The doorbell rang at 5:17 a.m.
My eyes popped open. An angel was at the door.
Fury bolted upright as Azrael walked into the living room. He paused, looked at us—me on one end, her on the other—and smiled. Great.
“Who’s here?” I asked, pushing myself up.
Azrael opened the front door.
The angel on the other side spun around, ripping off his (presumably) designer sunglasses. “I’m back!” Ionis walked inside. “Miss me?”
“Not really.” Azrael closed the door behind him.
The messenger looked like a sherbet cone in a lime green button up with two-sizes-too-small pink shorts. His hair was spikier than usual. Whiter too, if that was possible.
“Oh, great. Ionis is here,” Fury grumbled, flopping back down onto the couch.
“Good morning, Angry,” he said, cupping his hands around his mouth.
Fury groaned.
“You heard about that?” I slowly stood and stretched my arms over my head.
“We all heard about that.”
“How?”
“Somebody told.”
“Who?” I was alarmed.
Ionis raised his hand. “Guilty.”
“You were at Shannon’s yesterday?”
“Close. I followed you.”
I looked at my father for an explanation.
Azrael walked to the coffee pot in the kitchen. “The messengers and the Angels of Ministry don’t have the same effect on other angels the way more powerful choirs do. So I’ve had Ionis keep tabs on the area. If there’s a problem, he can communicate with the whole of Eden if necessary.”
Not a bad idea, I guess. But still surprising, considering how much Ionis irritated my father.
Fury walked past me. “I’m going to take a shower.”
“Need some help?” Ionis asked.
She shoved him sideways as she walked by.
He laughed. “Always good to see you, Fury.”
Ionis and I walked to the kitchen. “What are you doing here so early?”
“Azrael had me bring a load of gear from the command center. Ugly stuff, all camouflage and black.”
“I made him a list of everything you might need for your trip that was probably destroyed in the crash. Rucksacks, CamelBaks, the works.”
“When do you leave?” Ionis asked me.
“Six.”
He covered his mouth. “Oh, I hate goodbyes.”
“Good to know.” Azrael slapped him on the back. “You’re going with them.”
Ionis gasped. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“Oh no. Oh hell no. I’m not going to Nulterra,” Ionis protested with a hand on his chest.
“You’ve sworn your service to me. You don’t have to go into Nulterra, but you will go there and be my eyes and ears for what’s happening.”
Ionis’s shoulders sagged. “But it’s hot.”
“Good thing angels can’t melt then,” Azrael said, pouring three mugs full of coffee.
“You really think it’s necessary?” I asked.
“You said you were having trouble communicating with the natives on the island, so I’m giving you a translator.”
“Sorry. He has a point,” I said to Ionis.
He crossed his arms. “But I don’t have a—”
“Why do you think I had you grab four of everything?” Azrael asked. “You’ll have everything you need.”
Ionis’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. Which was rare.
Azrael handed him a mug.
“But I don’t have any clothes.” He held up a foot clad in some sort of bedazzled sandal. “And I have no shoes for the jungle.”
“I’m sure you and Warren can find plenty of time for shopping.” Azrael raised his cup to his mouth. “You love Manila.”
“Azrael,” Ionis whined.
“You can watch from the auranos once they’ve crossed over, but I need someone who can get a quick word to Eden if there’s trouble.”
Ionis’s shoulders dropped and his head fell back. He started to say something else, but Azrael shook his head. “Discussion is over.”
“Fine.” Ionis huffed and walked to the table.
Azrael smiled at me. “How’d you sleep last night, Warren?”
I shook my head. “Don’t even go there.”
“Why? Where’s he going?” Ionis asked.
“Warren and Fury were on the couch together when I got up to make breakfast this morning.”
“Ooo,” Ionis said.
“We weren’t even touching. Nothing happened.”
“OK.”
“I mean it, Az.”
He held up a hand and chuckled. “I said OK.”
At six, we dropped off Fury and Reuel at the airport. We’d repacked all our rucksacks, and it was decided I’d take the blood-stone cuffs with me.
At the curbside for departing flights, Azrael and I got out to say goodbye. He hugged Fury. “Please take care of yourself, and don’t do anything stupid.”
“Do I ever do anything stupid?” she asked, pulling back to look at him.
“Before this weekend, I would have said no. Now?” He nodded his head. “Absolutely.”
Behind them, Reuel was nodding too.
Fury held up her middle finger and laughed.
My father pulled her in for another hug. “Seriously, we need you to come back whole.”
“You forget, I’m tougher than I look.”
He looked at her face. “I never doubted that for a second.”
Azrael moved to release her, but she grabbed his arm “Flint would want to be cremated. Nothing elaborate. No wasted expense.”
He smiled gently. “I’ll take care of it. We’ll have a memorial when you get back.”
“He wouldn’t want that either.”
“A small gathering in remembrance then. I would like to have one,” Azrael said.
“Why?” she asked. “You, of all people, know he’s not there.”
He leveled his gaze with her. “It’s not for him, Allison.”
She looked at the ground but didn’t argue. Then she hugged him again before he walked away. “Thanks, Az.”
“Thank me when you get back.” Azrael shook Reuel’s hands next. “I feel better knowing you’ll be there. Take care, old friend.”
Reuel pumped his fist.“Cak vira.” There was no word in Katavukai for “goodbye,” so “see you later” was our standard farewell.
We stood there as they walked to the sliding glass doors. My eyes followed Fury.
“She’ll take Flint’s death harder than she’ll let on. Keep an eye on her,” he said.
“Like it’ll do any good.”
“Her father died, Warren. I know the two of you have a rocky history, but afford her a little more patience than usual. She needs it.”
When we left the airport, Azrael drove me and Ionis two hours out of the state of North Carolina, through Knoxville, and north off the I-40 interstate.
He took a sharp right off the main highway onto an unmarked dirt road.
“Where are we going?” Ionis asked from the middle seat of the transport van.
“Somewhere safe. You’ll see.”
We drove several miles through the woods until we finally reached pavement again. Then the road dead-ended at a tall chain-link fence with barbed wire coiled across the top. A Humvee was parked just outside it with a .50 Cal mounted on top. The gunner aimed right at us.
Other humans were present in the area, watching us from places even I couldn’t immediately see.
“It’s Jurassic Park,” Ionis whispered, wide-eyed, as he leaned between our front seats.
“Even better. It’s the Secret City.” Azrael got out as a heavily armed man in a Claymore shirt walked out of the guard post on the other side.
A simple white sign was posted at the walkthrough gate.
NO TRESPASSING
Y-12 SECURITY COMPLEX
US DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
I should have known.
“What’s the Secret City?” Ionis asked.
“Seriously?”
“Warren, I gossip for a living. I don’t care what Azrael and his lackeys cook up down here on Earth.”
“This one isn’t Azrael’s doing. This is Oak Ridge. Birthplace of the atomic bomb.”
I’d known for a while that Claymore Worldwide Security had an installation outside Y-12, but this was the first time I’d ever seen it with my own eyes. It was pretty impressive to think my father had been so close to something I’d only read about in textbooks.
But I guess that would be true for a lot of things in history.
After exchanging a few words, Azrael returned to the driver’s seat, and the guard walked back to the small building. The massive, mounted machine gun turned away from us, and the gate slowly slid open.
“You are quite the man of mystery, aren’t you?” I said, eyeing my father from the passenger’s seat.
He smiled but didn’t look at me. “This was the second Claymore base ever, built back in 1943.”
“Where was the first?” Ionis asked.
“Chicago,” Azrael and I answered together.
That one, I’d never forget.
Chicago. The city where I was born. The city I never hoped to be in again. Too many memories. 99.9 percent of them bad.
“Chicago was where the first controlled nuclear reaction was created. Claymore was originally formed to protect humans from themselves,” Azrael said.
Ionis laughed in the backseat. “I remember that. You told the Council that man had started playing God, and none of them were smart enough to have that much power.”
I grinned. “Sounds like Az.”
“It was true then. It’s still true today.” Azrael drove to the top of a plateau and turned left. “But this place was my first baby. Even today, it has one of the most sophisticated underground fallout bunkers ever designed.”
“More sophisticated than the one you’re building for Iliana at Wolf Gap?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No, but this is the test site for everything that’s happening there.”
“How close is it to being completed?” I asked.
“Maybe two more years.”
“I hope we’ll never need it.”
“Me too, son. Me too.”
It wasn’t much farther before the trees thinned to open grass. The clearing had a three-story brick building, a portable trailer marked “Office,” and an aluminum airplane hangar.
Outside the hangar was a parking lot full of black Humvees like the one we’d seen at the entrance. In the distance, across another narrow patch of woods, was a water tower and the tops of two dormant smokestacks.
The facility appeared to be small, about the same size as Wolf Gap, and it was old, judging from the age on the bricks of the tallest structure. But if I knew anything, it was to not be deceived by the modest exterior.
Somewhere a door would lead to a hidden metropolis.
He parked by the brick building, and the three of us unloaded. “Do you have everything you need?” Azrael asked.
“Probably not, but how the hell do you prepare for this trip?” I strapped my sword across my back, put on my heavy rucksack, and grabbed the blood-stone case off the back floorboard. “We’ve got first-aid supplies, MREs, and three liters of water each.”
“You and Ionis and Reuel should conserve yours for Fury. I’d be leery of the water sources down there, if there are any. What about a gas mask?”
“I brought two from the command center,” Ionis said, struggling to get his backpack on.
I looked at the airplane hangar. “Do you have any skydiving harnesses and goggles around here? Might come in handy if we get into another situation where I have to fly us out of somewhere.”
“Don’t want Fury to have to hang on cowgirl style?” he asked with a grin.
“I’m sure she’d appreciate it.”
“Let’s go see.” He led the way to the hangar.
Inside, a man in mechanic’s coveralls walked over to us, wiping his hands on a dirty rag. “Can I help you?” He was eyeing us suspiciously, mostly staring at Ionis dressed like a cupcake and carrying a military bag bigger than he was.
Azrael looked around the large room. It had a small jet and a Cessna. “What’s your name?”
“Dave.”
“Hi, Dave. Do we have any skydiving equipment?”
The man’s face crumpled with confusion. “Excuse me?”
“Skydiving equipment. Harness, goggles. That sort of thing.”
The man just stared at us.
“Dave?” Azrael snapped his fingers.
“I’m sorry, sir. Who are you?”
“He owns this place,” Ionis said, teetering backward with the weight of the rucksack. I grabbed its top strap to steady him.
“Excuse me?” Dave asked.
Azrael reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. Then he held his Claymore badge in front of the guy’s face.
The man looked at the ID, then back at Az with wide eyes. “Seriously?”
“Yes, Dave. And I need skydiving equipment if you’d like to keep your job.”
Dave moved like someone had set his shoes on fire. “Do you need a tandem harness or a solo?”
“Tandem,” I said.
“Just one?”
I nodded.
Dave entered a closet on the side of the room. A moment later, he returned with a harness, a pair of goggles, and a parachute bag. “No need for the parachute,” I said, accepting the harness and the goggles.
Dave’s confusion returned.
“Suicide mission,” Ionis announced.
Azrael elbowed him in the stomach.
“Well, it is,” Ionis croaked out.
“Thank you, Dave,” Azrael said.
I put the rucksack down and shoved the items into it.
“Need anything else?” Azrael asked.
“Probably, but I won’t remember until Manila what it is.” I offered Dave my hand, and he shook. “Appreciate it, man.”
“Don’t mention it.” He still looked a little mesmerized.
“You ready to do this?” Azrael asked, walking back to the hangar door.
“Do what exactly?” Ionis looked nervous as we walked outside. “I thought we were accessing the spirit line from here.”
“You are.” Azrael headed toward the brick building. “But you don’t want to freak out Dave, do you?”
He smiled over his shoulder before opening the building’s side door. He held it for us as we went inside. The bottom floor looked like the common room of an old college dorm. “Is this a residence building?” I asked as we followed him down the hallway.
“It used to be. Since the activity of the base has decreased, we don’t really need as many overnight personnel here. The ones we do have stay underground. It’s much nicer.” He opened another heavy door that led to a stairwell. “They are currently renovating upstairs to turn this building into offices, hence the portable office trailer outside.”
We followed Azrael two floors down. Then he used a retina scanner to open what looked like a solid wall. A loud buzzer made Ionis jump, and the wall slid away to allow us inside.
I admired its size as we walked in. The walls and the door were at least four feet thick.
“That’s a sixteen-thousand-pound door,” Azrael said as it closed behind us. On the wall hung a massive metal sign. It had a swastika and a drawing of Hitler beside the words, Loose lips sink ships! scrawled in cartoonish script.
“Is that thing real?” I asked.
“We salvaged it from a junk pile after the war.” He pointed to an open doorway on our right. “Decontamination shower and biohazard incinerator are through there.” We didn’t stop to look as we neared a heavy door like the first.
The next door opened up to a lobby, where a woman was waiting to greet us. She was tall, dressed like Fury, and armed better than a GI Joe. “Damon Claymore, in the flesh.”
“Hello, Gisele.” He looked back at me. “This is Gisele Palmer, head of Claymore, Oak Ridge. Gisele, this is my brother, Warren, and our associate Ionis.”
She shook my hand. “I see the resemblance. What can I do for you, Mr. Claymore?”
“We were never here, Gisele. As always, no questions.”
“You’ve got it, sir. I sent everyone to the command room, so as long as you stay clear of there, no one will see you come or go.”
“Thank you. We’ll chat on my way out. I want to hear how the renovation project is going.”
“Roger that, sir.”
Azrael led us down a long hallway with oak doors. I peeked inside the ones that were open. There was a rec room with a big screen and two pool tables, a large kitchen and chow hall, and a first-aid station.
“How big is this place?” I asked.
“Twelve thousand square feet, give or take. The one at Wolf Gap will be six-thousand feet bigger than this.”
He led us through a door to another stairwell at the end of the hall. We went down another floor to a hallway of residences. “These are the apartments.”
He pushed open one of the doors so we could see inside. It looked like the living room of my first apartment at Camp Pendleton.
At the end of that hall, he punched in a code to open what looked to be the final door. “This is the one reserved for me or any VIP guests we might have.”
I wouldn’t call it luxurious, but out of all of Azrael’s hidey-holes I’d visited, this one was the nicest. “Through here,” he said, opening another heavy metal door.
He flipped on the light in the bare concrete room. The only decoration was a single quote, in what looked like Sanskrit, painted on the wall.
“That’s creepy as shit, Azrael,” Ionis said, staring up at it.
“What is it?” I asked, unable to read the language.
“It’s the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, that Robert Oppenheimer quoted when they successfully tested the first atomic bomb.”
“It’s grammatically incorrect,” Ionis whispered.
“You guys are absolutely no help.”
Azrael apparently wasn’t aware that I still didn’t know what it said because he moved the conversation along. “You can breach from inside here. It won’t be heard aboveground.”
Ionis rolled his eyes. “We could have breached from the woods, but whatever.”
“Ionis, do you remember the safe spot to breach to at Claymore West?” Azrael asked.
Ionis nodded.
Azrael turned back to me, an odd mix of worry and resolve on his face. “Have you thought of anything else you need?”
I shook my head. I had my sword, my gear, and the cuffs—which, for a second, I was tempted to leave behind. “I think we’re good. Any other words of wisdom before I go?”
“I wish I did, but you’re about to do something even I have never done.”
“What if I fail?”
He put both hands on my shoulders. “What if you succeed?”
Azrael reached under his shirt and pulled out a gold necklace. It was his blood stone, containing all his memories of the supernatural world. “But take this, and revisit all my memories during our time of negotiating the deal with the Morning Star. Something might be helpful.” He took it off and offered it to me.
“Now?”
“No.” He put the necklace in my palm and closed my fingers around it. “Take it with you. I want to see what it’s like down there.”
I hesitated.
“It will be fine. I’ve done without it for a few weeks before, and my memory has been just fine.”
“OK.” I put on the necklace and dropped it beneath my collar.
My father opened his arms, and I gladly stepped into them. “Be careful, and come back quickly.”
“I’ll do my best.”
He squeezed me tight. “I love you, son.”
“I love you too, Dad.”
Over his shoulder, the words on the wall triggered a memory in the blood stone.
“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”