Chapter 11: Strike at the Heart

They followed behind Azazel as it barreled through the hallways, somehow able to squeeze through the tight space despite its size. They heard screams and gunfire occasionally, but they were unable to see past its bulk, only the charred and dismembered bodies that it left in its wake serving to illustrate what was going on.

It was like tailgating an angry, fire-breathing steamroller, and before very long they arrived at a large cargo lift. It seemed out of place, big enough that even Azazel could stand on it, and Ryan looked over the guard rail to see that it descended deep into the mountain. He wasn’t sure how far down it went, as the only illumination came from floodlights mounted on the platform itself.

Azazel snapped its head around suddenly, looking back in the direction that they had come as if it could hear something that Ryan could not.

“I sense the presence of a Seraphim,” he muttered. “It is Samael, he has returned. He knows that I am here, but he cannot sense thee, Ryan Cutter. He has come to defend the Ark. Go now, and I will stay behind to hold him off.”

Ryan nodded, hitting the lever on the platform, the gears grinding as it began to slowly descend.

“Wait father!” Nahash shouted, Azazel turning to look back at her. She threw the ring, and the beast snatched it out of the air with its massive hand.

“I will return it to him, assuming that we prevail,” Azazel chuckled. A brilliant light flooded the corridor above, like a sunrise was happening inside the building, and Azazel’s halberd flared to life as the Watcher turned to face it. Samael’s golden wings propelled him forward as he emerged from the hallway like a rocket, driving his spear towards Azazel. The beast parried it with a deafening crack and a shower of bright sparks, their duel beginning anew, the two battling figures growing smaller as the elevator descended into the unknown.

“You know, I actually get on with him a lot better than I did with my ex’s in-laws,” Ryan mused.

The platform rumbled beneath their feet as it crawled down the tracks, the sounds of Azazel’s duel becoming fainter. After a few minutes, they could scarcely hear them, and it just kept taking the pair deeper. It made Ryan feel like he was descending into hell, he had no idea what would be waiting for them at the bottom. The silence became too much, and he felt compelled to make conversation, deciding to ask Nahash a few questions now that they had a moment of quiet.

“You mentioned your mother earlier,” Ryan began, “is it alright if I ask about her?” Nahash nodded, and so he pressed on. “She was mortal, right? Like me? What happened to her?”

“She was killed in the deluge,” Nahash explained.

“I’m sorry...”

“It was a long time ago,” the Seirim replied with a shrug, “it isn’t exactly a fresh wound.” “Tell me about her,” he insisted. Nahash took a moment, staring off into the distance, pulling up memories that were older than most human civilizations.

“In the antediluvian era, the period of time before the great flood, the land was presided over by Yahweh. It was an entity that had been birthed by the imaginations of a few scattered tribes, and through conversion and conquest, they had imbued it with immense power. It drove off all the other minor deities and spirits in the region, and it used its wealth of energy to turn the deserts into gardens. In exchange for their worship, it kept its followers fed and protected. There was no reason to reject the gifts that it bestowed.”

“The fertile crescent?” Ryan asked.

“That is what they call the region, yes. Agriculture flourished, it was a true garden of Eden and likely the origin of that very myth. Humans did not know disease or sickness, their lifespans extended into the hundreds of years, and after a time even war became unknown to them due to the protections that Yahweh afforded. It created Angels, calling them the Watchers, who cared for their mortal wards as if they were their own children.”

“That doesn’t sound all bad,” Ryan said, “but I get the impression that it didn’t last.”

“For nearly two thousand years they flourished,” Nahash continued. “They begot tens of millions of offspring who all worshiped Yahweh and kept it fed with their energy. The entity was all-powerful, unchallenged, but when one achieves ultimate power and authority the only fear left is that they should lose it. The deity became capricious, petty, it wanted to micromanage the day to day lives of every one of its subjects so as to keep them in line. It handed out edicts that forbade the building of statues, for example, fearing that they might be worshiped as idols. It forbade contact with outsiders for fear that they might carry with them a foreign religion that would spread like a plague. It demanded worship in new and elaborate ways in order to maximize its take of energy, it ordered that lengthy prayers and rituals be carried out, it had monuments and temples built in its name. Like a jealous lover its attempts to control the people became stifling and overbearing, and after a time the Watchers served as little more than prison guards.”

“Utopias have a tendency to go horribly wrong,” Ryan commented.

“Some of the Watchers began to sympathize with their mortal wards. They saw them as sentient creatures with their own hopes and desires, beings who should be free to make their own choices.”

“And that’s when the rebellion began?”

“Not quite. Many of the Watchers began to desire more autonomy for themselves, too. Yahweh had created them as sentient, powerful beings, but that lust for complete control extended to their own activities as well. The humans were as their children, and the Watchers wanted to teach them, to see them grow and mature. But Yahweh feared where that might lead. Mutual appreciation sometimes blossomed into love, as was the case with my mother and father.”

“How did that happen?” Ryan asked.

A smile brightened Nahash’s face as she fondly recalled the events.

“Her name was Bathsua, it means daughter of abundance, and abundant she was.”

“Yeah, I figured you probably took after your mother more than your father,” Ryan joked.

“She had hair the color of wheat, skin as pale as the waxing moon and eyes the color of ocean surf. She was kind and patient, she had so much love to give, and so much of it was directed towards my father. The Watchers came in many strange forms, but most chose to change their appearance into something more familiar to avoid frightening the mortals. Azazel was not one of them, he saw it as deceitful. My mother saw the good in him shine through his bestial exterior, and they soon fell in love.”

It should be a heartwarming story, but Ryan already knew how it ended. This was the point of no return, the spark that had ignited the fires of rebellion.

“At that point, there were hundreds of Watchers and millions of humans, so their activities went mostly unnoticed. Azazel would shirk his duties to spend time with her, he would expend energy needlessly to entertain her with magick, he would whisper the secrets of the universe to her. Yahweh was not omniscient, it did not see what Azazel was doing. The Watcher was well liked amongst his comrades, and so they didn’t turn him in. The relationship went on until he had given her twelve children, Nephilim, the offspring of a Watcher and a mortal. Many other Watchers did the same, finding human wives and starting families on Earth. All that Azazel wanted to do was share with Bathsua all the wonders of the world, to give her strong and worthy children, but these were things that Yahweh forbade out of paranoia. It wanted the mortals kept ignorant and docile, it feared the creation of half-breeds that were outside of its design.”

“I know what happened next,” Ryan grumbled. He had already heard stories of the rebellion and the flood.

“Eventually word of this reached Yahweh. It found out that a great many Watchers had defied it, that they had taken human wives and had taught the mortals forbidden knowledge. In a fit of rage, it ordered the Watchers to kill the Nephilim, along with all those who they had taught.”

“That’s barbaric,” Ryan muttered, “Yahweh asked them to kill their own families? Did any of them actually do it?”

“Only Samael,” Nahash spat, her hatred for the Seraphim apparent. “The rest defied the decree, they took their families and fled into the desolate mountains that bordered the fertile crescent in the North West. Many mortals followed them, mostly the extended families of their wives who feared retribution, but there were many who sought to free themselves from Yahweh’s rule too. There the rebel Watchers educated them in the ways of war, armed them, prepared them for what was to come. When the time was right, they marched on Eden side by side. Yahweh was powerful, but an army of two hundred Watchers, over a thousand Nephilim and a million mortals was a force to be reckoned with.”

“And who won?” Ryan asked. The answer had seemed obvious at first, but Nahash and Azazel were still here while Yahweh’s paradise was not.

“It was a war of such great scale and such terrible devastation that its like was not seen again until the great wars of Europe. Azazel’s forces were outnumbered, but they fought harder than their foes. Love is a greater motivator than fear. At the end of their campaign, what had been a cradle for humanity had been turned to blasted wasteland, its cities razed and its land unfit to bear fruit. It mattered not to Azazel, it was almost symbolic of his desire to see humanity fly the nest, but Yahweh became enraged. Not only had they defied its will, not only had they deprived it of energy, but they had destroyed everything that it had sought to build. In one final fit of rage and in an attempt to deny Azazel his victory, Yahweh brought forth a great flood. The land was wiped clean by a tsunami the height of a mountain, friend and foe alike were drowned by the millions. The rebellion was ended, and Yahweh’s reign along with it...”

“And what of your mother?” Ryan asked, looking up at Nahash to see her expression darkening.

“Drowned. My sisters and I might have been lost too had our father not been so revered by his people. They had fueled him with enough energy that he was able to save us from certain doom, and so he brought us back, conserving what little energy remained to him and entering a state of hibernation.”

“That I eventually woke him from?”

“Yes,” she said with a nod. “My sisters and I endured for a time, feeding on the energy of primitive tribes who revered us as spirits of the wilds. But as you well know, we were eventually forced to enter into the service of other demons. Watchers are powerful entities, very difficult to kill, but once cut off from their energy supply even they will eventually fade. Azazel may well be the last of them.”

“So ... who won the war?” Ryan asked.

“Nobody won,” she replied bitterly. “My father did not succeed in defeating Yahweh, he could not protect the families of the rogue Watchers, and he could not save the lives of his mortal followers. In a sense, his actions freed humanity as a whole from Yahweh’s rule, but it came at a terrible cost. As for Yahweh, in its paranoia, it created the very thing that it so feared. Its land and people were destroyed, in part by its own hand. The faith survived, however, preserved in the practices of a few scattered tribes who were descended from survivors of the deluge. In time they grew and spread, becoming the religions with which you are familiar today. Yahweh steadily regained its strength over the ages, but it never again sought to intervene directly in the lives of mortals.”

“Until now,” Ryan said.

“Perhaps,” she replied with a shrug, “but I am not so sure. Maybe it is the Masons who champion Yahweh’s return, and not the other way around. The myriad religions that feed it energy continue to grow and spread even in its absence. I see no reason for it to upset the status quo. It may even have learned from its experience, perhaps it no longer seeks to dominate and is content to merely be revered.”

“That sounds optimistic,” Ryan added, “but you’d know better than me.”

The lift finally ground to a stop, and they found themselves at the mouth of yet another corridor. They stepped off the platform, Ryan shouldering his rifle. He had come here to save his own skin, but now he was tasked with saving the world.

“I just wanted to pay my rent,” he muttered under his breath.

“What?” Nahash asked.

“Nothing, let’s get this done.”

The hallway was just as long and as featureless as the rest, their footsteps echoing as they made their way into the unknown. It was akin to being inflicted with a kind of snow-blindness, the pale, synthetic glare of the fluorescent lighting reflecting off the whitewashed walls and the polished stone floor. It all blended together. There were no side doors here, no scribes traveling to and fro and no guards patrolling. Ryan kept his rifle ready, but the corridor was so long that he couldn’t even see the end of it.

They had been walking for minutes by the time something finally appeared in the distance. It was a metallic glint, a door of some kind perhaps?

A noise like a thunderclap rang out, and Ryan spun around, knocked off his feet by the force of an impact. It felt like someone had hit his right shoulder with a sledgehammer, and for a moment he was confused, dazed. When he came to he was lying on his back, staring up at the bright lights in the ceiling, the entire right side of his body aching. He turned to look at it, seeing that blood was staining his clothes, his blood...

He heard Nahash bray like a goat, heard her hooves impacting the floor nearby, but he found himself unable to move. It didn’t really hurt that much, the pain was numbed by shock, but he felt as if all of the strength had been drained from his body.

Someone had shot him. But who, and from where? He feared for Nahash, she was no more bulletproof than he was. He could hear her bellowing angrily, but he couldn’t rise to get a look at her. He clutched at his rifle as if it might somehow protect him, but moving his right arm sent a stab of pain shooting down its length.

The ground began to rumble, there was the sound of creaking wood and shattered stone, pops of gunfire followed by distinctly human cries of anger and pain. Nahash returned to his side, crouching beside him and shaking him like she was trying to wake someone from a deep sleep. Her voice was distant, but it grew louder as his eyes focused on her face.

“Ryan! Ryan! Stay awake! Look at me!”

He blinked at her, his awareness slowly returning.

“I got shot,” he groaned weakly.

“I can see that, how badly are you hurt?”

He tried to sit up, and she helped him, curling an arm beneath him and propping him upright. He opened his jacket and his shirt, now soaked in blood, exposing the skin below. There was a hole in his shoulder the size of a penny, still bleeding but not profusely.

“I think it went through,” he croaked. “If it had hit bone, I’d have an exit wound the size of a fist. If it had hit an artery, I’d have passed out from the blood loss by now.”

The memories and experiences that he possessed reassured him that the wound was not immediately threatening. It must have passed through the soft tissue and narrowly avoided the bone, but the sooner he visited a doctor, the better.

Nahash helped him to his feet, supporting him as they walked down towards the end of the hallway. Now the pain was coming stronger, but he felt more alert, shock fading and adrenaline taking its place. As they neared their destination, he noticed a giant, metal door. It was covered in gears and rods, like something that might be found in a bank vault.

Two large trees had grown from the floor to either side of it, their thick, gnarled trunks standing like pillars. A product of Seirim magick no doubt. The slabs of stone that made up the floor beneath them had been shattered and upturned by their roots. Trapped in their leafy branches were two guards. One of them was limp, certainly dead, his body crushed against the ceiling and penetrated in places by sharp twigs.

The second was still alive, hopelessly trapped in a cage of twisted branches and pinned against the wall, but he was moving. The tree had grown out at an angle it seemed, as if it had been reaching towards its target like a grasping arm. At its base the man had dropped a long rifle with a magnified scope, Ryan recognizing it as a H&K G28, a German-made marksman rifle. The two guards were well placed, there was no cover in the hallway, and anyone approaching the vault could be fired upon from a distance. It was a stroke of pure luck that the round hadn’t landed a few inches to the left, and that they had thought him neutralized when he had fallen to the ground. It was one close call too many. Was it really luck, or was Azazel somehow watching out for him?

He considered drawing his handgun with his good arm and putting a bullet through the Mason’s masked face, but he was trapped, and he no longer posed a threat. Enough blood had been spilled by necessity today, he didn’t need to add to his growing kill count if it could be avoided.

“Can you see a way through?” he asked as Nahash examined the door.

“No, it’s some kind of ... mechanical locking mechanism, I don’t understand how it functions.”

Ryan gave it a look over, but he couldn’t figure it out either, it was a mess of wheels and steel rods. There were three keyholes, but only two guards.

“Try to burn through it,” he said, “we don’t have time to figure this out.”

She pressed her curved sword against the metal where the three keyholes were lined up in a row, and Ryan looked away as the weapon produced a bright light. He discarded his rifle, no longer able to wield it with one of his arms rendered next to useless, and drew his handgun instead. They didn’t know what they might find on the other side of this door, for all they knew there could be a hundred Mason goons waiting for them.

“How’s it coming?” he asked, growing impatient. The clock was ticking, and she had been trying to burn through the door for several minutes already.

“This door must be half a cubit thick,” she complained, “it’s taking me a long time.”

“Cubit?” Ryan asked.

“It’s maybe twelve inches thick,” she reiterated, “I don’t think that we can get in this way.”

The bright light faded, and Ryan turned to see a river of slagged metal pouring from the door to pool on the stone slabs that made up the floor, now made uneven by the spreading tree roots. Nahash had melted a hole deep enough that he could have fit his fist inside it, but they weren’t even close to breaking through yet. Destroying the locks had not caused the door to open either. He didn’t know much about bank vaults, but he knew that sturdy metal rods extended from the doors into the walls around them, locking them in place. Might it be easier to destroy the walls?

“You got enough juice left for another tree?” he asked.

“Maybe,” she replied, taking a step back from the door and letting her sword vanish into a puff of dark smoke.

“Don’t do it if you can’t be sure that you’ll have enough magick left over to manifest another body when we get out of here,” he added, “but I’m thinking that we can maybe break through the walls. The trees that you grew here broke through the stone floor, right?”

“That might work,” she said, scratching her chin. “Perhaps an ironwood tree would be able to produce enough pressure, but I can’t be sure. I will have to try. Take a few steps back...”

Ryan retreated a ways down the corridor, nursing his wounded shoulder as he watched her slowly raise her arms. It was almost as if she was lifting a heavy weight, visibly straining against an invisible force. The branches on the two existing trees bloomed with pink flowers, and their trunks were coated in a spreading layer of moss, the trapped guard wailing in alarm as he was engulfed by the cherry blossoms. Ryan was worried that the man might be in harm’s way, but there was no time to free him from the branches, and there was nothing to indicate that he wouldn’t immediately turn on them again.

Nahash took a few steps back, willing a green shoot to sprout from between the cracks of the stone slabs, little more than a weed. It began to grow, slowly at first, then expanding exponentially as it exploded out of the ground. It threw the heavy stones aside, upending them along with a mass of black earth, the roots growing and spreading like a nest of roiling snakes to find purchase. The trunk grew to be as thick around as an oil barrel, the branches reaching towards the vault door like skeletal fingers.

They impacted the stone wall and pressed against the ceiling, the tree still growing and expanding before Ryan’s eyes as it strained against the obstacle. There was a terrible sound of creaking wood, accompanied by cracking stone and bending metal, immense forces at play as the tree put pressure on the apparently immovable obstacle.

Nahash continued to strain, her limbs shaking as she pushed against an unseen barrier, the air thick with magick and motes of pollen. The tree embedded itself deeper into the earth, the thick trunk bending under pressures that Ryan could scarcely conceive of.

There was a loud bang as a crack appeared in the wall beside the vault door, then another, and another. The tree finally won its battle, and there was a sound like an entire mountainside collapsing as the walls surrounding the metal door crumbled and the circular slab of metal toppled over backwards. It kicked up a massive cloud of dust that swept through the hallway, the tree continuing to grow and pushing through the ceiling until Nahash saw fit to stop it.

She lowered her arms and fell to a sitting position, Ryan hurrying towards her through the obscuring cloud.

“Are you alright?” he asked, taking a knee beside her. He coughed as he inhaled the dust, pulling the collar of his shirt over his nose and mouth in an attempt to ward it off. The Seirim seemed exhausted, her chest rising and falling heavily, her breathing labored. “You did it, you got the door open.”

“I will recover,” she said, “go on without me. Complete your task and do not delay.”

He nodded, rising to his feet and making for the breach, holding his pistol in his left hand as he kept the right clasped against his chest. He dodged around the thick trunk of the ironwood tree, clambering over the rubble and debris, the dust slowly clearing as he made his way into the vault.

It was an expansive, dark room in the shape of a cube, the only light spilling in behind him through the hole that they had made. The massive vault door lay on its back, a few pieces of crumbling stone still attached to the heavy rods that had anchored it to the walls. There didn’t seem to be any light fixtures inside at all, no furniture or decorations, there was only a box resting on the ground in the center of the floor. It was made from wood with a golden lattice that held it together, the gilded lid decorated with twin statues of winged Angels that were facing one another. There were two golden rods attached to the sides of the chest, used for carrying it around no doubt.

He had expected something more awe-inspiring, something so finely crafted and extravagant that it could only have been forged by the hand of a God, but this looked rather innocuous. It wouldn’t have seemed out of place in a museum exhibit.

Movement caught his eye, and he pointed his weapon at a man who was trying to free himself from the rubble. As the dust cleared, Ryan could make out two more figures. One had been crushed by the door, only his robed upper body visible, the lower trapped beneath it. A third was leaning against the far wall on the other side of the chest, his hands raised in surrender. They were all elderly, clad in the same lavish garments, the purple fabric decorated with all manner of adornments and symbols.

“Stop!” the one near the far wall wailed, “stop this before it’s too late!”

Ryan kept his weapon trained on the man as he moved towards the Ark. He wondered for a moment how he was expected to destroy it, but upon second glance, it wasn’t especially sturdy looking. Gold was a soft metal, and the wood didn’t look thick.

“Please!” the old man pleaded, rising to his knees and wringing his hands as Ryan examined the chest. “Azazel has deceived you, he is the father of lies, the origin of all sin! You can still stop this. By staying your hand now, you could thwart Azazel’s plans. You have not yet strayed too far, no man is beyond redemption.”

“What were you doing in here?” Ryan asked, “who are you?”

“I am one of the Grand Architects,” the main explained hurriedly, “an instrument of God’s will on this Earth. We were calling for aid, for more Seraphim to be sent to stop the beast.”

“Like Samael?” Ryan asked disdainfully.

“Yes, yes! You have seen him? You have basked in his holy glory? You have felt his love?”

“Oh yeah, I felt his love alright, when he tried to lure me in and kill me. I also know that he murdered his own family and that he’s a sadistic piece of shit.”

“Please ... Ryan, that’s your name, is it not? Ryan, listen to my words very carefully. Azazel is a liar, he has made you into his instrument, but the ultimate choice still rests with you. It is not too late to turn to God, but if you do this, your soul will be forever lost. The beast cannot touch the Ark, he cannot destroy it, he needs a mortal champion to do it in his stead. You must see reason, you must refuse! If we succeed in our endeavor, there will be no more hunger, no more war or disease. Human lifespans will be extended into the hundreds of years, justice and peace will reign across the whole planet, deserts will turn to gardens and the world will be as it was always intended.”

“All under the control of your God?”

“All under the control of a loving, benevolent entity, yes. An entity who wants nothing more than to love and to be loved, to free us of our burdens, our fears and our doubts. You must see the value in this, surely?”

“Listen, old man,” Ryan began. “I’m real tired, I’ve had a long day, and if you haven’t noticed already, I just got shot. Maybe you should have opened with that spiel rather than trying to murder me in my own home. I wouldn’t even be here if you hadn’t fucked with me.”

“Wait, wait!”

“Now if you’re quite finished, I came here to smash this box and that’s what I intend to do.”

The Grand Architect looked around frantically, searching for something to use as a weapon. He picked up a piece of rubble and climbed to his feet, raising it above his head as he charged towards Ryan, loosing a desperate battle cry. Ryan casually aimed his handgun and shot the Architect in the chest, the old man keeling over to lie motionless on the dusty floor.

He stowed the weapon in his belt and walked over to the Ark, giving it an experimental kick. It was hollow, flimsy, it shouldn’t take much force to destroy it. He reached over and struggled to remove the lid, which was solid gold and by far the heaviest and sturdiest component, pushing it onto the floor. After leaning over to look inside, he saw the two stone tablets sitting on a bed of plush material that might have been silk or something along those lines.

He felt a spark of guilt. This Ark and these tablets were genuine historical artifacts of great significance, thousands of years old. Destroying them just felt wrong, but after everything that he had seen he understood why it had to be done. He reached in and picked up one of the stone tablets, examining the Hebrew inscriptions. He couldn’t read them, but he knew them to be the ten commandments, dictated to Moses atop Mount Sinai according to legend.

He raised the tablet above his head and threw it, the stone shattering into pieces as it hit the ground, then he did the same with the second. He upturned the chest and knocked it onto its side, then retrieved a sizable chunk of rubble from the ground, using it to smash through the wooden paneling. The gold dented inward and the wood splintered, and before long the chest had been reduced to a pile of debris. He pulled apart the gold lattice as best he could with his one good arm, putting his foot on it and leveraging it to bend the metal. He wasn’t sure exactly how destroyed it needed to be if it was to be rendered unusable, but he did all that he could. Once he was finished with the Ark, he returned to the tablets and ensured that they were too fragmented to be reassembled.

A haze appeared in the room before him, and Gaap manifested there, grimacing at him from beneath its burlap hood.

“Apologies,” it said in its rasping voice, “I was prevented from returning by powers greater than my own. I came as soon as I was able.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Ryan replied, “just get me out of here.”

Azazel had no doubt prevented Gaap from carrying Ryan away before the task was complete, and if he had let the demon return, then it must mean that the Ark was adequately destroyed. Gaap began to do its work, Ryan feeling a pain in his chest, sinking to his knees and gritting his teeth. He knew that it would pass, but no amount of logic or reason could stave off the primal panic that flooded through his veins as his body began to die. It felt like his chest was being crushed in a gigantic vice, his muscles aching as his heart beat erratically, then came to a thudding halt. As he fell to his side, his vision darkening, he heard footsteps and shouting.