Blood and Stone (14 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

At Chichen Itza, the smell of death hung in the night air. The metallic tang of blood mixed with decay from the corpses of so many. Blood and bodies covered the ground around the Pyramid of Kukulcan. Scores of bodies—all thrown from the temple atop the structure once drained of their life. All shirtless, most gaping holes in their chests where their hearts had been removed.

Amongst these bodies, Tezcahtlip’s vampire minions drank eagerly, draining the remaining blood from the corpses. The three dozen creatures were coated in blood. It covered their faces, their bodies and the tattered clothes they wore.

Phillipe Ramos was disgusted by it. The army sergeant walked around a feeding vampire and grabbed another spent body. That of an old woman, with grey hair, still in her nightclothes. She had been dragged from her home, loaded onto an Army truck and driven to Chichen Itza. Then sacrificed to Kukulcan.

Ramos grabbed the woman’s shriveled body by the ankles and pulled her from the tangled heap of bodies. The vampires had drained her, and now it was time to dispose of the body. He dragged it out, across the wide plaza to an army truck where two more deserters picked it up and threw it in atop the others.

Ramos had been at it for hours, disposing of Kukulcan’s victims. The Mayan god had consumed several hundred people in the past few hours. The victims had been brought in all night long by the vampires. Only with dawn a few hours away had the arrival of prey ceased.

At the west end of Chichen Itza, the worshipers of Kukulcan ignored the blood sacrifices and prayed to the pyramid. They groveled in the dirt like pigs, on their hands and knees, bowing and reciting prayers.

Ramos had walked amongst the hundreds of worshipers, listening to them. Many asked for wealth, or power. Some asked to be healed of disease. Still others prayed for distant relatives.

They sickened Ramos. They were beggars, just as they had been before Kukulcan’s return. Lazy beggars. They should be the ones dragging bodies to the trucks while Ramos and his fellow soldiers prepared for the glorious rebirth of the Mayan empire. An empire that would need warriors, not prayers.

Ramos began to walk back to the pile of corpses and the feeding vampires when he hesitated. Here, in the middle of the plaza, he could hear something. A distant rumble—from the northwest.

He looked around but no one else seemed to notice. The worshipers could no doubt hear only their own monotone pleas to Kukulcan, while the incessant sucking from the vampires drowned anything out by the pyramid. But here, in the middle of the plaza, Ramos could hear something. And it was growing louder.

Beyond the tents and vehicles ringing Chichen Itza, the treetops were black against the night sky. Then they began moving back and forth, stirred by the wind.

The volume of the approaching noise suddenly increased and a large airplane appeared. It flashed overhead, barely above the treetops, vanishing to the southeast as quickly as it had appeared.

In that blink of an eye that Ramos had seen it, the plane had appeared as a sinister, black shape against the sky. A pointed nose, wide wings and glowing engines beneath the craft. It looked like a fighter jet, only much, much larger.

Sergeant Ramos didn’t have time to try and identify the aircraft however. It had dropped something from its belly as it shot over. Four somethings, all man-sized, that dropped toward the ground quickly, despite large parachutes billowing out behind them.

***

For Major Karr and her crew, this was the most dangerous part of any mission. The sweep wings of the MB-1R, nicknamed “Sleipnir” by the crew, were forward again, and the bomber was slowing down to near landing speeds. If they were delivering ordinance, they could go quite a bit faster, but the stone soldiers, for all their durability, needed much slower speeds to be dropped.

As the black bomber slowed, its forward bomb bay doors began to cycle open. The crew module’s ramp then began to lower.

Inside the crew module, the roar of the engines and the wind blowing in made talking nearly impossible.

“Remember—tight fists and land on your feet!” Colonel Kenslir yelled to his men. Atlas was already walking to the end of the ramp, steadying himself with a strap that slid along a rail overhead.

Victor shuffled forward after Atlas, tugging at the various straps holding his gear, and a small parachute across his shoulders. Phillips, and then Jimmy, brought up the rear.

“Be careful!” Josie yelled over the noise of the wind. She stepped around Kenslir and gave Jimmy a hug.

>>>ONCE YOU’RE ON THE GROUND, FORM UP AND SHOOT ANYTHING THAT MOVES<<< Colonel Kenslir texted the soldiers over their tactical visors. He was last in line, ready to bail out the end of the aircraft after his men.

Jimmy was confused—he looked back over his shoulder toward his commander. “What about non-combatants?”

>>>NO WAY FOR YOU TO TELL WHO’S WHO. IF THEY AREN’T RUNNING AWAY, SHOOT THEM<<<

A red light at the end of the crew module began to blink rapidly.

“Get ready!” Atlas yelled over his shoulder at the team.

The light suddenly switched to a bright green.

Atlas jumped off the end of the ramp and crossed his arms over chest, across his auto shotgun. He tucked his knees up, as though he were about to squat on the ground. In rapid succession, Victor, Phillips and finally Jimmy leapt from the bomber after him.

***

“Missile lock!” Major Karr yelled into her headset. She’d seen the flashing warning indicator in the cockpit, the same as her crew. She wrenched the controls to the right and accelerated. She knew her countermeasures officer would do what he was trained to, and soon chaff and flares would deploy from the rear of the plane.

The MB-1R lurched and banked as sharply as the massive plane could, a missile streaking toward it from an area southwest of the main complex at Chichen Itza. Fired by a soldier standing atop the restored Mayan observatory, the heat-seeking Stinger missile, manufactured in the United States and exported to Mexico to help in the war on drugs, zeroed in on the multi-role bomber.

Despite its incredible speed and fighter-like appearance, the MB-1R was not a particularly nimble plane. Even with its variable sweep wings all the way forward, the plane made wide, long turns that were better than a commercial airliner’s, but a far cry from those of a fighter.

In the passenger module, Colonel Kenslir had been about to leap from the plane himself. When it suddenly banked, he grabbed at an overhead strap with one hand and Josie’s belt with the other. The young girl had not yet returned to her seat. When the bomber suddenly banked, she nearly fell down the ramp herself.

A buzzer was sounding in the crew module and yellow lights flashed. A missile had locked onto the bomber.

Kenslir pulled Josie in close and wrapped an arm around her. “Everyone strap in!”

***

Jimmy felt himself tumbling through the air, buffeted by the wind that his two-hundred-plus miles per hour speed created. Then a small charge exploded in the parachute pack across his shoulders, and a large chute expanded rapidly.

The braking parachute immediately slowed Jimmy’s descent. Straps tugged at his stone body and he was whipped around, his feet aimed at the jungle, away from the bomber as it continued south.

Plummeting toward the ground, Jimmy readied himself. He knew he was still moving at over a hundred miles per hour, despite the braking parachute. At fifty feet above the ground, the chute suddenly broke free from his harness. He quickly fell to the soft dirt, throwing up large plumes of dust when he landed.

Somehow, he’d managed to keep his balance and not fall off his feet. Even better, none of his toes felt broken off in his boots. He’d done it. He’d survived a high speed combat drop.

Jimmy quickly pulled his autoshotgun to his shoulder, sighting down the barrel. Around him, his fellow stone soldiers did the same, moving toward each other and the center of the pyramid complex, forming up at the base of the one-hundred-foot high pyramid of Kukulcan.

There was silence in the wake of the bomber. The assembled people and vampires at Chichen Itza were stunned by the sudden arrival of Jimmy and the others. They stood quietly, shocked. Then all hell broke loose.

Jimmy wasn’t the first fire, but he immediately joined his teammates. They began unleashing their weapons, sending buckshot flying at the human soldiers in the area and the undead by the base of the pyramid. To the west, the hundreds who had flocked to Chichen Itza to worship Kukulcan began to scream in terror. Like a frightened flock, they began to scatter in every direction.

***

Atop his pyramid, Tezcahtlip sat on his corpse throne, covered in blood. He had fed well tonight, devouring hearts and draining the life from hundreds. His powers were at an all time high. Yet he still could not discern the future clearly. His visions kept focusing on soldiers, conventional soldiers, massing in the United States, preparing to invade Mexico. And that made no sense.

Where was the man with the stone heart who had killed his brother? Where were the living stone soldiers? Why couldn’t Tezcahtlip see them? Surely they would be the ones to come for him.

His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the sounds of screaming and gunfire from outside. Lots of gunfire. His soldiers were firing their weapons enmasse. It sounded like one of the humans’ modern wars. Right outside his pyramid.

The shapeshifter sprang from his throne and raced out of his temple. From the top of the steps leading down the face of the pyramid, he could see the entire complex. And it was all in chaos.

Four soldiers, the men of stone he had expected to attack him, were firing their weapons, killing soldiers and knocking back the vampires. Tezcahtlip’s followers to the northwest were stampeding, like cattle, vanishing into the jungle. Tents were on fire, and there were smoking, black spots on the ground where grenades had been thrown by the shapeshifter’s soldiers at the men of stone.

The giant immediately transformed, assuming the shape of the feathered dragon he had created for his Kukulcan persona. But instead of leaping down at the attackers, he looked up, into the skies. With clairvoyant powers stolen from an inmate of Alcatraz, he was able to see much farther than the eyes of the dragon ever could.

There, flying south. A bomber, dropping flares as several missiles launched by Tezcahtlip’s followers raced after it. That was how the men of stone had gotten here. The giant would deal with the plane first, while his vampires kept the stone men busy.

The shapeshifter sprang into the air, wings tucked against his body. Using the telekinetic power of flight he had stolen, he streaked into the air, headed straight for the bomber.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN

Major Karr had the plane leveled out now and was pushing the throttles forward. They were getting out of here. In just a few moments, she’d be able to sweep the wings back and push the plane quickly past Mach 2. They’d be out of Mexico in minutes.

“Approaching aircraft!” Dean yelled out over the intercom. Using data relayed from an AWACS plane circling very high, miles away, Dean had detected something moving at almost Mach speed from Chichen Itza. Something larger than a missile.

Across from Dean, at the weapons station, Lieutenant Stevens locked onto the approaching target. “Permission to fire?”

“Fire!” Karr said, jerking on the controls and sending the bomber into another banking turn to the left.

At the rear of the plane, under the tail, the aft bomb bay doors opened. Eighteen feet of metal panels concealed a rotary launcher tucked up inside the fuselage. The launcher was designed to carry a wide variety of ordinance, from laser guided bombs to cruise missiles. And for this mission, air-to-air missiles.

Two AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles immediately dropped off the rotating launcher, engines firing. The missiles arced around in fast turns, and zeroed in on the approaching target.

Tezcahtlip saw the bright flare from the two missiles’ rocket motors as they streaked toward him. He stopped his flight and spread his wings, hovering in the air.

The missiles reached him and exploded just a few dozen feet away—stopped by a telekinetic shield the shapeshifter had projected. Balls of fire and steel shrapnel bounced off the invisible wall of force, leaving the feathered dragon completely unharmed.

The shapeshifter flapped his wings and turned in the air. Then he tucked his wings in and shot off after the bomber again. It was only a few miles away now, banking in a wide turn, a great black bird trying to climb above the jungle canopy.

***

In the courtyard of Chichen Itza, Jimmy was reloading his autoshotgun while his fellow stone soldiers continued to pick off targets. Lead bullets began to tear into Jimmy, flattening harmlessly against his stone flesh. They were coming from a soldier not thirty feet away, firing an M-16.

Jimmy quickly sighted and fired his shotgun twice. The buckshot rounds tore into the human soldier, knocking him back and killing him instantly.

Jimmy pivoted to the right looking for more targets. Behind and beside him, the other three stone soldiers were similarly firing at human soldiers.

At the base of the pyramid, Jimmy noticed bloody figures rising from the heaps of spent bodies. They hissed at Jimmy and his companions, revealing long fangs. Vampires.

The closest vampire, a thin, hungry-looking young man with a shaved head, sprang into the air. His inhuman strength carried him at least twenty feet. He landed lightly and started to sprint toward the stone soldiers.

Jimmy fired twice more.

The shotgun spit out eighteen .38 caliber balls in the two shots. And at less than twenty feet away, they all found their mark in the vampire’s chest. Bones were shattered and organs burst under the barrage of lead projectiles and the vampire pitched forward, falling on its face.

The other vampires were climbing from the discarded bodies around the pyramid. They were not so brash as their fallen comrade. They hissed and stepped forward slowly, cautiously, unsure what to think of these stone attackers.

Jimmy sighted at the closest and fired his shotgun twice more. The buckshot from the rifle ripped into the vampire, spinning it around in a spray of blood and flesh. It collapsed onto the pile of bodies around its feet.

“Vampires!” Jimmy shouted, aiming at another of the undead.

In front of him, the leaping vampire was rising back up. Despite the mutilation of its torso by the shotgun blast, the vampire was still moving. Jimmy changed his aim and fired again. The leaper’s head exploded from the blast.

Jimmy guessed there were still at least thirty of the bloody, fanged creatures.

Another vampire leapt at him. He was young, with thick black hair, and very skinny. Smaller than Jimmy had been before his own transformation into a stone soldier. And he covered the distance between them in a single leap, slamming into Jimmy with outstretched, clawed hands. Despite appearing frail, the vampire struck him so hard, Jimmy felt himself stagger backward a step.

Jimmy tried to bring his shotgun to bear, but the vampire had pushed it back, against his chest. He struggled against his attacker and was surprised to discover the vampire was as strong as he was. Bloody fangs snapped at him, inches from his face.

As Jimmy struggled, the remaining vampires were leaping forward now. Quickly massing around Jimmy and his companions. Victor and Phillips were firing at the undead attackers—hitting them in mid leap with buckshot.

But they kept coming. A tide of claws and fangs that could not be stopped. A mob of hissing undead that ignored the lead ripping into their bodies. They clawed at Jimmy and the others, pushed forward by their undead comrades behind them.

The stone soldiers were covered by the vampires, swallowed up by the crashing wave of bloody creatures.

Jimmy felt hands all over him. They pulled at his body, his arms, even his face. Claws ripped his uniform, pulled his tactical visor from his face. He lashed out with his fists, his shotgun no longer in his grip. His stone fists crushed into flesh, breaking bones with every blow.

A vampire bit down on Jimmy’s extended arm just after he had caved in the face of another. The biter’s teeth splintered against his stone arm, flying out of the vampire’s mouth. Jimmy ignored the biter and lashed out another creature, shattering its collar bone.

Suddenly, Jimmy’s feet were pulled out from under him and he fell hard onto his back. Three undead piled on top of him, hissing and clawing at him and preventing Jimmy from punching.

Atlas immediately noticed Jimmy going down. He had dropped his own rifle, punching with one hand and slashing at the mass of vampires with his Bowie knife in the other. Back to back with him, Victor was also punching at the undead mob.

A bright, blue-white light suddenly flashed, momentarily blinding Atlas.

Phillips had decided enough was enough. The petrified parahuman was unleashing his electrokinesis.

Brilliant blue-white blasts crackled from Phillips’ hands, lighting the night and ionizing the air.

The mass of clawing, biting vampires in Chichen Itza’s plaza, surrounding the four stone soldiers, flickered from within—illuminated by the lightning-like discharges from Phillips. Vampires began to fly out of the tangled heap of writhing, fighting bodies—propelled by high voltage.

Accelerated by his electrokinesis, the bolts of lightning-like energy burned flesh and struck with hammer like force. Even with their vampiric powers, the undead followers of Kukulcan could not resist the electrical attacks.

Unfortunately, Phillips could only unleash his attacks one at a time, alternating bolts of electricity from each hand. The massed, three-dozen vampires pressed their attack. Those thrown clear by the electrical discharges leapt to their feet and ran back into the fray, smoke rising from their blackened flesh.

Victor was next to be pulled from his feet—grabbed by a vampire who’s jaw he had smashed with a right hook. The vampire plucked Victor off his feet and threw him over his head, away from Atlas and Phillips.

Four vampires on the outer edge of the mob broke off, turning to pounce on Victor as he crashed onto the ground.

***

Major Karr had endured short jokes for years. Telephone books piled in the pilot’s seat. Platform shoes left in her locker. Even for a woman she was short. But she had persevered and out performed and out flown her competition, eventually earning herself command of the MB-1R she was now piloting over Mexico.

The huge plane was climbing now—full afterburner and swept wings carrying it upward as chaff and flares poured from the tail. Evasive maneuvers were not something Karr wanted to keep making so close to the ground. She wanted some altitude.

Despite the incredible speed of the plane, something slammed into the starboard side. Karr and her co-pilot glanced to the right, looking out the canopy.

A brown, feathered dragon’s head stared back at them. The immense creature had grabbed onto the bomber and was now looking into the cockpit.

Karr stomped the rudder pedals and pulled the stick to the left. She would shake the monster off.

The bomber began to spiral, its nose pitching over. The airframe hadn’t been made for such stresses, but somehow held up under the strain.

The dragon roared in anger, and its eyes flashed a bright yellow, bathing the cockpit in amber light. Then it was torn free, its claws still holding pieces of the outer skin of the plane.

Major Karr fought the controls and tried to recover, easing back on the throttle. But the control stick wouldn’t budge. It was frozen in place.

Karr looked over at Lieutenant Field. His hands were on his control stick as well, gripping it tightly. And now turned a concrete-like gray.

Field had never been one for flight gloves. He had complained many times that he wanted to feel the controls with his bare hands. He made jokes about it, comparing flying to noodling—a practice of catching fish with his bare hands he’d learned growing up.

Today, his bare hands revealed to Karr the horror of just what had happened to her lanky co-pilot. He had been turned to stone. Immobile, unyielding stone that clutched the controls and kept her from recovering from the spin she had put the bomber in.

Karr pulled back on the throttles. Outside the cockpit windscreen, she could see the world spinning. Soon, the plane would begin tumbling, stalling or maybe even breaking apart.

Karr drew the M-9 Beretta from her flight vest and aimed it at her stone copilot. She then fired the pistol several times, hoping that her bullets could break stone.

***

In the passenger module in the bomber’s forward bay, Mark Kenslir was pressing against one wall with his left hand, while his feet were pressed against the opposite wall. He was wedged in the narrow confines of the module, perpendicular to the floor, his right arm looped around Josie, who he held tight against him.

Loose gear tumbled around in the module as the plane spiraled in flight. Kenslir knew this wasn’t good. The bomber was not made to maneuver like this. He assumed it meant only one thing.

“Brace for impact!” the Colonel shouted.

Dr. Olson and Agent Keegan were buckled in their seats, looking up at him, their hands gripping at the armrests of their large seats. Even the vampire seemed frightened.

Kenslir watched as the air speed and altitude indicators displayed on the tactical visor began to scroll down rapidly. The bomber was losing speed and altitude.

Josie suddenly vomited—her stomach emptying all over the Colonel, herself and the interior of the module.

***

Tezcahtlip watched as the bomber spiraled back down toward the jungle thousands of feet below. It had nearly escaped him, climbing rapidly at full afterburner. He had hoped to seize control of the pilots telepathically then land the plane at the International Airport near Chichen Itza, but the aircraft had some kind of jamming device that had caused the shapeshifter extreme pain and disorientation when he tried use his psionic powers.

In the split second before he lost his grip on the plane, he had used the petrification power he had obtained in Florida. A petrified flight crew would not be able to fly the aircraft and Tezcahtlip would at least have the satisfaction of watching it crash.

The dragon’s pleasure at that thought suddenly vanished. The plane was still descending, but somehow it had recovered from the spin.

In fact, the wings were again folding out, assuming the subsonic sweep the plane needed for landing and take off. Someone was piloting the bomber and doing an incredible job of recovering from the high speed maneuver that had sent it out of control.

Unfortunately, they didn’t have the altitude they needed.

Wings wide, engines roaring, the bomber was just starting to bring its nose up when it slammed into the ground.

Tezcahtlip turned back toward his pyramid, miles away. Tucking his wings in, he rocketed away. His clairvoyant sight had shown him the fight was still raging there. His vampiric minions needed some assistance after all.