Hellgate

One Shadows meant safety. At least, shadows meant safety most of the time. They didn't offer shelter or a defensive position if those shadows were trying to eat someone hiding within them. And when someone hiding within them attacked, the shadows lost all effect. Leah Creasey worked to think only good thoughts about what she was about to do. Thinking that she might die at any given moment wasn't conducive to stealth. At the moment, stealth was her greatest ally. She eased through the alley in southeast London's Greenwich Peninsula. Not much of the metropolis existed here that the demons didn't control. However, most humans stayed out of the area these days and the demons didn't have anyone to hunt. Since they lived to hunt, most of them had gone where the hunting was better. For the moment, the area wasn't as heavily patrolled as it had been in the past. From personal experience, Leah knew that the demons lived to hunt. They didn't like pulling guard duty or anything that didn't allow them to unleash their blood frenzy. Halfway down the alley, Leah found a fire escape that zigzagged down the thirty-four-story building. She wore the lightweight black nanoflex aug-suit, built to boost a human's strength and speed. It covered her from head to toe. Her headpiece was reinforced to provide protection from bullets that caught her at an angle and didn't strike her dead-on. These days it also served to keep demons' claws from slicing off her face. It was also filled with a communications array and vision-enhancement programming. She carried a backpack that held additional munitions, meals, and other supplies. The heavy Poseidon sniper rifle across her back felt familiar and reassuring. "Blue Scout, this is Base," a woman's voice said. Commander Jane Hargrove called the shots on the night's operation. "Are you in position?" "I will be." Leah jumped up ten feet easily with the +Flex nanowire that ran throughout the suit. The suit was cutting-edge, ahead of anything else that had been reached inside the military. Only Leah knew that the suits, while serviceable and as good as anything she'd ever used in clandestine ops, were no match for the sheer onslaught and defensive capability of Templar armor. After all, the Templar designer of the suits had given the schematics to the military. That secretive order had kept the best for themselves. She didn't blame them. With the enemies they'd planned on facing, they'd needed an edge. Leah caught hold of the ladder and pulled herself up easily. The suit augmented her strength and speed, putting her far ahead of the abilities of Olympic champions. Almost effortlessly, she ran up thirty-three flights of stairs in the darkness. All power to Central London had been lost when the Hellgate opened at St. Paul's. At the rooftop, she slid the Poseidon from her back and crawled onto the roof. The LiquidBalance soles of her boots, kneepads, and elbow pads protected her from the rough roofing material and kept her movements soundless. The nonorganic, frictionless liquid didn't deaden her sense of touch, though. She felt the surface, but she didn't suffer injury. Leah lay prone on her stomach and stared at the dome-shaped white building below. Londoners simply called it the O2. Originally, it had been called the Millennium Dome and had been built to celebrate London's third millennium. Unfortunately, it hadn't proved to be the cash cow investors had thought it would be. The enterprise had since been renovated into an entertainment center that housed shops and a sports arena. The white dome had been constructed of polytetrafluoroethylene, a synthetic fluoropolymer that was lighter than the air trapped inside the dome. A network of support cables held it in place. Now, though, several holes gaped in the material and it looked like a battered wasp's nest. The look suited. From what Hargrove's intel officers had discovered, several Darkspawn had takenOdom, Mel is the author of 'Hellgate' with ISBN 9781416525813 and ISBN 1416525815.