- Chapter 9 -

Louis steered the small boat to a ramshackle dock at the bottom of a terraced rise and tied up. He would watch for trouble and be able to go for help if needed. Jack and Doc checked their sidearms, and Deadeye loaded his Winchester carbine. Then the three of them stepped onto the dock and made their way to the path which cut upward through a lush, green hillside to the ruins of the Spanish fort.

The place was known to history as Cerro de la Mentira, or “Deception Hill”, a name whose origins were lost in time long before its ruins had been claimed by the bokors in Oba’s line. Originally a Spanish military garrison and prison, the fort was the staging ground for enforcement of severe Spanish laws in the 16th and 17th centuries, and reprisals against locals who had the nerve to question said laws. Now weather-beaten, with sagging outer walls, the old fort resembled the gnarled hand of an aged man reaching out of the cliff side toward the sky.

Along the path, the party spotted several groups of people wandering aimlessly within the rows of coffee shrubs, and Jack was filled instantly with a looming dread. Their eyes were white and they stared blankly ahead, unblinking. They wore simple homespun clothes—all ragged and torn from use. Not one head turned to greet the trio as they trod up the path into the shadow of the fort.

“Are these the zombis Louis told us about?” Jack asked as they traversed the milling human herd.

Doc nodded. “They seem docile enough,” she said. “But let’s not disturb them, just the same.”

Deadeye clutched the lever of the Winchester in battle-forged readiness. “I’m for that plan,” he deadpanned.

They wove through a number of blank stares and ragged bodies as they made their way to the outer gate, only to find that the left side had been pried off its hinges and lay to the side of the courtyard. Another pair of zombis trudged randomly around the garden, slowly going nowhere at all. Jack led Doc and Deadeye through the open front doorway, and he immediately knew someone else had been there before them. Jack shucked both .45s from their holsters, which signaled Doc to follow suit with her revolver. Deadeye took it as permission to ready the Winchester, which he braced to his shoulder.

The fort was ancient and dank, and smelled like a curious mixture of coffee, urine, sweat and sulfur. Even the heat of the noonday sun outside couldn’t penetrate the thick stone walls of the Spanish garrison. It remained at least twenty degrees cooler inside.

Jack led the way, cautiously leading with his twin pistols. Doc followed, her own pistol at the ready, lodestone dangling from the leather string around her neck. Deadeye brought up the rear, scanning down the barrel sights of the carbine. They searched the ground floor one chamber at a time, bypassing a curved stairway down to the prison area. The heavy oak doors to the great hall were ajar, and Jack waved his friends back while he peered through the gap between them.

He stepped in, pistols in outstretched hands to the left and right, scanning the room with sun-blind eyes. Four roughly human-sized shapes lay in crumpled heaps on the cold stone.

“Doc!” he hailed. “Get in here!”

Doc followed him into the room. She immediately recognized the smoldering remains of two of the shapes.

“Silver Star commandos,” she gasped.

Jack looked over his shoulder at the doorway. “Deadeye, take a look around upstairs. See if they left any more clues.”

“Affirmative,” said Deadeye, and he disappeared up the main stairwell.

Jack entered the center of the room and tried to let his eyes adjust to the dim light. Doc was already checking the bodies. The two commandos were little more than piles of wet ash and uniforms. The body of a female zombi, her throat cut, lay near the hearth.

Then Jack saw the slightest movement from the last body and he rushed to check it out.

“Oh no,” he said, holstering his guns.

Doc rushed to his side. “Is that Oba?” she asked, kneeling to the floor and rolling the figure over into her lap.

It was indeed the Vodou bokor, painted markings smeared with his own blood. He’d been stabbed through the heart. His breath came and went as a labored wheeze. His eyes searched for Doc’s, and when they met, he reached for the lodestone around her neck. Although startled at first, Doc let him continue, wishing she could alleviate his pain.

“Av… avenge…” he pleaded through dry, chapped lips.

Then his head rolled back and he lost consciousness, hand still clutching the lodestone, which leaked spectral light through his dark fingertips. When at last he released it and slipped away into death, the stone shone a bright ice blue and almost hummed with the energy infused in it.

“He’s dead,” Doc announced.

But Jack was transfixed on the stone. “Look, Doc! It’s glowing like crazy!”

Doc let Oba’s body slump back to the floor. She undid the strap of the lodestone from around her neck and let it hang. The stone twisted back and forth, finally becoming still as it angled toward the cook hearth. “Over there,” she pointed. “It’s the hearth.”

Jack went to the hearth and gently rolled the dead zombi away. As he did so, he noticed the corner tile jiggle beneath the weight. He knelt, trying to pry it loose. Doc went to his side and fanned dust and cooking debris away. He flipped the tile over, revealing a simple, folded piece of tanned leather.

Doc opened the leather with eyes wide. “It’s a map!”

Jack led her to an exterior window and pulled the burlap curtain aside to let some light in. Together they pored over what appeared to be a primitive treasure map inked on pig hide.

# # #

Deadeye circled out of the stairwell into a gallery which looked over the entry of the fort on his right, and a line of former officer’s quarters on the left. Most were empty, save for the occasional roaming chicken, pecking at the hay-strewn floors. However one room—the centermost with double doors—was padlocked from the outside.

 

Charlie leaned the Winchester against the wall and took a knee. Fishing his trench knife out of its belt sheath and a metal strip clip from another pouch, he inserted both into the archaic lock and began to wiggle the primitive tumblers into place.

The thick ring sprang open, and Charlie set the old lock down quietly, standing to open the door.

He pulled the right door open with the deep moan of wrought iron hinges, and his eyes grew wide.

The room was full of wooden crates, each stenciled with the words ACHTUNG - EXPLOSIVE. Thick cord fuses bound with tape extended upward to the ceiling and across to the door. The door Charlie had just opened, triggering a chemical reaction in the glass bulb set to go off if anyone attempted a breach.

Deadeye heard the hiss of multiple fuses burning, and he knew they didn’t have much time. He grabbed the Winchester and sprinted for the stairway.

# # #

Maria stormed up the gantry to the Luftpanzer radio room, furious.

Furious at Oba’s stoicism. Furious at her own failure to acquire the cross or any fresh clues as to its whereabouts. The radio officer could hear her coming outside the door, and readied himself for a quick break while Maria spoke with headquarters. He was standing when she entered, bowing slightly as he offered her the headset. Then he disappeared into the hallway, leaving Maria in private.

“Blutig,” she signaled.

“Maria,” came a reedy voice tinged with a posh English accent from across the wireless. “I need you to abort the current mission and bring your complement to the following coordinates: 2 degrees, 6 hours, 22.6 minutes north by 63 degrees, 12 hours, 10.5 minutes west.”

“But Master,” Maria protested. “The Cross of Cadiz was almost within our grasp. I just need a few more days…”

“You do not have days to spend, Maria,” said the voice. “Your failure to procure the Cross of Cadiz has cost soldiers and material. And your bombing of West End accomplished nothing.”

“But we had the Daedalus—”

“I will not tolerate excuses and I will not tolerate insubordination!” Crowley’s anger buzzed into her ear like angry hornets. “Your vanity and selfishness almost cost the Luftpanzer! You will listen to me and you will obey, or you will be punished.”

His words seared into her skull and they stung. Her eyes welled up with tears but she willed them dry.

“Yes, Master.”

Suddenly the voice on the radio was calm. “Very good, Maria. We do not look backward, do we?”

Maria sighed, “No, Master.”

“No indeed. We look forward. Your presence is required here, for the summoning.”

“Master, with respect,” Maria said through clenched teeth. “The Cross—”

“The Cross will soon be in the hands of the Daedalus crew.”

Maria fumed. It wasn’t like Crowley to abort an important project like this.

“We cannot just walk away…”

“Oh but you are walking away,” Crowley maintained. “But that does not mean the Cross of Cadiz will remain in the possession of our enemy.”

Maria swallowed dryly. While she respected Crowley’s foresight to stand back and let the Daedalus crew do the hard work in retrieving the artifact, he was going to send someone else—another team—to steal it back. She desperately wanted to be the one to do it.

“Please, Master…”

“You will do as I say, Maria, or bear the consequences.” The voice was calm, matter-of-fact, and those qualities more than the words themselves sent a chill down her spine.

Maria felt her heart thud deeply within her chest. This was a blow to her pride, but Maria had always played the long game. If Crowley needed her, she would play the good soldier. She would obey.

“Acknowledged,” she told him, clamping her eyes tight with shame.

“Very well,” buzzed the response. “We will expect you in thirty-six hours, no later. Over and out.”

# # #

Jack and Doc stood by the window in the great hall, a warm breeze drifting in from the river valley below. Although they were technically on the ground floor, the fort itself sprouted from the cliff sixty feet above the Mapou. They scanned the leather map for clues.

Jack pointed at one corner. “The picture on the legend appears to be…”

“A jeweled cross,” Doc finished, smiling.

Jack chuckled. “Well I’ll be darned.” He traced the aged ink line in a curious puzzle piece shape. “What’s this, here?”

“Coast line,” said Doc. “It’s not labeled. We’ll have to match it to the charts, or find a local who knows the islands.”

“Perhaps Louis would know.”

“And if he doesn’t, he knows someone who would.”

Then Deadeye burst into the room at full speed. “No time to explain!” he warned. “We need to go! Now!”