Shit, this never got old.
When the gunshots ceased, the silence was deafening.
This was the price of not keeping a low profile, of mucking with people’s lives.
He realized that he was still trying to be a regular, ten years now into his mutated state. He wanted to make friends, make nice, be a part of something other than the freak show that was his fate.
What he wanted he could never again have, not without the complications that he’d created here.
He sent a mental command out that all who had shot at him should now follow him into the jungle so the pit could judge them.
He was fooling himself thinking to pass the blame for his curse to the pits, but it eased his conscience. Just a bit.
Regulars could not resist a compulsion like the one he’d issued. He walked through town, passing by the pink and orange murals—and their lone, decaying guards. At the end of town, he crossed the fields and entered the night jungle. Seventeen men followed him, carrying their weapons with them.
When Merc reached the pit, he stared into it for a long moment. He’d now killed as many men as any of the worst who’d succumbed to the pit. Why hadn’t he become a victim of his own curse?
One by one, each of the fighters climbed into the pit, lying down on top of others, some of whom weren’t yet dead.
Death took a long time when one waited for it, Merc had learned.
The stink from the pit burned Merc’s nose and made his eyes water. He looked over to see the young padre from the village standing there, praying over the soon-to-be dead, as he did every night.
Merc listened to the priest’s soft words. The lantern he’d brought sat on the ground near him, sending a weak dome of light around them. Weak or not, it was enough to attract all kinds of curious bugs, some as big as Merc’s hand.
Merc didn’t speak Latin, but he didn’t need to in order to understand the padre—he felt the meaning the words had within the priest, who believed them completely. His prayers were more than those in the pit deserved.
When the priest was finished, Merc stood in silence with him at the edge of the pit for a long moment.
“Go home, Father,” Merc said.
“What you’ve done here is a miracle.”
“I don’t believe in miracles.”
The priest smiled. “How can the giver of miracles not believe in them? No regular man could have stood in the rain of gunfire as you did and survived.”
“I’m a killer. Like them.”
“No. You are nothing like them. You’ve turned this town around. It’s alive in a way I never thought to see it. The people laugh freely. They’re planning a spring festival for the first time since I was a child. I’ve seen as the energy surrounding the pits darkened, the town brightened.”
“There are close to fifty people, mostly men, in that pit. It keeps taking new victims.”
“Ask God for forgiveness.”
Merc stared at the pit’s fresh victims. “I can’t. I’m not remorseful. Each person in there deserves to be there.”
“You are an avenging angel sent by God.”
Merc frowned. “I’m a maniac with a death wish.” He sighed. “Go home, Father. Take your lantern.”
“I will keep vigil with you.”
Did the good padre know what Merc had in mind? He should never have mentioned having a death wish.
Merc turned and started back for town. The padre followed him. Just as they reached the edge of the jungle, Merc cloaked himself, hiding from the priest, who moved past him a few steps. When he realized he was no longer following Merc, he turned around to look for him.
The priest retraced his steps into the jungle. He was gone long enough to return to the pit. His shoulders were slumped when he came back out of the woods. He shut his lantern off as he walked back to town. Merc watched his white cloak become smaller as he moved away.
When he was gone, Merc returned to the dark jungle. He kept his mind blocked from his meddling friends. Liege, Bastion, Guerre, and Acier had been pecking at him, trying to reach him for the last few days, more so than at any time since he’d come down here. He wasn’t sure the block he had in place would survive what he was about to do.
It didn’t matter. They wouldn’t be able to reach him in time. Even telepathically.
The stench of the pit reached out to him, slipping around him like a ghoulish embrace. The eyes of the not-yet dead tracked his movements when he stepped into the first pit. He picked a spot to lie down that wasn’t on top of someone still living. He stayed there for a long time. So much pain, so much fear and agony reverberated among those taken in by the curse, but not an ounce of remorse from one of them.
Death didn’t take him. Nor did the paralysis imposed on the cursed. He got up and tried again in the middle pit that was only half as full as the first. He moved his arms, disappointed to see he still had his freedom.
There was only one way to ensure he had the outcome he was after: he was going to have to do it himself. He climbed out of the middle pit and went into the last one. Recent rains made the bottom a cesspit. He stood in the middle. This was it. This was the end. He wasn’t going to come back from this. He could finally be with his wife and kids again. He wondered what it was like on the other side. Would it be as disorienting there as his mutant existence was here? Would he be able to reunite with his family, or would the way he died dictate his afterlife experience?
Did he fear that more than he hated his current existence?
He slogged across to the far end of the pit. Leaning against the slick dirt, he slid down until he was slumped on the bottom of it. Mud soaked his jeans and seeped into his boots. A hard root pressed into his back.
He shut his eyes and considered his options. Think it the fuck through, Liege had often cautioned them after they were first changed and had gone off half-cocked on some mission.
There were no options for Merc now. He’d become what he hated, which had been his biggest fear since day one. When he died, it was possible the curse he’d placed on the pits would end with him.
He took out his utility knife and pulled open the blade. Setting it against the skin of his left wrist, he made a deep slice into his flesh. Blood came out in a rush. He leaned his head against the dirt wall behind him, breathing into the pain, which, all too soon, was fading because his goddamned flesh was rapidly healing. When the bleeding stopped, he cut it again. And again. And then he cut his right wrist.
Eventually, he just kept slashing at himself. Dying this way was going to take a while. But he had time. The pain was blissful.
“No. No no no no no no!”
Merc frowned as he tried to place that voice. The padre. Damn him. He fell to his knees in front of Merc, struggling to pull Merc’s right hand from his left wrist.
“Stop. I beg you. Stop this.” The padre was weeping. He didn’t have the strength to fight Merc, even in Merc’s current weakened state. The priest began reciting prayers, one running into the next.
Merc shoved him away and sliced his wrist again. The priest shrugged out of his robe, which he wadded up and pressed against Merc’s wrist. He set his back to Merc’s knife hand, holding Merc’s injured arm to his chest.
Merc tried but could not shake him off. Motherfucker, the padre was strong. Or Merc was getting weaker. They struggled for the upper hand. Merc started to cry as he begged to be let go. He had to finish this. The priest was crying too, appealing to God and the saints for help.
Merc’s block against his friends slipped. The bastards got through telepathically. Liege, in his astral state, gripped his right hand and pressed it against the dirt wall of the pit. Merc dropped his knife, losing it somewhere in the pit’s wall or floor. Astral Bastion had a hand on his neck and a knee on his chest, keeping him from wrestling free. Astral Acier held his other hand. Merc clenched his teeth. His friends weren’t there…but they were there, holding him, letting the priest tend to his wrists.
The unholy fucking fivesome wa
s complete when Guerre touched his wrist. A warmth entered Merc’s body. Guerre had healed all of them at one time or another during their long years together, but Merc had never felt Guerre like this, in his heart and in his mind, tethering the broken parts of him together.
“Madre de Dios,” the priest whispered hoarsely, releasing Merc long enough to make the sign of the cross.
Merc rolled his gaze toward the priest. Guerre’s healing glow was a three-dimensional thing, humming around Merc’s wrist—and the priest saw it, maybe even felt it.
Merc tried uselessly to fight the five men holding him—four of whom were only there telepathically. “Let me go. Let me die.”
Bastion put his ghost forehead against Merc’s. Friends don’t let friends die.
You fucking hate me, Bastion.
But I love to hate you. Don’t rob me of that joy. You are too selfish. It is why I hate you.
The priest’s head shot up as he looked from the pit into the clearing beyond it. Merc heard the percussive sound of the helo’s blades slicing the air. And then his friends were there in the flesh. Or some of them were. Acier wasn’t. Liege bent over and lifted Merc over his shoulder then rushed him out of the pit. The padre watched them run to the helicopter.
Merc’s wounds had already closed, but he knew he’d lost a lot of blood. He couldn’t feel Liege’s shoulder pressing into his gut. He couldn’t feel the heat of the jungle. He couldn’t hear the chopper anymore. He smiled to himself. His vision slipped away from him. Maybe he’d closed his eyes. Maybe he was ending. He couldn’t hear the guys in his head. He’d been connected to them for so many years, but he was alone now.
Funny that they didn’t die with him. He didn’t know how to be alone.
He was nothing. Not human. Not changed. Not alive.
It was everything he’d wanted.
Liege was furious. He laid Merc out on the floor of the chopper. This wasn’t his first rodeo reviving one of his team. He’d even had his own turns on the receiving end. They couldn’t take Merc to a hospital because a transfusion from a regular would kill him. The four of them shared the same blood type and had had the same type of modifications. Acier’s mods were of a different type, so the blade smith had stayed at the fort to get Merc’s blood ready. They each kept several units of their own blood at the fort, but here in the field, the three of them were going to have to take turns giving Merc blood until they could get him home.
Guerre handed Liege a sterile swab to wipe off his arm. He cleaned his and Merc’s arms, while Guerre washed up and prepared things for the transfusion. Guerre made the connection between them. Sitting on a flight seat above Merc, Liege watched his red blood fill the tube on its way down to Merc, whose face was white and lips a shade of blue.
Bastion was staring at Merc, watching for death to steal his life. Liege gritted his teeth and gave Bastion the mental order to get the bird in the air. Bastion shouted it to the pilot. The sweltering air turned cool as they gained altitude. The wind made Liege’s tears cold. He swiped at them, unaware he’d shed them.
He’d lost men before. Too many. He had to keep these three alive. Each was rare and special and had so much to offer the world, now, in the infancy of its new mutant evolution. Liege was glad he’d brought the team out here. After Merc’s persistent radio silence, Liege knew something was afoot.
It only took a half-hour for the chopper to reach their safe house at Lautaro’s coffee plantation. Bastion and Guerre carried Merc inside, with Liege hurrying beside them. Lautaro met them with a gurney. Right there in the mansion’s big foyer, Guerre switched the transfusion from Liege to Bastion.
Liege faced his top guy in South America. Lautaro shook his head. “He never reached out. I was going to head over that way on the weekend. I shouldn’t have waited that long.”
“Not your fault.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. I heard some crazy stories coming out of the village. I, too, was hanging out, waiting for Santo. But I shouldn’t have ignored my gut’s warning.” He looked at the medical procedure happening next to them. “You need to get him back to the fort,” Lautaro said, watching the proceedings with worried eyes. “Take the gurney with you.”
Liege nodded. “Go back to Valle de Lágrimas. Clean things up. I don’t want his blood discovered in that pit. And who knows what else he did in the village. He kept himself separated from us. Cover his tracks.”
“Copy that,” Lautaro said, watching them wheel Merc into the elevator that went down to the pod depot below his house.
6
Ashlyn DeWinter parked in the front lot at the huge fort where her bestie Summer now lived. For a moment, she had to pause and take in the enormous change in circumstances that her friend had undergone in the past few months.
Instead of working for a rotten boss at a company that didn’t appreciate her or even recognize her strengths, Summer now ran her own landscaping design business out of her fiancé’s home—the fort where Ash was now parked.
Summer stepped through the single door inset in the fort’s huge double-door gate. She smiled and waved at Ash, then came over to exchange hugs.
“I’m so glad you could come out here,” Summer said. The three girls had planned a big sleepover at the fort. Summer was ditching Sam in favor of a girls’ night. It had been a long time since they’d made time for themselves.
Ash carried her armload of notebooks and magazines along with her laptop bag through the entrance to the fort and into the massive kitchen. Summer carried her backpack.
“Should I set things down here in the kitchen?” Ash asked. “Or in the living room? I want to dump everything so I can help you.”
“Living room. And I’m all good here. I’ll just bring our drinks in. Go make yourself comfy.”
Ash went through the kitchen, past the open dining room, and on to the living room. A man was standing by the long bank of windows that overlooked Summer’s garden. The guy had shaggy, dark hair that fell in waves from his face, not quite reaching his shoulders. His eyes looked brown or black. He had more than a hint of a beard. A big guy, he made an imposing presence.
Ash set her stuff down on the coffee table. “Hi. I’m Ash.” She didn’t go over to shake his hand. Honestly, she didn’t want to touch him. Sometimes that caused all kinds of weird images and emotions to blast off in her mind.
The guy looked put off at her. He frowned, glanced behind him, then back at her. “I’m Lautaro.”
Lord, what a sultry voice he had, like warm, melted chocolate over a heated torte. Ash blushed, embarrassed that she was equating him with something so tasty.
“You’re coming to see me in a few weeks, I believe, or so Liege said.”
Liege. That’s right. Sam did have that other name. “Ah. You’re one of Sam’s friends.”
Humor crinkled the corners of Lautaro’s eyes. “Yes. And I own a coffee plantation in Colombia.”
“Oh! Right!” Sam had offered to put her in contact with a few friends he had from a few coffee plantations in Colombia—like Lautaro. Ash pointed over to her stack of materials for planning her trip. “We’re working on finalizing my travel plans today. Sam mentioned your place. I’d love to hear more about it.”
Sam came in from the hallway. He looked from Lautaro to her and frowned. Interacting with an upset Sam wasn’t a fun experience. Ash smiled, trying to relieve the tension that had come into the room with him.
“Howdy.” She smiled at Summer’s fiancé. “Hope you don’t mind Kiera and my stealing Summer this evening. We haven’t had a girls’ night in forever.”
“No, I’m happy to share her. I see you met Lautaro.”
“Yes. I’m looking forward to hearing more about his coffee business. He was the one you’d mentioned as a recommendation, right?”
“He’s one of them.” Sam and Lautaro exchanged a strange and loaded glance, like they had some shared secret she wasn’t privy to.
Summer joined them then with two margaritas. She gasped as she saw Lautaro,
then flashed a look at Ash and back, then sent Sam a confused look.
“I only brought drinks for Ash and me, but I’m happy to make more.”
Sam looked at Lautaro’s bemused expression and laughed. “No, thanks. We don’t want to crash your date.” He went over and gave Summer a sideways hug and a kiss on the forehead. “We’ll stay out of your hair, I promise.”
Summer watched the two men leave, frowning. “I don’t think you were supposed to see him.”
“Lautaro? Why not?”
Summer looked at Ash and blinked. “Um. Because, ah, because Sam wanted him to be a surprise. They wanted to go over what his plantation has to offer tourists. I didn’t know he was going to be here today.”
“Oh. Okay. We’re good, though, right?”
Summer laughed, breaking the momentary tension. “Of course. This is our night. What time is Kiera coming out?”
“I think she had some things she had to tie up first, then she was going to pack a bag and head out.” Ash looked at her phone. No messages. “She should be here soon.” She sipped her drink. “Mmm. Which room were you going to put me in tonight? I want to change real quick. I came straight from the office.” She picked up her backpack.
Summer led her to the hallway door. Sam and his friend Lautaro were long gone. Summer pointed to a room on the second floor across the courtyard.
“Thanks! Be right back!”
Summer felt Sam’s energetic shield expand to include her as it did him and Lautaro in the hallway outside the living room. She slipped into Sam’s arms and looked at his friend. “Ash could see you.” Lautaro was there only in his astral form. Summer could see him, thanks to her recent mutations, but Ash shouldn’t have been able to.
“We were just talking about that,” Sam said. “We can’t explain it.”
“Except that I wasn’t trying to hide myself,” Lautaro said. “I thought everyone here was one of us. Of course, it is difficult for regulars to see astral projections, so Ash really shouldn’t have anyway.”
O-Men: Liege's Legion - Merc Page 5