Age of Blood

by Weston Ochse

  Hiding inside the stack of metal, Yank had a ground view of the excavated temple area, or as Yank was referring to it in his mind, the Secret Evil Temple of the Zetas. The ground was comprised of concrete and rock substrate. It looked as if it had been compacted, but here and there were rock protrusions that would trip someone not paying attention.

  Yank low-crawled to the left edge of the metal. To his immediate front was one of the depressions with snakes in it. He hated snakes. But looking at the wide, flat area between the depression and the nearest building, an obsidian butterfly mausoleum, there was no way he’d make it any other way without being seen by the leper magicians preparing things atop the pyramid.

  “Oh look, it’s a SEAL trying to infiltrate our Secret Evil Temple.” Then they all shoot magic necrotizing lasers from their fingers and he puffs into dust. He realized his version of things had a comic book quality to them, but it was his way of dealing with the irrational fact that he was about to attack monsters, magic, and the supernatural. The ghost had totally freaked him out. If he encountered one of those now, he might not be able to make it. That he had a blue Mary blanket helped, but not much. So the idea of getting into a pit with a bunch of scrawny snakes didn’t seem like a big deal at all to him.

  After ensuring that no one was looking in his direction, he leaped to his feet and sprinted the fifty meters to the depression. His HK416 was strapped to his back. He had a knife in each hand, so when he reached the pit and slid into it, he’d be ready. But it didn’t happen that way. When he reached the lip and began to slide down, he saw that there weren’t a bunch of scrawny little snakes inside. There was one impossibly large snake in it. It was white and yellow, and he could tell it was albino. He hit it and bounced across its back. He stabbed it with the knife in his right hand, sending six inches of steel into the snake’s flesh.

  The snake’s head whipped around and clamped down on his left hand, completely engulfing it, the knife in his hand, and his arm up to his elbow. The snake’s coils moved beneath him and one came up and wrapped itself around his stomach and began to squeeze.

  “Ghost Three, you okay?”

  “Yep. Okay. Just fine,” Yank whispered.

  He was thankful he didn’t have to talk out loud. He didn’t have enough oxygen. He needed to extract himself. If Walker had to save his sorry ass, the report of the shot, even with the suppressor, would most likely be noticed. Yank needed to take care of this without Walker coming to his rescue.

  He tried to grab the knife that had become embedded in the snake. As the coils of the snake danced around him and squeezed, the blade came within his reach several times. One time his fingers slid across the grip, but he wasn’t close enough to snag it.

  Then the snake took another bite. His entire arm was now inside the snake’s mouth up to his shoulder. Not that it was chewing on him. Snakes ate things whole, letting their digestive juices kill and decompose the unlucky meal inside. They ate things like rats, and squirrels, and mice, and, apparently, U.S. Navy SEALs.

  Yank turned his head and found himself staring into the face of the creature now mere inches away. The next gulp would take his head. He had very little time.

  Not only was he almost out of air, but the stench of the creature was getting to him. It had a foul odor, a combination of mulch and urine. It wasn’t coming from its mouth, but rather its whole body.

  In a desperate move, Yank reached into the front of his vest with his right hand, rifled in the central pouch until he found what he wanted, then brought it to bear—his weapon’s cleaning kit. He held a long nylon pouch and tried one-handed to get it open.

  A single great green eye watched him, its oval north-south iris making it as alien as anything he’d come in contact with.

  “You sure you’re okay?” Walker asked.

  Yank wasn’t sure of anything except for the fact that if he didn’t get this fucking pouch open in the next few seconds, SEAL Team 666 would be hosting open auditions for the next great SEAL to do something stupid and die. At last the pouch opened, and as it did everything fell out. He squeezed it, hoping he wasn’t too late. He felt a length of metal inside and let it drop into his hand.

  Just then the snake opened its mouth. The coils helped push Yank’s head and shoulder inside and the jaw snapped shut. He couldn’t count the levels of fucked up he now found himself in. He felt his vision dimming. He felt his head beginning to grow fuzzy. At the last moment he realized that the arm with the length of metal, part of a cleaning rod for his rifle, was still outside the mouth of the snake. He also realized that his left hand still held a knife inside the mouth of the snake. He simultaneously tried to stab the snake with both hands, but his left hand refused to move. Either the arm was broken or the hand had gone numb. His right hand moved rapidly, however, stabbing the snake’s face over and over, searching blindly for the great green eye, which when—

  He felt his hand stab something that gave.

  The snake began to writhe violently. It opened its mouth.

  He brought his right hand to his left, transferred the knife, then brought it upward where he felt the snake’s brain should be. He jabbed it three times. Each time the blade ate up to the hilt.

  The snake shuddered and went limp. Its head came down on Yank’s chest. The coils loosened. He stopped jabbing. He was fucking exhausted, but he was alive.

  He lay like that for several moments before he asked, “Why didn’t you shoot?”

  “Looked like you had everything under control.”

  “Under control, my ass.”

  “Whatever you do with your ass is not my business.”

  Yank thought about laughing, but as he moved, he realized he might have a broken rib. “What about the others?”

  “They looked toward the pit, but I don’t think they can see into it from their position.”

  Yank pulled one leg free, then the other. He realized that somehow his HK had come free from the sling. He reached down and yanked it out from under the snake. What he saw made his heart sink. The sighting device was twisted fifty degrees and the magazine was bent. Without a screwdriver, he couldn’t remove the rail system and the sight. Even if he could, the injection mechanism might be completely fucked. To try and fire the weapon now would be suicide.

  He tossed the rifle aside and pulled his P229 free from its holster. Although the holster had twisted on his leg, the SIG Sauer still functioned. At least he had his knives and a pistol. He also had two M18 colored-smoke grenades, two M84 stun grenades, and two M67 fragmentation grenades. Given a choice, he’d much rather use a knife than a grenade. Things that exploded were too messy.

  “Am I clear?” he asked.

  It took a moment for Walker to respond. When he did, it wasn’t what he expected. “Fuck me. YaYa is a dog.”

  Yank closed his eyes briefly. “What do you see?”

  He heard the barking before Walker answered. It sounded almost like a human, but with something more, something that resonated.

  “Coming from the underground temple is another leper. He’s holding a leash attached to a collar around YaYa’s neck.”

  “Oh, shit. Where are they going?”

  “The temple.” Walker paused a moment. “He’s moving like a dog. His legs … they’re reversed. Fuck!”

  Yank tried to imagine what Walker was describing, giving YaYa a dog’s legs that had knees that bent backward instead of the forward-bending knees of a human. It was a hard thing, but the image was ugly.

  “He’s staking YaYa to the base of the temple. Now’s the time to go, if you’re going to do it. Keep low.”

  Yank turned and got his hands and feet under him. He felt the twinge in his lower left side. Probably his floating rib. Then he was up and running. He saw the activity at the temple pyramid. He also saw YaYa, and as if the SEAL-turned-dog knew what was happening, it turned and barked at him.

  Twenty meters.

  Ten meters.

  Yank slammed into the side of the left-most obsidian
butterfly mausoleum, out of breath and afraid he’d been seen.

  “Clear?”

  “Clear.”

  From his vantage point, Yank could see into the Yopico. Beneath an overhanging roof was a wall with images in relief carved upon it. He couldn’t make out all the details, but it had images of men cowering beneath giant winged beings. A door on the left side was lit from behind. Shadows cast themselves back and forth, promising that there were more things in the interior of the underground temple. What those things were was another matter.

  Yank turned and examined the mausoleum. Made of stone, it was cut with smooth sides and sharp corners that rose about seven feet high. He could reach up and grasp the top. He was able to check three sides but still couldn’t find an opening, which meant that the opening had to be on the front.

  His gaze was drawn to the left, where the water fell from the pipe. The foul liquid caught in a wide pool that flowed toward the rear of the chamber and seemed to disappear. Besides the way they came and the stairs, it might prove to be another way for them to escape.

  “Ghost Four, any news about One and Two?” The others were due to come in contact anytime now.

  “Nothing, Three. Should be hearing something real soon.”

  Yank hoped that Laws and Holmes were okay. They should have been on-site by now. He was sure they’d run into something. It could have been an apparition like he and Walker had seen, or it could have been something worse. The longer he survived SEAL Team 666, the more Yank realized it wasn’t what you knew, or what you’d practiced, but how well you reacted when the supernatural shit hit the fan.

  Suddenly he heard a great grinding of stone. He ducked and put his back against the rear of the mausoleum. Pieces of rock rained down on him.

  “Do not. Fucking. Move,” Walker said in his ear.

  Rock broke and crumbled, then there was a beating of wings.

  “Seriously. Don’t move.”

  “What is it?”

  “Remember the chacmools?”

  “Yeah.”

  “They’re not there anymore.”

  “Where are they?”

  “In the air. Now they are scary-as-fuck skull-faced obsidian butterflies.”

  Against his better judgment, Yank looked upward. Out of the corner of his eye he saw just a hint of movement. An eye, blazing white. The feet and legs of a giant bird beneath a woman’s iron torso. A wing cut like a giant Damascus blade, layers and layers of metal, swirling to create an almost beautiful pattern.

  Beautiful if it wasn’t so damned terrible.

  54

  SNIPER HIDE. TEMPLE CHAMBER.

  Walker remembered his first mission in the Chinese sweatshop with the women whose lips had been sewn together so they couldn’t tell anyone the secret of their craft—that they were creating suits from the many-tattooed skins of dead people. Then came the creatures. Too many and too different to count. Back when he was still green, he’d had a lot of thoughts working in his mind, not the least of which had been the introduction of not only the idea, but the reality that there were creatures and forces out there that had an intent to harm his great Red, White, and Blue. The U.S. Navy and SEAL training had prepared him to fight other men, only to have him discover that he was now fighting creatures whose existence could only be foretold in mythology of the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual. As a kid in the orphanage he’d dabbled in the game, creating a Paladin to fight the evil hordes. He’d learned about orcs and dwarves long before the Lord of the Rings movies made them popular. He’d chosen a Paladin because of the armor and the sword, but also because if he fought hard and did well, he’d have a chance to have a Pegasus as a steed. The idea of a flying horse had captivated his eleven-year-old mind and kept him playing long into the nights when he should have been sleeping. But the monsters and their evil had only been as powerful as his young mind could create, and no matter how inventive an eleven-year-old might be, he couldn’t conceive—nor would he want to—the absolute malignancy of a being whose only design was to see the human form be broken.

  But the Aztec gods were different. They didn’t care about good or evil. Such ideas were human creations. Aztec mythology was based on rules of absolutes. If one wanted a good harvest, this is what you did. If one wanted to defeat an enemy, then this is what you did. There was no negotiation. Period. So it came as no shock to him to see the assembled Los Zetas middle managers being escorted one after the other from the Yopico toward the top of the pyramid. In the hotel they’d been big cheese, flaunting their power, ordering their minions around and flashing gold-toothed smiles, each and every one kings of their own particular trash heap. But they could be replaced. In the upwardly mobile world of narcotrafficking, any enterprising soldier could get promoted as long as he didn’t steal from his boss or sleep with his boss’s wife/sister /daughter/mother.

  The Zetas in the hotel had ordered men to their deaths, women into their beds, and families to work harvesting the spoils of their war against the American anti-drug machine. Now they were sacrifices. Stripped of their clothes, they wore only underwear and socks, the sight as clownish as it was awful. Many of them were overweight. Some were hairy from head to toe. Others were in shape, their bodies not yet having the opportunity to become attuned to success. They came with scars, tattoos, and burns, all reminders of what it had taken them to get where they’d been. The only unifying trait they shared was the walleyed look of shock mixed with a stultifying knowledge of their inexorable death. Of the fifty Zetas, only one turned and ran.

  The gold-and-red-robed men watched placidly as the obsidian butterfly that had been resting halfway up the pyramid rose into the air. It flapped its Damascus wings and soared after the pathetic man, even as he screamed and wailed, his lone voice speaking for them all. Then the butterfly was upon him. With a few beats of its flint-hard wings, it sliced him into several pieces, his torso hitting the floor before his head.

  The others watched this, then turned to their own demise. They were either too stoned or too resolute to care.

  Atop the pyramid, the priests of Xipe Totec began their terrible work. One after the other, they shouted toward the unseen sky then lopped the head off a Zeta. As blood began to coat the temple steps, the heads rolled to the bottom, were caught by two men, and placed in the skull racks.

  The last man in line queued up. This one was escorted by a figure that was as instantly familiar as the man whom he was escorting. Senator Withers was naked from the chest up. He still wore ragged suit pants and shoes, but his belly hung over his belt. His face was a visual narration in misery. Both eyes were black and swollen almost shut. His face was yellow with bruising. More deep purple bruises dotted his chest and arms and back. Blood had dried at his nostrils.

  The man escorting him was the immaculate opposite. Ramon wore his usual white linen suit. Walker couldn’t imagine him wearing anything else. It was as much a uniform as what Walker was wearing now, as was the look of calm contentment on Ramon’s face as he stopped the senator and motioned for him to wait.

  The two men who had been recovering the heads wore similar clothing. Now that Walker saw Ramon, it was an easy guess that they were together with him, which also meant that they were most probably werewolves. Walker had something for them. Either his silver-tipped, 173-grain M118 match ammunition or the T101E armor-piercing incendiary rounds would do the trick. He had ten of the former and five of the latter. He also had ten SLAP rounds, which used a tungsten penetrator to punch through armor or stone to deliver the polymer sabot contained within the round. Walker had barely used the M948 round, but was looking forward to seeing what he could explode with it.

  Walker glanced to the side to make sure Jen was okay. She was busy trying to get communication with the home base as well as the other team. Walker’s orders were to wait for the command to attack unless it looked like the senator’s life was in danger.

  Then came the biggest surprise.

  A tall African American with dyed-blond hair and a
goatee walked stiffly from the Yopico toward the pyramid. As he began to ascend, Walker recognized him in a moment of shock—Jingo Jones, alive! Walker sighted through the scope and the image leaped forward. Correction. The former SEAL was dead. Dead as the zombies in Madam Laboy’s cemetery. What made him alive was anyone’s guess. But what they were going to use him for was obvious to Walker and any other of the SEALs of Triple Six. He’d found the missing tattooed skin suit: Jingo Jones was wearing it. Pieced from the skins of a hundred tattooed people and stitched together by seamstress slaves owned by the Chinese Snakehead mafia, the suits were designed to allow the wearer to not be affected by whatever supernatural entity it channeled. The businessman who had become a demon god during their mission to Myanmar had been proof of the suit’s magic.

  The others moved aside as Jones climbed up the pyramid. When he reached the top, the Los Desollados gathered around him. They raised their arms and began chanting.

  Whatever god or goddess they were about to resurrect, it wasn’t going to be good. Walker might be the only one available to stop them. He laid out his rounds on a cloth by his right side. He’d have to load and fire quickly. He loaded the SLAP rounds in their own twenty round magazine, then did the same with the armor piercing rounds. A SLAP round was like no other and could easily be recognized. The incendiary round had a yellow tip. The silver-tipped rounds he placed in a third twenty round magazine, which could easily be distinguished by the gleam of the precious metal. Finally, he prepared two magazines of regular 178-grain match rounds.

  Gunfire suddenly erupted from somewhere near the other side of the pyramid—the pipe. Everyone turned their gazes toward the sound. The men at the base of the pyramid snapped up weapons and aimed. MP5s appeared from beneath the robed-men’s red and gold. Whoever was fighting up there would be surprised when they reached the opening. Which is where Walker came in.