Blood and Stone (17 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

“I will bathe in the blood of politicians,” Arturo Soto boasted.

“I will drink the blood of politicians,” Adrian Aguilar responded. “After I’ve ravaged their wives and daughters!”

Both young men laughed as they walked along, patrolling the outskirts of Chichen Itza.

“We will be mighty warriors of the Mayan Empire!” Arturo said, thumping his chest.

“The Empire of Kukulcan, you mean,” Adrian corrected his companion.

The two soldiers had deserted from their posts and traveled through the night to reach Chichen Itza. Both had grown up listening to tales from the grandparents about the glory of the Aztecs and the Mayans long before the white man came to the Americas. This shared ancestral glory had united them as friends during their service in the Mexican Army.

“Yes! Warriors for Kukulcan!” Arturo agreed. “Warriors who will be swimming in senoritas!” The pimply faced nineteen year old grinned widely at the thought.

“Or Muchachos, in your case,” Adrian said, sneering. “I’ve seen how you look at the little boys in town.”

“What?!” Arturo nearly screamed. He stopped walking and turned to face his companion angrily. “You dare say that to me?”

Adrian immediately erupted in laughter, causing the many fatrolls under his shirt and his large jowls to shake.

Arturo saw his friend laughing and relaxed. Then he began to laugh as well.

“Excuse me,” a woman’s voice said. Both men stopped and turned to look up the path leading to the cenote north of the complex.

A woman was standing there. A white woman, wearing a US Air Force flight suit. Her hands were clasped, resting on top of her head, and her long black hair that hung down past her shoulders.

Behind the woman, two soldiers in Mexican Army uniforms held their rifles at the small of the prisoner’s back. One soldier was tall, while the other was short. Very short.

“What have we here?” Adrian demanded, walking up.

The prisoner was slim, athletically built. And very beautiful.

“We caught her sneaking around in the jungle,” the short soldier said in perfect Spanish. Arturo realized she too was a woman, with large breasts that barely fit under her shirt, despite the fact it seemed several sizes too large for her.

“
Que?
” Adrian asked. He did not recall any female soldiers among those that had deserted and come to worship Kukulcan. He had thought the warriors of the dragon god would all be men.

Adrian looked quickly to the taller soldier. With a cap pulled down to nearly cover the eyes, he couldn’t tell who it was. But the taller soldier in the baggy shirt had a delicate chin and pale skin. Another woman?

“I do not remember meeting you before,” Adrian said, stepping around the prisoner to see the short, busty soldier better. Arturo was busy looking over the prisoner.

The name tag on the short soldier’s camouflage uniform identified her as Private Hierra. That sounded familiar.

“Don’t just stand there like an idiot,” the short, female soldier said. “Kukulcan will want to see this one right away!”

Adrian frowned. No woman, not even a fellow soldier should address him that way. Still, she had a point.

“Arturo!” he snapped at his companion. “Call this in!”

Arturo was running his hands down the sides of Josie’s body. “But I am searching the prisoner! You do it.”

Laura moved her hand from the front grip of her rifle and slid it into her pants pocket. There she wrapped her fingers around the remote detonator the Colonel had given them. They were a few minutes ahead of schedule, but so far, Josie’s plan wasn’t proving to be much of a diversion.

“I said call it in!” Adrian snapped. He walked over to his friend and shoved the smaller soldier roughly. “I outrank you! Do what I say!”

Arturo unslung his rifle and threw it on the ground. “Outrank me? In what Army? We are deserters!”

The yelling from the two men seemed to be working better than Josie’s prisoner ploy. Across the plaza, three soldiers were now headed their way.

“Now!” Josie said, dropping her hands.

Laura squeezed the detonator in her pocket. Almost immediately a large explosion erupted southwest of the complex. The three soldiers in the plaza, Adrian and Arturo all looked toward the plume of smoke and flame rising up.

Josie stepped left, and concentrated on the furthest soldier from her. He suddenly grabbed at his head and fell to his knees.

With her gun barrel no longer covered by Josie’s back, Pam raised the rifle to her shoulder and fired at the remaining two soldiers in the plaza.

Simultaneously, Laura swept forward, inhumanly fast and grabbed Adrian and Arturo by the backs of their necks. She leaned in quickly toward Adrian and sank her fangs into his neck and ripped out a great chunk of flesh. Blood sprayed across his very surprised friend.

As Arturo tried to free himself from the claws digging into the back of his neck, Laura leaned over and sank her fangs in his neck as well.

The soldiers around the plaza were confused. They had heard the shots from Pam Keegan’s rifle to the north, and they had almost felt the explosion from the southwest. Several looked back and forth unsure what to do.

Crouched on one knee, Pam aimed at the wavering soldiers and fired again, dropping two more. She fired precise bursts, aiming for center mass.

“Get to cover!” Laura commanded, dropping the lifeless Arturo to the ground. Blood covered her mouth and dribbled down her chin, onto the stolen uniform shirt she wore.

Laura saw the look of horror on Josie’s face. “Waste not, want not, I always say,” the vampire said, smiling. Then she whirled and raced across the courtyard at super human speed.

Pam grabbed Josie by the shoulder and pulled her to the side. She fired her rifle as she ran, from the hip, across the plaza. She was headed for a low structure they could use for cover. It had steps on each side of the one-story structure, adorned with great stone heads carved to resemble eagles and jaguars eating human hearts. Atop the structure, soldiers had set up sandbags and two machine gun emplacements. Neither of which were currently manned.

The soldiers in the plaza were now coming to life, running out from the various tents and parked vehicles ringing the plaza, weapons at the ready. There were not so many of them now—the stone soldiers having killed or wounded many during the night.

Laura swept in among them, fangs bared, claws extended.

The soldiers hesitated as Laura came at them. They had been working alongside the vampires serving Kukulcan. That a vampire would be attacking them made no sense.

Laura slashed at one soldier then another. Grabbed one, and bit a chunk out of his neck, then moved on to grab another by the head, twisting and shattering his spine in one superhuman motion.

The vampire had killed at least six men before the remaining soldiers took action. Vampire or not, they fired on her. Or at least, they tried to.

Fueled with fresh blood, Laura swept in and out, running faster than the men could aim their weapons. She leapt and dove, fully in tune with the capabilities of her body. She struck swiftly, and brutally, spreading her attacks around as much as she could. Some of her victims even survived—although they were destined for slow deaths, their stomachs split open, their faces rended by her claws.

Laura was about to slash the face of another soldier when something got in her way. Another vampire.

The newcomer was short, with black hair and dark skin. His face was gaunt and scarred by years in the sun. A farmer, who had sworn off hard work to come worship Kukulcan and was lucky enough to receive the blessing of eternal life.

The vampire hissed and blocked Laura’s sweeping attack with his own clawed hand.

Laura promptly drove her other hand into and through the would-be protector’s face, exploding his head. Then she whirled around. Two more of Kukulcan’s vampires were behind her.

Brown skinned, covered in blood, they growled and showed their fangs. Then they began to jerk as .50 caliber rounds ripped into their bodies.

Across the plaza, atop the Platform of the Eagles and Jaguars, Josie and Pam were firing the Browning M2 machine guns.

The huge guns designed for stopping vehicles made short work of the two vampires, allowing Laura the time to swiftly move on.

“Aim for the vehicles!” Pam yelled over the thunderous fire of the guns. She kept her triggers squeezed, tracing fire across the dirt of the plaza.

Her stream of bullets swept over a parked humvee. The vehicle shuddered and shook on its suspension as the .50 caliber rounds punched holes and sliced metal. From tailgate to engine block, it was riddled with fire. Flames began to burn as metal ignited from the bullets and tracer fire.

“ENOUGH!” A loud voice boomed across the Courtyard. It was inhumanly loud, even given the acoustics of Chichen Itza, designed to amplify the human voice.

Josie and Pam felt themselves knocked back, away from the twin M2s. They went sprawling into sandbags at the back of them machine gun emplacements, the wind knocked from their lungs.

Laura, leaping through the air at a terrified soldier, found herself gripped in the same terrible telekinetic grip the giant had used on her at Alcatraz. She hung, being tightly squeezed, in the air, several feet above the ground, immobile.

Tezcahtlip was furious. He leapt from the stairs at the top of his pyramid, smashing down onto the plaza below. Dust from the pressed clay of the court yard puffed up around him, mixing with the blood soaked into his white suit.

Laura suddenly spun in place and flew across the court yard, stopping directly before the giant.

“You!” Tezcahtlip snapped, immediately recognizing the vampire.

“You owe me a heart!” Laura said through clenched teeth. The force holding her was again crushing her with terrific strength.

Tezcahtlip looked to his left, across the plaza. Josie and Pam were lifted from the machine gun emplacements and swiftly brought before the giant.

“Three different people at once?” Pam gasped. “Can you juggle too?”

Tezcahtlip eyed all three women, one at a time, then settled his eyes on Josie. “So, Josie, is it? Come to rescue your little stone man?”

Instead of answering, Josie concentrated.

Tezcahtlip suddenly felt a blinding pain in his brain. It was as intense as having a knife or spear thrust through his skull. His vision went black and he felt himself stagger and fall to his knees. His telekinetic grip on the three women faltered and they too fell to the ground.

Josie landed roughly then looked quickly back up and resumed her attack. Frost began to appear around the giant’s head.

Then Pam Keegan fired her rifle.

Josie screamed and pitched to the side. She had just been struck with three bullets. One shattered the bone in her upper arm, while two more punched into her abdomen, collapsing a lung and rupturing her liver.

Laura, now recovered and back on her feet as well, couldn’t believe what she’d just seen. Then Keegan shot her as well.

The bullets bored into Laura’s chest, punching through muscle and bone and finally her heart. A human would have been killed instantly.

Laura raced forward and knocked the weapon from Keegan’s hand and backhanded her. Several of the FBI agent’s teeth flew from her mouth as she was flipped head over heels backwards from the blow.

Laura was about to turn back to Josie when the terrible telekinetic grip of Tezcahtlip surrounded her once more.

The vampire felt herself turned around quickly, to face the shapeshifting giant. The ice surrounding his head exploded outwards, and his head contorted and shifted like churning water, then resumed its normal appearance.

“You will bother me no more,” Tezcahtlip said angrily.

Laura immediately felt the force squeezing in on her multiply exponentially. Her bones shattered, her ribs caving in, rupturing her organs, her limbs collapsing. She was quickly crushed under the invisible, terrific force.

For the vampire the pain was beyond anything she had imagined. Worse, her brain and heart were somehow shielded from the compression and she could feel the swift, crushing force that was pulverizing her.

On the ground, laying on her side in a pool of her own blood, Josie Winters tried desperately to summon the strength to freeze the giant’s brain again. But the only cold the girl felt was in her extremities. She was dying.

CHAPTER
THIRTY-THREE

As soon as the explosion had erupted at the visitor’s center, Colonel Mark Kenslir sprang from the jungle and began bounding up the Pyramid of Kukulcan. He pulled at the stone blocks of each step with super human strength, racing up them faster than it would seem possible to.

When he reached the top of the pyramid, weapons fire was breaking out in the plaza. The Colonel melted into the shadows cast by the temple atop the pyramid and worked his way cautiously around the pyramid. When the gunfire began to increase in intensity, and screams from soldiers being ripped apart reached him, Kenslir knew his chance would soon come.

Sure enough, Tezcahtlip stomped out of the temple. The giant was bewildered by the terrible noise below. He looked this way and that, trying to figure out what was going on.

Kenslir slipped into the temple behind the giant, as silent as the wind.

Inside the large rectangular room, Kenslir quickly located his four stone soldiers. All were bound, in kneeling positions, the chains binding their wrists behind them connected to the wall of the temple. Each appeared unconscious.

The chains and steel cables were very thick. Designed for pulling large vehicles. Kenslir knew he couldn’t break them himself.

Outside, Tezcahtlip had just bellowed in rage, his “Enough!” reverberating around the complex with magical augmentation.

Kenslir moved quickly, drawing explosives from two pockets and fastening them to the wall of the pyramid his men were shackled to. Steel rods had been driven into the huge granite blocks, probably by the giant himself. Only explosives could remove them.

Kenslir dashed for the temple entrance, wondering about the gunshots he had just heard outside.

At the top of the stairs, the Colonel quickly took in the damage.

Pam Keegan was sprawled, unmoving on the clay of the plaza. What he could only guess was Laura Olson was hovering in the air, a pulped, broken tangle of flesh and bone. And at the feet of the giant, laying in a large pool of her own blood, was Josie.

“Son of a bitch!” Mark Kenslir declared, firing his modified M-203 grenade launcher mounted under the foregrip of his automatic shotgun.

The grenade launcher boomed loudly in the court yard, disgorging a single round.

A standard M-203 grenade launcher relied on a two stage propulsion system, lobbing a round gently out of the 40mm tube so that a soldier felt little recoil. The men of Detachment 1039 relied on something with a lot more kick. Steel liners were inserted into the standard M-203s, turning them into cannons. 30mm cannons that could fire a wide variety of ammunition.

As the round fired by Kenslir left the barrel of his modified grenade launcher, it seemed to come apart in flight. Two steel balls, thirty millimeters in diameter tumbled apart, moving away from each other until an eighteen inch steel cable went taut between them. The balls then began tumbling through the air, rotating around each other.

All this took place in far less than a second. The chain shot swirled through the air at incredible speed, then sliced through the back of Tezcahtlip’s neck and instantly removed his head from his shoulders.

Tezcahtlip’s head and Laura Olson’s compressed body both dropped to the ground at the same time.

Mark Kenslir immediately leapt from the top landing of the pyramid stairs, simultaneously triggering the explosives he had placed.

The huge explosion shook the pyramid, spraying out dust and flame from the entrance of the temple. Debris peppered against Kenslir’s back as he fell to the courtyard.

Three seconds later, the Colonel struck the ground behind Tezcahtlip’s body. He immediately tucked his rifle’s stock to his shoulder and began firing into the body’s back, unloading all ten shots from the USAS 12's magazine.

Fired at such close proximity, the ninety .38 caliber lead balls fired from the .12 gauge buckshot rounds ripped the giant’s body to shreds as effectively as if he’d been hit with several machine guns. His arms and legs were flung away from the giant and his torso was reduced to a bloody pulp.

Kenslir jumped over the giant’s shredded body and ran to Josie’s side. He could tell the girl only had minutes left. He grabbed her by one arm and quickly dragged her toward what had formerly been Laura Olson, dropping the spent magazine from his rifle and slamming in a new one.

Kenslir dropped to one knee beside the dying vampire. He dropped his rifle to the ground and gently turned Laura’s mangled face toward him.

The vampire looked as though every bone in her body had been pulverized. Her face was a nearly unrecognizable mass of flesh, covered in blood. Yet somehow, her skull seemed intact and unbroken.

“Laura!” Kenslir yelled. “Save Josie.”

Then he leaned in and kissed the vampire on her mangled lips.

Energy crackled bright green-blue around their lips, flowing into Laura. Like sparks of electricity, the energy flashed through her compressed body and raced down her limbs.

Mark Kenslir felt his fingertips turning to stone as his lifeforce flowed out of him. He kept his eyes open and watched as Laura’s face began fill out, regenerating. The vampire shuddered as her body repaired itself. Her hands began to claw at the ground.

Kenslir’s arms and legs were solid stone now. He could feel the petrification spread into his abdomen, even as his heart slowed, then stopped. A cold chill crept up his neck as it turned to stone. The transformation continued, racing up the back of Kenslir’s head, under his hair. It swelled around his head, turning his ears to grey stone and slowly swallowing his face. Finally, his lips turned to stone.

Laura Olson broke free of Kenslir’s stone grasp, and sucked in a great lungful of air. The breath was incredibly painful, as her ribs were still moving back into their normal position and ripped at her still reforming lungs.

The vampire could move, but just barely. She rolled over onto her side, toward Josie. Still broken and twisted, Laura clawed at Josie Winters, grabbing the girl by the throat feebly.

Blue energy crackled from Laura’s fingertips, flowing into Josie Winters. The girl’s faint breathing suddenly stopped. Then she inhaled sharply.

Josie’s eyes snapped open and she saw the mangled form of Laura Olson laying beside her. The vampire looked like she had been run over by a truck.

“Impressive,” a deep voice gasped.

Josie slowly sat up, holding herself up with one elbow.

Tezcahtlip was looking at her. The giant had grown a new head, and it swayed on a tentacle-like appendage, looking at her. Worse, slender, worm like tentacles were stretching out from the giant, crawling through his blood and flesh littered about him. The tube-like constructs merged into the giant’s severed limbs and fused to them.

“Oh, no,” Josie exclaimed. She tried to get up and felt an excruciating pain in her side. She glanced down and saw the holes in her flightsuit. She dug into them with one hand, but her fingers came away clean. Her wounds were healed—around the bullets now lodged inside her.

Josie scooted backwards, trying to climb to her feet as the giant’s limbs reattached to his body. Joints cracked and flesh made sucking noises as the limbs grew properly back into place. The giant placed his palms against the ground and stood slowly, his tentacle like neck shrinking back into his body, his head reseating on his shoulders.

“You are indeed powerful, humans, but I am a god!”

Tezcahtlip threw back his head and roared. The bellow changed in pitch, from a deep rumble into that of a shriek as his body swelled. His shredded white suit exploded off the giant as his limbs expanded and leathery wings grew from his back. In seconds, the giant had turned once more into the feathered dragon, Kukulcan.

Josie was on her feet now. She felt weak, but she strained with all her might.

The dragon screamed again, this time in pain as the flesh in its skull began to freeze solid.

The dragon began flapping its wings, kicking up dust and terrific winds. The air buffeted Josie and staggered her backwards, each step bringing agonizing pain as the bullets inside her cut the tissue moving around them.

Her concentration finally faltered and Josie fell to her knees, slumping forward and catching herself with one hand, her other clutched against her side. She glanced to her right and finally saw the still form of Colonel Kenslir, crouched on one knee, turned to stone.

The dragon Kukulcan shook its head, reforming the flesh within its skull. It bellowed again in victory and looked down at Josie.

Suddenly a length of chain wrapped around the dragon’s neck, circling it like a whip. The chain was jerked back, rattling, and pulled the dragon’s head up and back. The feathered beast tumbled onto its back and rolled over to see its new attackers.

Bounding down the steps of the Pyramid were all four stone soldiers. They wore tattered, shredded clothing, with no shoes on their feet. They were charred and blackened from the explosion Colonel Kenslir had set off in the temple atop the Pyramid. But they were free of their chains and steel cables.

Jimmy pulled against the chain he had struck the dragon with, bracing his stone feet against the huge block of the second level of the pyramid he stood on. On either side of him, Victor and Atlas raced down the face of the pyramid, headed for the dragon.

Tezcahtlip felt the incredible force pulling on him, and briefly feared his neck might break. He thrashed and rolled forward, putting slack in the chain and grabbing it with his front claws.

But someone else had grabbed the chain as well. Colonel Chadwick Phillips.

Electricity raced through the chain, hitting the dragon instantly.

The pain was incredible as millions of volts poured into Tezcahtlip’s neck. His muscles jerked and spasmed uncontrollably and his eyes rolled up in his dragon head. Even his great dragon lungs stopped breathing.

Atlas and Victor slammed into the dragon from either side then, smashing it with punch after punch. Their stone fists struck with inhuman strength, shattering bones and pulverizing electrified flesh.

On her knees, struggling to rise, Josie felt a brief glimpse of hope. Until she noticed shapes darting out of the jungle surrounding the complex of Chichen Itza. Dark skinned vampires, wearing their tattered clothes stained with blood.

They were only twenty in number now, but they were headed right for her. Then Colonel Kenslir stepped into view.

From behind, the Colonel seemed fine at first. Then Josie noticed one hand was still gray. He turned toward the girl, looking over his shoulder. Half his face was frozen in place, still petrified.

“I’ve got this.”

The Colonel charged forward, toward the vampires.

Beating the feathered dragon, Atlas and Victor happened to see the Colonel limping towards the approaching vampires as fast as he could run. Both soldiers sprinted after him, toward the wave of approaching vampires.

They bounded past their weakened commander and leapt right into the line of vampires, lashing out with their stone fists. The three super soldiers and the vampires merged into a roiling mass of flesh and stone.

Tezcahtlip, the feathered dragon, reared back suddenly, despite the electrical shock flowing through him. He snapped the chain Jimmy and Phillips held, freeing himself and tumbling backwards.

The dragon rolled onto his stomach and quickly shrank—all the way to the size of a human. A brown haired human of average build and looks.

Tezcahtlip then began to scream in agony.

The shapeshifter had given up his dragon form for what he had believed to be something far more powerful. The former Detachment 1039 telepath killed by Tezcahtlip’s own brother two months ago. Billy Dyer, Code-name, Echo.

What Tezcahtlip hadn’t counted on was another telepathic jammer. It was now burning his telepathic brain with searing agony. The shapeshifter fought against the jammer, burning up stolen lifeforce energy to try and resist it.

Finally, he located the jammer. Atop his pyramid.

Tezcahtlip quickly grew back into his giant form, eliminating the pain of the jammer. He aimed his fury at the two stone soldiers grappling with vampires on the face of the pyramid.

Pure telekinetic force slammed into the men, crushing them back into the face of the pyramid. The stones of the structure cracked under the impact and the vampires were scattered by the force.

Tezcahtlip ran forward and began and reached for the edge of the first level of the pyramid—intent to scale it and smash the jammer placed in his own temple. He was about to climb the pyramid when Laura Olson leapt onto his back, digging her long claws into the giant’s flesh.

Tezcahtlip spun in place, trying to dislodge the vampire clinging to his back. In response, Laura ducked her head down and clamped her teeth into the side of his neck, puncturing his carotid with her fangs.

***

In the melee of supersoldiers versus vampires, Mark Kenslir was back to full strength now. The curse of the werewolf had once again done its job and restored him to full health and strength, despite his own resistance to magic.