by Toby Tate
He glanced across the room and realized he could no longer see his partner. At first, he thought the man might have left—but then he heard a sound behind him and turned to see Cain standing there, his silver eyes glistening like two dots of fluorescent light. Rasheem tried to aim his carbine, but the demon grabbed the barrel and twisted it out of his grip with seemingly little effort. Then, he turned it on Rasheem. But instead of firing, he rammed it with brutal force through the soldier’s body armor and out the back, splintering several ribs, perforating skin and obliterating internal organs. Rasheem’s brain barely had time to register the pain as he toppled over onto the floor and convulsed, desperately trying to fill his lungs with air as they also filled with blood, until finally, his heart stopped and everything went black.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Abel felt Cain’s presence in the room. He had no need for night vision goggles—he could see his partner, one of the Saudis, in the back of the lab they were now in as if the lights were on. He knew Cain was there, watching him, from the other side of the wall. He also knew what he had to do.
He quickly moved around the tables full of lab equipment to where the Saudi was checking behind a storage room door, and before the man could react, grabbed his head in both hands and twisted. The soldier’s vertebrae snapped and crunched under the violent motion, killing him instantly. Abel let him go and the corpse slumped to the floor, the carbine clattering uselessly at his feet.
He didn’t bother to look, but he knew Cain had witnessed his action. That was the first step. He turned and strode to the exit.
* * *
El-Hashem crashed through the lab doorway out into the open space beyond, frantically searching for Cain, so that he could kill him with his bare hands. There was no one in the room but him. He turned and opened the adjacent door, peered inside. Both soldiers were lying on the floor, dead. He went to the next room and saw the same, as well as the next. Abel stepped out of another door and peered at him. El-Hashem ignored him.
“Cain!” he shouted. “Come out and fight like a man, you murderous pig! I will put you out of your miserable existence!”
El-Hashem bent down, laid the carbine on the floor, and waited, glancing around to see if Cain would answer his call. He could feel his heart beating as a bead of sweat trickled down his face and onto the concrete. In spite of the cool temperatures inside the bunker, he felt like he was burning up.
He noticed a strange sensation, as if someone was watching him, and turned to see Cain’s face materializing out of the aluminum-plated wall between two doors. His mind could not register what his eyes were telling it, and at first he thought it a hallucination, that perhaps they had been given some kind of drug without their knowledge. The vision seemed even more surreal in the greenish glow of his NVGs. The face was followed by a hand, then an arm, a leg, until finally Cain stood before el-Hashem. What kind of creature was this, that he could move through solid material? He found himself wishing that he had kept the carbine in his hands.
“So, you wish to kill me with your bare hands?” Cain said, gazing down at the shorter el-Hashem. “By all means, kill me. If you can.”
The Saudi made a fist and threw his hardest punch at Cain’s solar plexus. It was like punching a sand bag. Cain didn’t flinch. El-Hashem grabbed his knife from its sheath and was about to raise it when Cain did something bizarre—He held out his arm and said, “Go ahead—cut me.”
The Saudi didn’t wait for a second invitation—he swung his blade in an upward arc and completely severed Cain’s hand. The blood spurted from the wound, making a trail that followed the motion of the blade as the hand fell to the floor with a plop. Without so much as a whimper of pain, Cain smiled at el-Hashem. He slowly leaned over and picked up the hand and jammed it back onto the ragged edge of his arm, held it for a few seconds as the soldier watched with dumbstruck awe, and then began to wiggle his fingers. Cain stared at the hand as if it were some new type of amazing machinery, and el-Hashem could swear he saw the skin healing before his eyes, sealing up the wound. His grip loosened and the knife clattered to the floor.
“What...what are you?” he said.
“I’m a God,” Cain replied, and backhanded el-Hashem so hard it sent him flying across the floor. He slid to a stop up against the far wall and noticed two things—he had lost some teeth and his NVGs were broken. He pulled the goggles off his face and dropped them on the floor as he spit coppery blood and enamel out of his mouth. He climbed to his feet and with a yell, ran like a charging bull across the pitch black room, hoping to make contact with Cain and drive him backwards. But instead of hitting his target, he was surprised with an elbow to the spine just below the neck, which sent him sprawling to the floor in pain. He lay there momentarily, moaning and trying to understand what had just happened. He had forgotten one thing: Cain could see in the dark like a cat.
“El-Hashem, try this,” he heard a voice shout from across the room. It was Gordon, the CIA man. A light suddenly came on. He had a Maglite and was shining it on Cain, revealing his silhouette in the darkness. El-Hashem made an attempt to get to his feet, but Cain merely stepped over to him and put a boot on his back, pushing him back down to the floor.
“Humans are so weak,” Cain said in a voice that dripped with contempt. “Just fleshy bags of blood and bone. Even the strongest among you is a child compared to me, physically and mentally. I’m surprised your race has survived this long.”
“You are a piece of camel dung, you…spineless…son of...a whore,” el-Hashem spat, trying to catch his breath as Cain’s boot pushed down with increasing pressure.
“Spineless?” Cain said. Then, a sudden flash of agony shot through el-Hashem’s brain as he felt Cain’s fingers press through the skin of his back and wrap itself around his spinal column. He barely heard the sound of his ripping flesh as white-hot agony exploded through him and he tried to fill his lungs to scream, but found himself paralyzed, unable to take even one life-giving breath, and then slowly, inexorably, his world faded to nothing.
* * *
“Now who’s spineless?” Gabe heard Cain say as he raised like a game trophy the oozing, dripping spinal column that he had just torn from el-Hashem’s back. Had she not hated the Saudi spy so, she would have felt pity, but instead, she only felt nausea.
As she stood there with Gordon, gaping in awe at the violent spectacle, Scooter’s head appeared from the middle door. “Hey,” he whispered over the radio mic, “I think I’ve found the way out. Follow me.”
Gabe glanced at Gordon, and then at Cain, who was still gloating over his latest kill. She grabbed Gordon’s hand and raced toward the opening where she had seen Scooter. Just before she slammed the door shut behind her, she caught a glimpse of Cain—he was looking right at her.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Gabe, Gordon, Abel, and Bio filed through yet another lab as they followed Scooter toward the back, moving around the steel tables full of equipment like track stars on an obstacle course. Cain had killed el-Hashem and all his men, leaving only their team. Gordon had been right—the Saudis were the first to die.
“Every room in the complex is some kind of genetics lab, each with a different purpose,” Bio said as they filed through the room. “Cain was manipulating and growing something here.”
But what, Gabe wondered? And where were all the scientists that had worked there? Hopefully they would soon have an answer to those questions.
They arrived at the back wall and found another door. Scooter opened it and light poured in. They pulled off their goggles and stepped into a cavern-like space that was a hundred times bigger than the one they had just left. Somewhere in the distance, she could hear a generator. In the middle of the space was a pit with a huge artifact inside that looked to be thousands of years old—by all appearances, some sort of ancient machine. The ground beneath it was sand, as if it had been excavated. It was metallic, but a strange brownish color, almost like shale, mottled and discolored from the tons of sand th
at had covered it for centuries. It resembled what most people would identify as a flying saucer, with several rings within rings on its surface. Each ring was covered with symbols, eerily similar to the ones she had seen on the monolith in Crete months earlier. Up this close, it was hard to tell its size, but it was over fifty feet high and must have been at least three hundred feet in circumference. On top and in the exact center, was a dome made of glass or some other transparent material.
“That thing looks like it’s been here since the beginning of time,” Gabe said, mesmerized by the sight.
Scooter’s voice shook her out of her trance.
“Come on,” he said. “I see another tunnel on the other side of this pit. It may lead to a way out.”
They began to make their way carefully around the huge saucer, keeping an eye out for Cain or his soldiers, when Scooter suddenly stopped.
“What is it?” Gordon asked.
“Another door.”
“Yeah, there seem to be a lot of those around here.”
Scooter grabbed the handle and yanked it open.
“Holy shit,” Bio said from behind Gabe.
There were about a dozen men inside an open-bay combination of sleeping quarters, kitchen and living area—it reminded Gabe of a prison. Every one of them looked to be Arab, and they all stood and stared, as if they had never seen another human before.
“The construction crew, or maybe the scientists,” Gordon said.
“They’re all infected,” Gabe said. “Controlled by parasites to prevent them from talking to anyone on the outside about what’s going on.”
Gabe unholstered the M9 Beretta strapped to her hip. “I can fix that.” She aimed and fired a serum-filled dart at each man in the room. Immediately, they began convulsing and vomited the milky-white liquid parasites out of their bodies and onto the floor, as if ridding themselves of some terrible disease. The creatures undulated and morphed into bizarre shapes as they reached out with tentacle-like appendages, searching for new hosts. The men around her were groaning with disgust, but it was something Gabe had seen more times than she cared to remember.
“What the hell is in that serum?” Scooter asked.
“Basically just garlic and vinegar.”
“No shit?”
After a few seconds, the creatures began to evaporate. The men inside the room had fallen to their knees still trying to catch their breath. Some had passed out on the floor and would not awaken for hours, she knew. But she also knew there was no time—they needed to get out now, while they still could.
Then she heard the voice behind her.
“They are what’s left of my scientists and construction crew,” the voice said, and everyone spun around, pistols and carbines raised, to see Cain, along with several of his mercenaries, who had their own weapons raised. “The rest are dead from radiation poisoning. But I’m afraid they won’t be leaving, and neither will you.”
* * *
“You need to let these people go, Cain,” Gabe said. “How do you keep from being discovered with all these people you’re holding hostage out here? The UAE government should have tracked you by now.”
“You’d be surprised what the authorities are willing to overlook for the right amount of money. Besides, you couldn’t find me without help from...where is the one you call Abel?”
Everyone looked around and Gabe realized Abel was gone.
“I don’t know where he is,” she said. “He’s a bit unpredictable.”
“I’m right here,” Abel said from across the corridor. Cain spun toward the voice. “I was admiring your machine. The symbols on the skin of the craft, what do they mean?”
Before he could speak, Bio raised his MP5 and was about to fire, when he seemed to freeze in place. Cain turned and his silver eyes bored into him. “That is a very unwise move, Mr. Lin,” he hissed.
“What are you doing to him?” Gabe asked.
“I have powers that even you don’t suspect, Ms. Lincoln. I can completely override every thought, every bodily function. I can make him quote Shakespeare, dance a pirouette, shoot himself, I can even stop his heart.”
With that, Bio’s eyes bulged and he collapsed in a heap at their feet.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Scooter watched in horror as Bio sank to the floor and lay still. He glanced up at Cain as hot blood rushed into his face like a thermometer about to burst. “You sorry piece of shit. Bio was more man than you could ever hope to be.”
Cain raised an eyebrow. “Why would I hope to be a man? I’m not human.”
“Yeah, but I bet you bleed like one.” Scooter raised the butt of his carbine and was about to strike Cain with it when he felt hands on him.
“Scooter, I know how you feel, but this isn’t the time. Not yet,” he heard Gabe say. It took everything within him to restrain himself. He glanced at Gabe and handed her his carbine.
“Here, hold this,” he said, knelt down and began to perform CPR on his fallen comrade.
* * *
Gabe’s stomach was tied up in knots as she watched Scooter frantically pushing on his friend’s rib cage, trying to re-start his heart. He had been her friend, too. But she knew they had to focus on the task at hand and find out what Cain was doing here, or Bio’s sacrifice would be in vain. She glanced at Abel, who simply stood by, watching the drama play out, and then looked at Cain.
“Alright, Cain, you said that if we made it this far, you would tell us everything. So here we are.”
“First, get rid of your weapons,” he said. Gabe and Gordon eyed each other, and then laid their carbines, pistols and belts on the floor. Gabe saw Abel do the same.
“Follow me,” Cain said, turned and walked around the perimeter of the machine as they followed. Gabe glanced back and saw the mercenaries behind her, and one of them grinned.
“You all know the story of the Lilitu, that our race was here on this planet long before it became Earth,” Cain said.
“You’re still part human, Cain, whether you want to admit it or not. Your mother was human,” Gabe reminded him.
“True enough, but my species survived through the millennia inside the human DNA, hidden like an elaborate secret chamber within a rotting, abandoned house.”
“If you think that lowly of humans, then why did you train with them? What could you possibly learn from an inferior species?” Gordon asked.
“Coming from the man who sold me into bondage?”
“Okay, I admit I was a bit ambitious. I was wrong.”
Gabe was glad to hear Gordon finally admit that. Maybe he was starting to make some progress, after all, she thought.
“What I want to know,” Gabe said, “is why all of this, out here in the desert? What are you hiding?”
Cain stopped and turned to her. “I’m not hiding. I went where the visions directed me, and found this.” He indicated the gigantic machine that sat behind him. “It was exactly where it was supposed to be. I simply dug it up.”
Gabe furrowed her brow. “Visions?”
“Perhaps you could call them memories. I believe our knowledge of the past is carried in our DNA. All that has happened throughout the long eons is held in our collective memory and passed on from one generation to the next. In this case, it was passed on through human DNA until it reached me. Now, I am here to fulfill my destiny.”
“And what is your destiny?” Gordon asked, spitting out the word like a bad taste.
Cain smiled. “Come, I’ll show you.”
They followed him along the wall, which had obviously been built around the artifact in the pit, until they came to a ladder and climbed down. They were all now standing at the base of the huge machine—the size of it was breathtaking, Gabe thought as she stared up at the towering structure. A rectangular crack suddenly appeared in the hull and a panel slid to one side, revealing an entrance wide enough for all four of them to walk through at once. Cain turned to his mercenaries. “Wait here,” he said.
As they entered, Gabe wa
s instantly overcome by the complete alien surrealism of it; the air reeked with the pungent smell of ancient machinery as a strange, unearthly hum surrounded them. Bizarre symbols adorned the grayish walls as they rounded a passageway. She glanced down at the floor and saw an unearthly glow coming from beneath. She couldn’t fathom what types of materials were used to fabricate such a vessel, what powered it, or what minds could have conceived it. It had been left behind by them, sitting here underground through the long, slow centuries until, eons later, it would be discovered by one of their ancestors. It was mind boggling.
They came to a metal door that slid open as they approached and went inside. Gabe was instantly floored. Before them, bathed in an eerie green light that seemed to come from nowhere, were rows and rows of what appeared to be Lilitu lying inside glass or Plexiglas chambers, all either asleep or dead, lined up in a semicircle around the walls of the room. They were all naked, some male, some female, and looked to be young adults.
“Clones,” Gabe said. “That’s what you’ve been doing here with all these labs and these scientists. Creating more clones.”
“Not clones. The DNA of these Lilitu are a pure strain created by me. I started growing them before I finished excavating the machine. They had no need of embryonic sacs—I recreated the eggs, like the one I came from, using a similar chemical composition. They’re remarkably adaptable, with no trace of human DNA. They’re perfect. I had geneticists add different traits so that each clone would have its own unique physiology. One of the females will eventually be my mate.”
