by D Krauss
Pause. Lucifer bent down, “What?”
Stupid. And perfect. The Neolithic ancestor was right.
“Can a god die?” John looked up as he asked it, Ankh’s Oakleys a few inches away, and then moved like water, flowing and supple, snaking up Ankh’s arm with the same lightning that had taken John’s ear. Rawbone and Xena stood frozen. They anticipated John making a break for it. They never thought he’d go right for Ankh.
Surprise.
Reacting, Ankh made sudden resistance at the wrist. Good. John’s years of hapkido reverse-arm training kicked in, muscle memory roaring back. John knew, just knew, at what point resistance became advantage, and that was right now. He twisted around the fulcrum of Ankh’s wrist and was suddenly behind him, bringing Ankh’s arm back as he moved.
Ankh was very fast, testament to his reflexes, and tried to counter against the pressure but that only helped John sweep, in one continuous motion, the tanto out of Ankh’s hand, grasp it with the blade reversed, reach over Ankh’s shoulder and strike hard. A little lower than he wanted, but no matter.
The Japanese have a different philosophy concerning cuts; they go from the inside out. John had always liked that. The tanto entered just above Ankh’s left hip, about where the soft part of the belly met the pelvis, and John drove it to the hilt. He pulled back hard and fast, ripping the tanto up towards Ankh’s right shoulder and cut out just below the ribcage. He then hammered the blade home just above Ankh’s heart while bracing his other hand behind Ankh’s neck. All in less than two seconds.
John stepped around Ankh’s shoulder to view the results. He eyed Rawbone and Xena but all they did was stare, completely astonished. Excellent. A little time to savor the moment, and John fixed on Ankh.
A Japanese cut done right first shocks then kills and yes, there it was, deep, deep shock transfixing Ankh’s beautiful face. He didn’t feel the pain yet, just the surprise and consternation: Ankh couldn’t believe it. He was a god, invincible, and this vanquished pipsqueak pathetic middle-aged piece of police crap has just done what? Where did John get the temerity to even raise a hand? Oh sure, kill Ankh’s minions by the dozens, but not him, the untouchable, the unapproachable, inheritor of all things dark, unassailable.
Yet, assailed.
Ankh tried to step back but John still held his neck. There was a warm liquid rush down John’s legs and he shifted out of the waterfall of black blood and offal cascading from Ankh’s stomach. Waddya know, disembowelment. Ankh’s lips formed a frothy bloody bubble as he stared at his own Niagara, managing one word, “Oh.”
John pushed him away. The firelight was beautiful now, revealing everything, the tanto stuck in Ankh’s chest, his intestines and stomach pouring out. He looked at John and his mouth worked but a gout of blood chunked there, obscuring what he wanted to say. Must have gotten a lung, too.
John stood tall and clear because he wanted Ankh to see, take one last mental picture with him on that black journey down to his wretched master. You looking, you craphead? Good. Then remember this: and John smiled at him.
A collective gasp took the crowd as Ankh dissolved into sausage. Impossible. He was omnipotent, invulnerable. No doubt he’d miraculously escaped death a few times while consolidating power – some rival’s blade got caught in his sleeve, a bullet ricocheted off a piece of metal in his shirt, that kind of thing. With the proper encouragement, those events morphed into the supernatural and the minions bought the whole “I am god” line, turning Spike into that Flagg character from The Stand. So they were just blown off their feet. Like Xena and Rawbone. Hmm. John should probably take advantage of that, even though it was quite delightful watching Ankh die.
Move. Now.
John swept up the .25 and cycled it as he spun into the Weaver, seeking a target. Shoot something, anything. And that would be Rawbone, who had finally come alive and was focused full on John, hate blazing his eyes and an ornately carved walking stick raised over his head.
So that’s what hit John across the knees. Two shots, double-tap, right in the face.
Not the most powerful round in the inventory, but good enough. Aim for a soft target, the eyes or throat, and go for shock. Yeah, yeah, the indiscriminate-shooting advocates who took over weapons training about ten years ago would have strokes. They wanted John to carry about 500 rounds of that pathetic 9 mm and spray the target area down with lead, always center mass, always. That was crap. One or two well-placed shots, regardless of caliber, does wonders. Like now.
Rawbone reeled, his face exploding in blood and that was quite satisfying but John didn’t have time to gloat because Xena had the two bowie knives out and was advancing, screaming something unintelligible.
She’d ripped the vest completely off in her zeal and John took half a second to admire that quite extraordinary rack before another double-tap. A little hole blew in the middle of her throat and she collapsed, the knives flying off into the crowd. Good shootin’, Tex.
All right, who’s next? John scanned back and forth but no one was stepping up. Confusion reigned. There was a great roiling with a lot of the scum immediately surrounding John running and spinning and shouting, telling everyone in back what had happened.
John was, momentarily, not their concern and he took that opportunity to glance back at Ankh, who had fallen to his knees and was trying to shove his stomach back in, the effort becoming more feeble by the second. And then he saw something else.
Just behind Ankh and to the right, some leather-clad punk, turned to the crowd with his arms raised, silver bracelets cascading down his well-muscled forearms like a waterfall. That was lovely, but it was the M-16 hanging from the punk’s shoulder that caught John’s attention.
The crowd would recover and make John a hamburger patty eventually, say in the next two seconds, and he really should do something about that. He strode, back and legs be damned, past Ankh and the two or three tearful cretins trying to help him get that stomach back in, raised the .25 to the back of Bracelet’s head, and fired his last two rounds. Bracelet’s skull fissured and he spun away but John grabbed his shoulder and yanked him back, dropping the .25 and pulling the M-16 cleanly off. John looked at it. Yep, a real M-16. What variant, who knew? Wonder if Bracelet got it from Belvoir or Myer.
No matter.
Already on full auto, so John stepped back, leveled it and pulled the trigger. It sang, just sang, and he cut a swath of tracer to the right and left with the first two or three bursts. Panic swept the crowd but John didn’t have time to enjoy it as he blasted across an arc, overlapping the last rounds.
M-16s don’t fire a continuous stream of bullets, only three-shot bursts with each trigger pull. The idea was muzzle control, good one because the 16 will rise something fierce. Still, a continuous stream of .223 would have been nice. John raked the crowd again.
The bolt slammed back, out of bullets. John held the smoking rifle and admired his handiwork, the bloodied and ripped bodies, the screaming, terrified mob. Might as well relax, the extraordinary luck that made the last 30 seconds so vastly entertaining had probably run out.
The firelight flared up nicely as flames poured out of the roof and the front bay window, illuminating the scene almost like floodlights. Damn, all his pictures and videos and books.
John took in a big breath. Be calm, just wait, get ready. It’s all pretty much over, but at least you’re going out with a bang. ’Bout all you can ask, that your death gets noticed. Ankh’s crapheads sure noticed and John idly watched the spike hairs and nose bolts and leathers flapping and running and crying and fighting among themselves, forming eddies and currents of wrath and confusion while the more composed tried to drag bodies off and slap the others out of their hysteria...
Ya know, John, nobody’s moving on you.
He stood backlit against his own flaming house, quiet, still, holding an M-16 with muzzle suppressed while a tornado of scumbags whirled in hate and chaos and not a single one of these cretins was bothering with him. Yeah, several were gn
ashing their teeth and screaming something in his general direction but they were too busy with someone dead or spouting blood from a pretty good wound he’d just inflicted. The rest were pulling at each other, trying to reorganize, all focused on themselves and hoping Ankh would stand up and take control. Or Rawbone or Xena. Somebody. Anybody.
Run. Now.
His back was agony and giant baseball hematomas had formed up and down his legs but God damn the pain, he was getting the hell out of here. John shook the M-16 at the punks and scumbags standing behind him and they pulled back as he ran past.
Idiots can’t recognize an open bolt, he supposed.
He dropped to the side of the house and moved headlong across the wall, bursting through the knee-high grass and frantically pawing around to locate the short chain-link fence buried in here somewhere... yes! got it. It was dark, the fire not yet reaching this side, and he took a moment to get his bearings. Okay, cut to the right, locate the wooden privacy fence and then that big nasty thorn bush marking the safety lane through the Claymores. Don’t screw this up.
Someone shouted behind him and there were answering shouts of control and fury from the front of the house. Damn, they’ve woken up. And were after him.
Go.
His charred back duly registered a protest as he fell over the metal fence and John yelped. Running feet and shouts gathered in the dark behind him, guided by his cry, but they were stumbling and confused, hitting the tall grass and then the chain-link as John frantically pawed along in the dark no more than five yards away, feeling out a path until his hand brushed the wooden fence. He swung his arms and a sharp pain lanced his little finger. There, the damned thorn bush he’d battled every summer before the Event. He could kiss it now.
“Bring some light, bring some light!” someone shouted and John heard bodies dropping over the chain-link. They’d be on him in seconds.
Desperate, John probed with one foot behind the bush, trying to locate the rocks and gravel and other crap he dug up and laid along the zigzagging safety trail through the Claymores. He’d been pretty clever with it, making a pattern unnoticeable to the casual glance but which he could easily find... uh, in daylight, calmly, without being pursued. Not so clever now.
Panic. John kicked around harder but he couldn’t find the trail and more people were dropping off to his left. Fortunately, they were going straight down the hill to the neighbor’s back door, figuring he’d beelined for it. They’re going to catch on quick, though, and someone’s going to bring torches or flashlights or, worse, night vision, and they’d have him. Got to get out of...
Clunk. A rock.
“Wazzat?” someone shouted out and all the movement over the fence and down the hill paused for a moment and then started in John’s direction. Crap. Distraction. Now. He grabbed the end of the M-16 and hurled it high and hard towards the neighbor’s and it landed with a very loud and satisfying crash against something wooden, probably the deck.
“There!” someone shouted and it was Dien Bien Phu, everyone opening up with whatever they had, 16s, Tecs, pistols, shotguns, bazookas. The neighbor’s house exploded in glass and siding, accompanied by screams because the morons were cutting down the guys who’d gone ahead. John balanced on the rock and stepped a bit, feeling for the depression in the grass. All right, good, found it. While they’re busy shredding the neighbor’s and each other, let’s make tracks.
The trail was below grade about a boot length wide. Overgrown now because, yes, he’d neglected it but, hey, not a problem. The difference in level was apparent. He took about five steps and hit another rock. Perfect. John stepped off that, feeling real cocky, and then immediately froze, the cockiness gone because the level changed – he was off the trail.
Oh crap, how close were those Claymores? Crap, crap, crap! John gritted his teeth. Get. It. Together. Stupid. This isn’t a straight shot down the hill, it’s a zigzag, so zig. But he was disoriented, not sure of direction.
He straightened, locating the sky glow of the burning house. Okay, reoriented, and he placed a foot back against the rock he’d just left and toe searched. There, trench reacquired and he took a step along it but lost his balance and quickly dropped to all fours, hugging the trail. He braced, waiting for the snap of a wire and subsequent clickbang of an igniting Claymore. Nothing happened, though, and he rewarded himself with breathing again.
The firing stopped and John heard a lot of confused movement around the back of the neighbor’s house. Ah, they’re searching for his body. Good thing he fell because it put him below line of sight. He mapped the trail with his fingers, angling down and to the left. That’s good and bad, because he’d avoid blowing himself up (inshala) but he’d also head back toward the searchers. Keep low and start crawling, bubie.
Which quickly became agony. He had absolutely hated the Low Crawl through the obstacle course during basic training. It came up after he’d already run a mile or so, swinging on ropes, climbing over logs, jumping over ponds, then, lookee here, a 30-yard pit of sand covered with a lattice of barbed wire about a foot off the ground that he had to crawl under while fake explosions went off all around.
It had almost killed him then, when he was studly; now, with the added discomforts of a ruined back, a ruined ear, one eye and knotted up legs (and stoved-in ribs, don’t forget those), it was downright murder. He was gasping about five yards into it and was still only halfway down the trail, very close to where the cretins were searching. He sounded like a train pulling out of a station and fought for breath control.
Somebody shouted, “He’s not here!” and there was a shifting of movement around the neighbor’s yard. John stopped, wary. They were spreading out, getting close, damn close, and John tried melting into the ground. He prayed the grass and creeper and debris from an old shed would discourage them from walking over and stepping on him. Better, stop them from triggering a Claymore and blowing every single person in a fifty-yard radius, including little ole John, to hell, although that might be a blessing since he was too beat to jump up and fight them. Like he had any weapons for that.
Heavy thrashing, not more than twenty feet away, someone kicking through the grass, and in mere moments—
“Wait a minute!” one of the cretins called out and everything stopped.
Relief flooded through John and he resumed breathing, although he didn’t dare move. Were they giving up? Maybe heading off down the hill? Please? He saw something then, not sure what, and blinked hard but couldn’t make it out because of the sweat flooding his one good eye, the bloody one practically useless and, on top of that, his glasses (still with him, God be praised) were fogged. He risked a quiet brushing of the lens which only re-arranged the dirt and crap but at least he could squint. Something bright, quick...what the hell? Then it dawned on him.
Flashlight beams.
Crap.
Got to get out of here. Got to, otherwise, they’re going to pin him down.
The beams were converging in the yard and the thrashing resumed and John reached out frantically and located the depression, stretching out as far as possible to see what direction it went and then crawled to that point, stretched out again to feel the distance, crawl, stretch, once more and the trail angled off sharply to the right, good, because that meant moving away from them and he was now in the middle of the Claymores and the noise the cretins were making covered the noise he was making and he reached out again...
“Hey!” a yell behind John and suddenly the world was white and bright and stark. A flashlight beam had him. “What the hell’s that?” another yell.
Oh, just your average Ankh-stabber hiding in the grass, fellows, nothing to worry about. The beam jostled off him as they shoved around to get a better look. John considered taking advantage of that.
Like right now.
He jumped up and ran, back and legs protesting but gotta go, gotta go. The beam swung on him, actually a good thing because it lit the sharp turn ahead which cut back from the house and there was just on
e more turn after that and he’d be away. If he lived that long.
“There he is! There! Shoot, shoot!” several voices called out at once and the gunfire started, the ripping sound of automatics, both low and high caliber and the thrum of shotguns and the snap of pistols and there was a hailstorm ripping up the ground and the air and he was dead, dead, dead.
Not from the first volley because that’s the amateurs, the ones who just blasted off rounds in his general direction while holding their weapons gang-style, more likely to hit each other than John. No, from the shooters, the three or four of them up there who knew what they were doing, who were getting sight picture, were locked, holding breaths and leading John just so and will squeeze about...
Now, and he hit the turn and cut hard to the left.
A bullet plowed through his side, taking a pretty good furrow out of the left ribcage and spinning him around with the shock and fire of it. He grunted and lurched but kept his balance. Another round sang past his head, merely cutting his shoulder, the first guy’s shot obviously disrupting the second guy’s. Thank him later. More beams trained on him, lighting the world, including the path, and he bolted down it, praying the bullets tearing around him didn’t set off a Claymore.
John’s side was burning and wet and crying for attention and he really, really needed the medical kit stored in the safe house. Let’s go get it. He shifted hard at the final turn.
Wham! Something hot and heavy smacked into his left knee and John staggered. Whoa, don’t do that – one deviation and it’s going to be the Fourth of July. His leg suddenly went numb and, dammit, he was going to fall, transfixed by several light beams. Seemed like a good time for a final, desperately futile act so he gathered himself and jumped from his right leg, a flying leap over the tackles and across the goal line, clearing the trail but pretty sure his now-floppy left foot would snag a trigger wire.
It didn’t.