“Yes, the ceremony has begun. The Master will be pleased,” rasped the commander in an accent I couldn’t place.
“The time is right for the King’s return,” said the lieutenant.
What were these guys talking about? The only king these days is the one in England, and I doubt he is here. The two men continued to talk, but the drone kept moving toward the garage. And then it died.
“Arazi, what happened?” I asked.
“I don’t know sir, there was no warnings coming from the drone, it just dropped.”
“Okay, what about drone two?”
“It is still up, I am trying to get a look through one of the windows on the upper floor, the one with the yellow glow coming from it.”
“Roger, I am having trouble linking it to my HUD, can anyone else bring it up?”
There was a round of negatives, and Arazi wasn’t sure what the problem was. He began to fixedly stare at his pad, and from where I was positioned, all I could see was that the screen had turned yellow, but I couldn’t make out anything on it.
“Arazi, what do you see? Arazi! Arazi! Arazi?”
I tried to get his attention, but he just clutched the glowing pad, bringing it closer to his face.
“Carcosa,” he breathed out in a whisper.
“What?” asked SFC Tooley. “Arazi what did you say?”
To my horror, I watched as tears began to roll down Corporal Arazi’s face, which took on a terrified aspect. As he began to scream, Tooley, who was closest, reached over and grabbed the corporal. Tooley was able to get his hand over Arazi’s mouth, but I could see the commotion had garnered the attention of at least two of the guards down in front of the villa.
“Take them,” I commanded.
Two muffled shots later, and both of the gate guards were down. Tooley and Ferrer managed to hold down Arazi, as the team medic, Sergeant Clifford, slapped a syringe into Arazi, and the corporal went limp. In the commotion, the pad that displayed the drone feed had been broken.
“What they hell happened to him, sir?” asked Clifford.
“I don’t know; he was looking at the pad when he freaked. I can’t explain it. But we don’t have time to figure that out. Sergeant Jones, stay with Arazi and establish the extraction point. The rest of us, strike plan delta, go! Go! GO!”
My team flowed down the ridgeline, all except Jones and the incapacitated Arazi. With surprise mostly blown, we only had speed and violence of action to push us through this. My lead shooters, Ferrer and Massa, took down the guards that had come around the corner of the villa’s outer wall in response to the gate guards going off the air. Neither of the guards knew what hit them. I was surprised they hadn’t turned on the flood-lights; surely the guards were fully alerted to our presence.
We made it to the wall and stacked to either side of the gate, making sure not to hug the wall too closely. Even team had point, and on the command of the team leader, SFC Tooley, the point man went through the gate, followed closely by four other team members. The two even team cat specialists, SSG Jenkins and SFC Anthony, held back with SGT Muhler from my team joining them. I wanted the cat specialists concentrated for the moment since the cats weren’t acting right. My odd team followed the even team through the gate with the cat specialists bringing up the rear.
There had only been two other guards in the courtyard when even team came through the gate, and both were down. Pools of blood expanded from where they had fallen.
“Tooley, head toward the left side entrance, I am going to take my team through the garage.”
“Roger boss.”
Before either of us could execute, Brutus let out a challenging scream, joined by Pixie and then Babou. It startled all of us into a momentary pause, and the garage doors exploded outward in a hail of splinters. The courtyard was perhaps a hundred feet from the gate to the house, and three hundred feet wide. The garage was attached to the right side of the house, connected to the gate by a well-paved driveway. We went to ground as three…things raced out of the garage.
I could only form an impression of gnashing teeth, flashing antlers, and legs that didn’t move right. A heavy musk smell preceded them, and it was overwhelming.
I—and everyone else—opened fire on the creatures. A mixture of rifle and machine gun fire washed across the charging things—to no discernible effect. No, scratch that, it made them angrier.
“What the hell are those?” someone screamed. One of the beasts reached Ferrer and lowered its huge head, driving its pointed antlers into Ferrer’s chest and heaving him off the ground. Ferrer shrieked in terror and agony while the beast bellowed at us in challenge. Ferrer desperately tried to pull himself off the antlers until the beast shook its head, tossing him ten yards or more. Sergeant Clifford stopped shooting and raced over to his limp body. The other two nightmares flanked the first, each adding their own dissonant howl, and the right one charged Cochran. She emptied her magazine into the creature’s face—to no effect—and it slapped her aside, tossing her 10 feet to the left. The creature continued its charge until it reached down and grabbed SSgt Massa. Massa wasn’t a small guy, standing at over six feet tall, a broad-chested bodybuilder type, but the creature handled him like he was a rag doll. It ripped Massa’s right arm off at the shoulder joint, which should have been impossible given the carbon and graphene enhancements. Massa shrieked in agony until the creature sank its maw into Massa’s neck and bit his head clean off.
“Oh my God, what are those things?” Jenkins screamed.
Her scream caught the attention of one of the beasts; it lined up on her and charged. To her credit she didn’t freeze, but instead leaped out of the creature’s way and back 12 feet. Pixie had followed her, and the cat yowled a war cry of her own as the beast reoriented on SSG Jenkins’ new position. As it continued the charge, a low sleek shape took the creature in the side, knocking it to the ground. Brutus let out a howl of triumph as he sank his fangs into the right haunch of the beast. SFC Anthony moved up, firing as he came with his 6.5mm rifle. The creature tried to rise up, but Brutus tore a great big chunk out of its right leg, severing muscles and tendons. The creature screamed in agony for a change, and Pixie attacked. The two cats slashed and bit at the thing as both Anthony and Jenkins unloaded their magazines—once again—into its tough hide.
“Why won’t you die?” Anthony screamed as he kicked it viciously in the spine. Something popped loudly, and the lower half of the monster went limp.
“Why don’t bullets hurt it, but physical attacks do?” cried Jenkins.
No one had time to answer her, as we had the other two to deal with. Seeing my rifle was useless, I pulled out my knife. This was no tactical folder, but instead a fixed blade that doubled as a short machete. I had never really used it as a weapon until now. The beast was distracted, having forced Sergeant Cochran to the ground. It didn’t seem to be trying to eat her, but...something else. I didn’t really want to think about the implications of what I was seeing. Instead, I leapt forward and plunged my blade into the base of its skull. It sank into the creature’s flesh and I could feel it scrape across bone. The beast let loose a furious bellow and backhanded me with its antlers as it turned. I sailed through the air, landing like a sack of potatoes. I didn’t see it, but my distraction gave Cochran enough time to roll out from under the creature as it reared back. She saw where my knife was stuck in the creature and she jumped at it, putting all of her considerable strength behind the blade. It must have found the sweet spot, for the creature’s breath exploded out of it, and it collapsed, lifeless.
I rose up in time to see the three cats acting in concert take down the third beast, and then my troops fell upon it, blades flashed, and it too died. I felt my chest around the area that the beast had hit me, and I could see where it had cracked my combat suit. I could also feel a grinding pain in my ribs and knew something wasn’t right there. My body would heal them at a much faster pace than a normal person would, but broken ribs still suck. I fiddled with my medic
al panel for a minute and relief washed over me as a pain reliever was dumped into my system.
“Teams, report,” I commanded. I put a boot on the back of the dead thing’s shoulder blades, took my machete in one hand, and the antlers in the other. By forcing the antlers up and away, I was able to rip my blade free from the base of its skull.
“Even team, Ferrer is in bad shape, multiple chest punctures, and at least one collapsed lung. He has lost a lot of blood as well, but Sergeant Clifford has stabilized him for now,” reported SFC Tooley.
“Staff Sergeant Massa is dead, and I am covered in monster slime,” said Cochran in a shaky voice. “Everyone else is good.”
“Roger, Clifford and Romero, get Ferrer back to Jones, then double time back here. I have no idea what those things are, but there are a bunch of kids here, and I am not going to leave them in the clutches of a group that keeps things like that around.”
The teams looked spooked, but they all nodded, and the cats at least looked a little more at ease.
“So...what now, sir?” asked Tooley.
“We aren’t splitting up; we go in together through that front door. If it presents as any kind of threat, we kill it. Cochran can you raise higher and see if we can appraise them of the situation?”
“Sorry sir, but all my outside comms are down. All I get is static. Been like that since the moment Arazi went nuts.”
“Riiiight,” I drawled out.
The air, which had seemed so charged with electricity while we fought the beasts, became suddenly still. The whole team picked up on it, and from back at the collection point we could hear Arazi begin to rave again. That shouldn’t have been possible with the drugs Clifford had given him.
“Fuck this,” I said in a heated tone, “let’s get this done and get the fuck out of here. Romero, take point on that door; the rest go in with the cats once again bringing up the rear.”
I took my place in the center of the stack as we breached the front door. Upon entering the large front hall, I could see that the interior was decorated in a romanticized Victorian fashion, which is to say, it was cluttered with faux-old stuff. The front hall had four rooms adjoining it and a grand staircase ascending to the second floor. It appeared to run the full length from front to back of the house. There was no movement in the hall, nor any real noises other than us. Troops broke off to cover the four open doors, while others covered the staircase and upper landing from the ground floor. Pixie and Babou, at the direction of their handlers, split off and went into the two front rooms, while Brutus stood in the center of the hallway with his handler, ready to go in any direction. We quickly cleared the ground floor and discovered a second stairwell leading down into a basement.
“Which way boss, up or down?” asked Tooley.
“We go up, all the noise is coming from up there. Once we clear the second floor we can come back down and clear the basement.”
“Roger that, alright boys and girls, you heard the man. Stack on the stairwell.”
We didn’t bother with stealth at this point, everyone had to know we were here. I was growing more agitated at the lack of response from the occupants, and I didn’t want to give them any more time for whatever it was that was more important than responding to a commando raid. We moved up the stairs at a fast pace and spread out upon topping the landing. Again, there were four doors, two per side, with a door at the back of the upper hall that appeared to lead to the third wing of the house. Noises that sounded a lot like chanting and screaming were coming from the doors on the right side of the hall. I didn’t bother with the left side, but instead we went through the front right door.
“Holy shit,” I breathed out, having stopped dead in my tracks. My team had gone through the door, but something was affecting our judgement, and rather than going through our well-oiled entry drills, we piled through the doorway in a mob. I tripped over Romero when he drew up short, not letting us through, and then I froze too.
Spread out before us was a group of perhaps twenty people. All of them were clad in yellow robes, and they faced an...altar at the front of the room. A young girl, naked, was held down by two big men flanking the altar, while an older woman carved intricate patterns into the girl’s chest with a vicious dagger the length of my forearm. The girl was screaming in both agony and terror. The room was lit up in this sickly yellow light, which made me nauseous just to stand in. But it was what was behind the altar that stopped us in our tracks. A grotesque figure in yellow, that even now I can’t describe, but perched upon his head was a nightmarish crown.
“Too much, it’s too much!” shrieked out Corporal Romero. The trooper toppled to the floor, vomiting, twitching as though in a seizure. The...thing at the back was aware of us now, and it had locked eyes on my downed soldier.
It was Brutus who broke the spell. The cougar leaped at the nearest cultists, yowling his battle cry. He dragged down the first shrieking cultist. Brutus tore her apart before the other cultists started to react. All of them lifted daggers, identical to the one that the “priestess” was using at the altar. As if with one will, they attacked en masse in a deathly silence that was only punctuated by the chanting of the priestess and shrieks of the girl.
I opened fire at the cultist nearest to me, and just like outside, my rounds had no effect. The others in the team discovered that their guns were equally useless. But they had been forewarned by the fight with the beasts outside, and my men and women pulled their blades—fighting knives and tomahawks—and went to work. The fight was vicious, and I watched as three cultists dragged down Alexander with supernatural strength. It should have been impossible; there was no way they should have been able to force him down, but they did. The knives rose and fell, each time more stained with gore, but there was nothing I could do for him as I had to deal with the cultists attacking me. Gripping my rifle in one hand, I leveraged it against my single-point sling so as to wield it like a club. This allowed me to block the first cultist with my rifle while I snapped my machete free of its scabbard and stabbed the second cultist through the eye. The man cackled madly even as the blade drove home, until I could feel it hit the back of the man’s skull and punch out the back. I jerked the blade free, and the cultist dropped as if he were a puppet whose strings had been cut. With him out of the way, the other two cultists attacked simultaneously, and I had to back up and away from them, while using my rifle and knife to parry the swings of their daggers. SFC Anthony stepped in behind them and swung a deadly looking tomahawk into the back of the neck of the woman on the left, taking her head clean off. That gave me a chance to hack down the last cultist.
The cats weren’t idle either. An ocelot normally wouldn’t be able to take down an adult human, but there wasn’t anything normal about Pixie or Babou. Both of them turned into whirling dervishes, slashing vulnerable tendons and hamstrings, while Brutus grabbed a cultist and mauled the bastard. We were all bleeding from one wound or another by the time the last of the yellow-clad madmen dropped. With each death, the hideous King appeared to wane a little bit, until he was nothing more than a shadow behind the altar. The priestess had stopped carving her malefic sigils on the girl’s flesh and seemed to be pleading with the Shadow King, while her two assistants moved toward us with murderous purpose.
I was tired and had been stabbed and beaten; I had no desire to fight these two as well. I pulled my sidearm, a 10mm pistol, and shot the first man. The other assistant stopped in his tracks and looked at his dead companion, and then back at me. I shot him as well, but this time three inches below his belly button. It occurred to me that not two minutes ago, our bullets were having no effect. This change of events was as much a surprise to him as me—apparently—because the man folded up and hit the floor sobbing in agony. There was mocking, cruel, laughter from the shadowed Yellow King, and the priestess turned back toward us.
“My Lord, why do you abandon us?” she cried out plaintively.
“I do not...reward...failure!” it hissed back at her.
I walked up to the altar and looked down at the ruin of a child lying on it. The girl was mewling in agony, and had lost a lot of blood. Before I could say anything, Sgt Clifford was at my side, his aid bag already open. Seeing that the girl was in good hands, I looked back at the diminished priestess, whom I belatedly realized I recognized.
“Madame Secretary,” I snarled.
She looked up at me, tears running down her face.
“You’re...American military?”
“Yes,” I stated simply.
“I command you to stand down. Do you know who I am, who I am connected too?”
“Yes, ma’am I do.”
I shot her through the face.
* * *
Now
Undisclosed Military Installation
“…you might as well join us.”
Wallen, the weasely little shit, stalked into the small conference room. The smell of fear poured off both of these two, and it was beginning to give me a headache.
“Major, you decided to be judge, jury, and executioner, and in the process killed the highest-ranking cabinet level secretary in the country. Care to explain yourself?” asked the under-secretary.
“As I said, sir, your boss shouldn’t have been carving up a girl in offering to whatever the hell that was.”
“We think it was an Old One,” Wallen said, in all seriousness.
Both the under-secretary and I turned to stare at him.
“A…what?” exclaimed the under-secretary.
“An Old One. Your boss was dealing in some really arcane shit, man, and it cost her life.”
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