by Toby Tate
Hunter saw Gabe run toward where the top of the obelisk had hit the ground, and he followed. The rubble seemed to go on forever as they ran, jumping over broken blocks of granite and twisted pieces of metal.
Finally, they reached the end and Gabe stopped, climbing into the pile of debris that had been the room where Mac and Hendricks fought their last battle. Hunter stood a ways back, not really wanting to see the remains of his friend. He saw her stop and stare, and realized that she must have found what she was looking for. After a few minutes, she slowly made her way back out.
“Did you find him?” Hunter asked.
Gabe simply nodded in response, then turned and began walking back toward the others, Hunter following close behind.
Eighty-six
While Jason and Matthias stayed behind and took care of things at the obelisk site, Gabe drove Hunter to the hospital to see his wife and newborn son. He decided not to bring up what happened to Mac until Gabe was ready to talk about it. Mac was a good friend who gave his life to save them all, and Hunter would never forget him.
As they got closer to the city, he could see the lights creating a glow against the black sky. “Looks like they got the power back on.”
“Yeah, probably a good thing this all happened in the middle of the night. It could have really created havoc otherwise.”
As they drove on, a couple of news vans passed going the opposite direction.
“Looks like Matthias is going to have his hands full with the press,” Hunter said. “He’ll have a hell of a time explaining this.”
“Let him. Matthias is part of the reason all of this happened.”
* * *
As Jade and Lisa lay in their hospital beds, Hunter cradled his newborn son in his arms for the first time, beaming like a man who had just won the lottery.
“I think it’s great that you named him Jonathan,” he said. “I approve.”
He glanced at Gabe, who had a smile on her face. She obviously approved, too.
“So how is Mac?” Lisa asked.
Hunter glanced at her and shook his head slowly.
Lisa put a hand over her mouth. “Oh, my God,” she said. “What happened?”
Gabe told the story from the time they left the hotel until the obelisk had been reduced to rubble.
“Hey, look, there’s something about it on the news,” Jade said. She turned on the TV’s closed captioning and set it for “English.”
Captain Matthias stood in front of a huge mound of still-smoking rubble, looking flustered and nervous, and answered questions from a female reporter. The sun was just beginning to rise, casting even more light on the chaotic scene.
“We are currently attempting to ascertain exactly what happened to the obelisk,” the caption read. “There may have possibly been an explosion of some kind, but we won’t know for sure until we sift through the rubble.”
“Captain, what about reports that there was a laser-like beam shooting from the top of the obelisk, and a storm that seemed to come from nowhere directly above it. There were also reports of major power outages and Aurorae Borealis appearing in the skies as far south as Egypt.”
“I cannot comment at this time,” he said.
The reporter turned away from Matthias and spoke to the camera.
“We have obtained this video that was taken aboard the International Space Station only hours ago over the Mediterranean Ocean,” the caption read.
The screen filled with a picture of the pentagram from space, the robot arm of the ISS crossing the upper right corner of the frame. The thin blue beams stretched from one continent to another, surrounded by the shimmering green and purple lights of the auroras. An even brighter beam shot out from the center of the pentagram, continuing past the view of the camera.
“Man, that looks amazing from space,” Hunter said. “Lucky they weren’t in its path.”
“Reports are that the beams from the pentagram pierced any buildings or mountains that stood in their path and all originated at obelisks built by well-known philanthropist David Lawrence,” the reporter said. “We also have this video of the phenomenon in the sky from outside our local newsroom.”
The picture cut to a shot of the huge, angry hole in space that had looked as if it might swallow the Earth itself. The camera panned down to show several people yelling in Greek and pointing up at the sky. The memory of it sent shivers through Hunter’s body.
He glanced down into his son’s deep brown eyes and smiled.
“Well,” he said, “looks like we get to live another day after all.”
Eighty-seven
Gabe couldn’t bring herself to go back to the hotel room. It would make her think of Mac, and she wasn’t ready for that—not yet. Instead, she sat outside the hospital and called Jason Fredrichs on her cell.
“Please don’t think I’m ungrateful, but I’d just like to ask how you managed to get involved in my op,” Gabe said. “When I called Langley to tell them what was going on, they pretty much laughed me off. I was lucky to get any support at all until you came along.”
“Just like old times, huh?”
“Unfortunately.”
“I had heard a rumor that you were in Crete, and knowing you as I did, I figured you were up to something, especially when I learned Hendricks was in that same area. I did some checking and discovered you had procured some C4, carbines, pistols, ammo, a rocket launcher, boats, airplanes—something had to be going on. Lucky I got here when I did.”
“Yeah, lucky for all of us. So what happens to Hendricks’s little island paradise?”
“Matthias and I are going to get permission from the local government to let us blow the shit out of it with bunker busters, rockets and whatever else, to make sure there are no more of those creatures left. From what you told me, they should all be on that island.”
“I can guarantee they’re all there. Hendricks wanted them to procreate and witness the birth of a new world. One big creepy family.”
“I’ll be glad to see it go.”
“Me, too. Where are they going to send the remains of Hendricks and…Mac?”
“Do I really have to tell you?”
“Seriously? They’re going to be studied?”
Jason sighed. “Hey, at least they’re not alive. Do you think Mac really cares?”
“No, but I do. I suppose there’s not much I can do about it, though.”
He said nothing.
“What about the stones?” She asked.
“I have an interesting idea about that.”
“And that is?”
“Ever hear of the Marianas Trench?”
“The deepest known part of the Pacific? Yeah.”
“I figure we take them by plane and just drop them in. Nobody’s ever going to find them way the hell down there.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure.”
“What are you gonna do now?”
“Me? Probably get drunk. Take care, Jason. And thanks.”
She clicked off her cell, started the car and headed for the nearest liquor store.
* * *
Gabe walked along the beach for hours, the unopened bottle of Greek ouzo lying forgotten in the front seat of her car. She imagined Mac walking beside her, holding hands and talking as if he wasn’t really gone at all. She glanced up at the sky where, hours before, a yawning, swirling gateway to the underworld had waited, now a light crimson and beginning to turn blue.
Mac was right. The sky here was beautiful. Could he see the sunrise? It was truly amazing—the reds and the yellows—and it was all because of him.
She walked on until she came to a boat pier, then turned and headed back the other direction, watching as a man and a woman jogged up the beach toward her. She smiled.
Because of you, Mac, the world gets to live another day.
She eventually drove back to her hotel, exhausted, and fell into bed, not even bothering to undress.
She awoke later that afternoon, and began packing her bags fo
r the trip back to the states.
There was still one more thing she had to do.
Eighty-eight
The beast that was Lilith blinked her enormous eyes and gazed at her antiseptic surroundings through a haze of sedatives, which felt as though they were wearing off. Her thoughts were clearing for the first time in as long as she could remember. For months, they had prodded her, poked her, pumped her full of drugs, cut open her flesh to peer at her internal organs, and experimented on her offspring for the sake of “science.” Had she been able to consciously focus at any point, she would have ripped her restraining straps to pieces, and then gone to work on her captors. So far, however, they had been careful to keep her sedated and under heavy guard.
That is, until now.
Now, as she lay in her steel cage inside the huge lab, it seemed that there was no one around. No doctors, no nurses, no armed guards. What the hell was going on? Were they just letting her go free? But that was impossible. They wouldn’t dare allow that, not knowing of her powers and what she was capable of. No, this was something else. Something had happened to them. Perhaps they had been evacuated due to a biological hazard of some kind. Of course they would leave her behind. She was simply an animal to them. She couldn’t be killed anyway, at least not by any known chemical agent, or by bullets, and certainly not by radiation.
So the only possible explanation was that there had been an evacuation. Now that she thought about it, hours before, she had heard a warning siren going off, and thought it was a dream. But apparently, it wasn’t a dream.
Lilith could feel the strength slowly returning to her massive, fur-covered body. They had forgotten to sedate her before they left, or were unable to do so in time, and now she was beginning to wake up, to fight her way back to full consciousness.
She got her huge legs underneath her body and began to lift its substantial weight. It was like trying to raise two tons of solid lead. Her legs wobbled with the effort, then gave out completely and she fell in a heap. The frustration ate at her gut, but she willed it away and thought about what she would do if she were to break free. She would first locate her offspring and find a way out of whatever facility they were holding them in, and then she would hunt down that bastard Hunter Singleton and his bitch wife and butcher them like cattle in a slaughterhouse. There wouldn’t be enough left to identify the remains by the time she was done.
She would move only at night, and hide during the day, foraging for food. It wouldn’t be difficult for someone with her amazing powers of survival. She had lasted this long, after all. Eventually, she would find others of her kind and they would regroup, try to figure out the next move.
Lilith steeled her resolve, took a great huffing breath and pushed herself up off the floor. Finally, she was standing. Her strength was returning as the drugs slowly wore off. It was degrading, being treated like a dog. After every surgery, they tossed her back into the cage to heal, and then started the process all over again. She emitted a low, guttural growl.
Now it’s payback time.
She crept over to the cage door and tested it with one paw. Locked.
Of course. That would be too easy.
She stood up on her back legs and put both paws on the bars of the door, then pushed inward. The bars began to bend under her incredible strength, then popped free of the door frame. She did the same with the other bars until there was a space large enough for her to crawl through.
Then, Lilith was out.
She lumbered toward the lab door and then crashed through, ripping it from its hinges and then walking over it, splintering the wood to pieces. She stood in the hallway, looking left and right, trying to figure out which way to go. She sniffed the air, and suddenly smelled blood—human blood.
Ah, so there was someone here after all. Well, they wouldn’t be around for long. She decided to follow the smell, saliva dripping from her huge jaws in anticipation. It had been a long time since she tasted blood.
The creature padded down the hallway of the old building, her cumbersome body rubbing against the walls on both sides. She turned to go down another hallway, walking and sniffing, letting her senses lead her. Where the hell was the way out? She glanced at the wall beside her and allowed her vision to penetrate to what lay beyond. Forest. They were surrounded by trees, like a dense jungle. Was she on some kind of island? It seemed so. That would make sense. It was probably a research facility, one that was off the books, where they could experiment on creatures like her without public scrutiny.
Well, no island could hold her, no matter how far from the mainland it was. She would simply wait for a ship, and then climb aboard under cover of darkness.
The beast advanced down the hallway once again until she came to a set of double doors.
The way out.
She sniffed the air again. The smell of human blood was much stronger now. Whoever it was would be in for one hell of a surprise. She moved to the doors and slowly pushed them open, peering outside. There were several steps leading up. The building must be built partially underground. She pushed through the doors and climbed, her gigantic paws making a thumping sound with each step until she reached the top. She squinted at the sky as the magnificent ultraviolet radiation of the sun beat down on her white fur-covered skin. Then, she sensed something: a presence. The smell of blood was overpowering all of her other senses—she bared her immense fangs.
It was time to kill.
Suddenly, a figure stepped out from behind a tree less than fifteen feet in front of her, wearing a biohazard suit and breathing apparatus. It was also holding some kind of weapon, pointed right at her. Too late, Lilith recognized it—a flamethrower.
“Sorry, bitch. Not today,” a voice said.
Then the flames leaped toward her in an overpowering wave and she cried out with a howl of pain and fury.
* * *
The figure walked to where the beast had rolled backwards down the steps and finished the job with the flamethrower, making absolutely sure there was nothing left but ashes. It released the trigger and stood there for several seconds, assessing the remains. Satisfied, it turned and strode off toward a waiting vehicle.
* * *
Gabe peeled off her biohazard mask as she entered her black SUV, grabbed a headset mic off the seat and stuck it behind her ear.
“The area is all clear. The contamination has been contained. You can send the cleanup crew in whenever you’re ready.”
She removed the headset, unzipped the front of her suit and closed the door of the SUV. She started the engine and glanced in the rearview mirror. A single column of smoke rose lazily into the sky from the smoldering remains of Lilith.
That one’s for you, Mac.
Gabe smiled, put the SUV in gear and drove off toward the main road.
Epilogue
I.
Gordon Powers had been a CIA operative for nearly twenty years and he liked almost everything about it.
Almost.
He often traveled to exotic places around the globe, bedded some of most beautiful women imaginable, and met a number of powerful people. He could speak several languages and was familiar with the inner workings of the governments of most countries. He could shoot practically any firearm ever made, was adept at Israeli krav maga and Japanese karate, and had an IQ that was off the charts. James Bond had nothing on him.
But one of the things Powers disliked about the CIA was the fact that they weren’t allowed to keep part of what they had confiscated. Not that he hadn’t managed to do so on occasion, but it was always under the radar and had the potential to elicit a heavy reprimand were he to get caught. Take the drug dealers in Mexico, for example. He helped bring in men that had killed dozens of people in the most heinous of ways and cleaned up the streets of habit-forming chemicals that had enslaved countless millions of Americans. He spent years working undercover in the most dangerous situations, praying that he wouldn’t be found out, that his identity wouldn’t be compromised somehow and his
head separated from his body. Inevitably, they would kick down the doors of a major drug operation and find piles of cash and a ton of drugs, or both. But instead of taking a little off the top for their troubles, all they ever got in return was a pat on the back and a paycheck that barely covered groceries and rent.
But this time, Powers was going to take something for himself. After all, he had earned it. The United States government was forever playing cop around the world, setting up regimes, bringing down regimes, setting up dictators, taking out dictators, all without the knowledge of the American people. If they only knew what their government was really up to, there would be blood in the streets.
Powers was a good little operative who did his job and kept his mouth shut, but he was almost fifty years old with only a couple measly million in the bank. Not enough to afford him the type of lifestyle he had planned for himself. He had never been married and had no children. Both of his parents were dead and he hadn’t spoken to his own brother or sister for years. But he wasn’t opining the loss of those things. In fact, he was glad—it allowed the freedom to do whatever he wanted to do. Opportunity had come knocking and he was by God going to open the door.
He took a sip of Italian Amabile del Cere Passito as ESPN blared from his big screen TV across the room. He noticed that his football team was about to get their asses handed to them, but he was too anxious to pay attention to the game.
Powers thought about what he had in his garage. If he pulled this off without getting caught, he would be a very wealthy individual. He was having the money wired to various untraceable accounts, and then he would fall off the radar and live like a king for the rest of his life. With his years of CIA training, he knew exactly how to do just that. He could change his identity, change his looks, even change his past. He had friends that owed him favors that could get him fake passports to anywhere in the world. All he needed was enough cash.