Iron Angels

by Eric Flint

  “It’s about time.” Temple laughed and entered the building.

  Jasper followed, while Vance and Ed brought up the rear. Electricity had been restored to the building for some reason and they descended the stairs to the basement with caution.

  The door at the bottom of the stairs was wide open, but a strip of crime scene tape ran diagonally from top to bottom, covering the entrance. Jasper yanked the yellow tape down.

  An acrid scent filled the air, but not as strong as when the two men had committed suicide. This acrid scent had a stale quality—like someone had shot a gun off and the cordite had lingered in the still air indefinitely. The overhead lights had the look of those old filament-style bulbs that had come back in fashion the past few years; they cast a yellow pall on the walls and stone floor. For a moment, old horror flicks ran through his head. Jasper half-expected to see a giant table surrounded by Tesla coils arcing blue while a mad scientist wearing a head mirror flipped a knife switch, completing a circuit and bringing a horrible creature back to life.

  “You okay?” Temple asked.

  “This place still creeps me out,” Jasper said. “I didn’t think we’d actually find Penny or Carlos here, did you?”

  Temple shook her head. “If we had, we wouldn’t have entered the way we all did.”

  Jasper sniffed. “You’re right. Does this place look any different from last time?”

  “Not so far,” Temple said. “But you spent more time in here than we did I’m guessing. How about you, Vance? Noticing anything different?”

  “The smell,” Vance’s nose wrinkled, “not sure how—”

  “Like a gun discharged down here.” Jasper arched an eyebrow at Vance.

  “Something like that.”

  “I’m going to check the back area where Pete and I found the girl and the—” Jasper’s phone rang.

  Vance snapped his fingers. “I know what’s missing.”

  “Hold that thought.” Jasper answered his phone. Mandy, the SOS from the office, had dug up quite a bit of information for them. He put her on speaker for Vance and Temple. Mandy gave the rundown:

  She explained that Lali’s apartment building, the Euclid Hotel, and a bunch of other apartment complexes and rundown hotels were all owned by the same umbrella company, which had also acquired property within the past year where an abandoned petrochemical plant stood. Mandy hadn’t had time to run the occupants of the apartment building, but concentrated instead on the properties and the owner. The person listed as the registrant of the company was Perwocko Banyang—almost certainly a made-up name. Mandy sent a photo of the man in question to Jasper’s cell phone. A decent enough looking man: He had beige skin, very close-cropped hair and was on the muscular side—kind of like the poor man’s Vin Diesel—and could pass as almost any ethnicity.

  “Anything you have right now?” Jasper asked Mandy.

  She provided the man’s biographical information as well as all the pertinent addresses he was involved with, to include a home address. He thanked her and said he’d check in with her later, but she informed him she’d be leaving for the day shortly. Damn. Jasper relayed the data to the group.

  “That was interesting,” Temple said. “And informative. So we were kind of on the right track, but who would have thought the owner of this dump here would be the guy we’re searching for now?”

  “Seems logical he’s our man, but we don’t yet have definitive proof.” Jasper sucked in a deep breath, and blew out slowly. “The photo on Lali’s laptop doesn’t exactly match up with the one on my phone.”

  “Yeah, but this is lining up for us, don’t you think? What we really need to do is run through the rest of this place and then I’d say we hit the last property your SOS mentioned, the old petrochemical plant.” Temple was nodding as if to prod everyone else into her line of thinking.

  But Jasper didn’t need the prod, because he thought the same way. At this stage, heading to the man’s home address seemed futile. A sacrifice, or sacrifices, would more than likely be held in a place like this, or somewhere remote like an abandoned petrochemical plant.

  “Why do you think they didn’t use the petrochemical plant to begin with?” Jasper asked.

  “The plant wasn’t ready? Or as suitable as the hotel?” Temple glanced around, as if not believing she called the hotel suitable for anything other than demolition.

  “What if we’re missing something? Something big?” Jasper shrugged. “Just a thought. Vance, what were you going to say before my phone rang?”

  “I know what is different about this place,” Vance said.

  Jasper walked toward the back area where they’d found the little girl lashed to a stone slab. Temple stayed behind, as did Ed White.

  “The stone basins are—”

  “Missing,” Jasper said as he rounded the dividing wall. “So is the stone slab that used to be back here, the one Teresa was lashed to.”

  “They were here, the cult members, they took the basins—”

  “As well as the slab.” Jasper studied the area where the slab had been, but didn’t see any new blood spatters, only a blank space where the slab once rested. He had examined the wall, marked with striations and odd ripples as if a strong force had distorted the stone.

  Strange.

  “You okay back there?” Temple yelled to him.

  “Yeah, just thinking. They must have taken the slab to their new place of sacrifice.” Jasper yelled back.

  “We’re going to check the rest of the building real quick, then we can jet,” Temple said. “Okay?”

  “Roger.”

  Jasper ran his fingers down the wall along the ripples and striations—warm and pulsing, or was that his imagination? The parts of the wall without the marks remained cool and smooth, not puckered like—

  Puckered.

  The man in the photo. His scars. They were angry red and puckered, resembling the marks on this wall—but they’d been on his skin.

  “Holy shit.”

  The wall before Jasper rippled under his touch. He yanked his hand from the wall, but some of the stone stuck, stretching. His eyes widened. Searing pain suffused his right hand and forearm.

  His eyes scrunched, and he hissed in air through his teeth.

  Jasper staggered backwards and bumped into the dividing wall behind him. The elastic rock stringing from the wall to his fingers snapped back into place. His hand throbbed. He dared not glance at his hand for fear of the damage it might have suffered.

  “Temple! Vance!” Jasper yelled as loud as possible.

  They’d only been gone a minute.

  The stone wall swirled and bulged. A red glow penetrated the stone, and intense heat smacked him in the face. Pain flared back to life in his hand. He slid against the wall, groping for the edge, but not taking his eyes off the stretching and bulging foundation wall.

  The time arrived for his universe to explode. All he believed unreal became real with each inch he crept down the wall. The new reality he hadn’t wanted to accept would be in his face in a second if he didn’t retreat faster.

  “Jasper!” Temple’s voice called from the other side of the wall.

  “Don’t come back in here!” Jasper responded, but not as loudly as he’d hoped.

  Temple’s head appeared in his periphery—she extended her arm. He released the grip his left hand had on his right arm and reached for Temple’s. Their fingers intertwined and she pulled him to her around the backside of the dividing wall.

  “What is that?” Temple’s words were forced and her breath ragged.

  “I think we’re about to meet one of these Nephilim.”

  Chapter 34

  A hum reverberated through the dividing wall—now a wall separating Jasper, Temple, Vance, and Ed from whatever had spilled through the rippling and pulsing foundation wall.

  “I can’t believe this,” Vance whispered. “Why don’t we do something?”

  “Like what?” Temple’s eyes were wide. She drew her Glock, p
ointing the gun straight up at the ceiling—but she kept her finger off the trigger.

  “Get out of here maybe?” Vance’s eyes were also wide. “I love science, but not this much.”

  “Yeah, I agree,” Ed said. “All I have is a goddamned thermos for a weapon.”

  “Let me see the hand you’re hiding from me.” Temple touched Jasper’s shoulder.

  Jasper drew his Glock with his left hand across his body. He probably shot pretty well with his left—all agents were required to do some one-handed shooting exactly for situations like this. Well, not exactly like this one, where demons straight out of the Bible attacked you, but for times when your strong hand was injured.

  He extended his right hand for Temple’s examination.

  She sucked in her breath. “Sorry,” she said. “So red.”

  “I bet. What else is wrong with my bloody stump?”

  Temple smiled despite the crazy situation. “All right, let’s not get overly dramatic.”

  “Hey, didn’t Luke Skywalker have a bloody stump in Empire?” Ed said.

  Temple shot him another look, this one with raised eyebrows and wrinkled forehead.

  “Good one,” Jasper said, and chuckled. “Guess I had that coming. Give me the bad news: Bleeding? Missing any digits? Do I have to pick my fingers off the wall over there?” Jasper tried making light of the injury.

  “You’re afraid, aren’t you?” Temple asked.

  “Of?”

  She cocked her head. “If you lost your hand, you’d be done as an agent.”

  “Shut up.” Jasper’s brow lowered so much it nearly obscured his eyes.

  “All right, I’m sorry. You have what appears to be some lines and ripples on your hand. They’ll likely scar,” Temple’s voice carried an apologetic tone.

  “Ripples and scars marred the wall. You know who else had those types of wounds?” Jasper asked.

  “The man in the photo,” Temple said. “The man who we think owns this hotel and all the other buildings and property.”

  The wall they leaned against warmed, and the reverberations grew louder. Jasper worked his way down the opposite side of the wall from the corner they’d turned and peeked at the wall from a low vantage point. Then, quickly pulled back. Apparently no obvious dangers poked through the now elastic foundation wall—a membrane?

  Temple poked her head around again—and up the other side, Jasper did the same. The stones of the foundation warped and bulged and pulsed. Red morphed into crimson and retreated back to red and then orange. The motion mesmerized Temple.

  Despite the realization that danger was close, she could not stop staring at the warping wall.

  Jasper’s jaw dropped.

  What had he seen? Temple wished Jasper was positioned a little better, like on the left side where she was. His position on the right side of the wall made raising his gun with his left hand difficult without exposing more of his body. He dropped to the ground, his right elbow absorbing the shock—she didn’t notice a flinch and heard not a peep from him—then rolled onto his right shoulder, obviously clearing a way for a shot with his left hand if needed.

  The wall split; not as a simple vertical split, but more like a random pattern of squiggles. Red light oozed from the splits.

  “Temple, get back!” Jasper yelled, barely audible over the din of the pulsing.

  Ed retreated, as did Vance with his kit, both toward the basement entrance, but Temple remained fixed at the other end of the dividing wall, the red glow lighting her face. She raised her Glock and her finger moved toward the trigger.

  A burst of light followed the ooze, and a head coalesced, emerging from the split as if being born from a supernatural being.

  “What are you saying?” Jasper yelled, “I can’t hear you.”

  Temple shook her head. “Nothing. Sorry.” She’d been muttering a prayer without even realizing what she was doing. She kept her gun pointed at the birthing and whatever fought through.

  “Vance! Ed!” Jasper yelled. “Either of you happen to have mushrooms on you? Maybe a sea squirt in a pocket?”

  “Are you shitting me?” Temple cried out. “You’re cracking jokes now? What’s next, another Ghostbusters joke, something about”—the pulsing ebbed for a moment—“the power being shut off for the containment grid and spirits running loose?” She winced.

  “Hadn’t thought of that,” Jasper said. “Good one.”

  Temple couldn’t even look at him right now, she was transfixed on what was coming, something large—

  The beast’s head waggled and pushed from the cracks in the wall. Before them was exactly what Jasper had described and she’d so far had only seen a glimpse: the form of the Asian dragon, long and sinewy and mostly red.

  “Wasn’t what you described hazy? And then the one in the old man’s backyard was much the same?” Temple asked.

  “This one is different,” Jasper said. “This one is more solid, more concrete.”

  Tendrils shot forth from the head, bright red with black tips, reaching for something as if to grab on and pull the dragon figure through the cracks. What appeared to be two arms struggled through and rested on the floor, sending cracks shooting toward the dividing wall. Temple glanced up at the ceiling.

  “We need to get out of here.” Jasper turned back to Temple.

  Her entire body shook, and the gun in her hand wobbled, but she firmed up her grip and her finger eased on to the trigger.

  “Don’t!” Jasper yelled over the renewed noise, now more than a din, a roar as more of the beast fought through the membrane. “This whole building is likely to cave in on us. Get out!”

  Temple was focused on the beast, however, and her eyes scrunched—a problem she’d always had when she was about to pull the trigger—anticipating the noise and recoil.

  The beast, or dragon, or alien, or Nephilim—whatever it was—spotted Temple. The tendrils protruding from its snout changed direction and reached for her.

  Temple’s head cleared and her eyes fixed on Jasper, who appeared energized, like unseen powers coursed through him. He raised his Glock, and with his weak side hand, his left, squeezed the trigger over and over until he’d emptied his entire magazine and Temple noticed his slide lock back. He switched out the magazines without a hitch, sheer habit, but wasted no more rounds on the creature, since they’d had no visible effect. His forty caliber rounds may have punctured the membrane, and sailed into another world, another universe—if Ed and Vance were right.

  Temple remained behind the dividing wall, but hadn’t made for the door. Abandoning Jasper was not an option.

  Vance, accompanied by Ed, had crept back into the room and in an act of stupidity or audacity—probably both—snapped away on a camera he’d pulled from his bag. Vance couldn’t have snapped any photos of the monster itself, however, since it was still on the other side of the dividing wall.

  The head of the creature released a long hiss, and rammed through the dividing wall, which quivered and waved like air in the intense heat of the desert. The stone wall, rather than crumbling, absorbed the creature and remained standing as the sinewy form passed through the stone. Was the thing chasing after Temple?

  Vance’s camera flashed—the monster paused, then shot forward like a missile, ignoring Ed, who, for his part, stumbled back and fell on the floor.

  The camera fell from Vance’s hands. His eyes widened, his mouth went slack and his body went limp. He dropped to the ground. The monster streaked into the room. Half of the crimson-orange body remained behind the dividing wall, while the other half filled a good portion of the main part of the basement.

  Vance cried out. His hands flew to his side and he writhed on the basement’s stone floor. Half-rising, Ed picked up a loose piece of debris from the floor—a stone, maybe, or a cement-encrusted chuck of pipe—and threw it at the monster. He missed—not that Temple believed the actions would have made any difference if he hadn’t.

  The Nephilim ignored the biologist. It floated, its
body compressing and expanding above Vance. The tendrils, and legs or arms, reached for the small man writhing on the stone.

  Temple felt helpless, but regained her composure, stood tall, and raised her weapon once more. Maybe taking a chance at distracting the creature from Vance—whose eyes were sealed shut, his face scrunched—would work.

  Jasper dropped to the ground and despite his right hand, crawled for Vance, trying to stay beneath the hovering creature’s body—a pulsing and heaving shape.

  The monster was going to do to Vance what it or something like it had done to the two mangled bodies.

  A loud cry came from the basement door.

  Through the haze, a lithe figure emerged. Penny.

  She stood tall and ferocious, wearing a brown leather jacket and dark jeans. Penny wielded a hammer, its handle as long as a sledgehammer but with a somewhat smaller head. Temple had never seen it before but she recognized the design—it was the same as the hammer symbol that Wayland Precision used for their logo. The hammer gleamed red, reflecting the monster’s own colors. Penny appeared taller than she had at Wayland Precision, and a lot more intimidating.

  The creature’s tendrils and limbs recoiled. The immense body compressed, the head and limbs retreating inside the ball the rest had become.

  Penny charged and, taking a wide and furious homerun swing, let loose on the Nephilim. Temple half-expected to see the red ball propel off the hammer and shoot through the ceiling, as hard as she’d struck the monster. Instead, the ball the Nephilim had become loosened to the shape of the Asian dragon they’d witnessed and become accustomed to.

  Penny allowed the momentum of the hammer swing to twirl her around and as the hammer reached its apex, she snapped her hips around and brought the hammer down through the arc, and up, slamming into the monster’s snout. The blow dispersed the creature’s head, but didn’t destroy it.