Part 7 (1/2)

”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.

On his knees in the wrecked supermarket with a dozen other scavengers, Warren Schimmerfelt the demon before he saw it.

All his life, he'd hadfeelings 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 circ.u.mstance, 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 Sat.u.r.day 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.”

The other scavengers were busy with the canned foods. All of them worked as fast as they could to gather everything they could safely carry.

Warren and Kelli had brought pillowcases, doubling them to increase the strength.

”Listen to me,” Warren said desperately, locking eyes with her. He'd found over the years that making eye contact with people he wanted to persuade was somehow more effective than simply voicing a logical argument. ”There's something out there.”

Kelli hesitated then. Warren had gone out of his way to get her from the club one night four months ago. He'd convinced her he'd had a premonition that something bad was going to happen. Only minutes later, a jealous boyfriend came in and shot his girlfriend and nine customers. The girlfriend and two of the customers had died.

”What makes you think that?” she asked. ”I just know it. We need to get out of here.” ”We need food,” Kelli argued. ”We're running out of things to eat.”

”If we don't leave,” Warren told her, ”we may not be going home tonight.” She stared into his eyes. ”Are you sure?”

Warren nodded. ”I'm sure.”

Kelli glanced around, but Warren knew he had her. ”All right,” she said.

Warren took a fresh grip on his pillowcase. It was less than half full, but he'd scored peanut b.u.t.ter, which would make George happy.

Lights suddenly flashed against the broken windows of the convenience store. ”Coppers,” one of the other scavengers groaned.

Immediately the scavengers began dumping items they'd stolen from residences onto the floor. For many of the scavengers, looting was a natural outgrowth of survival. Maybe they couldn't at the moment sell the jewelry, tri-dees, or individual entertainment systems they'd boosted, but they believed everything would return to normal soon. Then they planned on making small fortunes selling their stolen goods.

George was doing the same thing when he went out to forage.

The policeman entered the convenience store and s.h.i.+ned his flashlight around. Illuminated by the beam, the man looked tired and old. He wore riot gear, bulky and stiff. He carried an a.s.sault rifle in his other hand.

”You people need to get out of here,” the policeman said. His beam fell across the scattered jewelry and other items on the floor that clearly didn't belong in the convenience store. His face hardened. ”And stop that b.l.o.o.d.y thievery. Don't any of you have a conscience? You're out there robbing the dead. Or people that have been scared out of their homes.”

”Don't lecture us,” a big man snarled. ”We might not even get out of this. And if we do, we aren't going to have much. Insurance isn't going to cover our losses. I didn't have any alien insurance. Did you?” ”They're not aliens,” someone else said. ”They're demons.”

”What do we have here?” the first man asked sarcastically. ”Did the parson leave the vicarage long enough to come down and loot with the rest of us heathens?”

”Don't talk like that,” someone else said.