Metal screamed in the elevator shaft.
The whole building swayed – and the vertical tracks buckled as it twisted. Rivets burst from girders with the force of bullets. One punched through the elevator car’s side, tearing a chunk of flesh from a soldier’s thigh.
The man halfway through the gap gasped in fright as the car abruptly fell several inches. The jolt as the emergency brakes caught it pitched him out into the lobby. Eddie pulled him up. ‘Everybody out, now!’ he shouted at those still inside.
The co-pilot rolled fearfully through the now-wider opening. Two soldiers brought the wounded man to the doors. Eddie reached up to guide him through, another Chinese assisting him before moving the injured man clear as the Englishman went to aid the pair still inside—
A pounding bang of splitting steel from above.
The terrifying sound was followed by echoing clangs of metal striking metal – getting louder with each collision. Eddie realised with horror that a broken girder was plunging down the shaft. ‘Get out!’ he yelled at the last two soldiers, meeting their frightened eyes—
The elevator disappeared.
He leapt back as the girder hit it like a giant hammer, ripping it from its cables. The car came off its tracks, emergency brakes clamping uselessly around nothing as it plummeted down the shaft.
Macy screamed. Eddie picked her up – partly to comfort her, but also out of protective urgency. ‘Where are the stairs?’ he asked Cheng.
The young man was still stunned by the soldiers’ fate. ‘They . . . That way,’ he said, pointing. A sign indicated a passage to one side of the elevator bank.
Eddie hurried to it, seeing a door marked with an exit sign. He opened it. A stairwell dropped towards infinity below. ‘Can you run?’ he asked Macy. She nodded. ‘Okay, we’ve got to get to the ground as fast as we can!’ He lowered her to the floor. She needed no more urging to start her descent. He followed, the rocket launcher’s tube banging against his side as he led the remaining Chinese downwards.
Gadreel returned to the throne room to oversee the hunt for Wilde as Sidona worked. He looked ahead. A large bridge spanned the road between the woman’s strange chariot and the tallest towers, a vast building of unknown purpose nearby. ‘Destroy that bridge,’ he ordered. ‘Bring it down in front of her. She will have nowhere to run!’
Nina glimpsed movement on an overpass ahead, an eighteen-wheeler heading across it. But she was concerned only with what was at ground level. A large shopping mall rose to one side, an English sign beneath neon Mandarin proclaiming it as the Frozen Wonderland Leisure Experience. Giant posters of skiers and bobsledders reminded her that Cheng had said the city was home to an indoor ski run.
But she was already past its gate, dismissing it from her mind as she looked ahead—
The bridge blew apart.
Both the fortress’s cannons fired simultaneously, enormous bolts of energy tearing into the overpass. The carriageway lurched, its supports giving way . . .
Then fell.
A section of roadway slammed to the ground with earthquake force directly ahead. The speeding police car was kicked into the air by the impact, landing hard enough to collapse a suspension strut.
Unrestrained, Nina was thrown from her seat. Her forehead struck the windscreen, leaving a smear of blood. Dizzied, she fell back, grabbing the wheel as the decelerating car swung across the road—
Something large plunged into the destruction ahead. She recognised it as the tanker truck from the overpass in the split second before it exploded.
A wall of seething flame erupted from the chaos. Nina screamed and jammed her foot on the accelerator. The police car mounted the high kerb with a bang and leapt across the sidewalk into an almost empty parking lot.
Flames gushed after her. She kept the pedal hard down, seeing a glass-walled atrium beyond one of the mall’s entrances. A ten-foot fibreglass figure of a cartoon animal holding skis loomed in her path. She shrieked, demolishing the luckless creature, but held her course—
The car ploughed through one of the lobby’s giant windows – the fireball smashing the others a moment later. Flames boiled upwards as the tall atrium became a chimney. Nina ducked, driving blind as heat scoured the back of her neck.
Fire alarms wailed – then she simultaneously heard and felt a flat thump as glass ruptured a front tyre. The police car veered sharply. She raised her head to see turnstiles rushing at her—
She stamped on the brake. The car skidded into a spin, smashing sidelong through the barriers before pounding to an abrupt halt against a wall. The impact flung her across the cabin, the gearstick jabbing painfully into her thigh.
She blinked, stunned, before forcing herself to move. A black pump-action shotgun sat in a rack above the windshield; she pulled it free, grabbing a handful of shells from a box and stuffing them into her pockets. Checking she still had the resurrection key, she staggered out.
The fortress loomed through the smashed windows. It had tracked her here – and the warriors would soon catch up. She had to run.
A fearful face stared at her from a ticket booth. ‘Stay down!’ Nina shouted, gesturing for the young man to duck. He did so. The nearest exit was a set of glass doors, snowflake patterns etched on them. She hurried through.
Her surroundings changed from gleaming yet anonymous shopping mall to ersatz ski lodge, the walls clad with fibreglass logs. Long counters offered rentals of winter sports gear. Business was slow; there was only one man on duty. He dropped behind the counter when he saw her gun.
Through more doors – and freezing air hit her.
A snow-covered hillside stretched into the distance, its upper end shrouded in mist. The indoor ski run, illuminated by an endless grid of overhead lights, was as huge as Cheng had said – even if it was only the world’s second biggest, it was still several hundred yards long. It was wide, too; as well as several broad lanes for skiers and snowboarders, there was even room for a bobsled run at one side. Five chair lifts and some shorter surface lifts serviced the slope.
All were empty, the entire cavernous space deserted. The combination of Xinengyuan’s sparse population, its being a weekday and – Nina suspected from the numbers at the ticket office – high prices meant the complex was currently a gigantic white elephant.
That suited her – the fewer innocent civilians around, the better. But her own survival was paramount. Where to go?
A section of one long wall was glazed, looking into the sparsely occupied mall. No exits, though; anyone wanting to enter the winter wonderland had to pay. She saw a fire door far off in the opposite wall, but it would take her back into the sights of the fortress.
‘Onwards and upwards,’ she muttered. Shivering as cold seeped into her damp clothing, she tramped through the almost virgin snow to the nearest ski lift. If there was another emergency exit at the slope’s top, she might be able to escape the vimana unseen.
She, Eddie and Macy had taken a skiing vacation two years prior; she boarded one of the moving chairs with ease. It quickly carried her up the hill.
Gadreel returned to the mausoleum in response to an urgent call from Zan. Sidona opened her eyes. ‘I . . . I have done it,’ she murmured. ‘I have guided the flow of power, shaped it . . . It is rising inside the tower . . .’
Gadreel regarded her with concern. His wife always entered an almost dream-like state while channelling earth energy, but he had never seen her go so deeply. She had one hand on the chamber’s crystal wall, the other touching the exposed piece inside the humans’ machine. Both glowed, the light pulsing and shifting as if alive. ‘Can you control it?’
‘Yes. It is . . .’ She smiled, the sadistic pleasure of a hunter who had just trapped her prey. ‘Strong. Very strong. The larger the crystal, the stronger it becomes. Had I known I could use the power like this, we would never have needed to go into hiding. We could have defea
ted our enemies from half the world away!’
‘The humans killed them for us – but now they are our enemies. If we are to save the rest of our people, we must defeat them first.’
‘They murdered our son,’ Sidona snarled. ‘We must do more than defeat them. They must be destroyed. And with this,’ she looked at the machine, ‘I can do it.’ Another cold smile, this time with bared teeth. ‘I will show you. Go to the window and watch.’
He smiled back. ‘Make them pay, my wife.’
She closed her eyes again, focusing her mind on the unseen world surrounding them.
‘Come with me,’ Gadreel ordered the nervous Zan, striding up the stairs. ‘Let us see what your weapon can do!’
Ten floors down – but forty still to go. Eddie hurried down the stairs behind Macy, glad of the ten-year-old’s energy. Whether it would hold out was another matter – and the same could be said of his own. He had done his best to keep himself in shape, but he was still half a century old, and even the fittest body had its limits.
He glanced back. The overweight Cheng was already struggling to keep up. The soldiers, on the other hand, were as fit as he would have expected – just as he had been at their age . . .
A moment of mental chastisement. It didn’t matter how old he was – it was what he did that was important. And he would get everyone out of this mess, somehow—
Another jolt shook the stairs. Macy grabbed the banister. ‘What was that?’
Eddie slowed. No explosions, so it wasn’t another barrage from the fortress. If anything, it seemed to have come from below. He looked down the stairwell, but saw nothing. ‘I don’t know, but we need to keep moving.’ He caught up with her—
The lights went out.
Eddie swore under his breath, stopping and grabbing the banister with one hand as his other found Macy’s shoulder. Thumps and gasps came from behind as the Chinese bumped into each other.
Illumination returned, but at a lower level, emergency lights kicking in. The tower shook again, hard enough to rattle the railings and produce ominous crunches from the joints of the cast-concrete stairs. A low rumble like an approaching subway train came from beneath them. Eddie looked down again. The descending flights no longer receded in perfect alignment; they were now swaying, twisting . . .
But it wasn’t an earthquake.
A new light grew at the bottom of the shaft, a shimmering blue-white glow. Sparks crackled from the metal railings, lightning bolts lancing across the stairwell. The shuddering grew worse – and Macy shrieked as a crack suddenly split the wall beside her. Dust dropped from above . . .
Followed by larger debris.
A brick-sized chunk of concrete smashed on the steps. More pieces tumbled down the shaft. Eddie looked up to find their source—
And saw one of the higher flights of stairs tearing away from the wall.
Other sections cracked as he watched. ‘Jesus! Get off the stairs!’ he shouted. ‘They’re going to collapse!’
He and Macy leapt down to the next landing. He threw the door open and rushed into the access corridor. Cheng and a soldier were right behind them, the others stumbling as the stairs jolted. The first five recovered, piling through the doorway—
The last man was still in the stairwell when the weakened flight higher up broke loose – and fell.
It slammed onto the steps below, sending them plunging in a lethal domino effect. Another flight, then another, extra tons of concrete joining the cascade at each step. By the thirty-ninth floor it was as unstoppable as a runaway locomotive. A deafening bang, and both the landing and the trailing soldier were gone, leaving only swirling dust. More thunderous slams echoed up the stairwell as the flights below were demolished.
Eddie didn’t even have time to be shocked by the soldier’s death. The tower was now rocking, pitching him back and forth. Windows shattered as the entire building strained, battling to stay upright . . .
And failing.
A massive boom of disintegrating concrete from below – and the floor tilted.
Eddie pulled Macy to the side of the corridor. ‘Hold on to me!’ he cried, but there was nothing he could hold himself. He looked down the steepening slope. The offices on this floor were glass-walled, giving a view all the way to the exterior windows. The shorter tower was visible beyond, its mirrored face showing its neighbour. Broken glass ruined the infinite reflections intended by the architects, ragged black holes spattering the image—
The reflection changed.
The perspective of the building in the mirror shifted as the damaged structure tilted towards it. ‘Jesus,’ he gasped. ‘The whole fucking tower’s going to fall over!’ Macy stared at him, shocked – but knowing he wouldn’t have sworn in front of her unless something truly terrible was happening—
A flash at the reflection’s foot, liquid lightning shooting from the skyscraper’s base – and every window in the bottom twenty floors blew apart in a blast of seething energy. Huge chunks of concrete and pretzel-twisted girders flew out amongst the glittering debris . . .
And the tower started to fall.
Its back broke ten storeys up as the devastating release of earth energy tore apart its concrete core. Slowly, but with gradually increasing speed, its upper half toppled towards its smaller companion.
Eddie slipped, falling on his back. He dug his heels into the carpet to slow his descent, but couldn’t find enough grip. ‘Daddy!’ Macy cried. He hoisted her onto his front as they skidded towards the offices.
The glass wall rushed at them. He jammed one foot down hard, knowing it wouldn’t stop him – but it could still steer him. He swung sidelong to thump against a support pillar.
Cheng and one of the soldiers also managed to catch the framework – but the wounded man hit the glass. It shattered, bowling him over the frame as huge jagged shards fell on him. Screaming, trailing blood, he rolled onwards through the empty office – to hurtle helplessly through the broken exterior window into the void below.
Another soldier made a desperate snatch for the lower frame. He caught it, clinging on with one hand despite a glass dagger stabbing into his palm. The man behind him grabbed a pillar, but the co-pilot bounced off another with a crack of breaking ribs and fell to his death outside.
Eddie heard the rapidly fading screams, but could do nothing except grip Macy tightly as he fought to keep his hold. The ground at the other tower’s base rolled into view through the windows, the skyscraper falling ever faster—
It hit the second building’s roof.
An earthquake-force roar almost deafened him as the top quarter of the smaller tower was smashed into rubble by the toppling structure, the latter’s uppermost floors shearing off and plunging into oblivion. But the remainder survived, the central core holding despite massive damage. The intact section between the tenth and fiftieth floors now formed a sagging bridge, sloping from the taller building’s base across to the crushed summit of its neighbour.
Intact did not mean secure, though. The hanging section swayed sickeningly, overstressed girders squealing and screaming. The small number of unbroken windows shrank rapidly as the mirrored glass shattered.
Eddie drew in a fearful breath and took stock. He, Macy, Cheng and three soldiers were still alive. Beyond that . . .
‘We’re screwed,’ he muttered. All the panes in the internal glass wall had broken. The floor was canted at a forty-five-degree angle, impossible to traverse. Any slip would send him helplessly out of the exterior windows – and despite the tower’s slant, they were still over twenty floors up.
Macy clutched his chest. ‘No, Daddy, we’re not. We can’t be! You always get us out of things like this. You can do it again!’
Eddie managed a smile. ‘Thanks for the vote of confidence, love. Let’s see what we’ve got to work with.’ He looked around – and saw nothing. ‘Okay . . . er . . .’
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Gadreel almost laughed as the colossal tower fell. The beasts had built their weapon without knowing how to control it, blinded by their innate lust for destruction and violence . . . and now it had been turned against them.
Its first test was a success – but, he saw as the dust cleared, not a total one. The building had not been obliterated, instead caught by another tower behind it. An unexpected emotion at the sight: annoyance. He wanted to send a clear message, that the humans could not stand against the Nephilim, but the structure’s partial survival seemed almost an insulting rebuke.
Sidona joined him at the unbroken window, Zan hanging back in shock. His wife appeared drained by her actions, but also satisfied by the devastation. ‘We did it!’ she exulted. ‘We will make these animals pay for killing Turel.’ She glanced across the room. Their son’s body had been covered, but remained where he had fallen.
‘We will. But you must finish what you started. We must make them fear us again.’
‘And they shall.’ She turned back towards the mausoleum—
‘My lord!’ shouted a warrior. ‘There is something in the sky, coming towards us!’
Gadreel and Sidona scanned the vista. It took them a moment to spot a tiny dark, angular shape, high up. ‘Another of their flying machines,’ growled the Nephilim leader.
‘There are two of them!’ Sidona warned. A second trailed the first. ‘What shall we do?’
He frowned, thinking. The People of the Tree had always known earth energy could be used to levitate objects, but only Nephilim ingenuity had applied that knowledge to a weapon; as a result, it had never been imagined that the fortress’s lightning spears would be fired at anything other than ground targets. The smashed window and damaged hull proved that a costly oversight. And the approaching machines were flying far higher and faster than the ungainly, blade-spinning aircraft. The gunners would not be able to hit them . . .
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