The Traiteur's Ring (39 page)

“Hear somethin’?” Lash asked.

Ben just shook his head.

As he looked up he saw the Attakapa, statue still and balanced precariously on a huge gnarled tree branch several feet above the team as they passed beneath him.

The dark one you battled was not consumed. Little matter. Soon they will lead you to the one with the black blood.

Ben refused to let his eyes glance upward as he passed beneath the Indian, but his peripheral vision registered the silver shimmer as the dark-skinned legs evaporated into space.

Leave me alone. I’m working here for God’s sake.

Ben concentrated his gaze on the back of the teen-aged terrorist’s head at the rear of the line and kept his eyes away from the jungle around them. Not the best way to clear their route of other dangers, but he just couldn’t take it anymore. He heard the rumble of approaching helicopters, a low deep rattle of the huge Chinooks instead of their favored sports car-like Blackhawks. They would need the extra space for the eight bad guys that accompanied them out.

They broke into a clearing as the first helicopter touched down briefly, and the Special Operators moved swiftly in through the already lowered back ramp. Seconds later the twin rotors beat the air back into submission, the helicopter was airborne again, and the next helicopter already flared for its own landing.

In less than forty five seconds three helicopters cleared all of the teams out of the jungle, and Ben sat on the hard metal floor across from the terrorists whose hands had been secured to the metal D-rings usually meant to secure cargo pallets in the massive helo. He sighed and leaned back. His helmet tipped forward over his eyes as it impacted the wall of the aircraft. Ben left it where it ended up, obscuring his vision, and sighed again. He felt complete exhaustion – his mind, as well as his body. He knew he wouldn’t sleep today though, and the thought nearly made him cry. He knew he should think about all that had happened – all that he had seen and heard – and search for clues that might end this insane crusade.

I can’t. Not right now. Not yet.

He snapped off his NVGs, and the green light disappeared leaving him in total darkness. Ben closed his eyes and felt tears trickle down his cheeks.

I miss you, Christy. I love you so much, baby, and I miss you. I promise I’ll be home very soon. 

Chapter 36

Christy yawned, squeezed her eyes shut, and then opened them wide. The last thing she needed was to get in a wreck on the way home from work, but good Lord was she tired. She had awoken as she always did these days, after only an hour or so of sleep, and tossed and turned as she thought about her husband. She knew it was a mistake to do the time difference math in her head, and now she awoke at about the time she assumed Ben would be waist deep in the shit of his job. She would then spend the rest of the night mostly awake, worried the phone would ring and instead of Ben it would be another voice – a sad voice of a friend with horrible news about her husband.

As she turned off of Shore Drive and onto Pleasure House Road toward the ocean and their Chicks Beach town house, she laid a hand across her belly and gently rubbed it. She needed to be careful and get better rest. It wasn’t just about her anymore. She smiled a tense smile at that thought. It would be so much easier to be excited when Ben got home, and she knew he would stay safe.

It was still a little too early for an E.P.T., but she had convinced herself it was really just a formality at this point. She no longer had any doubt at all that their child grew inside of her. It wasn’t just the PMS-like symptoms or the tender breasts either. She was certain she could feel the baby within her. She turned into their driveway and stifled another big yawn. Then, she sighed. It had become so hard to go into their home and be alone. She felt she had so much she needed to share with her husband.

I miss you, Christy. I love you so much, baby, and I miss you. I promise I’ll be home very soon.

The words were so clear and so real she actually looked over into the passenger seat. But, of course, Ben did not, in fact, sit there with a loving smile on his face. She saw him in her mind’s eye anyway.

“I love you, too, baby, and I miss you more than anything,” she said, in case the words in her head really were from her husband. Fantasy or not, she did feel much better having heard them and thought maybe tonight she would really sleep.

He sounded fine, he loves me, and misses me.

Christy gathered up her detail case and her take-out Chic-fil-A sandwich and headed inside. 

Chapter 37

Sleep did come, but the initial welcome relief proved short-lived. He had collapsed into his rack in the small three-man cubicle he shared with Reed and Auger, his weapons and kit on the floor beside him. His dirty cammies and boots were still on. It felt he had slept for either a few minutes or a few days when the soft voice stirred him awake – well, not really awake he supposed, but wherever he went on these little journeys. The tiny voice filled him with warmth rather than fear.

I have missed you, father.

Ben opened his eyes and found himself curled in a ball on the soft moss floor of a clearing somewhere in the jungle. The smell of the cooking pots made him realize how hungry he was. His eyes focused on the little bare feet in front of him, and he followed them to the tiny hands folded neatly in her lap.

Jewel sat like the young toddler she was – legs in front of her crooked at the knees and bent slightly forward at the waist to keep from tipping over backwards. Only the gently folded hands gave her the illusion of age – that and the voice in his head from a baby too young to talk yet, especially in English.

Grandfather said you would come and find me. He said you would keep us safe. And, now you are here.

When her lips finally moved, they simply smiled and said “Deh, Deh Da Eh,” which apparently meant something funny in toddler speak because she squealed a little giggle and then reached for his nose.

Ben sat up and crossed his legs Indian-style and reached for her. Jewel climbed eagerly into his lap and snuggled against his neck, and he felt his eyes moisten. Until he felt her and smelled her, he hadn’t really known how much he missed her – and loved her, he decided.

“I love you, baby girl,” he said and hugged her as she tugged at the chain that held his dog tags around his neck beneath his dirty brown T-shirt. “I’m going to bring you home, Jewel.”

But I am home father. I’m where I belong, and now you are with us.

He breathed in the sweet little girl scent of her, and tears spilled onto his cheeks. He wanted the dream to be real and knew on some level that it was – at least in some weird way he hadn’t really figured out yet. If he did nothing else in Africa, he wanted to find his little girl. He wanted to make her safe and bring her home to Christy – and to the rest of their family that grew inside her.

They are all your family. Not just the little one, but all of them.

At the Elder’s voice Ben opened his eyes and saw for the first time the small band of villagers that stood in a loose circle around him. At the sight of him opening his eyes, his people smiled and nodded their heads. He felt a warmth of kinship as he looked at their smiling faces. Or maybe not kinship so much as responsibility. He wondered if that came mostly from the guilt about the massacre they had not just failed to stop, but had likely caused.

The small circle parted, and the Village Elder strode towards him on the strong body of a much younger man than his old face suggested. Like his stride his eyes were full of youth. He smiled down at Ben a moment and then joined him on the ground and folded his legs beneath him.

You have encountered one of the dark ones?

Ben thought about the glowing eyes of the terrorist at the target. He thought about the second voice that had blended with the Al Qaeda fighter – the voice that commanded the man to kill the Rougarou. He knew that voice came from another world.

“I think so,” Ben answered. “He’s dead. I killed him. He won’t hurt our people anymore.”

The old man shook his head, and his young eyes looked sad. His lips stayed pursed tightly as he spoke in Ben’s head.

You have killed the man but not the evil. The dark ones can travel quickly from one vessel to the next. The Attakapa know a way to stop them in the moments after the death of the vessel, but it is no matter. The dark ones are dangerous to our people but it is the one with the black blood who threatens not just the Living Jungle but the Living Earth. He must be stopped before his power grows beyond us. The dark ones can lead you to him. Only you can stop him now. You are the Rougarou.

Ben knew the truth when he heard it and chuckled at his fantasy that his mission might be only to rescue his little girl. He felt suddenly afraid – not for his own safety, but of failure. He knew he really didn’t understand any of this, but the magnitude of it seemed almost in his reach.

“How will I know him? What will he look like?” For a moment Ben had an image of the demon-like creature, the burnt orange skin taunt over rippling muscles and the animal face, snarling over fang-like teeth. The eyes were yellow and cat-like. He doubted his M-4 would do much more than piss something like that off.

That image is not far from the truth. The one of the black blood is much like a demon, a monster that inspired legends over the thousands of years since he once walked in our world. He will appear as a man – a leader. You will know him to be of the other world by his eyes, much like his army of dark ones. But it will be his thoughts that will reveal him to you, Ben. His thoughts will tell you, and you will know. He must be stopped before he can cross over to our world and become the creature you imagine.

The old man looked up at the break in the jungle canopy and seemed to read the stars like a watch.

The time is quite short, Ben
.

Ben felt Jewel’s chubby hands tug on his cheeks, and he hugged her tighter to his chest.

Tonight I will see you father.

“Goo, Da da, eh.”

You must come to us tonight, Ben. There is no time left to wait. Tonight you will battle again with the dark ones and their numbers may be greater. Then, you must leave your friends and come to us. You will need our people to guide you to where the one with the black blood hides.

“How will I find you?’

I will send you a heart message when the time comes. That will guide you to what is left of the keepers of the Living Jungle. From there we can lead you to your prey.

Ben startled at the Elder’s use of the word, but that was right, wasn’t it? He was, indeed, a predator.

Jewel kissed his cheek softly with an exaggerated “Hmmm Mmmuh,” and then crawled out of his lap. She struggled to her feet, teetered a moment, and then toddled over to the Elder. Ben felt his eyes grow heavy but sensed he had one more place to go.

He rose on fatigued, achy legs, and the villagers parted for him to pass through the circle. He left the clearing, walked only a few yards before he smelled the familiar smells of home, and saw the light from two lanterns on the sagging wooden porch that hung off their shack like the after thought it had probably once been. Gammy sat in her rocker, a warm glass of sweet tea in her hand and another on the railing. She waved to him and smiled.

“Hurry it on now, chile. You be needin’ some rest more dan a long goodbye.”

Ben climbed the three creaking steps, moving to the left side to avoid the cracked board he knew was in the middle of the second one, and kissed his Gammy’s chubby cheek.  He then grabbed his jelly glass of tea and took his seat in the wooden chair beside her. She took his hand and held it as they both sipped a moment in silence.

“Guessin’ dis be goodbye fo’ now, boy,” she said. Her voice sounded sad, but she turned and looked at him and smiled. “Be seein’ you ‘gain, though, Benny, don’ worry’n none ‘bout dat. Jes gots to wait a bit now – least I hope so.” She chuckled at some inside joke and then squeezed his hand. “Proud o’ you, Benny boy,” her voice sounded tight. “Hope I gave you enuff, is all. But I sho’ is proud of my Benny.”

She looked out over their yard and sipped her tea. Ben squeezed her hand back. For a moment he saw her face surrounded by raging flames – her voice screaming in pain and urgency and directing a much younger grandson what he must do and where he must go. The memory evaporated again before he could make sense of it, and he realized he would need another time to chase it down.

Got enough on my plate, for sure that.

He sat and sipped tea and held hands with his grandmother.

*   *   *

Ben leaned back against the edge of the door and felt the cool wind whip his face. The familiarity cleared his head more than the wind. His NVGs were flipped up and he stared at total darkness. He knew the jungle slid by only a hundred feet below. But the blackness was so complete he might have floated anywhere – over the ocean, in space, anywhere. He listened to Toby Keith in his headset from the iPod in his kit, but for a moment the song about a big blue note was interrupted by a static-filled voice in his ears.

“Weapons test,” a cool deep voice said.

He lowered his head and a few seconds later the fifty caliber machine gun mounted in the front of his doorway coughed out a dozen rounds. Ben felt the spent casings bounce off his helmet a moment after the long tongue of flame disturbed his dark mental security blanket.

“Left.”

Another burst from the other doorway. This time he couldn’t see the flame but the glow lit up the inside of the UH-60 Blackhawk for a moment.

“Right.”

“Weapons clear.”

And, then the darkness returned. He leaned his head back against the doorway and again felt the wind on his face. He tried to keep his mind far away from dreams and thoughts of dead Indians and grandmothers. Jewel kept coming back to him none the less – Jewel with her big eyes and chubby little hands tugging at his ears. He knew now beyond more than a little doubt (the strange hope that maybe he really was just crazy) he would see her – if not tonight then before the sun set again. He tried not to think too much about how that must mean he would not be riding home with his team from this op.