The Traiteur's Ring (41 page)

Ben pushed back some thick jungle grass that came nearly to his chest and tried to pick up the pace. His gaze fell briefly on his hand as it pushed the brush aside and he saw the ring. It had turned a strange combination of colors – an almost lime green at the outside which faded to a bright yellow in the middle. The yellow part seemed to pulse gently, becoming brighter and then fading again to a soft glow. He also noticed the very faint blue light around his hand and forearm.

Good. Nice to know that’s still there if I need it.

The thought didn’t keep him from tapping his M-4 with his other hand to make sure it was in position for a quick draw to firing position. He also checked that his nine millimeter pistol rode in its holster on his right thigh.

He broke through the grass and found himself on a rise over a deeply cut ravine with several rocky outcroppings which he used as steps of sorts to drop swiftly from the top of the hill. As he did, he caught a glimpse of two grey-robed figures dashing madly up the other side of the ravine that some rainy season gone by must have created. The two were maybe sixty yards ahead now and seemed oblivious of his presence.

Ben felt his right hand tingle and knew his blue light would be brighter now. He had no clue if that power could work over any real distance – had never had a chance to field test this particular weapon. He definitely knew something that would, however, and as he jumped the last four feet to the bottom of the hill he pulled his M-4 up. The two had been slowed down by a giant tree trunk that blocked the exit to the ravine, and Ben took the opportunity to cut the distance in half. Then, he flipped up his NVGs and sighted through the night vision optical sight mounted on his rifle, saw the infrared dot appear on the first man’s back, and squeezed.

A small pink cloud with a dark hole in its center marked where the high velocity round tore through back of the terrorists neck. He started to pitch forward, but gravity won. Instead, he tumbled backward and then slid a meter or two head-first back down the incline. Ben had already sighted in on the other man, thought briefly about trying not to kill him, and then instead squeezed his trigger again and watched as the right side of the man’s head blew apart. He fell over the far side of the tree trunk over which he had already partially scrambled.

Ben watched through the scope for movement, and when he saw none, he dropped his rifle back down to a ready position. Then he flipped his NVGs back into place with his left hand. The jungle returned to its eerie greenish-grey, and Ben walked slowly towards the terrorist lying head down on his back on the upside of the hill. He kept his rifle partially raised and at the ready just in case.

The man’s eyes were partially opened, and his cheeks were wet with tears. He didn’t look at Ben directly, and he decided the dying man must be in shock. He still kept his rifle cautiously trained on him, however. With his left foot Ben stepped on the man’s right hand to keep him from reaching for the AK-47 that lay between his arm and chest, still attached by a black sling. With his left hand he frisked along the man’s sides, looking for other weapons. The glazed eyes ticked a moment in his direction, never quite seemed to focus, and then closed. The chest rose slowly, and the breaths seemed quite shallow. Then the man shuddered, and his breathing stopped. Ben reached down cautiously and felt for a pulse in the neck – he felt it – weak, but there.

The man’s eyes sprang open suddenly, which caused Ben to stand up and stumble a step backward as his mouth opened and a horrifying, animal-like scream tore through Ben’s head. It seemed to almost vibrate the jungle around them. The eyes had turned to the now familiar fiery orange, but through the NVGs glowed out at him as a pale white, and then two hands grabbed his left ankle with incredible strength – enough to cause him to wince in pain.

Instinct took over, and Ben aimed and squeezed the trigger of his M-4. Both rounds impacted the middle of the terrorist’s forehead. The jungle grass and moss puffed out around the dead man’s head as the back of his skull exploded out into the jungle floor. Ben watched as the glowing eyes faded slowly and then appeared grey and dead – unfocused and turned up at the jungle canopy above.

Ben did a few slow tactical breaths to calm his heart rate and get rid of the fine tremor he felt in his hands. He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, staring at the man at his feet. A large pool of blood, black in the night vision optics, had formed around the blown out head.

That dude is dead.

Ben reached out with the blue light of his mind anyway. The terrorist’s thoughts were gone, but the dark ones thoughts were still there.

The Rougarou is among us. The brothers must know so they can protect the Great One. The Rougarou must be stopped.

Another voice, or at least a vibrating sound, filled his head suddenly and brought a pain he thought might blow out his temples. The message in the sound was lost on him, and he registered nothing but torture, a vibration of some sort, and explosions of white light behind his eyes. Some other part of him sensed movement, and he forced his thoughts to focus.

The dead terrorist moved his arms slowly and then raised his legs at the knees to push backwards away from Ben. The glow in the eyes had returned and, in fact, was nearly blinding in his NVGs. By the time he reacted, the dead man had flipped himself over and was pushing himself up to a kneeling position – impossible, of course, because from this new vantage point Ben could see the entire back of his head was missing. The skull was now a ragged empty cavity, the brains having been made a permanent fertilizer for the mossy jungle floor.

The words of the Attakapa flooded into his mind, and Ben unsheathed his combat knife. He threw himself onto the back of the dead man. In one powerful stroke he sliced through the neck from behind, down to the spine, and nearly decapitated the already walking zombie. The body collapsed again, now face first, onto the ground. Ben watched, his breath coming in painful rasps, and saw the corpse’s fingers flicker and then slowly close into a fist.

Ben flipped the corpse over and let out his own animal-like scream as he plunged the foot long blade into the base of his throat. With strength he couldn’t possibly have he pulled the knife downward, split the man’s breast bone, and opened his belly almost to the navel. He felt the hot spray of blood across his face and neck and felt it soak into his shirt. With both hands he grabbed the edges of the split sternum and tore the man’s chest open like he gutted a catfish.

The heart lay still in the center of the man’s chest, and Ben stared at it – grey and lifeless in infrared. Then, a white glow returned to the sightless eyes, and the heart quivered. It squeezed tight a moment before it began a rhythmic beating in the splayed open chest.

Ben reached into the split opening, grabbed the muscular organ, and tore it from the ragged cavity. Strands of tissue dangled from the eviscerated organ across the backs of both of his hands.

He brought the heart to his face. Without any hesitation he opened his mouth wide and crammed the bloody thing between his teeth, bit down, and tore a giant piece of thick, sinewy flesh away. He chewed the heart muscle with reckless abandon, oblivious to the gore that poured down over his chin and dripped onto his knees as he hunched over his feast. He swallowed the bite, which stuck for a moment in his throat, and then opened his mouth again.

Chapter 40

Reed tapped his hand nervously on his leg which burned like hell from his old injury. It had been no easy task to get the command surgeon to clear him for this deployment, but despite the pain he had no doubt he was right where he belonged. He watched as Chris rubbed both temples, like he always did when he made tough calls.

“Gather up,” the officer said. Reed thought that sounded stupid since they already stood in a tight circle, except Lash who now guarded the shit heads. He decided not to point that out.

“What’s up, boss?” Auger said. His voice said a lot more. None of them had any intention of leaving this target without Ben – alive or dead they would all leave together. It was their code.

“I need a secure satellite link on the computer,” Chris told Reed. “I want to get some help to exfil the crows, and then we can concentrate on finding Ben.”

“What if they say no?” Lash asked from a few yards away where he held is rifle at the ready, trained on the nearest prisoner who kneeled like the others and bent his head forward into the middle of the circle.

“They won’t,” Chris predicted. “But if they do, they can find these fuckers later in a shallow grave. Then they’ll have to find us, too, because we are not leaving here without Ben.”

The other three gave curt nods, and Reed knelt down, then pulled a laptop out of his back pack. He spread open a small, collapsible dish antenna and used his compass to point it roughly at two-hundred and forty-five degrees – the approximate direction of the satellite that would link him to the Task Force commander. He would fine tune the direction with the help of the computer. He fumbled with the cables and realized his hands were shaking.

Please be alive, Ben.

He took a deep breath and tried again to hook up.

Chapter 41

Ben stripped off his back pack and vest and then pulled his cammie shirt over his head. He used the one clean sleeve to wipe the sticky gore from his face and neck and then pulled his T-shirt off, as well. He soaked it with water from his camel back using the hose that secured it to his vest and then cleaned the dried blood left behind on his face and chest. He felt better already.

He forced himself not to look at the mutilated body of the former Al Qaeda terrorist and threw his ruined shirts onto the ground and then pulled his kit back on over his bare and sweat-streaked skin. He needed to check the other asshole who lay dead on the other side of the fallen tree. Ben picked up his rifle and stepped over the now dead-for-good corpse without looking down.

Mike Charlie – mission complete.

Ben didn’t like the scramble over the tree trunk, which left him vulnerable with both of his hands tied up, but he didn’t want to waste any more time either. From the fallen tree he saw the other terrorist prone on the ground, the right side of his head mostly missing from his high velocity gunshot wound. Ben pulled his rifle up and then jumped the five feet to the ground a couple of yards away from the body. He dropped to a crouch immediately, dissipating the energy of his leap, and trained his M-4 at the corpse. Two months ago he would have felt like an idiot being this careful about a man who clearly lay dead, but his reality had changed a lot in those two months and even more in the last ten minutes.

No sense in taking any chances.

As he got closer he slung his rifle and again pulled out his combat knife. Just as he reached his hand out to flip the body over, the corpse’s arms shuddered violently and the dead man rolled onto his back, reaching for him. Ben stumbled backward onto his ass as he slipped from the grasping hands clutches. The eyes again glowed with the fire of the dark ones. Before he could act the corpse’s mouth opened impossibly wide, and a brilliant light poured out like the powerful spray from a fire hose right at his face. Ben instinctively raised his arms, but just before the spray hit him in the face it made an impossible bend and arched skyward.

Ben fell the rest of the way over onto his back as the high-pitched scream he had heard from the other dead man filled the air – this time it seemed to emanate from the tube of blinding light and seconds later the last of it fled the corpse’s mouth. Ben saw the mouth had been torn open much farther at the corners, the opening now a ghoulishly bloody smile. He thought for a moment of a Jack-O-Lantern. Then, the body pitched forward back onto the ground face-first and lay still.

Ben sat a moment, caught his breath, and waited for the spots to clear from his eyes from the eruption of light and his ears to stop ringing from the scream. He blinked a few times and then rose to his feet. He stared at the dead man. He wasn’t certain (of anything he supposed), but he believed he had been too late this time. He suspected he had just seen the dark one leave the body of the dead terrorist.

Shit. Maybe I’ll get another chance to send that one back to hell
.

Ben slid his knife home into its sheath on his vest and then stood there a moment. He scanned the jungle around him and saw nothing. He had no idea which way to go or even what his destination was supposed to be.

You need to come to us, father. Come home, and let us help you.

Jewel’s impossible-for-a-can’t-talk-yet voice felt good in his heart – like maybe he wasn’t alone and crazy in the African jungle. The Elder’s voice followed.

Come to us, Ben. Time is dangerously short, and we can help you find the Evil. Come to us.

Where? How will I find you
?

There was a short pause, and then the Elder’s voice gratefully came back.

You have the power to find us, Ben, but no matter. I will send you a heart message to guide you here quickly.

The voice was replaced with something else – just a feeling, but he knew it was real. He felt drawn to his left, turned that way, and started through the jungle. As he did another voice came to him.

“Viper Three – Viper Lead – do you read me? Three, are you there, Goddammit?”

The pain in Chris’s voice gripped his throat, and he stopped for a moment, turning, and looked back the way he had come.

There is no time, Ben. Trust me to keep them safe. I can guide them as before and keep them from harm. I can have them meet you at the end, but you must come to us. There is no time left.

Ben sighed heavily and then snatched the earpiece out of the radio which rode in a pouch on his vest. He tossed it to the ground and continued in the direction his heart message told him would lead him home. The jungle was painful as it pawed at his now-bare arms. The feeling got stronger, and he moved more swiftly toward the help he knew his people would provide.