Focus on the victim. On the mission.
Was the dead woman Nicole? He studied the body more closely. The shorter build and skin tone seemed to rule out Nicole. Besides, this cult wouldn’t go through all the trouble of tracking Nicole down to just to take her head. They had something far more spectacular in store for her.
Nicole was still alive. For how much longer was anyone’s guess.
Wary, Talon edged deeper into the room and spotted a dead man previously hidden by the bed. He was sprawled on the carpeted floor, sporting a red hole in his chest framed by the scar of an inverted cross. His wide-open eyes pointed emptily at the ceiling.
Talon dropped to his haunches and inspected the body. How had the man died? Had he been shot in self-defense? More importantly, why had the cult left behind one of their own? Maybe it was a form of punishment for getting himself killed.
He touched the man’s body. Judging from the warmth of the corpse, the man must’ve died within the hour. Dammit, he just missed them! If he’d been just a little faster…
Had anyone heard the gun being fired? The lack of cops seemed to suggest otherwise. Or if they had, they’d failed to report it. One bullet going off in the Arizona desert could easily be ignored.
Talon proceeded to analyze the man’s bare torso. He took note of the frog tattoo with the Roman numeral six hidden in the design. He recalled Cabrera’s words: “I believe these killers were soldiers.”
The Navy Seal tattoo seemed to confirm the priest’s suspicion. Classic ink for the unit was a trident, but nowadays most operators avoided unit-identifying tattoos. If a mission went wrong and an operator ended up captured in a foreign jail, Special Forces tats would be brought to the attention of the intelligence service. Selling a cover story of being a student visiting a Third World country was tricky with a trident on your shoulder. Smart soldiers hoping to avoid waterboarding and electrical shocks steered clear of classic designs.
If Cabrera was right about the cult, its members were all former elite soldiers. What would drive these men to unite under such a dark ideology? The question baffled Talon and was real cause for concern. He was up against professionals like himself. Men trained in the art of war who now served the darkness.
As Talon took a closer look at the corpse, he caught a faint whiff of an earthy, sour odor. Investigating further, a thin crust of dried droppings clung to the soles of the dead SEAL’s shoes. He’d become intimately acquainted with the smell while riding horses in the mountains of Afghanistan during the war with the Taliban.
This brought up an interesting question: Where would the cultists come in contact with horses?
CHAPTER TEN
AS THE SUN set, the purple light took on a hint of orange, the desert cooling off quickly. The twenty-acre horse ranch squatted forlornly in the expanse of sage, pine, and cacti. At the center of the property, an old Victorian home with sandblasted exteriors and grime-covered windows sagged in the dust. A rattlesnake slithered through the sand, cutting a hasty retreat as two battered pick-up trucks pulled up to the ranch. Doors snapped open and four strongly built men emerged from the vehicles.
The army of the apocalypse soldier.
More men greeted them at the house with machine guns slung over their shoulders. Two wiry, compact soldiers carried Nicole’s unconscious form to the house. Their boots kicked up dust as they navigated the dirt road to a wooden barn, past the wreck of a rust-covered Chevy wasting away like a wounded beast. A few horses grazed inside a nearby corral.
They entered the large stable where more black-clad cult members sporting AK-47s waited. Starlight bled through the rafters and played across the old oak beams and bales of hay. A pentagram drawn in animal blood covered most of the floor. The two cultists bound Nicole’s hands and feet with zip ties and lowered her in the red circle.
She lay there for a beat before one of the soldiers splashed water from a canteen over her upturned face. Nicole woke in a flash. Her eyes flickered open as she wiped her face and coughed up water.
Where am I?
The smell of compost straw, wood, and human perspiration greeted her return to the waking world, and it almost made her gag. She soaked in her surreal surroundings, desperately trying to make sense of the nightmare she’d stumbled into. Masked men with machine guns encircled her, too many to count. Assault rifles were slung over their shoulders, and they all wore black ski masks.
Who are these people?
For years she’d suffered from PTSD. Nightmares, tremors, anxiety attacks—a whole slew of emotional problems had tormented her long after she’d walked away from her hard-earned battle with the demon. Time had healed some of the wounds, but the events back at her apartment viciously reopened them. The memory of Ashley bleeding out over her comforter cut through her mind, and tears started to flow.
This couldn’t be happening…
The door of the barn creaked open and the soldiers deferentially turned toward the new arrival. This man was larger than the others, taller and with a bulkier physique. Corded muscles and a massive chest bulged under a black shirt, but Nicole barely paid any attention to the man’s stature, transfixed by his face.
The face of a monster.
The features were brutally malformed and distorted with high, inhuman cheekbones and protruding Neanderthal brows. The skin stretched over the misshapen bones was the color of blood. The worst thing were the eyes, twin pools of black with no distinction between pupil and iris. As the figure drew closer, she made out the long incisors filed to sharp points and rows of metal horns poking from the bald skull.
A demon made flesh.
At first Nicole thought the man was wearing a Halloween mask. But there was fire in those black eyes. Most people would have cowered in fear in the face of such a monster. She was afraid—possibly terrified—but Nicole wasn’t like most people. She’d experienced true evil in her short life. She’d come face to face with real monsters, creatures no Hollywood special effects wizard could do justice to. Nightmares beyond imagination. This man was an impostor, a pretender to the title.
Now that he stood at the edge of the pentagram looking down at her bound form, she realized the demonic visage hadn’t crawled out of the pits of hell but was carved into reality by the hands of a skilled plastic surgeon. Silicon to distort the skull and make it seem inhuman, dyes to change the hues of the skin and eyes, metal implants for the horns and teeth. Body modifications with a demonic twist.
What sort of individual would subject himself to this type of radical transformation? Nicole didn’t doubt that this man who dreamt of being monster was someone to fear. But she’d faced far worse.
The leader nodded at his soldiers. Three of them peeled from the group and began to light the black candles that surrounded the pentagram.
“What do you plan to do to me?” Nicole asked in a tightly controlled voice.
The apocalypse soldier extricated a Ka-Bar as he stepped into the circle. He bent closer, and Nicole could see the subtle network of scars from his radical transformation.
“You’ve shed blood and taken life, opening yourself to the darkness that once took root inside of you.” The voice was intelligent, almost refined, forming a sharp contrast to the bestial appearance.
“Who are you?” she asked. She was surprised at how strong her voice sounded, her fear tightly kept in check.
“I’m Amon, and these soldiers are my infernal legion.”
The cult leader switched to a foreign language, guttural and timeless, and the itching sensation on her belly turned to outright pain. Her hand touched her scar and her fingers came up gloved in red. The old wound oozed the way it had on the day the beast’s talons had rent her vulnerable flesh. Drops of crimson hit the markings on the floor and became one with the pentagram.
“You’re about to be reunited with an old friend,” Amon said, and the dark promise in his voice sent a chill down her spine.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE STARS PAINTED the white sands of the des
ert an iridescent blue. Laying flat on his chest behind a small ridge overlooking the horse farm, Talon scoured the terrain with a pair of night vision goggles. His keen hearing strained, growing attuned to the heartbeat of the night. The darkness throbbed and pulsed with movement and sounds. A sidewinder lisped in the blackness, and further off a pack of coyotes argued.
Predators hunting for prey. Talon had joined their ranks.
He was decked out in blacksuit and camouflage paint armed with his silenced Glock and Ka-bar. Extra magazines and grenades circled his waist while his Ka-Bar remained securely strapped around his leg.
Ahead, a series of corrugated metal and sandblasted wood structures stood outlined in spectral green. Barbed wire enclosed the property. Vigilant guards patrolled the buildings, with the highest concentration of firepower near the horse stables.
This is where the party is going down, Talon thought.
He was about to go up against a team of professionals. Odds were high that the dead man in Nicole’s apartment wasn’t the sole operator who’d joined this cult.
After leaving Nicole’s place, he’d used Google maps to locate farms around the outskirts of Sierra Nogal. It wasn’t like a crew of heavily armed men could all check in at a local Holiday Inn. A farm was isolated and could shelter a militia without drawing too much attention. It would make for a perfect forward operating base.
His online search had produced quick results, identifying five farms in the area. One he’d ruled out immediately because of its size. Taking over a big farm would be too risky. Bigger operations tended to come with a large work staff and a fair amount of interaction with the outside world, which this group was most likely trying to avoid. They would’ve chosen a smaller, more remote ranch owned by people that wouldn’t be missed.
The other three properties met these criteria, and Talon had checked them out one by one. The first place had turned out to be a bust. As he’d pulled up to the property, the middle-aged owners were just returning from the nearby riding trails. The second farm turned out to be a disappointment too. Even though it was way past midnight, he kept going. He didn’t know how long Nicole would have. According to Casca, killing one of the cultists had made Nicole more vulnerable to repossession. Time was of the essence. They’d have to get to her before the cult completed the ritual that would allow the seven demons to take hold of her.
Fortunately, his luck had finally improved with the next destination. He spotted the fleet of pick-up trucks, motorcycles, and Hummers from a distance, guided his Jeep off the road and parked it in a gulley hidden by thick patches of shrubs and trees. He’d slipped out of the vehicle and advanced toward the horse farm, his dark clothing allowing him to blend in with the nocturnal desert landscape.
And that’s how he found himself on this ridge studying his new enemy. The more he learned about the capabilities of this soldier cult, the more questions rushed through his mind. He now understood what they were after—but where had this band of soldiers turned Satanists come from? Did the men all belong to the same unit? And who was their leader, this monstrous figure Cabrera had described?
The answers would have to wait for now as his thoughts shifted to the task ahead. He’d been watching the place for close to an hour now, doing recon and figuring out a plan of attack. Talon knew he was outnumbered. The element of surprise might be on his side, but their superior numbers would turn the tide of the battle in their favor. Marching in like Rambo would not work. He was up against a team of armed, most likely well-trained professionals.
The idea was to strike fast, to slip into the barn and extract Nicole before they knew they were under attack. Stealth and misdirection would be required. The cult could be dealt with later when the odds were slightly more in his favor. Even though it was almost 5am, the farm was alive with lights and movements. Soldiers kept coming and going in the barn. It was obvious that the cult was building up to something big. Talon knew he’d have to make his move before the sun came up, use the cover of night to his advantage.
The plan he’d cooked up with Casca was simple. Once the asset was secured, he’d make a go for a nearby private airport where one of Casca’s private planes would be waiting for them, fueled up and ready for extraction. The soldiers would undoubtedly attempt to hunt them down, but with any luck they’d already be in the air before then. At least that was the idea.
Talon left the concealment of the ridge and moved toward the farm in a half-crouch, swiftly navigating the patches of sagebrush and rocky terrain. For a moment, he was back in Afghanistan, his muscle memory and training taking over. In Silicon Valley, he’d been out of his element, exposed and vulnerable in the urban landscape. But out here in the desert, he became just another hunter blending in with the darkness. He reached the fence that enclosed the farm and removed a pair of wire cutters from his belt. Minutes of working the barbed wire produced an entrance through the barricade. Luckily the fence wasn’t electrified.
Once inside the property, Talon made a go for the stables. There was focus and purpose to his rapid movements and it took him less than a minute to reach the wall of the first building. He pressed himself against it and breathed deeply. Easing the silenced Glock from his holster, he edged forward, the barrel of the pistol nosing ahead, his senses locking on the enemies standing guard in the night. His muscles tensed in anticipation of the upcoming combat. He hadn’t been able to prevent Nicole from falling into the clutches of this cult, but he hoped he wasn’t too late to save her.
Talon eyed the quiet, darkened windows of the nearby structures. Nothing moved. The guards circling the stables were no doubt keeping their eyes out for cops or federal agents who would announce their arrival with flashing red-blue lights and screaming sirens. They weren’t expected one lone soldier garbed in black to be sneaking up on them.
One of the guards sensed his approach but reacted too slowly. Talon’s gloved hand closed around the guard’s masked face as the knife went in right below the base of the skull, severing the brainstem. He let go of the cultist, and a lifeless sack of meat and bone hit the ground. A second man responded and caught a flash of silver as Talon’s Ka-Bar shot toward him. A moment later he was choking on his own blood, his fingers helplessly clutching the hilt of the blade buried deep in his throat.
Talon regarded the dead men, feeling nothing. They were enemy combatants in a war as savage as any being fought on the planet, one with even higher stakes. Silicon Valley had been his crucible. The man who had entered the Omicron offices had been a soldier; the man who had left that same building after defeating Zagan was the occult assassin.
His gaze ticked toward the pick-up trucks parked near the stables and a dark smile split Talon’s face. He was looking forward to raining down some hellfire on these Satanists.
CHAPTER TWELVE
NICOLE’S OLD NIGHTMARE had become her new reality. Her stomach burned with pain, her shirt drenched in red. Black candles flickered around the pentagram.
The apocalypse soldier regarded her dispassionately while his army of black-clad soldier cultists ringed the unholy circle, mouthing words in a long dead language. The ceremony was going on for hours. The deep baritone of the man’s voice grew, building into a hymn of doom—a grave warrior chant calling forth an ancient evil. Her pain intensified with each successive word.
That first year after her exorcism, Nicole had dreaded the return of the demon. Like a cancer patient who’d gone through a successful bout of chemo, she still doubted her recovery. One way she’d rebuilt her courage and self-esteem was through physical exercise designed to toughen her body. She’d started training mentally too, learning as much as she could about the occult. As a result, she was completely, horribly aware of what was happening to her.
She understood all too well the significance of the inverted pentagram and the grim markings on the ground—these men were about to summon a demon. Not just any dark spirit, but the fearsome entity that had tried to destroy her eight years ago. If her feet weren’t tied, she
would’ve stormed out of the circle despite the machine guns pointing at her, preferring to succumb to a hail of bullets than allow the darkness to infect her again. A quick end was far better than the hell in store for her if the entity broke through the veil.
God, this couldn’t be happening. Not again.
Her panic was growing and she fought back her terror best she could. The incessant chanting built in intensity. Nicole was tempted to close her eyes, but the guttural words would just continue to haunt her until something else joined her in that darkness. Something not of this world.
No, hiding wasn’t an option.
She had to face the demon head on.
A fight awaited her. The biggest fight of her life. She needed to stay calm, to steel herself for battle if she was to successfully ward off his demonic force once it began to materialize.
And materialize it would.
She focused on the crowd, tried to keep her mind blank, and that’s when she saw…it.
A dark silhouette peeled from the shadows.
She blinked, thinking at first she was looking at one of the soldiers. But this outline appeared slightly elongated, lacking in detail, a shadow come to life. The cultists remained oblivious, unable to see the entity that had joined their circle. The demon revealing itself only to its intended target. She couldn’t avert her gaze, transfixed by the approaching horror.
And as the shadow closed in on the pentagram, drawn to it like a beacon in the night, she saw the others. Six more dark silhouettes broke away from the walls, almost as if the shadows of the soldiers had come to unnatural life.
All together she counted seven of them.
Seven demons.
Ice crept up her throat and her heart pounded against her ribcage. Something far worse than death was approaching, and there was no escape. How could she prevail against such superior numbers? She had failed to defeat one demon and now she was up against seven of them. Her lips quivered as she mouthed a weak prayer that was quickly drowned out by the rising voices of the cult. Dark triumph gleamed in the apocalypse soldier’s eyes. He’d recognized her mounting fear and understood its origin.
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