Age of Blood

by Weston Ochse

  He reached for the magazine and almost had it in his hand when the butterfly landed on the lip of the tunnel and brought its wings in tight. Walker had little choice but to dodge away from their deadly edges. He’d seen what they could do.

  He straightened a little too quickly and fought for his balance. He stepped back automatically, and that’s what saved him. The obsidian butterfly shoved its left wing toward him as it edged closer. It sliced the air mere inches from his face.

  Walker was forced to backpedal. He needed to put distance between him and the creature, whose glowing white eyes appraised him with an unnatural clarity of focus. It dipped its head as it stepped, moving its six-clawed foot forward, then easing the rest of its behind inside the mouth of the tunnel. He was thankful it couldn’t operate freely in the space. Then again, neither could he, and he had nowhere to run.

  Then the back of his legs hit something … someone.

  Jen!

  He grabbed at her and pushed backward, but Hoover stood in his way, the hackles on her neck like a mohawk. Her growl turned into a snarl of warning.

  Walker had no choice but to launch both himself and Jen into the air as they dove backwards over Hoover. The ground came up and smacked him and Jen right in their faces. She went limp and he felt his own vision grow dangerously dark. He fought to overcome it.

  Hoover was barking madly now.

  The obsidian butterfly hissed in response.

  Walker found himself alive and awake, and turned to see Hoover make a suicidal dive through the creature’s legs, until she ended up on the other side. Hoover had gotten the creature’s attention, but it might mean her death. There was only ten feet between the creature and the edge of the tunnel. With a sixty-foot drop behind her and the creature in front of her, death awaited the dog from both directions.

  Walker made a wild decision. He’d have loved to push Jen through the cave-in where she might be safe, but she was deadweight right now and it would be like trying to shove a wet spaghetti noodle through the eye of a needle. And that wouldn’t do anything to protect Hoover, who was as much a member of the team as any of them. No—he had an idea. What mattered most was staying away from the edges of the creature’s wings and from the vamphyric tongue.

  Walker spoke low into his bone-conducting communications device, trying to get the dog’s attention. “Hoover. Hoover, listen. Get rope. Bite rope.”

  In the grand tradition of all dogs barking at a giant winged monster, Hoover continued to bark.

  “Hoover, get rope.”

  The dog actually glanced at the rope curled against the wall by the lip of the tunnel, the same rope Yank had used to descend. But that’s as far as she got. She began barking again, this time even more furiously.

  “Jesus Christ on a Big Wheel.” Walker pulled out his SIG Sauer and aimed at the junction where the wing met the torso. He fired four times. The sound was more devastating than the impact and resulted in nothing more than chips flying free.

  The obsidian butterfly turned its head. Sideways as it was, it could fend off both Hoover and Walker, but it could only give attention to one of them. It hissed and lurched toward him with its left wing.

  Walker dodged its edge, then hammered at it with the butt of his SR-25 Stoner. “Hoover!” he shouted. “Get the fucking rope! Bite the rope!”

  This time Hoover obeyed.

  Walker lunged backward as the obsidian butterfly swung its wing at him again. As it did, he stuffed the working end of the Stoner into the strawlike protuberance. Without any rounds, it was as worthless as a spear, so that’s what he’d use it for. The creature gave a muffled squeal and batted its wings, trying to get it out, but the tunnel was too narrow. Walker took the moment to dive beneath the creature. He scraped against the legs, but managed to come up into a standing position on the other side of it.

  He hustled Hoover to the edge. They both glanced down to gauge the distance. Hoover seemed to give him an I don’t think this is a good idea look, but Walker ignored it.

  “Hold,” he commanded, knowing the dog was trained to follow that command and not let go … or at least hoping the dog would know better than to let go.

  Then he grabbed the remainder of the rope and commanded, “Jump.”

  Hoover hesitated for only a second, then leaped into the air.

  Although they’d tied off the rope to a pinion on the floor of the tunnel, Walker leaned back and held on.

  The rope tightened and Hoover slammed into the wall. She held on though, her eyes on Walker, her gleaming white teeth bared in a dog’s wince.

  Walker quickly lowered the dog. When Hoover was about ten tunnel, from the floor, Walker began taking fire. He pulled his 9mm free and returned it as best he could, then grabbed the rope and started climbing down after Hoover.

  Suddenly the obsidian butterfly dove for him. Walker had no choice but to let go and push off the cliff face, knowing that the mess of metal beneath him would break him into a thousand pieces. Still, it was better than being torn to pieces by the talons of the butterfly.

  Just as he started to fall, Walker realized that the obsidian butterfly was hovering in mid-air to watch his demise. The proximity was close enough that Walker was able to reach out and snag one of the roughly ridged, birdlike ankles. He dropped another five feet, but the creature arrested his descent by flapping its wings.

  The butterfly flapped its wings as hard as it could and gained a few more feet. It spun several times, trying to dislodge him. Then it climbed even higher.

  Walker saw his chance. He swung out and on the forward swing let go at the apex, landing back on the lip of the tunnel.

  Hoover regarded him from down below with a What the hell are you doing up there? look.

  The butterfly creature spun, not knowing where Walker had gone. Without thinking about it, Walker took two steps back, then ran forward and leaped. As the creature spun, it lost altitude, so Walker fell farther than he’d planned. When he landed on its back, the air was knocked out of his lungs. Even so, somehow he hung on.

  The butterfly didn’t like being ridden, didn’t like that Walker’s weight was forcing it inexorably down. It began to buck and shudder, flapping its immense wings as hard as it could. Walker closed his eyes and pressed his face against the cold blackness of the creature’s back. He remembered when he’d fantasized about riding a Pegasus and just pretended he was breaking one in.

  He was slammed into the wall, but held on.

  Fucking Pegasus.

  It slammed him again.

  Fucking Obsidian Butterfly Pegasus.

  It slammed him again and this time he couldn’t stop himself from letting go.

  He fell hard.

  61

  MAIN TEMPLE.

  The bad guys had regrouped. Three robed men with MP5s hid behind a pile of headless Zetas. At the far side of the pyramid near the base, several men were frantically trying to load their rifles. Several of the Zetas who’d escaped beheading stood aimlessly on the pyramid steps. One or two of them held weapons. Two of the Los Desollados magicians were alive and well, trying to recover themselves atop the pyramid. Halfway up, Ramon stood with a struggling Senator Withers, using him as much as a shield as he was savaging him with wolfen claws. Holmes had to hand it to the old man. Held by a bloodthirsty double-dealing werewolf or not, he wasn’t going down without a fight, even with claws finger-deep inside his shoulders. Withers stomped on Ramon’s feet and tried to knee him in the groin, but his captor backhanded him, the power in his arms ultimately knocking the senator out cold. Then Ramon tossed the man over his shoulder and loped up the rest of the stairs. It appeared that he still had use for the senator, even if there were only two magicians left.

  Holmes didn’t have time to sit and contemplate the problem. He had to get his SEALs moving before Withers lost his life.

  He spied YaYa, curled into a ball at the base of the pyramid. He’d occasionally scratch himself with his hind leg. That it had reversed like an animal’s made Holmes
’s head hurt. The sight made him accept the fact that he’d lost this SEAL to whatever had been haunting him. The admission carried tremendous weight. Not only had he lost one of the five members of the most special team on the planet, but he’d been in a position to stop it from happening had he taken a few moments to contemplate YaYa’s symptoms.

  Walker had fallen, but not so far he should be badly hurt. He’d send Laws in his direction and keep Yank with him. Holmes’s targets were the two men dressed like Ramon that lay dead at the base of the pyramid stairs. Both had shoulder holsters and they were the closest to him. Plus, their bodies lay next to YaYa, who Holmes wanted to check. Whatever he’d become, he’d once been a SEAL and one of his men.

  He told the other SEALs the plan. They weren’t a hundred percent. They weren’t even fifty percent. But it was all he had. It was all they had. Hell, if they wanted to live, they’d make it work. He was contemplating how he was going to create a diversion when the oddest thing happened. Even though all five members of SEAL Team 666 were on the floor of the temple, someone began firing at the Zetas from the tunnel where Walker had most recently had a hide site. Correction, they weren’t firing on the Zetas. Instead, they seemed to be firing randomly wherever they could.

  Then it came to him.

  Jen!

  Every bad guy turned toward the tunnel, worried that they might be the next target. They probably remembered how accurately Walker had so recently dealt death. They didn’t have to know that it was some CIA analyst brandishing a weapon for which she probably had only a passing knowledge as to which end was the bad end and which was the good.

  Holmes sent Laws toward the downed obsidian butterfly, using that as a way station to connect with Walker. Once they connected, it made sense for them to combine their maneuvers.

  Laws surveyed the field. He stood ready and took off toward his first target, weaving as he ran in case he drew fire. But all eyes were still on the tunnel where Jen was indiscriminately firing. Holmes watched as the SEAL made his point and skidded to a stop.

  Holmes checked the status of the enemy and saw that not one of them was paying attention to him or the ’cabra pile. He quickly adjusted his strategy. They were going to make a move. He told Yank as much and on the count of three, they ran like madmen toward the skull rack. The distance was fifty meters. An NFL-prospect linebacker could make it in six seconds. Holmes was itchy with the potential of bullets to the head as he ran.

  Yank made it first and slid to a stop. Each of the downed men carried 9mm pistols in their holsters. He grabbed one, then got in close to the skull rack, ready to lay covering fire for Holmes.

  Holmes got there and dropped to the ground. He pulled the 9mm from the other downed man. It turned out to be a Glock 19 with a fifteen-round magazine. He checked the holster for spare magazines and found two. The dead men also carried backup pistols in ankle holsters, Taurus PT740s capable of holding five rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. He passed Yank a pistol and spare mags for the Glock, then shoved his own mags inside the tight back pocket of his UDTs. He shoved both pistols in the back of his shorts and told Yank to cover him.

  Holmes low-crawled the few feet to where YaYa had curled up. The SEAL was naked, and so filth-encrusted it was almost impossible to tell where the dirt stopped and his skin started. His legs had definitely transformed to those of an animal and were pulled under him. His left arm below the elbow was triple the size of the right and infected with something terrible. It held all the shades of blues, oranges, greens, and black. Pus had burst through the skin in several places. Whatever the priest back at the Knights’ Castle had done clearly hadn’t worked. Holmes couldn’t help feeling sorry for the young man. He didn’t know how he could possibly recover from this. Still, he was one of his men and he was a SEAL. Dog or no dog, possessed or not, he didn’t deserve to be chained up.

  “YaYa,” he whispered.

  The SEAL glanced toward him, then turned his head away. He whined like a beaten dog.

  “YaYa. Come on, SEAL,” Holmes said as loud as he dared. Out of the corner of his eye he saw one of the surviving Zetas on the pyramid turn toward the sound. “Come on. We have got to go now.”

  YaYa turned and looked at him with suddenly clear eyes. “Boss? Is that you?”

  Holmes kept his words SEAL-themed, recognizing that it had worked. “Get your ass in gear, SEAL. We have to move.”

  Yank suddenly opened fire on the man who’d been drawing a bead on Holmes. The man fell and tumbled down the narrow stairs, slipping in the stream of blood made from the earlier sacrifices.

  The others noticed them for the first time.

  “Boss, get back here!” Yank shouted.

  Holmes pulled his 9mm from his waist and laid down covering fire as he knelt, then worked free the cuff on YaYa’s leg. Holmes managed to clip two guys before he hauled YaYa back with him into the cover of the skull rack.

  Yank had kept firing, every few seconds getting off a shot to remind their attackers of the danger they’d be in if they tried an assault.

  Holmes turned to YaYa, who had tears running down his already tear-striped face. “I can’t—” he began, his eyes searching for words that could only be found inside. “I want—”

  Holmes reached out, but his touch made YaYa jump. “We’ll figure this out when it’s all over,” he said with as much authority as he could muster.

  YaYa stared at his arm. “It’s here. I can feel it inside. I can feel it talking to me.” He looked up at Holmes. “Can you hear it, too?”

  Holmes shook his head, sad beyond reason for the boy.

  “I want it out. I want it gone.” Then YaYa’s eyes changed shape. The irises went from human to animal in a split second. He growled.

  Holmes backed away, but resisted aiming his weapon at the young man.

  YaYa barked once, then twice, sounds impossible for a human to make.

  Holmes reached out a shaky hand, hoping that a human touch might bring YaYa back.

  But YaYa would have none of it. He took off like a shot toward the back of the chamber, running on four legs toward the ’cabra pile. Gunshots peppered the ground around him as he ran, but YaYa was a constantly moving target.

  Then he reached the fallen obsidian butterfly and skidded to a stop. He howled once, the sound of a tortured animal turning into a horribly human scream. He held out his left arm and approached the wing. He held it high, then suddenly slammed it down, letting the viciously sharp edge of the wing of the obsidian butterfly sever his arm from his body.

  Blood spurted as YaYa screamed.

  He toppled to the ground, his life flowing from his body.

  Holmes started to run to his aid, when something landed next to him, a shadow covering everything around him.

  The other obsidian butterfly.

  62

  BACK SIDE OF THE TEMPLE.

  Laws was close enough to Walker and Hoover to call out to them, but when he heard YaYa’s scream, he turned and watched the other SEAL fall, saw his blood pumping out of his arm stump like something from an Akira Kurosawa picture. He had no choice but to jump to YaYa’s aid. He turned and ran, calling for Hoover over his shoulder.

  The dog followed and they arrived at about the same time. She paced nervously as she saw her onetime handler lying in a growing pool of blood. She started to sniff at the severed arm, then backed away and growled instead.

  YaYa had already lost a prodigious amount of blood. Laws put a knee and all of his weight on the soft spot of YaYa’s shoulder. With his left hand, he shoved two fingers into the remarkably clean wound, applying pressure to the median cubital vein. The amount of blood immediately decreased. With his right hand, he reached into the cargo pouch on Hoover’s vest and pulled out a med kit. He grabbed a pouch of QuikClot gauze and ripped it open with his mouth. Then, as best he could, he unrolled one end and began to pack it into the wound, inch by bloody inch. The gauze contained kaolin, which promoted clotting like no one’s business. He’d seen a train
ing video where they’d cut the femoral artery of a pig and using just one packet of gauze, had completely stopped the bleeding within minutes.

  After he packed the first one, he packed a second one.

  The bleeding had stopped, but was it going to be enough to save him?

  YaYa came to. “Laws, is that you?” he asked groggily.

  “Just leave it, kid. Save your strength.” With the loss of blood, YaYa was bound to become hypovolemic, which meant Laws also had to treat him for shock. He needed to find something he could use as a cover. Glancing back at the pile of dead ’cabra, he knew what to do.

  But then he saw the obsidian butterfly. It had Holmes pinned against the side of the pyramid. While Laws needed to treat YaYa, he also needed to help the boss.

  He fed YaYa the remainder of his own Fentanyl lollipop, then made his move.

  63

  BENEATH THE SNIPER HIDE.

  Walker needed a weapon. Jen was still firing from above, but it had become clear that although she was slaughtering the hell out of the ceiling, there really wasn’t much danger of her hitting anything else. Yank had begun firing somewhere near the pyramid, but Walker needed to be careful because the obsidian butterfly had flown in that direction. By the sudden maddeningly increased rate of fire from them, they must have just seen the thing.

  Walker had hit hard enough to stun himself when he’d fallen, but he hadn’t broken anything. Still, as he stood and his thigh engaged around the deep bruising of the quad, it was pure pain to take the first couple steps. He ignored it. He had to get a weapon.