by M. R. Forbes
These weren't experienced soldiers, I realized. They were trying to slow us down. To keep us out of the building. There was no sign of any Fists, no sign of Adam. Did they even know where he was? The whole thing suddenly reeked of desperation.
There was a stairwell near the center of the rooftop. It was where the Touched must have exited from. The door was open. A round, silver, scripture covered ball was rolling towards us.
There were still angels on the rooftop. If the explosion tore them apart, they wouldn't be able to heal. Did they know the sacrifice they were about to make, or had it been made for them?
I threw my power out, launching myself towards Alyx. I was nowhere near strong or massive enough to move her, but I did get my arms around her neck. I threw out my energy again, at the same time the bomb exploded.
My wall of power blocked the shrapnel and heat. It caught the blast and we were battered backwards, thrown away from the explosion. The remaining angels were bathed in the fire, and the Holy Light, and as the force knocked us from the rooftop, I could see that while the fire was burning them, the Light was healing them.
That was my trick.
We tumbled in the air, my arms wrapped tight around Alyx's neck. She wrapped herself around me, huge muscled arms putting me in a protective shell. We hit the ground hard, or at least she did, landing on her back and absorbing the blow. The drop would have killed a human. She opened her arms and let me get to my feet, and then flipped herself over, sitting on her haunches next to me.
There were only a few angels left on the rooftop, and they must have been stunned, because they didn't follow.
"Inside," I said, pointing to the glass front of the building. She scooped me up again and leaped forward, turning her shoulder into the doors and smashing through the hardened glass as though it were paper. It shattered inward, leaving us in a large, open foyer with monitors on every wall. They were all playing the same clip about how Taylor Heavy Industries was making the world a better place through technology.
A better place for who?
There was a smaller door behind the reception area, and hallways that branched to either side. I could hear gunfire echoing from somewhere further in.
Alyx put me down and shifted back to human form. She motioned towards the door. "The human is this way."
We went through the door, through a space with some offices, a conference room, and a lunchroom, through the back and out onto the factory floor.
The room was huge. Conveyor belts sat still on massive machines that climbed up towards the roof, various gears and belts and robotic arms positioned at different intervals along the track. There were buckets of parts, monitoring stations, forklifts and packaging materials. A catwalk ran above it all, for easier visual checking.
I hadn't been in too many factories. I imagined that most of them probably looked similar to this. I couldn't tell what they were actually producing here, but I figured it probably wasn't Fists of God. If it was, they would have thousands of them by now.
The area was clear. There were no Touched guards hiding in the cracks and crevices along the assembly line, and the angels still hadn't followed us inside. I had been out of their sight long enough for them to forget about me, but they should have been able to guess something was up by the condition of the rooftop. Had they counted their dead and given up?
The gunfire had also stopped, so I wasn't sure where we should go. I pulled out my phone, ready to text Rose and get her position. No signal. If it hadn't been for Alyx, I might have spent hours trying to find them.
"This way, Master," she said. The size of the machinery had forced her back to human form to maneuver through smaller chasms.
"Do you sense any other Divine?" I asked.
"No. I smell others. They could be behind scripture."
"Thanks for breaking my fall." I could have stopped myself. I couldn't have caught her too.
She looked back at me, her eyes big and soft again. "Of course."
We navigated past the line, each passing second giving me more cause to worry. Were the angels regrouping? Was Adam on the way? Was Rose okay? I still didn't trust Gervais, and I hated having to send her off with him. His special talent was the only way for them to get in without drawing fire, though it had sounded like they hadn't gotten completely through the defense.
We reached the other end of the floor, almost half a mile away from where we'd started. Each step was making me more worried.
"Dead end," I said. The back of the building was a solid wall, with some small windows way up near the rooftop.
Alyx didn't answer. I turned back and saw her eyes were closed, her nose shifting and rocking. She stepped forward without looking, kneeling down at the wall and putting her hand to the floor. I followed with my eyes. There was nothing there, the joint between floor and wall was solid.
"Through here," she said.
"Where?"
"The whole wall. It is a glamour. A strong glamour. There is air coming out here. It's carrying their scent."
A glamour? I was highly resistant to Divine trickery. It would take a very, very powerful angel to place a glamour that could trip me up. I put my hand to the wall. It felt real enough. I slid it down to the floor where Alyx was pointing, closing my eyes and pushing my own power out. It helped me to find the seam.
I opened my eyes. Locating the beginning of the glamour allowed me to overcome the power, to see completely through it. Most of the wall was real, though it didn't have any windows and was clearly not the end of the building. In front of me was a massive elevator.
I found the button and hit it. The doors slid open. It was a freight elevator. A gigantic freight elevator, large enough to carry an entire semi if needed. It had a matching door on the other side, which I could only guess led to some route to the outside. I was sure this was how they were bringing the materials in. Maybe sending them back out, too. Scripture ran all along the ceiling, tiny lettering scratched into the metal, and glowing a soft blue that illuminated the space.
"I guess we go down," I said, stepping over the threshold.
Alyx followed behind me, crying out when she crossed over.
I whipped around to see what was happening. Her entire body was beginning to steam, the smell of frankincense growing more heavy with each second. She stood paralyzed in fear and pain.
I picked her up and carried her out. The steaming stopped at once, and I watched the burns on her skin begin to heal.
"You'll have to stay up here."
She shook her head. "You need me."
"I do. Up here. If anything tries to get in... don't let them."
She wasn't happy about it. Neither was I. "As you command, Master," she said at last. "Nothing will get past me."
I leaned in and kissed her on the cheek, and then went back into the elevator. I hit the button and waved to Alyx as the doors closed and I began to drop.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
It took almost five minutes for the massive lift to settle at its base. I spent the entire time pacing the length, worrying about Alyx above and Rose below, worrying about Adam making an appearance, worrying about Gervais doing something stupid. I wanted allies, I wanted help. I wasn't sure I wanted the emotional roller coaster that was coming along with it.
The doors opened quietly, all things considered. They revealed a small loading dock, with a platform to carry stuff out onto the trailers, and wide twin doors behind it. There was nobody here, and the dock was empty. The smell of gasoline and oil lingered, and I was amazed that Alyx could pick out Rose's scent through it.
I wasn't going to go in softly. I vaulted forward and slammed the doors open with my power, bursting through ready to rip the place apart.
Everything was quiet. In front of me was a new assembly line, one made up of more machines, bigger and more complex then the first set. It reminded me of videos I had seen of automotive plants, though it seemed a bit less automated. There were stations spread around the floor, where it looked like som
e of the work could be done by hand, or where someone helped guide the system through its maneuvers.
The station closest to me was a tall rack, a crossbeam with a pair of hooks mounted on it, inside a gyroscopic type setup. Attached to the three swiveling arms were small appendages that looked like pens, with the smallest little hole in the center. I didn't need to be a scientist to guess what they were. Lasers. Etching lasers, able to burn the tiniest scripture into the metal suits that would be hanging from the hooks. There were no Fists in production at the moment. Looking around again, there was nobody here.
Where the hell had Rose and Gervais gone? Where had the gunfire come from? Hadn't anyone been down here?
I moved more slowly through the room, checking around the machinery, past computers that had gone dark, into every crevice and space I could find, looking for anything that might give me a clue. I kept expecting to stumble over a body. Rose's, a Touched. Despite myself, I kept hoping to find evidence of a dead angel, a hint of ash and dust to prove that something had happened down here. I just didn't understand how it could all be so clean.
I was losing hope in a hurry, my heart sinking to my gut like a stone. Rose and Gervais were gone. Matthias was gone. Had the demon double-crossed me? Had he somehow overcome the strength of the binding we had made? I didn't think it could be possible, and yet there was nothing else to explain it.
I turned back towards the doors, towards the elevator.
I heard a small beep.
It was the slightest sound, coming from one of the machines. I walked over to it, searching with my eyes. I wasn't sure exactly where the noise had come from. It was hard to track such a slight intonation.
The beep came again.
My eyes darted to a short belt that traveled through some kind of square box. I ran over to it, leaning in on the belt and peering into the box.
Rose's phone was resting in the center, the LED on the top a solid red. I pulled it out with my power, bringing it to my hand and turning the screen on.
It beeped again.
Low battery?
I stared at it. Why would the battery be low? What could drain it that fast? It wasn't an expensive phone, and we didn't have time to charge it all the way. Even so, we barely used it, and I doubted Rose was playing Candy Crush in the middle of our assault.
I navigated into the menu, and went to the photos. There was one. A video. I checked the battery. Five percent. I hit play and tracked to the end.
Rose had turned it around so it was recording her face. She was sweaty and scared, a bit of blood on her scalp. "...Bad timing. She's coming for me. I think they got Gervais already. Not Adam, another angel. Her aura is so bright, its blinding. Shit, she's coming."
The video stopped there. She must have turned off the phone and tossed it to keep it from being discovered. At least now I knew what happened to them. We came for Matthias, and they took her and possibly Gervais instead. I took a few deep breaths, trying to calm myself. The angels wouldn't kill them if they surrendered. They might try to use them as leverage. They might just hold them until they won and then let them go. More likely, they would force them to Confess, to find out what they knew. There was nothing there that they could use to help them, but I had seen with Josette how traumatizing the process could be.
I was going to go back to the elevator, when I realized that there was no way Rose and Gervais had taken that route. It was too slow and too loud to go unnoticed. There had to be another route.
I pushed my power out towards the walls, knowing what to look for now. I found the glamoured door easily, and I shoved it open. A spiral staircase led upwards, each metal rung of the ladder inscribed with scripture similar to the stuff in the elevator. More protection against demons. Gervais had gotten past it, which meant Lucifer had cooked up a demon that could even fool the Heavenly power. If not for the imminent threat from the Fists, that thought might have been even more chilling.
I hopped the steps four at a time, getting to the surface in less than a minute. It opened up on what I imagined was the other side of the elevator, where the trucks would roll out. It was the rear of the building, where Rose and Gervais had probably come in. How had they gotten past the glamour?
I went to the elevator and forced the doors apart, first on the near side, and then on the far. Alyx was waiting on the other side. She turned and waved at me, her eyes bright.
"We need to get out of here," I said. "Meet me outside."
A heavy thump behind me shook the ground.
Another one followed it.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Alyx didn't wait to meet me outside. She shifted into her monster form, taking two steps back and charging forward, leaping the fifty foot chasm between us. The distance was easy. The scripture made it painful.
She landed right behind me, her skin sizzling and hissing, blood running from the wounds. She fell to her stomach, whining in pain, waiting to heal.
The bay doors twisted inward as the Fists charged through it, blades out, bolts reloaded. "Bad timing," Rose had said in the video.
I couldn't agree more.
The bay was empty, leaving nothing to distract or displace the armors with. They charged towards me in perfect sync, not wasting their bolts again, not leaving them open to be returned. I found the stone in my pocket and called on the spatha, glancing behind me at Alyx. She was struggling to get to her feet, the wounds healing slowly, but healing.
I threw the blade at the Fist on the left, letting it deflect it with its own, throwing out my power and catching it, pulling it back in behind the thing. It wasn't expecting the attack, and the blessed edge dug into its shoulder. It slowed and turned towards the blade, even as I pushed it back out and whipped it in, an invisible swordsman keeping one of them occupied. It took a lot of concentration for me to keep it going and get back to Alyx, wrapping my arm around her neck even as the second Fist bore down on us.
"Alyx, you need to get up. We need to get out of here." In her Great Were form she was bigger and faster than a horse.
Her eyes found me, and she growled and forced herself up, letting me hang onto her back while she gained her footing. The second Fist was a dozen feet away.
"I'll push it back, hit it hard and it should fall."
"Yes, Master," she said, bunching and springing towards it.
I pulled my energy back, the spatha with it, catching the sword in my hand and then throwing the power back out. It slammed into the Fist, slowing its forward momentum, getting its weight off balance. Alyx pounced at it, both fore and hind legs bunching and slamming it hard in the chest. Her claws skidded off with the sparkling of blue light, but the force remained. It started to fall backwards beneath the weight, and as it did she pushed off it, getting even more forward momentum.
The ground shook when the Fist hit the floor. The second one angled our way and took a chance with the bolts. I cast the power out and caught them, redirecting them over and down, into the fallen Fist. The missiles pierced its arms and legs, nailing it into the floor.
Then we were out of the bay, out into the evening sky, charging ahead.
"Stop," I said. "Stop!"
Alyx hit the brakes, her feet digging into the ground. I held on tight, trying not to get thrown by the maneuver.
Adam was standing in front of us.
"Landon," he said with a smile. There was no hint that he had ever been buried under tons of earth.
I turned my head back, looking for the Fists.
"They won't come. Not yet," he said. His metal hand was quiet. "I was hoping we could negotiate."
"Negotiate on what?" I asked. The pause gave me a moment to consider how I must look, perched on top of the Were, dark sword in hand. Heroic, or stupid?
"I have your human companions. Rose, and Peter, they said their names were."
"And?"
"We can stop this now. I know you've felt what the Fists can do. That was two of them. We have a dozen now, and there will be more once we can get the
resources. You don't need to fight. Repent, and we'll let them go. No, even better. Repent, ask them to repent, and you'll all be afforded a place in Heaven. Even this one." He motioned to Alyx.
"This again?" I asked. Alyx growled in agreement.
"Come on, Landon. You know you can't fight them. Only two, and you ran away. It was smart to think they would protect me, it bought you time. Not enough time. You know how much I respect you, admire you. I'm trying to save you. You can't beat two, what are you going to do against twelve?"
"I'm going to do what I've always done," I said. "Keep trying. Keep fighting. I'm not afraid to die. I don't want to die a coward. I made a promise."
"I know. They want you dead, my friend. They want you gone. You know I'm only doing as My Lord commands."
"I know you're doing what you think you should. You can keep Rose and Peter. We'll settle this soon enough."
He shook his head. "I'm sorry, Landon. We'll settle this now." His wings spread wide, and he rocketed into the air, getting way out of my range.
"Alyx, go," I said, twisting around. The Fists appeared in the broken doorway of the factory. He'd stalled me long enough for one to get the other loose.
She growled her assent and launched forward again, covering the ground with incredible speed. I heard the thumping of the Fists behind us, breaking into a full run that allowed them to keep the pace. Like before, Alyx would tire eventually. The Fists wouldn't.
"Head back into the city," I said. "We need to lose them."
She turned and found the road, leaping a small berm and landing smoothly on the pavement, her claws leaving marks each time they hit the ground. The Fists followed behind, and I watched the sky, watched the aura of the First Inquisitor from two miles away. He was commanding them, that much I was sure of. Yet it was still only the two, and he said they had twelve. Did they need more angels to control the rest? Or were they assigned to other tasks? It wasn't like they needed more than two.
