Iron Angels

by Eric Flint

  “Take Carlos too,” Temple directed the two other men. Ian pulled Penny up and supported her weight, forcing her to put one foot in front of the other. The other two men got Carlos up, propped him up between them and dragged him off.

  Temple hit the ladder, and got about halfway up before Jasper grabbed her leg. “No, don’t.”

  She looked down. “But what if Lali isn’t successful in resolving this?—and I’m not about to trust her. This all has to end tonight.”

  “But how are we going to be sure of anything?” Jasper sighed.

  “Hey, at least we’ll have a ringside seat for Armageddon.”

  “That’s kind of melodramatic, don’t you think?”

  Temple stared at him.

  “Fine,” he said. “Let’s get up there—maybe you can wield the hammer.”

  * * *

  A crack bisected the giant stone slab. Jasper realized the metal platform supporting the slab from beneath must have been weakened.

  The two Nephilim fought about twenty feet above the platform, an orange and red writhing mess. Now they appeared as two giant snakes twisting about in a body of water.

  Jasper and Temple stared straight up at the beasts as they twisted and jockeying for the kill, mesmerized.

  Lali shouted something unintelligible.

  Jasper shook from his reverie. “We have to move.”

  “Right.” Temple ran for the ladder leading up one more level to Rao, where Lali stood at the base.

  Jasper started after her, but a gleam caught his eye—Steve’s hammer. He glanced between the fighting Nephilim above, the hammer, and the ladder Temple raced for.

  He chose to go after the hammer, diving for the weapon teetering on the edge of the compromised platform.

  “Jasper!”

  He rolled over on his back in time to see Temple’s face twisted with concern. What had happened? Jasper looked up. The two Nephilim spun in the air in a flat spin just above him. The two forms appeared welded together. The two large creatures maybe twelve feet tall were whirling about—and their fall would end near to him, or right on top of him.

  His fingers closed around the hammer. He scrambled for the extreme edge of the platform, taking him as far away from the center as possible, but also as far away as possible from where Temple and Lali stood.

  The Nephilim’s crash split the platform in two, the weakened halves sinking in the middle. Steve’s body slid and fell through the crack. Jasper winced.

  The hammer dropped from Jasper’s grasp, hitting the floor beneath the platform with a clang. Jasper threw his arms out for balance, and teetered on the edge, but balanced himself, at least for the time being. His eyes locked on Temple’s. She nodded. Lali began climbing up the platform’s ladder where Rao stood.

  Rao was watching the Nephilim. He hadn’t seen Lali and Temple. Good. Hopefully he’d remain distracted by the colossal struggle.

  Behind Rao, the stone wall—well, another free-floating wall, a false wall—appeared like the one at the Euclid. Rao used the wall as an artificial barrier to the other world, what Ed White and Vance and the other physicist, Greg, called brane cosmology. Funny how the unimportant piece of information, the thing unable to save you at the moment, popped into one’s mind. The stone wall shifted and pulsed and for a moment, Jasper caught a glimpse of another world—odd hues and strange swelling landscapes. He blinked a few times—at this distance, the shapes could have been anything. An alien forest or field, a city, or a wasteland even—or maybe just cloud tops.

  Lali reached the top of the platform. Rao’s eyes widened when he spotted her. Apparently, he hadn’t expected her to still be alive.

  Temple crept up the ladder, but remained below the lip, out of sight.

  The Nephilim writhed before Jasper’s eyes. The bright red one broke free from the orange, visibly shaken, visibly hurt. The orange Nephilim appeared trapped in the split platform, and struggled to free itself. Jasper couldn’t grasp how these creatures functioned on earth, in this atmosphere. What was their world like? How did these things change their shapes and fly and—

  Jasper turned his attention back on the platform: Rao’s hands wrapped around Lali’s neck, forcing her down on her knees as if she were nothing. The man was powerful, unnaturally so.

  “Temple, don’t climb any more!” Jasper shouted across the platform.

  The bright red Nephilim shot toward Rao and Lali. Rao backed away, shoving Lali forward.

  “For you, the greatest of the nâga!” Rao shouted, arms spread wide.

  The beast landed atop the metal dais.

  Temple dropped from the ladder, back to the bottom.

  Rao stepped to the side. The Nephilim had a clear path to Lali and the portal leading back to its own universe.

  In front of Jasper, the orange Nephilim fought for freedom from the metal crack, the platform acted like a giant pair of scissors attempting to cut the alien in half. The alien’s body shifted, becoming less substantial for a second—then the metal immediately surrounding the alien liquefied and the beast shot into the air. There was an orange trail where the Nephilim’s legs should have been, like a genie coming out of a bottle, the bottom still mist or smoke.

  The orange Nephilim growled, and the sound shook the building.

  The red Nephilim craned its neck, peering back up at its adversary. It made a squealing noise, its tendrils extended from the snout, waving.

  Lali scrambled for Rao. He sneered at the woman, but she got on her feet and swung at him, connecting over and over, but he only laughed. He shoved her aside and stepped before the stony membrane, which was pulsing and stretching, as if the other world was attempting a breach, attempting to become a part of earth, and this universe.

  The orange Nephilim coiled up and sprung before Jasper could think about what was happening, or what would happen.

  Rao opened his mouth, words spilled out: “And now for glory. Glory and power!” He stretched his arms out to the side, wide open.

  The orange Nephilim crashed into the red one.

  Lali flung herself at Rao, knocking him into the path of both Nephilim.

  The four bodies—the two Nephilim, Rao, and Lali—all slammed into the membrane as one. The stone bulged and stretched forward into the room, contracted, and fell into the other world. Lali’s face poked from the membrane, her mouth wide but uttering no scream; her face sucked into the membrane. Part of Rao stretched from the elastic material, followed by orange and red tendrils and limbs.

  The swirls and scars on the stone solidified and the building quieted.

  Eerie quiet.

  * * *

  Soon though, trickling water or petrochemicals along with creaking and groaning metal reached Temple’s ears. She wondered if her hearing might be permanently damaged.

  “Hear that?” Jasper asked.

  “What?”

  “Sirens. I hope the Völundr’s Hammer people got out of here.”

  “Yeah, but what are we going to do about all the dead Câ Tsang here? Won’t it be obvious some of them were shot?”

  Temple glanced about for an easy way off the platform. They could either slide down to where the orange Nephilim had been stuck, or hang off the side where Jasper was and drop.

  Jasper shrugged. “Figure that out once we’re down from here. Plus, we’ve got to get Steve’s body out of here.”

  “What? Why?” Temple grimaced slightly. For the two of them to haul the big man’s corpse outside was going to be a real effort.

  “He’s one of us.”

  “No, he isn’t.”

  “Look, I’m a Marine. We don’t leave anyone behind, even the dead. As long as the building doesn’t come down on us, we’re taking him out.”

  “If you say so.” Temple studied the situation for a moment and opted for the drop—she had no desire to touch where the Nephilim had been stuck between two pieces of metal.

  Jasper, however, didn’t drop down, but instead climbed the ladder to the dais where the Nephili
m, Lali, and the cult leader, Rao had been seconds earlier.

  “Get down here, we need to get outside before the police arrive!” Temple sniffed. She had seen pipes running from the vats, but the scent of gasoline or some kind of petrochemical threatened to overpower her. A weak sizzle cut through the high-pitched whir still present in her ears.

  “This is incredible,” Jasper said from his position on the dais. “You ought to see this.”

  “Jasper, we need to get out of here, I have a feeling the destruction isn’t over.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Fuel—unexpended fuel. And I think the thermite is still sizzling and if it reaches any fumes inside pipes not affected by the other explosions and fires, well—”

  “You had me at ‘unexpended fuel.’” Jasper slid down the ladder and dropped from the platform.

  They found Steve and began carrying him out. Before long, though, they were mostly dragging his corpse.

  Thermite burned indeed—seared flesh and acrid smoke gagged Jasper, and Temple coughed. Stone basins smoldered, containing apile of ash remains. Apparently the Câ Tsang survivors had committed suicide. Jasper wondered if Rao had ordered them to do so when the fight went south on the cultists.

  Fresh air guided them toward an exit of opportunity where some of the falling metal scaffolding had torn a gash in the building’s metal siding.

  Sirens grew louder and louder—apparently the police were having trouble getting to the petrochemical plant. The blanketing fog thinned and lifted its veil, as if exposing the horrid face of the building behind Jasper and Temple. She didn’t want to think about how close they’d come to dying at the hands of the cult—or, worse, the Nephilim. Lali called them nâga—perhaps Vance would understand the reference. Temple sure as hell didn’t. Poor Vance, in the hospital, but hopefully pulling through.

  Jasper turned to her. “Wow. No offense, but you look like you’ve just been kicked around by a demon-worshipping cult. Something right out of Revelations.”

  “Ha ha ha.”

  Deep bruises covered half of Jasper’s face. She was pretty sure she didn’t look much better. Bruises ringed her wrists and forearms, as if she had been gripped by a gorilla. Blood caked the corners of her mouth and a faint trail running from her nose had dried. Her nose felt swollen. It might be broken.

  Temple shook her head. “All right, so the Vin Diesel–looking bastard put me through the wringer. Like you’d have done any better. You should be thanking me.” She looked him up and down. “I thought you were pink before—but now you look like a hot dog that’s been on the grill a bit too long.”

  They walked away from the building, dragging Steve toward the sounds and lights of the sirens.

  Chapter 45

  The East Chicago police arrived in force, coming upon Jasper and Temple about one hundred yards from the smoldering and unstable petrochemical plant. Two unmarked cars behind the row of obvious police vehicles stood out.

  Bucars. Shit.

  Pete Hernandez reached Jasper and Temple first, with two other ECPD officers coming with him.

  “Jasper, quick,” the older cop said, “what happened—”

  “—are there any bodies in there—”

  “—you okay—”

  “The man we’re dragging is named Steve,” Jasper said. “He died during the incident.”

  Pete nodded gravely and had Steve taken away by the two cops.

  Jasper hurriedly relayed as much as he could before ASAC Masters and SSA Johnson got to him. Luckily, a mass of police blocked their approach quite well, but they pushed past people. The expressions on their faces were concern mixed with anger on Johnson’s—mostly concern, being fair to the man—and unalloyed anger on Master’s.

  “The dead man was Steve Stahlberg, owner of Wayland Precision. He was abducted by those bastards. He died saving his daughter and another one of his people, Carlos, also an abductee.”

  “Our source,” Pete said. “All right, here’s the explanation: a kidnapping investigation worked jointly with East Chicago Police with possible human trafficking and drugs and a freak industrial accident.” Pete took a deep breath after spitting out the interesting variation on the true events.

  “You summed up the evening perfectly.” Jasper started to grin, but the action hurt his face.

  “You two look horrible,” Pete said.

  Silence.

  Pete coughed. “What a mess—you’re lucky you walked out—”

  “Special Agent Wilde!” ASAC Masters pushed through and stood face to face with Jasper, but didn’t say anything.

  Jasper shot him a look.

  Masters flushed. “What in the hell happened here and how can you explain your actions of the past few days? Agent Ravel is in the hospital, he’s going to make it, but what in the hell were you thinking? And you, Agent Black…”

  “That’s Supervisory Special Agent Black,” Temple responded forcefully. She pursed her lips, obviously ready for a fight if Masters wanted it.

  Masters looked away from her and took a deep breath. Behind him, SSA Johnson grimaced.

  Pete stepped between Jasper and his bosses. “Both of your agents need medical attention—”

  “I’m—” Jasper started.

  “You’re in no condition for an inquisition right now, and neither is your partner,” Pete said, very firmly.

  Masters pointed to the building. “Does the building need clearing by SWAT or Hazmat? The special agent bomb techs?”

  “There was a thermite reaction that got into some of the petrochemicals—there were also some gunshots and some deaths, I’m afraid.” Jasper looked down at the ground.

  “This is a disaster.” Masters looked up at the sky.

  “Yeah, it is,” Temple stepped forward and got in the man’s face. “People died. There were victims. We did the best we could. But yeah, it’s a disaster—for them. But I know that you’re really worried about whether it’s a disaster for your career.”

  Masters took a step back. “No. That’s not what I—”

  Pete held up his hands. “Enough. This was a joint investigation culminating in the apprehension of the people perpetrating heinous acts after kidnapping innocents. Now I’m taking these agents to the hospital.”

  Masters stormed off, Johnson trailing after him.

  “So,” Pete said, once they were out of ear shot, “that was Masters and Johnson, eh?”

  “Great pair, huh?”

  “Well, they can go eff themselves,” Pete said.

  Jasper bent over and laughed so hard he thought he might retch. Temple’s laugh, something he’d hardly heard since she’d arrived in Indiana was infectious and endearing.

  Pete’s was nonplussed. “What? Was that really so funny?”

  “I am in so much trouble,” Jasper said.

  Chapter 46

  The event, as Jasper took to calling the week of Temple and Vance and cults and aliens/monsters/demons/take-your-pick, had occurred two months ago. The oppressive heat of summer gave way to a welcoming, comfortable fall. He’d been pulled back from the Scientific Anomalies Group by his field office’s Special Agent in Charge and forced to work applicant matters.

  “I was surprised when your name popped up on my cell phone this morning.” Jasper stood and greeted Temple and Vance as they walked into the bar and strolled up to the table where he, Ed White, and Pete Hernandez sat sipping libations of varying stripes.

  Ed jumped out of his chair and smiled broadly at Temple. “Looking fine, lady.” She gave Ed a hug that seemed quite enthusiastic.

  “All right, Billy Dee,” Jasper said. “Give her a chance to ease into this, for crying out loud.”

  Temple laughed. “Still making stupid jokes, I see.”

  “Am I missing something here?” Pete asked.

  Jasper shook his head. “Nothing important, Pete. I believe everyone here knows everyone else, so let’s get down to the drinking and gossiping.”

  More drinks were sloshed on the ta
ble. Even Vance partook, sipping on a light beer. The little man had mostly recovered from his wounds, but favored his left side. The Nephilim hitting him really did a number on him. Jasper clenched his right hand, aching still from when he’d touched what he now believed was the edge of an alien world back at the Euclid Hotel.

  Temple scanned the group. “You all don’t look any worse for wear. We’ve been through a lot. How is Penny?”

  Jasper blew out a long breath. “She’s a mess. Steve’s funeral—well, it was melancholy.” Jasper studied the beer in front of him, the bubbles ascending within the pilsner glass. “I try getting together with her once in a while, but she spends almost all of her time over at Wayland Precision.”

  “Sorry to hear she’s still torn up. Give her time,” Temple said. “Anything else?”

  Jasper chuckled. “Oh, yeah.” He pulled a piece of paper from his jacket pocket and smoothed it out on the table.

  “What’s that?” Temple arched an eyebrow.

  “My OPR adjudication paperwork.”

  “What’s OPR?” Ed asked.

  “Office of Professional Responsibility,” Temple said. “Those jackasses ended up OPR’ing you, after all?”

  “Yep. Here, I’ll give you the highlights,” Jasper cleared his throat. “Employee willfully disobeyed his supervisor and Assistant Special Agent in Charge, utilized resources, both FBI, state, and local during the course of an unauthorized investigation where he acted as a rogue agent.”

  “Whaaat?” Temple’s eyes were wide.

  “Yeah,” Jasper said. “In mitigation, employee was under severe emotional distress from his recent divorce.”

  “But the divorce is so last year,” Pete said. Everyone laughed.

  Jasper took a deep breath. “In further mitigation, the employee saved lives and prevented further kidnappings.” He grinned. “Now we get to the fun part. In aggravation, employee showed no remorse for his actions, circumvented FBI procedures, and caused damage to private property. Penalty: thirty-day suspension.”

  Vance whistled. “They didn’t ding you on my hospitalization, at least.”