by Jon F. Merz
I watched as his incisors extended and then he dropped backwards, his pupils blowing out, already dead.
I rolled and came up running across the sand toward Zero. As I did so, he tossed one of the Misrs to me and I opened up on Salah’s position without thinking.
More rounds bit into the ground by my feet and zinged past my head. But Salah knew now that if I was like Nadi then his bullets weren’t going to harm me.
While Zero took care of Darius, I sprinted for the hill overlooking the area where I suspected Salah and his men were. I took a round in the thigh as I crested the hill and fired point blank, catching Salah first and then the two men he was with. I put two rounds into Salah’s stomach and another pair into the guy closest to him.
But as I shot a single round at the third man, I ran out of ammo and heard the dead man’s click telling me the bolt had come forward on nothing in the chamber.
I tossed to Misr and threw myself into the last man. My last bullet had missed him and he brought his gun up trying to shield himself behind it. I broke through and head butted him hard in the face, hearing his nose crack as blood sprayed down his face.
I caught some of it in my mouth and while the thought of it nauseated me, I sucked it in and swallowed. Moments later, I felt the life force energy hit my system and instantly felt a wave of power come over me. As we roll down the hill, each of us trying to find purchase and get the killing shot in, I kneed him in the crotch and heard the groan as I scored a direct hit on his groin.
But it didn’t stop him and he continued trying to work punches into the space between us. I deflected the majority of them thanks to my senses being heightened by the bit of his blood, but another several managed to score. He hit my ears and neck and I felt myself fighting back the urge to black out.
I tasted sand now, spitting it out as more of his blood spilled into my mouth from the broken nose. I kept swallowing and kept getting stronger.
He went for some type of weird arm bar, but as he cranked it on, I went with the energy and evaded it, bringing my arms back and bending it into an elbow strike that caught him at the corner of his eye on the orbital bone. Another crack and I knew I’d broken it. He was going to have bad eyesight, but not for much longer because I was going to finish this.
We came to a stop at the bottom of the hill and in my peripheral I saw Zero still struggling with Darius. I needed this guy done so I could go help him out.
My attacker tried kneeing me in the crotch, but I caught the movement and used my own leg to deflect the blow before it had a chance to sink into my nuts. Then I pushed him away, managed to get space and then snaked my way onto his back, wrapping one arm around his neck and my legs around his waist. I leaned back, pulling his body taut and then jerked myself to the side snapping his neck. He went limp in my arms almost immediately and I let him side out of my grasp.
I came up immediately still feeling the effects of the fresh blood in my system.
I rushed over toward where Zero was battling Darius. And then saw Zero sink something into Darius’ chest.
Watched as Darius seemed to suddenly freeze in mid-strike, then he simply dropped to the ground.
Dead.
And then Zero dropped as well.
18
I rolled Zero over frantic that he might have been mortally wounded. I ran my hand over his body searching for any obvious signs that he’d been stabbed with a piece of wood or something. But I couldn’t find a thing.
Darius had been staked with something though, because he was gone. There was no pulse anywhere and I left him be, continuing to try to resuscitate Zero. What the hell had happened? Why had he dropped?
My heart thundered in my chest from the recent intake of blood. I felt my own pulse hammering in my ears and I was grateful that I’d managed to get some of the blood from one of Salah’s men-
Shit.
Zero wasn’t out cold because of Darius; he was unconscious and close to death because of a lack of blood. It had been over a day since we’d had any and while we could normally go without for an extended period, it had been a long time filled with combat and exertion. And Zero must have been running on fumes as much as I had been.
I flipped him over on his back, snaked my hands underneath his armpits, wrapped them around his chest and then grabbed them so I could drag Zero over to the bloody remains of Salah and his men. Zero needed to feed and he needed it now.
Dragging him across the desert sand wasn’t particularly easy even though I was cruising now after having fed. Zero’s body was dead weight and his feet dragged in the sand. I would have thrown him over my shoulder, but the thought of having to ascend the hill behind us made me question the wisdom of that move, so I did the body drag instead.
Bit by bit we climbed up the hill. I was sweating now, not really from the exertion but more from the energy that was combusting within my bloodstream. I watched as the pyramid feel away from us a bit and kept dragging, my breaths coming in huffs and puffs as we drew ever closer to Salah’s old position that I’d assaulted a few minutes earlier.
At the top, I found the henchman whose blood I’d ingested. He was still bleeding out even though he was dead. His fluids continued to spill from him and I got Zero in position where I could put his mouth over one of the man’s wounds and allow the blood to flow into Zero.
It didn’t take long to bring him around. As soon as a little bit of blood got into Zero’s mouth, he started to revive, which was good as it meant he wasn’t too far depleted. I watched as more blood flowed into his mouth and Zero actively began swallowing it now. His eyelids fluttered a bit and I knew he’d be good to go within an hour.
Glancing around, it suddenly struck me that there ought to be three bodies here: Salah and his two henchmen.
There were only two.
I knelt on the sand and put my hands to a bit of blood that was away from where the other two corpses were. Salah had somehow managed to get himself upright even with two gunshots into his midsection. Clearly the bullets hadn’t killed him yet and he was trying to escape.
Dammit.
I looked at Zero and saw the color coming back into his skin. I had a choice to make: stay with Zero and make sure he continued to revive or go after Salah and finish the job.
I frowned. I didn’t want to leave Zero, but we couldn’t take the risk that Salah make it anywhere off this site and summon any reinforcements before I could get Zero out of here. Plus, Salah knew about Nadi and what he was. The last thing my people could afford was exposure.
I made sure Zero’s mouth was still properly positioned and whispered into his ear. “Salah is still alive. I’m going to finish him off. I’ll be back.”
I thought I got a little nod, but couldn’t waste any more time. I scooped up one of the henchman’s guns, a Misr just like what we had been using, checked the magazine, and then set off across the desert sand, following the blood trail.
In the desert night, the blood was rapidly sinking into the sand and that made it hard to follow so I had to rely more on my sense of smell than sight. I could smell blood like a shark and it was this skill that allowed me to track Salah at almost a run.
He’d set off going west away from the pyramid site, but as I tracked him, I realized he was making a big loop back around toward the site itself. What was he up to?
And then I knew. Instead of following his trail, I turned and ran back the way I’d come. I passed between the pyramid and the hill where Zero was and headed right for the vehicles. As I approached, I could hear the labored breathing and shuffling ahead of me. Someone was up fifty yards ahead and despite the gunshot wounds, Salah was moving pretty well.
But not well enough to escape me.
I caught up with him just ten yards from the closest Range Rover.
“Stop.”
My command sounded much louder in the cold desert night. Salah was on his hands and knees at this point and the exertion of escape was clearly taking its toll on him. He turned over, flopped on
to his back, and gasped for breath.
He had one hand clapped across his abdomen and I could see that the two bullets had done a good job of shredding his internal organs. How he was still conscious and able to get this far was a shock to me. I hadn’t come across a human that could manage to do this before and Salah was clearly not done fighting yet because he managed a half-hearted swipe at me as I came closer.
I knocked his arm away and then knelt down next to him with the Misr aimed at him. “I can’t let you go any further, Salah. You know that.”
He sputtered for breath. “I’m not long for this world…” His eyes narrowed. “I’m guessing your name is not really Billy is it?”
I shook my head. “I’m Lawson.”
Salah nodded back toward the pyramid. “And your brother?”
I smiled. “Not my brother. His name is Zero. We work together sometimes.”
“Was…was Nadi right? About you? About what you are?”
I hesitated. I knew Salah wasn’t going to live beyond the next two minutes. Right now he was facing that moment when you stare at impending death and the last questions of your life present themselves. For Salah, his reality had been accosted by Nadi’s allegations that we were vampires. And it loomed large in the man’s mind now. If he could just manage to get the answer, perhaps he could die peacefully.
I took a breath and allowed my incisors to extend, opening my mouth and showing them to Salah.
His eyes widened and he caught his breath. “How…how it this possible?”
I smiled as my teeth retracted. “I think you’ll probably find out the answer to that question long before I do. It’s just…life. No rhyme or reason, but we exist. And Zero and I are charged with protecting the secret of our existence. Nadi threatened that. That’s why we came here. To stop him.”
Salah took another stuttering breath. “You know you don’t have to shoot me, Lawson. You know I’m dying even now.”
“I know it.”
“You didn’t have to show me what you are.” He grinned. “But I’m…glad. Grateful. That you did that.”
“In another world, in another time…who knows, Salah. We might have been friends. Colleagues. Who knows?”
He smiled and a bit of blood bubbled out of his mouth. It was frothy and I knew he was almost gone.
Salah reached out for my hand and I took his. He still had some strength left in his grip and I gave his hand a squeeze. “You’ve had a good run. It’s time to go now.”
As I said those words, I felt his strength ebb and then his hand slipped out of mine. His head slumped back into the sand and I heard one last breath escape his lips. Then he went still.
I stayed where I was for a moment, then I checked his pulse to make sure he wasn’t suddenly going to sit back up right as rain and take off again. But he was dead. And this time, he wasn’t coming back.
I stood and took a breath. The scene here was going to cause a whole lot of crazy commotion and the last thing Zero and I could afford was to be here. Dawn was still a few hours off and the darkness would give us plenty of time to get back to Cairo, get to our hotel, grab our gear and make it back to the airport. At this point, we just needed to get the hell out of the country before anyone managed to figure out what had happened and put out an alert about us.
I doubted they’d be able to identify us, but I didn’t want to take any risks. As far as I was concerned, Zero and I were enemy territory and needed an immediate evac.
I hustled back up the hill to where I’d left Zero and found him sitting upright, rubbing his eyes as if he’d just woken up from a long winter’s nap.
As I approached, he looked up. “Where have you been?”
“Salah made a last stand,” I said. “He’s not a factor any longer.”
Zero nodded. “Everyone else?”
“Dead.”
“That’s what I thought. But I was a little foggy on what happened when I was fighting Darius.”
“You killed him,” I said. “But in doing so you must have burned up any last remainder of energy you had and went into a catatonic state. I had to get some blood into you stat otherwise you would have checked out for sure.”
“You saved my life, Lawson?”
“Seems that way. Yeah.”
“Imagine that.” Zero chuckled.
“What’s so funny?”
“I drag you halfway across the world on some risky gambit and end up nearly dying on you. Talk about bad taste, huh?”
“Could have been worse,” I said. “I could have been the one that came close to death.”
Zero nodded at me. “You’ve got the makings of a shiner over your right eye. Should be a lovely bruise.”
“If this is the only souvenir I take away from this, I’ll be grateful,” I said with a laugh. “Can you get on your feet? I’d like get us out of here before anyone sees this massacre.”
Zero got to his feet and grabbed a hand for help until he was sure he was good and steady. He took a breath. No doubt he was a little light-headed. “Let’s go. Just get me to the car and I’ll be fine.”
We maneuvered our way down the hill toward the Range Rovers and climbed into the lead car. I found the keys still in the ignition and gunned the engine. The headlights extended out away from us like a yellow knife in the night and I put the car into drive, feeling the tires bite into the loose sand and then spin once before catching and propelling us forward.
In the rearview mirror, I watched as the bodies - all those bodies - fell away from sight as we finally made our way out of the pyramid site.
And headed back to Cairo.
19
We made the trip back in under an hour thanks to some friendly locals who gave us directions. Zero was well on his way back to being fully operational, which was good. I wasn’t used to seeing my mentor that close to death and frankly, it made me all the more eager to get the hell out of Egypt. I’d had enough of the place. And while I was sure it was nice to visit, our trip here had been anything but clean. I felt like I had bits of crap clinging to me and I was desperate to be away from the country, reset and get back to doing stuff that wasn’t off-the-books the way this op had been.
If the Council found out about what we’d done, we were screwed. And I happened to like my job. I didn’t want anything to jeopardize it.
Which is why I was so shocked when Zero said he was going to stay behind.
I was packing my gear, which didn’t take long since we hadn’t really even had time to unpack. The quick shower I’d taken felt great, though, and I was excited to leave the hotel.
“What the hell do you mean you’re not coming?”
Zero sat on the sofa in the suite and shrugged. “I need to run a few things down here. Make sure this thing is really well and truly rolled up before I leave.”
I shook my head. “What exactly do you think hasn’t been rolled up yet? We left a virtual slaughter house out at the pyramids for crying out loud.”
“Nadi’s contact within the Soviet embassy.”
I spread my hands. “Zero, how do you even know for sure that he has a contact there?”
“It would have to be some place close,” said Zero. “The Soviets won’t risk wiring funds all over the globe. And sometimes cash works even better anyway. There’s no footprint. Nothing to trace back to Moscow, which is what they’d want.”
“That’s debatable,” I said. “I don’t think Mother Russia gives a shit if anyone knows they’re one of the biggest sponsors of terrorism and that we fight these proxy wars with them. Most of the planet probably already knows the real deal.”
“They’re still concerned about their reputation on the international stage,” said Zero. “But I’m also suspicious of exactly what sort of relationship Nadi had with his handler.”
“Handler? You think he was giving them intel?”
“It’s possible,” said Zero. “And we won’t know for sure until I run it down.”
I tossed my bag down. “All right, we’ll b
oth do it then. Fuck it.”
Zero smiled. “I knew you’d say that.” He shook his head. “But no. You need to leave. You’ve already gone way above and beyond what I should never have asked you for. I can’t have you around any longer. This is something I need to run down on my own.”
“Cut it out, dude. You know I’m in for it.”
“I know it,” said Zero. “But I won’t ask you to do that. We’ve already pushed our luck on this op and I don’t want you exposed any more than you already have been. You might need to come back to Egypt at some point in the future and if you’ve been too badly blown, you’ll never make it.”
“You’ll be out in the cold with no backup,” I said. “I can’t turn my back on you like that.”
“I’m not asking you to,” said Zero. “I’m ordering you to.”
“I don’t report to you, pal,” I said.
“But you won’t turn the order down,” said Zero. “I’m your mentor. You know I can pull this on you and you won’t defy it. You won’t disrespect me like that.”
“What you call disrespect I call teamwork.”
Zero leaned back. “Listen to me, Lawson. I shouldn’t have asked you to come along on this. It was a mistake. But I did and I’m so glad you were here. Seriously. You saved my life out there. But I shouldn’t have put you in the situation in the first place.”
“You’re going to Monday morning quarter back this now?”
“Yes,” said Zero. “Because I could have cost us both everything that we’ve ever worked for.” He sighed. “Me? Hell, I’m old and washed up.”
“The hell,” I said.
“But you, you’ve still got years left of operational duty. I don’t want my silly crusades coming back to bite you on the ass. That’s not fair to you. And it wasn’t right that I asked you to potentially break the very laws we swore to uphold.”
“We wouldn’t have found out about Darius if you hadn’t.”
Zero shrugged. “Eventually we would have.”
“And Nadi? He chirped like a goddamned parakeet. If we hadn’t finished him off, our people might well be in serious jeopardy even now.”