Blood Hunt (Secret Magent Book 3)

by F. A. Bentley

  Just like a highway, I told myself. Except the lanes were all crowded, the cars were crawling over each other and on second inspection the cars were actually adorable poodle sized scorpions with bright yellow bodies and black stingers with red polka dots on them. Lis would love this place. The bridge over the river was sturdy and respectable. The far side was not just dark but foggy too.

  Through misty tendrils, a temple loomed into sight. Crimson hued, the distant echo of feral howls reached my ears from within the structure. Even over the roar of torrential rain I could hear it. A stone wall barricaded us from going around it.

  “What did Narani say this temple was again?” I asked Itabimori.

  Just as the snake woman opened her mouth to reply, a grotesque figure leaped out at her from behind, claws poised to pierced her clean through. No time to think, just react. I wrapped my arms around her lean shoulders and threw myself bodily to the side, taking her along with me.

  Hulking over the torn and chipped stone where we stood seconds ago stood a familiar foe.

  Spotted. Feral. Clawed hands and fanged grimace. A were-jaguar snarled at us and prepared to pounce anew.

  “House of Jaguars. Right. I remember now,” I muttered, and drew my wand-sword.

  Chapter 34

  My blade of arcana solidified in a flash. By the time the were-jaguar had pounced I had already poised my wand-sword tip first towards the oncoming mass of muscle and sharp teeth.

  He must have thought I’d panic or something, because the jaguar man looked quite surprised by my swift reaction. That or the blade piercing through his bicep.

  When strength of arms failed, he snapped his feral fangs at me. His eyes bloodshot with savagery and something else. Two could play at the sucker punch game though. I wrenched my wand-sword harshly out of his muscles, and slashed down upon the beast’s face as it howled in pain.

  It was only after I delivered the coup de grace to the crippled beast that I realized what else was mixed into its half human eyes.

  Desperation.

  Itabimori rose up from the cavern floor, none the worse for wear.

  “Hey. We should hurry. I have a feeling that…”

  I trailed off. The lithe, fit snake woman was staring at me, in shock and awe.

  “What?” I asked. “Scorpion in my pants?”

  Itabimori blushed. “No, no, it’s just that you kicked its butt like it was nothing.”

  I hardly noticed myself. Looking down at the dead were-jaguar, I couldn’t help but notice it was just as crooked hulk of flesh and fangs as the others I’d fought. The same as Estaban from the warehouse too. The difference was I had since grown wiser. Expereinced.

  “It was afraid. And not of me,” I told Itabimori. “Let’s go find Tlatani and ask him a few questions.”

  Let it never be said that the ancient Mesoamericans didn’t know their way around a fun house. Spike pits? Blow dart tubes in the walls? Crushing walls? Kiddie shit!

  Xibalba had spirit jaguars swirling in sickly blue tempests beneath the narrow walk ways. Just how sadistic do you have to be to bind the souls of a hundred jaguars to eternally prowl a temple? They’d be a real problem if we’d been the first customers.

  As it stood now though, the temple looked absolutely trampled. Pale blue fire and a sparse smattering of wispy felines scattered at our entrance. The floor was slick with blood and the walls stained with magic and bullet holes.

  “Looks like the Mabinoy and the were-beasts met up here,” Itabimori murmured.

  I drew Cho out of my back pocket and light shone from the tiny lantern, bringing some much needed vision in the darkened temple interior.

  “You’ve read my mind,” I replied. “Judging by the body count, I’d say Tlatani was the loser.”

  It wasn’t just were-jaguars, but crocodiles too. Even were-bats with torn wings lay lifeless upon cold stone blocks. As we descended deeper into the bowels, we finally found him. Collapsed against a wall, coughing blood, he lay maybe ten feet from the unguarded temple exit.

  “Well, well,” Antonio Tlatani began the moment he caught sight of me.

  “For the record, I gave you fair warning,” I said, crouching down in front of the mortally wounded man.

  “Fair warning?” he asked.

  “Making were-beasts might seem powerful, and that sort of power does things to your ambition. But…”

  But he was just a big fish in a tiny pond. The Mabinoy ate up his little cult like it was nothing.

  “Charles?” Itabimori asked.

  “Where is Ajay and the Mabinoy?” I demanded.

  “On the road that Smoking Mirror-- the Nagual paved. What a shame. Such a shame. Can you please help me?” he asked.

  He almost looked like a scared kid.

  I turned to Itabimori. “Can you do anything? Do you even want to save this asshole?” I asked her.

  The snake woman grimaced, kneeling beside the dying man. She raised her hands as the magics of creation beamed to life upon her palms. The moment she did, a flurry of motion erupted. Tlatani’s left hand, hidden beneath a bloodspattered, feathery poncho shot out. Scales glistened with blood, and muscles that shouldn’t belong to a human sought Itabimori’s throat.

  A half snake hand sprung out, venomous teeth barbed.

  A cry echoed through the temple. Itabimori fell back onto her rear, chest heaving up and down. Tlatani’s serpentine arm, pierced by my wand-sword and pinned to the ground struggled against my blade. Tlatani screamed in rage and futile fury, his chance at betrayal ruined.

  “I had a feeling you’d do something like that,” I muttered.

  “Shit! You bastard, I’ll kill you I’ll kill you!” he screamed and howled.

  I drew my gun with my free hand. The gunshot echoed through the cavernous expanse. I helped Tabi onto her feet.

  “I was hoping he wouldn’t,” she said, turning away from Tlatani’s cooling corpse.

  I shook my head, “He did though. Sorry.”

  Itabimori stuck her forked tongue out at me. “Thanks for the save. What now?”

  I stepped out of the House of Jaguars, and took stock of my surroundings. There was really only one course of action that made sense to me.

  “We can’t afford any interference if we’re to try and kill the Nagual. The Magi first. Where’s the House of Razors?” I asked.

  Itabimori smiled and bowed like a tour guide, “Right this way.”

  Chapter 35

  Things were going from bad to worse by the time we made it to the House of Razors. The shadowy landscape was oppressive, the rickety stone paths were treacherous, and did I mention the sky was falling?

  Torrential rain fell down from the cracks in the cavern roof and into the brooding depths. The larger holes looked like garden hoses that had been left on by negligent groundskeepers. At this rate, we’d be drowned in the murky water before we had to worry about our time running out.

  “The good news is,” Itabimori said, brightly, “we don’t have to worry about finding any traps.”

  Was she ever right. The one advantage to having the Magi keeping a lead on us is that they got to find all the traps for us. There was practically a bread crumb trail of ‘spent’ thralls leading up to the black temple.

  Corpses in hand me down t-shirts, sowed shut eyes, and ruined firearms were scattered everywhere. A Nine Towers mage would have had to delay days to painstakingly disarm each and every trap. Not the Magi. What the Mabinoy lacked in patience and know-how, they made up for in cannon fodder.

  Another wall of grimy stone rose up in the distance, just like at the House of Jaguars.

  “It seems Tlatani wasn’t lying about this place. We’ll have to pass through it, and we’re not going to have an easy time of it,” I told Itabimori.

  The snake woman shot me a cocksure grin. “We can take them.”

  “It’s do or die anyways,” I said, as we reached the foot of the temple.

  The temple loomed, like a crooked spike coming out of the ground,
the very architecture inspiring sharp edges and pointy bits. But that wasn’t what caught my attention though.

  “You smell that?” I asked.

  Itabimori nodded. “Death Magic. Not very surprising since we’re in Xibalba, but it feels like a major vein.”

  Just like Narani said.

  “This will affect your magics. Won’t it?” I asked.

  Magical schools had polar opposite that always interfered. Sometimes the difference was barely noticeable. Other times it was impossible to ignore. Creation magics, better known as life magic was the opposite of death magic. Big surprise.

  “Don’t expect miracles. And don’t forget what Narani told you,” Itabimori replied.

  “Good thing I brought Kevlar of my own. No need to heal wounds your armor takes for you, right? You should try and stay out of sight. Don’t intervene unless you have to.”

  “Charles,” she began to complain.

  “This is different. Promise me.”

  She didn’t say a word, but she offered a begrudging nod. Peeking past the jagged stones we hid behind, I caught sight of shuffling up the temple steps. Thralls. Rearguard if I had to guess. Standard formation.

  Eight ragged sleepwalkers in an unusually disorganized bunch stumbled about the stairs. Behind them their retainer hovered. They looked different somehow. The battle against Tlatani might have been a narrower victory for the Magi than I dared to hope.

  “I have them,” I said, willing my wand-sword into existence. Keeping to the shadows I charged the unsuspecting thralls in total silence.

  Split second decisions ruled the battlefield. The magi babysitter was completely unarmed except for a driftwood staff. Not just underarmed and innocuous, but scrawny and malnourished too. The thralls were slow moving, like they were weighed down or something. Not that it mattered. It would be easier to finish off the Magi’s thralls first than rush to the keeper himself. I drew my blade back and struck.

  The zombie thralls didn’t even notice me as I cut down the nearest two, the others were slow to react even after their keeper threw an accusing finger in my direction. Sluggish, clumsy, they withdrew low caliber pistols to fire.

  All to no avail. They were all down and dead and my blade was pointed menacingly at the Magi’s heart before a single shot was fired.

  “Why don’t you give me numbers and details and I’ll spare you.”

  The black robed man smirked. Rotted yellow teeth flashed. “It be unprofessional to give up a client’s info, don’t ya think?”

  My eyes narrowed. This wasn’t a Magus.

  “Charles, behind you!” Itabimori cried out.

  Too late. A white hot pain shot through my leg. Enough knock me off my footing and nearly off the walkway. Another inch to the left and I’d have gotten impaled on the architecture. As I turned to regard my attacker, his butcher’s cleaver held limply in his hand, all the pieces clicked into place.

  Lisistrathiel’s words echoed in my ears. Oh and he’s probably hired some mean mercs too if he really wants to win.

  The thrall that struck me had his neck completely cut. His head hung back unnaturally as I noticed its pierced chest and blood drenched clothes for the first time. Black clad babysitter? Lifeless shambling thralls that were still standing after having already been dealt a death blow?

  “It’s not enough to have zombie thralls, is it?” I asked the black clad figure. “Zombified zombie thralls: A limitless supply of trap catchers. No wonder you’re all squatting on a major death node, sorcerer. Or perhaps I should say necromancer.”

  Mercenary necromancers. Only death and taxes are a certainty in this world. And these bastards were fixing to get a monopoly on both.

  The necromancer’s rotten grin widened. “Nothin’ personal. Just business.”

  “Took the words right out of my mouth.”

  I ducked beneath the swing of a cleaver, rose up on my good leg and formed a tiny ball of light in my hand. A snap of my fingers, and a flashbang worth of disorientation left the necromancer clawing at his eyes.

  No effect on the zombified zombie thralls though, but without their necromancer in the game, I had a real chance. Another swing from the cleaver thrall was swiftly parried by my agile wand-sword, and as the other undead crowded to overwhelm me, I planted my expensive footwear right into the cleaver thrall’s chest and kicked with all my strength. Off the edge they flew.

  Necromancers are rightfully feared in the world of magic. And not just because Humans, Mundane and magical alike, tend to agree that zombies are grotesque abuses of nature. They also happen to be spectacularly effective abuses of nature.

  Shooting them in the head or severing the spine were movie myths. There was no real Mundane way to make them stay down except to really dice them up until the magic holding them together dissipates.

  But with so many spikes and traps on hand, it was a formality to permanently disable the zombified zombie thralls before finishing off their necromancer.

  “Charles, be careful,” Itabimori shouted, “You’re blee--”

  “Hang on,” I said, the necromancer recovering from the disorienting flash of light.

  A hand raised up to my face, caked in violet wisps of smoke. From the crooked finger tips a bolt of billowing black magic shot out. My good fortune that I’m agile. The first rule of fighting necromancers is never get hit by anything they shoot at you.

  Rapid aging, disintegration, localized necrosis, or any combination thereof could have been in that incantation. And those are just the apprentice level spells.

  Turning my dodge into a whirl, I brought my sword to bear in an underhand slash that sent the necromancer’s limb flying off. A stab to his forehead made sure he couldn’t complain about his severed arm.

  I heaved a sigh of relief as the dust settled. Not bad. Turning my head to my thigh, I saw the glistening of my blood dribbling down my dress pants. Not good either.

  “Think you can heal me?” I asked, as Itabimori came running to me.

  She nodded and got to work on my leg.

  “No choice but to strike now. Even if it is necromancers on top of Magi.”

  “We’ll be fine. The wound just needs a bit of my elbow grease and… There. How does it feel?” the snake woman asked.

  “Fuzzy,” I replied. “Thank you.”

  “Thank me later,” she said with a wink.

  “We’re in real trouble, all things considered. Handling eight zombies in one go isn’t easy. These are serious mercenaries. The Mabinoy must have really given Baron Ajay a blank check and told him to get himself something nice.”

  “You always figure all this stuff out with only a hint or two,” Itabimori said, looking mighty impressed.

  “Quick wits are my charm point. Notice too, how spread out the necromancers are? There’s no way they’d have left this guy alone guarding their backs without more support if they could afford it.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means they’re running on fumes. Probably held together by Ajay’s ambition and the promise of extra zeroes on their paychecks. We can take them. I’m sure of it.”

  Itabimori smiled confidently. “You sound like you have a plan.”

  “You bet your toned ass I do,” I murmured. “Out of curiosity, just how good are you at moving without being seen?”

  Chapter 36

  Torches flickered in the darkness of the inner temple. I could barely see ten feet in front of me. Good. That meant that they’d never see us coming. Itabimori’s hand lay on the flat of my back to make sure we don’t lose each other in the gloom.

  There was probably a special place in Hell reserved for the asshole that did the interior decoration of the House of Razors. Everything was spikey. Spike pits spike walls spike flooring, the floor the seats too. If the place had any safety bars to keep you from falling into the pits those would be spiked too.

  Lots of people must have died here. Slow painful deaths. It was no small wonder a big fat vein of death magic flowed through
the temple. The place practically stank of lethality: Dried blood and rust.

  “You see them?” I asked Itabimori, peering down from the upper passages to the central chamber below.

  She traced the letter Y into my back. Yes.

  The objective was simple. Move in, ambush the Magi, and kill them before they could group up and overpower us. Easier said than done. The spiked everything made our descent and sneaking very difficult.

  The voices floated from below. Low and harsh. Composed but with a certain edge of desperation in them.

  “And what we gonna do about it?” asked a voice.

  “We hold out for now. Don’t think on a panicked head, that’s how you die and join the fodder,” replied another.

  My feet shuffled, narrowly avoiding a tiny obsidian spike jutting out of one of the stone plates that made for flooring. I cursed under my breath. No reaction from the Magi below. Element of surprise still on our side.

  Easing down a stairway leading to the same level as the platform the Magi stood on, more voices echoed, louder and clearer.

  “We gonna be stuck here forever if we keep up here. Death node or not a man’s gotta eat. And noone’s coming for us.”

  Not entirely true, I thought to myself.

  “It’s your fault for trustin’ the client sight unseen.”

  “The boss’ fault,” replied the deeper voice. “And he dead shieldin’ the paycheck.”

  Boss? Paycheck. Something felt off about these ones. I stopped in my tracks, watching them. Itabimori traced a question mark into my back.

  “And the paycheck got swept up by the wind and went out to sea! We dead man, let’s bug.”

  “He’s right yaknow. No paycheck no point.”

  The flicker of a torch, brighter than the others, was the last piece of the puzzle I needed. In that flash of light, I caught sight of black robes. A leering skull stitched into the back.

  I stood up from my crouch and walked confidently towards the men. Itabimori hissed “What the heck are you doing? Charles?!”