by Weston Ochse
“Laws, ever play video games?” Walker asked. The view of the room and the cave openings was considerably lighter, but he still couldn’t make out any figures.
“Uh, yeah. Does Super Mario Brothers count?”
“Dude. My mother plays that,” Yaya said.
“Do you listen to Tears for Fears too?” Ruiz stage-whispered.
“Does Spandau Ballet count?”
“For God’s sake,” Walker laughed softly. “Then you get to take the MP5. Activate your laser targeter; I got an idea.”
Laws handed the tablet to Walker, who immediately switched it to infrared. On the tablet screen, the walls of the room turned purple. The edges of the cave openings turned yellow, sliding through the spectrum toward a dark green, then went to black. Shapes appeared as mottled orange and red. Where there were none before, Walker now counted six. They seemed to be huddled behind darker objects, which by their shapes could have been boxes, televisions, or engine blocks … anything as long as it was square.
“Laws, see if you can aim the MP5 into the room.”
“I can’t see what I’m aiming at.”
“But I can. Just aim and I’ll adjust your fire. You’re my joystick.”
Ruiz snickered over the MBITR.
Laws did as he was told, angling the weapon awkwardly so that he couldn’t see where he was aiming. Suddenly a line of raw red laser energy pierced the infrared darkness, spearing a dark wall toward the rear of the room.
“Shift aim left, slowly track until I say stop.”
Walker watched the screen as the line of light shifted from the wall toward one of the openings containing several orange-hued figures.
“Down a little. There. Continue left. And … there! Stop. Two rounds.”
Laws double-tapped.
A figure on the screen went flying backwards and disappeared from view.
“Left again. Stop. Fire.”
Another dropped from view.
He spied a head poking around a corner, the red and orange orb obvious against the cold rock.
“Up. Left. Up. No down. Left a hair more. Nice. Fire.”
The head evaporated in a spray of red and orange.
Suddenly the people in the other cavity opened fire, the flashes momentarily blinding both the sensors and Walker.
Laws pulled back just in the nick of time as the remainder of the counter evaporated in a hungry hail of bullets.
Walker switched back to real vision just in time to see gunfire emanating from behind the stack of cots. There was probably a third opening behind that one, from which more Triad enforcers were firing.
The firing subsided. Walker was about to tell Laws to return to his position when he felt a tug on the tablet. He paused, not knowing what was going on. Then he felt a harder tug, then a jerk, as if he were fishing and had a lunker on the end of the line. He gripped the tablet with both hands and pulled back, leaning with his weight to help. It came with him, and on the end, gripping the sniffer with both hands, was a homunculus.
The orange creature’s eyes narrowed. It spit at him, and the liquid burned as it touched his cheek. Then the creature growled, adjusted its grip, and pulled so hard that Walker fell forward on his face. He tried to hold on, but his position didn’t allow it.
Their technological superiority had just disappeared. He heard a chorus of growls coming from the other room.
“Wha—what is that?” asked the younger of the ICE agents.
“I lost the sniffer, boss,” Walker said.
“You lost it? How?”
As Walker heard the growls, he got to his feet. “Draw your knives,” he said, as if he were a Civil War general commanding his men to fix bayonets. The quarters was too close for ranged weapons. “They’re coming.” He drew his knife and shoved his pistol in his shoulder holster.
“What’s coming?” the FBI agent asked.
“Homunculi,” he muttered. “Fucking Freddy Krueger Chucky Doll Stretch Armstrongs all rolled into one, so your ass better be ready.”
“Backs to the walls,” Laws commanded.
Walker thought that was a great idea. With his back now to the steel door, he stood beside Ruiz.
The growls were becoming louder. They could hear an unidentifiable shuffling from the next room.
Ruiz cursed. “Cemetery Ridge,” he whispered.
Walker recognized the reference. They’d all had the same classes in BUD/S. The West Virginian was talking about none other than Pickett’s Charge—fifteen thousand men charging the defenses of Cemetery Ridge in Gettysburg. He’d always wondered how those men on the ridge felt seeing the force advance across the field toward them. He didn’t have to wonder anymore.
“Fuck. NVGs,” Laws yelled just as the creatures from the other room began to scream like howler monkeys.
Walker powered up his NVGs. Within seconds, the room was a placid green. A moment later that green was spoiled by a dozen scrambling figures with impossibly long arms.
Ruiz, Yaya, and Walker were in the best positions, with their backs against the walls. The wave of homunculi swept past them and onto the four agents who’d tagged along. Four beasts attacked each person, ripping and wrenching with claws, biting and jerking and pulling. The room was filled with human and demon screams, one in agony and the other in ecstasy.
The SEALs waded in.
Walker found himself assisting Agent Stephens, who had a homunculus attached to his face, chewing furiously at his nose. He grabbed the back of the beast and was astonished at its weight. Although it looked like a doll, it weighed as much as a pit bull. He stabbed it sideways with his knife, skewering it through the back.
It let out a shriek unlike any other sound it had made so far; then it died. His knife must have pierced whatever the damn thing had as a heart. But the shriek hadn’t gone unheard. The other homunculi attacking Agent Stephens shifted their attention to Walker.
Out of the corner of his eyes he saw Agent Stephens fleeing back up the stairs. Walker backed away, waving his arms and kicking his feet in a furious imitation of the spiderweb dance.
But still they came on. One latched onto each of his legs while another leaped toward him.
Walker brought his knife up more in panic than skill and managed to skewer his second long-armed imp. He grabbed it by one of its arms and ripped it free from the blade. Then he used its body to hammer first at the beast on his left leg, then the one on his right. He stunned the one on his right and sent it flying with a kick. The one on his left leg still clung to his thigh, staring one-eyed up at him with a furious grimace on its ugly mug.
Kneeling, Walker let go of the dead homunculus, wrapped his left hand around the living one’s neck, and peeled him off. His leg was bleeding from a dozen wounds, but there was nothing to be done about that now.
The orange creature spat on his hand, making the skin pop and sizzle, but Walker still held on. He brought his arm up, then down as hard as he could, slapping the beast into the ground over and over and over until it felt like nothing more than a sack of wet bones.
Once it was past dead, he tossed it aside and stood. He was breathing heavily. Sweat poured down his brow. He surveyed the living. Surrey was fine. The older ICE agent was fine. The younger ICE agent was on the ground, facedown.
Walker ran to him, knelt, and checked for a pulse—nothing.
That left the FBI agent. Last time he’d seen him, he was running for the stairs.
Walker spied his supine figure on the stairs. Atop it sat two homunculi. At first they seemed to be just sitting, but on closer look they were … eating.
“Aw hell,” he said, over his MBITR. “Two left.”
Walker reached down and grabbed a piece of wood, then advanced on the stairs. He was able to coldcock the one nearest him with a thwack on the back of the head. The other leaped free, dragging what could only be part of the agent’s intestine behind him before dropping it. Then it rappelled down the stairs and onto the floor. It sped across the floor toward the pirat
es’ cave, winding through legs, and leaping debris. Everyone tried to hit it or kick it, but it was just too fast. Just as it seemed as if it was going to make it to the relative freedom of the cave, a knife impaled it into the drywall.
Ruiz stepped carefully over the debris, ripped his knife free, cleaned it on the fabric of his pants, then replaced it into its sheath.
“Okay boys,” Laws said, his breath coming heavy over the MBITR. “Everyone scream, this time as loud as you can.”
“What?” Yaya asked.
“Just do it.”
It took a moment, but finally everyone figured it out. Screams went up from six mouths, then howls, grunts, shrieks of pain and fear, as if they were being eaten alive by the homunculi. The clamor lasted for twenty seconds, then died to nothing.
All they heard was their own breathing as they stood and waited for their next command.
When it came, they were ready.
“Fucking charge,” Laws whispered.
Yaya went through the hole in the wall first. Moving in a combat crouch, he sped toward the back of the cave, double-tapping until his magazine was empty.
Behind him came Laws, then Ruiz.
Laws did the same and didn’t spare any ammo.
Ruiz posted between the first and second caverns.
Walker came in with a bead on the first cavern.
On three, Laws and Ruiz took the middle; Yaya fired through the cot-built barricade and took the first.
Six enforcers were already in heaps along the floor. A single Hispanic woman, her mouth stitched, tears pouring from her eyes, stood in the far corner. Beside her, stretched on a bone-made frame, was a fully finished tattoo skin.
Walker put his hand on the back of her head and pulled her down gently but firmly. “Tranquilo. Silencio. Shhh,” he whispered as he scoped the rest of the cavern. It only went back about thirty feet. The walls glistened with dampness. Green moss carpeted them in differing layers. The woman stared at Walker, the red ChemLights reflected in her eyes. He smelled the sea, urine, and the unmistakable coppery scent of blood.
He dragged the woman behind him and met Surrey at the entrance to the cave. He passed the woman off, then turned to help Yaya, who took two in the chest as he was running toward Walker. The first one punched him back, the second one knocked him down.
Walker had no time to check the other SEAL. He scrambled back to the cot barricade in time to see daylight from the end of the cavern. Even as he watched, a man was sliding into a circular hole in the floor. Walker fired. He caught the figure in the back, but the man kept going.
With the light streaming from the opening, his NVGs were no good. He slung them away and began to pull the cots down as fast as he could. He finally got enough of them out of the way to rush in. Four more enforcers lay dead, as was a woman. He checked the hole and found it was an access to a culvert that drained into the ocean. There was no sign of the man.
Walker jerked his head out of the hole and checked the woman. He could tell without touching her that she was dead. He slammed his back against the wall and held in place. Her eyes stared at him accusingly and seemed to ask, Why me? She’d been ripped open from chin to pelvis in a ragged cut. Her insides had all but slid free. Next to her lay the same bone-made rack, but in this case, the suit was missing. If only she’d been in the first cavern, she’d still be alive. Whatever fate put her here had something else in mind for her.
Within moments, Laws was calling the all-clear. Three more enforcers had been killed in the middle cavern, but the woman who was with them was unharmed except for the stitches in her lips.
Yaya rejoined them, grinning sheepishly as he knocked on his body armor. He’d be bruised, but he was alive.
There were two enforcers left alive. Both had been shot, one through the gut, the other through the chest. Neither would survive long without medical attention and they both knew it. So when Laws began to talk to both of them where they lay against a cavern wall, it was interesting to see their reactions. While the one on the left, a scar beneath his left eye, seemed relieved at the opportunity, the one on the right, who had a snake tattooed on his bald head, wanted nothing to do with answering questions. And when he realized that his fellow enforcer was going to answer, he tried to reach his hand into the other man’s stomach and hurry the man’s death along.
Ruiz grabbed him and pressed him to the floor with a boot on top of his wounded chest. “You should just leave that other bad Chinese man alone and let him talk,” Ruiz said, with all the aplomb of one man talking to another as if they were on a main street waiting on a bus.
Walker paused to watch Laws in action, but soon tired of it. Unlike the previous interrogation, Laws wasn’t taking the time to translate into English, so Walker had no idea what was going on. He moved on to the surviving women. Surrey had checked them and reported that they were unharmed, except for the stitching.
The ICE agent and Surrey helped the women out, then returned with reinforcements from outside, now that Laws had cleared the scene. Men came in disguised as a hazardous-materials team dressed in orange rubber suits with square enclosed headgear. They first disposed of the homunculi, cutting them into pieces and slipping them into double-thick black bags. Once they took those away, they returned with stretchers.
By then Laws had finished his interrogation.
Now that their part of the mission was over it was time to leave. Because the events were something that had surely garnered the attention of the local media, they’d planned for an anonymous extraction. One by one, the SEALs removed all of their military gear, lay on stretchers, and were carried out, a sheet over each of them. They exited into a triage canopy, which had ambulances pulled to the back. Two SEALs per ambulance, then it was taking off. The last thing Walker heard was a man bellowing through a loudspeaker about a gas leak and how everyone should stay away. Once they’d gone a block, the SEALs removed the sheets and sat up. But that was as far as they got. Corpsmen from the USS George Washington cleaned their cuts and scrapes and gave them IVs. But instead of heading to a hospital, they drove straight to the Mosh Pit.
34
THE MOSH PIT. MORNING.
Five o’clock came earlier than it should have. Upon their return from the mission yesterday afternoon, they’d had a mandatory debrief. This time it was Holmes who conducted it. He’d been cleared by the board and was his own stern self, acting as if nothing had ever happened, critical of each step of the mission. When he learned that they’d wasted time with the sniffer when they probably could have gotten the same result from the NVGs, he was initially angry. But as he railed against it, he conceded that the video-game solution Walker had devised had most likely saved the SEALs from being wounded. This concession surprised not only Walker, but Ruiz as well, who elbowed him in the ribs when Holmes wasn’t looking.
When they got to the details surrounding the tattooed skin suits and the women, Ruiz interrupted. “They were using the women for sacrifices, weren’t they?”
Holmes considered it. “It looks like it. Not sure how it works, but blood magic generally imbues a person or thing with the strength of the giver.” Seeing Yaya’s incredulous expression, Holmes added, “Not the physical strength per se, but the spiritual strength.”
Yaya had been silent through the entire debrief, but now he finally spoke. “I hear you talking, boss, and I understand the words, but I don’t understand how they go together. Blood. Magic. Sacrifice. Homunculi. I mean W-T-F, over.”
Walker offered Yaya a friendly smile. “I was sitting in your place just the other day saying the same sorts of things. Crazy, ain’t it? And it’s only going to get better from here.”
“The suits worry me,” Laws said.
Ruiz turned to Laws. “How so?”
“I get their use. It’s a sort of blood magic used to create some sort of spiritual shield. The suit will protect the wearer. Looks like the same guy who owned the ship we took down ordered one.” Laws, who had been staring at the floor the entir
e time, looked up. “So why all the other suits? Are they making an army?”
“Even one skin suit is bad news. Whether they’re being made for an army, or the leaders of the world’s organized crime, it suggests a broader knowledge of the supernatural and a desire to tap into it. Our job isn’t going to get any easier anytime soon.”
Holmes let the words sink in for a few moments. Then he crossed his arms and gave his full attention to the newest SEAL. “Think you’ll be able to hack it?”
The other SEALs turned to Yaya as well, curious to hear his response.
“Oh, I can hack it, all right. It’s just going to take some getting used to.”
Holmes shifted his gaze to Walker. “And what about you, Walker? I heard you had another episode.”
Walker felt the heat of embarrassment. He’d been trying to keep it in the back of his mind. Trying to think it never happened had been working so well until now. “I’m fine,” he said.
“What I heard is that you were a deer in the headlights and couldn’t have moved if there was a train coming. Is that about right?”
Walker nodded. He licked lips that had suddenly gone dry. “That’s about right.”
“What are we going to do about it?”
Jack felt blood rush to his face. “I don’t know. Why not ask Ms. Billings? I was her idea, remember?”
“Easy, Jack,” Laws said.
“Hey, I didn’t ask for this gig. I was asked for. This”—he was at a loss for words—“shit that happens to me is beyond my control. I don’t want it to happen ever again, but I know it will and it scares the fuck out of me to think of what kind of danger I might put you guys in.” Walker found that he was almost standing by the time he finished. He sat back hard in his chair, his eyes flashing with anger.
Everyone stared at him. Holmes was the first to speak. “You better hurry up and figure out a way to control it, then.” Holmes uncrossed his arms and stepped up to the conference table. “Tomorrow morning we have a mission brief. Everyone needs to be ready.”
They broke up after that. Although Fratty’s room had been cleared, Yaya was still unwilling to move in. Instead, he pushed his bags into a corner of the immense room and claimed one of the couches as his own.