Iron Angels Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Epilogue

  Glossary

  IRON

  ANGELS

  ERIC FLINT &

  ALISTAIR KIMBLE

  Iron Angels

  by Eric Flint and Alistair Kimble

  A bizarre kidnapping case leads FBI Special Agent Jasper Wilde into the mysterious world of a strange religious cult and even stranger criminals. At the scene of the kidnapping itself, a frightening apparition is seen. Then, a hideously-mutilated corpse is found nearby. Something wicked has come to the nornal-seeming Chicago suburbs.

  It doesn’t take long before the FBI agents realize that something truly extraordinary is unfolding in northwest Indiana—and that, whatever it is, the area’s huge steel industry is somehow at the center.

  Jasper is joined by Supervisory Special Agent Temple Black. Black has recently been put in charge of a new unit, the Scientific Anomalies Group, created to analyze and handle peculiar cases which might be on the periphery of national security.

  Another cult is discovered, although this one seems to be opposed to the criminal activities taking place. Further investigation, however, just produces more in the way of mystery. The agents consult with scientists and theologians, but no one has any idea what might be producing the situation.

  Until, finally, the cults erupt in open warfare. As the FBI agents race to intervene and finally put a stop to the horrors, they come to understand and accept that something very ancient and very evil has surfaced in the world—or, perhaps, something that is very, very alien.

  BAEN BOOKS by ERIC FLINT

  Ring of Fire Series: 1632 • 1633 with David Weber • 1634: The Baltic War with David Weber • 1634: The Galileo Affair with Andrew Dennis • 1634: The Bavarian Crisis with Virginia DeMarce • 1635: The Ram Rebellion with Virginia DeMarce et al • 1635: The Cannon Law with Andrew Dennis • 1635: The Dreeson Incident with Virginia DeMarce • 1635: The Eastern Front • 1636: The Papal Stakes with Charles E. Gannon • 1636: The Saxon Uprising • 1636: The Kremlin Games with Gorg Huff & Paula Goodlett • 1636: The Devil’s Opera with David Carrico • 1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies with Charles E. Gannon • 1636: The Viennese Waltz with Gorg Huff & Paula Goodlett • 1636: The Cardinal Virtues with Walter Hunt • 1635: A Parcel of Rogues with Andrew Dennis • 1636: The Ottoman Onslaught • 1636: Mission to the Mughals with Griffin Barber

  Grantville Gazette I–V, ed. by Eric Flint, and VI–VII, ed. by Eric Flint & Paula Goodlett • Ring of Fire I–III ed. by Eric Flint

  The Assiti Shards series: Time Spike with Marilyn Kosmatka • The Alexander Inheritance with Gorg Huff & Paula Goodlett

  With Alistair Kimble: Iron Angels

  With Dave Freer: Rats, Bats & Vats • The Rats, The Bats & the Ugly • Pyramid Power • Pyramid Scheme • Slow Train to Arcturus

  With Mercedes Lackey & Dave Freer: The Shadow of the Lion • This Rough Magic • Much Fall of Blood • Burdens of the Dead • Sorceress of Karres

  With David Drake: The Tyrant

  The Belisarius Series with David Drake: An Oblique Approach • In the Heart of Darkness • Belisarius I: Thunder at Dawn (omnibus) • Destiny’s Shield • Fortune’s Stroke • Belisarius II: Storm at Noontide (omnibus) • The Tide of Victory • The Dance of Time • Belisarius III: The Flames of Sunset (omnibus)

  Joe’s World series: The Philosophical Strangler • Forward the Mage (with Richard Roach)

  Mother of Demons

  With David Weber: Crown of Slaves • Torch of Freedom • Cauldron of Ghosts

  The Jao Empire Series: The Course of Empire with K.D. Wentworth • Crucible of Empire with K.D. Wentworth • The Span of Empire with David Carrico

  With Ryk E. Spoor: Boundary • Threshold • Portal • Castaway Planet • Castaway Odyssey

  With Mike Resnick: The Gods of Sagittarius

  Edited by Eric Flint: The World Turned Upside Down (with David Drake & Jim Baen) • The Best of Jim Baen’s Universe I–II

  Iron Angels

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Eric Flint and Alistair Kimble

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  A Baen Books Original

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, NY 10471

  www.baen.com

  ISBN: 978-1-4814-8256-1

  eISBN: 978-1-62579-606-6

  Cover art by Adam Burn

  First printing, September 2017

  Distributed by Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Flint, Eric, author. | Kimble, Alistair, author.

  Title: Iron angels / Eric Flint and Alistair Kimble.

  Description: New York, NY : Baen, [2017]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017023383 | ISBN 9781481482561 (hardcover)

  Subjects: LCSH: Government investigators—Fiction. | Cults—Fiction. |

  Paranormal fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Fantasy / Urban Life. | FICTION /

  Fantasy / Contemporary. | FICTION / Fantasy / General. | GSAFD: Suspense

  fiction. | Mystery fiction. | Fantasy fiction. | Occult fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3556.L548 I76 2017 | DDC 813/.54—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017023383

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Pages by Joy Freeman (www.pagesbyjoy.com)

  Printed in the United States of America

  Electronic Version by Baen Books

  www.baen.com

  To Tara and Lucille

  Samyaza was not oblivious to the swelling cincture. No one of his nature could be, not even one who had been shrouded with a name in the hell world. But for the moment, he ignored the danger. The bordure was distant; the marges and purls of the bloating monstrosity still only cirrose. Long before the sprues could lay down their strakes and begin gyving the Nephilim within their reach, he would have phaged again. When he returned, his armature and plexus would blazon. His selve would spume; his labrum, coil into a fearsome torse.

  The sprues would flichter away, searching for Nephilim without name or gender. Weak ones, unlike he.

  For Samyaza was the greatest and mightiest of them all. Only Armaros neared him in size—but his irresolution made him m
ascle. Armaros was a mere tressure, almost beneath notice. His luster was vitreous and gyrose where Samyaza’s was fusil and true.

  Finally, Samyaza spotted what he had been seeking. A raddling fess that indicated a flue forming in the orle. He swept toward it, his filigree extending and his sensilla straining to detect the apertures in the weave.

  The moment, now, yes! He swept through the mesh, lacing the perils with the ease of experience.

  * * *

  Armaros bided while the passagers grabbled the courses and flues of the orleweave. They could not be rushed, being barely more than branchers—and haggards all, of course. There was no chance of harnessing them until they were gendered and named by lorraine heralds in the hell world.

  In the distance—great distance; care had to be taken—he averred Samyaza luffing the flues of passage. Envy swelled; roiled; rankled. The slive had grown monstrously great, purpure-swollen and mighty. Yet so dull a sensorium! Duller, it seemed, with each maunch and lappet.

  But there was no chance of reducing the pheon now. Not while he was alert and gule-braced. So Armaros returned to his creance.

  * * *

  For an instant, as Samyaza made the passage into the hell world, he was almost overwhelmed by the gule beyond. So much! So much! Enough power here to challenge the cincture itself and drive back its bourns, could he engulf the moictier—or even a tell fractus.

  But there was risk also, greater than the dangers of the traverse between the worlds. So great was the gule, and so much of it threaded, sutured or even foamed. The cacophony was half-maddening; if he lost clear sense of the verges, he could easily lose his way—perhaps never to find the skein of return.

  And there was worse still. In places—here, there, it was hard to detect surely; the sensorium beset by treachery on all sides—the gule was laced with impurities. All of those deborted estates were a source of flurry and confusion; and some were deadly. Sable and argent both.

  Samyaza extended his estoile, searching for the alleluia. Difficult, so difficult! The lorraines dwelt in the most roiling guleries, for reasons unknown. There chaos, there confusion—there peril and plight. But with the tumult came the great savors also. The most purpure gule, the most increscent fleurs. Naiant and hauriant; dulia in full measure.

  He sensed the heralds. Weak, their clarions, but still certain. Again, the risk had justified itself. Where there were lorraine heralds, there was sure to be the purest and most potent gule as well. Untainted; unmixed; tierce-ready; immortal-rich.

  He swept down, ready—but! The heralds flared! The oblation…

  Gone.

  Where?

  He searched, probed. But there was a great shaking of his sensorium. Vast sommes of gule were passant nearby. Neither dangerous nor ragule, though not gustace either; but so heltered! Disarray, dentilly and dancetty jumbled, everything rayonne and nebuly.

  He could find nothing in this shimmery. And might lose too much of his filigree if he remained. Then—lost, adrift in the hell world! Dismay, sure to come; disaster…

  Might even be possible.

  He fled.

  But the tumult had weakened him. The confusion and skelter vouchsafed his resolution and wauched his will.

  Frantic now, he scanned and pulsed, probed and searched. His whittle swept past mound after mound of gule—but it was inert, hollow, useless. With no lorraines feak or creance, his estoile was growing helminth and addorsed.

  But there! Purpure! The unmistakable fume of a saltire of the hell world!

  Samyaza engulfed it. An instant for the tierce. Then, the feast.

  For a moment, he wondered if the saltire felt dismay, or fear, or despair. But the moment was passing. He was the greatest of the Nephilim. He cared nothing for the girdle of lesser modes and entelechs.

  Chapter 1

  The tips on the missing ten-year-old Hispanic girl had come in within fifteen minutes of each other. One was from a man whose daughter had seen a van pull up to where her friend had been standing across the railroad tracks, and the other from a concerned woman who had seen a strange man enter an abandoned building. Crimes against children got the Federal Bureau of Investigation hopping, especially a missing child the locals asked for assistance in locating.

  Z. Jasper Wilde leveled his Glock, the larger of the .40 caliber models, on the vehicle suspected in the kidnapping. The late-90s Ford Econoline van had been reported stolen yesterday, according to Jasper’s East Chicago cop buddy, Pedro Hernandez. Pete was a Safe Streets Task Force officer he worked with often and now stood before the van with.

  “What you think?” Pete asked. He spoke fluent English, but his Puerto Rican accent was still heavy despite decades of living way north of the island. The neighborhood in which he lived had slowly become more and more Latino over the years, thereby maintaining the accent rather than softening it.

  “I think it’s empty,” Jasper said, “but there may be evidence.”

  “Call in the evidence team?”

  “No time. We can handle this. Maybe later.”

  “It’s your show.”

  Not really, but Jasper didn’t argue. Pete was usually ready to let the Feds take the lead—and the fall—on most joint investigations. He was closer to retirement age by a lot.

  From a distance of ten feet or so, Jasper could see beneath the van. There were no drips from air conditioning, but that didn’t mean much. This jalopy wasn’t likely to have working AC. He peered over at Pete who raised his gun in response.

  Jasper nodded and approached. He reached out for the hood—warm, but from the sun, not from being run in the past two hours or so. No taps from a cooling engine.

  “Unlocked doors and a drawn curtain behind the front seats.”

  “That mean closed or open?” Pete asked.

  “Closed.”

  “Oh. But it can mean open?”

  “I suppose, but this one is shut. That better?” Jasper shook his head. The girl could be behind the curtain. A bad guy could be hiding behind the curtain, but he doubted that. A hurt or, God forbid, dead girl could be back there. His ears grew hot, and a sheen of sweat coated his forehead. The heat and humidity were brutal today, but this was anger oozing from his pores.

  Pete worked his way around to where Jasper stood, covering him as he reached for the sliding side door. The handle gave way as Jasper yanked and the door slid wide open, the door’s wheel grinding against the track in a metallic glissando. The stench of cigarette smoke poured forth, overwhelming his senses—he enjoyed an occasional cigar, but the stale smell was nasty. From the amount of it, someone had smoked up a storm in there. Half a pack of cigarettes or more.

  Pete dropped to a knee and flashed a light inside the darkened van. “I see nothing, my friend,” he said.

  Jasper peered from around the open door and into the van, keeping his weapon close. He wasn’t a fan of the limited penetration technique, called a limited pen. The limited pen had the person clearing the house, car, whatever, forced into a situation where they thrust their gun hand and arm into an open area, but kept their body out. At the same time, they peeked into the space, but hopefully with one eye. The downside was that a baddie could grab the arm if the room hadn’t been at least partially cleared first.

  A quick peek worked better, but there was no need since Pete had flashed the light in and had taken a great look. The downside for Pete was that he had been exposed when Jasper had ripped the door open. Pete holstered his weapon.

  “There’s nothing,” he said.

  Jasper sighed. “I was afraid we’d find the girl in there.”

  “I was hoping we’d find the girl in there—alive, of course. Now we’re back at the beginning.” Pete peered inside the van. “Looks clean to me. No clothes, no obvious evidence.”

  “I have an evidence kit in my bucar,” Jasper said. “But I don’t want to waste any time. I’ll check the front of the van for obvious clues or evidence left behind. Check out the back.”

  Pete nodded.


  Jasper donned latex gloves and went through the driver and passenger sides of the van. Cigarette butts littered an overflowing ashtray.

  “I’m getting lung cancer back here,” Pete said.

  “Yeah. It isn’t any better up here,” Jasper said. “The cigarettes are likely the owner’s.”

  “Right.”

  “I got nothing,” Jasper said, as he searched the glove compartment and console.

  “Same here.”

  “All right. Call for some of your people to process the van, okay?”

  Pete nodded. “Sure thing.” He grinned. “Still having trouble with what’s-his-name?”

  “With Morris?” Jasper rolled his eyes. The Indianapolis Field Office Evidence Response Team Senior Team Leader was a pain in the ass, unreasonable and unyielding. Jasper’s blood pressure rose every time the man popped into his thoughts or conversation. “You could say that. I got kicked off the Evidence Response Team after not showing for the last callout, even though the crime scene was in southern Indiana and would have required me to—oh, hell, let’s move on to the next lead. It isn’t far from here, right?” He hadn’t recognized the name of the hotel, the Euclid.

  “Sorry I brought it up,” Pete said. “But the Euclid is close.”