The Book of Bones (Harvey Bennett Thrillers 7)

by Nick Thacker

  “Julie! What are you doing?”

  His voice was booming, raging right next to her —

  She jolted back into the present. The forest, the humidity, the clearing.

  The ricocheting of bullets as they were denied purchase in the chopper's side, the helicopter’s own return fire ripping downward and decimating the ground and anything that was in its way.

  What the hell was that? she wondered. It was as if her mind had just conjured up a scene from a memory — a movie, almost — that it wanted her to see again. But she wasn’t sure if it was her memory or someone else’s.

  They reached the trees on the opposite side of the road where the battle was taking place. Only now it wasn’t much of a battle. The giants — and she was sure that’s what they were now that she could see them close up — were focused solely on the chopper and its strafing fire as it passed repeatedly above them.

  She saw Archie and Sharpe, both firing with their own minuscule-looking weapons at the beasts and the chopper alike.

  And she saw something else. In her peripheral vision, as she dodged what appeared to be a giant leg and foot, severed at the knee, and entered the forested cover where the rest of her team was, she saw the temple in the distance.

  Men were pouring out of it. Normal, human-sized men.

  Ravenshadow.

  Julie saw their black outfits, their trained postures and organized lines and knew immediately that she was seeing the bulk of Vicente Garza’s forces, now deployed to clean up the mess in the clearing.

  They were all carrying assault rifles as well, and they were already firing up at the chopper.

  Whatever the chopper’s plan was, it was about to get significantly more difficult.

  Another second passed, and she changed her mind: a second helicopter, a carbon copy of the first, flew over the burnt-out hull of their jeep and into the clearing, its mounted gun already winding up and firing at the oncoming army of men. Bodies flew upward and out, pieces of weaponry and armor and men exploding and disappearing into nothingness behind walls of dirt and earth.

  On the road, mere feet from where she was crouching in the forest, she saw more men — the much smaller army of Guild Rite men — driving toward them.

  The problem was that they were driving a tank. Men hung off the side of the tank and were piled on top of it like ants on a floating stick. They were dressed like the soldiers they’d come across at the other temple, but wearing white aprons. They too were firing assault rifles, aiming at the giants and the Ravenshadow army.

  It was, in a word, appalling. She’d never seen anything like it. The giants, the Ravenshadow men, the tank full of white apron-wearing soldiers.

  “Julie,” Victoria said. “We’re moving to the temple. If Reggie and Sarah are here somewhere, that’s where they’ll be.”

  Julie stood up, careful to ensure she was still out of sight of the tank and its men, and followed Victoria and the others. The injured Peruvian was lying on the ground, but two of his fellow soldiers picked him up and carried him between them.

  “Stay in the woods,” Ben shouted. “We’ll be hard to see in here, and both sides are a bit preoccupied now, so I don’t think they’ll send anyone in looking for us.”

  The team began their journey — the majority of their short trip would be behind tree cover; it was the last few-hundred feet, from the edge of the rainforest to the temple, that would be wide open.

  Julie took a deep breath and plunged ahead.

  76

  Victoria

  Victoria’s knees were cut and scraped, but she could barely feel it. Their journey through the forest — about a half-mile trip total — was uneventful.

  She couldn’t say the same about the battle that was waging out in the valley, however. The five giants had been cut down to two, but then four more showed up from somewhere beyond the temple where the valley met the cliffs.

  There was no way to know how many there were, but Victoria hoped that the nine they’d seen so far was it.

  Nine giants.

  Nine Nephilim.

  She still couldn’t believe the Guild Rite had been correct — that these giants were, in fact, Nephilim.

  She recalled the verse from the book of Numbers: “The land that we have gone through as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people that we saw in it are of great size. There we saw the Nephilim… and to ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”

  The Israelites had gone to Canaan to scout the territory and found it to be inhabited by the descendants of Anak, who came from the Nephilim.

  She also recalled the other accounts throughout history of giants walking the earth, fighting with men and gods alike, and the stories that came from it.

  And here they are, alive. Fighting.

  She shook her head in disbelief, but she pushed the thoughts out of her head. There was more to think about now.

  Much more.

  The battle had slowed, each side entrenching itself and waiting for the opposing forces to drive forward. One chopper had been shot down by a giant, and the other had taken cover hovering over the trees where the Guild Rite was camped.

  It had been fifteen minutes since they’d started their trek through the woods, and now they had reached their exit point.

  “Okay,” Ben said. “On me. You guys —” he pointed to the soldiers — “cover us. We’ll run, then turn and cover you.”

  The injured man nodded, trying to lift his weapon, but Ben stopped him. “You need to stay here. We’ll set you up against a rock or tree, but if you go in there, if you try to run they clip you or anything, you might not come back.”

  He waited for the recognition of understanding, but none came. Archie turned to the young man, still bleeding from a chest wound, and started speaking. The kid’s face fell, but he nodded. “Okay,” he said.

  Sharpe stepped forward. “I’ll stay with him.”

  Ben stared at him. Victoria knew the look. He didn’t trust the Interpol agent, but she also knew he didn’t have a choice. “Okay,” he said. “Keep him alive. He dies, you die.”

  Sharpe nodded.

  If it were up to her, she’d have made the same decision. I’d rather keep the untrustworthy party as far away from me as I can.

  “On my count,” Ben said. “Ready?”

  Nods all around.

  He counted off one and two, then shouted ‘three’ a bit louder, crashing out of the forest a moment later. Victoria pumped her sore legs, trying to stay to the right of Ben’s large frame. Julie and Archie were right there with him.

  A few of the soldiers from Ravenshadow turned and began firing at them, but the Peruvian soldiers hidden in the trees returned the volley of gunfire, driving the Ravenshadow men back into their cover. A burst of chopper fire earned both sides’ attention, and the battle resumed.

  They reached the open doors of the temple and Ben peered into it.

  “It’s dark,” he said, “but I don’t think anyone’s there.” Victoria saw him palm a round object as he stepped into the temple. A grenade?

  Victoria followed Julie inside. Dark, damp air, and a musty smell greeted them, tinged with something else. Metal? Chemicals? The space appeared to be exactly the same as the temple as the one at the other end of the valley that she’d been in with the Guild Rite.

  The walls were rounded, the ceiling vaulted. Hardly any light broke through the doorways that led into the room, but it was enough to see that there were no other nooks or recessed areas to hide in. They were alone.

  Until she saw the pillar. There, in the center of the room, on top of the same rounded pillar on its low, wide dais, were two people — a man and a woman. They were stretched and tied down, one of each of their hands tied together above their heads.

  Reggie and Sarah.

  But it wasn’t the two people she was focusing on. Instead, her gaze was pulled upward to a giant steel sheet. It glistened in the light, the silvery and yellowish tone ref
lecting the sunlight and bouncing it another direction. It was mounted between two guides, both of which hung from a suspended beam that had been erected across the top of the room.

  It was brutal, but she knew it had been built for efficiency. She was looking at a modernized version of a guillotine.

  Ben stepped forward. “Reggie!”

  A voice caught her attention. It came from the other doorway, across the temple from them. “I would think twice about approaching the dais, Harvey.”

  She felt her blood run cold.

  Ben froze, and she saw Julie grab his arm. Archie, too, stepped behind Ben.

  This can’t be happening. I never thought —

  “Garza,” Ben growled. “What have you done?”

  Vicente Garza’s heels clapped at the stone floor as he approached them. Sauntering nonchalantly.

  “Take a step and I drop the blade. Fire at me and my team drops the blade. It’s a simple request, Harvey. We finish this here, but on my terms.”

  Ben brooded, but none of them moved.

  “Have you enjoyed my creation?” he asked. “It was a joint effort, but I trust my benefactors will care little with what I do with the giants after our project is complete.”

  “They’re an abomination,” Ben said.

  “They’re a masterpiece. Unfinished, for sure, but can’t you see? God’s hand is in this work! He created these men to rule! The only thing missing then — what I provide now — is a leader powerful enough to keep them focused.”

  “You — killed them.”

  “No, I gave them a purpose. They worked for me. They knew the risks, and they knew the rewards. Sure, they will probably not last a year, but think of the work that we have completed by then. Future models will not suffer from the osteoporosis and tumors, and —”

  He stopped.

  Leaned forward a bit, then squinted as he tried to see better in the dark room.

  He turned his head to the side, as if not believing what he was seeing.

  Finally, he spoke. “Victoria?”

  She felt her heart sink. She didn’t want to believe it. She’d heard the name, heard the way they spoke of him.

  And then she’d seen him and still thought it might be a lie, an act.

  But no. He was here.

  She stepped up next to Ben and Julie. Hoped she could borrow some of the couples’ strength just by being near them.

  She took a breath, blinked, then uttered the words she hadn’t thought she’d ever say again.

  “Hello, Dad.”

  77

  Ben

  Dad? What was going on? This woman — Victoria Reyes — was the daughter of Vicente “The Hawk” Garza?

  And why didn’t she say anything?

  “Victoria,” Garza said. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I — was kidnapped. By the Guild Rite.”

  “Guild Rite,” he said, chewing on the words. “Is that the group of masons attacking my soldiers outside?”

  She nodded. “They’re not really masons, but they have ties to them. They’re against the Catholic Church. Against the people you’re working for.”

  “I’m working for myself, Vic. But they have invested heavily in seeing this project through, and I intend to keep my promises.”

  He flicked his eyes to Julie. “And I do keep my promises, isn’t that right, Ms. Richardson?”

  Julie didn’t respond, but Ben tensed up. “What are you doing here, Garza? With them?”

  Garza smiled and shook his head. “Don’t you get it? Harvey, my goal was simple: find the Book of Bones. Do you happen to have it with you?”

  Ben clenched his fist, his white-knuckled grip wanting to reach up and smash through Garza’s face. But Garza was smart — smarter than him, at least. And he was good. He might be a formidable opponent against Reggie, but against Ben… well, he didn’t like his chances. The man might be older by at least a decade, but he was still in top shape.

  Plus, Garza had stopped in the center of the room, about halfway between them and the pillar where Reggie and Sarah were strapped down. Ben couldn’t see the details, but it appeared as though their arms had been bound together beneath the massive blade. A gruesome threat, Ben thought.

  But he had no idea how he could get to Garza before he did whatever he would have to do to drop the blade. Ben couldn’t see any button or control surface on Garza’s person, but that didn’t mean the switch wasn’t a tiny, nearly invisible object. And Garza had said that he could have his team drop the blade as well — did that mean they had cameras in here? Were there more soldiers watching in on them now?

  “Let them go.”

  “I asked you a question,” Garza said.

  “You know the answer to that question. Of course we don’t have it. The closest we got was Rome, to the Vatican, but — we failed.”

  “You didn’t find the book there?”

  “We failed because there is no book.”

  “That’s a lie.”

  “It’s not,” Ben said, his voice even. “The Book of Bones, the Dialog of Hermocrates — it’s a myth. A legend purported by Plato’s followers to earn him more recognition. It was a scare tactic, and —”

  “That’s a lie, because I have the Book of Bones back in Philadelphia, on my desk.”

  Ben swallowed. “Whatever you have, it’s not the —”

  “It is, Ben. Don’t you see? This is a game, all of it. My success, the success of my benefactors, my enemies. We’re all maneuvering around each other, trying to gain purchase, to gain control. This —” he raised his arm and swung it around the temple’s interior once — “this is control.”

  “You control nothing, asshole.”

  “Careful with your choice of words, Harvey.” Garza looked over to where Reggie and Sarah were bound to the table. “You saw my army out there. My Ravenshadow forces against a couple choppers and about fifteen men? How do you think that will end?

  “No, you’re wrong, Harvey. I do have control. Finally, and very soon I will have even more of it. That’s what this was all about — the Book of Bones, that’s how I created these people. Break the bone, reset it after injecting the area with a strain of yeast, and then let it grow. Do it again, and again. Add targeted radiation to the affected areas to slow and stunt the growth, and eventually you have a giant.

  “The human form is truly remarkable. Able to withstand an agonizing amount of adaptation and pain. Skin and muscles regrow, stretch, and eventually move to fit their new skeletal host, with — I’ll admit — a few minor deformations.”

  Ben thought about the giants he’d seen in the valley. Their faces seemed sunken, their eyes too small for their heads, their foreheads stretched tightly.

  “You already have the Book of Bones?” Ben asked. “Then why make us find it for you?”

  “Ben,” Garza said. “Like I said. This is a game. It’s being played on an Earth-sized chessboard, and I didn’t know exactly who my enemy was.”

  Ben squeezed his eyes shut as he realized the truth, but it was Archie who spoke up. “We were your pawns. The disposable chess pieces on your board.”

  “Precisely,” Garza said. “By having you find the Book of Bones, it drew out the enemy. I was safe to create, to experiment, to grow my army here. But eventually they — this Guild Rite group — found me. You helped a bit with that.”

  “Etienne Sharpe. He had pieces of Plato’s book in the journal he took from us.”

  “Yes,” Garza said. “He was likely the one who led them all here.”

  Garza took a few steps toward them, now reaching into a pocket and taking out a small, remote control-looking apparatus. So it is a little button, Ben thought.

  “I don’t need to explain what this is, do I? Press it, real quick, that blade falls. Your friends will lose their hands. I was going to use them, to begin the process of creating a couple more members of my larger team, if you will, but then… I changed my mind.”

  “Why?”

  �
�They were going to be my first breeding pair. All this talk, all this history about the Nephilim, the ‘giants of old,’ they were all men. Nowhere is there any writing about giant women. But there had to be, right? How else would they have populated their world?

  “But then I heard that you were here, Ben. I heard you brought the whole group, too. Julie, Archibald Quinones, whom I have not had the pleasure of meeting. And, of course, my own daughter.”

  78

  Ben

  Victoria spat at his feet.

  “How long has it been, Vic? Ten years? Fifteen?”

  “You’re dead to me.”

  “I was all you ever had!” Garza shouted.

  Victoria sniffed. Ben could sense that the woman was on the edge, on the brink. He wanted to help her somehow, but he knew the risk. He knew what was really at stake. She’ll be fine, he told himself.

  “I loved you!” he continued. “And you, what? Threw it all away for an academic degree?”

  “I threw it away when you decided you cared about your own personal gain more than your daughter. Your only family. You’re a monster,” she said. “You’ve always been one.”

  “You know nothing of who I am.”

  There was a pause, and Ben took that opportunity to get back on track. “So, Garza? What is it? What do you want from us? You’ve got your book, you’ve got your little science experiment. What’s it going to take for you to let them go? Me?”

  Garza laughed. “Ben, you truly are naïve. I wondered about you in Philadelphia, and again in The Bahamas. But then I realized: your naivety is why you are driven into things like this. You don’t know the risks, so you rush in headstrong and fearless.”

  “Get to the point, Garza. Me for them?”

  “No, no. That’s just it. The thing about control is there’s no reason for any negotiation. I hold the cards, Harvey. And I intend to play my hand to the very end.”

  Ben realized just then that the fighting outside had come to an end. Not good. It meant that one of the sides had prevailed. Either was bad for him, as both sides were against him.