The Covenant of Genesis

‘We have them,’ he said with a malicious smile.

Like its smaller counterpart in the Antarctic, the statue had a low passageway at its base, requiring anyone going through to prostrate themselves at the feet of their god. Unlike the ice-encrusted opening, however, this was teeming with life, insects scuttling out of the way as Nina crawled through the layer of filth that had built up over thousands of centuries. ‘It’s a pity you didn’t bring that machete,’ she said to Chase, behind her, as she ripped vines aside to reveal a taller, wider passageway beyond. Holes in the arched ceiling let in an indirect twilight cast, creepers hanging through them. ‘There’s a corridor, and what looks like a bigger room at the end of it. It must lead to the stairs up the cliff.’

She stood and brushed off the muck as Chase and Sophia emerged, then shone the flashlight down the passage. The sheen of copper and gold reflected back at her. ‘That’s new. There wasn’t anything like that at the other site.’

She moved down the corridor, directing the beam round the walls of what was revealed as a large circular chamber. ‘There was something like those, though. Exactly like those.’ The light fell on four metal bowls of different sizes arranged in a line directly across from the entrance - beside the spindle and copper horn of one of the primitive gramophones.

‘Is that a door next to it?’ Chase asked, walking past her, about to enter the chamber - before freezing in astonishment at what came into view. ‘What the hell are they?’

Nina and Sophia were equally amazed. The objects greeting their gaze were three statues - but unlike the other Veteres sculptures they had seen these were metal, not stone. They stood close to fifteen feet tall, elongated figures with their arms held out from their bodies, reminding Nina of the pose of the giant statue behind them . . . but where that had its hand open in generosity, these held a long, dangerous blade in each.

It was not the weapons that made the statues so startling, though. It was their faces - plural. Each figure’s head had four faces around it, looking in different directions. The one facing forward was similar to the long, stylised features of the Veteres’ god figure, though with its almond-shaped eyes narrowed threateningly. To its right was what seemed to be the face of a lion, teeth bared in a snarl; opposite this was the horned head of a bull. One of the statues was angled away from the entrance, revealing that the remaining face was an eagle, beak open, ready to attack.

Sprouting from each figure’s back were what looked like wings, formed from copper plate and gold filigree, stretching straight up to touch the metal-plated ceiling. Another set, similar in design but smaller, extended downwards from the statues’ chests to the floor between their four feet, which resembled the hooves of a cow. The legs themselves were wrapped in narrow bands of copper.

Chase was the first to speak. ‘Just to check that I haven’t just gone completely mental - those wings . . . they’re meant to be angels, right?’

‘They’re more than just angels,’ said Nina. ‘They’re cherubim. “And he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims . . .” ’

‘ “And a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life”,’ continued Sophia. ‘If I remember correctly.’

‘Genesis, chapter three.’ Nina turned her light to the metal floor. There were scrapes and indentations, as though something heavy had moved across it.

‘Okay,’ said Chase, taking out the Browning, ‘why am I suddenly getting a really bad we-just-walked-into-a- deathtrap feeling?’

‘Probably because we just did.’ The torch beam settled on something lying on the floor. It was little more than dust, decayed fragments giving a hint of its former shape.

A human shape.

‘There’s another one,’ said Sophia. Nina illuminated a second long-crumbled form. People had once entered the chamber . . . and somehow fallen to its guardians.

‘Oh, great,’ Chase snorted. ‘I always thought cherubim were little fat angel kids playing trumpets, but now you’re telling me they’re like God’s bouncers?’

‘Those are putto,’ said Sophia. ‘They appeared a lot in Renaissance art. You can blame Donatello and Raphael for the confusion.’

‘What, the Ninja Turtles?’

Both Nina and Sophia sighed as one. ‘A lot of traditional art - not just in the Abrahamic faiths, but earlier ones like Babylonian as well - portrays cherubim as having four faces and four wings,’ said Nina. ‘And often the legs of an animal as well.’ She lit the nearest statue’s feet. ‘Although I’ve seen some medieval illustrations that show them standing on a wheel . . . or a bearing.’ She crouched, seeing that the hooves didn’t quite touch the floor; the bottom of a sphere was visible in the narrow gap.

‘They move?’ Sophia exclaimed sceptically.

‘Don’t sound so surprised - you’ve seen similar things yourself, in the Tomb of Hercules. The traps that were used to protect it from robbers.’

‘Don’t remind me,’ Chase muttered.

‘I don’t see how,’ said Sophia. ‘Those had machinery moving them. These are just sculptures. Even if those swords somehow turn, there’s plenty of room just to walk around them.’

‘Dusty there probably thought that too,’ said Chase, gesturing at the nearer of the remains.

‘Maybe he did - a hundred thousand years ago. Do you seriously think anything could possibly still be in working order after all this time?’

Nina extended a hand towards the statues. ‘You want to test that? Be my guest.’

‘I think I will.’ With a dismissive shrug, Sophia stepped through the entrance on to the metal floor. Nothing happened. ‘You see?’ she said, turning to face Nina as she backed off a low step circling the room’s perimeter. ‘Absolutely nothing to—’

The chamber flooded with light.

Lightning bolts flashed across the room, crackling round the wings of the cherubim where they touched the copper-plated ceiling. Sparks crackled from the statues, a sharp ozone-like tang filling the air. With a hideous grinding noise, the blades began to move. The sculpted hands of the statues were actually part of the swords, turning at the wrists and rapidly picking up speed to form a circle of death like an aircraft propeller - and then the statues’ arms moved too, swinging back and forth in scything arcs.

Another metallic groan, a great weight shifting—

One of the statues jolted out of the indentations its bulk had pressed into the floor over the untold centuries and advanced on Sophia. The others did the same, swords whirling.

Sophia gasped, about to run back to the entrance - when she saw something at the other end of the passageway. ‘Eddie!’

Chase whirled - to see silhouettes crawling through the low tunnel beneath the colossal statue.

The Covenant had found them.

35

‘Get inside!’ Chase shouted, pushing Nina into the chamber. She resisted, even as she saw the danger behind. ‘What about the statues?’

‘They’re slower than bullets! Go on!’

They ducked round the corner of the entrance, Sophia running to the other side. The statues continued their grinding advance, sparks cracking from their wings where they brushed along the floor and ceiling, but at less than walking pace.

Their slowness didn’t make Nina feel any safer, though. There was an inexorability about them, a feeling that they would keep on coming until their targets were dead.

But how were they moving? What was making them work?

Chase leaned round the corner, firing the Browning. The first Covenant soldier, movement restricted by the confined tunnel, had no chance to dodge, the bullet hitting his forehead. He slumped into the dirt, dead. The figure behind him rapidly scrambled backwards, pulled out by one of his comrades.

‘Eddie!’ Sophia called, holding up both hands. He tossed her the Lee-Enfield. ‘How many are there?’

Chase saw movement on both sides at the other end of the bottleneck. ‘At least three.’ All it would take was