by Eric Flint
“I’m sorry, Penny. But we have to get inside—”
“We’re too late. That thing must be in there now. My father—”
“We don’t know that. We don’t know that at all.” Temple glared at her. “We need to rescue your father and Carlos.”
Steve’s hammer rested beside Penny, head down, handle up. One of her hands gripped the hammer’s pommel and she pushed herself up. The energy she’d displayed earlier seemed to be gone. Had she artificially stimulated herself before coming over here and ramming through the gate? Or had the evening’s events just been too much?
“You’re right,” Penny said at last. “I found the opening, the way in. By mistake.”
“I’m guessing it isn’t where you rammed the vehicle.” Jasper pointed at the dented wall and demolished truck.
“No. Follow me. You men, fall in behind.” Penny’s voice assumed the air of authority Jasper remembered.
“Hold up a second,” Jasper said. “We need to plan this. In my haste, I failed to develop any sort of mission plan.”
“Well?” Penny raised the hammer and rested the haft on her shoulder.
“Right. Do we have any idea of the layout inside?” Jasper asked the group, who formed a semi-circle around him. No one said anything, but heads shook. “What sort of weaponry do we have? I count nine of us, including me, Temple, and Penny.”
Penny piped up. “We have a mixture of high-speed steel hand weapons as well as conventional ones like the guns you carry. You’ll be useless against the Nephilim, but deadly against the Câ Tsang. Let us handle the Nephilim and we’ll back you up on any cult members we encounter. Sound good?”
“All right.” Jasper scanned their faces, looking for hesitation or questions. “Penny located the entrance. Once inside we need to find the sacrificial altar. My guess is we’ll find Steve and Carlos in the lower levels of the building, if they stick to the setup at the Euclid Hotel. We won’t have group communications, so once inside you’ll take your cues from the team leader. We have two Bureau-issued radios—we’ll use the coded channel the radio is already switched to—each team will have one. Temple and I are going directly for the sacrificial altar, or altars if they have both Steve and Carlos. Let’s divide the group roughly in half.”
Penny coughed. “I need to go where you go then. Perhaps you and I, Jasper, should be paired. Temple and four of the others can go after the cultists and their leader.”
“All right.” Jasper glanced at Temple, eyebrows raised. She dipped her head in acknowledgment of the plan and division of labor. “Get your shit together. We’ll make entry in two minutes.”
Temple approached. “That’s it? That’s your plan?”
“What other options do we have?” Jasper pulled out his phone and texted his friend, Pete, of the East Chicago Police. The text was simple, providing the address of the petrochemical plant and a time Pete should rally the police and come down hard on the building if he didn’t hear from Jasper.
“What are you doing?”
“Arranging for the cavalry if our plan doesn’t work out the way we think it will.” Jasper smiled. “All right, saddle up, Partner.”
Temple smirked.
“I was already talking cavalry.” Jasper shrugged.
* * *
Penny pointed at a wall—a solid wall. “This is the entrance.”
Jasper put his ear to the metal wall, but heard nothing within. Wait—chanting. Distant chanting. “The ritual or whatever they’re doing started. Apparently they don’t care what goes on out here.”
“I’m not surprised.” Temple and her team stood off to the right side of the section of wall Penny pointed out.
Jasper squinted. “I don’t see anything.”
“Down there. The drain—not a real drain.” Penny pointed with the hammer. Her strength impressed him.
“No?”
“Look, a drain pipe for a gutter, but nothing coming out, not a drop. The pipe is plugged so it won’t drain into here. So, my friend, this is the entrance. Trust me.”
Jasper shrugged. “All right. So Temple’s team will enter and clear the first room and move off. Then we’ll make entry. Penny, show us the way in.”
Penny rested the hammer against the wall and kneeled down. Her fingers poked into the holes of the grate and lifted. What appeared as only a small grate actually came free as a larger piece of metal, painted to resemble the surrounding asphalt.
A stairway descended into darkness.
Jasper opened his pack and tossed a blue chem light down the stairs. No obvious dangers. They could try a flare, but igniting one would be a little more dangerous if the place was wired.
“Never mind.” Temple raised the M4 to low ready and switched on the mounted Surefire flashlight.
“And here I didn’t think I changed out the battery in the M4 lately.”
Temple cocked her head.
“Kidding. Kidding.”
She sighed. “Jackass.”
Temple’s team descended the stairs with her leading the way. A minute later, Temple directed Jasper and his team to come down and join them.
Jasper scanned the room with his flashlight, as did the others creating a miniature light show. The chem light on the ground glowed blue, hardly competing with the bright white lights. No obvious exits presented themselves. “Has to be somewhere. Perhaps Penny will use her keen observation skills and locate a door. Penny?” She squinted against Jasper’s light, and shrugged.
A bad situation. Nine people trapped in a room with no apparent exits, and an easy setup for a trap.
“Everyone,” Jasper said. “Use your lights and search for anything odd or unusual. We need a way into the main part of the building or we have to get out of here fast.” He refrained from using the word “trap.” The last thing they needed was panic, and he had no idea of the backgrounds of the Völundr’s Hammer people other than what Penny told him about herself.
Temple ran her light along one of the walls, frowning as she did so.
“You have something?” Jasper scanned the same wall, but saw nothing unusual.
“The edges, they don’t marry up to the adjoining walls and the ceiling. See?”
“I think you’re right—so, poor craftsmanship?”
“No. Remember the strange dividing wall at the Euclid Hotel, appearing as a complete wall but camouflaging another area beyond?”
“Of course,” Jasper said.
“This is almost the same. I bet this thing moves.” Temple allowed the M4 to hang at her midsection by the strap and walked toward the wall.
“Everyone, hold up a second. Get ready.” Jasper motioned with his arms for them to quiet down, like a quarterback did for the home crowd when they got too excited.
Temple put her shoulder into the wall, but the structure didn’t budge. Penny trotted over and rammed into the wall. The metal squealed, and moved. Tracks appeared on the floor and the wall rolled on tiny wheels for about five feet, revealing two doors, one on the left, the other on the right.
“Temple’s team will go right, mine and Penny’s left.” Jasper stacked his team on the left door and Temple did the same on the right. He gripped the handle and pushed down. The door pulled free easily. He glanced over at Temple—her door did the same. So far, so good.
Temple poked her head inside the door. “Hallway over here, light at the end.”
Jasper glanced inside his door. “Same here. They likely lead to the same place, don’t you think?”
“Probably.”
“All right, see you on the other side.” Jasper led his team through the door and into the dimly lit hallway, the only light supplied by whatever was shining on the other end.
Thirty seconds later, Jasper peered through the opening and glanced to the right where Temple should be poking her head through. He waited a few more seconds. Nothing. He keyed the radio. “Temple, you read?” Nothing. Bad. “Temple.” This time static answered him. She’d obviously heard him transmit, but had she hear
d the words or heard him simply keying the mike? Ugh. He took a deep breath and took another peek, this time for intelligence purposes.
He turned back to his team. “Large area. I believe we’re already on the lowest level so I wouldn’t be surprised if we find the sacrificial altar here. There is extensive scaffolding above us, a few platforms, as well as an entire level comprised of metal flooring, not solid, but like a grate.”
He didn’t know how to explain the layout. Once inside, the team would see and hopefully adjust. A few vats as well, decent cover if empty, but if full of flammables, they’d be screwed. The perfect setup for a trap or ambush.
Something was missing or amiss, but whatever it was eluded him. For such a large building the noise level was certainly low—the chanting ceased. More bad. The cultists probably laid in wait for them in elevated positions.
On second thought—maybe not—the elevated position was a military tactic, not a bunch of untrained goons who, so far, displayed zero fighting prowess. Their leader, however, might have military training of some sort, but again, the odds were against the notion based on the Câ Tsang’s performance so far.
Jasper turned to Penny. “I don’t see Temple’s team. The hallway they entered must lead elsewhere.”
Penny remained unfazed. The woman recovered, or hid pain well, and compartmentalized. Both FBI and military preached compartmenting problems—specifically in not allowing personal feelings to get in the way of the mission.
“We can’t stand around here all day.” Penny straightened. “Temple’s team has their orders and so do we. Let’s get going.”
All right. Jasper led the team from the hallway into the greater hall of the building. From this position, much of the building’s structure was visible—at least the upper levels. Down here, in what he believed was the lowest level, presented doors on both sides, more areas to clear. The last thing they needed was for the enemy to cut them off or come up on their rear.
“Before we go farther, we need to clear the rooms down here.” Jasper directed his team to break into smaller units of two. Penny took one man, and Jasper the other. No knock and announce, but a decisive entry—there was simply no time to fool around.
“What’s your name?” Jasper asked his new temporary partner.
“Ian.”
“All right, you know what a button hook entry is?”
“I do.”
“Former cop or military?” Jasper raised an eyebrow.
Ian blushed. “No. ’Fraid not. Video games.”
“Ah. Works in a pinch, I suppose. I’ll go right. You go left. No itchy trigger finger.”
“Yes, sir.” The man’s finger crept toward the trigger of a Colt 1911.
“You’ve shot your Colt before, I hope?”
“At the range, yes.” Ian grinned.
The grin was reassuring, anyway. Jasper took a deep breath. “Here we go.” He flung the door open and ran in, shotgun ready below eye level, but easy enough to raise if need be. “Ian, do not even think about discharging your weapon in here.”
“Huh?”
Shelves lined the room from floor to ceiling. Boxes and crates crowded the floor in the center. No cultists hid in the room and, thank goodness, no Nephilim. The room did contain, however, all the ingredients for thermite, save the catalyst. Ugly. This one room and the amounts of chemicals here were capable of bringing down the entire building. Jasper had witnessed the results of thermite on vehicles during his time in the Marine Corps.
“Thermite. What the hell is their obsession with thermite about?”
“What in the blazes is thermite?” Ian asked.
Jasper chuckled. “Are you English?”
“By origin, yes, but an ex-pat now. Been living in the States for years, ditched most of my accent.”
“Well, blazes is about right with thermite. The cultists destroy themselves with the stuff when cornered.”
“Will the stuff blow?”
“Not spontaneously, and thermite doesn’t exactly blow up.” Jasper examined the shelves for other chemicals, finding a few jars and bottles containing unidentifiable powders. Maybe the cult leader mixed his own vile concoctions. Something he hadn’t thought of before popped into his mind: someone in the cult, probably the leader, was either a chemist or had been exposed to thermite via military duty. Other reasons existed, he supposed, for understanding and using thermite—Internet searches and so forth, chemistry forums, disgruntled-jackasses-who-want-to-burn-shit-to-the-ground forums. “Anyway, thermite creates an intense exothermic reaction, generating extreme heat. Enough to break a human body down into powder.”
“Oh.” Ian backed toward the door.
“Let’s move on, we have other rooms to clear.”
Ian was out the door before Jasper finished the sentence.
The other two rooms contained simple supplies, such as dried and canned foods, and water—survivalist type gear. Perhaps a bunker existed below the level they now stood, so the cult could wait out the Nephilim apocalypse they were trying to incite—if that was what they were doing in the first place. It was difficult to figure out the thinking of a cult.
Jasper shivered. Not a good thought—but anything was possible now.
Jasper and Ian met with Penny and her partner after clearing the rooms on their side. Penny had found a half empty weapons locker, but nothing else. The group concluded and assumed the cultists were armed with small arms and thermite for the purposes of suicide.
“What now?” Penny asked. “We’re going up, right? I don’t think the altar is down here.”
Jasper’s radio crackled.
“Jasper, this is Temple, do you read?” It was a weak signal and full of static, but the words came through.
“I read. Go ahead.”
“We’ve located where the sacrifices are to take place. From our vantage point below the area, we believe two people are on the platform for sacrifice—but can’t see if it’s Steve and Carlos.”
“Ten-four, are you moving to free them?”
“Heavily guarded. Wait. Someone is descending a long stair toward the area. We’re pulling back.”
Jasper’s body tingled. The idea struck him hard, but this was the right thing to do.
“I have an idea. I’m going to create a distraction.”
“How?”
“Fall back and meet up with Penny and her group. I’m off to gather materials for creating a ruckus.”
“Wait—”
“Don’t worry, I’ll find you. I’m not trying to trade my life—I’m not desperate yet.”
The radio keyed and Temple’s sigh came through crackling. “Roger.”
“Great, now get ready to free Steve. I haven’t seen any Nephilim since we’ve been in here, have you?”
“No. And that worries me.”
“Not much we can do about them, anyway. I’m sending Penny to you. Meet back where the two groups split up. Out.”
Jasper turned to Penny, who simply nodded and waved the two men with her to follow. Ian went with them. They disappeared back down the hallway to the area they’d split from Temple. Jasper glanced at his watch—Pete and the cavalry would descend on the place in another thirty minutes or so and he didn’t necessarily want the attention of the locals here.
He ran back to the room where the thermite materials were stored.
Chapter 40
Lali crept down the metal stairs. She’d left Rao, who had secreted himself in an antechamber off the sacrificial area. Directly below her was the platform upon which both Steve and Carlos were tied.
She stared down at them. Lali harbored no animosity toward the man named Steve, for he’d done nothing wrong other than belong to what Rao described as their mortal enemy—Völundr’s Hammer. Carlos belonged to the Hammer too but he’d also hurt her, and proved to be a lying sack of shit. She bit her bottom lip; then, sucked in a deep breath through her nose and released it. Still, she thought killing Carlos or serving him up for lunch to whatever Rao was summoni
ng was over the top. She wasn’t that pissed at the bastard.
Calm.
Lali desired calm. She’d come to question Rao’s sanity altogether by now. He was volatile and unpredictable. But the power drew her, seduced her—she was about to witness the power of the nâga. Rao’s strength impressed her, but the same power in the hands of an intelligent and capable street-smart woman? Unstoppable. She grinned. Her grandmother would have told her not to break her arm patting herself on the back—and would have completely disapproved of what she was doing.
Carlos moaned. Her ex’s drug-induced stupor would soon end, and Steve’s would follow.
Khâu surrounded the two sacrifices, the two Sha ’Lu. Soon the nâga would drink of their honey, their bjang, and leave them as lifeless piles of meat and bones. Witnessing the feeding didn’t interest or fascinate her, but Rao insisted. The sacrifice was inevitable, as was Rao’s ascent, but Lali desired the power and would rob Rao of the glory at the first opportunity.
Creaking metal from high in the rafters caught her attention. The half dozen khâu standing guard over the sacrifices glanced up as well. Wispy remnants of smoke, left over from the idiot who had driven the truck into the side of the building no doubt, wafted throughout the ceiling’s metal bracings and cross members, but the acrid stench hung in the still air.
Carlos moaned again, drawing her gaze back to the pathetic man. His eyes opened, he licked his lips, and his head lolled. His blinking eyes focused on her, and widened.
“What—what have you done?”
“Quiet. You will soon understand,” one of the khâu replied in their creepy monotone way.
Lali hated the drugging—they’d drugged her as well when the cult kidnapped her. But she enjoyed most of the other duties she performed in the service of the Câ Tsang. It was certainly better than waitressing and better than finishing her education, even though she’d been close to a two-year degree.
“You, khâu,” Lali said. “Gag him. I don’t want to hear anything come out of his filthy mouth.”
“With what?” the khâu asked. Most of the cult members often seemed half-mindless. Lali had wondered where they came from, with their weirdly similar appearance, but she’d never found out. That was another secret Rao kept to himself.
