“What the hell is going on here?” Sam couldn’t hide the disgust in his voice.
Alex reached into the crate to turn the head again. “It’s not a man, not a woman, not an anything. Mary Shelley, eat your heart out.” He felt an odd sensation under his fingertips. “No pulse, but there’s… something.”
Adira held up a strip of material she had kept from the table. “This cloth, I believe it’s a headband. Terrorists carry a prayer, or a plea to enter paradise when about to go into battle. Perhaps this, this thing, was meant to carry the name of its target — Al-Rûm.”
“Giant pack mules. The damned Iranians are loading them up here, and then setting them loose. But…” Sam rubbed a hand up through his hair. “But this one is dead, if it ever was alive.”
Adira turned the strip of material over. “More words.” She frowned, trying to make sense of the ancient script. She spoke them softly, halting and starting again until she had the translation right.
Alex felt a tingle run up his spine to his scalp, as if static electricity had filled the room. “Jesus.” The lump of flesh beneath his hand quivered, and the thing’s eyes opened. Alex went to jump back, but one huge hand shot up to grab him by the throat.
Alex gagged as the large hand compressed. He used both his own hands to tear at the huge fingers, but he had never felt such power from another human being in his life. As the fingers started to close together, the thing sat up, its expression as slack and indifferent as if it were waking up, simply rising from bed.
Sam and Jon-Pierre rushed forward, grabbing at the hand, then forearm, without any effect.
“Feels — like — iron—get back!” Sam let go of the thing’s arm as it started to rise up. He then raised one huge boot, intending to use the MECH assisted framework to stomp down on it with pile-driver force.
In one rapid movement, the being swung Alex’s body like a baseball bat into Sam and Jon-Pierre, knocking them both to the ground, and then flung Alex into a far wall with enough force that some of the bricks shifted in their mortar.
Alex looked broken, and the French pilot and Sam lay still.
The thing then rose to its full height, and towered over all of them, its face slack. As it went to step from the crate, Casey braced her legs.
“Fuck you — fire!”
Casey, Adira, Eli, and Moshe opened up, dozens of silenced rounds smacking into the dead flesh with a sound more like that of a paddle on a side of beef.
Where the flesh was exposed, they could see holes puncturing the flesh, but no blood flowed. The being reached down to grab the ten-foot crate it had risen from and flung it at Casey, who had to dive fast to avoid the massive projectile.
“Do not let it leave,” Adira shouted, holding a handgun in each hand, and firing up into its face. Holes opened in the skull and chips of bone were blasted away, but if the thing registered pain, it gave no sign.
The patchwork being then moved fast, grabbing a reloading Moshe Levy, who managed to yell a curse before it took him in both hands and lifted. Moshe pulled free a dark blade and slashed at the hands and wrists of the thing, but he might as well have been trying to cut steel cables. In one quick movement, the huge thing’s hands came together, twisting and screwing Moshe’s body like an old rag. Gurgled pain was now overlaid with the sound of bones crunching and flesh and tendons popping as the Mossad agent was mangled together.
“No-ooo!” Adira yelled, running in and side kicking the thing. But she bounced off as ineffectively as if she had kicked a wall.
“Form up,” Casey screamed. “Concentrate firepower on…”
The thing opened its mouth but no words came. Its totally white orbs seemed to fix on her, and she sensed it tense, coiling for an attack. She knew what was coming. Bullets were useless and she dropped her gun. She then pulled out two of her longest blades, holding one in each hand.
“Then come and get it, motherfucker.”
Ignoring the bullets Eli and Adira still pumped into it, the being opened huge arms, and just as it began to accelerate the few dozen feet across the floor to Casey, there was a flicker of movement from behind it. One of the large flat girders that had been stacked near the wall chopped down and across in a blur.
One moment, the thing’s deformed face was glaring down at Casey, and the next, its head was rolling across the ground. The huge being then collapsed like a giant sack of meat.
Alex stood behind it, the girder in his hand. There was silence for several seconds as they all continued to stare at the thing.
Casey still gripped her blades tight. “What the fuck was that thing?” She jammed her knives forcefully back into their scabbards.
Adira shook her head, her lips working in a silent prayer. “Takwin.”
“What did you say?” Casey asked.
“Franks.” Casey turned at the sound of Alex’s voice. “Get me a bag.” Alex held up the huge head by the hair and stared into its face. The thing’s lips still moved.
Sam came back to the group, helping the French pilot to stand. Jon-Pierre looked at the ghastly trophy Alex held aloft, his face chalk-white.
“Can we go home now?”
Ten miles south of Mosul, Alex and the small group moved fast, heads down and racing the approaching dawn. Alex slowed his pace, dropping back to come abreast of Adira, who seemed lost in thought.
“Hey, I’ve known you a few years now.” He looked across at her, but she didn’t look up. “Never seen you like you were back there. You were scared.” He waited, but she trudged on, head still down. “And I don’t think it was that thing that scared you, but something else… maybe what it represented.”
Sam eased up beside them and Adira looked up then, first to the big HAWC, and then Alex. Her jaw was set. “Have either of you ever heard of something called the Golem?”
“Sure, who hasn’t. Something like the Hebrew superman, wasn’t he?” Alex said.
She snorted softly. “Something like that.” She sighed. “This might sound crazy, but the story of the Golem begins with a Prague rabbi in the 16th century, called Judah Loew ben Bezalel, who created an artificial being. He named it Golem, and called upon it to defend the Jews from attacks by Rudolf II, under the Holy Roman Emperor.”
She looked up, as if checking to see if either of them was laughing. Satisfied, she went on. “The Golem was made from nothing but the clay from the banks of the Vltava River, and brought it to life through rituals and Hebrew incantations. It is said a prayer was either inscribed on his forehead, or inserted into his mouth.” She smiled weakly. “Golems are extremely powerful, but are not thinking creatures. They act on commands only — you tell them to do something, and they do it without question. And they don’t stop until that task is done, or they are destroyed.”
“This thing was certainly powerful,” Alex said. “But it was flesh and blood, not clay.”
“Yes, flesh and blood, sort of,” she said. “But there are similar legends from other cultures. The Middle East is an age-old place, with civilizations dating back thousands of years, before science, to a time of magic and alchemy. I recently had the pleasure of working with an old friend of yours, Professor Matt Kearns. You might like to ask him about ancient magic.”
“We will.” Sam grinned. “As soon as he’s out of therapy.”
She nodded, as if expecting it. “In our search for the Necronomicon, Matt and I came across many ancient texts. But there was one I remember, named the Book of Stones, that referred to something called the Takwin — the creation of artificial, or synthetic life. In the 9th century, long before the Golem was even thought of, there was a man, a great Muslim alchemist, Jābir ibn Hayyan, who believed it was possible to create this type of life.”