Torment (Soul Savers Book 6) (26 page)

And then we found the
Daemoni.

We’d been
creeping along a plaza-like area right below the Eye, London’s
famous Ferris wheel, headed for the bridge to cross the river to
Westminster. Vanessa had been running ahead of us, scoping things out
and giving us the all clear when she found a place to hide us before
moving on to the next point. That was how she stumbled upon a nest of
vampires feasting.

“Oh, well. Hello,
boys,” she said about fifty yards ahead of us.

Tristan and I exchanged
a look and ran ahead to catch up with her. Solomon met us there.
Eight vampires were feeding on three Normans, obviously against their
will. We arrived in time to see Vanessa’s boot land in a
Daemoni vampire’s head as she kicked it as though it were a
soccer ball. Too distracted by his meal to realize whom he was
dealing with, he looked up at us with his lips curled back to bare
bloody fangs and red glowing eyes, trying to threaten us.

“I can do that,
too.” Vanessa displayed her true vampire look. Only, her eyes
didn’t glow.

“Me as well,”
Solomon said, and he vamped out, too, both of them snarling at the
others, who’d all stopped eating.

“I can’t do
that, but I can do this,” Tristan said, and he swept his hand
out, throwing the vampires off the Normans.

They soared several
yards and crashed into the ticket building for the Eye, then jumped
to their feet and flew back at us. I shot electricity at them at the
same time Tristan stopped them in mid-motion, paralyzing them.
Vanessa blurred behind them, and with a succession of cracks, they
each dropped to the ground, their heads at odd angles to the rest of
their bodies.

She appeared next to
me.

“You broke their
necks?” I asked.

“It’s not
like they’re dead,” she retorted.

“Do you know
them?” Solomon asked as he studied each one.

Vanessa walked back
over to the line of still bodies. She kicked one’s foot.
“That’s the leader of the main London nest.”

“Not likely to be
converted then,” Charlotte said, finally joining us. “Are
any of them?”

Vanessa wrinkled her
nose. “Doubt it. This nest is one of the worst of the worst.”

“Alexis, you know
what to do,” Charlotte said.

With a sigh, I grabbed
the hilt of my dagger and walked over to the temporarily dead vamps.
If they couldn’t take what I was about to do, the “temporarily”
part would have been, well, temporary. I swallowed hard, trying to
push the lump in my throat away as I squatted next to the one Vanessa
had identified as the leader. I thought he’d be an easy way to
start this process, getting the worst out of the way first. Holding
my dagger with both hands, I lifted it above my head, then slammed it
into his chest, straight into his heart. At the same time, I pushed
Amadis power through the blade.

His body immediately
began convulsing from the combination of the silver blade and the
power of all things good. His eyes flew open, glowing bright red. But
only for a moment. They dimmed quickly and then went out completely
as his skin put off a purplish-black smoke, stinking like a corpse
and shriveling up against his bones. My Amadis power defeated the
dark magic in him, the only thing keeping him “alive”
since he had no hope or love—no
soul
—left inside
him.

Mom and Charlotte had
taught me the theory of killing a Daemoni who’d lost his soul
completely to Satan, but this was the first time I’d actually
done it. I’d delivered the final and true death to this
vampire.

I moved along the line
of bodies, doing the same to each one. If any of them had hope left,
they would have begged for mercy. I would have been able to sense any
possibility for redemption. They only needed the slightest hint of
hope, of desire to be different. None of these vamps had any, and
they all shriveled into dried up corpses.

My heart felt as
withered as their bodies by the time I finished. I’d said
numerous times how much I wanted to kill the Daemoni, but now that
I’d actually done so, it didn’t give me the satisfaction
I’d desired. Only overwhelming sadness.

“The Normans will
be okay,” Blossom said, putting a hand on my arm to comfort me.
“Solomon healed them and sent them on their way.”

I nodded. “That’s
good.”

Tristan shot a flame
out of his palm, lighting the corpses on fire to make sure they were
good and gone.

“That’ll
draw attention,” Owen said. “We better get moving again.”

We’d barely
started off when someone whispered from a shadow, “Follow me.”

A Norman girl wearing
all black—a leather jacket, jeans, and combat boots—with
a sword strapped to her back and another knife tied to her upper
thigh, stepped in front of us and waved us in her direction. Tristan
and I exchanged a glance.

“Come
on
,”
she said, “before the humans see you.”

We walked in her
direction, but only because she headed the same way we did anyway.
She ran ahead of us, beckoning us on.

“We’ll lose
her on the other side of the bridge,” Tristan murmured, and I
nodded.

Until we’d come
upon the vamps, I’d been contemplating what we were going to do
after Westminster Abbey. I was pretty sure that wasn’t the
abbey Cassandra had meant. After Tristan had pointed out that I
smelled like Mom, Rina, and Cassandra, I had to admit to myself that
they hadn’t been a vision, which meant I had to sincerely
consider what they’d instructed me to do. And that made me
wonder if Noah was still at Whitby Abbey, and they were sending us
there for that reason. The whole secret door and knock was weird,
though, throwing me for a loop.

The girl continued
heading in the same direction we did, until right before we reached
Westminster, when she turned right into an alley.

“This way,”
she said, but we kept on. “Alexis! This way before they see
you!”

She held a door open
about twenty feet into the alley. Above it, carved into the wood
frame, was a pair of angel wings.

“Hold on,”
I murmured, grabbing Tristan’s arm as I turned toward the girl.
“Who are you?”

Her eyes grew big as
she stared behind me. “Just come
on
!”

Several pairs of heavy
footsteps ran toward us, and I glanced over my shoulder. These
weren’t super-sized, beefed up Normans, but they were still
military, with military-issued guns pointed right at us.

“Hurry up,”
the girl yelled. “It’s safe in here.”

Guns started firing,
only in the air at first. I glanced at my people, all of them looking
at me as though I’d lost my mind when I jerked my head in the
girl’s direction.

“Let’s go,”
I said, deciding to trust her … and Cassandra.

I took off for the door
at the same time the soldiers lowered their guns, no longer giving us
warnings. My team sprinted after me.

“In here.”
The girl waved us inside.

Once we ran through the
entrance, she slammed and bolted the metal door shut with a thick
piece of wood.

“I’ll
protect it,” Owen said.

“Who are you?”
I demanded of the girl. “How do you know my name?”

She pushed the sleeve
of her jacket back, and turned the inside of her wrist upward to show
what looked like a new tattoo: the same angel wings that were carved
in the doorway with the initials A.K. scrolled into them.

“I’m
Kristen,” she said. “Second in charge of this place.
Ammi, my sister, is commander, but she’s out right now.”

“What place?”
I asked suspiciously. I assumed A.K. stood for Ammi and Kristen, and
I almost laughed. Cassandra really had sent us to some kind of
bizarre neighborhood clubhouse, after all.

“Relax, Alexis.”
She pushed her sleeve to cover the tattoo and turned to lead us down
the dark corridor we’d entered. After a few yards, it ended at
stairs that only went down. “You’re with friends.
Supporters.”

She moved fast for a
Norman, taking us down several flights before we came to the last
step and walked into an enormous room lit with only two
battery-powered lanterns in diagonal corners. A few dozen people were
gathered, most curled on makeshift beds of blankets and sleeping
bags, and some sitting or standing in small groups and whispering
quietly while working on various tasks—reading, sewing, even
bandaging each other up. A few others came into the room through
doorways. The lighting was too dim to see where those doors led. They
all fell silent, stopped what they were doing, and turned to us with
excitement and awe shining in their eyes. Then they began to arouse
the others. Whispers of “Wake up and look who’s here!”
carried across the room.

“We would have
made your welcome a big party if we’d known you were coming,”
Kristen said. “I know it’s not a castle or anything, but
you and your group can call it home for now. You’re safe here.”

“What
is
this
place?” I asked again. “Who are you people?”

Those awake enough to
know what was going on held their arms up—some already bare,
others having to push sleeves back—and showed the same tattoo
on all of their inner wrists.
Okay, maybe not a club. More like a
cult.

“This,”
Kristen said, sweeping her arm out toward the room, “all of
us?” She smiled proudly. “We are A.K.’s Angels.”

I stared at her with
bewilderment, not understanding why she seemed to expect me to be
excited, or at least impressed. “A.K., as in Ammi and Kristen?”

She laughed. “No,
silly. A.K. as in Alexis Katerina.”

I simply stared at the
girl, too shocked to form words. Tristan, Owen, Charlotte, and
Vanessa, however, pushed me backwards to stand in front of me. The
rest of my team circled Dorian and me in, blocking my view of
anything, although I heard the shuffles of many people in the room
rising to their feet.

“How do you know
her name?” Tristan demanded, and with the sharp tone of his
voice, I could only imagine the frightful spark in his eyes.

“She was right?”
Kristen squeaked, sounding excited and impressed just as much as
scared. Her nerves showed as she babbled on. “It’s really
Alexis Katerina? That’s what someone in one of the American
cells said, but we didn’t know if she really knew what she was
talking about. We thought it was a guess, you know, from A.K.
Emerson. I mean, we got the Alexis part from the news, before it went
down, and there’s been all kinds of speculation about the K. We
heard more and more that it stood for Katerina, so that’s kind
of what we went with. No worries. It’s just A.K. for all
intents and purposes. Don’t want those arseholes out there
knowing exactly what it all means. Anyway, you, uh, don’t have
to worry about us. We’re on your side.”

“You need to
explain more than that,” Vanessa ordered.

“
Who
are
you?” Owen asked.

I peeked around
Tristan’s arm. I really didn’t feel like we had anything
to worry about. Only Normans dwelled here. Nothing we couldn’t
handle. And the bits and pieces I could pick up from their thoughts
were far from alarming—most simply felt awe to see us here.
Sasha remained hidden in Dorian’s coat, so she didn’t
sense any danger either.

“We’re
A.K.’s fans,” Kristen said. “
Big
fans. We
had a forum on the Internet, where we would talk about the books and
characters—the largest fan site for A.K. Emerson. Fans from all
over would get on there all the time, even after she died … or
when we thought she died. A lot of us didn’t believe she
actually had, since there was no body or anything. Anyway, we even
had role-playing games and everything. So when the news said A.K. was
still alive and responsible for the supernatural attacks, the forum
exploded. Most of us were gobsmacked, especially the part about her
leading the bad guys. Her—” She ducked to peek at me
between Tristan’s and Owen’s arms. “
Your
books are good, as in not evil. They’re dark, yes, but they’re
also about love and hope. How could anyone who writes stuff like that
be responsible for everything going on? So we started putting
together local groups and called ourselves A.K.’s Angels. It
was mostly all talk at first, trying to sort how to prove to the
world that you aren’t bad. But then things got worse. We lost
our homes, our schools, and businesses. Family members …
Everything’s changed. So we gathered here, and this has become
home. There are cells around the world doing the same thing.”
She paused and frowned. “Last we know, that is. Since all the
networks went down, we haven’t been able to communicate with
any of the others. We don’t know who’s still around. We
were the third largest then, though. Two American cells were the
largest. But who knows now?”

Despair colored her
tone. I pushed my way between Tristan and Owen and looked out at the
small crowd.

“These are all my
fans?” I asked with disbelief.

“Well, not
exactly, not anymore. That’s how we started, but we’ve
added other people since everything went to shit. Family, neighbors,
friends … anyone we find still alive and can convince to come
with us. Strength in numbers and all that. Ammi and a small group are
out right now, looking for survivors from these latest bombings. I
was out with them, but then I saw you lot and had to stop. They took
off without me.”

“But these are
all
A.K.’s supporters?” Charlotte asked.

Kristen grimaced. “Some
don’t know what to believe, but they owe us their lives. No one
would be here if Ammi and I hadn’t started this cell. They’d
either be dead or in the camps with that bizarre-o military holding
them hostage. They came with us because they know the media and the
governments were full of shit when everything went bad, and they
trusted us over them. So yeah, we trust them, too. So can you.”
She wrung her hands together as she looked over her shoulder at her
people, then back at us. “So, uh, are you hungry? Thirsty?
Tired? Want tea or a bath?”