The Nephilim Imperatives: Dark Sentences (The Second Coming Chronicles Book 2)

by Terry James

  They promised to keep her up to the minute on their search for the kids. Still, it hurt –as much as the arthritis—that she couldn’t join them. The pain was just too great. They would all be together as soon as they found Morgan and Clark, Lori had promised during the phone call two hours earlier.

  Laura fumbled with the bottle’s cap–one engineered especially for rheumatoid patients. She downed the dose of methotrexate and prednisone. She made a mental note that tomorrow she would take the folic acid dosage to deal with the drugs’ side-effects.

  She looked at her hands as she always did. Maybe they would begin to show improvement, would become less gnarled, and feminine again, not so ugly. But, as always, they were deformed, the knuckles and fingers twisted red with inflammation and swollen from the disease’s years of working on them.

  “Oh, Lord. I do trust you. I know you will take away pain and tears in Heaven. Please help me to get through this on my way back to you –the One who created me.”

  Her prayer was given in her thoughts, not through spoken words, and was accompanied by thin streams of tears that trickled from the corners of her eyes.

  She chastised herself for feeling sorry for herself. This pity party was NOT demonstrating faith in her Lord to see her through all of life’s…unfairness.

  “Forgive me, Lord,” she whispered. She would buck up and do better.

  “Roy Luther!” she shouted at the cat who had made Mrs. Hemingway scream with his roughhousing. Seeing that the female was okay, she returned to finishing the pills by swallowing them, washing them down with water.

  When the cell phone rang, she moved as quickly as her painful hip, knee, and ankle joints would allow.

  “Mom,” Lori said from Los Angeles, “We’ve had a delay. The plane just left New York. It has to stop in Phoenix to pick up the Banyons, then they will get us.”

  “Still no word from the kids?” Laura asked, starting to sit in a chair, but deciding that the effort of getting up later would be more than she cared to bear.

  “No. We’ve talked to Mr. Guroix, again. He was unable to get any answers from Transportec or the defense department. He said the security is about as high as it comes. He was assured that Morgan and Clark are okay, and that they’re safe.”

  There was hesitation before Lori spoke again. “I don’t buy it. I’ve been in these projects. I’ve never known –even back in those days at Taos—when a family member couldn’t contact other family members outside the projects. That is, except in cases of lock-downs for a day or so.”

  “What does it mean, then, sweetheart? What do you think is happening?”

  Laura’s tone displayed her growing anxiety and Lori, sorry she had added to it with her words, knowing her mother’s medical condition, moved to assuage her angst.

  “Mom, come to think of it, it’s probably as simple as a temporary lockdown because part of the experiment has been misplaced. I remember once that a few slides of particularly virulent bacteria we were using went missing. They had all the doors locked for half a day. I couldn’t have called you then, if I had wanted. All scientists were kept sequestered until the bacteria were found. It’s probably something like that.”

  Laura, like her daughter, wasn’t buying it. It had been three days now. It was far more serious than some missing parts of experiments.

  “If we don’t get some answers,” Lori said, hearing in the silence her mother’s unresolved worry. “We’ll go to the press, get them involved and anyone else who will listen.”

  They were finished in another two minutes, Lori promising to call Laura at every step of the search’s progress.

  A block away from Laura’s home near Fort Sam Houston, the man took the device from his ear and checked to see that the digital recording was secure. He placed the device into an attaché case and drove the van into the black Texas night.

  The Black Ops chief spoke with the operative from San Antonio, then switched phones when their conversation ended. He was very pleased. Things were going much smoother than with the search for the EU operative, whom no one could find. The thought of the spy wandering around somewhat dampened Jenkins’ mood, which had been on the upswing with his people’s most recent efforts at surveillance.

  “You got a fix on that plane?” His tone harbored the irritation that renewed thoughts of the spy in their midst had sparked.

  Jenkins listened for a few seconds, then interrupted the man responsible for coordinating the mission of keeping track of the Criterion that had left JFK within the hour.

  “I don’t want excuses, Brazil. I expect you to have a fix on that aircraft every inch of every leg of that flight plan they filed. Do you understand?”

  He raised his eyebrows and eyes toward the acoustical tiles of his office ceiling, hearing John Brazil at a central NORAD satellite tracking chamber try to explain some technical details of the track they had on the jet.

  “Yes…yes. That’s great, John. But, all I will look at in the final analysis is the bottom line. Will you have that thing under proper coordinates and so forth on its final leg to Denver International?” He listened a few seconds longer, then said, “Good. Great. That’s what I wanted to hear. Our friends…are depending on it.”

  Satisfied all was in place for following the movements about which his operatives had learned from the tappings and tapings, Jenkins hung the phone on its cradle and moved to the lavatory doorway on the wall opposite that of the walls inset with monitors. He would freshen his shave for the meetings with the DOD people he would have to entertain in an hour or so.

  He didn’t switch the light on, preferring to not have the light above the huge mirror shine into his eyes. His head ached, and he looked in one corner of the long countertop for the Advil tablets. He retrieved three of the capsule-shaped medicine, and started to put them in his mouth, while preparing the glass of water.

  Remembering his order of procedure in taking the pills he swallowed more and more of now that pressures had increased, he placed the three tablets on the countertop, and reached into his pants’ pocket. He pulled out the Rolaids, broke three from the package and chewed them. The step was meant to buffer the burning effects medications caused otherwise.

  He reached for the soap pump to the right of the cold faucet knob. He would wash his face, then shave with the electric razor.

  It stopped him in mid-reach. A point of light that appeared in the center of the blackness that was the mirror. The light sparked like a match head flaring following a strike, seeming to burn a hole in the glass while growing--a large, incendiary hole in the blackness, becoming larger.

  Jenkins could but watch, strangely calm, while the light mesmerized his senses, then suddenly disappeared, the mirror again black --darker than before, the light having done its temporarily blinding work on his retinas.

  Glowing –at first glance very dim—expanded within the mirror to become a scene before him. He watched while the gleaming metal object penetrated a girl’s abdomen, just beneath the navel. The taut skin expanded to accommodate the probe, like a hot knife blade slicing through butter.

  The probe invaded her body deeply, and then slowly withdrew. The skin closed, when the probe had withdrawn fully, to appear as if the penetration had never been accomplished. It didn’t leave a mark on the body.

  He knew. His thoughts were those of the ones doing the procedures he witnessed. The girl was April Warmath. The procreative receptacles, as the inner-voice explained—were now entrapped within the instrument.

  Other procedures –this time on the young man beside the girl-- were performed, the cerebral voice informing that the life-introducing essence was being withdrawn from the male’s body.

  The mirror-scene next moved to a setting Jenkins couldn’t make out. It was a scene that he instinctively knew was other-worldly, dimensional--not of earth. The man’s life-essence –that of Clark Lansing-- had given, and the procreative receptacles –April Warmath’s eggs—had received their life-force. He knew, too, the mixing of Luc
iferian immortality with human mortality had been accomplished.

  The subjects had been prepared. The plan had taken root in the form of conception once accomplished long ago. He knew that he felt, in the moment of euphoria, the elation the minions had experienced in that antediluvian moment when “…the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them,” and, “the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.”

  The voice –the same as that from times antediluvian and further in time past –much further—echoed within Jenkins’ cranium. And he loved, savored every moment of the ancient knowledge.

  How foolish he had been, considering his own selfish, pitiful imperative to be important. Producing an army, a means of teletransporting it, was nothing. This--this was staggering in its import. This was the thing for which he was born: to serve the master-creator of such a universe-changing paradigm!

  He knew, too. The voice implanted the knowledge in a way his synapses could never let him forget to dwell upon as most important to his mission. The girl’s –Morgan Lansing’s-- receptacles and Blake Robbins’ life-force essence would not do.

  It was the man the Creator produced out of the earth –out of the most basic of elements. The man came first, not the egg –the woman’s procreative force. This is what the other-worldly beings had discovered, why they couldn’t introduce their own seed into the human women in that antediluvian time.

  That is, they couldn’t successfully do so. The results had been giants –Nephilim. They were soulless, and had supernatural powers, just like the great master-planner desired. But they didn’t fit in, physically. They were twice the size –or more—of the humans of those pre-flood days.

  It was the human male who must first be prepared through careful genetics tampering. This had been done, early on. Both the man’s paternal and maternal grandfathers had been tampered with, their genetics changed in some way only the master-planner could fathom.

  The man-child’s own father and mother had been prepared decades earlier, before they themselves were contaminated by the Son of God and His…salvation. There would be no salvation for these, not for the beings that would come from these life forms produced by Clark Lansing, April Warmath, and…them…

  The scene within the mirror faded, becoming again dark, void of all but the blackness of the lavatory. He flipped the switch, lighting the executive washroom.

  Jenkins looked into the mirror as his own senses, his own thoughts, were returned to him by the keepers of the secrets, secrets to which he was now privy.

  Why was he so privileged to know their plans? What would be the danger involved in carrying such knowledge around with him? Was the exultation engendered by such privilege worth the dangers he faced for failing to produce their desired goals? Goals about which he had been given only a slight glimpse, no doubt.

  The words he had been given were biblical. He knew enough about Scripture to know that. They were prophetic as well. He knew that. He would look at the Bible words he had been given when there was time.

  For now, his job was formidable, and that was without even knowing fully what would be expected of him.

  Jenkins looked in the mirror that now reflected his own grinning image. It was a smile of self-satisfaction. Whatever they required of him, he was the one person on the planet who could get it done.

  Colorado, inside Ezekiel’s mountain

  He held his wrist in front of the flashlight’s beam. The big-faced scuba watch read “8:35”.

  They had been a long time traversing the tunnels and caverns of Ezekiel’s Mountain, as Nigel had mentally named it. How much farther? His hard, highly trained body had done well, he considered, but the backpack was wearing like a pack loaded with rocks now, and he longed to find the end of their trek.

  The rottweiler lay down when they stopped, the man dropping the load for a few minutes of rest.

  “You tired, too, boy?” Nigel reached to scratch the dog’s face.

  “So am I, my friend, so am I,” he said, sitting upon a portion of the backpack and shining Zeke’s long flashlight beam into the distance.

  The cavern had narrowed, and the ceiling had lowered since they had entered the huge chamber. But, the passage was still 10 meters wide and probably, 5 meters high, Nigel surmised. It looked that way for as far as the beam would shine.

  What were these nether regions? Who had walked the tunnels, which, Zeke assured, ran the length of the mountain’s interior? Perhaps Native Americans had scurried these channels that seemed a natural part of the rock structure –not carved by instruments of any sort. Besides, he cogitated; who –especially primitives with primitive tools—could bore such a hole? Such a task would be monumental, even with the most modern tunneling technologies available now.

  He had watched the making of the “Chunnel,” the passage beneath the English Channel bored from England and France. The fascinating documentary had showed the engineers’ constant adjustments and maneuverings with the powerful, high-tech equipment to make sure the two holes met at just the right point. They had implemented special preparations to keep the channel waters from flooding once the connection was made.

  At least there had been no water in the making of this tunnel. However, it was made –by God? No, by nature. There was no water to complicate matters.

  Jeddy stood and walked away in the direction they had been traveling. Saxton followed him with the beam. The dog broke into a trot, then a run, disappearing into the distance beyond the light’s reach.

  “Hey! Boy! Come back!”

  Nigel stood, jumped the backpack onto his shoulders, and walked at a fast pace to follow the canine.

  The beam soon shined on a solid wall of creviced rock, and he moved the light along the stony pathway covered with dry silt that had accumulated over the millennia. The dog’s sprinting footsteps had disturbed the ancient soil, but the disturbance had lessened as the canine had obviously slowed his pace.

  There it was, a hole to the right of the rock surface, just behind an outcropping boulder. An opening about three meters high and probably a meter and a half wide, the Brit figured, seeing that the dog’s footprints led through the hole.

  “Here, boy!” Nigel called, bending with the backpack to shine the beam around the area beyond the opening.

  This was a diversion, not the path they should take. They needed to bear right, to continue through the big tunnel.

  “Here! Come here, boy,” he repeated several times, whistling and making smacking sounds with his mouth to entice the rottweiler out of the tiny passageway he thought the cavern to be.

  Finally, with the dog unresponsive to his call, he shed the pack and slipped through the opening, taking only Zeke’s flashlight.

  The light met yet another dead end. Or, so it seemed at first. Further investigation showed that the canine had slipped through yet another opening, this one smaller than the previous. But still manageable.

  Nigel passed through it with little more effort than he had to exert passing through the previous hole and was met by the crisp night air of Colorado.

  “This is cool,” he said with a broad grin. He scanned the darkness, searching for the dog.

  Jeddy rounded a large rock face in the distance and loped to the man, who knelt and welcomed his friend’s jubilant tongue kisses upon his face.

  “Good chap! You got us out of there. A very bright customer, mate!” Saxton said, standing to again survey their surroundings.

  The area seemed perfect for covert exit from the mountain. After he had retrieved the backpack, he and the dog could rest under the Colorado night sky, which sparkled crisply with brilliant stars. Even the temperature had changed. It was considerably warmer. They could bivouac without detection, surrounded by rocks on all sides.

  The old man had been right so far. They had gotten through the mountain. Zeke had promised he would find a village not far when they had come from the tunnel.

  But, they had taken a side tunnel thanks to the
dog. Did the old hermit mean this opening, or one that was at the end of the larger tunnel, had they taken it instead? The answer would have to wait until sunrise. For now, he would share with the rottweiler the food Zeke had provided them those hours ago.

  The lights of Phoenix spread beneath them. Jeb Strubble was pleased when he checked the highly advanced console panel that housed the digital readouts that compared second-by-second increments of flight. The ETA result was about as good as they got. They arrived over Phoenix International at precisely 20:58. The ETA was 20:59.

  “Darn near perfect,” Strubble said to his co-pilot, who didn’t understand, having his mind on instructions the bird was receiving from the Phoenix International air traffic controller.

  “Sorry, Jeb, what did you say?”

  Strubble shook his hand in a wave of never mind. “Not important,” he said.

  “We got assignment, Boss,” Hamilton Lamb said, bringing the pilot’s mind back to the task of preparing for landing the Criterion on the runway they had just been assigned.

  Christopher Banyon paced slowly in front of the massive terminal building window. The newly constructed facility was the lounge for the many business travelers who preferred –and could afford—the convenience of private air travel in the array of business jets that routinely pulled to the concourses just outside the windows that circled the huge area’s interior.

  He stopped to stare into the distance at the transfixing strobes and other lights that illuminated the Phoenix night. The chartered jet would be landing at any second, and he wondered, with each set of landing lights that approached against the darkness, whether it was the one.

  Susie joined him. “Their ETA was 8:59. It’s now 9:11. Wonder if they’re on time?”

  Christopher’s cell phone chimed, and he probed his shirt pocket for the instrument, finally able to pull it out with two fingers.

  “Bet this is Randy, now,” he said, flipping the phone open.

  “Boy! You’ve got to get a load of this flying Rolls Royce you ordered up,” Randall Prouse said in his usual boisterous greeting voice. His 82 years had scarcely dampened the archeologist’s enthusiasm for life, Christopher thought.