The Day of the Nefilim (7 page)

Thinking this, the General felt invigorated as he stood among the Nefilim.

One of the creatures turned to him.

‘You are early.’

“It was not something we could avoid. And surely not a problem?” His conditioning was working well. No sign of panic; he felt totally in control. The trickle of sweat running down the back of his neck was due to nothing more than the heat.

The Nefilim laughed, if you could call the sound that, as it tightened an attachment connected to a tube inserted into the thorax of the archaeologist. Her head twitched slowly in response. The Nefilim leaned over, making small clucking sounds, and tightened something. The twitching stopped.

‘There is no problem,’
it replied.
‘You have done well. We will be able to work efficiently together, your species and ours. We hope that your race will last longer than our last… friends. But then, they didn’t have the pragmatism of you humans. You have been watched, with great interest.’

The General wondered how these creatures could have known anything about humans if they had been in suspension for millennia, but this was not the time to be distracted by minor details. The connection of the two humans to the Nefilim grid was the important thing.

How his superiors had come to know that all this was going to happen he didn’t know – he didn’t want to know – but there had been whispers at headquarters of experiments with psychics and remote viewing, and a lot of work had gone into deciphering the strange inscriptions and diagrams that had been found at the other sites. They were methodical, the Nefilim – and their written language reflected the fact – but humanity was no less methodical.

The hows and whys were of no concern to the General. Get the two bodies plugged in, and get above ground, out of here, and wait for the reinforcements to arrive.

“What about my men?” he asked. “How long are they going to stay unconscious?”

‘Perhaps forever. There is no way telling,’
replied another of the Nefilim.
‘There had to be some difference between the air of our time and that of yours. We can breathe almost anything, our history is long enough, but your race, it seems, has a more delicate constitution.’

The General’s skin prickled at the sight of the Nefilim’s smile. Thin lips peeled back over flat teeth that curved back into the creature’s mouth, like rows of tiny fishhooks.

It was at that point that the General realized that the Nefilim wasn’t speaking. The pupils of its eyes, marble-small and red, were fixed on him, unwavering. It was using some kind of telepathy.

‘
Quite so
,’ the Nefilim answered the General’s unvoiced question.
‘Your own mind is doing the translating. Wherever possible, we prefer that others, you in this case, do the work…’

One of the other Nefilim made a sound, which for no particular reason the General took to be their equivalent of laughter. “How long until you will be ready to start the grid?” he asked stiffly.

‘
The point of the alliance between our two races, yes,’
replied the one that had been doing the talking – no, the thinking.
‘Not long. Then we can all begin the real work.’

The real work…
Something else for later,
the General thought.

* * *

BRYCE AND REINA, accompanied by the invisible Senator, could easily have encountered Onethian or the fleeing corporal as they found their separate ways through the maze of unexplored side tunnels, but they didn’t. Their paths never crossed.

Onethian and the corporal did meet each other, though, near the compound’s main gate. Onethian, out of breath and gasping, found Corporal Ortega sitting on some rocks not far from the gate, looking into the middle distance with a dazed look on his face.

Both being too disorientated to be scared of each other, and not at all sure what to do, they set off on the road towards Barker’s Mill. In time they arrived at the Red Lion, where they got drunk.

* * *

Bark and Sahrin soon found themselves back in the main tunnel system. They were trying to decide what to do when they walked around a corner and into Bryce and Reina, who were making their way towards the source of the noises they could hear.

“Bark! Sahrin!” cries the Senator, overjoyed at the sight of them. Their new physicality, however, renders him invisible to them, so that Bark and Sahrin see only the two humans in front of them. The Senator fumes in frustration.

“Are you going to try to hurt us?” asked Bark.

“…because you’d better not,” added Sahrin, doing her best to sound dangerous.

“Chill, whoever you are.” Reina wondered who the two strangers were. She’d never seen clothes anything like what they were wearing. Whoever they were, they liked color, texture and accessorizing. And fur.

“As far as we know, we’re safe to be around,” said Bryce. “Which, I think, is more than can be said for
some
people around here.” He pointed towards the depths of the tunnel, from where a low hum was audible. “We heard shots from down there somewhere.”

“The Senator should be with these two,” Sahrin said to Bark, looking around. “These are the locals we left on the hillside. There was another one of them as well.”

“That would be Tommy,” said Reina, “but you didn’t leave us anywhere. We’ve never seen you before.”

“I’m here!” cries the Senator, waving his hands in Bark’s face. He tries to touch Bark on the shoulder, but his hand passes through him.

“Maybe he is, but we just can’t see him,” said Bark. “Remember, we’ve shifted, and we’re physical now.”

“Who are you talking about?” Bryce asked. “We were with a friend of ours, but he stayed on the surface.”

“Never mind,” Bark replied, realizing that they knew nothing about the Senator.

“One of your people has gone mad,” said Sahrin, pointing down the cave. “The Nef… there are some creatures down there, and the people who have been occupying this place…” – Sahrin indicated the unconscious body of a soldier lying not far from them – “are responsible for bringing them here. One of our crew has just been killed, and another one is being held captive. A third one is missing, somewhere in these tunnels. And we left one watching the compound with you people. I don’t suppose you’ve seen him?”

Bryce was impressed. “No, sorry, we haven’t. Creatures… you mean, like, aliens? No shit… You guys aren’t with the soldiers?”

“They’re not from here, that’s obvious,” said Reina. “What’s happening?”

“Later,” said Bark. “I’ll explain later.”

* * *

The leader of the Nefilim stood in front of a wall covered with controls. Lights and shifting shapes danced around the images of another three of the creatures that had appeared in front of him. They said nothing; they were using the same technique that had been used to communicate with the General.

The Nefilim seemed to come to some conclusion and ended their conference. One of them adjusted a control and the stone slabs that were supporting the humans descended back into the ground, leaving their occupants at floor level.

The rock beneath them shifted and became fluid. It started to claim them; first their limbs and then the rest of their bodies began to melt slowly into the floor. The General could tell by their eyes that they knew what was happening.

Good. He opened his cell phone and keyed the Secretary-General’s number.

The fat man came on. He’d been drinking. “Aaah, General….” He chuckled happily.

The General had never liked the Secretary-General. He’d seen him drunk before, during the Turkish thing. He hoped it wasn’t a sign that something had screwed up this time as well. “How are things going down there with our new friends? You haven’t offended anyone, I hope?”

“No, Secretary, everything is going according to plan, apart from the slight inconvenience of me being totally alone here. All of my men are down, and according to the Nefilim, it could be permanent. I need replacements here immediately.”

“Fine.” The Secretary-General leaned closer, his bloodshot eyes staring directly into the camera. “We’ll get some more men there in a couple of hours. Just a few at first, and better numbers later. But I want you back here on the first helicopter that gets there. Your new boys will be reliable, totally mindfucked, no security risk at all. As you’ll be their new C.O.,” – the General breathed a quiet sigh of relief – “they’ll think you’re God. What happened with your mysterious interlopers? Who were they?”

“I don’t know, Secretary, but they’ve been neutralized.” He wasn’t about to admit that two of them had escaped. “One of them was interesting, though. He claims to have some knowledge of the Nefilim, so I’m bringing him back with me.”

“As you wish.” The SG was quite affable when he’d had a few. He should do it more often, the General realized. “Bring a couple of the Nefilim back with you, if they’re agreeable. Tell them we need to meet personally. There are some decisions to make. I’m just sitting here having a drink with President Veal, we’d both like to say hello, wouldn’t we, Helmut? Yes, of course we would. See what you can do, there’s a good General…”

The Secretary-General reached forward and cut the connec-tion, already turning, laughing, to continue his conversation with the President of Europe.

* * *

Bryce had been surprisingly hard to persuade, but descriptions of creatures with multiple rows of sharp teeth and coal-black eyes with glowing red pupils, combined with Bark’s retelling of the General’s capacity for immediate and terminal discipline, finally did the trick. They turned back towards the surface.

“I suppose that means we’ll never get to see one of these creatures,” Reina said.

“I’ll draw you a picture,” replied Bark impatiently.

“What about Thead?” broke in Sahrin.

“Yes, what about your friend?” asked Bryce. “You aren’t going to leave him down there, are you?”

“Oh, yes, Thead,” replied Bark, not sure that he wanted to be reminded. He cursed quietly to himself. They turned back, not at all sure what good they could do. The two locals, not about to be left alone, followed.

“Just as you should, without a doubt,” fumes the Senator, who for some reason regards himself as the closest thing to a friend that Thead has got. Frustrated by his inability to talk to anyone, the Senator is beginning to feel alone, surrounded by the ghosts of the present.

* * *

The General noticed that Thead was getting active again, recovering from the stupor of terror that had been keeping him conveniently immobile. He gestured, telling Thead to come and stand where he could keep an eye on him.

Thead got to his feet and came over, not happy at lessening the distance between himself and the Nefilim. One of them sensed his fear and snarled, eyes flashing, thin lips sliding back over its teeth.

The General watched as the floor slowly claimed the soldier and the female archaeologist. After a few minutes, the only sign of them was a few irregularities in the rock surface. Finally the stone crept over them, like moss growing over something rotting on a forest floor. There was no trace at all left of the two victims.

A new, more urgent tone entered the sound that had been pulsing through the room. Visible aethers moved around the Nefilim as they communicated between themselves.

So this is how it is done, then,
the General thought to himself.

So they’re doing it again,
Thead thought to himself, recalling the legends in which other races served as the catalysts for the Nefilim grids.

Thead could see from the General’s face that he had never seen this before.

“Like a crystal, in a radio set,” Thead said, moving closer. “Their energy will be used as a tuning device by their grid. I hope you’ve done some research on your new friends. It is never a good idea to enter into an agreement with an unknown quantity. Or that’s how it is in most places I’ve visited. Perhaps you do things differently here.” He was prattling. He stopped when he saw the General’s face darken.

The General didn’t reply, but he understood what Thead meant.

The lines of energy and force that covered the planet’s surface formed a geometric pattern of finely tuned links, each of which was allocated a function in the grid. This was the source of the mythology surrounding ley lines, sites of power and gravity anomalies. Sometimes there was some science involved, but usually it was too heavily rooted in folklore to mean much.

But this was the real thing. As Thead had said, the life forces of the victims would act like crystals, focusing the earth’s raw energy and sending it, in a purified and concentrated form, to other points on the grid. Other points would become communication nodes, and yet others would monitor and survey, refine and redirect.

In short, the demands of a power structure, both political and physical, would be met with ease.

Over time, the influence of the eight victims, two in each of the four sites, would dissipate, like batteries going flat, and they would need to be replaced, the whole ceremony being re-enacted. And thus, the General reflected, was born, among all the races that the Nefilim had dominated, the copycat ritual of sacrifice; the necessity of providing the earth a yearly offering of blood and life energy.

He remembered that the Secretary-General wanted to see some Nefilim. He went to the one that, for want of better instruction, he regarded as their leader, and passed on the request for a meeting. The Nefilim studied him for a few seconds, as if seeking information from his physical appearance, then accepted.

He made sure that the creature knew that more soldiers were on the way. For some reason, it made him feel better.

* * *

The General led his party straight to the surface, expecting the helicopters to arrive at any moment. As it was, they were late, and it would be an hour before the black shapes came floating over the horizon like dark wasps, hugging the treetops.

Thead used the time to think. There could be a career opportunity here if he played it right. The natives were obviously bent on making some sort of deal with the Nefilim.