Joe and Hassan were cornered in a dressing room, the locked door splintered and broken from pounding fists. Each man was fending off the onslaught as best he could. Joe was pressed against a wall, and noxious jaws snapped for his jugular. His left hand squeezed the throat of an assailant, who pressed forward, teeth bared, heedless of the asphyxiation. Joe’s right hand continued to crush the throat of another attacker. The face of this second attacker was an efflorescing field of purple. Its tongue hung from its mouth, eyes fixed on the ceiling, but its claw still lodged stiffly in Joe’s shoulder.
More attackers bounded through the shattered door, and yellow nails ploughed red harvests down Joe’s face. Hassan flung a snarling adversary into a wall with such force that nose, teeth, and body impressioned the plaster. As he was turning to aid Joe, the grays in the room covered their ears and began staggering to the floor. Their descents were jagged and shaky like haywired automatons. Some writhed on the carpet, while others locked up after a single convulsion.
Back on stage, Hommler pressed a button on his remote, then plunged his hands into the tangle of bodies. The grays had ceased to writhe, and stared blankly, their bodies rigid like the plastic action figures depicting them in Aztlan toy stores. Sweat poured from the emissary’s thick hair, and his arms and shoulders burned from unaccustomed exertion. The auditorium was silent as a mausoleum in winter, broken only by the vampire’s heavy breathing.
Finally, he reached them. Smith lay across the body of Swan in a sprawl of protection. Spending his last reserve of strength, Hommler rolled the three-hundred pound bodybuilder off his president.
Swan’s afro was crisped with blood, and his eyes stared upward. Hommler’s gaze lingered on Swan’s throat momentarily, but soon averted. He bent down, and felt the side of the neck for a pulse. As he did so, he looked away, teeth gritted.
A steady beat registered, and Hommler exhaled heavily. He then checked Smith, who yielded a strong rhythm. Many of the bodies had begun to stir. Not far off, a hand groped upward from a tangled pile. The fingers arched, and the thick nails were poised as if to sink into flesh. It was a demon’s brain coming online—the raised claw was a physical response to a flood of core directives that booted along with consciousness. To the vampire, it was a symbol of success.
“Where is my harvest moon?” Hommler addressed the empty auditorium in soliloquy, still breathing hard. “Where are the gnarled trees and ruffled owls? Where are the cracked headstones and chill winds? Where is the lightning rending midnight sky? For here I am, a vampire king. And here are my servants, hands thrusting aside clods of earth.”
More bodies shivered back to consciousness, and Hommler indulged in cinematic, sinister laughter.
Chapter 16
Rick made his way to Stewart’s gym. The sun had not yet risen, and the dirt path was iced. He had come to hate cold mornings, especially when first getting out of bed. He hated the radio talk shows, the smell of coffee, and shivering while shower water warmed. But when he really was honest with himself, he realized it wasn’t the time of day he hated—it was the feelings that attended that time. It was the weight of joblessness, and, most importantly, the feeling of being a hunted man.
That’s really why he hated waking up. He hated that split second clean slate when first gaining consciousness, before all the hell in his life started registering. He hated the sharp declension, every time he woke, from a neutral feeling to bitterness and fear. His son, his wife, and the FCP alone kept him ticking, kept him reading, kept his fists hitting bags and his pistol fire ripping targets.
“No fuckin’ income. No fuckin’ future,” he cursed, and his breath was chalky evanescence. “Nothing’s changed. Some Muslim fucker’s gonna come and chop all our heads off.”
His lips tensed, his eyes winced, and for the first time since joining the FCP, a single tear escaped its prison of eyelashes. Another followed, and Rick stopped walking, his shoulders rounded. He had watched live feeds of the Irish executions last night, alone, in one of Stewart’s computer rooms.
“All those poor people.” He choked, covering his eyes with his forearm as tears came rushing.
One segment in particular still haunted him. The green Irish grass was smeared with the blood of its people, and the ambient sound picked up by the video recorder was distorted by a strong wind. The Muslims had permitted the captives to mingle in a large group. They gave the children time to gravitate to their mothers and fathers to easily identify who belonged with whom. Then they broke the captives into five squads, and sent each squad to a different execution team.
Periodically, a father would feign compliance then crack a hooded killer in the face with a few good blows, perhaps even gouge an eye, before being rent by steel forged in Istanbul and Damascus. The videographer took interest in each of these tiny outbreaks, mumbling praise to Allah when each rebel was finally hacked down.
Most of the Muslims he saw on the feed were shorter and darker than others he had seen on prior films. George had told him that the troops occupying Ireland were primarily Pakistanis from Britain. The cohesion the Muslims had displayed in the recent past was startling. Shiites fought side-by-side with Sunnis. Moroccans battled alongside Turks. Iranians fought beside Iraqis.
Rick’s stomach dropped when the first victim of the day was kicked down to her knees. Her hair was black, her skin fair, and when she looked up at the cameraman, he saw a woman not unlike his wife.
A Jihadist standing behind the woman pressed down on her back with his boot, his eyes indifferent, shoulders sagging at the prospect of another long day. She squirmed a bit, and he pushed down with a measure of pressure he had found adequate to subdue most women over the past week.
Another Muslim dragged the woman’s son within about five feet. His hair was brown like Blake’s. A long cut down his shoulder and chest had colored most of his shirt blood-black. Whether he was seven, eight, or nine, Rick couldn’t tell, but he threw elbows back at his captor, and tried to reach out for his mother. She reached for her son’s fingers as well, but more pressure was applied to her back, pushing her into the scarlet grass and mud.
“Please, please,” she pleaded in a strained brogue, “please don’t hurt my son. Don’t make him watch this—honey, shut your eyes. Shut your eyes!”
“Mum! They can’t. Don’t . . . no!” he screamed, the forearm restraining him, grooved with recent bite marks, kept well away from his mouth.
“Your mother will be executed because she defies Islam.” the cameraman informed, his crisp English garnished with British accent. “She resisted Islam. She does not deserve to experience just one death—she should endure a thousand for her refusal to accept the truth of faith. Let us pray that Allah metes out the other nine-hundred and ninety-nine in the afterlife—each one more horrible than the next.”
The executioner raised his scimitar. He was taller than the rest of the jihadists, and garbed differently.
“Mum’s going to be with Daddy. Don’t worry! Honey, just shut your eyes and do what they tell you, baby! Just shut your eyes. Shut . . .”
The blade fell, and an arterial spray sprinted up the boy’s shirt and face.
“One more for the spires of Istanbul,” the executioner said, grabbing a fistful of long black hair and proffering up the vacant eyes. “Look, boy, your mother’s head will join her kinsmans’ on pikes high above the city. It’s an honor, really. She can watch the Sultan as he strolls along the parapets on his afternoon walk.”
The little boy gibbered and growled insanely, his head shaking, his eyes back in his head.
“Send the cur to Africa,” directed the masked man. “He is too old to teach Islam. With my luck he would track me down ten years from now and knife me in my sleep.”
The boy was dragged off, trembling, in shock, and the big man yanked off his mask. He was olive skinned, and wore a traditional Islamic beard. His eyes were vaguely ascendant, and he spoke with a heavy Turkish accent.
“How would you Americans say?” The Turk looked directly in
to the camera, grinning. “You want to, eh, fuck with the Muslims? Well, we’re coming for you next. And if you resist like these people, you know your fate.” The camera panned down to the headless woman. “Actually,” he added, “I hope you put up a fight. I hope you reject Islam. Then I have, what would you say—a license—to fuck your women and kill them.”
Rick slumped to the ground and groaned. His pulse accelerated and a heavy nausea flooded his body. The decapitation replayed in his mind, and saliva drooled from his mouth. He tried to rise, but fell back down.
“Hell with it.” He choked, sticking his finger down his throat. Little coaxing was needed, and an onrush of vomit slapped the ground.
“Were the scrambled eggs you made that bad? I hope not—I finished what you left in the skillet.” George walked up, and frowned. “Hey, man, are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Rick exhaled, rising from the ground. “Just couldn’t sleep last night. Kept having nightmares ‘cause I watched some of that damn execution feed online.”
“No wonder. You need to talk to someone?” The Athenian noticed Rick’s watery eyes.
“Naw, no, I’m fine. Just worried about Cathy and Blake. I saw a woman on there who looked like her, and this big Turk fucker just . . . just . . . decapitated her in front of her son. Splattered blood all over him.” Rick’s mouth twisted, and his forearm shot to cover his eyes. “It was so horrible.” His voice was distorted, and broke. “George, man,” Rick lowered his arm, eyes spilling tears, “I’m afraid that’s gonna be Cathy and Blake.”
Rick expected consolation, an assurance that his wife and child would never meet such a fate.
But the Athenian frowned, and a memory winged his face.
“His name is Alp Uktar.” George swallowed hard. “He suppressed the Santorini uprising a few years back. Then he was transferred to eastern Europe to help coordinate the second genocide of the Armenians. From there he was sent to France to administer the extermination of French Jews. Caught the Sultan’s attention with his ‘efficiency,’ and has been ascending the ranks ever since. I watched the same video, Rick. A man of his rank and status doesn’t take an executioner’s job unless he loves what it entails. I saw that poor woman and her little boy. It’s hell. It’s all hell. For so many people—life isn’t a gift—it’s fucking hell.”
Rick wiped his eyes with one forearm then his nose with the other.
“Well, what are we gonna do? How are we gonna stop this?”
“I can promise you that I’ll fight till death defending your wife and son should the need arise. But that’s about all I can promise. It’s all any man can promise.”
“But . . . we’re not gonna let that happen, right George? I mean, we’re growing in strength and numbers. I’ve heard some of the other recruits saying they think we could beat back the Muslims if we focus everything on the beaches before they get a foothold and . . .”
“Bullshit. When the Muslims land we already have contingency plans.” The Athenian looked up at the gray sky. “Don’t tell anyone this. Half of us are heading north to Canada, and the other half to Mexico when it happens. Without heavy weapons we’d have about as much chance at slowing down Islamic armies as an ant has at stopping a sprinter by clinging to his ankle. I doubt we’d even merit a report of ‘light resistance’ in the Muslim battle records.”
“Oh,” Rick said numbly.
“But if it comes down to it, sell your life at as great a cost as you can. Take as many of those fuckers down with you as possible.”
“I will. I’ll do it for Cathy and Blake—they’re all I have to live for.”
George raised an eyebrow.
“You have something else to live for. You looked that woman in the eye on the video camera. She cried out for help and you weren’t there. I wasn’t there. None of us were there when she needed us. When you fight, I not only want you to remember your wife and son. I want you to remember that poor Irish woman and her little boy. I want you to fight like hell to avenge them.”
By the time George and Rick reached the gym, about two dozen men had already arrived and were chatting in knots of threes and fours. They quieted when their leader entered. All were of strong constitution, and some were passing time by curling the nearby dumbbells. Hans was there as well, and shook George’s hand as he entered.
“I’m not one to lavish praise,” addressed George when the men had gathered around, “but you have been selected to participate in Pankration training because of the aptitude you displayed for boxing and wrestling. Congratulations.”
George took off his blue-and-white wind breaker and threw it near the door. He wore a black t-shirt and jogging pants.
“I don’t want to speak for too long, because if you’re like me, you’re sick and tired of talking. You want to act. But an introduction is in order so you know just where I’m coming from, and what it is you’re about to learn.”
Rick and the other men listened with interest.
“When I was a very young boy, maybe the equivalent of an American second grader, my friends and I were repeatedly jumped and beaten up by older Turkish boys on our way to our shitty little school in the Greek district of Athens. I distinguish the Greek district because after the Turkish conquest of Hellas most of our cities were partitioned. The Greeks were ghettoized in tiny, miserable quarters, and the Turkish families who colonized us took all the decent neighborhoods for themselves. This segregation didn’t eliminate contact and friction, though, since those of us who didn’t have menial jobs in the more affluent areas were practically slaves outright.
“Anyway, a poor Turk neighborhood was next to mine, and growing up was basically an exercise in Social Darwinism. My father taught me how to box, and then he imparted enough wrestling skills for me to keep a fight on the feet and avoid being taken down. He also taught me some simple chokes. As I’ve taught, you generally shouldn’t go to the ground in a street fight if you can help it because it’s tough to see if your opponent is pulling a knife or a gun when you’re grappling. I still have the scar from where a punk stabbed me with a screw driver when I was going for a choke.” George rubbed the left side of his obliques.
“Like yourselves, I showed an inclination for boxing and wrestling, and my father eventually wanted to teach me something that he called Pankration. In Greek this translates to ‘all powers,’ which refers, of course, to its incorporation of all the tools at a fighter’s disposal. Make sure you pronounce it with a hard “t”—Pan-kra-tee-uhn. Hans still calls it Pan-kray-shion, despite my corrections,” George noted, snickering, and the titan held up his hands in a what-the-hell gesture.
“I balked for a long time, because I had won nearly all of my fights with my fists, and didn’t feel I needed anything else. Some of the moves my father showed me, like ankle locks and knee bars, seemed stupid and unrealistic to me.
“Then, when I was twelve, I fought the first Turk who was both stronger than me and had a better jaw than I did. It was a pretty spectacular venue, actually, for a kid.” George smiled slightly, and his eyes lifted toward the ceiling.
“About twenty years ago, when the Parthenon was still standing, my friends and I would go up there and try to stop the Turk kids from vandalizing it, which tended to be one of their favorite past times. Anyway, I was slugging it out with this one guy who had been spray-painting. We pounded the shit out of each other on our feet for about fifteen minutes, and he dropped me to my knees three times and I only managed to drop him once. Each time I fell he’d kick me in the face and ribs, and after the third time I fell I knew that if I got dropped one more time I wouldn’t be getting up for a while. And who knows what the son-of-a-bitch would have done to me if I had gone out.
“So rather than continuing to box him, I shot in with a double leg take down, and put him on his back. It was a sloppy double leg, because I had only practiced it with my father a few times prior to that fight.
“After the takedown I sat up high on his chest where he couldn’t buck me off and I be
at him senseless. I guess it would have been nice if I had finished him with a submission or something, but I probably would have screwed it up and he may have ended up on top. For the record, as you may or may not know, a mosque now stands on the Acropolis in place of the Parthenon.” The Athenian’s lip raised, and nose twitched. “I guess I’m lucky to have seen it at all. During the last Turkish occupation of my homeland hundreds of years ago, the bastards used the Parthenon as a munitions dump. Well, I’ll extend their mosque the same reverence when I retake Athens someday.” He glared toward some intangible adversary near the ceiling.
“Moral of the story is, no matter who you are, no matter how strong you are, no matter how good you are with your hands, no matter how many punches you can take, there will always, and I mean always, be someone out there who can out-box you.”
Smiling, Hans lowered his eyelids and shook his head in cocky disbelief.
“And I’m not going to lie to you—it’s a fact that humans have varying bone density according to race—that’s why some races suffer from osteoporosis and others basically don’t. And Caucasians kind of have the short end of the stick on this one, so don’t have any delusions of being a superman and sopping up a bunch of punches to your jaw or skull.”
One of the men rapped on his friend’s head, which generated light banter and laughter.
“That’s enough, children,” George said, and the men redirected their attention to the speaker. “As I mentioned at Wednesday’s meeting, Pankration has a special lineage. It was the most popular event at the ancient Olympics, but was never resurrected in the modern Olympics because of its brutality. Its rules were simple—defeat your opponent by knocking him out or forcing him to tap out due to pain or a choke. Eye gouging, clawing, biting, et cetera, were forbidden. Historians have discovered that Pankration was first practiced at the Olympics in the seventh century, B.C.
“It was resurrected at the turn of the second millennium, A.D., under a variety of names in the professional sports world. But by about 2050, the government and the media had decided that mixed martial arts, as it was generically known, set an improper example for young men. It didn’t fit in with orthodox conceptions of a powerless, effeminate, exemplar male. And before you knew it, all the state athletic commissions had condemned it, and legislation was passed banning it.
The Gods of Color Page 17
