by Elicia Hyder
Her eyes narrowed. “What are you really doing here?”
“Do you trust me, Dr. Swain?” I asked.
“Not really, no.”
I smiled. “I appreciate the honesty. I promise, no humans will be harmed while we are here.”
It was a tricky statement. She would immediately wonder if we were protecting them all from some greater danger. In a way, we were, but it was manipulative nonetheless.
She pointed beyond me. “You and your friends can sit on the back row at the top. Hopefully, there, you will be less conspicuous.”
“You won’t even know we are here.”
“I’d better not.” She slid her glasses down the bridge of her nose and looked at the bag I was holding. “What’s that?”
“Tissues.” I took out a box, ripped off the tab, and pulled out a single white tissue. “Given your subject matter, we thought they might come in handy.”
“We’re academics. Medical professionals not ruled by emotions.”
I smiled. “OK.”
Neither she, nor any of the students, would be able to see the ministry angels.
She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Someday, I hope to understand all this.”
“Dr. Swain, I sincerely hope you never do.”
She looked at her watch. “It’s almost time to start. You and your friends had better behave yourselves.”
“We’ll be perfect angels,” I said with a wink.
Before going to our seats, Reuel and I placed trashcans at the bottom of each staircase. Fury and Anya put tissue boxes at the ends of alternating aisles. When we all finished, we found seats together near the center of the top row.
The Angels of Ministry divided into groups and positioned themselves along the stairs. Students passed around and through them, none the wiser.
Ionis leaned across Fury toward me. “Shem is waiting for you to nod. When you do, he’ll signal the others to begin.”
Across the room, the yellow-eyed angel was watching me so intently I worried my hair might start smoking. It was creepy.
“Do you understand?” Ionis asked.
I nodded.
Suddenly, one of the students let out a loud whimper. I realized it was the kid with the ponytail who’d let us into the building. He was a few feet in front of Shem, and the angel’s yellow eyes were set on him.
I cleared my throat loudly until Shem, finally, looked at me. I swiped my fingers across my throat, which was hopefully a cosmically universal sign for “Cut it out!”
The angel blinked, and Mr. Ponytail quieted down immediately. Luckily, the girl at the end of the aisle passed him a tissue.
I closed my eyes. “This is going to be a catastrophe.”
Beside me, Fury was muffling a giggle behind her fist. “At least it will be entertaining.”
“Ionis,” I whispered. “Can you ask them to be more subtle? We just need tears, not therapy sessions afterward.”
“You got it, boss,” he replied, then touched his ear.
The bell rang at exactly nine o’clock.
Almost every seat in the auditorium was filled. With a quick count of the seats, I guessed there were closer to two hundred students present.
I leaned toward Fury. “If we can get ten tears out of each of them, that’s a couple of thousand.”
“Will that be enough?”
“Torman said it would take a few, so fingers crossed.”
A man in a suit with Albert Einstein hair walked up to the front podium. “Hello and welcome. I am Dr. Wyatt Murray, director of the Department of Health Management. Welcome to the first presentation of the three-part lecture series, ‘Medical Ethics and Human Subject Experimentation.’
“We are honored to have Dr. Leona Swain, a physician and former professor of bioethics at the University of Maryland. Dr. Swain is the author of First, Do No Harm: A Dark History of Human Experimentation, which won the 2017 McCauley-Wilson Award for Book of the Year in Medical History. Please welcome, Dr. Swain.”
The classroom erupted in applause as Dr. Swain walked to the podium. Shem caught my eye. I shook my head and mouthed the words, “Not yet.”
“Hello, students, and thank you, Dr. Murray, for that warm welcome.” She folded her hands on top of the podium and looked thoughtfully around the room. “Primum non nocere. Can anyone tell me what that means?” The words flashed onto the screen behind her.
Hands shot up around the room. Ionis’s hand was one of them.
“First, do no harm,” a woman answered loudly a few rows in front of us.
“Yes. First, do no harm. It’s a phrase that’s hopefully been drilled into your minds since your first day of medical school. Hippocrates wanted you to remember it. Your professors want you to remember it. Your patients will certainly want you to remember it.”
There were a few laughs around the room.
“But what does this mean? Surgery causes harm. Chemotherapy causes harm. Doctors don’t always know when the benefits outweigh the risks, am I correct?”
Without thinking, I nodded right along with most of the students.
Ponytail guy cried first.
It took a second for my brain to connect the dots. By the time it did, tidal waves of emotion, from both sides of the room, crashed down onto the audience. Shem was so fixated on the students, there was no getting his attention. No pulling back the hysteria unleashed on the room.
The entire row in front of us wailed almost in unison. Grinning wildly, Ionis passed forward a box of tissues.
“Students, students, please!” Dr. Swain could hardly be heard over the sobs. Her eyes were wide with alarm, frantically searching the crowd for something to explain the commotion…
She spotted me.
I sank down low in my seat. Between the heads of the two kids in front of me, I saw the doctor’s face darken. She put a fist on her hip and shook her head.
I sank lower.
Dr. Swain hadn’t even shown the first slide.
“You’ve done it now,” Fury said, chuckling beside me. I looked over and saw she was laughing through the tears streaming down her cheeks. She was trying to catch them in her palms.
Rogan reached over the shoulder of the girl in front of him and plucked a few tissues from the box she was holding. He passed them across me to Fury.
Still laughing, she dabbed her cheeks and eyes. “How the hell are you going to explain this?”
I leaned my elbow on the armrest and covered my eyes. “Beats the shit out of me.”
After a few seconds, I sat up and surveyed the chaotic scene. The bright side was the plan was working. Flashes of white tissues were everywhere. Even at the front, the doctors were now crying.
My supersonic ears couldn’t hear what the two doctors were saying, but they were clearly trying to figure out what was going on. A couple more faculty members entered the room, and before long, they too were dabbing at their eyes with tissues.
The commotion lasted several minutes before a confused Dr. Murray stepped up to the podium. He gripped both sides of it and leaned toward the microphone. “Let’s take a ten-minute break while we figure out what is going on.” He looked at the clock and had to wipe his eyes before he could read it. “Class will resume at exactly nine twenty-five.”
I jumped up. “Come on. We need to collect those tissues.”
The wastebaskets were half-full by the time I reached the first one. I handed it to Reuel, then sidestepped my way through the bodies to grab the other on the opposite staircase. I held it out toward every student that passed.
Rogan, Anya, and Fury handed out tissues to students who needed more. Before the room had emptied, our wastebaskets were full, and I was crushing the tissues down to make room for more.
I needed to wash my hands.
“What did you do?” Dr. Swain marched over to me and threw her tissue on top of the pile.
“I didn’t do anything,” I said, semi-truthfully.
Another sob rippled through her.
Hesitantly, with my fingertips, I picked up the same tissue she’d discarded and offered it back to her.
She swatted my hand down. “I know this was you and your friends. What is it? Some kind of bioweapon? Is it harmful?”
“No, no. Nothing like that.”
She cried out again.
I whirled around to look for the angel that was causing it. “Shem, that’s enough!”
The angel jerked upright, and the crying around the room faded as quickly as it had begun.
Shock replaced the sadness on Dr. William’s face with a flash. “Who’s Shem?”
I looked over her shoulder as Dr. Murray approached. “Leona, I wonder if we shouldn’t have the police or the city come in and test for toxins—”
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” she said, still glaring at me. “Whatever it was seems to have passed. Maybe the kitchen was cooking onions and peppers.”
He looked even more confused. “The cafeteria isn’t in this building.”
“I think we’ll be fine to resume class in a few minutes.” She cast a questioning glance at me.
I looked around the room before nodding. The Angels of Ministry were leaving. Some through the walls. Others via the hallway.
“We’ll chat later, Dr. Swain,” I said with a smile as I backed toward the exit. “Great lecture.” I grabbed a few more tissues off the floor as I left.
Rogan met me in the hallway when I walked outside. “Warren, we have to go. Kane needs you back at Wolf Gap.”
“John’s here,” Rogan announced when we pulled onto the Wolf Gap property. A blue pickup, vintage now by any standard, was parked in the lot outside Echo-5.
Beside me, Fury sighed. “I can’t believe you asked him to come.”
“I can’t believe he agreed,” I said.
Cruz parked beside the truck, and we all got out. It was hot out, hotter than I remembered Asheville ever being. But it was the middle of August, and I hadn’t exactly spent a lot of summers there.
I looked up at the building as we crossed the lot toward it. All the high-Z shutters were closed over the windows except for one.
“What is it?” Fury asked.
I pointed to the window. “I think that’s the control room. Maybe Iliana was able to make contact with Sloan and Nathan.” I breathed in fresh mountain air and looked down at her. “We’re finally making some progress.”
She smiled, squinting against the sunlight.
Beyond the building, near the tree line, was a four-car garage. “Hey, Cruz. Is my car in there?”
“It was the last time I saw it,” he replied.
“Thinking of going for a spin?” Fury asked.
“Wouldn’t that be nice?” I said with a sigh.
When we reached the door, I waved to the camera that was connected to the bunker. A buzzer sounded, and the lock clicked open.
Kane stepped out of the control room when we walked inside the lobby. His face was pale. His expression grave. “H-how’d it go?” he stammered.
My good mood crashed.
Reuel held up the three economy-sized trash bags filled with tissues. Before leaving campus, we’d scavenged the trash cans around Norton Hall.
Kane smiled, but his eyes were dead. “Nice work.”
“You all right, man?” I asked.
His head jerked toward the door. “I need to see you in the office.”
“OK.”
“John is down in the bunker setting up.”
“He brought his equipment?” I asked.
Kane’s head gave a noncommittal tilt. “Well…he brought some equipment.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. I looked at Rogan and Torman. “Take the tissue to John. Bring Torman in and flash one of the swords around. That should make him more willing to help. Where’s Iliana?” I asked Kane.
“With Cassiel.”
“Did she make contact with Sloan?”
He shook his head and swallowed.
Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.
I turned to the rest of the group. “Don’t wait on us to start making the crystal water. We’ll be down soon.”
Rogan nodded and led the group toward the door that would lead to the steps below. Fury stayed with me, and when the others were gone, we followed Kane into the control room.
“You’re freaking me out, man,” I admitted.
Kane pulled out the desk chair and sat down. “Close and lock the door behind you.”
That didn’t help my rising blood pressure.
When the lock clicked into place, he turned toward the computer and pressed a key on the keyboard. The picture flickered to life on the screen.
Fury gasped and covered her mouth.
I took a step back.
Two people wearing black hoods were chained to a wall in front of the camera.
One had a soul.
The other did not.
Between them, taped to the wall, was a sheet of white paper with “2 PM” written on it in red.
“What the hell is this?” I asked, though I knew exactly what it was. As a Marine, I’d seen too many similar videos during the Middle Eastern wars.
“I received a message from Huffman in the forum about an hour ago. It was a link to a video, but the connection was too slow in the bunker to play it, so I came up here, opened the window, and used my cell to connect. This feed is what came up. As far as I can tell, it’s live.” Kane looked at his watch. “It’s one fifty-four.”
We were four hundred miles as the angel flies from New Hope. Without the spirit line, there was no way for any of us to intervene in six minutes.
Fury gripped the back of Kane’s chair and leaned over his shoulder. “Is this being recorded?”
“What?” I was a little horrified.
Kane clicked a few keys. “Everything is disabled. I can’t make any changes.”
“Can you use your phone?” Fury asked.
Panic pulsed through my veins. “Why?”
Fury straightened and faced me. “Because if they do what I think they’re about to do, the world needs to see it. Our government needs to see it.”
Nausea swept over me.
Kane picked up his phone off the desk. “She’s right.”
I paced the room, pulling my fingers back through my hair as my mind went through the roster of everyone the Morning Star was holding prisoner.
Sloan.
Nathan.
Huffman.
Samael.
Sandalphon.
1:57.
1:58.
1:59.
I rocked on my heels behind Kane. Fury held onto my waist. Kane lifted up the phone in front of the screen and tapped record on its camera.
Another hooded figure walked into view. They wore nondescript black cargos and a long-sleeve shirt with black boots. They carried an assault rifle over to the prisoners, and first removed the hood of the angel.
Samael.
They pulled off the human’s hood next.
Huffman.
Both of my friends’ jaws were set. Expressions and hearts steeled, they stared straight ahead, visibly emotionless.
The guard used a serrated knife to cut open Samael’s shirt, exposing his smooth, ripped chest.
Without warning, without last words, the guard stepped back and shot Samael. Three rounds straight to the chest. His back slammed against the wall, and he writhed against his restraints.
This wasn’t just an execution. It was a demonstration.
The bullet holes didn’t close. Steam rose out of them first, followed by thick black sludge that oozed down his torso. He gagged and sputtered as he tried to breathe through shredded lungs. Black blood trickled from his mouth before his whole body began to convulse.
Everything in me wanted to look away, but I didn’t.
I couldn’t.
I don’t know how long it took—it felt like hours, but it couldn’t have been more than a minute—until we got the answer we’d feared since Cassie
l had first been shot.
In a shower of black sparks, the once-eternal spirit of the angel who guarded the spirit line exploded with a screeching, final hiss. The full weight of his body sagged against the chains, and his eyes—open and black—stared into nothingness.
Samael was gone.
My friend, who wouldn’t even have been on this planet had it not been for the mess I helped create.
The executioner stepped over in front of Huffman.
His death wouldn’t be so dramatic. A 5.56 of any kind at such close range would be fatal instantly for a human.
The gunman aimed straight at Huffman’s forehead.
“Warren,” Huffman said, staring straight into the camera. His eyes narrowed. “Kill them all.”
Then blood splattered the camera lens.
Chapter Twenty-One
Dazed, Kane and I followed Fury to the bunker. Of the three of us, she was the most adept at keeping her shit together under all circumstances. But even her hands trembled as she reached for the door to the lobby.
Nash was behind the desk, thank the Father. Had it been Cruz or Lex, I might not have been able to keep the anguish off my face. Like Kane and Fury, those two had worked with Huffman for many years.
“Whoa, what’s wrong with you guys?” Nash asked, sitting up straight.
Kane ignored him. “Where is everyone?”
“Most everybody’s in the kitchen, I think. John’s here.”
“Can you find Iliana and bring her up here?” I asked him.
Nash stood and walked quickly to the door. When he was gone, Kane put his hands on his hips. “We don’t need to tell anyone about this. At least not right now.”
“I agree. It will cause nothing but panic, but Iliana must know. We need to make contact with Sloan and Nathan now more than ever,” I said.
Kane nodded. “I’ll take her upstairs if you want.”
I put my hand on his shoulder. “No, I’ll do it. Take a break, brother. I’m sure as hell going to find a dark corner and stew for a while as soon as I can.”
He held up his phone. “I’m going to send this video to Enzo. He’s on the inside at the Pentagon. Maybe he can help shut Claymore down and keep Azrael’s name out of it.”
“That’s good.” If I trusted anyone in Washington, it was Enzo.