At The Gates ds-3 Read online

  Scarlett growled low in her throat when she saw the big woman and started forward. Katon and Michael followed her lead and flanked off to the left. No point in bothering to be slick with them rushing in, I went ahead and took the center track. We weren’t doing subtle.

  “Lose something, Venai? A key maybe?” I asked.

  The Nephilim jumped and spun about as one, eyes wide. Venai snarled when she saw me and limped away from the crowd in a hurry, drawing a blue symbol in the air. In an instant, she had a portal open and was through it and gone, leaving her buddies behind as it vanished. As I glanced over their pissed off faces, they didn’t seem to mind she’d abandoned them. They were looking for a fight.

  So was Scarlett. Without a word, she dove at them. The Nephilim scattered before her. Two brilliant flashes and the closest of the group fell-more like flopped-to the floor looking like a morbid puzzle; the perfect gift for a mortician who’s got everything.

  Armed with a variety of weapons, the Nephilim pressed their number advantage. Unlike their pure-bred parents, they’d been amongst humanity long enough to value the effectiveness of a good gun.

  Bullets whined past us, their reports thunderous in the confined mausoleum. Michael returned fire, his left hand raised in the air, fingers spread out. He shimmered and became hazy, his image distorting and becoming unclear. Though I knew he hadn’t moved, it looked as though he were in ten places at once. Each reflection was a perfect copy of the first, but each appeared to be doing something different. It was confusing even for me.

  Katon, a fan of the up close and personal, waded into the crowd, his blade a silvered blur. Its poison an afterthought, DRAC’s enforcer cleaved his way through the Nephilim, his victims dead before the paralysis could even begin to take effect. After just a couple more, he and Scarlett would meet in the middle, the numbers already even.

  Not to be left out of a winning fight, I let my gun loose. One of the stragglers caught a few bullets to the face and dropped without a sound. Unfortunately, because of the Nephilim’s banished status, there wasn’t a soul transfer, their energies not transferring over to me at death.

  That sure didn’t stop me from tying to kill them though.

  I hit another just as Scarlett reached him, the shots whipping him into her blade. He went down in bloody heap, a patchwork of circles and squares-Live Action Tic-Tac-Toe.

  In just seconds, the fight was over. Scarlett stood above the carnage, her face splattered in red, blood dripping from her blade. Katon, the more graceful of the two, looked immaculate. Not a drop of blood stained his leather outfit or ruined the sparkle of his spikes as he surveyed the ruin of the Nephilim. Not a body in the bunch twitched.

  Michael came over and let loose a deep sigh. Not used to showing up until after the mess was made, he looked a little pale as he surveyed the scene. “You guys sure know how to handle yourselves.”

  “These are the runts of the litter,” I told him as I put my gun away. “They were sent to do the grunt work while the big boys wait by the gate to stake their claim.” My eyes went to the crypt they’d been tearing open, my senses drifting loose. I felt a tenuous tingle as they hit upon a gentle presence. “At least they made the searching part easy.”

  The marble face had been torn from the crypt and cast aside. Behind it was a wall of concrete, the tomb filled with it. The Nephilim had just started to chip away at the mass of concrete, jagged hunks broken loose and littering the floor.

  I looked around and spied a sledgehammer, sighing as I picked it up. “We should have waited a few minutes longer.”

  “I’ll watch the entrance,” Scarlett said as she headed off, no doubt offended by our intended grave robbery.

  Katon glanced from Scarlett to the crypt and back again, his hands stuffed deep in his pockets. He had it bad.

  While I’m the last person who should ever give advice regarding women, I couldn’t help myself. He looked lost, so unlike his normal self. “Go on, Katon, Mike and I have got this.”

  He stared at me a moment, then nodded, heading off after her. Once he was out of earshot, I turned to Michael. “She doesn’t even know he’s interested and he’s already whipped.”

  To the soundtrack of Michael’s throaty chuckle, I went to work. The hammer slammed into the concrete, shards flying as the sound reverberated through the room. Again and again I struck the concrete, cracks appeared and chunks crumbled away. After a few minutes, the concrete gave way and the hammer punched a hole in it, blackness appearing beyond. I knocked the hole bigger and peered inside.

  It took a second for my eyes to adjust, and when they did, my stomach sank. There was nothing inside the tomb but dust. If there’d ever been anything there, it had long ago been looted. No symbols or signs stood out against the gray walls to lead us to the key. Only the wispy tingle of Eve’s presence remained.

  “Fuck!” I growled, hammering furiously at the concrete, my one lead turning to shit. Slabs gave way under the onslaught and crashed to the floor. Michael stepped back to avoid the flying debris.

  I swung with intent, adrenaline and anger fueling my attack. The hammer plowed through the last few feet of concrete, showering me in dust and gray rock.

  “Frank!”

  I glanced over my shoulder to see Katon staring at me, his eyes narrow and red. Distracted, my swing went wild and smacked into the marble plate of the crypt above Eve’s. It broke loose of its moors and fell to my feet, shattering with a loud crack.

  Katon stormed over. “Can you be any louder?”

  “Probably.” I shrugged, motioning to the tomb. “It’s empty.”

  He growled and looked past me, shaking his head. Taking the hammer from my hand and tossing it aside, he stepped over the wreckage on the floor and peered into Eve’s tomb. Grunting, he then stretched and leaned into the crypt I’d accidentally opened.

  After a moment, he sighed and stepped away, brushing the dust from his jacket. “There’s nothing but a bone in the top one.”

  His words stuck in my ears, tickling my brain.

  “A bone? Just one?” Michael asked as he came over to us, apparently catching the same vibe as me.

  Katon nodded as I stepped past him, peeking into the crypt. My heart fluttered when I saw the ivory white thigh bone that lay inside. Untouched by time, the bone stood out from its gray surroundings, everything else withered away. I snatched it up and felt my senses tingle at the contact. The Nephilim had opened the wrong crypt.

  “This is Eve.” I held the bone out for them to see.

  Scarlett returned right then and glanced at the bone before averting her eyes, but nothing could hide the smile on her face.

  “So, this is the key to Eden?” Michael asked.

  I thought about it for a second, then shook my head. “I don’t think it’s all of it.”

  Scarlett snapped her head around. “What? We desecrated a grave, Eve’s no less, and you’re telling us this isn’t the key.” Her words were a hurricane, stinging spray and bluster.

  “I didn’t say that, and technically, I desecrated a grave, well…two if you want to be picky.” She put her hands on her hips and glared at me. “Asmoday told me Cain chose not to seek the key because he felt the cost was too high for his conscience to bear.”

  “As the key is clearly the bone of his mother, I can see why he thought that,” she argued.

  “Then why would his family put Lilith and Adam on the monument?”

  “Because it’s all three,” Michael answered, catching on to what I was getting at.

  I nodded. “That’s the most likely presumption.” Katon said nothing as Scarlett started in again. I waved her quiet. “If it were just one of the three he needed, Cain could have gone after Lilith. Given that he intended to beg for forgiveness for what he’d done, the last thing he’d want to do is murder his parents on the way to God’s house. However, as Lilith was persona non grata in Heaven, mixing it up down under, Cain could have gotten away with killing her, perhaps even been rewarded for it.”


  Scarlett grumbled and looked to Katon. He met her gaze and nodded as he followed the line of logic. She stuck her bottom lip out and stayed quiet. She just liked to argue.

  “If we’re right, this gives us a big advantage,” I said.

  “Because we have Lilith in cold storage back at DRAC,” Michael finished my thought.

  “Exactly. Now all we need to do is figure out which bone is the one we need and we’ve got two of the three.”

  “How are we going to do that,” Scarlett asked.

  I shrugged. “I’m not sure, but we’ll fig-” The loudspeaker blare of a telepathic connection tore through my head. Judging by the pained look on everyone’s face, they were receiving the same message.

  Abraham’s voice broke in through the shrieking static. “Rachelle is coming to get you. DRAC has been attacked!”

  Chapter Eight

  The carnage was absolute.

  We arrived in the middle of it. Blood pooled on the floor, thick and black. The air was pungent, the slaughtered meat stench of an abattoir. Crimson dripped from the ceiling in a fetid rain, the walls painted in claret. Pieces of DRAC security and office personnel were scattered in a macabre display, recognizable only by the remnants of their uniforms. There’d be no identifying these bodies.

  Scarlett took one look and scurried through the shattered front doors. While no stranger to death, or the blood and guts that came with it, she knew these people had died because of what was going on in Heaven. Knowing her, she felt responsible.

  Not a front line kind of guy, Michael followed her out gagging, his hand over his mouth. Katon stood there taking it in, his face carved deep with fury. His feral eyes burned as he looked to Abraham.

  The appearance of contentment Abe had worn the last time I’d seen him was gone, six feet of metaphorical dirt piled over top. His eyes were red through his glasses, their lenses magnifying his sorrow. His lips trembled as he surveyed the scene, the bodies at his feet friends and co-workers; family. Once it all settled in, the toll on his spirit would be devastating, but he was a trooper. He’d make it through, for now.

  He gestured further into the facility, as though barely able to lift his arm. “This is where we kept Lilith’s remains.” He confirmed what I’d already surmised. With a reedy sigh, he told us, “There’s more.”

  Katon bowed his head and trudged deeper into the building. Though I didn’t want to see what else had been done, my feet fell in line. A soldier does what he’s told.

  We made our way down a long hall that led to a pair of double doors, which had been torn from their hinges. They lay broken on the ground just inside the warehouse-sized room beyond.

  On the other side, the slaughter continued. Though the body count seemed less, the abandon with which they’d been dispatched appeared to have doubled, at the very least. My math is a little shaky.

  Nearly unidentifiable parts littered the entryway, slabs of meat and sheets of wet flesh stuck to the walls and floor. Fingers and toes, and the occasional manly vestige, were visible amidst the wreckage. Sightless eyes stared at us from broken orbits as skeletal grins sat on skinless faces.

  We moved slowly through the ruin, the footing treacherous. At last we happened upon Lilith. Her body lay on the floor outside the cooler, discarded like so much trash. For whatever reason, they’d left her intact…mostly.

  Her shirt had been torn open, exposing the grandeur of her marbled torso. While normally I’d have spent a few extra minutes on a sightseeing tour, death having failed to make a dent in her beauty, the gaping wound in her side drew all of my attention.

  Brutal, with no hint of surgical influence, her side had been ripped open, exposing her ribcage. From its bony line a single rib had been snapped free and removed, exposing her desiccated heart. It lay sunken in the blackened well beneath.

  At least it answered the question as to what bone we were looking for.

  “Seems you were right,” Katon told me, his voice subdued.

  I turned and caught his eyes. “Yeah, give me a second to pat myself on the back.”

  Though it was somewhat vindicating to realize I had been on the right track, my conscience didn’t need any more ghosts. Unsure of the specifics of Lilith’s connection until we’d found Eve, I hadn’t thought to warn Abraham, believing her body was safe where it lay. It never crossed my mind someone would come to DRAC looking for her. I hadn’t expected people to die, but they had. I could have done something to stop it from happening.

  Katon set his hand on my shoulder, apparently reading my mind. “This isn’t your fault.” I started to argue and he gave me a gentle shake. “Even if we had known what the Nephilim had planned, Lilith’s presence here was supposed to be a secret. No one should have known where she was.”

  Our eyes met as I realized what he was getting at. “Great. So on top of everything else we’ve got going on, you think there’s a rat inside DRAC, feeding the half-breeds information?” I started to pace. “So where does that leave us?”

  “The same place we were before we arrived here.” He gestured to Lilith. “We know the key requires the bones of the three original residents of Eden. We have one and the Nephilim have one, so we’re still in the running. Now all we need to do is find out where Adam is entombed and retrieve the last of them. Once we have that, it won’t be long before the Nephilim come to us.”

  Buried beneath all the black leather and spikes, the mean looks and bad attitude, Katon was an optimist. “Yeah, Adam’s grave has been hidden away for some four thousand plus years and we’re just gonna stumble across it after a few minutes of looking?” I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “You’re telling me you don’t know anyone who was alive back then who could point you in the right direction?”

  “Normally there’d be Baalth, but he’s incommunicado, and Forcalor is in Heaven, out of reach obviously. Plus, I’m already up to my ass in favors to Asmoday and I don’t have anything else to trade that doesn’t involve me grabbing my ankles. So, no, all my sources are…” A thought came into my head, warm and sticky. “Hmm, maybe I do have someone I can ask.”

  Before I could elaborate, Rachelle burst into the room, her narrow face flush. Her normally flighty demeanor was replaced by one of cold urgency. “There’s another storm coming.”

  My stomach sank at the news, remembering Asmoday’s warning that they would only get worse. I hurried after her as she fled the room, Katon right behind me. There wasn’t anything we could do but pick up the pieces, and I didn’t really want to think about it.

  Like a Kansas trailer park during tornado season, I was going along for the ride.

  Chapter Nine

  Rachelle plopped us into a downtown alley near the edge of the storm, just as the thick white clouds began to form. Purple flashes of lightning crackled to life overhead as the roiling mass washed over the sky like torrential waves. In just seconds, they filled the horizon with light, the ashen snow drifting down, the air still.

  Scarlett winced and bit her lip as the storm’s spiritual decay washed over us. She stood strong this time. Michael stumbled and nearly fell as his psychic sensibilities fell under siege. Katon steadied him.

  “Take this and go back with Rachelle,” I told Mike as I handed him Eve’s bone. I quickly explained what I wanted Rachelle to do with it, then shoved him toward the portal.

  Grateful, with only a hint of guilt on his pained face, he leapt inside the glowing tear. Rachelle sealed the portal behind him, her eyes downcast as she disappeared. The muffled crack of preternatural thunder drew my attention back to the storm.

  I’d hoped we’d be able to rescue people before things got too bad, but the fall had already become a blizzard, downtown a whitewash of murderous snow. We moved out onto the street, a morbid magnetism drawing us closer to the edge. The acrid scent of decay, a lifetime of rot compressed into a single moment, burned my lungs and settled bitter on my tongue.

  Though it was Saturday, the traffic downtown was only slightly le
ss than it would have been during the hectic week. People milled about in the kill-zone, looking up in awe at the falling snow, a rarity in the desert climate. Their amused smiles and cheerful banter turned to terror as the first of the flakes settled over them. Screams erupted as death gnawed at their flesh. Panic set in.

  Though I knew there was nothing I could do, my conscience screamed at me to act. Unable to go to them, I called them to me. It was little more than nothing, but it was all I had to offer.

  “Come this way. Hurry!” My voice cracked with the force of my words as I waved them on.

  Katon and Scarlett joined in as those nearest the edge bolted in our direction. Those in vehicles whose metal roofs sheltered them just long enough, made it out, the smell of burning rubber mixing with the harsh air. Those just a little further back were caught in the chaos. Cars slammed into one another as the fall ate its way inside. Many scrambled free only to meet their fate under the wheels of their fellow victims or at the hands of the relentless storm, no mercy shown by either.

  The people on foot had it the worst. Instinct driving them to cover, they huddled in doorways and under flimsy awnings. They clutched to their wounds as they stared wide-eyed toward the sky. Death delayed but a moment, those who couldn’t make it inside fell beneath the white ash, their screams seared from their mouths as their bodies disintegrated into ash.

  The few who made it out of the storm, after the snow had struck, were no better than those who’d fallen beneath it. Scored, blackened rot festering in bloodless wounds, they lay screaming in the streets, agony in their every movement as they were eaten away. Shock settled in for many, thankfully numbing their last few moments.