Rise of the Nephilim (22 page)

Artemis caught Jude’s attention and put her finger to her lips for silence. She was slowly creeping up to the area under Azazel.

“You don’t have to answer, Jude. I already know. Tell me, though. Could you use that on me? Could you condemn your friend Gallo to die with me, if the opportunity presented itself?”

Jude clenched his fists in anger. “Don’t you dare mention his name! I’m going to get you out of him, even if it kills me. I still owe you for Emily and Inanna too, you bastard.”

“Ah, yes,” Azazel replied coolly. “I thought she was going to be the biggest thorn in my side. I never would have imagined it would be you. My only regret of the past two months is not killing you in that alleyway in Geneva. Thank you for giving me such a wonderful opportunity to expand my power, though.”

“Screw you,” Jude spat wrathfully.

Azazel laughed, “I think that’s the position all of
you
are in. You’re trapped down there. I’d leave you all to rot, but you seem to have quite a few things that I want. How about we make a deal? Give yourselves up, and I’ll make sure the humans die quickly. That’s more than generous, considering what the rest of the world wants to do to them. The Grigori can join us or return to their blessed existence and leave Earth. This is my kingdom now, and I have no room for their brand of fanaticism. You will also have to hand over the Architect. He will be extremely useful to me.”

“We will never surrender to you, Nephilim!” Artemis interjected, as she raised her hands into the air. “Your corruption ends here today.” Lighting shot out of her fingertips, fractal tendrils of electric potential snaking through the air, searching for a contact point on the other side of the cavities above. Azazel screamed in agony.

“You bitch!” he yelled downward, as he scrambled away to rejoin his cronies. “Kill any that resist,” he ordered. “Leave that one and Sullivan to me.”

The first grenade fell. The unlucky Grigori near it tried to telekinetically swipe it back upward through the opening, but he only managed to make it clumsily bounce off the ceiling before it exploded. The shrapnel shredded its way through the small cluster of people standing there and sprayed a mixture of blood and gore across the room. Bile surged up into Jude’s throat, and he vomited from the sight.

More grenades fell, but the Grigori had gathered to one side of the room and were throwing any nearby grenades around the central pillar or trying to push them back up into the holes in the ceiling. Another wave of soldiers pressed into the room. Jude managed to squeeze off another shot from the quantum gun as he ran, but the sheer bulk of the device made it hard for him to aim and move quickly. He lost Iris in the confusion, so he dove for cover and began inching his way toward the stairway to level three. He was almost there, when he felt a sudden sharp pain in his right calf.

He fell screaming to the floor. The weapon slid across the floor and slammed into the wall. He rolled over and gingerly inspected his leg. A stray bullet had nicked the back of his hamstring, leaving a bloody gash in his pants. He tried flexing to test how bad the damage was and gasped, as more pain burned its way up the axons of his peripheral nervous system. He figured he could still move away, however, and began to crawl toward the central pillar. A shadow loomed over him and shoved a booted foot onto his hand. Jude grunted and looked up at his assailant.

“Don’t leave so soon, Mister Sullivan,” Azazel said smugly. His salt-and-pepper hair was still immaculately groomed, even in the midst of battle. He still wore his priestly vestments, looking exactly like the priest Jude had known for so many years. Artemis’ attack had found its mark on his face, though. An angry fractal burn pattern was emblazoned across his right cheek and forehead, and his eye was turning a nasty milky white. He knelt down beside Jude.

“You know, my offer of surrender was a gesture of good faith. Honestly, you’re just as good to me dead as you are alive.” He placed his palm on Jude’s shoulder. The hair on his arm stood up moments before the shock. His mind went blank, and his body suffered an uncontrollable spasm. Coupled with the pain in his injured leg, he felt as if he had descended into hell. He finally managed a scream, as darkness began to creep along the edges of his vision. The sound of the firefight grew distant, and his existence was condensed to a brilliant singularity of pain. All he could hear was the laughter of Azazel in his ear.

Just let go, Jude.
A voice inside his head spoke. It sounded remarkably like Emily.
You don’t have to hurt anymore. You can stay with me and be safe.
He missed her so much. It was comforting to hear her voice after so long

“Emily…” He managed to whisper between clenched teeth. He knew he was dying. He had run as far as he could, but it had been to no avail. Why not give up, if she was waiting just on the other side?

Her whispers continued to seduce him. He was ready to surrender, when the pain stopped. He heard the sound of a struggle near him, but it took him a few moments to regain the control he needed to push himself up and find out what was happening. Artemis and Azazel were engaged in furious hand-to-hand combat. What truly impressed him was the speed. He could barely track their movements, as they threw and blocked a flurry of kicks and punches on both sides. Artemis managed to break past his defense and land a monumental body blow that threw Azazel back into a wall with a crack that Jude was sure had broken a few bones.

She kept a defensive stance directed toward the Nephilim leader and glanced over at Jude, as he began to pick himself up. “Run. Shut the door behind you,” she commanded before turning back to Azazel. He had already recovered and was stomping back toward her with his hands spread. Arcs of electricity were jumping between his fingertips.

Jude managed to half-stumble, half-crawl toward the wall to retrieve the quantum gun. He felt like it took an eternity to reach it, as he learned how to walk on his bleeding leg with minimal pain. Weapon in hand, he forced his aching body toward the stairs and descended a few steps before turning around again. He took aim at Azazel and squeezed the trigger. To his dismay, nothing happened. The weapon had taken too much damage.

He lowered the disabled machine and began to pay closer attention to the fight. Artemis had slowed her attack and was almost entirely on the defensive. Her left hand hung limply from her wrist, and her counters to Azazel’s attacks were getting weaker. Each new blow drove her back ever so slightly.

She dodged an uppercut and put all of her might into a counter-attack. She connected, but his attack had been a ruse. Azazel spun his body to match the direction of the punch, caught her arm, and flipped her to the floor. She landed with his arms around her neck, and her eyes met Jude’s. “Run, you fool!” She screamed before Azazel tightened his hold and cut off her breath.

He leaned his head against hers lovingly and continued to tighten his grip. He looked at Jude and smiled when he saw the quantum gun perched ineffectually in his hands. He then turned and spoke softly into her ear, “Poor thing… You’ve been pushing yourself too hard. You’re stuck in that pretty little meat suit, aren’t you?”

Azazel’s voice faded into the general din, as Jude fled and rounded the curve of the stairwell. When he reached the bottom, he quickly rapped out the codded knock the group had agreed upon. The bulkhead swung open, and he stumbled inside. He spun and leaned into the heavy metal hatch to help the two Grigori close it a quickly as possible. Excruciating pain engulfed the lower half of his body, but he managed to turn the wheel of the locking mechanism, before he collapsed. He felt the cool metal of the door on his cheek, as he rested against it. On the other side, he thought he could hear Artemis’ echoing screams.

Horrified, he pulled himself up and dragged the useless rifle behind him in search of Hephaestus. The others tried to help him up, but he waved them away. As soon as he found his balance, he limped through the dormitory to the other side of the compound, tripped down the steps to the bottom level, and rolled onto the steel floor. He lay there gathering his energy, as Eric ran up to him.

“Holy crap, man. What happened?” Eric exclaimed. “Are you okay?”

Jude used Eric’s offered hand to help steady himself and stand up. “I’ll live. We are holding them back, for now.” He decided not to tell Eric about Artemis just yet. He didn’t need that distraction. He held out the quantum gun. “Will you give this to Hephaestus? It’s banged up pretty badly.”

Eric took the weapon and nodded. “Will do,” he assented. “Let’s get you taken care of first, though.”

“I’ll be fine,” Jude assured him, as he pushed Eric’s hand off his shoulder. “I need to get to Prometheus. You need to protect this floor at all costs, Eric. I don’t know when they’ll be here, but it may be soon.”

“It’s going that badly?” Eric asked grimly.

“We’ve killed a lot of them, but there are still so many,” Jude admitted sadly, as he turned around to go back upstairs. “Get Hephaestus to fix that gun as soon as possible.”

“Hey Jude,” Eric said. Jude stopped short, bracing himself for what was coming. “What about Artemis and the others?”

Jude couldn’t look at Eric. He simply shook his head and sighed. “I don’t know. I lost track of everyone in the confusion.”

Eric knew she was dead. Artemis never would have allowed Jude to be hurt so badly, not unless she was in trouble herself. That he had come down alone spoke volumes on the state of affairs upstairs, unless they were holed up in the dormitory. He couldn’t think about that now, though, he had to protect Hephaestus.

He walked to the lab with the broken gun, nodding toward the four Grigori standing guard at the door and waited for one of them to open the door for him. Inside, Hephaestus and Mike were hard at work on some type of project. Eric wasn’t sure if it was something productive or something to merely take their mind off of the turmoil above. They looked up curiously, as he entered the room.

Eric cleared his throat, as he placed the remains of the quantum gun on the table. “Jude just brought this down. It’s banged up pretty badly, and he said it’s not working anymore. Maybe you can patch it up?”

Hephaestus ran over to inspect the weapon. “That blasted idiot! I told him to stay out of the way.” He continued looking over the jumbled mess of metal and wire, before he slammed his palms on the table. “He’s crushed the emitter!”

Eric looked to Mike for clarification. The tech’s face was pale. “We don’t have a replacement. It’s useless now,” he explained.

Hephaestus nodded. His face was turning red with fury. “It’s scrap! All that work… wasted!”

Eric tried to calm him. “Can you do something with it? We have them held to the second floor right now, but who knows how long that will last.”

Hephaestus put his palms to his forehead in thought. “Maybe I can come up with something,” he said after a short pause. “I need time, though. Keep them away from this floor.”

“Yes, sir,” Eric said and saluted the engineer. He motioned to the quartet at the doorway. “Come on, everyone. We have a job to do. Mike, secure the hatch when we go upstairs. Do what you can to lock this place down as tight as possible.”

“Gotcha,” Mike said. He stood and followed the small contingent into the hallway. They did a quick weapons check and began to mount the stairs to the living quarters. Mike whispered a solemn good luck to each of them, as they passed through the doorway. Once the final man was through, the large metal door screeched to a close, shutting them out indefinitely.

Eric motioned for the team to halt, as they entered the circular hallway of the crew quarters. He listened for the sound of any intrusion on their current level, but they only heard the faint commotion upstairs accompanied by couple of booms. Whether it was from a grenade of a kamikaze Nephilim, he couldn’t tell.

“Okay, here’s the plan,” he finally ordered. “We need to position ourselves around the entrance. Two of you will follow me and occupy the bunks along the hallway directly across from the doorway leading upstairs. The other two split up and take a corner at each of the next hallways on either side. Anyone coming down will have to contend with bullets coming from three directions, and we stay out of each other’s line of fire. Find your marks quickly, people! The Nephilim could come knocking any moment now.”

The five comrades-in-arms had just barely settled into their positions when the banging began.

Mike surveyed the remains of the defunct firearm, as Hephaestus picked it apart. He had been so certain this little wonder of engineering was the edge they needed to survive. Each piece Hephaestus pulled from it, though, was slowly chipping away any hope of recovery.

“So, what do you think? Can we do anything with it?” he asked. If anyone could salvage this, it would surely be the fiery Architect.

Hephaestus continued dissecting his brainchild. “We can’t fix it,” he answered flatly. “I don’t have the necessary components. The best we can do is to convert it back into a ballistic weapon.”

Mike managed a crooked grin, “I honestly don’t think you have much to worry about. They won’t kill a venerated Architect. You might as well be a god to them. I wouldn’t mind something to fight with, though. I have a feeling that providing your own lab assistants won’t be part of the package. ”

Hephaestus stopped what he was doing and looked up at him sternly. “I doubt Azazel plans to venerate me once he has me. He wants to use my knowledge to subjugate mankind, not to help it evolve. I won’t just give myself over to him, though. He’ll have to earn it in blood.”

“All the same,” Mike said. “I’m glad you’re here. Who knows what would have happened if we didn’t have you with us? Azazel could have just dropped a nuclear bomb on us while everyone was inside fighting and wiped us all out in one fell swoop. I’m sure he wouldn’t blink an eye at sacrificing his own troops. So, there’s the silver lining…at least I have a little while longer to live…”

Hephaestus stood straight up, as if struck by lightning. “Say that again?”

Mike was confused about what was being demanded of him. “At least I get to live a little longer?”

“No, no,” Hephaestus chided. “You said if I hadn’t been here, then Azazel would have dropped a bomb on everyone. That’s brilliant!” He pushed himself off the workbench and ran to find a pencil and paper, before Mike could inquire any further. The engineer murmured to himself, as he began writing what appeared to be complex mathematical equations, although the script was not one derived on Earth.

“What are you talking about?” Mike asked.

“Sacrifice!” Hephaestus exclaimed in excitement. “I’ve been so focused on protecting everyone else that I failed to consider other alternatives. In order to save everyone, I need to sentence all of us to death.”