Biological Families

Author: duane at duaneaakre dot com

Disclaimer: As always I own nothing. Well I own a house, two cars, a pair of jetskis, and a lot of other junk, but none of these characters.

Story Rating: R The story may drift into the HBO range rather than stay in the WB range, so to be on the safe side, I am rating this R.

Chapter 8

Clark had been following the dark van for over thirty minutes as it wound its way generally south from the Schlosshotel. Berlin had a population similar to Paris, but sprawled over an area five times as large. As a result, it was broken up by numerous parks and wooded areas. They passed through several such areas before reaching the van's final destination: a remote chateau on a tall bluff overlooking the Spree River. This ancient, thousand-year-old chateau was separated from its nearest neighbor by almost a kilometer of dark, foreboding forest.

The van paused briefly at the outer wall which enclosed a brightly lit courtyard in front of the main entrance to the large, four-story-tall structure. As Clark watched from his hiding spot in the trees along the side of the road, a guard in the black uniform of the German SS stepped out through a small doorway adjacent to the large wrought iron gate. After a few seconds of conversation with the driver, the guard retreated back through the doorway and then the large vehicular gate began to swing open.

Before the van even began to move, Clark accelerated into 'speed mode' and raced through the partially open gate. As he entered the courtyard, he studied its contents and the entrances into the main portion of the chateau. The courtyard contained six other parked vehicles including several open-air staff cars and two military-looking trucks; the shadows from the latter could provide him cover to hide while the van disgorged its occupants. Before choosing one of those locations however, Clark continued to scan the front of the chateau. In addition to the central entrance at the top of a flight of wide stone stairs, several smaller doorways were located near the corners of the courtyard and looked like service entrances. Quickly, Clark decided he could do a cursory tour of the building in the time it would take for the van to park and for Lana, Whitney, and Marion to be led inside. Perhaps if he was lucky, he could find and retrieve Indy first and then go back for the others.

Choosing the service door in the southeast corner of the courtyard because that end of the building had the fewest lit windows, Clark raced inside. Immediately he found himself in a long dark passage. His enhanced vision allowed him to see as well as if all of the lights had been on, but still he found the interior of the chateau ominously gloomy and depressing.

Proceeding down the corridor Clark used his x-ray vision to scan the rooms on both sides, but all of the rooms were unoccupied. Finally, about one hundred feet from the entrance, he came upon a stairway leading both up and down. Deciding to start at the bottom and works his way up, he took the stairs down, three at a time. After passing two intermediate levels, he finally reached the lowest level about sixty feet below ground.

This lowest dungeon level had been unused and blocked off for over six hundred years since the last dark Teutonic Knight, Erich Greifswald, had finally fallen before the papal legions of the warrior Pope, Boniface IX, in 1393. Closed off that is until the secret occult branch of the SS had commandeered the chateau in 1933 during the earliest days of the Nazi regime. Once more this secret level had been restored to its original purpose: the wielding of the blackest magics to achieve dominion over the world. Black Masses, communion with the dead, human sacrifices, conjuring of demons, and more had been attempted here to ensure the success of Nazis' mad dreams. Additionally, religious relics with reputed supernatural powers had been begged, borrowed, or stolen from countless faiths all over the world. They had been brought here for testing with the useful ones presented to the ruling tribunal who secretly pulled Hitler's strings. Most of the relics had proven worthless, but recently a relic of undeniable power had been discovered in the deepest, most remote corner of ancient Mesopotamia, in a place once called 'The Valley of Sorek'. Now this relic had been used to bestow four dark champions with superhuman abilities.

However Clark was not aware he was about to encounter two of these enhanced men as he paused at the bottom of the stairs to scan the area with his x-ray vision. No, all Clark saw was the skeletal outline of a man tied to a chair in a large back chamber and two men, who were obviously guards, in the hallway leading to its solitary entrance. Clark quickly realized the bound man must be Indiana Jones and if he was going to retrieve him without giving away his own secrets, he was going to have to take out the two guards first.

Stepping from the darkness of the stairwell, Clark strode towards the men at the far end. Once he was spotted and the others started towards him, Clark called out. "Hey, is the right platform for the subway to Potsdamer Platz?"

For just a second the stride of the two men, both dressed in nondescript black like the men at the hotel, faltered; obviously they understood English. Then they resumed their approach until the first man reached Clark and immediately grabbed a fistful of Clark's shirt and tie. As he started to hoist Clark off the ground, Clark said. "You know, a simple no would have been sufficient."

Clark didn't understand where all of these incredibly strong men were coming from, but this time he wasn't caught off guard. Just as the man was about to toss him like had happened back in the hotel, Clark slammed his own powerful right arm forward and wrapped his hand about the other man's throat. When the man tried to shove Clark away, Clark pivoted to the side and then used the other man's momentum to start spinning him; implementing the hammer-throw technique Coach Robertson had so conveniently taught him. Clark did two complete accelerating three-hundred-sixty degree rotations until his body was a blur and then released the other man to go pin wheeling and screaming down the corridor back towards the stairwell. The man's body was traveling at over three hundred miles an hour when he slammed into and through the stone wall adjacent to the stairs. The whole corridor shook from the impact and the collapsing of a portion of the wall. A fraction of a second later the corridor shook again as the man's body slammed through the next wall twenty feet beyond. Then the floor shook a third time as he crashed into and cracked the solid rock wall which signaled the end of the dungeon in that direction.

From the time the first man had touched Clark until Clark turned back towards the second man, less than six seconds had elapsed. The second man, Henrich Schultz, gaped at Clark in wonder.

'Who the fuck is he?' Schultz wondered. 'How did he throw Jaeger through three walls like that? I don't know if even I could equal that. Obviously, this stranger hasn't been given our great, miraculous gift, so how is he able to match or maybe better our feats of strength? What the hell is he?'

As Schultz continued to stare at Clark, Clark broke the momentary silence while gesturing past him towards the chamber where Indy was being held. "I need the man back there. You WILL turn him over to me, now."

Clark's words broke Schulz's paralysis. Unfortunately, even after Clark's demonstration with Jaeger, Schultz remembered he had been told to guard the man in the black Cathedral even if it meant sacrificing his own life. When the four of them had first sworn their oath of fealty, they had laughed. With their new abilities, who could possibly challenge them? Now Schultz understood; there were others of great power also abroad in the world and one of them had found his way here tonight. However Schultz had seen some of horrible, demonic things his masters were capable of and suddenly realized he was still more afraid of failing them than he was of this stranger.

Clark had expected the other man to back down and didn't catch the flicker of relief in his eyes when Schultz saw Jaeger come creeping back through the debris of the wall he had been thrown through. Therefore he was taken completely by surprise when the other man threw a lightening-fast, devastating right hook to his jaw. Clark's body was swung around by the force of the blow and he slammed face first into the hard stone wall.

As Clark shook his head to clear it and started to use his hands to press his body away from the wall, Schultz took a running start, launched himself into the air, pivoted, and smashed both of his feet solidly into Clark's exposed back. Schultz kicked out hard as he connected and based on the old physics principle of 'equal and opposite reactions', as Clark was forced straight through the wall into the antechamber beyond, Schultz flew backwards across the hall until he collided into the opposite stonewall with sufficient force to break loose several of the two foot by two foot granite blocks.

Clark was momentarily dazed and had just started to sit up when the first granite block came racing through the hole his own body had made. He barely got his arm raised in time to avoid taking it straight in the face. As the block harmlessly shattered against his up stretched arm, a second block exploded through the wall from the corridor further down towards the stairway and slammed into Clark's other shoulder and the side of the head. As Clark was smashed to the ground again, he realized the first man he thought he had disposed of was back in the action again. 'Shit,' thought Clark, 'What does it take to put these guys down?'

The two men in black were hurling blocks at Clark as fast as they could, not giving him a chance to get his balance back. The whole dungeon shook and reverberated as the steady stream of two hundred pound blocks shattered against Clark's body.

After thirty seconds, when the deluge finally stopped, Clark was almost completely obscured under a mountain of rubble. As Clark shifted his body to work his way free of the tons of rock, he used his x-ray vision to check his surroundings and figure out what his two opponents were planning to do next.

Scanning the room, Clark's eyes widened in shock as he realized he was in some ancient torture chamber. The walls were festooned with chains and manacles. In one corner was located a stretching rack and in another was an Iron Maiden. Several tables were strewn with torture devices for breaking hands and feet or crushing fingers, throats, or testicles. At the sight of these implements even Clark's invulnerable balls tried to pull up into his body.

'What is this place?' wondered Clark as he realized some of this equipment had been put to recent use. Suddenly, the reality of the situation hit home. This was not some 'Indiana Jones' movie to be enjoyed for a couple of hours before heading over to The Talon for a coffee and a pastry. No, this was real. If he wasn't careful, some of these devices might be used on his friends. And looking at this equipment it sprang to mind that neither Chloe nor Lana had ever discussed what had happened to them the night before the events in the arena back in Rome. Had they been subjected to devices like these? The damage he had seen on Lana's dead body suggested as much.

It took a strong force of will to get his thoughts away from Chloe, Lana and implements of torture and back on the issue at hand. 'Come on, Kent,' he chastised himself. 'Focus on defeating these guys first.'

Checking his opponents, the first man he had encountered had just finished breaking through the opening created by the stone blocks he had been throwing at Clark. Once he was through the wall, the first thing he did was pick up the biggest, fucking broadsword Clark had ever seen. Clark had always wondered how 'normal' men had been able to lift and swing such heavy swords while already encumbered with nearly eighty pounds of armor. No such wondering about this guy, after seeing him toss heavy stone blocks and now seeing him take a warm-up swing which ripped straight through one of the giant timber beams supporting the ceiling of this room.

As Clark pulled free of his mound of broken blocks he could see he had several seconds before the man with the sword would reach him and swung his gaze to find the other man. He found this guy running down the corridor in the direction of the door to the chamber where Indy was being held. If that man reached Indy first, Clark had no idea what he would do, but it couldn't be good. And Clark still needed Indy alive and functioning four days from now to retrieve the alien artifact during the opening ceremonies of the Olympics.

Quickly, Clark grabbed several medium-size chunks of rock and threw them at the man with the sword to distract him for a couple of seconds. Then Clark grabbed a larger chunk of rock and raced for the corridor. If they were going to throw stones at him, he was going to show them how hard he could return the favor.

When Clark reached the corridor the man had almost reached the door to Indy's 'cell'. As Clark raised his block over his head to throw it, his target suddenly dove to the ground. Almost before the sound registered in his ears, a stream of heavy machine gun bullets started slamming into Clark's back from the direction of the stairwell.

Compared to the massive blocks his two supernaturally strong opponents had been throwing, these bullets seemed like little more than a barely painful series of mosquito bites. But Clark could feel his anger start to grow and grow; he needed to get to Indy if he was going to save Chloe and these assholes kept trying harder and harder to get in his way. Grrrr. And now the uncontrolled burning sensation in his eyes was coming back and it hadn't felt this bad since the events back in the Roman arena.

"ENOUGH!" screamed Clark. "THE KID GLOVES ARE COMING OFF RIGHT NOW."

For those few seconds even the sound of the steady hammering of the machine guns had been drowned out. Then, still holding the massive stone block over his head, Clark turned towards the men in the stairwell with the guns. With the bullets now shredding the front of his suit before harmlessly bouncing off of his chest, Clark heaved the block in their direction putting all of his pent-up anger into the throw.

As the stone passed their position at over eight thousand miles an hour, the resulting sonic boom alone shattered the eardrums of the two enlisted men with the machine guns and the officer standing behind them. When the stone collided with the nearby rock wall, it was like a bomb going off. Once again, the entire dungeon shook like there had been an earthquake and the concussion from the blast drove the enlisted men into unconsciousness. The officer, who had been standing in a more sheltered position, went stumbling back up the stairs with blood dripping from his ears, nose and mouth.

Clark could still feel the burning in his eyes building and knew he would have to release his heat vision soon. His two opponents might be able to match his strength, but they didn't seem to have his speed or his other abilities. As he looked quickly around to check the position of his opponents, his x-ray vision spotted the solution to both his need to neutralize his opponents and his upcoming heat vision overload.

Accelerating up to his fastest 'speed mode', where time seemed to almost stand still, Clark raced down towards the opponent still lying on the floor near the door to Indy's chamber. As he scooped him up, Clark realized this guy was afraid of being shot by bullets. Apparently, they had some limits after all.

Tossing the man over his shoulder, Clark turned and headed back to the torture chamber where the other man waited, looking like a statue with a raised sword due to the 'speed mode' effect. Tossing the second man over his other shoulder, Clark raced back out into the hallway and turned towards the hole in the wall by the stairwell where he first thrown the first man, what was it? Only ninety seconds ago?

Reaching the hole in the wall, Clark bulled his way through using his opponent's bodies as battering rams to widen the opening. Then he raced on to the second stone wall and did the same thing. Finally, only the solid rock face remained in front of him, solid rock that extended for hundreds of feet. Hundreds of feet except for a roughly fifteen foot spherical cavity located about thirty feet back and ten feet up from his current position, a perfect chamber to hold these two men for the present and also a way to get rid of his heat vision overload.

Barely slowing his pace, Clark released his pent-up heat vision towards the solid rock wall while keeping his eyes trained in the direction of the cavity he had spotted. The intervening rock simply vaporized away under Clark's powerful glare leaving a circular eight foot diameter tunnel. In a fraction of a second his heat vision punched a path through the thirty feet of rock and Clark ran up into the cavity. As he dumped his two opponents into the pit formed by the bottom of the cavity, he tightened his vision and bored a three inch diameter air passage through an additional thirty feet of rock to the surface. Satisfied they wouldn't immediately suffocate, Clark backed down his self-made tunnel towards the dungeon. As he went, he again widened the field of his heat vision and managed to slightly reduce the intensity. Now, instead of instantly vaporizing the rock, his heat vision turned it into a sluggish, molten mass like the lava from a Hawaiian volcano just before it reaches the sea. Slowly, steadily, the hole he had bored through the rock resealed with a giant plug of melted stone.

Finally, as he stepped once more onto the floor of the dungeon, his burning anger and burning heat vision abated and he could pause to review his handiwork. Thirty feet of once more solid rock enclosed his opponents in all directions. That should hold even them for the time being. Now it was time to see about finishing the job of rescuing Indy.

Clark headed down the corridor to the last chamber where he could still see with his x-ray vision the man tied to the chair, although probably as a result of the battle in the corridor, the chair had tumbled over on its side. 'Wouldn't it be a letdown,' thought Clark, 'if after all that, it wasn't Indy down there?'

As he walked, calmly, sedately down the corridor now that the battle was finally over, Clark happened to glance down. His shirt and suit coat hung from his shoulders in shreds. Well, he thought, being pummeled by rocks and then taking hundreds of rounds of machine gun fire will do that to you. At least his pants were more or less intact. Deciding it would be somehow easier to explain being shirtless than explaining the current state of his attire, he stripped off the remains of his jacket and shirt and tossed them behind a convenient pile of rubble, of which there were plenty. This was not the first time his clothing had been destroyed in some combat situation. As he walked the rest of the way to the end of the hallway, Clark pondered how to obtain some clothing better suited to his recent rough and tumble lifestyle. Perhaps when this whole adventure was over and Chloe was restored, he should bring the subject up with her since she seemed to have so many ideas.

Reaching the door, Clark was mildly surprised to see it swing open with the lightest pull. But then if the man inside was tied to a chair and the hallway was guarded by two men such as he had just defeated, a lock did seem rather pointless. Stepping into the chamber, he found the whole atmosphere changed. The hallway had been lit by a long string of bare light bulbs suspended on a chain from the ceiling, but here the only lighting was provided by two rows of torches. As his eyes adjusted, Clark realized this chamber had been created to look like some obscene variation of a gothic cathedral. A high vaulted ceiling directed his attention from his current position at the entrance to the far end where a large altar stood. In front of the altar the man he was seeking lay bound to the tumbled-over chair at the center of a large, black marble pentacle inlaid into natural gray granite of the floor of the chamber.

As he made his way down the eighty foot length of this cathedral dedicated to evil, Clark couldn't help but look up at the walls. Where a normal cathedral would have large stain glass windows to fill the interior with God's purifying light, this place had murals and frescoes filled with demons, torture, death, and other visions that could only be straight from hell. Under the flickering torchlight some of the vile creatures in the paintings almost seemed to be moving. Clark hoped it was just a case of too many late night horror movies while growing up that was causing his current unease, but his legs of their own volition seemed to be picking up his pace.

However the worse was yet to come. As he approached the altar, the large black inverted cross mounted to the wall behind it came into clearer view. And that was when he realized what he had first taken as a life-sized carved crucifix of Christ mounted upside-down on the cross was actually a real body. Based on the similar crucifixions they had seen back in ancient Rome, this body was fresh, not more than a couple of days dead. What was going on here? This place was not just some relic from the distant dark ages of mankind, but was in current use. Who were these people? Why hadn't any of this come to light at the end of the war like the concentration camps had?

Finally Clark tore his vision away from the perverted cross with its gruesome cargo and looked down at the bound man before him. Like Clark, the man was stripped to the waist. At first glance the man didn't appear to have been tortured, but then Clark took in the large black electrical box lying nearby on the floor. Heavy cables disappeared off into the distance while two smaller cables with metallic paddles on the ends were coiled near the man's body. Even now when Clark looked closer he could see small spasms twitching the muscles under the exposed flesh. They had been using electric shocks to torture him!

Quickly Clark lifted the chair upright and tore off the heavy ropes binding the man's arms and legs. Finally, he removed the man's blindfold and then lightly shook the man's shoulders.

"Doctor Jones. Can you hear me? You have to wake up." After all of the trouble he had gone through to reach him, this had to be Indiana Jones. Not that he looked anymore like Harrison Ford than Marion looked like Karen Allen. This man had pure black hair, broad shoulders, and a massive chest also thickly covered with black hair. Even seated it was obvious he stood six two or six three. He had high cheek bones and a strong square jaw with just the hint of a dimple at his chin. Frankly, Clark decided, he looked a lot like Tom Selleck in one of his mustache-free periods.

After a few more seconds of shaking, the man moaned, lifted his head, and slowly opened his eyes. Squinting against even the subdued light from the torches, he looked up at Clark.

"Doctor Jones, we . . . ahh, I need your help. That's why I am here, but we need to get moving before more guards show up."

Henry Jones tried to focus his attention on the man in front of him, but it was difficult after the three electric shock sessions he had experienced in the past six hours. Finally, it registered that the strangely shirtless man in front of him was speaking in true American English rather than German or German-accented English.

"Who?" was all he got out and it seemed like barely a whisper, but the man seemed to understand.

"My name is Clark Kent and I am from Smallville, Kansas. I have some friends who are in trouble and only you can save them."

Jones stared incredulously at the man. A man, who as his vision cleared and adjusted to the lighting, seemed little more than a boy, certainly not as old as many of his students back at the University. How had he gotten here? Was this just another ploy to get him to talk? Was this boy going to turn out to be like Elsa Schneider back in Venice? A supposed ally, but ultimately just a Nazi stooge?

This time Jones' voice was stronger as he answered. "Don't try your mind games on me. I don't know the answers you are looking for."

Clark realized Jones didn't believe what he was saying. And he couldn't really blame him. How could he explain penetrating to this well guarded secret chamber all by himself? How could he convince him so he wouldn't have to drag him out of here kicking and screaming?

As he was pondering what to say, Clark felt the phone in his pants pocket begin to vibrate. In all of the excitement he had forgotten it was there and frankly, after the events of the last few minutes, he was surprised it was still working.

Pulling the cylinder from his pocket, he flicked it on. "Hey."

"Clark, where are you? It has felt like a steady stream of small earthquakes. Is that you?" asked Lana. Her whispered voice seemed very loud in this quiet subterranean chamber. Both men could easily hear what she said.

Clark cast a glance at Indy. "Yeah, I am in the dungeon below the chateau. I had to take out a few guards like the men at the hotel to get here. I just found Doctor Jones, but I am having a small problem convincing him I am part of a rescue mission. How is it you are free to call?"

"Clark, switch to video mode, it may help."

Clark pushed a recessed button near the top of the cylinder and then scroll-like, he pulled a paper thin, eight inch wide by five inch tall display screen from the device. Quickly he turned so both he and Indy could see the display as an image of Lana and Marion flared to life.

"Clark, Doctor Jones," said Lana with a small nod of her head. "Marion, Whitney, and I are locked in the ballroom on the main level of the chateau. All of the shaking and explosions started shortly after we arrived. When it did, the guards raced out of the room and left us locked inside."

"Lana, we'll be on our way soon," answered Clark as he took another glance around. "I don't know what we have stumbled into, but it is definitely some weird shit. This chamber we are in looks like a church from hell. There is even an upside-down body crucified on an inverted cross over the altar."

As Lana and Clark talked, Jones was staring at the screen. He had never seen or even heard of anything like it. The image was so clear and vibrant; it was almost like the women were in the same room. Even the new color movies didn't look this real. And from a device that was as thin as a sheet of paper. How was it possible? Was it magic?

Jones looked at his wife and abruptly interjected. "Mar, are you okay?"

Marion's face on the screen nodded. "Hank, I don't know who these kids are, but I trust them."

Before Jones could respond, both women looked up at something off screen.

"Clark, someone is coming. Hurry," said Lana.

As the screen went blank, Jones just had time to see his wife mouth, 'I love you.'

End of Chapter 8

Author's Note

Well, the action in this arc of the story is starting to ramp up. Hopefully, this chapter and the next couple will at least equal the climatic action sequences in the previous story.

So, did I drop enough hints as to what the mysterious biblical relic is? A hint, if you 'Google' the right phrase in this chapter you will have a good idea. Or you will have wait until the next chapter :)

Until next time.

Duane