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The arcane energy seething through the temple fluctuated wildly as I raced at Lara. Leaving the tome and its promises behind.
With one hand, I reached into a pouch in my vest and drew out a handful of small glass marbles. I willed power into them. They lit up like Christmas lights and I flung them past Lara, over the edge of the temple. I grabbed her, shielding her from the blast and shouted, “Proteger.”
The temple itself was unstable and I feared the grenades detonating would be enough to tear the entire structure apart, with us at the epicenter. Fearing I wouldn’t have enough juice left to maintain the shield, I took the only option I had left. I opened myself to the surging maelstrom of power that was coursing through the temple itself.
It was like trying to drink from a fire hydrant. The power flooded my system, and I shaped it into a shield around us as the grenades detonated. I closed my eyes as they went off, praying it would be enough. The inner sanctum rocked with the explosion. One instant, I was standing, Lara clutched in my arms. The next I was weightless, as the blast threw us clear of the ziggurat.
I forced my eyes open and sucked in a quick breath as the inky darkness of the lake approached fast.
The glass marbles hurtled ahead of us, splashing into the water and sinking fast.
We struck the water, hard, and the impact tore the air from my lungs, as we sank into its depths.
Beneath the surface of the water, the orbs provided light as they sank, allowing us to make out the forms of two temple crocodiles heading straight for us.
It was the first really good look I’d had at the creatures. They were no normal crocodiles. Proximity to the temple and the ley lines magic had altered their growth. The scaly reptiles were more than twenty feet long and moved through the water with effortless grace.
It took every ounce of self-restraint I had not to lose it and flail like a mad man.
The glowing orbs sank deeper, and the creatures followed them down, chasing the glowing lights as they sank into the lake. Grateful for the distraction, I kicked my way to the surface. Lara and I burst through the surface, gasping for precious air.
“To the island,” Lara shouted. “We can’t outrun the crocodiles in the water.”
We swam for the gold laden island. Sooner or later, the creatures were going to realize the ploy. One bite of the little spheres and they were going to be bitterly disappointed. We didn’t want to still be in the water when that happened.
The water itself was a nightmare. Bodies and debris floated in the lake, but we had no choice but to go straight through it. Lara made it to the island first. Weighed down as I was, I was struggling. I was tired, beat, and kicking against the weight of the vest and all my gear. I wasn’t an athlete. I could run when my life depended on it but right now, I felt more like an out of shape old man trying desperately not to drown.
Lara pulled herself up out of the water and was waiting for me as my fingertips brushed the stone. I let out a sigh of relief as I threw my arm up over the edge, but I couldn’t muster the strength to drag myself out of the water. I rested my head against the stone, just to gather my wind.
From the side, in the water, two rows of white teeth came straight for me as one of the cold-blooded killing machines opened its jaws wide for its latest meal.
Seth Caldwell, with a combat rigging garnish.
Lara’s pistol barked as she emptied what had to be a half a dozen shots into the creature’s maw, straight into the back of its throat. The creature went limp in the water. A second crocodile slammed into it, dragging it down into the water as if it could sense the easy feed.
More motivated than ever, I hauled my ass out of the water and surveyed the treasure-covered island. Dripping, panting, and grasping for breath, I looked around the chamber. The Inquisition’s forces were in disarray. Michael and Torquemada were gone, and the bloodied waters of the temple were swiftly turning into a charnel house. The remaining troopers took what gold they could carry and fled for the entrance hall as the Section 9 forces harried their retreat. A few feet before me, my fiancée eyed me warily.
“Seth, we need to talk,” she said.
I held up a hand. “If it’s about the mask, it was up there. It’s probably gone. We need to get out of here before we are too.”
All around me, Section 9 soldiers raised their assault rifles and pointed them straight at me.
I was exhausted, out of breath, and had narrowly avoided being eaten alive. I had thought my problems were over, but it seemed Section 9 had other plans.
“Whatever, shoot me for all I care. I’m done.” I doubled over, gripping my thighs as I sucked in deep breaths.
Lara’s expression softened as she put a hand on my shoulder. “What the hell is going on here?”
“Crazy priest, ancient ritual, unstable temple. You do the math.” I wheezed. “It ends badly, for all of us, unless we get out of here right now.
From the top of the temple ziggurat, an unholy scream split the air. Everybody turned. A shiver ran down my spine. Torquemada was on his feet, leaning over the sanctum’s wall, leering at us. One half of his skull was missing. Worse yet, it didn’t seem to be bothering him.
“That’s not good.” I groaned, running my hands through my soaked hair. “We need to run, now. Get as far away from here as we can.”
The butchered remnants of the priest stared straight at me.
“You!” Torquemada shouted in a bellicose tone that was clearly not his own. It was sonorous, full of power, and entirely not of this world. The priest’s broken body grew and distended, exploding in a shower of gore as a sinuous creature rose from viscera.
It was charcoal black like the night sky, with wings that emerged from its back and grew until they stretched wide like a bat. Two great ridged horns rose from its head like a goat, and as the creature grew it pressed against the battered walls of the sanctum until it could no longer contain his mass.
The creature broke through the ziggurat’s roof, casting it, and the immense brazier atop it, aside like it weighed nothing at all. The flaming brazier bounced once on the level beneath and plunged into the water.
The nightmarish creature perched in the ruins of the sanctum. Scarlet orbs glowed where eyes should have been. The creature snapped its wings out. They had to be more than twelve feet across, with a wicked talon on the end of each.
Section 9 opened fire. Round after round pummeled the creature, but the bullets seemed to have no effect on it. The creature stretched a finger toward us and bellowed in a tongue I didn’t recognize.
A flicker of black energy like a whip lashed out from the creature’s hand and struck the soldier to my right. The dark power tore him in half, killing him instantly.
“Run!” I shouted.
This time, Section 9 was a lot more agreeable. Lara and I raced over the island and clambered up the debris from the destroyed wall. Soldiers traded shots with the creature as it rained arcane fury down on us.
We were less than a dozen steps from where the Section 9 troop carrier had landed in the wall when the creature launched itself from the top of the temple.
I stole a glance over my shoulder in time to spot a seething orb of dark light pulsing over its taloned hand.
Lara made for the chopper.
“No, no, no,” I shouted, grabbing her and pulling her through the shattered wall of the cavern.
Leaping down, we landed in the mud outside the temple as the beast’s spell struck the super chopper and detonated it in a shower of steel and shrapnel.
The gunfire eased, growing more sporadic, and I knew why. Lara’s escort was being picked off one by one.
“What is that thing?” Lara called over the panicked shouting.
“Something from the realm of spirits. It forced its way into our world. The priest bartered with it for power and now the beast has used his sacrifice and the power of the ritual the priest was preparing, to claw its way into our reality.”
Torquemada may not have succeeded in sacrificing me to fuel the ritual, but it seemed that the Veil had been sufficiently thin enough to allow his overlord to break through and possess his champion, or what had remained of him. Once he had a foothold in the mortal realm, he’d been able to manifest himself in his true form. And it was hideously terrifying.
“How do we kill it?” Lara asked as we put more distance between us and the temple.
“We can’t,” I replied. “Well, not truly. Not with what we have here. But creatures from beyond are not meant for our world. It can only sustain this form for so long. With time, the Veil will move to restore balance and the creature will be dragged back to its own realm.”
“Yeah, but what about the meantime?” Lara replied, raising her hands. “That thing is going to wreak carnage. We can’t just wait for it to go home of its own accord.”
As if on cue, the creature landed and raked its talons through one of the Section 9 commandos, cutting him to ribbons.
Lara was right. We had no way of knowing just how powerful the creature was. What could normals do against such a creature? We had to contain it. The creature could kill scores of people, perhaps hundreds, maybe even thousands. With enough bloodshed, there was no telling how long it could remain in our realm. There was also no way of knowing what plans it had now that it was here.
Clearly it possessed enough knowledge to bring down the Veil. Torquemada was gone, but he was simply a pawn. Now the creature was here, he could do it himself.
The towering creature slogged through the mud. Its hooves sank several inches into the mire as it brought itself up to its full height. It towered over us and was all claws and malice. The creature looked at me, threw back its head, and laughed.
It just laughed at me. I didn’t get the joke, but clearly it found something hilarious.
“Child, you have no idea who you contend with. We were in the middle of a ritual before we were so rudely interrupted. Come, there is work still to do.”
The creature still meant to complete the ritual. And it expected me to help.
It had lost its damn mind.
The creature seemed to be able to read my mind. “I’ve waited millennia for this opportunity. I will not be stopped now.”
The creature was drawing on its power; I could feel it gathering. With one hand, I gripped the belt of Zeus at my waist and gave the beast a manic grin.
“Let’s dance,” I shouted as I drew on my own magic and prepared to throw down with the demon of darkness and hate.
“Come willingly, and I’ll let the woman live.”
“Hard pass,” Lara replied. “I don’t make deals with devils. I put them down.”
The demon creature slapped its thigh and howled with laughter. “I am Mephistos, keeper of shadows. You are... simply food.”
“Take your best shot, chuckles,” I said. “You move a cloven hoof and I’m going to make you wish you’d never left home.”
Mephistos leveled a talon at me, and black flames billowed from it. Drawing on the belt’s energy, I answered.
Thunder peeled overhead, and more lightning than I’d ever seen in my life leapt from my outstretched hands and met his spell head on. Lightning and black magic collided, the two elemental forces vying with each other for supremacy.
Mephistos hadn’t reckoned on the Belt’s presence. It was no mortal artifact. Zeus was a supreme being in the world of spirits. He was at the top of the food chain. The power of the God of Thunder arced through the air, dissipating the dark magic before it. Mephistos bellowed and gestured with his other clawed hand. The earth on which I was standing trembled and then exploded, kicking me into the air and pummeling me with rock and debris. The creature howled in triumph.
“Now,” Lara shouted into the radio in her hand.
As I hit the ground, two sleek outlines of Apache gunships rose over the open pit of the mine. The gunships gave the creature everything they had, hellfire missiles launching free as their chain guns went to work. The heavy caliber rounds succeeded where small arms had not, blasting chunks of black flesh from its form. No sooner had the pieces of flesh parted from the creature, than they hissed and vanished in a wisp of smoke. The creature drew its wings about it as the volley of missiles impacted all around it.
When the dust cleared, Mephistos stood. Gaping holes marred its wings as it stood there in terrible and deadly majesty. The creature howled and, with a beat of its ragged wings, launched itself at the helicopters. The Apaches were hovering too low, they didn’t have time to react.
They had underestimated the creature’s resilience. The demon sped through the air as the helicopter gunships opened fire once more.
Mephistos batted the first gunship aside, sending it careening into the wall of the pit. The gunship exploded on impact. He wheeled and grabbed the second, demonic claws tearing the gunship open like it was a sardine can. The demon and the severed parts of the gunship crashed to the muddy floor of the quarry. Its fuel tanks detonated, throwing Mephistos clear.
I strode toward the wreckage, the demon rising slowly from the mud. Smoke rose from its wounded form, but its eyes glowed with otherworldly power.
There was no running now. We could never outrun this creature.
The demon reared up, standing in the smoldering wreckage of the gunship, its shredded wings flexing behind it. The wicked claws at the end of its sinuous wings shone with blood and deadly majesty.
“I am Mephistos, herald of He who walks in shadow. He will feed on your soul.”
My body shook with rage as I took in the destruction in the valley. The shattered ruins of my forebear’s temple was spilling through the gaping hole in the temple wall, carried by the rising water level. Water mixed with mud and blood, spilling into the bottom of the mine.
The Inquisition had fled for their lives. Section 9‘s strike force had been utterly destroyed and whatever hope I had of breaking my curse had been obliterated by Torquemada under Mephistos’ manipulations.
They had robbed me of the life I wanted. My life with Lara, free from my family’s curse and the baggage it brought with it.
Everything had begun here, in this very place. My best chance at fixing everything had been stolen from me.
Emotions boiled up within me. Hatred for the opportunity that had been lost, anger for the Inquisition who had finished what their ancestors had started, plundering my people and then destroying what little of my history was left.
The temple, our family’s site of power, had been corrupted and was on the verge of being destroyed by the power Mephistos had unleashed within.
What little hope I had for a better life was sinking to the bottom of a cavernous lake in the jungles of Panama.
If I was going to die, I was going to choose the manner of my death.
Mephistos might have been from another realm, but he’d made a terrible mistake. He’d picked his fight in the battered ruins of my family’s site of power. I might have been uninitiated, but I was the last descendant of the Brujas de Sangre and beneath their battered temple was a ley line, coursing with power.
I tapped into that power at the source and drank deeply from its current. I could feel the raw arcana flowing through me like fire in my veins. Mephistos cocked his head. I had shot well past the limits any sane wizard would countenance and embraced my fate.
“I am the master of my fate,” I shouted, Henley’s words coursing through my mind as the dam broke. I unleashed the pent-up power in a curtain of destruction.
Mephistos raised a shield, a black mist like a shroud. Crimson sheets of fire flooded from my outstretched hands, while lightning arced down from the storm clouds billowing overhead. Lightning bolts caught the creature’s horns, cooking his flesh as they lanced through him. The fire drove the mist before it and Mephistos howled in defiance.
With a howl, the demon launched itself at me. I brought to bear every iota of power I could, bathing the beast in a symphony of destruction. The creature’s wings snapped outward to propel it forward, but the flames caught them and reduced them to ash. With a shriek, the creature lunged forward, charred horns lowered. I threw a blast of kinetic energy into the rampaging creature as its horns impaled me. I went down as the creature bellowed and raised its talons to rake at me.
I should have been dead. Then I saw where the creature’s horns had taken me.
The bullet proof vest. Enchanted to withstand a beating, it had prevented the creature from turning me into a shish kabob. I grabbed its horns but yanked my hands away. The horns were searing hot. The flesh of my palms blistered as I tore them free. The demon reached for my throat, but I saw a flash of silver and realized that Lara was beside me her pistol raised. She tucked the colt into the flesh at the base of the demon’s neck and pulled the trigger. Black ichor sprayed from the wound and the creature went limp.
Kicking and squirming, I extricated myself from the beast’s horns as his remains faded to dust and dissipated on the wind.
I looked at my hands. They were badly burned but I was alive. Which quite frankly astounded me.
I had drawn on the unfiltered power of the ley line and rained hell on the demon. Using that much power should have reduced me to a pile of ash but here I was.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a gold ring in the mud at my feet. It was singed black but here and there the gold still shone through. A few inches from it, I spotted another. Looking around, I found more than a dozen of them, scattered in the mud around me. They seemed familiar. Then I knew why. I felt for the Belt of Zeus, but it was gone.
What was left of it was laying on the ground.
The relic must have borne the brunt of the power instead of me. The power I’d drawn had destroyed a tool of the Gods, but the belt had saved my life.
Feelings started to well up within me. I looked to Lara, her Colt still smoking in her hand. I took two unsteady steps through the mud toward her and threw my blistered arms around her, pulling her close and kissing her deeply.
Lara’s lips met mine with an intensity that caused my heart to flip in my chest. Her soft sweet lips. My cares melted away as I relished the fact that I was still alive.
I was almost delirious with joy, until I felt the cold kiss of steel against my temple. I opened my eyes to find Lara’s Colt resting against my skull.
“Seth Ryder. You and I need to have a good talk,” she said, her tone guarded.
I bit my lip and slowly raised my hands. “Yes, dear, but can we do it somewhere else? Those Inquisition creeps might come back. I’d rather not be here if they do.”
She stared at me, her emerald eyes boring into my soul, searching for any sign of duplicity.
“What did you have in mind?” she asked, not moving her weapon an inch.
I looked around the mine pit. “Somewhere with less things trying to kill us. Besides, there is someone who really wants to meet you.”
“Who is that?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“My mother. If you’re up for it. She’s been all over me about my fiancée that she hasn’t met.”
Lara eased the pistol away from my skull. “You want to take me home to meet your mother?”
I nodded slowly, utterly exhausted. “Yes, probably best that I do. I’d like to reduce the number of women trying to kill me by at least one.”
“No promises,” Lara replied, holstering the weapon.
I laughed. “I was talking about her. I was kind of hoping wrestling a demon with my bare hands would be enough to win you over.”
Lara made a show of considering it. “It was kind of bad ass, I’m not going to lie. But it was the poetry that did it. You destroy a demon while quoting William Henley. I’m willing to consider giving you a second chance. Not many men out there that can pull that off.”
I wrapped one arm around her waist, not wanting to spoil the moment by collapsing in the mud. “Let’s get out of here.”
“That creature kinda took out my ride,” Lara replied, taking my weight. “You got a plan for getting us out of here?”
I looked around. “Are you ready to take a little sabbatical from Section 9 and learn what the World of Magic is really about?”
Lara studied the fading wisps of Mephistos’ form. “I have more questions than you can possibly imagine.”
I just let the grin spread across my face. “I’ll do what I can. There is plenty that went on here today that I don’t even understand.”
“It’s a start,” Lara said. “I’ll take it.
I reached for my earpiece. “Murdoch, you still there?”
“Yes, boss,” he replied. “Things got a little hairy there for a minute. Are you okay?”
I took a deep breath. “It was far too much like Rome for my tastes.”
Murdoch made a choking sound. “I’m glad I stayed with the plane. What about the temple?”
I looked at the crumbling ruins behind me. “It hasn’t blown up yet, but there’s still time.”
His hearty laugh echoed through the comms. “At least you’re consistent. Dr. Jones would be proud.”
I grinned. The good doctor would have managed to save his hat. What was left of mine was probably drifting to the bottom of a lake filled with the largest crocodiles I’d ever had the misfortune of looking at. I wasn’t going in after it.
“Mind picking us up?” I asked.
“Us?” Murdoch asked.
“We have a passenger.”
“The lady Stiel?” His voice had an approving air to it.
“Indeed. She arrived with some friends to join the party, but her ride’s shot and she’s decided to slum it with us. I’ll see you at the river.”
“Roger that,” Murdoch replied.
Leaning on Lara for a little support, I turned to her and asked, as nonchalantly as I could manage, “Care for a stroll, dear?”
She looked at me, her eyes dancing with mirth as the corner of her mouth crept up into a smile. “Just like the old days in Central Park. You know, before you robbed my office and tried to get us both killed.”
I managed a smile. “Yes, just like that.”