by A. L. Knorr
Metal Angel
Rings of the Inconquo, Book 3
Aaron D. Schneider
A.L. Knorr
Intellectually Promiscuous Press
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Epilogue
A.D. Schneider’s Notes
Acknowledgments
A.L. Knorr’s Notes
Also by A.L. Knorr
Also by Aaron D. Schneider
Prologue
The percussive crackle of gunfire reverberated through the stony halls.
There was a momentary silence, the distant sound of a wild laugh, then a thunderous boom. Confused screams of pain came next, each falling silent in a morbidly slow sequence. Feet pounded, echoing without direction. It sounded like a rainstorm.
Beneath his superior’s abandoned desk, a small man clutched his precious tablet and frantically swiped at the screen with trembling fingers. Closed circuit video cameras featured a facility in chaos, people scrambling for exits and clogging tunnels in panic. Others showed armed security rushing forward, outmatched wolves rushing to the slaughter. He flicked past screens of raw static before coming upon a single figure standing in front of a sealed security door.
The small man whimpered, biting his lip as he waited and watched.
The figure, his silhouette wavering as though radiating incredible heat, reached his hand toward the door then through it. The door twisted and crumpled, folding in on itself like paper on fire. There was a terrific flash and the video on the screen blinked then turned to static. An instant later came the roar of a detonation, then more panicked gunfire. Screams came seconds later.
He stared at the static-filled screen, listening to the meticulous and malicious silencing of the screams, willing his mind to think of something, anything, to do.
His superior’s rotund mass had emerged from behind the desk and waddled off to a waiting helicopter nearly 48 hours ago, effectively leaving him in charge. It should have been routine, closing up shop now that the asset had been awakened. It should have been simple. He feared displeasing his superior, perhaps more than death, but nothing had prepared him for this: his utter inability to manage the catastrophe ripping through the facility had driven him beneath the desk.
There were fewer screams now, and the realisation of what that meant filled him with a desperate energy. The facility was lost, that was plain. Now recovering as many personnel as possible became the priority.
Springing out from under the desk so quickly he scraped his back, he flicked through the displays with a rush of giddy hope. The evacuation team had forced their way through and cleared out the clogs in the escape tunnels. The trickle of remaining personnel stepped over limp bodies as they left the facility.
He depressed the mic application on his tablet and fought to keep his high voice from trembling.
“Redeploy to the central corridor.”
The evacuation team, a small but veteran crew of security professionals, looked up at the camera.
“Evacuation’s not complete,” their leader growled into his headset.
“Redeploy, immediately!”
His voice sounded shrill but he didn’t care. He didn’t dare cross to the escape tunnels without cover. That man-shaped thing needed slowing down. Silently, he cursed himself for not coming to this decision earlier.
“Redeploy! That is an order!”
Training kicked in. The evacuation team, slowly, began to shoulder past the last few stragglers.
Hugging his device to his chest, he left the office overlooking the pit full of cooled slag, wincing as his shoes clanged on the grated walkways. He reached the security door at the rear of the central corridor and paused to swipe through the video feeds. He watched the evacuation team filing in, weapons at their shoulders, securing the long tubular room. Their point of ingress was his target, the quickest way to the escape tunnels.
He swiped twice more and saw the same silhouette now striding toward the vault-like portal to the central corridor. He had moments, maybe only seconds.
Steeling himself to bolt across the room, he opened the door and began to run.
Three steps through the door, something clubbed him hard across the side of the head. He went tumbling to the floor.
“Get down, you idiot,” a rough voice snarled.
One of the evacuation team crouched over him, a hand pressing his chest down. His vision wobbled, but between tremulous angles, he could see the door he needed. He tried to rise, but his body wouldn’t. The man pinning him had him beat by twenty or thirty kilos.
“Almost got in our line of fire,” the security brute hissed. “Could’ve gotten yoursel—”
The chamber witnessed its first dawn as the main corridor’s entryway erupted into a miniature sun. Stabbing light preceded a wave of heat and shrapnel that had every man in the room screaming in pain and terror.
Blinded, his skin blistered under the caress of such intense heat. The torrent of destruction rolled over him in a series of waves, but by luck or fate he was spared the worst of it as the evacuation team member crumpled on top of him.
A few seconds after the searing heat passed, he wriggled and squirmed out from under the dead weight, struggling for breath as his sense of hearing came back by degrees. His vision was obscured by multicoloured spots, but he heard the now familiar sounds of firearms discharging and men screaming.
Crawling on hands and knees, he guessed the direction in which the door most likely lay. Despite being out from under the corpse’s weight, he still struggled to breathe. In a distant, quieter portion of his mind he wondered if superheated air had compromised his lungs, or raw terror was just making him hyperventilate. Regardless, he was winded and gasping by the time his fingers struck the far wall.
His hands pawed across the walls in every direction, but there was no door.
Searching frantically, willing the shimmering distortions to disappear, he heard himself begin to gibber and mewl. His hearing, having returned quicker than his sight, told him the gunshots had ceased, and only a few men were still screaming. As his vision returned reluctantly, he could just make out the details of the wall before him. He gave a sob of relief as he spied the door. Scrabbling, he flung himself forward and shoved it open.
He lunged forward but gave a cry as he was wrenched backwards, one hand still wrapped tightly around the latch bar. He pulled and twisted, but his hand remained stuck fast and the door refused to close. Confusion bubbled through blind fear, and he looked down to see the metal of the bar had warped around his hand, while the door’s hinges had become snarled chunks of steel. He screamed, hammering and pulling until his knuckles split and his bones popped, but he remained trapped.
The dread presence loomed behind him. Dropping to his knees, he contorted to beg for his life.
“Please,” he whined, then words failed him at what he beheld.
It may have once been a man, slight and dark-featured, but the twisted m
ass of molten metal throbbing in its chest was something no mortal could bear. Glowing like forge fire, tendrils of iron, veins of bronze and runnels of lead seethed in endless loops through the bare chest and abdomen. Eyes bright beyond enduring glared with demented intensity from above the tortured body.
The small man trapped at the door heard a high pitched whine escape his throat even as he felt his tongue clinging to his lower jaw.
KILL IT
The voice thudded against his sense like a hammer blow.
“I want information first,” the abomination said with a rough, but very human voice. “I need to know what they did here.”
KILL IT
The demand was just as brutal as before, but this time he could tell it came from inside the horror before him.
“P-please,” he sobbed again and held up a placating hand. “I-I can help you. I c-can be useful.”
The abomination turned dark eyes to consider him, lip curling in disgust.
“I know you will.” He laughed, the bitter sound echoed oddly with the pounding, grinding presence inside his body. “You are going to tell me everyth—”
The horrible creature’s voice failed, and confusion twisted across the sneering expression. Shaking its head, the gaze refocused. It continued.
“I want to know what happened here. Tell me ever—”
Again, almost like it had forgotten what it was saying, but this time, the hellish engine sounds heightened in pace and intensity.
TRAITOR!
The invective was like burning poison and he threw his arm over his head in a vain attempt to cover both ears.
“Not now,” the abomination snarled, face twisting with pained effort.
TRAI—
Its whole body trembled, then its eyes closed.
The small man knelt there, quivering, arm draped over his head. He didn’t dare say anything or even attempt to free his hand again. Drawing any attention to himself seemed like a terrible idea.
“Please, try not to move,” instructed a lower, softer voice from its lips. Its eyes, once dark and smouldering, were now glimmering and grey, like silver coins.
With stiff, angular movements, it reached out, touching the door. The bar flowed away from his hand like water. Clutching his liberated hand to his chest, he stared up at the transformed creature.
“You should run now.” Its voice was gentle, even sad. “But not that way. They already weakened those tunnels before entering the facility. Your comrades are either dead or soon will be.”
He stared down the doomed escape passage and back to the suddenly transformed thing.
“Where should I go?” He didn’t care how pitiful his voice sounded.
The abomination made to shrug, but it was a sharp, painful motion, like a momentary seizing. “I’m not sure.” The voice became softer, more distant. “But hurry … I … can’t hold them … much … longer.”
The furious throbbing began again, but he’d already begun to scramble up and away.
“Please …” the voice called wearily from somewhere deep inside the horror. “Run.”
He was out of the central corridor, taking a side hatch to scuttle down a ladder and into the lower, utility corridors. It was dark, the air close and stale, but every second took him further from that living nightmare.
He was in the knotted bowels of the facility before he heard the abomination’s fury unleash in a massive series of crashing explosions. Stones trembled in the blackness, and he curled into a ball in that darkness clutching his ears as the terrible voice thundered down toward him with horrible clarity.
FIND HIM!
KILL HIM!
One
“Prepped for entry.” Whispered words came through my earpiece. “Go ahead, Ms Bashir.”
I drew in a breath and punched out with the fused Rings, launching my will like a penetrating bolt. Across the alleyway, the rust streaked door flew off its hinges and spun into the yawning darkness. The rending sound of its impact hadn’t even died away before the TNC security team swept in, weapons drawn.
A heartbeat later, with no resistance met and no shots fired, Sergeant Stewart cleared the point team to advance, then signalled for the rest of us to follow. I put my hand on Stewart’s taut shoulder as I’d been taught less than a week ago and followed him across the paved street and through the gaping portal I’d created.
It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the gloom, but once they did, my skin prickled with horror. This safe-house had become a tomb.
In the first room three bodies were strewn across the floor and blood streaked the walls. Through doorways to my left and right were more scenes of carnage. The door straight ahead was only a foreboding shadow.
More bodies, more blood. Men and women lying on the floor or pitched against walls. Some were dressed in casual business attire, khakis and light polos, while others bore more traditional Gandoura or Djellaba of North Africa. Whatever their dress, all their clothing was stained with crimson drying to shades of black and brown, and every last one of them appeared to have been armed.
Later, the emotional impact of what I was seeing would haunt me, but what struck me now was how … conventional it all seemed.
We’d deployed to this corner of Morocco on word that a known Winterthür safe-house had experienced something strange and violent. Marks had insisted that this had to be Sark. Before I could think to hard about it, I found myself on a chartered plane to Fes with a team of well-armed men.
Three hours in the air had given me just enough time to wrap my head around what was going on before being thrown into a jeep, then creeping along with the team through hot, dusty streets. I’d been prepping myself for a head to head with Sark, or at the very least seeing his ugly handiwork, but now – in a building full of corpses – I found myself perplexed. These people had been shot. Bullets weren’t Sark’s way.
“I don’t think…” I swallowed my words as Stewart raised a finger to his lips, looking stern.
“Sorry,” I mouthed. The frosty glare softened and the old soldier threw me a wink before looking in to see the rest of the building swept.
With a few sharp hand gestures, he left two of the secondary or “clean-up” team with me and took the other two with him. One manned the doorway while the other motioned for me to join him along an interior wall.
In the dim light, it was hard to make out who was who. It didn’t help that they all seemed to fit a similar type. Compact and muscular. None of them were big men – like Marcus was – except for maybe Stewart, who was more barrel-chested than the rest, but they all moved with purpose, power, and efficiency.
As I hunkered next to my assigned escort, his head swivelled back and forth, the barrel of his combat rifle following his gaze. His hazel eyes took everything in with hawk-like intensity, his focus never wavered. Even when he caught me studying him, he spared me only a curt nod, gaze already moving on.
I wished my focus was so tight. Now that the initial rush was over, I had time to process the smell. The intel must have been good because the bodies were probably only hours old, but that also meant their smell was fresh. Sheer determination to not embarrass myself in front of the security team held the contents of my stomach in place, but it was touch and go until Stewart’s thick accent drawled in my ear.
“Right, let’s get this mess sort’d.”
The man at the outer door kept his vigil, but my guardian visibly relaxed, rising from his crouch to move to the doorway leading deeper into the building.
“Go ahead, mum.” He nodded towards the door.
I felt as though the walls were twisting down at me as I stood, fighting to remain steady in spite of the vertigo. Nausea chewed at my stomach like a grumpy, old mutt. I managed a few steps before my foot caught on a body, sending me lurching against the bloody wall, hands out.
Pulling away, I looked down at my hands in horror.
“No worries, mum.” My escort fished something from one of his many trouser pockets. Before I
realised what he was doing, something damp and soft pressed into my sullied hands. In the gloom, it looked suspiciously like a wad of fresh baby wipes.
“Really?” My nerveless fingers folded around the wet fabric. I gave him a crooked smile, the corners of my mouth trembling, and began to scrub the blood away.
“Soldier’s best friend.” He gave a gap-toothed chuckle. “Next to spare ammunition, of course.” He stroked the extra magazines with affection.
“Thanks.” I looked my hands over, happy to see they were clean.
“Of course, mum.” He snatched up the used wipes and stowed them in what I hoped was a spare pocket.
“Ms Bashir,” Stewart’s voice was a guttural rumble in my ear. “Are you waiting for an invitation?”
Embarrassed, I moved through the doorway into a dimly-lit corridor at whose end was another door. As quickly as I dared, I crossed the intervening space, grateful not to stumble over any more corpses.
In the next, far larger, room, were several bodies pushed off to one side. Blackened streaks smeared the floor. The bodies here had been dead longer.
“... most likely they wanted to wait for the others,” one of the security team was saying to Stewart. “Let ’em get in and then mop up with a simple ambush.”
Stewart’s gaze probed the floor and pile of corpses until my guardian spoke up.
“Might be for in here, but not up there.” He pointed a gloved hand back the way I’d come. “Bodies and bullet holes being what they are points to that lot having a bloody shootout.”
The one who’d first been talking nodded, his brow knitting. “They’re the fresher batch.”
