Through the pain the questions had never stopped, questions asked in a voice that was louder than his cries of pain despite the fact that it they were never spoken in anything louder than a whisper, questions to which he had no answer.
What was his purpose?
Who were his allies?
Where were the Watchers and what had happened to the throne?
Question after question, none of which made any sense.
Through it all there was the face.
And with that face a command to commit it to memory, a command felt down in the very center of his bones, as if placed there at the long-forgotten time of his creation and only activated now when it was urgently needed. An order to be certain that every single detail, every nuance and expression, every blemish and wrinkle, be saved for what was to come thereafter.
With the aid of his Gift, Cade saw the face that Dr. Bhanjee had committed to memory, the face of the individual that had tortured him for what seemed like hours.
A face of smooth planes and unblemished skin.
A face with a mouth that seemed forever locked in a perpetual sneer.
A face with coal black eyes that bored into his own, searching, prying, hunting for the answers it so desperately needed.
And with that face, a name.
Baraquel.
It was the clue Cade had been looking for.
Cade broke contact and collapsed to the floor beside the professor’s body, too weak from the ordeal to do anything but lie there and recover his breath for several long moments, but that was okay with him.
They had a Name now.
And in the circles that Cade traveled in, names meant power.
For the first time since entering the facility known as Eden, Knight Commander Cade Williams smiled a wolfish smile of his own.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Cade needed some time to rest and regain his strength after his viewing, so Echo took a short break. As they did, Riley and Olsen went to work on the door that Dr. Bhanjee had been crucified against, eventually prying it open to find a single set of stairs just beyond.
The steps led upward another entire level. At the top they found a door secured by another key-code device, the third they’d seen since entering the complex the day before.
This time, however, the pass keys they’d acquired in the cafeteria did no good. Olsen pulled out his tools and started in on the door while the others took five. The events of the last half hour must have hit him harder than he’d thought; he noticed his hands were shaking as he attached the various leads and set his handheld to trying to find the right combination to open the door.
“You all right?”
Olsen jumped and nearly yelled aloud; he hadn’t realized that Cade had climbed the last few steps to stand next to him. When he could find his voice again he gave a self-deprecating laugh and waved away his commander’s concerns. “I’m good, boss,” he said, a bit gruffly to hide his embarrassment.
Cade eyed him for a minute, nodded, and then turned away without saying anything further. Olsen knew he hadn’t fooled him but also knew that Cade was confident that Olsen could handle whatever was thrown their way and Cade’s lack of further questioning was proof once more that he depended and trusted him. It was exactly what Olsen needed to cast off the willies he’d been experiencing and get back to work with renewed vigor.
And I’ll bet he knew it, too, he thought to himself and grinned wryly at his commander’s back.
At that moment the handheld beeped, indicating that it had found the proper sequence, and Olsen carefully made note of it before calling the rest of the men back into action. Riley and Cade set up beside him on the narrow landing. He input the correct combination, glanced at them to be certain they were ready, and then hauled open the door. They swept past him quickly, ready for whatever might be waiting for them.
Which turned out to be nothing.
At least nothing life threatening, that was.
The door opened onto a set of personal quarters, but these were far more lushly appointed than any they had discovered previously.
Where the others were simple dormitory style set-ups, with communal bathrooms and no dining facilities, this space was actually divided into four separate rooms, with its own bathroom and even a mini-kitchen with a small dinette set and a stovetop. The furniture here was of much nicer caliber as well; the couch in the living room was genuine leather and the desk in the study was clearly polished oak. Even more surprising, the far wall of the study was made up of a huge window that looked out upon the mountainside and the base below. Outside, Olsen could see that the funnel cloud they’d tangled with earlier the day before was still there, churning up the ground and casting a dark cloud of dust and grit over the entire facility. For the first time since entering the complex, Olsen found himself glad he was inside here instead of out there amidst the storm.
The desk held a desktop computer, the first he’d seen outside of the labs, and he suspected that they’d finally found the base commander’s personal quarters. The stack of hand-written journals they found in the desk drawers confirmed that fact. Inside the cover of each, written in spidery yet meticulous handwriting, it read:
Dr. Juan Vargas
Notes and Observations
The Eden Project
It was the goldmine of information they had been looking for. The only problem was that the rest of the pages were written in a strange, indecipherable language that wasn’t familiar to any of them. While the others were flipping through the pages of the journals, trying to make heads or tails of the odd script, Olsen found himself wandering around the perimeter of the room, poking at this and that, his thoughts wandering. One wall held a large tapestry and he idly pushed one edge to the side.
To his surprise, he found another doorway concealed behind it.
Brushing the tapestry aside, he stepped through the entryway, only to be brought up short by what he saw just beyond.
“Son of a…,” Olsen said to himself, and then he called out loud enough so that the others in the next room could hear him. “Hey boss, you’d better get in here!”
Responding to the urgency in his voice, both Williams and Riley rushed into the room, weapons ready, only to stop short themselves when they saw what he was looking at.
“Mary and Joseph!” Riley breathed at the sight.
“Kinda catches your attention, now doesn’t it?” Olsen said smugly and then went back to staring at it himself.
It was astounding. He’d seen some amazing things since joining the Order, but this one had to take the prize. The stone itself was huge. It covered nearly the entire wall, a length of more than twenty feet and a good ten or so in height, near as he could estimate. It looked to be a good foot thick, too. It appeared to him to be some kind of shale or slate, though he’d be the first to admit his knowledge of geology was limited. Still, he’d seen his share of fossils embedded in similar rocks and he didn’t think he was too far off the mark. The stone was resting on what could only be specially designed supports, for the weight alone would cause the average wall to collapse as if it were made of toothpicks. Small spotlights had been arranged along the ceiling and floor to artistically showcase the display.
Yet it wasn’t the stone that had captured his amazement or the way it had been so carefully hung, but what was embedded within it. The skeleton had to be at least several thousand years old and he would have bet good money that it was even older than that; it looked ancient. It stood almost as tall as the stone itself and was nearly perfectly preserved. The skull had a strong brow and a large cranium, indicative that it had probably been highly intelligent. Based on the thickness of the bones in the arms and legs, Olsen could only imagine the strength the creature must have possessed.
But it was the wings that truly captured his attention.
They stretched out all the way to the edge of the stone on either side of the skeleton, a wingspan of nearly twenty feet. The feathers themselves had been preserved i
n the fossilization process and in many cases the individual shafts and vanes were clearly visible, etched into the stone. When the creature had been alive, it must have been an awesome sight.
The thought caused him to snort at himself in derision. The creature? It wasn’t a creature, except in the sense that it had been created.
Stop being such a wimp and admit the obvious.
It was much more than a creature.
It could only be one of the bne-elohim.
The sons of God.
An angel.
The idea that he was standing in front of the skeletal remains of one of the holiest creations ever devised by the Lord was amazing. Beyond amazing. While it was nothing more than a skeleton now, he could imagine that this being had once stood in the very presence of God. It had probably fought on the side of righteousness and stood as a soldier in the Lord’s army. One of its brethren had swept through the city of Pharaoh and had slaughtered all of the firstborn. Another had freed Peter from his chains and helped him escape from imprisonment in Rome. Four such beings now stood at the corners of the earth, holding back the winds of heaven. They were the messengers and the arm of justice of God himself.
But as he gaped in wonder, another more ominous thought suddenly occurred to him.
He was making assumptions, and unfounded ones at that.
Not all of the angels had been on the side of righteousness.
Not all of them had fought on the side of Heaven.
There were also the nephilim, the fallen ones, those who had been cast out, those who had sided with Lucifer and had been thrown from the mount of heaven for their sin of pride.
Bne-elohim or nephilim. The odds were fifty-fifty.
His thoughts were interrupted as Riley spoke up.
“Looks like they removed a piece,” Riley said, pointing to a spot on the left foot where it was obvious one of the metatarsals had been carefully removed from the stone.
Olsen bent over to give it a closer look and that’s when it hit him.
The quote carved over the front entrance to the secret complex.
The creche chamber and its accompanying tanks.
The notes from journal discussing the rapid growth techniques employed to bring the subject to “adulthood.”
They all added up to one inescapable conclusion and it came clear to him with the force of a runaway locomotive.
Olsen looked up from the stone to find Cade staring at him with an expression of awestruck horror, the same expression Olsen knew was plastered across his own face.
“Good Lord! Tell me he didn’t,” the commander said quietly.
Olsen was unable to respond, for he was quite certain that Vargas had, indeed, done the unthinkable.
The stupid fool had tried to clone an angel from the fossilized remains hanging on the wall before them.
Even worse, he’d apparently succeeded.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Shocked at the audacity and pride inherent in Vargas’ experiment, Cade stepped out of the fossil room, his thoughts whirling and the rest of Echo followed at his heels.
The moment they emerged from the back room a blazing light filled the space around them, forcing them to cover their eyes and bend their heads to protect themselves from its searing brightness.
When the light faded, Echo was no longer alone.
“Do not be afraid,” the newcomer said and in light of what they now knew, none of them missed the Biblical importance of that particular phrase. His voice boomed, filling the room with its depth and grandeur, and it seemed to all of them that it was made up of a thousand voices speaking as one, all whispering the same words at the exact same moment, so rich in timbre and tone it was.
The angel’s very presence was a burden to bear in and of itself, pressing against them with a physical weight all its own and Duncan finally understood why the first words spoken by an angel whenever it appeared to mortals in the Bible were always the same. He was afraid, and he knew that nothing the creature before them said was going to change that.
The only one of the Echo members who didn’t seem particularly cowed was Cade. He stood in front of the newcomer, his back straight and his head held high, waiting.
“I am the messenger of the Lord and I bring good news.” The angel, Baraquel, spread his arms the way one would welcome a close friend or family member and smiled at them.
“You welcome us?” Cade asked drolly. “Is that what you’ve been doing?”
A smirk spread across the angel’s face. “Surely you expected a test of your abilities when you entered this place? I’ve simply supplied a reasonable challenge to determine your worthiness, to see if you were the man I have been waiting for.”
Duncan couldn’t hold his tongue any longer. This thing had slaughtered an entire base full of scientists, had defiled the dead, had sent hell-spawned demons to attack them, and had killed their friend. He would listen to no more of its drivel. “We will have nothing to do with an abomi…”
“Silence!” the angel roared, his shout filling the room like a gale force wind, and with a flick of his hand Duncan was cut off in mid-word, unable to move anything but his eyes. Baraquel waved his other hand and the rest of Echo was seized in his power as well.
Everyone but Cade, who still stood in the vanguard of the unit, casually facing down Hell’s own representative.
* * *
Cade did what he could to maintain his outward fa�ade, but inside he trembled with the display of power he had just seen. He had to learn what this creature wanted, had to buy some time for them to figure out just how to gain the upper hand. Showing fear would get him slaughtered like a sheep in a pen and he knew his men wouldn’t last ten seconds after that.
For now, he would play along.
“A test?” He did what he could to appear to be considering that possibility. “Okay, I can see that. And your presence here means we passed?”
Baraquel waved his hand disdainfully at the men of Echo arrayed in a semi-circle behind Cade. “You passed. They did not. I should slay them out of hand.”
“Wait!” Cade said, and went on quickly before he could raise the angel’s ire once more. “You tested me to see if I was worthy? Worthy of what?”
Baraquel grinned. “Now that’s the question, isn’t it?” He pointed behind Cade. “Turn around and look.”
Knowing the angel was likely to strike him down where he stood if he refused, Cade did so, turning his back on his foe, an action that went against every bit of combat training he’d ever received. He could feel the hairs on the back of his neck rise up in protest but what choice did he have?
Through the panoramic window that Vargas had installed in his office, Cade could see the visible portion of the base at the foot of the mountain below and beyond that the desert stretched out like a vast carpet.
Baraquel’s breath washed over the back of his neck and Cade’s skin crawled at the thought that something so dangerous could have gotten so close without a sound. That sickly sweet smell of lilacs and wet fur suddenly filled the air around him and Cade finally realized just what it was that Vargas had been keeping locked up in the cells two floors below. The angel’s arm extended over Cade’s shoulder and with a wave of his hand the desert was transformed into a vibrant city of soaring towers, all polished steel and shining glass. “Look! Look at that! It could all be yours.”
Cade frowned. “How? What do I have to do to get it?”
Baraquel practically rubbed his hands together in anticipation as he sensed Cade’s blossoming interest. “I need a human regent to enforce my decrees. One I can trust. A man of power and determination, one that can be counted on to do the right thing no matter how difficult it might appear.”
“And it would all be mine?” Cade’s voice practically dripped with greed and desire.
“Yes!” the angel cried. He stepped past Cade, his arms open wide as if to include the entire scene, his voice booming. “You will be the master of every inch, every gleaming spire!
“
Riley stood to Cade’s left, still struggling against whatever power the angel had used to hold him frozen in place. Cade caught his gaze with his own and flashed the hand signal for Be Ready. Riley blinked twice to show he understood.
The angel was still going on, ruminating about what they could accomplish together, what changes they could bring to the world. Tuning him out, Cade reached up and yanked the patch off his face, activating his Sight as he did so. A shimmering braid of phantasmic energy extended from the angel to each of his teammates and it was this energy that was holding them in place, immobile. If he could break that connection…
Cade turned to look at Baraquel, still using his Sight, and had to force himself not to recoil at what he saw. Gone was the human countenance, the smile and the false glory. In its place was a hulking brute of a creature, with tattered black wings and sores oozing over its exposed skin, sores that leaked an inky black ichor down across its grey flesh.
Strangely, there was no aura around the creature, no evidence of the divine spark that Cade had encountered in every living thing that he had viewed through his Sight. Either the creature before him had been created without a soul or something had stolen it somewhere along the way.
Cade’s MP5 hung by its strap from his right shoulder and he casually let his right hand slide around its grip, his finger slipping through the trigger guard, as he turned his body slightly in that direction to hide his actions from view.
Baraquel spun around suddenly, his eyes narrowing as he sensed Cade’s use of his Sight. “What are you doing?” he asked.
Cade glanced down at the ground and turned off his Sight, taking a calculated gamble that the angel wouldn’t destroy him on the spot, and then looked back up with what he hoped was an appropriately fawning expression on his face. “What do I have to do to gain such riches?”
Baraquel smiled and Cade nearly grinned himself as he realized the hook had been properly baited. He struggled to keep a predatory smile off his face as the angel went on.
The Templar Chronicles Omnibus Page 34
