Heavens to Murgatroyd, Gabriel loved Angelique fiercely right then.
“I know that, Trouble,” he said, and she grinned at the nickname, “but he’s a bit sensitive about this stuff.”
“He needs to get the fuck over it. Is he the Field Marshall of Heaven or is he a damn rabbit?”
“Maybe I should get you to speak to him,” Gabriel said, not entirely joking. Angelique might be able to make more headway with Michael than Gabriel had.
“I would be fucking glad to do it.”
“Then we’ll deal with him as soon as he’s heard back from God. Did you mention beer?”
“He’s gone to God? He’s such a drama queen.” She rolled her eyes.
“And yeah, yeah I did. Come inside and grab a brew, and then you and me can sit out here and enjoy the day and curse and swear about that job.”
“That sounds great, Trouble.”
“Awesome.” She looped her arm through his and led the way into the house, and Gabriel felt a little better.
ADRAMELEK DIDN’T bother trying to find a light switch; he simply used his abilities to light up the facility of The Betterment Project with his power. Corners that probably hadn’t seen illumination in months were lit as if the sun had risen inside the mountain.
“Well,” Ondrass said as he looked around, “we won’t have to worry about stumbling around in poor light.”
“I want to see what I’m killing,” Adramelek retorted. “Remember we’ll need to make a report.”
Raziel had stomped over to a room at the far side of the space with a sign that read Library. His expression was like a thundercloud. Adramelek lifted an eyebrow as he looked at Uriel.
“Is he going to get over that fit of pique?”
“Yeah.” Uriel shook his head. “This place has freaked him out a bit.
He doesn’t like secrets being kept from him.”
“Gentlemen, you may want to look at this,” Raziel called over his shoulder.
“What is it?” Adramelek asked as he went to join him.
“I think these are the Mecha Nurses.” Raziel pointed and Adramelek looked in the direction he’d indicated.
Adramelek stared at them in surprise. They were ineffectually slashing at an invisible barrier with hands tipped with metal shears, and he surmised that Raziel had put up a wall of power to protect them from the creatures. In the bright light he’d created, Adramelek could see that the Mecha Nurses were essentially giant robots with clockwork innards, topped by human heads and with demon wings upon their backs.
“If I were unwell, I wouldn’t want that administering to me,”
Ondrass said. “What do we do with these things? Destroy them or what?”
“Knock one out so I can take it down to Lucifer,” Adramelek said.
“And we’ll blow up the rest,” Uriel added.
“Keep one intact, if you please. I don’t want it alive, but I do want to examine it,” Raziel said.
Adramelek nodded. “That’s a better idea. Do that with two of them.”
“Fussy, fussy,” Ondrass muttered. But he raised a hand and flexed his fingers, and a bolt of blood-red energy shot forth, burrowing into the metal bodies of two of the figures, finding all the hidden parts that kept it operational and extinguishing them with brutal efficiency. Adramelek could hear the creak and squeal of metal and steel, and then, with a loud clunk, the two Mecha Nurses tumbled over onto their sides, motionless.
“Very efficient,” Raziel said. “What did you do?”
“A burst of chaos from the Lake of Eternal Fire, set to destroy the living parts within,” Ondrass said. “Regret ably, there will be some damage, but it should be minor, certainly satisfactory for yours and Lord Lucifer’s needs.”
Raziel nodded. “Excellent. Thank you. Well, as for the other four….” He drew his sword and stepped into the library.
Uriel sighed. “Here we go,” he muttered, drawing his own sword.
Adramelek watched with some interest as the two Archangels quickly destroyed the last of the Mecha Nurses, chopping them to pieces of scrap metal. When they were nothing more dangerous than a pile of steel and flesh, Raziel snapped his fingers and they caught fire, burning with the pristine purity of Heavenly Fire. Adramelek shielded his eyes as the fire burned down to nothing, consuming all that it touched. Finally, the fire subsided and burned out, and Adramelek looked up to gaze around the library itself.
“I wonder if any of the books in here have anything to do with this place or the people that ran it,” he mused.
“Doubtful,” Ondrass said. “It looks to be a library for inpatients, not a technical one.”
“You’re probably right.” Adramelek sighed and went into the room, nudging one of the prone Mecha Nurses with the toe of his boot. “I’ve got a feeling I’m going to be doing a lot of ’porting back and forth between here and Hell for the next few hours.”
“Don’t let us keep you,” Uriel said.
Adramelek rolled his eyes and bent down, hefting the bulk of the nearest Mecha Nurse and grunting at the weight. “It’s heavier than it looks,” he said to Raziel. And then to Ondrass, “I’ll be a few minutes.”
“We won’t go anywhere,” Ondrass said.
Adramelek nodded and vanished, teleporting directly into Lucifer’s palace. He chose his lord’s workroom, which was actually the basement, a large laboratory designed to examine all manner of objects.
Lucifer was waiting for him and indicated a stainless steel gurney.
“There, please,” he said.
Adramelek set down his burden and brushed off his hands. “It’s dead, there’s a bit of damage from Ondrass’s method of killing it, but it’s more or less all there,” he said.
“Excellent. How is the place itself?”
“Creepy.” Adramelek wrinkled his nose. “It reminds me of one of those ridiculous haunted houses in those old 1980s horror movies.”
“How dreadfully stereotypical,” Lucifer said.
“Quite. I won’t linger, I expect I’ll be back before long with something else,” Adramelek said.
Lucifer nodded, but then he moved, faster than light, and the next thing Adramelek knew was Lucifer’s arms and wings around him and Lucifer’s lips against his own. The brief kiss was hard and, to Adramelek’s surprise, loving. Adramelek pondered that a little as it ended, feeling the unfamiliar sensation of warmth in his chest that he knew from various films, books, and TV shows meant his feelings for Lucifer were strengthening. It was foreign and not altogether unpleasant, but right now, Adramelek reminded himself, he had business to attend to.
“Be careful,” Lucifer said, stepping back.
Adramelek nodded. “I plan to. See you soon.”
Adramelek left as Lucifer turned back to the Mecha Nurse. When he returned to the library room inside the mountain, he found that Raziel, Uriel, and Ondrass were still there.
“What are you looking for?” Adramelek asked.
“Records,” Raziel said. “There’s a record of who borrowed what book that I think might be useful, so I’m pulling apart the computer to get the hard disk.”
“Oh.” Adramelek didn’t know how to do that, so he went to sit down on one of the nearby tables. “You got the other Mecha Nurse up to your workshop, then?”
“Asaf came and took it for me,” Raziel said absently.
“I thought it’d be better to keep this within the members of the family we trust,” Uriel said with a shrug. “I called Shateiel, but he’s not answering his brain.”
Adramelek burst out laughing. “What a novel way to put it.”
“I’m a novel kind of Archangel,” Uriel said.
Adramelek regarded him thoughtfully. “What do you think about a permanent truce, Uriel? I know we’re supposed to kill each other eventually, but I find verbal sparring with you is much more satisfactory than planning battle tactics in secret in an eternal plot to slaughter you in single combat.”
Uriel quirked an eyebrow, then shrugged. “I’
ll agree to it. If nothing else, it means that’s one less thing for Razzy to worry over.”
“Isn’t the idea of a truce against both of your religions?” Ondrass asked. “Considering the one in place between Lightbringer and God? Doubt it,” Uriel said.
“I think he’s right,” Adramelek agreed.
“So many changes.” Ondrass sighed.
“Do you need a cup of tea?” Adramelek teased.
“Yes, and a bottle of vintage scotch. I think we’ll all require that sort of sustenance after this place,” Ondrass said. He looked around, a scowl on his face. “I don’t like the energies here at all.”
“What, hostility, endless hunger, insanity, and mutant powers aren’t to your liking? I can’t fucking imagine why,” Uriel drawled.
“Don’t become a comedian,” Ondrass replied. “You’re not funny.”
“I’m hilarious.”
“I’ve got the hard disk,” Raziel said. “Let’s move on to the next room.”
“The Necromancer’s brother said there was an area marked Kennels—apparently that is what we imagine it will be. I don’t want the Hellhounds to go in there, they’ll go crazy with grief at seeing other canines and animals….” Adramelek took a deep breath. “I propose we simply do not enter that area and instead burn it down.”
They looked at him in surprise.
“Heaven and Hell may have a truce, but there’s still not much that we see eye-to-eye about,” he said. “But there is one thing I believe we will both agree on. Animals are unable to explain their pain or, in many cases, defend themselves. Not only will seeing what I imagine will be within that area be terrible, it would be more respectful to burn it as a pyre, a funerary rite.”
There was a moment’s silence, and then Raziel nodded. “I concur. I don’t really want to see what’s in that part of this place. It’s a good thing I don’t sleep, because otherwise I’m sure my imagination would give me nightmares forever. Let’s burn it and say a prayer.”
“All right,” Uriel said.
“Agreed,” Ondrass said. He smoothed a hand down the front of his fine wool coat. “I am very fond of my Hel hounds. I would not want to witness atrocities done to other sorts of hounds. We al have our limits, I suppose.”
“Indeed.” Adramelek squared his shoulders. “Let’s move on, shall we?”
The rest of the level contained nothing of interest. There was a great deal of broken furniture, lots of dust and debris, and two other computers Raziel tore apart in order to remove their hard disks. He pulled a backpack to him from somewhere—Adramelek chose not to ask where—and put his growing collection of computer parts into it.
“Won’t Lucifer want copies of those?” Ondrass asked as they went down a flight of stairs to the next level.
“Yes,” Adramelek said. He had noticed that there were no stairs leading upward. The mountain seemed to hulk above them, solid rock with no caves or tunnels, and apart from the front part, which had been made to look reasonably official, the rest of it appeared to be housed in the bowels of the earth in rooms that had been hollowed out and designed for whatever use Transom Corp had for them. He wondered what the townspeople of Yaak had thought when the company had first arrived.
“Don’t worry, I’ll make copies,” Raziel said, interrupting Adramelek’s musing. “Once we’re finished here, I’ll go to my laboratory and take care of that, then send them down to you.”
“All right.” Adramelek shouldered open a large security door and, as he had on the floor above, used his power to light up the entire level beyond.
There was debris on this level too, and broken furniture, but all the machinery had been removed, and Adramelek wondered where it had been taken. There was no sign of anything remotely medical apart from an occasional scalpel lying on the ground or an overturned gurney. Even most of the curtains that divided the cubicles in each ward were gone.
They were, however, being followed. They all knew it, and they walked carefully, quietly, all four of them holding their swords. There was a strange smell in the air, and Adramelek found it more than a little unpleasant. He wrinkled his nose often and cleared his throat several times against the urge to gag.
“What is making that stink?” Ondrass murmured.
The answer was a loud roar, a sound that was a mixture of lion and bear, and then a creature that Adramelek had no name for lumbered out from a side corridor and rushed at them. For a brief moment, he wondered if other beings had navigated the stairs between levels and what they might be.
“I’d say it’s that thing,” Uriel shouted even as he braced himself, preparing to meet it head-on.
“Dammit,” Adramelek hissed. “Ondrass, Raziel, attack the flanks.
I’ll help Uriel.”
If someone had told him ten years ago that he would one day be fighting side-by-side with Uriel, Archangel of Sanctification, Fire, and Vengeance, Adramelek would have scoffed and said they must have him confused with a different Adramelek. Yet here he was, doing exactly that.
They were well-matched, which wasn’t really a surprise. Uriel was, after all, Adramelek’s equal and opposite, and their method of fighting was very similar. They hacked and thrust at the monster as it attacked them, dodging its large lion head and avoiding the huge paws that ended in bear claws. Its body was like the Mecha Nurses—a mixture of machinery and steel—and it too had demon wings upon its back. But it was slow on its feet and not able to fight a four-pronged at ack, and soon it was on its side, breathing harshly as the two Archdemons and two Archangels finished it off.
Panting, Adramelek shook the blood from the blade of his sword and gazed at the thing with narrowed eyes. “Are there any sample vials or needles or anything left around here?”
“You want to take a sample?” Ondrass asked.
“I think I’d better,” Adramelek said.
Raziel nodded. “I’ll grab some, but not from here. We don’t know if they’ve been contaminated and we’ll want things that are sterile, I believe.” His gaze grew intent, and Adramelek could feel him reaching out with his power, pulling in what they’d need to get the various samples Adramelek knew Lucifer would want. He assumed, too, that Raziel would want samples of his own to examine at his leisure in his own laboratory.
It didn’t take long and Adramelek let Raziel do it, as he wasn’t entirely certain how to go about taking samples from a strange hybrid- monster thing. Raziel offered him a set of four vials, and Adramelek finished cleaning off his sword with a thought before sheathing it. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He vanished, returning again to Lucifer.
“What have you brought me this time?” Lucifer asked. He was standing among all manner of mechanical pieces, and Adramelek could see that he’d taken the Mecha Nurse apart meticulously.
“Samples from a monster.” Adramelek held out the vials and Lucifer took them. “A lion-bear-demon thing.”
Lucifer frowned. “Indeed?” He peered at the vials as if they contained an unfathomable mystery. Adramelek was sure that wasn’t too far from the truth.
“Raziel’s also gutted every computer we’ve found, and he said he’d copy the hard drives and send them down, so there’ll be a lot of information to go through too,” Adramelek went on. “You’ve been busy, Lightbringer,” he added as he looked around the workshop.
“I was curious. These Mecha Nurse creatures are rude mechanicals.
They are designed solely to stop patients from leaving. Sometimes by death.
That is their sole function. The only drug they administer is a gas that renders the individual patient unconscious. I found tubes of it in their shel s. Bodies.”
Adramelek pursed his lips, thinking hard. “Could they be programmed to act as guards or wardens?”
“I believe so. The programming wouldn’t be too complicated, and they can perform simple tasks. I think that programming them to stop intruders would be within their capabilities.”
“Interesting. Creepy, but interesting. I’ll pass that on t
o the others.”
Adramelek squared his shoulders. “I’d better get back before they get into trouble.”
Lucifer gave him a small smile at that. “So long as preventing them from getting into trouble does not lead to you being in trouble.”
“I’ll be fine,” Adramelek said. He winked cheekily and Lucifer laughed. “I’ll see you soon.”
“All right.”
Adramelek disappeared, returning to Ondrass, Raziel, and Uriel.
“Find anything?” he asked as he joined them.
“No, nothing. Not even a computer,” Raziel said. “What did Lucifer say?”
“He said the Mecha Nurses have one function: to make sure patients behave. They could be programmed to stop intruders too, but beyond that, they don’t do much. They had some sort of gas that they could use that would knock a person out.”
Raziel frowned thoughtfully. “Curious.”
“I think we’ve about exhausted the possibilities of this level,” Uriel said. “There’s nothing else alive.”
“The kennels are on the lowest floor,” Ondrass said.
“Only four levels to this place?” Adramelek asked.
“Apparently.” Ondrass shook his head. “And humans call demons evil. No demon could dream up a facility like this.”
“Truly. But then, we’re more into manipulating greed, fear, paranoia, and lust,” Adramelek said. “It’s easier.”
“Can you two talk shop later?” Uriel asked. “Let’s get this shit over with. It stinks down here and I want to finish up and go have a shower.”
“So do I,” Raziel said.
“All right, all right.” Adramelek gestured grandly. “After you two, then. Lead us onward, brave Soldiers of God.”
“Do not make me rethink a truce with you,” Uriel growled, and Adramelek laughed.
“Banter later,” Raziel said. He’d already started walking away from the carcass of the monster toward another security door at the far end of the corridor.
They followed, and the door, when they reached it, was locked. Uriel grunted and swung his right leg, and he kicked it open. The noise as the thick, heavy door splintered was loud, and Adramelek wasn’t the only one to wince.
Archangel Chronicles 7 - Shot In the Dark Page 17
