“Do you know anything about all this?” Porter asked her.
She nodded. “Some of what they said on the journey here. Some my fathers of old have spoken of.”
That was curious to Porter, he hadn’t thought yet about their incredible journey just to get her and perform the ritual he had interrupted. He spoke softly now, hoping she would barely hear him above the rising hissing sound. “Y
“You hold tight, I’m gonna shoot that idol and see if I can’t bring back the darkness that is only helping him and hurting us.”
She had been keeping a lookout and only half listening to his words, but when his suggestion dawned on her, she turned and cried out, “NO!”
But it was too late. Porter squeezed off a shot at almost point blank and hit the idol dead center.
Time seemed to stop for a moment as Porter looked at the shock and terror on her face. He could swear he actually saw the bullet hit the illuminated jade idol and suddenly fracture like a spider’s web across a mirror.
Blooming like the noon day sun, a gargantuan bright explosion followed by a crackle of electricity radiated outward from the idol as it vanished in a million tiny shards. A gust of wind slapped Porter and Waving Grass end over end and they found themselves on the edge of the precipice, though they still could not see into it as the light had been snuffed out save for a few guttering torches some distance away.
That weak orange light flitted as if between great fingers of shadow barely reached them but the intense hissing was almost right at their feet. Without being able to have any sight of the precipice, Porter could sense the deep gulf behind him, like the very air was being sucked downward.
Porter helped Waving Grass to her feet. “Sorry, bout that. I just wanted to even the odds,” he said.
She was sobbing, trembling, and shaking her head, “The Blood Gods are awake.”
6. The Blood God Wakes
Something unseen yet big around as his arm, moved beside Porters left foot. He kicked it away. “Let’s get moving then. We have some concealment now if not cover.”
He had to pull Waving Grass along as the explosion had almost sapped her will and sense. They had only taken a few steps when Porter’s cat like reflexes caught the arc of a blade aimed at his throat.
Dodging back, the invisible obsidian blade stole a button from his collar. The Blood Brujo snarled in maddening anger at having missed.
Porter’s hand shot up and he caught the return swing of the knife and racked the priests arm back, before slamming him against the altar. He pounded the hand against the multi-angled stones until the knife dropped from the wicked priests grasp.
But the priest had a few tricks of his own. He swept his leg out and dropped Porter against the altar so he could slither out of his hold. He then blew a handful of some mystic dust into Porters face.
As dark as it was, Porter was now completely blind. His senses reeled with the loss of sight, the stink of reptiles and the deafening sound of echoing hisses and rattles. His Dragoon was knocked from his hand.
The Blood Brujo struck again and again, hammering blow upon blow against Porter, as he twisted serpentine, attacking from a new angle at every moment. Finding a tomahawk from one of his fallen warriors, the Brujo picked up the deadly weapon and raised it for a death blow.
Porter, blinking madly, prayed in this most dire hour and it was answered.
Shaking off her dazed fear, Waving Grass, plunged the sacrificial knife into the Blood Brujo’s back all the way to the hilt.
Stricken, the dark priest wheeled, slapping her away, sputtering some Aztec curse but he could not reach the knife handle halfway down his back.
Porter stumbled and caught hold of the Brujo’s cloak and yanked him down. Still blinking and with tears running down his face, Porter picked him up again only to punch him, sending the priest flying across the altar.
Tears fell like rain and sight had almost returned. He felt the gentle hand of Waving Grass, the purloined princess, at least that’s what he now thought of her. “You royally saved my rump, Sister.”
She helped him stand, guiding him away from the altar. “We must hurry,” she said.
“Yeah, I’m coming.”
Something grabbed Porter’s right foot and pulled.
Turning about, terribly off balance, Porter could barely see the dark shape of the Blood Brujo. The wretched priest wasn’t out of this fight yet. He twisted Porter’s foot forcing the half-blind gunman off balance.
Despite Waving Grass holding him with her left shoulder, Porter went down as the Blood Brujo shot up.
Leering with a broken face, the Blood Brujo drew a copper knife from his belt and slashed at Waving Grass like he was swatting flies.
Porter kicked him from the ground and the Brujo went staggering back.
Waving Grass screamed, this time in rage, a particularly dire curse.
Porter found the Dragoon in the dust, he smiled wickedly and pointed at the shadow he thought was the Brujo. He faltered suddenly, he couldn’t take a chance of accidentally hitting Waving Grass. Unable to get a clear shot yet because of his watering eyes, Porter struggled to his feet, ready for his opponent. It was hard enough for Porter to see him in the dim light but the clotted blood color of the dark priest’s cloak helped him remain invisible.
The hissing, buzzing sound in the pit grew louder, faster.
“We must flee!” shouted Waving Grass.
“Hang on,” gasped Porter, “I can’t leave that polecat behind us. Gotta finish this.”
The Blood Brujo lunged out of the spider-haunted gloom at Porter with his copper knife.
Porter batted the blade aside and fired, narrowly missing his target. The Blood Brujo knocked his shoulder into Porter and he lost the Dragoon again. No knife or gun stood between them any longer.
Tumbling across the altar, they rolled and gained their feet only to batter each other again.
“The Blood God wakes!” shouted Waving Grass.
But Porter and the Blood Brujo couldn’t hear her, they were grappling against one another.
Struggling to the far side of the altar, Porter sensed they had slipped closer to the precipice. The sound of turmoil within was growing. Darkness swirled over itself, black on black, shadow melting into shadow.
Straining against one another, the two men were matched like titans on the brink, neither yet overpowering the other. The Brujo’s right palm crept over Porter’s face in a vain attempt to tear out his eyes. Porter’s hand in turn found the stuck sacrificial blade in the Brujo’s back.
Porter twisted and ripped it out.
The Brujo screamed and his hands shot away from his body, then cringed like claws. He fell backward, yet grasped Porter as he did so, pulling the gunman into the abyss after him.
Porter felt the sudden absence of earth. He was enveloped by flowing darkness. Falling into the black.
The Brujo screamed shrilly below and was silenced by a soft thud and then a sickening crunch. The terrible echoing song of rattles grew louder.
Desperate hands reached and Porter caught the lip and strained to hold on, let alone climb. His handhold broke and crumbled. He caught another but was slipping ever closer to the yawning black doom below. The hissing, the buzzing, the very sound of the earth vibrating, rattled his teeth.
The stone lip in his right hand puckered and broke free in a kiss of death. The fraction of a second that Porter was falling seemed a cruel eternity.
“I’ve got you!” Waving Grass caught his hand, granting just enough time for Porter to kick his feet and find purchase on the precipice. He struggled to climb as she yanked him upward. Just over the rim and something tugged at his heel. It slipped off and he looked back into the pit.
It was rising, or they were rising, he couldn’t be sure. There was too much movement, variations of crisscrossing shadows swarming over the outline of a massive bulk. Larger than an ox, larger than a wagon the thing rose up. Rattles and hissing and groaning’s from more than a thousand f
anged mouths.
Porter could never be sure of what he saw within that maddening gloom, it had the appearance of a great ball of rattlesnakes entwined as all snakes do for the winter but also it had the outline of a man or woman. As if there was gigantic person made of snakes. In just the right—or wrong—light it almost looked as if it had two heads and was looking right at him. Then the rising pile collapsed and the snakes slithered forward in droves.
What he had thought might have been the double heads of a giant were instead the heads of two giant rattlesnakes, big around as tree trunks.
“Let’s go!” Porter shouted, as he picked up his Dragoon and the gold handled sacrificial knife.
Waving Grass said, “I told you the legends were true.”
He tugged at her, directing her to run with him back the way he had come into the chamber of horrors.
A colossal hiss and the pile of snakes seemed to be tumbling if not slithering after them all at once.
Porter wasn’t sure what was worse, not being able to see them very well in the gloom of the pit, or being able to see them now that they had run as far as the next chamber where the guttering torches remained. He gathered up as many of the torches as he could.
There were thousands of rattlesnakes, but they weren’t acting natural, they were entwined with one another, moving together almost like they were one giant snake.
Porter and Waving Grass reached the end of the open chamber. He handed her a torch saying, “Crawl thru until you get to a tunnel like a chimney going up! I’ll be right behind you!” He handed her a torch and ushered her on.
Facing the oncoming snakes, he fired his Dragoon a few times into the serpentine morass. But there was no discernable effect. The flood of rattlesnakes would soon drown him in their dripping venom.
7. Coils of the Serpent
Waving Grass crawled ahead and Porter was right behind, albeit a bit slower as he was scooting three torches behind himself in a desperate plan to hold off the snakes.
The wedge-shaped heads hissed and snapped and struck. Porter wasn’t sure himself how the foremost rattlers had missed him.
Porter reached the chimney passage, he left the three torches to defend his position and started climbing up. He knew the rattlers could maneuver up it themselves, he just hoped he was faster than they were along with the three torches holding them at bay for just a bit.
He was dependent on Waving Grass’s torch for light and hoped she didn’t get too far ahead of him when she reached the top. She waited.
“I don’t remember which way they brought me down,” she said.
“This way, come on,” said Porter, as he cast a look at the shaft. The hissing and rattling were rising albeit slower than the initial slithering charge but he knew the snakes would be at their heels in a moment. Searching the gloom for a moment, Porter saw a few good sized boulders. It would be all he could do to move them but it might be their only chance. “Here,” he called to Waving Grass.
Together, they rolled and shoved a massive stove into the chimney. It fell halfway, lodging tight and likely crushing a few reptiles with it. They gathered a few more loose stones and threw those in to help plug the open spots. Then they found a larger stone and moved it over the top.
“Let’s get going, before any small ones get out.”
Porter led the way and soon enough they were almost back to original defile that he crossed. Porter jumped first then took the torch and let Waving Grass jump. They moved around the edge of the deep slanted tunnel when they each heard a buzzing rattling, deep from down in the black.
“I didn’t see that bottom to that when I got here but I think I know where it leads to now. Move!”
Porter helped Waving Grass up the steep slope. A reverberating hiss had him look back. Waving his torch, Porter saw the dim flame light catch the yellow around the black slits on a gigantic set of eyes that slithered back and forth up the incline. He pulled the Dragoon and let loose a few deafening shots but the monster snake didn’t slow down at all.
Just a few paces above Porter, Waving Grass had her feet braced up against a massive stone. She was pushing as hard as she could. Porter joined her and together just as the snake was a few paces from them, the boulder went free, tumbling down at an awful crooked pace.
It caught the snake god full in the mouth and the monster fell back away into the dark.
They hurried the rest of the way out and came to the original cavern entrance. Soon as they passed through, Porter started trying to light a fire.
Waving Grass, gathered fuel from around the inside and the smoke started to tickle into flames just as a mess of regular size rattlers started through the passage. They weren’t nearly so difficult to manage but it was unnerving. They either shot the serpents or flung them out into the snow outside the entrance.
Between dealing with the dozen or more rattlers, Porter got the fire roaring in front of the serpent’s doorway. No more snakes came, and there was certainly no sign of the giant ones.
Shadows appeared at the door. Two servants of Coatlicue. They pointed their rifles at Porter and Waving Grass, barking orders.
“They say to drop your gun belt and get against the far wall,” said Waving Grass.
Porter slowly undid his belt and cast it at their feet. He was ready to lunge soon as one of them leaned down to pick it up and the other took his eyes off him for even a second. But that chance never came, they ignored the gun-belt and shouted at Waving Grass.
She reluctantly gathered snow from outside the cave mouth.
“What are you doing?” asked Porter. The servants of Coatlicue shouted at him.
“They said for you to be quiet. They asked where their master is. I told them he is below. They told me to put the fire out or they will kill us.”
“We put that out and we’re all dead,” argued Porter.
One of the servants of Coatlicue approached and struck Porter with his rifle butt and said, “I speak ‘Mericat. I know the white talk good. I tell you the source of all life will die if we don’t feed the gods blood. It must be done.”
“Lemme guess who’s blood you’re gonna feed ‘em.”
The servant of Coatlicue said nothing but gave a cruel smile and nodded at Porter.
Waving Grass made eye contact with Porter then dumped an armful of snow in the fire and it sizzled and steamed in a great splash.
Each of them lunged at their captor’s. Porter knocked the one that could speak English into the dying fire and at the serpent’s doorway. The man shot up screaming in pain from the steam burns and coals and was further afflicted with waiting snake bites from the other side of the doorway. He stood up but fell over again.
Waving Grass grabbed the rifle barrel of the other. It went off as they wrestled for it but since it was a single shot Remington, it could be dealt with.
Porter tackled the servant of Coatlicue after he shoved Waving Grass aside, and they rolled outside the cave mouth through the snow, sliding down the hillside at a greater rate than anyone would have guessed.
The sun was beaming and snow melted just enough for the ground to be wet and slick.
Waving Grass grabbed Porter’s Dragoon and raced outside after them.
The short-lived slide down the hillside came to an abrupt stop at a boulder and Porter throttled the servant of Coatlicue. He looked back up the hillside and shouted at Waving Grass, “Get away from that cave, Sister!”
She turned to see the head of the second of the two giant rattle snakes, gingerly flicking its tongue in the outside air. Its massive wedge-shaped head was bigger than a horses. It slithered through the breach and outside into the sunlight and gleaming snow.
Waving Grass faced it but slowly backed away. She tossed the Dragoon to Porter behind her. He snatched it up.
The giant snake watched her intently. It started to move forward, its head higher than Waving Grass was tall.
Three quick shots took it in the head or thereabouts, then Porter had to reload a cylinder. “Mo
ve it, Sister! Off the cliff! Jump! There’s snow!”
Waving Grass understood and ran to the cliff face on the leeward side. The great snake followed her swift as the wind.
She leapt, arms wide as if she could take flight.
The snake god’s mouth opened wide, its fangs more than a foot long extended, and struck—and missed Waving Grass by a hair’s breadth.
She hit the snow twenty feet below and lay still. The snake god pondered a moment if it should follow down into the snow or back toward the man who was getting ready to shoot at it again?
Then it saw the horses.
Slithering through the snow it left a trail like a ship’s wake going over the sparkling white. The horses had been tied up to the trees, some might have been hobbled, Porter wasn’t sure, but they saw the giant snake coming and screamed trying to break their tethers. It wasn’t enough. The monster struck. It bit and slammed with its tail and destroyed them.
Porter went up the hill but watched in horrid fascination as the snake god swallowed one of the animals whole. Its belly swelled and now it left an even wider trail through the snow.
Waving Grass stood up out of the snow and signaled to Porter.
He kept his hand low, signaling her back to remain where she was, relatively out of sight. The wind shifted and blew from Porter toward the great rattler.
The snake god swung its colossal head back and watched Porter standing halfway up the hill.
Its massive tail curled closer to itself and Porter could not count the rattles at the end. It seemed there were dozens in great folds of its bone-like material. This monster must be hundreds of years old.
He had no more cap and balls, no more cylinders, he had nothing anymore but the sacrificial knife. But he would not go down without a fight. Porter clutched the blade, figuring he would tear out the monster’s insides if he was swallowed whole like the horses.
The snake slithered closer, covering yards in seconds despite its huge bulk. It came right up on Porter eyeing him like dessert.
Porter stared back, hard and sharp as the obsidian in his hand.
Cold Slither: and other horrors of the weird west (Dark Trails Saga) Page 4
