Why invade England, that’s what I want to know,” the heavyset man sitting next to Simon said. He was black and had a German accent. “They wanted to cripple the planet, they’d go after the United States.”

  “The United States is too tough,” Flynn said. “You know they’d go nuclear over something like this. It’s a wonder they ain’t done something already. Mark my words, those aliens make a move to cross the Atlantic, them Yanks will put every British Isle at the bottom of the North Sea.”

  Simon didn’t doubt that. The U.S. had involved themselves in a lot of wars and hadn’t won much international support. But they had to be respected. Or feared. Simon still wasn’t sure which way he’d call it.

  In the tri-dee presentation, a British fighter plane battled a flying demon that Simon recognized from the ancient texts he’d been forced to study. They’re real. That thought kept slamming into Simon over and over again. They’re real. That’s a Blood Angel.

  On tri-dee, the demon looked bigger than Simon had imagined. Its wingspread was huge and bat-like.

  The demon landed on the jet’s nose and began tearing through the metal shielding. A few seconds later, it shattered the canopy and reached inside for the pilot. Arms wrapped around its hapless victim, the demon leaped into the air and unfurled its wings only seconds before the jet ripped across the top of London Bridge in a shower of sparks. Chunks of stone tore free under the impact, then the aircraft went down in what Simon believed were the India Docks. An explosion immediately erupted, throwing flames and debris high into the air.

  The scene shifted back to the anchorman for brief commentary, then moved into another scene of street carnage that Simon had seen before. This time, a huge demon strode through the gates at Buckingham Palace. One of its arms was withered, while the other was massive and had a huge fist.

  Tanks rolled to attack, firing on the go. The shells burst against the demon’s chest, knocking it back, then it lashed out with that huge fist and tore the turret from the top of the tank. It breathed acidic vapor into the crew compartment, killing anyone who might have survived.

  A pack of blood zombies, looking like they’d been flayed alive so that muscle and bone stood out in sharp relief, trailed after the great demon. They devoured all the fallen soldiers that tried to protect the palace. Bullets had little effect on them and hardly slowed them.

  “Can you get in to England?” Simon asked.

  Flynn looked at him as if he’d sprouted a second head. “Whatever would you want to go to that place at this time for?”

  Simon sipped his beer. “I’ve got family there.”

  Without a word, Flynn reached under the bar and brought out two clean glasses. He poured two fingers of Bushmills in each one. Hoisting one of the glasses, Flynn said, “To the saints what watch over us and them far from us.”

  Simon clinked glasses and sipped the whiskey. “Can I get to England?”

  “All the commercial flights into Great Britain have been held up,” Flynn answered. “They’ve declared a quarantine over the whole area. Something about alien bacteria. Even got stories about the dead rising up and walking.” He looked at Simon and his normally hard gaze softened. “Sorry, mate.”

  Glancing at the tri-dee, Simon watched men, women, and children running through the rubble-strewn barriers that had been set up long ago. The demons chased them, running them down in the streets.

  It was horrible to watch.

  But more than anything, he needed to be there. He sipped his drink again, feeling the burn at the back of his throat. Then soft fingers touched his neck. He turned and looked up at Saundra.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “They let you go.”

  “Finally.” Saundra grimaced as she looked up at the tri-dee. Worry tightened her eyes as she looked at him. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah. Just tired is all.” Simon glanced back up at the nightmares taking shape on the tri-dee. He wasn’t just tired. He was feeling scared and guilty. He should never have left London. He should never have doubted his father.

  Saundra pulled on his arm. “I’ve got a room. Let’s get out of here.”

  Simon nodded. He tried to settle his tab, but Flynn waved his money away. The bartender even threw in a bottle of Bushmills.

  “It’ll keep away the nightmares,” the bartender said.

  Simon didn’t think it would, but he took the bottle anyway.

  In the modest hotel room, Saundra showered first while Simon ordered room service. Normally they’d have shared the shower, but they hadn’t talked much. Simon wasn’t sure if it was the fact that he’d killed the poachers that had created the barrier between them, or all the news about London. Either way, he wasn’t a big fan of personal contact at the moment, either.

  He stood under the shower under the hottest water he could stand, letting it almost scald him. He scrubbed with soap and shampooed, but didn’t feel clean. Visions of demons, his father’s patient voice, all kept bouncing around inside his skull.

  He kept repeating the process till Saundra knocked on the door and told him the food had arrived.

  Wrapped in a towel, seated on the bed, Simon ate from the tray. Saundra sat beside him as they watched tri-dee. The segments kept looping, showing the same horrific images over and over. They drank Bushmills with the meal, and Simon felt the alcohol and the food drain the energy from him.

  “I can’t believe this is really happening,” Saundra whispered.

  “Neither can I,” Simon replied. And I’ve been told it would all my life.

  “Your father lives in London.”

  “Yes.” Simon made himself eat. He needed his strength. He was a warrior, trained by warriors, and he’d slipped back into that mind-set far easier than he’d ever thought he would. He would eat when he could eat, sleep when he could sleep, and fight every chance he got.

  “He’s probably all right.” Saundra ran her fingers through Simon’s hair.

  “If he was all right, he would have called.” Simon made himself say that, to remind himself what he was probably facing.

  “They say the communications systems were taken out early on. Either they were destroyed or some kind of damper was put over them. Maybe he couldn’t call.”

  “They have shortwave radios.” When he saw the stricken look on Saundra’s face, Simon knew he’d spoken too forcefully. He softened his voice. “Hey. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap like that.”

  “It’s all right.” But she looked away from him.

  Simon sighed. They’d both stayed away from family stories. He knew she had a mom and dad in Australia, and three younger siblings, a brother and two sisters, or it could have been the other way around. But he didn’t know all the little anecdotal stories for them.

  He’d mentioned he’d had a dad, and that his mother was dead, but nothing much beyond that. There was no way he could have brought up the Templar upbringing. Although after the way he’d dealt with the poachers, she’d wanted some kind of explanation but hadn’t been rude enough to ask for one.

  “It’s just…” Simon hesitated. “You’d have to know my dad. He’d get a message out. Shortwave radios don’t depend on satellites or anything, and you can broadcast halfway around the world on one of those.”

  “I know about shortwave radios. I grew up in Australia, remember? Long way from anywhere if you didn’t grow up in one of the bigger cities. My dad still has a base radio. But who would your dad broadcast to? Does he know where you’re staying?”

  Simon thought about it only for a moment, then shook his head. “No.”

  “Nowhere to send the message, no message,” Saundra said. “I don’t have a message from my dad, either.” She paused. “And I’m scared, too, Simon. I want to be home.”

  “I know.” He turned to her and put his arms around her, just holding on. “We’ll find a way.”

  Six

  DOWNTOWN

  LONDON, ENGLAND

  O n his knees in the wrecked supermarket with a dozen other scavengers, Warren Schimmer felt the demon before he saw it.

  All his life, he’d had feelings about people, situations, and things. He could generally tell when someone meant him harm, and no one could lie to him. He knew when a street was dangerous at night, whether because of muggers or because of motorists. When he held objects, he sometimes got intimations about the past history of a particular piece.

  Sometimes, if he concentrated hard enough, he could guess which sports team to bet on, or which horse at the track. He’d never had enough money to make a big profit with a bookie or at the track. Money in his life was hard to come by. It always had been. But not being able to be a big winner allowed him to score a good bet every now and again that helped tide him over. But generally, he had to watch his finances.

  That was why he was out scrounging for food now instead of staying at home hiding from the demons and hoping the military units would find a way to evacuate them from London. There simply wasn’t enough food in the flat to last an extended stay. And his instincts told him the demons were going to be in London for a long time. He hoped to be evacuated soon. He had no feelings about that.

  Not that Warren had anywhere to go. He’d lived his entire life in London. He’d never even been to France or Scotland or Ireland on a lark. On what he made working at the bookstore, there hadn’t been enough money.

  He’d barely made enough to keep his three flat mates from putting him out on the street. If they’d been able to make enough money between them—at the very least control their spending habits—or had been able to pick up another fourth to share the rent, he was certain they’d have gotten rid of him.

  For them, he was too creepy or too strange. Too silent and withdrawn. They called him Weird Warren behind his back and didn’t think he knew that. Although they didn’t know it, they had few secrets that he didn’t know after living with them.

  Personally, Warren thought of himself as taciturn. He didn’t like the company of others, and that usually bothered others. Instead of being glad he wasn’t trying to continually get into their business, they looked on him with resentment and suspicion.

  They hated the fact that he always had his rent ready at the first of the month without fail, and sometimes had a little extra to cover someone who was short. Instead of being grateful that he had it and was generous enough to share, although he’d been forced to do that through circumstance, they had speculated that he was involved in something illegal, which wasn’t a lot of fun for Warren, either.

  As a result of their suspicions, they’d sometimes tried to follow him. They also went through his things in his room and occasionally nicked any money he might have left lying out. He was creepy, but lucky, and everyone knew it.

  That was why he was one of those that got sent out tonight to get rations. Because he was lucky.

  Only now he knew that he had a demon sniffing him out. There was a fine line between good luck and bad luck, and all his life Warren Schimmer had experienced tons of both.

  Warren cowered in the back of the small convenience store. He knelt flattened against the refrigeration unit along the back wall. Nothing inside the unit was cold any more, of course. When the power had gone out, the refrigeration had died as well. The meat and vegetables were bad, but much of the cheese was processed and would keep at room temperature for weeks. Soda, juice, tea, and other beverages would keep as well. He’d hoped to get some of those.

  Kelli, the more sane of the two women in his flat group, started to move. He seized her wrist. She was blond and pretty, but had mean eyes and a small heart when it came to taking care of others. She worked mornings at a pastry shop and Friday and Saturday nights at a gentlemen’s club. Not as a dancer, but as a hostess.

  Her blond hair made her stand out in the darkness, but Warren knew he was almost invisible. At six-two, he was more than a head taller than she was. He was twenty-three, a couple of years younger than she was. He was long and lanky, dressed in black jeans, black motorcycle boots, black turtleneck, and a long black duster. With his black skin, he was a shadow among shadows.

  “Don’t move,” Warren whispered. That warning tickle still exploded inside his brain. It was everything he could do to keep from running away and leaving her there. If she put up much of an argument or a fight, he was going to do exactly that, though. He still wasn’t sure why he wasn’t doing that now.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Kelli demanded, yanking her hand free. She reached for the door of the refrigeration unit.

  “We’re…not…alone.” Warren breathed the words into her ear.

  “No, we’re not.” She whispered, too, hooking her fingers in her long hair and pulling it back from her face. “This place wasn’t empty when we came here.”