I turn back to Coaxoch with an obviously shocked look on my face. All she does is smile at me like she just revealed a hilarious punchline ever.
As my friends open fire on the impossibly large goliath behind them, I meet the gaze of the most hate-filled woman ever on planet Earth…and that’s saying something considering some of the one’s I’ve met in my life, but that’s a story for another day. If we don’t die a horrible death first.
I reach up and remove my NVS2 glasses, revealing to her my golden, swirling eyes. She’s actually taken back by this and asks, “Who—who are you?”
It’s then that I realize that she has no idea who I am, or what I’ve become, or the fact that I killed her husband’s immortal soul, forever sending him to the land beyond. I draw Elvis from a sheath on my back, gripping it with both hands. Flame on, I think, willing the fire to appear.
The crackling inferno roars to life, wrapping itself around the blade of my recently procured Atlantean weapon. And what’s even better, the reaction I get out of Coaxoch is one of pure terror.
“My name is Hank Boyd and I am the last Priest of An’tala!” I boom, taking a step towards her, holding my fiery blade out to the side so she can still see me clearly. I give her a smirk saying that what I’m about to do next will be a deal breaker, “and I’m the reason why your husband’s blackened soul will never see the light of day again.”
And then, with a battle cry that would make William Wallace proud, I charge.
29
Teotihuacan, Mexico
“You’re kidding me right?”
Kane rolled to his left, barely avoiding a chunk of stone the size of a Mini Cooper. Continuing in one fluid motion, he popped up on one knee, aimed, and pulled the trigger of his grenade launcher.
As the 40mm explosive round sailed through the air, he spun, looking to Olivia. “Quit gawkin’ at it and shoot!”
The grenade detonated on the eighty-foot tall giant’s left knee, causing it to stumble. If I can get my last two shells around the same spot we might have a chance, Kane thought, watching Nicole lay into the same target he did.
As he loaded his second to last grenade into the SCAR’s attachment, he chanced a quick glance back to Hank and hoped he knew what he was doing.
BOOM!
Another large boulder landed not ten feet from him, sending him into another defensive roll. This time, as he dodged right, he lost the grenade he was loading, having not fully secured it in its barrel rig.
He turned and was about to run and retrieve it, but a massive fist the size of his bedroom, obliterated the ground next to him, tossing him sideways like a rag doll.
Ears ringing and head pulsating from a hard landing, Kane looked up through dazed eyes as a large foot-shaped object loomed over his head. He tried to sit up but got yanked away feet-first just as the garbage truck sized foot slammed home.
“Kane! You okay?” Shouted a voice that sounded like it was underwater. He again tried to sit up, this time, succeeding. Shaking his head back and forth, Kane partially cleared the cobwebs, got to his feet, and took in his surroundings.
Nicole and Olivia were next to him, having pulled him to safety at the last moment and Hank was still on the altar doing battle with the she-devil, Coaxoch.
He had a bloodied slash over his right eye, but it didn’t look serious. The queen, however, had a long horizontal burn mark, straight across her mid-section…and it wasn’t healing.
He might just have a chance if she can’t heal from his attacks, Kane thought, immediately regretting it as an all new pain shot through his head. Damn, gotta’ be a concussion.
“Move it!” Someone yelled, shoving him forward, away from the central altar, and his friend.
BOOM!
Another monstrous fist landed near them, having just missed, leaving a good-sized impact crater behind. As the embedded knuckles retract from the crushed stone floor, Kane got an awful but worthwhile, idea. He charged the colossus, and leaped for its wrist, grabbing on for dear life as he was pulled skyward.
“Shit!” Kane cursed the entire way up until he stopped at the thing’s waist, some forty feet up.
The good news was that Kane didn’t think the stone giant knew he was there. The bad news was if this worked, how the hell was he going to get down?
Eh, screw it, he thought. First things first. I need to get to the damn thing’s head—then I can worry about the dismount.
He grabbed for the nearest handhold he could find and quickly realized that getting to the top might not be as hard as he thought. The arm he now straddled like a bull rider, still somewhat held the integrity of the staircase it was most likely formed from.
Carefully, Kane began to scale the bucking stone monster’s left arm and hoped he could get to the top before anyone was killed.
“Gah!”
The sudden pain-filled scream almost made Kane slip and fall, a drop that no doubt would have killed him. He scanned the plaza for its source and found Hank, rolling on the ground, writhing in pain, holding both hands to his chest.
Damnit, Kane thought, looking up towards the giant’s head, another good twenty feet up. I need to finish this now before that bitch-snake ends Hank.
* * *
The pain is excruciating and my chest feels like it’s on fire, burning with an itch that can only be some type of poison laced with acid. Another ancient biologic, I think inbetween shallow breaths.
Very clever of—
Another stinging sensation rolls through my body but dissipates with time—not that I have much of it to spare right now. Still holding my chest, I wait for the next wave of pain and nausea, but thankfully, it doesn’t come. All that’s left is an awful blistering sensation and four thin horizontal slash marks through my shirt.
My vision clears a little and I sit up, just in time to do a reverse somersault, avoiding another attack from Coaxoch. As I flip over backwards, I kick out with my foot and strike her majesty in the chin, knocking her back. I continue my flip and jump to my feet, adrenaline passing for painkillers at the moment.
Flame on.
My sword, which extinguished after her last attack, reignites, burning as bright as ever. I lunge forward and swipe low, hoping to injure her long enough to affect her mobility. The first attack I landed scarred her body and actually hurt her. Apparently, she has the same weaknesses as Nannot did fighting me.
She gracefully leaps over my swing and unleashes a kick of her own that connects with my face, almost breaking my nose.
My head snaps back, but I don’t fall—and thank God I didn’t. Coaxoch is right on top of me again, slashing with both claw-tipped hands, this time, intent on disemboweling me and spilling my guts. But I don’t let her. I step into her attack, a move Kane recently showed me, and take both her forearms in the ribs.
As she knocks me to the side, I use the momentum created by her assault and spin, thrusting up my elbow, driving it into her face. I connect with her right eye socket, smashing it with the point of my elbow. She staggers back holding her broken, yet undoubtedly healing, orbital bone, but it stunned her just long enough.
I lash out with Elvis and cleave an inch deep, six-inch wide gash, into her already damaged midsection. The burning blade sears through her skin, cutting her, causing her to wail in agony as the impossibly hot orichalcum chars her tattooed hide.
She falls back, hitting the stone surface hard, grabbing at her scorched flesh. The pain-filled scream is almost heart-breaking, but then I remember who she loved and supported, Nannot—The End. He was literally the worst person to ever have lived on this planet and she chose to stand by his side. Not cool.
As the wound tries to heal, it stops, only closing part of the way. I’m not sure exactly why the Atlantean fire is affecting her ability to heal, and nor do I really care. If I can inflict harsh enough damage, I should be able to put her out of commission, I think as I stalk towards her prone form, planning my next move.
Standing over her, I raise my weapon to strike. But as I’m
about to, she holds out her hands in submission, pleading for me to stop. I glance down and see honest-to-God tears in her eyes. Have I caused that much pain from two injuries?
“Please, don’t!” She cries. “Enough!”
I halt my attack but don’t dare to lower my weapon, keeping it raised a foot above her head. I decide if she’s willing to divulge any information, now would be the time.
“Where are the ashes—Nannot’s remains—where are they?” I bellow, lowering my sword another couple of inches. She scurries back a foot, farther away from my blade’s fire, fear etched across her face.
“They are with him,” she says with a hand shielding her face.
“Who?”
“John Frost!”
Oh, damn.
I quickly shake away the implications and focus on the current conversation. If we can’t find the man, then it won’t matter who he is, now will it.
“Where is he?” I yell, once again threatening her with the blade’s inferno. I decide to test myself and will the flames hotter and brighter. They follow suit and do just that, burning the palm off Coaxoch’s still outstretched hand in the process.
She wails in agony and yanks her burnt hand back, clutching it like I did my chest wound.
BOOM!
The sounds of large footfalls and automatic gunfire finally reach me, as the plaza ground shakes. I’d been so preoccupied trying not to die, that I hadn’t once thought about my friends and what they were going through.
And I wish I didn’t look.
Nicole is dragging an obviously injured Olivia away from the monstrous stone golem, blood trailing down the geneticist’s forehead. I look around and see nothing but rubble. Some of it belongs to the serpents we dispatched earlier, and some of it still coming from my team’s encounter with the giant. The good news is Coaxoch’s latest monster is limping heavily on its right side. Every time it takes a step, its knee bends at an odd angle.
Where’s Kane? I think, looking for him, fearing the worst. I’m relieved when I hear him cursing up a storm on top of the mountain’s shoulders. The small big guy looks like a pirate captain’s tiny, but very pissed off parrot. Stone flies as he unloads into the thing’s neck with his Desert Eagles. It’s hard to tell from here if he’s making any headway, but he’s sure as hell trying.
“Don’t move,” I order Coaxoch, taking a step forward. She lunges at me, her very convincing acting job apparently over with. I side step her attack and bring down my sword’s blade, taking off her right hand with a spray of blood.
Coaxoch writhes on the altar’s stone flooring, screaming. When she calms, I stride over with confidence. “I said, don’t move.” This time, she obeys, still holding her disfigured, but quickly healing appendage, real tears flowing down her face. It’s probably the first time she’s been in serious pain in thousands of years.
I wait a second longer to make sure the hand doesn’t grow back before I turn and run, hauling ass towards the damaged leg of the stone giant as I form a crazy idea in my head.
“Kane!” I shout as I near, dodging falling debris.
“What?” He answers back, his voice barely audible over the commotion.
“You know how to surf?”
I hope this works, because if it doesn’t… Kane is a dead man.
30
Teotihuacan, Mexico
“Surf? Why?” Kane shouts down, questioning me as I dodge the falling rubble raining down from the sky above.
Where the hell are these coming from? I ask myself, as I look up towards my destination. Random boulders shift and fall as the giant moves about the plaza. As these rocks hit the ground and come into contact with its feet, they are quickly absorbed into it, like a sponge taking in water, giving it unlimited regenerative capabilities. Even the gimpy leg is starting to straighten out.
This needs to end. We can’t keep fighting this thing.
“Shit!” I shout, surprised when a stone the size of a Hippo lands in front of me mid-sprint. I do my best to avoid a head-on collision with it, which is to say, I fail miserably. I leap, tucking my legs in, attempting to roll off the top of it, but my right thigh clips the edge and I’m sent flailing awkwardly over it. And what’s worse, I now have the world’s worst dead leg.
I land with a thud and roll twice, taking the initial impact on my shoulder and then on my badly bruised thigh. I come to a complete stop on my back, out of breath from the hard landing. I flinch as something metallic crashes down next to me.
Was that a gun? I look up and see Kane hanging on for dear life off the monster’s head, having indeed lost one of the Desert Eagles.
He twists and kicks at the thing’s face, trying to beat it, and also trying to find purchase. He does the latter on what appears to be a makeshift upper lip. He then shoves off and grabs onto what passes for the golem’s eyebrow and rolls back atop its head, out of sight.
Lucky bastard, I think, getting to my feet. I shove off the ground with both hands and take a step forward, only then realizing that I’ve lost Elvis. I do a quick three-sixty and find it ten feet away, closer to the stone giant.
I charge—as a massive foot stomps down behind me—nearly pancaking me into the ground. The impact throws me forward, but I take it in stride and roll, grabbing the hilt of my weapon. I stand, spin, and will the flames to return. I lash out at the back of its leg, carving a chunk out of its calf.
The limb buckles as the crack spreads, but unfortunately, it doesn’t break. I dance around the shifting foot, coming around to the front of it, where I swing hard again. I strike its shin, directly on the other side of the already blown-out calf.
The combination of the half-healed knee, along with the busted lower leg is too much for the immense weight of the limestone giant. It topples forward, leg snapping with a thunderclap of splitting rock.
As the thing starts its eighty-foot plummet back to the earth it was made from, I yell as loud as I can. “Surf’s up, Kane!”
Taking what I mean literally, which was the intention, Kane moves to the back of the living-room sized head. He squats, taking the collapsing wave with stride, absorbing the shock with his knees, gripping onto a random outcropping of rock with his free hand.
The lower body hits first, crumbling to smaller boulders, though some are large enough to cause some major damage if airborne. Then the waist smashes into the turf and the giant is cut in half. The mid-section and chest is next, followed by the shoulders, both of which stand no chance.
As the head comes down, Kane leaps away, doing his best to clear the jagged stone covered floor. His aim is true as he hits a relatively clear spot of ground and rolls, tumbling to a stop.
I rush over and am joined by Nicole.
“Where’s Olivia?” I ask, concerned for our newest team member.
“She’s fine,” Nicole answers. “Took a rock to the head, but she isn’t bad. She was knocked unconscious and collapsed, but came too shortly after.”
“And now?” I ask, nearing Kane’s landing spot.
“Probably has a concussion. Very dizzy and nauseous.”
Okay, I think. Could have been a whole hell of a lot worse.
We reach Kane who is face down but breathing. Two large rocks are laying atop him but don’t look heavy enough to have done any major damage. Nicole and I both crouch down next to his face and are relieved to see he is conscious.
“You okay, man?” I ask, lying on the ground, face-to-face with him. His face is covered in dust and grime, and he has a gash across his temple, but other than that he doesn’t look too bad.
“Hey, Hank?” He asks, whispering.
“Yeah?” I reply, obviously worried.
“Get these damn things off my back, will ya’?”
I glance up and realize the rocks are a little bigger than I thought. I stand, and with Nicole’s help, we roll them off of Kane.
He groans, but then sighs, as the heavy weight is cleared, allowing him to suck in a set of deep, life-giving breaths.
&n
bsp; He slowly sits up. “That…was rough.”
“You good?” I ask, holding out my hand.
He takes my offered hand as Nicole steps up, offering hers as well. We both pull and hoist the big guy up, holding on until he is balanced and supporting himself.
He leans on both knees and sucks in one long gulp of air, before standing upright. “Damn, that sucked.”
“Not bad,” Nicole says with an uninterested look on her face. It’s the same look she gave him when he saved Olivia on the steps of the now demolished step-pyramid.
Kane and I both turn to her with a look that says, “Huh?” But quickly see the wry smile plastered across her face. Kane and I both laugh, but quickly stop as we grab random parts of our bodies. The shaking of laughter makes us wince, irritating the already tender parts of our beaten exteriors.
We then explain to him that Olivia is safe and recovering from a hard knock to the head. He’s relieved to hear she was, for the most part, unharmed.
I turn away from my two friends and back towards the central altar, still seeing Coaxoch laying on the ground, clutching her severed arm. I step forward, intent on getting some more answers out of her, then…we’ll see what happens.
Kane and Nicole fall in step behind me with whatever is left for weapons. Kane still has one of his hand-cannons while Nicole has one of her Rugers. Better than nothing, I suppose. I lost my AA-12 somewhere as well. It’s now most likely crushed underneath the tons of loose rock that is covering half of the plaza.
We climb the short staircase, six steps in all, and mount the altar’s uppermost level for what I hope will be the last time.
The Smithsonian Castle
Washington D.C., USA
“Excuse me, Dr. Boyd? You have a visitor.”
Dr. William Boyd looked up from his desk which was covered in sheets of paper. Some of them were some handwritten notes and some computer printouts. He and Ben had been studying everything they could find on the ancient Mayan doomsday weapon that was now out in the open.
Mayan Darkness (A Hank Boyd Adventure Book 2) (The Hank Boyd Adventures) Page 15