At The Gates

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.