Shay suspected the trap had originally been designed to kill someone walking along the old bridge, and only the absence of the walkway had saved her from an explosively bad day. For all she knew, an earlier rocket had been responsible for taking the bridge down.
These guys were thorough. I’ve got to give them that.
Her heart still pounding from the addictive mix of excitement and fear, the woman secured the other end of her rope by tying it around a large rock far from the edge of the ledge, just in case of tremors. It’d still be a little bit of a stunt to get back over.
Shay started into a narrow tunnel leading away from the ledge. She began to realize that even if she’d asked Brownstone to come, he might have had issues with the low roof. The guy wasn’t super-tall compared to a lot of men, but he had a few inches on her, and it was already getting tight for her.
Her light highlighted a man’s form at the end of the tunnel. She jerked her gun out of its holster, her heart rate kicking up.
“Freeze, asshole. You don’t have to die here, but I’ve had an annoying last few minutes.”
The gun was returned to its home a few seconds later when the field archaeologist realized she was looking not a human but at a stylized mural of a huge bearded man in armor wielding a bladed polearm, a guandao, which was most likely the Green Dragon Crescent Blade. She’d seen enough representations of Guan Yu to recognize him.
Shay chuckled. “Bet you never thought your weapon would end up so far from home, huh, General? Probably next job, I’ll have to pick up some ancient Aztec weapon from Shanghai.”
She stepped closer to examine the mural. Something seemed slightly off about the color. She lowered her light to point at the floor and realized the image glowed with a soft green light.
“Yeah, that’s not strange at all. Magic painting?”
Shay waited a few seconds for the mural to come to life and attack her, and was pleasantly surprised when it didn’t.
Faint drips of water echoed throughout the area, and the underground chill nipped at her skin.
“Should have brought my own ugly jacket,” Shay muttered. She saluted the mural. “I’ll be off then, General.”
The tunnel continued past the mural, curving into the darkness. The path became even rougher, stalagmites littering the ground and long stalactites threatening her head.
“Ow,” Shay muttered as one scraped the back of her head.
She stopped at the sight of yet another skeleton when the tunnel dead-ended in a chamber that opened up at the top. Now that she’d moved farther away from the cavern with the ledge, the sound of running water had receded and the hum had returned. This chamber seemed to be its source.
Unlike the skeletons she’d seen before this one still had clothes, even if the outfit was covered with dust. A black and gray robe with a golden fringe enshrouded the bones. The skeleton sat in a cross-legged position with its skull facing down.
Shay tilted her head as she moved closer. A barely discernable blue glow surrounded the robe. She suspected it might be related to the concealment barrier, but she was less interested in finding the truth behind the magic than finding the Green Dragon Crescent Blade and getting the hell out of there.
The bodies and traps all suggested the cave was guarding something of importance, rather than just additional directions or a map. She’d love it if the job turned out to be a simple snatch and grab and she didn’t have to go anywhere else.
Shay returned her attention to the skeleton. “You stayed here until you died, huh? I’ll give you credit for dedication.”
She lifted her flashlight. The cave’s ceiling continued off at an angle, and the stalactites were even thicker and denser there. She had no idea how deep underground she was, but she wondered if a few good explosives would reveal sunlight. Absent blowing things up, there was no obvious way to continue or any sign of the Green Dragon Crescent Blade.
“Damn it! Was I wrong after all, or is there something on the body?”
The flashlight’s beam caught a glimmer of something on the cave ceiling, but whatever it was vanished as soon as she concentrated on it.
“Hmmm.”
Shay pulled a small spherical camera drone from a pouch on her belt, set it on the ground, and pulled out her phone. After entering a few commands, four slots opened in the sphere and the rotor extended. The drone lifted off and an image appeared on her phone screen.
The tomb raider didn’t shunt the feed to her goggles. She had something else in mind.
Shay kept glancing between her phone and the ceiling as the tiny drone rose. She guided it toward the location of the vanishing glimmer.
Her video feed revealed a soft green glow that she couldn’t see from where she was. She pulled off her goggles, just in case the light was being filtered somehow, but still couldn’t spot it.
“Okay, so there’s something there.”
Some quick navigation commands pulled the drone back so she could get a wider view of the ceiling.
Shay frowned. “Why are there so many stalactites there?”
She pulled the drone farther back and zoomed out with the camera as well.
“You sons of bitches!” She laughed.
Even though she couldn’t see it with her eyes, the drone’s video feed on the phone clearly depicted two hexagrams carved into the stalactites.
“Didn’t plan on some bitch coming with her fancy flying metal demon, did you? What, did you pull a little geomancy there?”
She examined the hexagrams for a moment. One was the pattern for radiance and the other appeared to be force, but there were outlines for single segments in both, whereas the rest of the segments were filled in and surrounded by thick borders.
Using the drone as a guide, she determined that the remains of the priest lay directly under one empty segment. She took a deep breath and moved directly under the other empty segment.
A warm sensation passed through her body, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up.
“Yeah, this was a bad idea.” Shay sat down and crossed her legs. “Probably gonna end up rotting here with you, but what now?”
Her research hadn’t given her many clues about the place other than the location.
“Stand…speak, Mandate of Heaven,” Shay murmured, remembering some of the translated words from the front of the cave.
The Mandate of Heaven was the ancient Chinese idea that a proper emperor had the support of the gods and the universe itself.
Mandate of Heaven equals emperor, maybe? Time to stand and speak then.
Shay stood and pulled out her phone. She couldn’t pronounce classical Chinese worth a damn, but she did have an app containing information on the Chinese emperors. She swept her finger to highlight a phrase and then tapped so it’d be read aloud.
“Zhu Di, Yongle Huangdi.” Zhu Di, the Perpetual Happiness Emperor.
The entire cave shook, and the tingle in Shay’s body exploded into an inferno of pain. She cried out and fell to the ground.
Fuck. One final trap, huh? Damn it. Guess I should have brought Brownstone after all.
The agony increased, and she screamed.
Then it was gone.
Shay took several deep breaths, flexing her muscles in her arms and legs. No residual discomfort or pain remained. It was like she hadn’t been on fire from the inside out seconds before.
She pushed herself up and shook her head. “That sucked.” Her eyes widened when she saw what was now lying directly between her and the skeleton.
A long, curved, bladed polearm lay on the ground. It was clearly a guandao.
An ornately carved golden dragon surrounded the joint where the blade and the pole met, its eyes made from carved jade. Another piece of jade had been inlaid into the end.
Shay crept toward the weapon. She wanted to take the whole damn thing. If Brownstone could get his arsenal through Customs, he should be able to get one stupid ancient magical weapon through too.
There was one minor prob
lem that again made her regret not bringing the bounty hunter. Legends claimed the Green Dragon Crescent Blade was heavy as hell. She was strong, but she wasn’t barbecue-lover strong.
Shay grasped the weapon, and after taking a deep breath, she jerked up with all her might—whereupon she tripped, fell backward, and slammed her head on the ground.
“Dammit!”
It turned out that the legends were wrong. The Green Dragon Crescent Blade weighed almost nothing.
Shay sat up and rubbed her head. “Okay, this works. I can do this.”
A distant crack echoed through the cave system. She frowned, wondering if grabbing the weapon had set off more traps. More cracks and a boom followed.
The noises remained distant, and the cave didn’t shake at all.
Shay sighed when she realized what she was hearing.
“Oh, Brownstone, who are you shooting at now?”
16
The two trucks continued to close on his location, so James needed to formulate a plan other than killing every single motherfucker in sight.
He didn’t know who the guys were yet, and wasting a man without at least having some clue who he was bordered on being rude—especially when the guy might not have a chance against him.
James rubbed his chin. Fuck. Wish I had brought a rifle.
Unfortunately, he didn’t like rifles much. When he hunted a man, he wanted to be able to look the guy in the face before kicking his ass or shooting him. Blasting targets from a distance just wasn’t his style, even if it occasionally made tactical sense. Unfortunately, his lack of sense sometimes got him in trouble in situations where he couldn’t rely on the strength of the necklace and he expected a lot of enemies. Situations like the one in this canyon.
Okay, next time I bring a rifle or two. Just in case. Or a rocket launcher. That might be fun, if a bit messy.
A good shot through their engine blocks would disable the vehicles, at least robbing his enemies of their mobility.
Assuming they were enemies.
James would gladly defend himself, but he didn’t want to kill a bunch of men if there’d been some sort of mistake and they’d not come expressly to take him and/or Shay out. Especially if he wasn’t going to make any money off it.
He sighed as he watched the vehicles through his binoculars. The number of weapons didn’t automatically translate into the men being criminals or killers.
Many militias, large and small, had popped up in Mexico to help deal with both the scourge of the cartels and the chaos of magic-enhanced criminals.
For all his mouthing off to Shay, James understood the importance of not pissing off people without reason.
He looked around, chewing on his thoughts a moment. He needed to get the men in a position where he could question them without any of them throwing too much lead at him or blowing him up.
Otherwise, he risked fucking up things in this area for himself or Shay in the future.
James grunted. A little thinking had drained a lot of the fun out of the fight, but he could still make the encounter interesting. It was time for something that wasn’t really his style: stealth.
Time to be a creeper.
The bounty hunter sprinted away from the outcropping hiding the Forerunner. He didn’t worry about the men eventually discovering the vehicle; he just didn’t want them to blow it to pieces right away. Once he engaged the men, he figured he would keep them busy enough.
Dozens of large rocks dotted the area, along with many other outcroppings along the canyon wall. Perfect cover. If he was smart about tactics, he would be able to close on the enemy without getting a rocket-propelled grenade in his teeth for the trouble.
Man, kicking in front doors was so much more fun than this.
James snickered, wondering what Shay was up to inside the cave. She was probably taking a leisurely stroll and having a relaxing time, while he was preparing to fight off more than a dozen men.
Afterward she would come out and take him to task for not being civilized or something. Worse yet, not dressing appropriately for a firefight. He was surprised she hadn’t given him shit for his nails.
The two trucks continued to rumble along the dirt trail. They were now close enough that he could make them out without his binoculars. He rushed between two rocks, ducking behind a large one, and waited for a chance to move again.
A series of protruding stones in the nearby canyon wall formed natural handholds. James looked between the canyon wall and the approaching vehicles. If the men were looking straight ahead and not paying much attention to the sides of the canyon, he could climb up and gain the advantage of high ground. But if he were wrong, it’d leave him vulnerable—and he might get a few bullets for his trouble.
Bullets fucking sucked.
Time was running out, so he needed to make his play and be quick about it. The men might have scoped him out already with their own binoculars or drones.
James surveyed the sky, but didn’t spot any drones. They could have been using something smaller and harder to see, but if they were willing to go through that kind of trouble, it didn’t seem likely they’d barrel straight down on him in two obvious trucks versus coming in from the air on a helicopter or VTOL craft.
No. These men might have a lot of guns, but they reeked of local disposable muscle, not highly-trained operatives or mercenaries. The only reason the encounter might prove difficult at all was that James didn’t want to kill anyone if it wasn’t necessary.
He grinned.
Yeah, I think I’ll bet on the stupidity of a bunch of local thugs. They think they have the upper hand, but what they don’t know will help me.
James jumped to the lowest handhold and then grabbed the next. The man scurried up the side of the canyon like some Oriceran-enhanced goat before finding a nice flat rock outcropping. With a final heave, he pulled himself over the edge and flattened himself on his stomach.
Everyone thought skinny guys were the better rock climbers. It helped, sure—less weight. However, sheer strength in one’s hands and arms helped overcome some of the height and weight challenges.
Staging an ambush still didn’t sit all that well with James, but he reminded himself that his goal was to kill the enemy’s vehicles, not the men. If it came down to taking out all the men, they’d at least know it was coming. Right now he didn’t have many other options.
The bounty hunter pulled out his .45 and popped out the magazine. He replaced it with another filled with armor-piercing rounds. Sometimes it paid to be prepared. After slipping the first magazine back into a pouch, he rolled onto his stomach and readied his weapon. The trucks would be passing beneath him soon.
To ensure he took out the engine blocks, he’d have to wait until they were damn near straight under him. He was a good shot, but these vehicles were moving, and he was using a pistol from an odd angle above them.
He smiled. Just made it a bit fairer.
It was almost time: less than thirty seconds until they passed under him, by his estimate. The sun beat down, and sweat beaded on his forehead. He wondered how snipers didn’t get bored holding position.
Twenty seconds.
The sweat now tickled the back of his neck. Seriously, how did those fuckers sit still for days?
Of course, if the men were there to kill him, this whole thing would get very messy very quickly.
Ten seconds.
Bad day to be you guys. I hope whoever sent you my way at least gave you some fucking clue who you’re dealing with.
The trucks passed right underneath the ledge. The men were looking in every direction except up. Big mistake.
James aimed for a few seconds, then squeezed off three quick rounds into the front of the first truck. The loud report echoed throughout the narrow canyon as the truck screeched to a halt, smoke pouring from the engine. Men shouted in Spanish, their heads darting around as they tried to find their enemy.
Several men complicated their search by firing.
Thank you! h
e thought. I appreciate your support.
Their gunshots layered over the echo from James’ weapon, leaving the men clueless about his location.
Concentrating, the bounty hunter fired three rounds into the other truck’s engine. His minutes of preparation were over in seconds. The second truck also stopped, thick black smoke pouring from its engine into the blue sky.
Gunfire and Spanish expletives filled the canyon now, but still no one had fired upward. James took his chance and leapt off his ledge, grabbing handholds on the way down and swinging to the ground. He landed with a grunt and a forward roll, then rushed toward a dense patch of large rocks.
One of the men shouted and squeezed off a few rounds at him, but in the chaos no one paid him much attention. Now on the ground with plenty of cover and the enemy’s mobility advantage destroyed, James held all the cards.
“Who are you?” James bellowed in heavily-gringo-accented Spanish, and immediately sprinted for another position. Between the men’s shouting and the echoes, he was fairly certain they wouldn’t zero in on him.
Instead, the dumbasses kept firing random rounds as if they thought they might just get lucky and hit him. The man who’d spotted him earlier was still busy shooting at his old position. A damned ricochet was his biggest risk right now.
“Soy El Granito Diablo Espiritu,” James shouted. “You listen,” he continued in his broken Spanish. “You not die.”
His deep voice echoed around the canyon, and it was like the rock itself was speaking. Still, it would have been nice if the rock didn’t sound like a drunken five-year-old.
He sighed. This was damned embarrassing. Half of being successful in a dangerous situation was talking trash and intimidation, and he couldn’t speak Spanish worth a shit.
Sure, he could understand it well enough. His memory, combined with a little study, had helped him with that, but having a great memory didn’t automatically translate into verbal ability without practice.
“Need to work on that shit,” James mumbled. “Especially if I’m gonna keep traveling south of the border.”
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