"Don't you see it?" Ferret asked in consternation.
"Dear God, no!" Gremlin declared.
Lynx shifted, and every hair on his neck and stood on end at the horrifying apparition slithering from tunnel not 50 feet away. He inadvertently gasped and recoiled.
Damballah had arrived.
The Snake God of the bayou.
Primal power incarnate.
Lynx's worst nightmare. He crouched and formed his fingers into rigid claws, growling fiercely, resolved to go out fighting to the last. Fear tried to dominate him, sparked by his dread of all snakes, and he asserted self-control with a supreme exertion of willpower.
The drumming stopped. The chanting too. An expectant, heavy hush descended on the area. The gathered members of the Black Snake Society gaped at their Deity.
Damballah entered the temple slowly. The monstrous reptile drew its entire 40-foot length inside, then slid toward the posts as it had done countless times in the past, its chilling yellow orbs fixed on the creatures it would soon devour.
Lynx had never felt so helpless. The titanic serpent dwarfed him into insignificance; he'd be swallowed in one gulp.
"Oh great Damballah!" Baron Laveau called out. "Hear our prayer.
Accept these tokens for our loyalty and grant us continued good fortune!
Take them! They are yours."
The Snake God crossed to within six feet of the sacrifical posts and halted. Its mighty head rose into the air. Ten feet. Twelve.
Lynx saw the thing looking at him, and trembled.
"Feast on these morsels!" the Baron yelled. "Enjoy the fruits of our labor for you!"
Damballah's head rose ponderously, the great reptile staring at the man in red.
Lynx also glanced upward, wishing he could throttle the Baron's neck, peeved at the idea of being killed without a chance of retribution, and because he was the only person in the whole temple to be gazing in that direction, because everyone else had eyes only for the snake, he alone saw it, he alone witnessed the giant rising from concealment behind the bleachers at the very top, he alone observed the herculean seven-foot-tall figure race down the aisle to the right of the Baron. He alone saw the cyclopean makeshift spear clenched in the giant's brawny hands, a spear ten feet in length and six inches in diameter, fashioned from the limb of an oak, sharpened to a point by the Bowies the giant always carried.
Blade was there!
Tensing in anticipation, Lynx watched as Blade came to the end of the aisle near the Baron. He expected the giant to hurl the spear. Instead, in awe and wonderment, he saw Blade place a combat boot on the very edge and vault into the air, leaping high and wide.
The giant's momentum and bulging muscles served him in good stead.
He arced up and over Damballah's head, and at the apex of his leap, at the very instant he hung in the air over the serpent's eyes, he bent in half and swung the spear with all the force in his arms and shoulders, driving the point into the snake's flesh, penetrating to half the length of the spear, and held on tight.
For a heartbeat nothing happened.
Suddenly the Snake God exploded into action. Damballah's mouth opened wide and it hissed louder than a thousand cottonmouths. Its body convulsed, and its head shot even higher and thrashed wildly.
Blade clung to the spear in desperation, his arms and legs wrapped around the shaft.
Majesta screamed.
The black snake rose almost 20 feet, half of its span suspended above the posts, and then it crashed down, falling between Lynx and Ferret, a full third of its body smashing over the rim and onto the bleachers, onto the Baron and the women with him, crushing them.
Blade let go of the spear and jumped. He landed to the right of the serpent, took hold of the top of the smooth wall, and swung down to the arena.
Above him pandemonium erupted. Damballah continued to convulse in a violent paroxysm of monumental proportions, bearing to the left on the bleachers, sliding over tonton macoutes or battering them aside with its blunt head. Screeches of anguish and terror filled the temple. Panic spread like wildfire, and those men in black who could do so, fled. But the majority never made it out. Limp, broken bodies lay everywhere.
Damballah slid onward, making a mindless circuit of the arena, moving slower and slower. In less than a minute the Snake God had devastated those who worshipped it, and the destruction didn't stop until Damballah plowed into the Sacred Drum and sounded the resounding beat for the final time. The serpent sagged, its head jutting from the ruptured skin, and expired.
Blade ran to the posts and stopped next to the cat-man. "This is the last time I bring you guys on a mission," he stated.
Staggered by the snake's demise, by the havoc, by his own close call, Lynx looked at the giant in confusion. "What? What did you say?"
"I'm not bringing you bozos on another run."
"Why not?" Lynx asked absently, gazing at Damballah.
A grin creased the giant's mourn. "Because here I am doing all the work while you three just hang around."
"Has anyone ever told you that you have a pitiful sense of humor?"
Epilogue
"So what the hell are we doing back here?" Lynx snapped, squinting up at the noon sun. "Unfinished business," Blade said.
"Gremlin thought we had everything wrapped up, yes?" The humanoid commented.
"Yeah," Ferret chimed in. "The tonton macoutes who survived have all fled to parts unknown. We freed all the prisoners held in that damn tower, and helped them break into the storehouse so they could arm themselves.
That guy Jerry seems like he knows his business. He'll make a new leader of the Resistance."
"Not that they need a Resistance anymore, no," Gremlin mentioned.
"All I care about is that Eleanore is doing okay," Lynx said. "A couple of days in bed and more food will have her on her feet in no time."
Blade nodded. "All in all, a job well done. The people of New Orleans are free at last." Lynx looked over his left shoulder at the temple, 40 yards to the southwest, and thought of the rotting carcass inside.
"I repeat. What the hell are we doing here?"
The giant was walking up a low mound. He halted on the crest and pointed. "We must dispose of them."
"Of what?" Lynx snapped testily, then stopped, astounded.
An immense circular depression lay on the other side, formed in the soft grass by the weight of a great body. Lying in the center of the nest were eighteen white eggs, each one a yard in length.
"I found this when I was out searching for a suitable branch to use as a spear," Blade related.
"Then this means Damballah was a she, yes?" Gremlin queried.
"Maybe. Maybe not," Blade replied.
"It means there's another one of those things out there somewhere,"
Ferret said, staring out over the bayou.
"And it's not our worry," Blade stated. "We've already proven Damballah wasn't a god. Jerry, Eleanore, and the rest will have to exterminate the mate if it ever shows up."
Lynx gestured at the nest. "Look. Can we get this over with and take off?"
"Something bothering you?" Ferret asked.
"Not a thing," Lynx answered, a tad nervously. "All the loose ends have been wrapped up."
Blade drew his Bowies, "Then let's get to it."
"Wait a minute," Lynx said.
"What?"
"There is one item I need cleared up. Have any of you guys ever heard about these geek octopuses—"
New Orleans Run Page 17