by Steve Curry
I sprang down the steps in rapid bounding leaps that covered three or four steps in each awkward jump. I saw the cat dodge the larger lion dog’s rush and ride him to the ground with paws locked over the dog’s shoulders. The jaws of the jaguar opened wider than seemed possible then shut on the dog’s head and the fighting canine went limp with a yelp. The already dead meat continued to spasm for several seconds as the cat climbed off and oriented on my dog who was limping and side-walking away from the gore covered hunter. I saw the other cat limping in a circle around Gary but that was barely a consideration.
Somewhere in my core, a beast was rising. I could see the surge and tide of red in time to the pulse beating in my head and heart. “Grimmr!”
The roar was in response to a sudden rush of the cat. I couldn’t make it in time. Limping and unable to avoid the larger cat, my dog didn’t stand a chance. All I could do was charge forward and watch as my oldest companion had his skull and brain turned to jelly.
Except he didn’t. At the very last split second, Grimmr spun on his “injured” leg and drove forward to grip the cat’s foreleg. I heard the feline spitting its surprise, but above that, I heard the snap as Grimmr rolled, still with the lean limb locked between his jaws. Eighty pounds of dog going one way, and two hundred pounds of cat going another, all multiplied by the torque of his rolling, added up to one broke bone.
Grimmr rolled one way, the cat rolled the other, and I exploded into the air above my pet and his attacker. The cat’s claws raked at my shirt and tore it as well as the flesh underneath. I got my forearms around its neck though so it couldn’t deploy that devastating bite. The damned cat felt like it weighed as much as I do and seemed considerably stronger than a man of similar size.
That didn’t really matter much to whatever was raging inside me though. I straddled the back of the beast while it batted air with his forelegs and tried to gain purchase with his rear claws. All of that stopped when I tightened my arms and jerked the dangerous head upwards and sideways. For the second time in as many seconds, the sound of bone breaking and separating cracked across the arena.
I wanted to sprint over and check on my dog, but there was still a dangerous predator in the arena with me. I turned in my tracks to see that deadly predator catch the remaining jaguar in mid-air. Gary ducked under the jaws and claws of the cat but came up underneath it almost too quick to see. He caught the back legs as they were almost overhead and brought the beast crashing down.
Without losing his grip, Gere stood and began to spin, he lifted the cat off the sand and with a guttural snarl slammed it headfirst into the stone wall surrounding us. The impact of a particularly large melon splattering was the closest I could find to what sounded out over the stadium and ended in a sudden and profound silence.
The spectators and guards all around us stopped and stared as my dog limped over and joined me in walking up to the long lost end of my personal quest. Now all I had to do was get Gere out of here and I could go home. Easy right?
The three of us turned towards the sound of an altercation above us. I had a moment to wonder how in Hel’s decayed dugs had my dog gotten here. And if he was here what did that mean for Rafe and most importantly my Maureen? The shock of that thought drove down the tides of red rage that had fueled my fight with the jaguar.
Maureen wouldn’t just abandon my pets. No matter how annoyed, irritated or plain pissed off she was, she would take care of the animals. If Grimmr was here then something had happened to Maureen. Rafe, I wasn’t as worried about. If he saw so much as a cracked window he’d make a break for it. Then everything from a kitten to a bobcat might be in danger but Rafe would probably be fine. He really didn’t like cats. Except maybe for dinner.
Grimmr must have sensed my mood. He trotted up and thrust a gore spattered nose under my hand. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his tail wave just enough to let me know it was moving. I guess fighting felines twice your size can be exhausting for an old pup. I gave him a pat and wished more than anything that the beast could talk. That he could tell me where the girl was and what had happened.
My wishes and musings were brought short by a shot fired from above. We all looked up to see Achilles standing behind his warriors who were in turn behind Heather and Luis. Pedro and his treacherous henchman were towards the middle of that formation.
“So, the dog belongs to the gringo Yankee. I see we were right to be suspicious of spies.” Achilles' voice attempted to portray confidence. I was sensing a current of fear under that pose though.
For the moment I remained silent and let him continue. “And to think my own dear ally Senor Perro brought this intruder across the border and all the way to my doorstep so to speak. What should I make of that? Perhaps Pedro Perro is not as loyal as I would wish. No?”
He punctuated that statement abruptly and in a final manner. His hand came up with a heavy pistol just like his enforcer Mateo had favored. With the barrel practically against Perro’s head, it thundered once and the smuggler fell with his strings cut as his head was momentarily obscured by a spray of blood and bone and worse. I wasn’t inclined to take a closer look when he rolled down the stone stairs.
The trail of blood for the first dozen steps spoke volumes. After that, his heart must have stopped. The blood trail faded away but his body continued to roll until it landed at our feet. I knew what a round that size would do, not to mention the muzzle blast at such proximity. There was no need to check vitals, though I did spare one quick glance at the surprised expression on what was visible of his face.
That burning rage started to rise again. Maybe we weren’t blood-brothers or anything but Pedro and I had been through a lot in the last few days. He was a conniving little weasel but he was my conniving little weasel. That didn’t give someone like a pompous asshat in a poet shirt and mesoamerican skirt the right to end him.
Apparently, Achilles did not agree with or even acknowledge my feelings on the matter. He all but ignored me and the dog, and the wolf. Instead, he barked some of those exotic sounding orders at his archaic bodyguards and watched with satisfaction as they shoved the remaining prisoners to fall down the steep steps. The rat-like biker hit first followed by Luis.
Above them, Achilles clarified the situation for all of us.“You have killed the pets of my loyal servants. For that, I shall give you to them.” He finished his little speech with a snarl of more orders in Nahuatl.
The half dozen tattooed and skirted men atop the pyramid began stalking down the steps. As they walked each began limbering the arm that held his obsidian weapon. The soft thud of several more feet on the sand heralded the arrival of more Aztec wannabes. At least half a dozen extra primitives jumped down from the twenty-foot wall to join the ones coming down the steps.
As they started down the steps I saw a particularly muscular and grim looking warrior point his club at me and then at the cat I had killed. He snarled and gave me a glimpse at teeth that were filed to points and stained red.
When he spoke, the word sounded guttural and foreign to his tongue. “ Cub was Mine! Now you, Mine!”
Luis regained his balance on the second roll. Instead of continuing to the sand he staggered to his feet three steps from the floor of the arena. He started down to help Heather to her feet but never got the chance. One of the descending warriors made an impressive leap that cleared half a dozen steps before he swung his club at the back of the bodyguard’s neck.
Luis ducked that slashing attack and clipped the Aztec’s legs just enough to send him headfirst into the stone steps with an audible snap of what was probably facial bones and vertebrae. We could count that one out for the time being.
The Aztecs responded with a new attack of three on one, with Luis being in the minority for this fight. He handily evaded two of them but the third obsidian sword seemed to catch his shirt just above the beltline.
The blades were sharp enough that we didn’t even hear the tearing of cloth, instead, we saw a scrap of shirt flutter down with a p
erfectly clean edge, while Luis stumbled and fell back with a loop of purple-grey protruding from his exposed belly.
The incision was surgically perfect and opened him for a length of at least six or eight inches. Somehow, despite the injury, he managed to cut his own bonds on the dropped weapon of the foe he’d dropped. He pressed a hand against the bulging intestine and held it in place while his free hand struck the offending attacker across the bridge of his nose. That one went down for a second. A one-handed fighter is at a distinct disadvantage though, even more so when facing three opponents and holding slippery guts in place. A well-timed kick sent him down the last few steps. He lost his grip and more innards spilled out along with a spray of blood as Luis landed on his back.
The third member of our party, betrayer of smugglers and gang-member weakling, was less concerned with approaching doom than he was focused on the head of his “pack” of mostly deceased buddies.
“Sangre de Cristo Senor Gary! I am so glad to see you!” His voice quavered and broke as if on the verge of tears. It was the kind of voice that went with clasped hands and kneeling pleas. It was, however, apparently not the kind of voice to present to a gore spattered Alpha male standing in the ruins of his pack that you had turned your back on.
Gere leaned forward and I kid you not, snapped his teeth in the guy’s face. For a minute it almost looked like his face was elongating into a muzzle, but the moment passed and he was fairly normal looking again. At least normal looking for a guy that could dash a hunting cat’s brains out with his bare hands and a handy wall. He finished his response by backhanding his ex-associate with a casual power that sent the other guy rolling.
Snitch-ferret got shakily to his feet and licked his lips as his eyes darted from Gere to the approaching jaguar warriors. With a low moan of fear, he backed away to circle around and put Grimmr and I between him and the approaching Aztecs. Of course that put his back to the ones coming from behind. The little guy was apparently too terrified to think of that though.
Gere and my dog weren’t as stricken with abject fear. Almost like a single unit they bounded towards the leading Aztec. Gere reached him first and drew the lightning-fast swipe of razor-sharp obsidian. The weapon never struck, as the wise old wolf spun on a heel and rolled back and to his left even as Grimmr came in from the right and ripped at the back of his target’s calf.
There was a whining snarl and their victim fell to a knee just in time for Gere to bounce back with a jaw-breaking punch into the side of the kneeling warrior’s face. Count that one out as well.
A rush of feet behind me brought me around to face the other attackers. They had surprised the snitch and he rushed past me with his wide-eyed stare devoted to the ones who had nearly got him from behind. That, of course, left him not watching the new threat behind him. All of the warriors still functioning went past him without notice, except for the last fellow who fetched a dandy of a shot to the back of the traitor’s knee. The leg seemed to all but come free at mid point. A scrap of meat held the leg on while the wounded weasel shrieked in surprise and agony.
His cries died out when the two wounded Aztecs pounced on him. The one with the broken jaw lashed out with a hand curved into a claw. He used his free hand to pound on the one embedded in his victim’s chest until ribs and sternum cracked. Out came a pulsing squirting bunch of purple gray and red. The warrior forced his broken jaw open and squeezed blood from the beating heart into his mouth along with a good-sized piece of meat. The rest of the organ he gave to his brother with the wrecked face and flopping neck.
Almost instantly their wounds closed and bones snapped back into place. Even the apparent neural damage was erased as the awkward and broken jaguar warrior regained his posture and suddenly began moving with feline grace again.
“What the Hel?” I wasn’t aware that I had stopped breathing until I had to draw a breath to exclaim and question what I had just seen. “Are they freakin’ vampires?”
Gere’s answer was not as reassuring as I would have liked. He responded by charging at the nearest warrior while grinning over his shoulder. “Don’t know, I’ll tell you in a second.”
16
The next few seconds got pretty busy. I had my hands too full to see exactly how Gere was going to determine the undead status of our adversaries. I was keeping three of the warriors off of us by a series of feints and an occasional actual attack using various hand to hand skills I’d picked up here and there.
The cat warriors were ok with some basic karate and even krav maga. The American style Kenpo kept them off balance though. Three guaranteed disables had been returned for a refund. All three of my targets had slowed some but none of them were out of the fight. With just enough breathing room to check, I gave a swift glance for my allies.
Heather had pressed both of Luis’ hands over his wound and dragged him back into the limited protection of Gere and I. While she did so Grimmr showed an unusual level of teamwork and harried the warriors while they tried to get to the wounded gunman.
Gere had downed three of the ones behind us but wasn’t able to finish any of them before their buddies joined in. He had, however, managed to accumulate a pile of broken wooden bats with obsidian shards. Even as I glanced he grabbed one of the broken bats and with a single savage rush battered aside two of the warriors to thrust the jagged wooden “stake” into the chest of one of the healthiest jaguar-men.
I spun around to deliver a rapid-fire flurry of low kicks and short punches which pushed my latest attacker back again. With a break in the action, I looked back to where Gere’s staked foe shuddered and fell still. His nearest ally, however, didn’t accept that verdict as final. He grabbed one of the weakly crawling bikers from an earlier brawl and once more ribs cracked and a pulsing heart was pulled free.
The still operational warrior pressed the warm flesh into his downed comrade's mouth and squeezed until the other shuddered and took a weak bite of the flesh. Almost instantly his color began to improve, his weak struggles became purposeful and with a gasp of shock, I saw the stake in his chest vibrate with the beat of a strong heart that pushed the wood out of a wound that closed itself in seconds.
“Nope, not vampires.” Gere didn’t sound as thrilled as he had before. His voice wasn’t exactly despondent but it had lost some of the thrill of battle that had been there earlier. Now he just sounded serious and very intense.
I felt my own hopes drop a little as I saw some of our more wounded foes eating hearts freshly ripped from some of the bikers that had not already expired from their battle with actual felines. Each of the Aztecas shed every sign of injury with the gulping of fresh cardiac muscle. By comparison, I sported at least half a dozen wounds ranging from what felt like a separated shoulder to a scratch that came within inches of disemboweling me as Luis had been.
Gere was bleeding from twice as many places as I was. His immortal nature was even tougher than mine though. He didn’t seem to even notice the deep slash running down the outer side of his left thigh. At least he moved on it as if it was nothing more than a minor inconvenience.
Grimmr was dragging a leg and heaving with the exertion. I wasn’t sure how much of the gore on his chest was man, cat, or his own, but there was plenty of blood for all of the above.
I looked over to Heather and her patient just as one of the obsidian weapons made it past her and buried a trio of razor-sharp shards in Luis’ chest. From the angle, I thought they missed his heart, but his right lung would be a mess. In either case, it was a mortal wound. Not that he’d been that much help anyway.
I saw Heather glare at the smirking warrior standing over her. When he jerked the blade out of Luis I started to try and intercept him. It was quite apparent that he wanted the girl next. I could easily picture her head rolling across the sand as he stood over her. Except I never got there, and he never got to swing. Instead, the girl threw what looked like a punch at him; if a punch could travel three feet farther than the lady could reach.
In that inst
ant, several mishaps occurred at the same instant. The blade had been stuck in Luis’ ribs. It snapped free with unexpected violence even as the warrior holding it slipped in a puddle. He fell backward to land on a similar weapon that was improbably lying with its edges upwards. At the same time his own weapon came down to land on and half sever his neck.
Everyone stopped to stare at the impossibility of the moment. And that’s when Heather’s voice rang out with a steely. “NO!”
What followed was my own ancient Norse language, except colored by a heavy valley girl accent. Runes flared from invisible to brightly glowing around Luis chest and belly. I felt my own runic tattoos flare and pulse warm rolls of healing energy that snapped my shoulder into place and knitted flesh together as if it were whole and new.
I looked over to see Gere nod his approval to the young Valkyrie before turning back to the fray with his own wounds disappearing faster than he’d got them. Behind me, I heard Heather’s indignant voice.
“Who like totally runed a dog, like, I don’t even know what to...like, OMG.” Apparently, she was at a loss for words.
On the other hand, I couldn’t help but think of an accident years ago when Eachan had helped me use a little runic lore to take care of Grimmr. I usually took care of minor injuries with a rune or two myself. That time though, it had been a severe accident. The vet said my pup might never walk again, so I called the only non-medical friend I had that might be able to help.
It would be a surprise but not entirely unbelievable that the old professor was a true adept at rune work. I looked over to see if the runes near my dog’s hips and spine were glowing as Luis had. What greeted me was a canine spectacle.
He didn’t have a glowing rune, or two, or three, or even a dozen. He was literally covered in glowing nordic runes that might have written a novel. If so it would be a novel about dozens of minor or major wounds and accidents that I had casually helped my dog with over the course of our life together. Suddenly his ability to fight Jaguars and hunt me down across a desert wasn’t half as mysterious.