The following days have been spent doing recon on the location Kyle gave us. We quickly noticed they’re not using any technology. It’s all pen and paper, no wonder we didn’t find anything about them with our search methods, it seems I need to adjust how we collect information, luckily we’re training a new team of infiltrators.

Kyle has been a huge help, and has given us an approximate time of when people are in the building. I also spoke to his parents and Kyle, and after promising not to put him in situations where he's in danger, Kyle is now a very integral part of my plan. I plan to nurture him into the perfect intelligence agent, and after figuring out the extent of his necromantic powers, he will most likely be in charge of intelligence gathering, as he is one quite literal one man army.

A funny thing about necromancy, that all the previous Earth fiction and history got wrong, is that basic necromancy doesn’t involve dead bodies. It’s more that it gathers the ambient life force to create an artificial soul, which has varying levels of intelligence. The soul then manifests a body based on the imagination of the necromancer. There is a certain limit on how big a creation can be, but there is apparently no known limit on the quantity. The undead can gather energy from the life force around them, and they don’t require a lot of maintenance to keep “alive”. The only downside is the mental strain on the necromancer, but with my training Kyle is going to be incredibly valuable, and I want to keep him for as long as possible. I did play around with the idea of causing an accident for his parents only to adopt him, but Faith quickly shot me down, mumbling something about my plans becoming more and more insane. I’m having difficulties understanding her decision, as in my own opinion that would be the best way to ensure his loyalty, and efficient grooming as an asset.

“Nia, ready?”

We’re currently standing outside the office used by the cult. There’s a set of hidden stairs that leads down to an underground basement, which is where we need to go to find whatever we’re looking for. We’re still not completely certain this will lead to Helena, but it’s pretty likely considering what Kyle told us and we’ve figured out the past few days.

I give Devotion a nod, instead of her freezing the hinges like we did during the hotel scene, I’m going to try creating a key of blood. It’s only me and Devotion on this mission, we’ve made sure Kyle also stays back with his creatures, so that I can let loose if need be. I let my blood seep through the keyhole, letting it fill in and form a key that will unlock the door. A click later and the door is unlocked. We already know there are cameras here but I've added a little fun trick to Devotion’s disguise and my clothes. They are lined with infrared lights, which are used to make us look like walking glowsticks.

Making our way down the staircase, which we already knew where was, we arrive at the office that we assume holds whatever we’re looking for. We’ve found bits and pieces of connections to what Kyle gave us, but nothing concrete so far.

“Nia, here.”

I walk over to Faith and pick up the paper she’s reading.

Melimelidh

 

Subject 1:

Name: Helena

Age: 16

We’ve managed to create an artificial undead, turning her into an angel. As she is the first of many, we have yet to perfect the method, but her abilities and power levels should be on the demi-goddess level. See classifications for further information regarding level.

The experiment went smoothly. Implanting the artificial soul into the body, and as we waited for her to gain consciousness, we could observe the body going from a state of decay and improving to levels beyond what the subject was when she was alive.

Day 38, we’ve lost the subject. Our god tells us she was stolen by Asmodeus, and we’re doing whatever we can to retrieve her. The subject isn’t that important, as we’ve confirmed the process work and we can finally create the army our lord wants, but we should try to retrieve subject 1, as we don’t want to let our goal be known.

“Nia, did they say army?”

I give Faith a nod, before turning to another document. It seems this was a project planned before the severing, but the important traces and the connection to the divine realm was lost, it seems they still kept the documents. Now that the Earth is back due to the shift, which we still don’t know why happened, they can resume this project. I’d rather not have an army of mindless angels on the level of a demi-goddess roaming around the city, especially if they’re going in the direction I think they’re going.

“Devotion, gather up every document, this one already says they’ve moved locations, so it doesn’t matter. We’ll keep the place under watch in case they come back for the documents, which I assume they will. We’ll take it back to the HDA and I’ll go over them in their entirety there.”

I take out my communicator and call Mystica.

“Hey Mystica, can you set our current location on monitoring? Highest level. I’ll explain more once we’re back and you can read this for yourself, but they’re going to be a major issue if they get to do what they want.”

“Okay, I’ll let our investigative team know.”

I hang up the phone and start gathering the rest of the documents with Faith. I really don’t like not knowing who they are, and they mentioned Asmodeus. This is going to give me a headache.

“Found it. It seems this was a project planned by a few Archangels before the severing, but it’s been twisted. The original goal was to introduce peacekeepers to Earth, overseen by a few different gods with domains of law and order. I don’t know what happened after the shift, but they shouldn’t have been able to do anything without a divine being. I’m assuming the original Archangels, who we still don’t know who are, aren’t aware of their project being resumed, but I don’t think there’s an angel involved in this, as they hate anything undead.”

I assumed as much. Thank you Athena. What worries me is Asmodeus. I don’t know exactly what he wanted to do with Helena, but what I don’t like is that he’s having an avatar I assume, roaming around pretty close to us. 

So we have a rogue god or divine being creating undead angels, and Asmodeus apparently trying to stop it or mess with their plans. We don’t know where either of them are, but at least I think we know how to get her to come to us.

I make my way towards Ingrid’s office, where she and Faith are scouring over the rest of the documents gathered from the office.

“It seems Helena’s parents came into contact with someone from the cult, and was promised that their daughter would be brought back by their god, and would become one of their divine messengers. I’m honestly not surprised, they’re insane, and this sounds like something they would do. We can tell the police and they can arrest them for selling body parts or dead bodies.”

“You okay Faith?”

She puts down the document, let’s out a sigh and looks at me. She doesn’t look okay, and I don’t think she is.

“No, not really. I thought she was dead, and now this. I just want to find her, maybe we can do something about the brainwashing.”

“Faith. You know how I promised no lies, right?”

Mystica gives me a weird look, apparently she picked up something from that sentence, but she can’t tell what, since it’s linked to my vampire form. There are so many things regarding my vampirism that are unknown, and I hate it. Faith looks at me and gives me a nod.

“That may not be Helena inside. I don’t know. We know she was implanet with an artificial soul, but there’s not a lot of research done on resurrection. What we do know is that undead generally do not keep their memories from when they were alive. I’m talking about the proper undead ones, raised bodies, not the necromancy that Kyle does. It might be her body, but someone else is inside.”

“You know you don’t believe that. Why would she attack me if that was the case?”

She’s right. I just wanted to prepare her for it, while it’s not as likely as it somehow regaining Helena’s personality or some of her memories. It still doesn’t explain why she wanted to attack Faith if they loved each other. I’m assuming this has something to do with Asmodeus, but I don’t know.

“Okay. Anyways, I think I know how to get her to us, the current issue is still how to restrain her, I have a few ideas, but I’ll need to test them.”

Ingrid looks at me. “How do you get her to us?”

“From what I can gather, she is, well, programmed, to respond to divinity. If Athena descends into my body, i should be a beacon of divinity, which should instinctively make her come to us. It’s not a certainty, but it should work.”

“I mean we don’t really have any other options, do we?”

“Anyways. Ingrid, can you increase density and gravitational fields, and imbue it into an object?”

“I should be able to, why?”

Faith gives me a look, she’s realized what I’m trying to do, I’m glad my girlfriend is so smart.

“If we can imbue these chains with those properties, the theory goes that the more she struggles, the sturdier the chains get, and the heavier they will be, due to their gravity increasing.”

I can see the proverbial light bulb go off in Ingrid’s head, as she finally understands the implications this can have for restraining changed and creating new magetech. It can be applied to weapons, armour, and a multitude of other areas. Took her long enough, this is why mortals are annoying.