New Orleans Run

by David Robbins

  The minutes dragged by as the trio hiked onward. Overhead the afternoon sun arced steadily toward the west horizon.

  "You know, I don't like the idea of being out here after dark," Ferret remarked. "I hope we find a safe place to stay for the night."

  "We can always climb a tree, no?" Gremlin said.

  "No," Ferret replied. "For all we know there could be humongous caterpillars crawling around up there."

  The humanoid chuckled. "Ferret has a great sense of humor, yes?"

  "I wish."

  Blade abruptly halted and motioned for silence. He crouched, then moved ahead until he reached a cypress tree. Exercising supreme care, he peered around the trunk and spied the cabin approximately one hundred yards away.

  Over two dozen members of me Black Snake Society were gathered around the structure.

  Blade saw a powerfully built man in black addressing the other tonton macoutes. Was that the man Pétion had referred to, the man he'd called the Baron? Was the Baron even the head of the sect? He sensed rather than heard, the hybrids join him.

  "What's going on?" Ferret whispered.

  "It looks like they've called off the hunt for us," Blade said softly. "But why? One of their own is missing, no?" Gremlin mentioned.

  Blade had no answer to that one. He watched as the magicians, as Pétion had called them, formed into a single file and marched to the east.

  "They're leaving," Ferret exclaimed. "See? Even they don't want to be out here after dark."

  "They could have a camp near here, yes?" Gremlin noted.

  "Don't you get tired of looking at the bright side all the time?" Ferret asked.

  "Shut your faces," Blade directed. He straightened, keeping his body flush with the trees, and thoughtfully observed the departure of the tonton macoutes. The notion of sending one of the hybrids to follow the men in black appealed to him, but after losing Lynx, and with night fast approaching, he didn't want to become separated from the other two.

  After the final man in line had vanished in the distance, he stepped into the open. "To the cabin."

  "May I talk, no?" Gremlin inquired.

  "Go ahead."

  "Shouldn't one of us go to New Orleans, yes? You can go and Ferret and Gremlin will wait here for Lynx."

  "The three of us will venture to New Orleans in the morning whether Lynx shows up or not," Blade informed them. "I thought Warriors never abandon other Warriors." Ferret said.

  "They don't," Blade agreed. "But has it ever occurred to you that Lynx might be in their hands and already on his way to the city?"

  "But what if he's not, no?" Gremlin asked, sounding worried. "How will Lynx know where to find us, yes?"

  "If he doesn't show up, we'll leave him a note. I have paper in my backpack," Blade said.

  The rest of the distance to the cabin was covered in silence. As before, the cabin door stood wide open.

  Blade made for the entrance. Perhaps—just perhaps—the tonton macoutes had left a clue behind that would prove helpful. The possibility was remote, but he had to check. He advanced to the doorway, then looked back. "Keep your eyes peeled. Stay alert."

  "I'm always alert when there's the chance I might be jumped by a man-eating snake or caterpillar," Ferret cracked.

  Blade grinned and lifted his right leg to go inside.

  That was when the burly form in black materialized in front of him and jammed a submachine gun barrel into his ribs.

  Chapter Ten

  The wild boar rushed toward them like a great, hairy battering ram.

  There was no time to flee and nowhere to run if they could. Without an avenue of escape, Lynx had a single option: to fight. Which suited him just fine. He was tired of running anyway.

  Eleanore screamed.

  Lynx shoved her to the ground and shouted, "Don't move!" Then he skipped to the left a foot, causing the boar to angle at him and ignore the woman. He had barely braced himself for the onslaught when the beast was on him.

  The boar's tusks stabbed at the hybrid's chest.

  Lynx dodged to the left, but his delayed reaction cost him dearly. The tusks clipped his torso, gouging a slim furrow in his ribs, and the impact sent him sailing ten feet to crash onto his back in the weeds.

  Displaying remarkable agility, the wild boar stopped, wheeled, and charged once more.

  Furious at being struck and aggravated by the pain, Lynx pushed to his feet and tensed his legs. Not this time, sucker! he thought, and curled his fingers into claws. A peculiar trilling sound issued from his lips, a sound he made when either perplexed or enraged. At the moment he wasn't perplexed.

  The boar's hoofs were drumming on the earth, and it was grunting its displeasure at having intruders invade its domain, its elemental savagery dictating that it tear, rend, destroy. With its ears flattened and its typically uncoiled tail straight out, the living tank homed in for the kill.

  This time Lynx was prepared. He waited until the boar had closed to within a yard, then leaped high into the air, his feline sinews carrying him clear over the boar's head and shoulders. In midair he twisted and came down, landing on the beast's back. Instantly he tore into the swine, ripping and slashing with sharp nails that resembled, genuine claws but weren't retractable. The boar's tough hide resisted his first few swipes, but in a moment he penetrated to the softer flesh underneath and really went to work.

  Eleanore DeCoud witnessed the battle in stupefied bewilderment. Lying propped on her elbows, she was too astonished to move. When the boar initially sprang at them, she'd expected to die. No one, not even someone endowed with Lynx's obviously superior strength, could hope to best a wild boar in one-on-one combat. Or so she believed.

  But the hybrid was doing his best to prove her wrong.

  Lynx bared his pointed teeth, reveling in the opportunity to give his animal nature free rein, and buried his nails several inches in the boar's muscular tissue.

  The beast ran in a zigzag pattern, whipping its body from side to side, striving to dislodge the bantam hybrid causing it such torment. Sensing that its tactics were of no avail, the boar instinctively decided to try a maneuver that worked for removing troublesome burrs from its coat and alleviating a bothersome itch. It ran straight for the forest and the nearest tree.

  Absorbed in slicing and dicing the swine's back, Lynx didn't realize the new danger until he dimly realized that someone was yelling his name. He glanced up, startled to behold an oak tree not six feet away, and he began to vault to safety.

  Too late.

  A low-hanging limb appeared out of nowhere and caught Lynx in the chest, knocking the breath from his lungs and lifting him from the wild boar. He fell, stunned, and felt his left side strike the earth. In the recesses of his mind his own consciousness shrieked at him to get up, to get out of the way, because at any second the boar would come back for round two.

  It did.

  Lynx heard the hoofbeats first and swung his head to the west. The beast was streaking toward him, its beady eyes radiating hatred, its back and sides coated with a spreading crimson stain. Lynx rolled frantically to the north, and it seemed as if an earthquake rattled the ground as the boar thundered past.

  Get up!

  Inhaling raggedly, his chest in exquisite agony, Lynx stood and staggered, feeling woozy, disoriented, and he shook his head to clear the mental cobwebs.

  The wild boar was already racing toward him again.

  Lynx backed up, stumbling, almost going down, until he bumped into something hard. His eyes on the beast, he reached behind him and brushed his palm against the trunk of the oak.

  The tree!

  A crazy idea blossomed in his pain-racked brain, a means of turning the tables on his incensed adversary if only he could muster the strength.

  The boar was 20 feet away, its driving hoofs throwing up clods of dirt, its head lowered in anticipation of goring the feline with its tusks.

  Come and get me! Lynx thought, and focused on the beast's snout.

  Timing wou
ld be everything. If he misjudged the distance, if he miscalculated by a hairsbreadth, he was as good as dead. Those tusks would disembowel him as easily as one of Blade's bowies could carve up a melon.

  Only ten feet separated the hybrid and the boar.

  "Lynx! Look out!" Eleanore DeCoud shouted.

  What? Did she think he didn't see it? Lynx would have laughed, but there was no time left for anything except putting his plan into effect He took a deep breath, waited until the absolutely last instant, waited until those pointed tusks were spearing toward his midsection, and sprang straight up, leaping for a branch close at hand.

  The boar couldn't stop.

  Lynx looked down and saw the beast's head slam into the trunk with titanic force. The entire tree swayed, and the branch he clasped bobbed as if in a strong wind.

  Stunned, the boar slumped, its front legs buckling.

  "My turn!" Lynx hissed, and let go of the limb. He dropped onto the boar, angling his fall to land astride the animal's front shoulders, and before the boar could rise he bent forward and sank his nails into the swine's neck.

  The boar squealed and struggled to stand.

  A frenzy seized Lynx, an uncontrollable impulse to rend and rip, and rend and rip he did, concentrating his energy on the boar's throat, slashing flesh and severing veins and arteries, his hands a blur, his arms coated with crimson and gore up to the elbows.

  Blood gushed from the beast's neck in red torrents, spraying the grass and soaking the ground. The boar thrashed and tried once again to regain its footing, but it slipped in its own life fluid and fell.

  Lynx kept tearing at his foe. Both sides of the beast's neck were thin ribbons. He tore a chunk of tissue free and drove his nails even deeper.

  The boar's movements became weaker and weaker. It sluggishly lifted its head and thrashed, grunting feebly.

  Die! Die! Die! Lynx screamed in his mind. He was winning and he wasn't about to stop for anything. His nails tore and shredded tirelessly.

  The boar's head lay on the earth, yet he had no intention of stopping. His shoulders began to ache, but he continued. Cutting, always cutting, until a hand touched his shoulder and a voice spoke gently in his ear.

  "Lynx! You can stop! The thing is dead!"

  Dead? The word registered through the scarlet haze enveloping Lynx's consciousness and he paused, breathing deeply. "What?" he blurted out, the word seeming to echo hollowly as if spoken by someone else at a great distance.

  "The boar is dead," Eleanor repeated.

  Lynx blinked and stared at the ravaged carcass underneath him, at the strips of dangling flesh and the exposed spine. "Oh."

  "Are you okay?"

  "Fine," Lynx mumbled. "Just peachy." He slid from the swine and straightened slowly. His chest felt like he'd just been run over by a military convoy truck.

  "Are you sure?"

  "Quit naggin' me, woman," Lynx said. He shuffled to the north and sat down on a log, suddenly overcome with a pervading weariness, his arms and legs leaden.

  "I just asked," Eleanore stated testily.

  "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings," Lynx told her. He touched his chest where the branch had struck him and flinched.

  Eleanore came right over. "Are any bones broken?"

  "Don't think so," Lynx replied. "Just hurts like hell." He looked up at her, surprised at the genuine concern reflected on her features, and felt a shade guilty at the gruff treatment he'd dispensed since capturing her.

  "You were magnificent. I've never seen anyone do what you did."

  "I didn't have much choice," Lynx reminded her. "It was either Ugly or me. And my wife would be ticked off if I went and got myself killed by an overgrown pig."

  "Can I get you something? Do you need some water?" Eleanore inquired.

  Lynx almost said yes. He was terribly thirsty. But he envisioned her going near the swamp and being jumped by one of those big gators. "No,"

  he answered hoarsely. "I'm fine."

  "I don't mind getting some."

  "No," Lynx reiterated sternly, then softened when he saw her frown.

  "Thanks anyway."

  "Anytime."

  Lynx placed his hands on the rough log and leaned back to study her intently. "You know, I guess I was wrong about you."

  "How so?"

  "I think I can trust you."

  Eleanore smiled. "Thank you. I'm really not one of the bad guys."

  "Then you'd better figure out who is."

  "What?"

  "Who else knows about the shortwave radio and the cabin?"

  "Only a few people," Eleanore said, her forehead creased, contemplating the significance of his remarks. "Surely you're not suggesting that someone in the Resistance is a traitor?"

  "I'm not suggesting nothin'. I'm flat out tellin' you that you've got a snitch in your organization."

  "Impossible."

  "Then how'd those voodoo bozos know where to find you?"

  Eleanore's lips compressed. She had no answer for that one.

  "Think about it," Lynx advised, and looked down at the tissue, hair, and blood caking his arms. "What a mess. They sure don't make wild boars like they used to."

  "You've done that before, haven't you?"

  "Nope. I've never tangled with a boar before."

  "That's not what I meant and you know it," Eleanore stated. "You've torn things apart with your bare hands before.."

  "Once or twice." Lynx gazed at her. "Why?"

  "I figured as much."

  "Why? Because I threatened to rip your throat apart earlier?"

  "No. Because of the look on your face as you were fighting about it?"

  Eleanore's voice lowered when she answered. "You looked as if you were enjoying yourself, I mean thoroughly enjoying yourself. Am I right?"

  "It was the most fun I've had in ages."

  "You call nearly being gored fun?"

  Lynx shrugged, then grimaced at the discomfort the simple motion caused. "Beats playin' a dull game of checkers."

  "I'll never understand you."

  "There's not a whole lot to understand. I was created in a laboratory by a madman who brought me into existence for one reason and one reason only."

  "Which was?"

  "To kill."

  "Oh."

  An uncomfortable silence descended for all of ten seconds.

  "Well, we'd best get our butts in gear," Lynx proposed, and stood.

  "Are you certain you're up to it? You took quite a beating," Eleanore said.

  "I'm no wimp, lady. A little tussle like that hardly fazes me."

  "Then why are you gritting your teeth and holding your side?"

  "Constipation," Lynx declared.

  "I vote we rest until you've recovered."

  "This ain't no democracy."

  "Okay. Then how's this for a reason, smart guy," Eleanore snapped.

  "Wild boars don't usually travel alone."

  "They don't?"

  "No, genius. Even the males will band together in small groups for mutual protection."

  Lynx scanned the finest, probing the shadows. "Then there could be more around."

  "Your wife must have married you for your intellect," Eleanore cracked.

  "Okay. Don't get personal. We'll rest for a while," Lynx stated. "Fifteen minutes, maximum."

  "Whatever you say."

  Lynx sat back down, relieved at the opportunity to rest. Truth to tell, he felt like crap. A few minutes of recuperation would do him a world of good. He glanced up at Eleanore and saw her gazing in fearful astonishment over his head at something to the north. Another wild boar!

  Lynx deduced, and twisted.

  Only it wasn't another boar.

  Thirty feet away, a rifle pressed to his right shoulder, stood one of the men in black.

  Chapter Eleven

  "If you so much as twitch, monsieur, you are dead," the burly man stated.

  Blade froze. Even his lightning reflexes wouldn't enable him to evade a bullet at point
-blank range. He defiantly returned the hostile stare of the tonton macoute, his right leg suspended in midair. Ferret and Gremlin apparently tried to bring their weapons into play, because the burly man in black barked a warning.

  "Try anything and your big friend is fish bait! Comprenez-vous? Do you understand?"

  A few tense moments went by.

  "Yeah, we understand, scumsucker," Ferret snapped.

  "Then you will lower your assault rifles to the ground and raise your hands."

  Blade heard the dull clatter as the pair of AR-15's fell to the turf.

  "You are sensible… things," the man said, smirking. He puckered his thick lips and vented a piercing whistle.

  "Calling the other dogs?" Blade baited him.

  "Your insults are wasted on me, monsieur. Save your breath," the man stated, and repeated the whistle.

  Footsteps sounded, coming around both sides of the cabin.

  Out of the corners of his eyes Blade glimpsed more members of the voodoo sect coming to their companion's aid. He chided himself for being the champion idiot of the Western Hemisphere. How could he have blundered into their trap so easily? He must be slipping.

  "I'll be damned!" a newcomer declared. "Now I owe that strutting peacock Francois an apology. His plan worked."

  Blade tensed when hands and arms came into view and disarmed him, taking the Thompson and both Bowies. His backpack was also removed.

  Once all the giant's weapons were taken, the man in the doorway grinned. "You can set your leg down now and step back."

  Frowning at his stupidity, Blade moved rearward a few feet and turned.

  Six tonton macoutes had their guns trained on the hybrids. One of the men in black had the Thompson over a shoulder. Another man, the one nearest to Blade, the one with the Bowies tucked under his belt, the same one who had made the comment about the peacock, grinned at the Warrior.

  "Hey, man. Do you have any idea how embarrassed I will be?"