Blood Demons

by Richard Jeffries

  “Just in case you ever need it,” her top student had said with a sunny, innocent, smile. “Or us.”

  Rahal looked skyward, praying that what she was doing was right, at the same moment she accepted the ever-growing feeling that she needed help that none of these warriors could supply. Then she looked at the anonymous, disposable phone number app, got the dummy email address and password, and tapped out what she hoped would be her only private, anonymous, untraceable message.

  Need help, it read. Top expert infectious diseases.

  Chapter 11

  Craven hated going into the caves.

  But making the pilgrimage from his prisons to the lairs of Aarif Zaman felt positively freeing after his fetid life. The dusty ground beneath his bare feet, and the expanse of sky above him, made him feel more elated than nearly anything else he had ever experienced. Nearly.

  So, as he approached the entrance to the network of caves, he felt it all being slowly taken from him. Even his Veranasi crypt felt expansive and welcoming compared to the labyrinthine maze of this Paktika Province network of caves. Within moments of his entering, he felt submerged in a long, winding coffin.

  But, despite the mounting feeling of claustrophobia, Craven was amused by the wavering of his power in close proximity. Some of Zaman’s soldiers didn’t appear to see him at all, while others would wonder, ponder, or even do a double-take when he appeared in their vision—a ragged, haggard, ancient man in a thin, stained robe. But not a single person raised an alarm or even spoke to, or of, him.

  So Craven was free to observe their preparations. Much had been accomplished since his previous visit. Now he could see the cunning of the battlements, and how they had dug, fashioned, and erected a series of blocks and junctures that impelled any interloper to continue deeper into the stone and rock warren.

  The gaunt man continued toward the entrance of the camouflaged cavern. It was a relatively wide aperture, where at least a dozen of Zaman’s men could take a stubborn stand, only to twist and turn around a seemingly simple outcropping. Craven approached the spot, a rare smile widening on his face. He imagined himself as one of those interlopers, shifting his weight from left to right to follow their adversary around the outcropping.

  And then came the surprising expanse—a yawning, multi-tiered grotto, from which entire mezzanines full of Zaman’s soldiers could fire upon, or threaten to fire upon, them. Or something even worse.

  As he passed the entry spot to start his descent into the grotto, Craven looked down upon several of Zaman’s soldiers preparing a further surprise—a cunningly installed explosive designed not to destroy, but to trap, anyone foolish enough to pursue a quarry into the area. Craven let the cunning intelligence of the groundwork fill him. He combined it with the sensations of freedom the expansive landscape had instilled in him.

  He wanted to be filled with euphoria. He felt he needed to be filled with it if his deception was to work. He continued to trudge, unacknowledged and perhaps unseen, across the grotto until he reached what Zaman called his vantage point—a small military headquarters from which he could survey the entire grotto without the risk of being reached by anyone trapped there. As Craven got ever closer, navigating the steep inclines like a mountain goat, he saw many more soldiers installing disguised booby traps to prevent an attack or escape. He gauged the effectiveness of his mental disguise as he felt the energy of his master grow. As long as none of Zaman’s soldiers became aware of him, he knew his strength was potent.

  As he stepped into Zaman’s cavern headquarters, one soldier widened his eyes, seemingly repulsed by Craven’s appearance and smell. It was little wonder, since that was the moment the man saw his master and his master’s companion.

  It was as if Zaman was of no importance or consequence, despite the fact that he stood directly next to Mahasona and Tajabana. They all wore their traditional garb—the terrorist chief in a turban, khet upper tunic, partug pants, and boots, while his master was in his hooded robe, and his companion in her open one. Although Zaman had been speaking expansively and excitedly when Craven had entered, he also did not acknowledge the appearance of the wizened man. In fact, he kept speaking as he slowly drifted away from the others, seemingly unaware he was still talking and moving.

  By the time Craven reached his master, Zaman was all the way across the room, although speaking as if he were not.

  “It is done,” Craven lied.

  His master did not even look at him. “Of course it is,” he replied. “You would not have come if it had not been done.”

  Craven felt compelled to drop to his knees, prostrating himself at his master’s feet. “Command me,” he gasped, his clawed hands shaking. “What more can I do to serve you?”

  “Await,” Mahasona said. “Await the start of the renewed era. Be prepared to assist as necessary.”

  Craven started to move away, half-crawling and half-scrambling. He mentally demanded that he remain silent, but his mouth would not obey.

  “Yes, master,” he babbled faintly. “Yes—”

  His power to obscure his presence returned as soon as he dragged himself out of the enclosure. Still, as he scrabbled down one grotto wall, he found he could not rise. He kept crawling like an insect until the unseen pressure on his back started to relent. He dragged himself to the outcropping at the start of the pit, and there he was finally able to get to his feet.

  As he started to retrace his steps, he longed to return to the sprawling landscape where he could breathe again. Only then, when his master was completely distracted by his plans with Zaman, and Craven was deep in the Waziristan woods, would he start to plan what he had to do next. But he had not taken another full step before he heard the soft feminine voice deep in his mind’s ear.

  “What have you done?”

  He turned to see his master’s companion standing calmly amongst the soldiers and workers, who continued to toil without acknowledging them in any way, despite the extensive swashes of her shapely flesh exposed in the deep openings of her robe’s front. Had they been able to perceive her she would have certainly been beaten or burned to death for such a blatant, almost satirical, transgression of their gender policies.

  Women had been banned from appearing without a head-to-toe burqa anywhere the Taliban ruled or being heard at any time—not even the sound of their footsteps. And here this Tajabana stood, her achingly beautiful head, neck, cleavage and legs all but exposed in a silky robe that belted tightly around her curvaceous shape.

  Craven managed to raise his head and gaze into her unearthly eyes, but the power of speech failed him as he noticed the splash of freckles that adorned her forehead and nose in a way that reminded him of an inspiring constellation. As with everything she said and did, it only added even more to her allure.

  “I—” he finally managed to stammer. “I have done as I was bidden.”

  “What were you bidden?” she immediately responded, her tone nearly innocent and inquisitive.

  Perhaps she had not heard, Craven thought. Yes, she had been right beside them at the time, but perhaps his master had prevented her hearing, as he just had for Zaman. But hadn’t she foretold of his master’s order, just before his master had uttered it?

  “I—I cleaned the—my—mess.” He forced his head to remain unbowed. He forced himself to look directly at her astonishing face.

  “Did you?” she asked, seemingly in a hopeful tone.

  He felt his head make a single, jerking, nod. “Whatever, or whoever the cost.”

  She was Tajabana, he told himself. She must still hunger, but now for power. The master’s continued deference must have emboldened her.

  “Whatever,” she nodded. “But whoever?”

  Now her tone had shifted slightly to ingenuous incredulity. Craven felt his stomach lurch, which he reacted to with fearful defiance.

  “Who are you to doubt me?” he hissed as if
his skin had sprung a slow leak. “Does the master know what you did to me? Should the master know that you bestow empowerment without his presence?”

  The woman reacted with widened eyes and a sudden, beaming, smile. “Would you tell him?” she urged happily. “It would be so much better if it came from you. Please, would you tell him now?”

  Craven felt his back bending, his head twisting to the side. “No, no,” he nearly begged. “He is much too busy now. I mustn’t.”

  “Yes, yes,” she said agreeably. “Much too busy preparing for the renewed age—the renewed age that might be threatened if gweilo were to discover the plan before its time.”

  She had used their word for hominid devil. He felt his guts twisting and his mind throbbing. She knew. As always, she somehow knew.

  “Yes!” he yelled in her face, as if in exultation, but, at the same moment, he lunged at her—his fingers claws, his curved, skeletal member erupting from his robe, and his slavering, pointed tongue whipping out of his mouth.

  It was what he had done to his victims—his extended hands clamping onto their skulls, his inflating, stabbing tongue filling their throats, and his scimitar-like male member skewering and locking inside them for a frozen second before the feeding started.

  But not this time. This time, when his flesh was a hair’s width from hers, she erupted off the ground like a sun going nova. Her arms were wide and encompassing, her fingers were splayed, and her legs were open as if she were being drawn and quartered. He could have sworn she was levitating off the ground. But her mouth was also open and screaming.

  The scream seemed to smash into the walls, floor, and ceiling of the cave, roaring through it like a tsunami of sound. Her eyes blazed, and her hair roiled around her irradiating face, as Craven was thrown back by the force of her defense. He smashed into the ground and slid back into a wall.

  But as soon as he landed, she was there, her left thumb deep in one nostril and that hand’s first two fingers deep in his eyes. He felt her nails threaten to pop them like grapes, but then slide off to clamp down into the muscles and fatty tissue between the orbs and his skull’s sockets.

  “Yes,” she echoed his last word, her voice soft, even loving, in his ear. He felt her drawing his head forward by his nose and skull. Her other hand rested on the base of his spine. “It is time for feeding. But not yours—.”

  He remembered the first time she had done this to him. He remembered her freeing him from his pain on the banks of the Ganges two hundred and fifty-three years before—only to replace it with an aching, agonizing appetite. He remembered the feel of her—not her teeth, but her tongue—at the base of his skull. Her tongue, and then, somehow from within it, its needle.

  This time he knew he would never be free. This time, the suffering would be worse, and eternal. This time he would pay for his lie with damnation. But this time he also remembered the traps Zaman’s soldiers had been setting in the walls. This time he remembered the detonators they were carefully secreting so the explosives could be set off by signal or strike.

  “Ah, so sad,” he heard his master’s companion coo as her firm, full breasts pressed against his back. “You will be so much better without a mind of your own.”

  Craven lurched, attacking the cave wall the way he attacked the children—fingers clawing, teeth clamping, tongue and loins pumping, legs pressing, feet scratching.

  His pinky nail found one detonator. That was all it took to set off a chain reaction. The continuing and concussive explosion was so powerful it left a permanent scar on the Urgon countryside, and could be seen from passing Ariana Afghan Airline planes.

  Chapter 12

  “We’ve got him!”

  Colonel Patrick Logan spun around at the cry. “Zaman?”

  Stupid question, thought the shapely brunette he had chosen as his aide. Who else would it be? But what she said aloud was an entirely different matter. “Yes, sir, they have a location. It’s—”

  But he cut her off, grabbing the phone from her hand. “What have you got?” he barked. “Talk to me.”

  Of course, she thought, knowing him all too well even in the short time she had been under his command. He’d want to feel that he found the location himself. She had little doubt that would be the way it sounded to everyone he spoke to from now on. She watched his face as he got the news from the ground intel as well as the spy satellites. It looked as if he were about to have the greatest orgasm ever.

  Would he finish the call with a “good work”? she thought. Of course he wouldn’t. And he didn’t.

  “Alert my units,” he snapped. “Wait a minute, never mind, I’ll do it myself.” He disconnected the call while muttering “If you want something done right—” and immediately made another.

  His brunette aide waited for the inevitable, and easily predictable. She saw his mind working on everything but the military strategy, then witnessed his face brighten as his call was quickly answered.

  “Mount up, boys!” Logan cried. “I found him!”

  * * * *

  Retired General Charles L. Lancaster arrived at Bagram Airfield, one of the three main U.S.-friendly bases left in Afghanistan, feeling pissed and elated. He would have preferred Camp Leatherneck in Helmand Province or Forward Operating Base Delaram in the province of the same name, but Bagram was closer—a mere three hundred and fifty miles from Cerberus HQ—and more elaborately equipped.

  The “elated” came from landing at a well-oiled military machine in the throes of doing what it did best. The “pissed” came from why he was here at all. Lancaster was in full uniform and respectfully returned each salute he received. His personal pilots once agreed that he’d probably get almost as many even in civvies. As he marched into the thick of the preparations, he kept a sharp lookout for his quarry, who he knew would be wherever he looked the best.

  Sure enough, Logan was right at the juncture where the Combined Task Force 1st Cavalry Division, the 82nd Combat Aviation “Task Force Pale Horse” Brigade, and the 3-10 Task Force Phoenix linked. There, the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing of the U.S. Air Force was working with Logan’s U.S. Marine Corps unit to expedite a surgical strike on the last known whereabouts of Aarif Zaman and his forces. As he neared, Lancaster could clearly see “taking down Bin Laden” visions dancing in Logan’s head.

  Letting Logan take credit for stopping the Arachnosaurs had been an honest, but stupid, mistake. Lancaster had underestimated the brown-noser’s self-worth issues. The retired general had hoped to create an eager-to-please ally and front, who’d toe the line in exchange for more acclaim. But, sadly, the more credit Logan got, the more power he wanted, and the greater his self-delusion of his own intelligence. He didn’t want to owe anybody, even secretly.

  “Using a sledgehammer on a carpet tack?” Lancaster asked from directly behind Logan’s left earlobe. A normal person might have to shout over the noise of the engines and equipment, but Lancaster had learned how to properly use his larynx.

  Logan glanced over his shoulder, and his expression turned sour. “Don’t have time for you now, Chuck,” he snapped. “Going to collect a wanted terrorist.”

  He purposely marched toward the command aircraft—one of the newer MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor helicopters—as Lancaster looked sympathetically at the staff sergeant who had suffered Logan’s empty orders. Lancaster returned the sergeant’s salute, then fell into step with Logan.

  “We saw the same intel, Pat,” Lancaster said evenly in his ear as he watched the dozens of fully equipped assault soldiers piling into CH-53E Super Stallion choppers. “Apparently, we interpreted it differently.”

  Logan stopped short and whirled on the retired general. “How else could it have been interpreted? One second the hills of Paktika Urgon are as they’ve always been. The next second almost an entire chain of them erupts, leaving a scar that could be seen from space, for Christ’s sake. What does that say to you, oh
glorious interpreter?”

  “A coal, copper, crude oil, or even natural gas mine could have exploded,” Lancaster replied. “It happens. Or any number of other things.”

  “Or,” Logan fumed, getting to within an inch of Lancaster’s face—having to twist his head up at the much taller man. “Or Aarif Zaman, who was last reported in that very area, was preparing another heinous attack on an American landmark, and one of his Pashtun flunkies mistook a red wire for a green wire. That happens, too!”

  “Okay,” Lancaster said reasonably. “Let’s say that did happen.” He motioned at all the high-impact, ultimate-intensity activity around them. “Why use the cavalry for a glorified mop-up operation? Send in the drones.”

  Logan reacted as if Lancaster had presented him a daffodil. He shifted his head back on his neck, then his expression became suspicious. “Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you, Chuck? What, while we’re tooth-picking every inch, your Cerebellus boys try an end run to get all the glory?”

  Lancaster had a hard time not rolling his eyes at the man’s transparency. He just told Lancaster what he would have done—something the general would never do. But before he could disagree and offer assurances, Logan’s look of disbelief turned to shrewdness.

  “Why come all this way just to undermine me?” he wondered. “That’s not like you, Chuck. There’s got to be more to it than that. What are you not telling me, you crafty bastard?”

  Lancaster inwardly sighed, remembering what his grandfather used to say. “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t teach him to fish.” He figured Logan would never take an honest warning, but maybe now that he had “gotten it out of him,” he would.

  “There’s more to this than meets the eye, Pat,” Lancaster said as evenly and clearly as he could. “We’re still working on it, but I can guarantee you we’re not dealing with just a terrorist here. I am treating you as I would treat any of my people. This is not the time to go in blind, hopeful, or certain. I couldn’t just sit back and not let you know.”