While I’m the last person who should ever give advice regarding women, I couldn’t help myself. He looked lost, so unlike his normal self. “Go on, Katon, Mike and I have got this.”
He stared at me a moment, then nodded, heading off after her. Once he was out of earshot, I turned to Michael. “She doesn’t even know he’s interested and he’s already whipped.”
To the soundtrack of Michael’s throaty chuckle, I went to work. The hammer slammed into the concrete, shards flying as the sound reverberated through the room. Again and again I struck the concrete, cracks appeared and chunks crumbled away. After a few minutes, the concrete gave way and the hammer punched a hole in it, blackness appearing beyond. I knocked the hole bigger and peered inside.
It took a second for my eyes to adjust, and when they did, my stomach sank. There was nothing inside the tomb but dust. If there’d ever been anything there, it had long ago been looted. No symbols or signs stood out against the gray walls to lead us to the key. Only the wispy tingle of Eve’s presence remained.
“Fuck!” I growled, hammering furiously at the concrete, my one lead turning to shit. Slabs gave way under the onslaught and crashed to the floor. Michael stepped back to avoid the flying debris.
I swung with intent, adrenaline and anger fueling my attack. The hammer plowed through the last few feet of concrete, showering me in dust and gray rock.
“Frank!”
I glanced over my shoulder to see Katon staring at me, his eyes narrow and red. Distracted, my swing went wild and smacked into the marble plate of the crypt above Eve’s. It broke loose of its moors and fell to my feet, shattering with a loud crack.
Katon stormed over. “Can you be any louder?”
“Probably.” I shrugged, motioning to the tomb. “It’s empty.”
He growled and looked past me, shaking his head. Taking the hammer from my hand and tossing it aside, he stepped over the wreckage on the floor and peered into Eve’s tomb. Grunting, he then stretched and leaned into the crypt I’d accidentally opened.
After a moment, he sighed and stepped away, brushing the dust from his jacket. “There’s nothing but a bone in the top one.”
His words stuck in my ears, tickling my brain.
“A bone? Just one?” Michael asked as he came over to us, apparently catching the same vibe as me.
Katon nodded as I stepped past him, peeking into the crypt. My heart fluttered when I saw the ivory white thigh bone that lay inside. Untouched by time, the bone stood out from its gray surroundings, everything else withered away. I snatched it up and felt my senses tingle at the contact. The Nephilim had opened the wrong crypt.
“This is Eve.” I held the bone out for them to see.
Scarlett returned right then and glanced at the bone before averting her eyes, but nothing could hide the smile on her face.
“So, this is the key to Eden?” Michael asked.
I thought about it for a second, then shook my head. “I don’t think it’s all of it.”
Scarlett snapped her head around. “What? We desecrated a grave, Eve’s no less, and you’re telling us this isn’t the key.” Her words were a hurricane, stinging spray and bluster.
“I didn’t say that, and technically, I desecrated a grave, well…two if you want to be picky.” She put her hands on her hips and glared at me. “Asmoday told me Cain chose not to seek the key because he felt the cost was too high for his conscience to bear.”
“As the key is clearly the bone of his mother, I can see why he thought that,” she argued.
“Then why would his family put Lilith and Adam on the monument?”
“Because it’s all three,” Michael answered, catching on to what I was getting at.
I nodded. “That’s the most likely presumption.” Katon said nothing as Scarlett started in again. I waved her quiet. “If it were just one of the three he needed, Cain could have gone after Lilith. Given that he intended to beg for forgiveness for what he’d done, the last thing he’d want to do is murder his parents on the way to God’s house. However, as Lilith was persona non grata in Heaven, mixing it up down under, Cain could have gotten away with killing her, perhaps even been rewarded for it.”
Scarlett grumbled and looked to Katon. He met her gaze and nodded as he followed the line of logic. She stuck her bottom lip out and stayed quiet. She just liked to argue.
“If we’re right, this gives us a big advantage,” I said.
“Because we have Lilith in cold storage back at DRAC,” Michael finished my thought.
“Exactly. Now all we need to do is figure out which bone is the one we need and we’ve got two of the three.”
“How are we going to do that,” Scarlett asked.
I shrugged. “I’m not sure, but we’ll fig-” The loudspeaker blare of a telepathic connection tore through my head. Judging by the pained look on everyone’s face, they were receiving the same message.
Abraham’s voice broke in through the shrieking static. “Rachelle is coming to get you. DRAC has been attacked!”
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.