by Paul Taylor
Again, the crowd erupted in celebration, but this time with even greater enthusiasm, as the Pasha’s massive airship rose over the temple.
“Brother and sisters,” cried Burr, “the Pasha has arrived! And he brings the infidel Hidalgo, who shall give himself to Allah as justice demands!”
The gondola of the ship steadied itself above the top of the ziggurat. A small door on its side slid open, and a body was thrown to the guards below. It bore the distinctive priestly smock of President Hidalgo.
“Hand him here!” Burr could be heard saying above the roar of the crowd.
The guards hurriedly lifted the body and tossed it unceremoniously on the sacrificial palate.
“Death to the leader of infidels!” screeched Burr.
His scimitar plunged into Hidalgo’s stomach, spotting Burr’s forearms with blood, but also splashing an oddly translucent liquid that burst from Hidalgo’s vest. Burr did not hesitate, but instead launched immediately into his second flourish, the beheading, swinging his scimitar in a crazed arc through Hidalgo’s neck.
Hidalgo’s head began its violent descent down the stairs. The crowd watched in awe as the mind of the reformist they once admired was reduced to a spongy pulp.
After the head came to rest at the base of the ziggurat, a nearby guard picked it up and held it aloft.
The crowd’s cheers grew to a crescendo. Burr basked in the moment.
Then the guard holding the head suddenly screamed. He dropped it and stumbled back a few steps, terrified. The crowd quickly quieted.
The guard held out a shaking hand and pointed to the head on the ground as a stark realization washed over the assemblage.
“It’s the shaved head of the Pasha!”
A hushed murmur pervaded the crowd just as a hellish shriek broke from the top of the ziggurat.
We looked up. Burr was enveloped in a blanket of bees that poured from the stump of the decapitated sacrifice. The bees gathered in thick patches over his face and chest, smothering him under a living blanket lined with hundreds of angry stingers.
The airship had since alighted at the edge of the gathered crowd. A ramp extended from its gondola and President Hidalgo charged forward, bearing his worker bee flag and leading his rebel army toward the base of the ziggurat.
I ordered the charge of the marines through the crowd, sending Burr’s shocked and terrified followers scrambling to the surrounding jungle. Musket fire from Hidalgo’s contingent dropped guards from the uppermost ziggurat terraces while the marines stormed the inner halls of the Montezuma Temple.
When the battle was over, and our forces victorious, we met again with President Hidalgo.
“The last we witnessed was your surrender to the Pasha,” I said, “after your shield of bees had been breached.”
“Ah,” said Hidalgo, “but what you saw was not all our bees had to offer.”
Hamilton looked puzzled.
“The azaleas!” I cried.
“How perceptive, Dr. Franklin!” said Hidalgo, squeezing my elbow. “We knew the significance of the honey to the pirates, but also the significance of the azalea’s pollen to the honeycombs.”
“Grayanotoxin is a neurological poison found in azalea pollen,” I told Hamilton, “and when bees pollinate azaleas, their honey contains the same and remains potent enough to cause those eating it to become deliriously ill.”
“Indeed,” said Hildalgo. “The Pasha feasted most eagerly from the nectar and was the first to become incapacitated. We shaved the Pasha’s ebullient beard, knowing he would be difficult to recognize without it, and dressed him in my priestly smock. Then we affixed a leather pouch filled with pheromones to his chest and filled his lungs with bees.”
“You caused quite a spectacle, Hidalgo,” said Hamilton. “Surely the Mexican people know now that Armaan Burayd – or, as we know him, Aaron Burr – is no instrument of a higher power.”
“Still,” said Hidalgo, “the Barbary infiltration of the Spanish Inquisition has caused deep concern.” He turned to me. “I have alerted the Temple Trust,” he said. “They have already begun to transfer their Spanish holdings to America.”
Just then, a marine lieutenant approached and handed me a letter from President Jefferson.
Secretary Franklin:
I trust you have made this hemisphere safe from the foreign encroachment of the Barbary powers, and that thanks are due yet again to your scientific prowess.
Much as I would like to have you back in Washington City, I have need for you to visit the Independent Republic of Texas before you journey home. American settlers there are finding their land claims threatened by the recent appearance of Barbary militants, with whom they have engaged in several skirmishes.
Investigate the dispute, and do what we can to keep Texas in American hands.
Yours,
Thomas Jefferson
Hidalgo was kind enough to have Hamilton and me transported by airship north of the Rio Grande. We were set down just outside San Antonio, along with a carriage and two horses for our use. It was as far as the ship could take us safely, we were told, as the land north of our landing was plagued by border disputes.
We were dropped off at night, so as to allow us the protection of darkness. We thanked Hidalgo’s men for their help and wished them well in their home country.
Part 5: Benjamin Franklin and the Battle of Solomon’s Temple
(The Napoleonic Conspiracy)
Hamilton took the reins of the carriage and walked the horses gently so as to minimize their audible imprints. But not far from our landing spot, the horses grew restless and began to whinny. Soon thereafter we heard the howling of wolves. Our concern was heightened when the howls grew louder, and heightened further when the howls turned to chants.
“Gyorgy! Gyorgi!” came a cacophony of beastly sounds from the far side of the hills bordering our path. We tied our horses and cautiously approached the gathering by foot. From a nearby outcropping, masked in brush, we looked down on a torch-lit group of Mohawk werewolves and Habsburg vampires.
A gigantic brute, apparently Gyorgy, the leader of the assemblage, walked into the torchlight. He quieted the chants with outstretched arms. When all was silent, he let his heavy jaw fall open.
“Soon,” he said, “our time will come!”
Werewolves growled and vampires gnashed their fangs.
“Thanks be to our old friend Armaan Burayd, who purchased the land on which we stand!”
Gyorgy swung his cloaked arm like a curtain and revealed the hunched figure of Aaron Burr. His face, hideously scarred by the bees, had swelled like a ripe raspberry, its drupelets filled with carbuncular pustules.
“He is a monster like us now!” cried one of the wolves, and the assemblage roared with laughter.
“It is from here we will bring our attack to the Christian hordes,” cried Gyorgy. “First to San Antonio, then to Texas, and then to Washington City!”
There were more chants. Then Gyorgy calmed the crowd with a wave of his clawed hand.
“And now,” he cried, “bring out the man who will lead monsters to victory!”
Two vampires hurtled through the crowd and unceremoniously tossed a small figure into the torchlight. He wore soiled white breeches, red epaulettes, and a dusty black coat. He sported a colorful cockade that bobbed like the comb of a wounded rooster.
“I give you the great Napoleon Bonaparte,” yelled Gyorgy, “newly freed from his island prison!”
“Napoleon! Napoleon!” cheered the crowd.
“There is no greater expert on the military tactics of men,” said Gyorgy. “He will lead our attack on America!”
The assemblage cheered again, and as it did I felt a rustling from our rear.
I turned and saw a mass of fur lunging toward us. My mouth opened reflexively, but was immediately clamped shut. I waited for the wolf’s bite to close, and hoped for a quick demise.
But there came only a whisper.
“I mean you no harm,” sa
id the figure, slowly loosening his grip on me and Hamilton.
Two brown eyes peered from below a coonskin cap. The glint of metal formed the outline of a rifle hanging on a jacket draped in pelts.
We immediately recognized the wild frontiersman as the renowned Davy Crockett.
“Dr. Benjamin Franklin and Mr. Alexander Hamilton,” said Crockett. “Never thought I’d find you in the backwoods of Texas. But then again, I thought I was tracking bear, not talking wolves!”
“The supernaturals are planning an imminent attack on San Antonio,” I said. “We were sent by President Jefferson to report on threats to the Texas territory.”
Crockett nodded. “I know a path out of here and to the town,” he said. “We’ll set up our defenses at the Alamo.”
The Alamo was a former Catholic mission and current fortress compound. It was not built as a defensive structure, but it would have to do. The town’s women and children were barricaded in the church sanctuary while we planned as best we could to stall the advance of the supernaturals with the traditional weapons at our disposal.
Crockett had come to the Independent Republic of Texas to earn some seed money fighting Barbary encroachers. He was a respected rifleman. He also had a reputation for yarn spinning as well as bear shooting, and so it took some time for the local population to come to grips with the true nature of the threat he described. Fortunately, Hamilton and I were there to vouch for Crockett, and the town did what little they could to prepare.
All available horses were tied to posts at the town perimeter to act as an early warning system. An hour after dusk, they whinnied in terror just before they were trampled by the herd of stampeding werewolves.
A friend of Crockett’s named Bowie was the first to relay word of the impending assault. He joined us just beyond the first ditch that surrounded the Alamo’s cannon wall.
“To the cannonade!” he cried.
From our perch we saw the wolves leap the palisades so effortlessly we thought Napoleon must have trained them for steeplechase. They moved so fast they were under the reach of our cannon fire before the men had time to clean the first bores.
“Retreat to the chapel!” called Crockett.
Hamilton and I followed Crockett and Bowie through the stock pen and around the convent yard. We were the first men inside the chapel, and likely already the last men left alive. The women and children were huddled on the altar. They seemed resigned to their station, surrounded as they were by religious imagery of sacrifice.
“There’s a tunnel under the altar,” said Crockett. “We need to hold off the enemy’s advance long enough to ferret the women and children to safety.”
Hamilton and I stood along the walls of the church, wielding ordinary rifles. Crockett and Bowie manned the aisle between the pews.
A wolf crashed through the chapel doors and ushered in several more. They were followed by Gyorgy, a giant black hulk. The beast removed his hood with hands that looked like tangled vines lined with nails of thorn.
“Vampire!” yelled Bowie, leaping toward the beast. He thrust his ten-inch knife into the chest of the fiend, who flapped his bowl-shaped jaw in agony and drew back with Bowie’s blade stuck hilt-deep in his sternum.
The beast staggered, then steadied. Gyorgy slowly withdrew the blade. It was bloodless.
The women tried to muffle the children’s cries.
Crockett fired his rifle at Gyorgy’s head, but the monster’s jaw absorbed the kinetic force of the musket ball like a stiff punch. Gyorgy swept open his arm like a vulture’s wing taking flight and slammed his fist into Bowie’s chest.
Bowie was lifted in the air by his own clavicle to meet the eyes of the heaving monster. As Bowie writhed, Gyorgy’s hooked nail, dirtied with sinew and bone, extended from his victim’s back. The beast tossed Bowie aside like a used napkin and walked slowly toward Crockett.
“Enough, Gyorgy!” came a cry from just beyond the chapel doors.
There, barely tall enough to reach the door latch, was Napoleon Bonaparte.
“Davy Crockett!” he said.
The diminutive former emperor, exiled by the European powers to a remote island following his defeat at Waterloo, waddled confidently into the chapel.
“I read of your exploits while imprisoned on Saint Helena,” he said. “You are good at killing bears. Werewolves and vampires, not so much!”
“What do you want with Texas?” asked Crockett.
“A wealthy benefactor with a hatred of your country, but a poor history of dominating it, secured my release by a supernatural army that shares the same revulsion toward America. They brought me to a staging area here in San Antonio, where I have trained their forces for invasion. It is here we begin our march to Washington City.”
“The blood you spilled today will only make Americans hungry for vengeance!” cried Crockett.
“That may be so,” said Napoleon, “but now Gyorgy is hungry for blood, as are his Habsburg brethren. I’ve promised them a continuous supply following our ultimate victory.”
Napoleon gestured toward Crockett.
“There, Gyorgy,” he said. “I bet the meat is succulent under all that coonskin!”
Gyorgy leaned toward Crockett like a falling column, his weighty jaw opening wide in anticipation.
As Gyorgy pounced on Crocket, Napoleon turned to me.
“Dr. Franklin,” he said in a low voice, “I have little in common with an uneducated woodsman, but you and I have shared experiences in the corridors of power.”
The little general tucked his right hand in his vest and rested his other at his side. He lingered in that position for several seconds, then continued.
“Perhaps there is a way to work this out to our mutual satisfaction?”
I did not at the time focus on Napoleon’s suggestion as my eyes were drawn to the stained glass windows, which I had been examining since we entered the church.
I raised the butt of my rifle and brought it down on the window nearest me, aiming for its depiction of the halos of the saints. Its panels shattered in an array of colored shards. As the wolves advanced, I quickly gathered the yellow pieces, which I knew to be composed of silver stain made from silver nitrate, a substance painted on the outside of stained yellow glass, then fired to make it permanent.
I threw the shards at the lunging wolves, whose skin recoiled at the touch of the silver compound. Hamilton followed my lead and shattered the remainder of the glass, which turned the church floor into a sharp mosaic the wolves would not touch for fear of contact with the silver stain.
With Gyorgy distracted by Crockett and the wolves unable to advance, Hamilton and I pushed back the altar to reveal the tunnel underneath and ushered the women and children below.
Gyorgy threw Crockett to the side of the church. Crockett grasped his torn throat and reached for a torch on the wall. His eyes held the courage that comes with resignation to fate.
“Go, Franklin!” he cried. He threw the torch on Gyorgy, whose cloak burst into flames. The beast spun wildly throughout the pews of the church, spreading the fire with every flailing turn. Within seconds, the church was engulfed in an impenetrable pall of smoke.
Napoleon ordered the retreat, and we quickly made our escape through the tunnel. We worked our way through its winding turns, which seemed to stretch over a mile, and emerged in the middle of the woods, safe from the horrors of San Antonio. One of the elder women led us to a nearby settlement, where the women and children sought shelter. Hamilton and I secured a carriage and headed east to Louisiana, where we would resupply before heading north to Tennessee.
We arrived in New Orleans in the early afternoon.
The streets were eerily devoid of their usual bustle. The stores were filled with merchandise, but bereft of merchants. We gathered what we thought necessary, but not more, and left some money on the counters. Hamilton spotted a bottle of whiskey at a grocery. We took a couple swigs to help settle our nerves and took the bottle with us.
As
we left the grocery, a rank stench came upon us, far worse than that of the usual swamp rot. It came to permeate the city as we advanced. As we walked down a vacant Canal Street, the stench grew to a discomforting crescendo that made us wince.
Then we rounded a corner. At the end of the next street there was a sign for a saloon. Underneath it, the street was packed with stumbling slaves, piling over one another to get at the bar. They all appeared to have been worked to the bone. Quite literally.
“Bokor Samedi’s zonbis!” I cried.
Hamilton immediately dropped the whisky bottle. As he did, the corpses nearest us turned their heads slowly toward its sharp odor. They outstretched their arms and appeared to pull themselves toward us with the very scent of the alluring liquor.
We doubled back and ran, but the route to the Mississippi River was clogged with more sauntering corpses.
“Let us run north, Mr. Hamilton!”
The corpses coalesced behind us in a moaning throng. We ran through a cemetery, darting through and over tombstones, which slowed their progress some. On the other side was Cypress Swamp, covered in fog. We jumped in. The swamp grass slowed us down, but it slowed the corpses even more. We crawled up a spot of dry grass and walked to the center of a patch of land.
“We lost them!” said Hamilton.
“No,” I said. “Look!”
What at first appeared as lily pads were revealed as the caps of rotted skulls with vacant eyes that followed us like hunting alligators. The corpses formed a ring around us, like the rash that signaled the onset of the Black Plague.
I saw no way out of our predicament and prayed we had that bottle of whisky again.
And my prayers were answered.
A bottle of whiskey fell through the fog and dropped between us and the closest corpses. Then another bottle fell. And another. Some landed in the soft peat bog. Some splashed into the swamp and floated to the surface.