The Resurrection Key

by Andy McDermott

‘Shit!’ Nina hissed. ‘Someone’s coming!’

  There was nowhere to hide; they would be seen by Zan or his guard if they exited the tunnel’s mouth. Eddie looked back the way they had come. A light washed over the walls, its source hidden past a bend in the passage – but it was getting closer. Muffled footsteps reached them. Three people, more . . .

  ‘They’re going!’ Nina whispered. Zan descended the walkway, the armoured giant following. They rounded the pillar, backs turning towards her—

  ‘Come on!’ She ducked and scurried across the bridge. Eddie hesitated, then followed, Cheng and Barney behind him.

  The guard passed out of sight. Nina increased her pace and ran into the empty chamber inside the pillar. The others darted after her. Eddie peered out . . .

  The lights became visible in the tunnel. Not the shimmering glow of earth energy, but the steady beams of several torches – so it wasn’t just Sandra and Macy. ‘Who’s that?’ said Barney, concerned. ‘Sandra wouldn’t have let anyone down here.’

  The answer came a moment later.

  Wu Shun appeared in the tunnel mouth. Cheng jerked back into hiding with an involuntary gasp of fear.

  ‘What the fuck is she doing here?’ Eddie growled.

  She was not alone. A Chinese man in the same dark clothing emerged behind her – then it was Barney’s turn to be shocked by another arrival. ‘It’s Sandra!’

  A freezing hand clutched Nina’s heart. ‘Oh my God. Macy was with her!’

  Eddie’s face became a mask of cold rage, hands tightening around the rifle. ‘If those fuckers have hurt her—’

  But he didn’t move. If he showed himself, he would be dead in moments – the Chinese special ops team were all armed and ready. Instead he forced himself to observe, and wait.

  Torch beams swept through the opening, glinting off the crystalline walls – then suddenly they clicked off, the intruders ducking back. Faint footsteps and Zan’s grunts told Eddie why: the translator and his escort had come around the spiral, and the tunnel was in their line of sight. Fortunately – or otherwise – both were concentrating on where they put their feet rather than looking up.

  The two men continued round the pillar, passing from sight again. Wu reappeared, looking down the seemingly infinite shaft before staring across at the entrance to Nina and Eddie’s hiding place . . . then cocking her head at a message through an earpiece. She gave an order. Her companions turned to retreat—

  A sweep of light caught a figure smaller than the others: Macy. It took all Eddie’s willpower not to call out her name. ‘They’ve got Macy too,’ he rumbled, unable to keep the fury from his voice.

  Even expecting the grim news, Nina felt as if the blood was draining from her body. She put a hand against the wall to steady herself—

  And was slammed into another reality.

  The crystal pillar was inconceivably huge, the power flowing through it beyond imagination – and the full force of both hit her so hard that her consciousness was almost swept away. Somehow she clung on, overcoming the shock of contact with the earth’s strange energies . . .

  She sensed others in the maelstrom with her.

  Tiny points of awareness, diamond hard, trapped and tormented. The rest of the Nephilim. The captives of the Veteres, ‘benevolently’ imprisoned rather than killed for their crimes of birth, were here.

  All of them. So many, she couldn’t even count. They were somewhere below her, inside the pillar itself.

  But there was something else, outside the pillar – beyond Uluru, the entire country. A seething discord, growing in strength with every passing moment. Somehow, she knew Sidona had set it in motion. Another attack, on a far greater scale than the destruction in Xinengyuan. Nina tried to reach out to reshape it, but it was too big, too powerful—

  The real world snapped back into place. Eddie’s worried face filled her vision. ‘Nina!’ he said. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I . . .’ she said, confused, before recovering. ‘Eddie, they’ve used the tracker to start another attack – I don’t know where, but it’s big. The power’s building up already.’

  ‘Can you stop it?’

  ‘No – not without the tracker, and maybe the key as well.’

  ‘Then we have to catch Zan!’ said Cheng.

  ‘We’ve got to rescue Macy,’ Eddie countered. ‘The only reason Wu would have come here with a special forces team is to kill the Nephilim – and us.’

  ‘There’s something else,’ said Nina. ‘I felt it when I touched the crystal. The other Nephilim really are imprisoned, somewhere below us. And there are hundreds of them, thousands.’

  ‘What? Jesus Christ, Gadreel’s going to end up with an army!’

  ‘No, he isn’t,’ she said, desperately trying to explain. ‘Yes, some of them might be warriors – but most of them aren’t. There are children imprisoned here, for God’s sake! If Wu and her team kill them all, it won’t just be murder – it’ll be genocide. We can’t let her do it.’

  ‘So what are we supposed to do? Let Gadreel wake ’em up so both sides can fight it out?’

  ‘I think the best thing would be to leave them where they are. If they’re resurrected, they’ll all be killed, one way or another. Humans exterminated the Veteres, just like the Neanderthals; you think we’d let another potential rival survive?’

  ‘But if you leave them trapped,’ Cheng reminded her, ‘it’ll be like torturing them for eternity.’ A fearful look crossed his face at the reminder of what had almost certainly happened to his mother.

  ‘It’s better than being dead,’ she replied. ‘And they survived all this time down here. They might survive another hundred thousand years, and eventually wake up. The Veteres are gone, and we probably will be too by then. Maybe they’ll finally get the chance to live that they’ve never had.’

  ‘Let’s worry about the present before the future,’ said Eddie impatiently. ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘I have to get to the tracker,’ said Nina. ‘I’m the only one who can stop Gadreel’s attack – and maybe prevent a genocide.’

  ‘I’m going to get Macy,’ Eddie said firmly. ‘We need to split up.’

  ‘Yeah, because that always goes so well, huh?’ They shared a resigned smile. ‘Okay, Cheng, you come with me. I might need your help with the Nephilim language – and the Chinese, for that matter. I can’t read the text on the tracker.’

  Barney looked askance at Eddie. ‘So I guess I’m coming with you to take on a heavily armed commando team?’

  ‘You want to take on the army of giants whose guns make people explode?’ the Englishman shot back.

  The Australian was not happy. ‘Sounds like I’m screwed either way. And I thought tourists were a pain in the arse.’

  Flashlights were shared between the two groups. ‘Okay,’ Eddie said to Nina. ‘I’ll save Macy, you save the world.’

  ‘I don’t know which is going to be harder,’ she said. ‘Let’s . . . let’s get her home safely, huh?’

  ‘Yeah. With both of us.’ He embraced and kissed her, then let go. ‘Let’s all get home safe,’ he said to the two other men, before looking back across the bridge. ‘Okay, it’s clear.’

  ‘Good luck,’ said Cheng.

  ‘You too.’ A last touch of Nina’s hand, then he started across the narrow bridge, Barney behind him. He glanced down. Gadreel and Sidona were at the bottom of the spiral, the female Nephilim entering another chamber inside the crystal pillar while her husband crossed the larger bridge to the cathedral-like room. Higher up, Zan was still struggling to carry the heavy tracker down the walkway—

  The Chinese slipped, reeling towards the edge before lurching back against the crystal with a frightened yell.

  The noise draw Gadreel’s attention. He looked up, spotting the panting translator on the spiral—

  And the un
expected figure on the higher crossing.

  Eddie hurriedly pulled back, but it was too late. A commanding shout echoed up the shaft. ‘Buggeration!’ he barked, readying the rifle as he looked down again. It was a long shot, but if he could take out the Nephilim leader before he organised his forces—

  The warrior behind Zan was already responding to Gadreel’s command. His baraka came up – and fired.

  The bolt of energy hit the bridge’s underside, red stone exploding beneath Eddie and Barney. The ranger staggered, then slipped over the edge as a section of the crossing fell away—

  Eddie lunged, catching his wrist. The big man’s weight almost dragged him into the abyss. He strained to haul him back up, but felt his hold slipping. Tossing the rifle aside, he clapped his other hand around the Australian’s arm.

  The bridge shuddered. A chunk fell away just beyond Barney, splitting the crossing in half. Eddie finally found his grip and dragged him onto the dusty surface. He felt the bridge shifting under his feet – with the supporting arch broken, the crossing’s separate halves would soon collapse—

  Another sizzling bolt of earth energy slammed into the bridge’s far side. Gadreel had fired his own weapon. Pulverised fragments struck Eddie and Barney – and the weakened structure gave way.

  Nina and Cheng jumped back into the chamber as the section of bridge before them sheared from the pillar, smashing through part of the spiral walkway lower down before spinning out into the chasm. Gadreel ran for cover as debris fell past him.

  Half the bridge had gone – and the other half was about to follow. ‘Run!’ Eddie shouted, pulling the winded Barney to his feet and hurrying for the tunnel. The rifle was balanced precariously on the crossing’s edge. He bent to snatch it up as he passed – but another jolt pitched the gun over just before his hand reached it.

  No time even to curse. Still towing the Australian, he dived into the tunnel just as the rest of the bridge broke from the cliff behind them.

  The panting ranger said something in what Eddie assumed was a local language. ‘If that means “buggeration and fuckery”, I’m with you,’ he muttered.

  He risked a quick look down the shaft. The petrified Zan was being forced to continue downwards by his guard. Gadreel shouted more orders on the lower bridge, Nephilim spilling from the cathedral behind him. The Yorkshireman looked across at Nina in alarm. Her expression matched his. She and Cheng were trapped on the far side of the abyss—

  An explosion came from below.

  43

  Major Wu and her team returned to the main passage in response to a scout’s radio message. He had located a Nephilim force in a large chamber below, some eighteen men. Considering the size of the craft that had escaped from Xinengyuan, that was probably most if not all of the survivors.

  Her unit had the advantage of surprise, and more powerful weapons. Their MP7s fired high-velocity armour-piercing rounds; even shielded, the warriors’ gaudy suits would provide little protection. The team also had explosive and stun grenades, smoke bombs and thermal sights – more than enough to counteract their enemies’ greater numbers.

  And if all else failed . . . there was the nuke.

  Leaving Liu, the man bearing the bomb, to guard Macy and Sandra at the junction, Wu led the rest of her team to the bottom of the tunnel. ‘They aren’t expecting trouble,’ the waiting scout whispered.

  Wu checked for herself. The Nephilim were in several groups, but relatively close together. ‘That balcony’s accessible from the other tunnel,’ she said, indicating it. ‘If we position some men up there, we can attack from two angles simultaneously—’

  A shout from beyond the towering chamber – then the crackle of a Nephilim spear weapon. A moment later, an explosion echoed down the shaft.

  Whatever had just happened, the warriors were unprepared for it. Several jumped up, looking towards the huge shaft in confusion – before grabbing their own weapons.

  No time now for carefully coordinated ambushes. ‘We attack now!’ Wu hissed, raising her weapon. ‘Move in! Wipe them out!’

  She took the lead as her team rushed into the cathedral, splitting up to use the fallen boulders for cover. Another qigun shot tore up the shaft, several warriors running through the giant arch—

  She snatched the pin from a hand grenade and lobbed it into one of the groups of Nephilim. The metallic smack as it hit the ground made some of them turn. Inhuman shouts of alarm as they saw the intruders—

  The grenade exploded, blast and shrapnel tearing the closest giants apart.

  Other grenades arced through the chamber, killing and wounding more warriors. Wu felt no pity, focused completely on extermination. She opened fire on a monster bringing up his qigun. His armour sparked with unnatural light as the rounds hit home, but the earth energy shielding it was not enough to withstand the assault. He fell backwards, holes torn through his chest.

  More guns chattered, warriors falling, but now they had overcome their surprise. They dropped into cover – and fired back.

  Macy and Sandra reacted in shock at the sound of battle below. Liu also responded with alarm. The hulking guard turned, moving a few steps to look down the sloping tunnel—

  ‘Run!’ Sandra cried. She grabbed the girl by her arm and raced back up the narrow side passage.

  Liu yelled for them to stop, then lumbered in pursuit. The weight of the nuclear bomb on his back slowed him. Sandra rounded a corner, towing Macy after her. They passed into darkness—

  The Australian stumbled over a protruding stone.

  Macy ran into her from behind – and fell. Sandra lost her hold. She stopped, grabbing at her charge, but Liu was already gaining. ‘Sandra, run!’ Macy yelled as the Chinese soldier came around the corner, his light pinning her.

  She tried to stand, but his weapon rose—

  The sound of gunfire in the confined space was deafening. Macy screamed, dropping flat and covering her ringing ears. The noise stopped. Before she could recover, Liu was upon her, seizing her roughly and dragging her back to the intersection.

  ‘Sandra!’ Macy screamed. ‘Sandra, keep running!’

  But she heard no reply as her hearing returned. Nor did she hear any rapidly retreating footsteps. The tunnel was silent and still.

  The Nephilim blasted energy bolts back across the cathedral at their attackers. Most hit stone, shattering the fallen rocks with explosive force, but that was enough to knock down the Chinese soldiers behind them. One man made a dash for better protection as his hiding place blew apart—

  Another bolt caught him mid stride. He burst into a wet red haze.

  The horrific sight filled Wu with fury. ‘Smoke!’ she shouted, readying another grenade, this one cylindrical. She threw it to land slightly short of the Nephilim front line. A sickly orange fog gushed from it, obscuring everything beyond. More canisters clanked down. The swirling curtain cut the chamber in half.

  The qigun barrage slowed, but did not cease, some Nephilim still firing blind through the smoke. Wu sent shots of her own at their source, then gave another order. Two men responded, bringing up weapons much larger than the MP7s.

  M2010 sniper rifles – equipped with thermal sights.

  The scopes cut through the obscuring mist, revealing what lay beyond in stark digital white and grey against cold black. The guns had an effective maximum range of twelve hundred metres; this close, it was a turkey shoot. Heads exploded, blood sprayed from gaping exit wounds as rounds punched straight through armour. The two snipers maintained an even fire, the sharp retorts of their weapons echoing deafeningly around the chamber. Find target, shoot, confirm it was down, find another—

  The Nephilim finally overcame their shock and dropped behind whatever cover they could find. ‘They’ve ducked!’ shouted one sniper, sweeping his scope from side to side and finding nothing.

  ‘Finish them off with grenades!’ Wu called
back, readying another of her own. The chamber was large enough that the enemies near the far exit would be beyond the reach of a thrown bomb. She signalled to a man unshouldering a new weapon: a Chinese-made but untraceable copy of the American China Lake pump-action launcher that could fire forty-millimetre grenades over hundreds of metres.

  Another barrage of hand grenades flew over the smoke as the soldier rapidly swept the China Lake’s four rounds at the room’s far end. Three of the charges hit the end wall and sent deadly debris over those hiding near it.

  The fourth shot straight through the archway onto the bridge. It whipped past Gadreel and the warriors who had left the cathedral, glancing off the floor without triggering its detonator and angling back upwards—

  Into the towering crystal space within the pillar.

  Sidona had climbed higher inside it, but the priestess Gadreel had summoned was still at its foot. The grenade exploded just behind her, tearing her apart.

  The thrown grenades all exploded a moment later. More warriors in the cathedral were dismembered by razor-sharp steel fragments.

  But not all the Nephilim were dead. One warrior, sheltered between boulders, raised his baraka in response to a human’s cry of pain from a balcony above. A beast staggered with a bloody wound to his arm, another jumping up from behind the parapet to help him.

  The Nephilim took aim – and fired.

  Eddie and Barney hurried back through the tunnel. Gunfire echoed up the side passage. ‘Down here,’ said the Yorkshireman.

  ‘They might be on the balcony!’ Barney protested.

  ‘That’s all coming from floor level. Hurry up!’ He descended, the ranger reluctantly following.

  The piercing crackle grew louder as he reached the balcony, dropping low to peer over the parapet. Wu’s team had come in from the main passage to the left, the Nephilim mostly on his right and clearly caught by surprise. Several were already dead or wounded. But they had recovered enough to fight back, a grotesque red burst showing where a soldier had taken a baraka’s full force.

  Orange smoke erupted almost directly below – then a pair of snipers equipped with what Eddie guessed were thermal sights opened up. He had a ringside view as more Nephilim were cut down with pinpoint precision. The survivors flattened themselves behind debris and the room’s carved fixtures – only for Wu to shout an order.