'It's mine!' I screamed as I hurled my heavy ax across the distance. The blade sunk deeply into his back. It was a lethal blow.
The captain fell forward into the swirling bands of crackling black energy. He bellowed in pain as the evil tore into his flesh. Searing him. Burning him. He was turned over and spun in the maelstrom of darkness. The bands sunk and bonded into his very skin, like a twisted inking, an evil living tattoo.
'I… vow… to… keep… it… from… you.. ' He was engulfed by the power. The whites of his eyes disappeared, to be replaced by solid inky blackness. He screamed in agony.
There was an explosion of color and energy as lightning struck the top of the pyramid. Pain and heat surged up through my armor, burning me and hurling me aside. I fell upon the stairs, rolling and tumbling, through the torrents of water, down, down into the darkness.
I gasped as the Old Man removed his hands from my head. I was once again myself. The jungle pyramid and its unholy storm were gone, replaced by the eerily silent 1940s Polish town.
'Holy shit!' I said. I felt terribly weak. 'What happened?'
'In his mind too long,' the Old Man said softly, 'is great strain.'
'The captain. Thrall. He is the Tattooed Man.'
'Yes. Cursed like the rest of us. Always there is a catch with these things. How you say-I think… He got screwed.'
Indeed. Cursed to guard an evil artifact for the last five hundred years. I could think of lots better ways to pass the time.
'But there is more?' I asked. There were still questions to be answered. 'Lord Machado failed. That evil priestess chick got shot before they could finish the ceremony. Yet somehow he's still alive today. How did he become the Cursed One?'
'There is small bit of memory left. Only short time while he is still human, I think. Still that I must show you.'
'You have to show me now, Mordechai,' I pleaded. 'If I can know how he became what he is, then I can know how to defeat him.'
'Not yet. Too much strain. And rest I must.'
'I can do it,' I answered. 'I have to be ready.'
'No, Boy. Not ready. You wake up. Be ready for fight. Big fight for you today.'
'Big fight?'
'Yes. Much big.' He pointed his fingers and made shooting noises. 'Much fight.'
'You got any more little wooden carvings you want to send back with me?' I asked hopefully. 'In case I need to roast any vampires?'
'Sorry, Boy. I surprised that work my own self.'
'How could it anyway? I'm no expert of physics, but how can I take an immaterial thing into the material world?'
'Boy, much you have to learn. Even spirit is matter. Just much finer… Much simpler time when I used to hunt monsters. Shoot them with gun. Bang. Dead monster. Nice and simple. Monsters nowadays all complicated and hard to make dead.'
'So any chance you might be able to scrounge up some toys then?'
He shrugged his thin shoulders. 'I try. When time comes, I have something for help. Now go.' He shooed me away. I turned to leave. 'One last thing.'
'Yeah?' I stood barefooted in the snow while I waited for him. He seemed to be trying to find the words. 'Spit it out, Mordechai. Apparently I've got monsters to kill.'
'Boy.' He regarded me solemnly. 'On this day. Try very hard not to get dead.'
'I will try,' I promised.
The Hind tore across the sky at rapid speed and dangerously low altitude. I awoke to the thrumming of the blades, the deafening roar of the engines, and the piped-in music from the Doors, 'Riders on the Storm.' Julie's head was resting on my shoulder. A lock of her hair had strayed from under her helmet and draped down her face. I brushed it back. She woke up and smiled tiredly.
She was still holding my hand.
Harbinger signaled for all of us to put in our earpieces so that we could communicate and do a radio check.
'Wake up, sleepy heads. We're only ten minutes out. Skippy is swinging wide around Corinth. His people have an agreement with the elves. No orcs on elf land. No elves on his. We'll be coming in from the south and will be setting down in a designated clearing. Feds have already gotten us on radio, and are even tracking us for surface to air missiles. Seedy bastards.'
'I hope they don't get twitchy,' Milo said.
'I hate the government,' Sam stated coldly. 'Remind me again why we're working with them?'
'They need us. We need them,' Harbinger said.
'Not to be a jerk about it, but how exactly do we get paid for this?' Holly asked. 'Saving the world don't pay the bills.'
'Government representatives don't get to claim PUFF. By being here we will get at least an assist. Even that is worth a small fortune on a Master.' Harbinger pulled his revolver, checked the rounds, spun the cylinder and reholstered. 'Only I talk to the Wendigo. Everybody else stay way the hell back. He ain't friendly. When we go after the Cursed One, let the Feds go in first. At that point we're just observers. Let them do the bleeding. Pitt?'
'Yes, sir?'
'Damn it. Call me Earl. 'Sir' is the Boss. Have you learned anything new? Is Mordechai Byreika still in your dreams?'
'No and yes. I've seen things. But I don't know what's going to be able to help us.'
'Give us the short version,' he ordered.
I quickly told the others about the human Lord Machado and his army, about the ancient city, about the evil priestess Koriniha and her dark priests, about the artifact, the ceremony, the sacrifice and, finally, the Tattooed Man.
'I've spoken with him,' I said, 'just now, in my dream. It was real. He was heading toward Montgomery. He's coming for the artifact, and he swears he's going to kill me.'
'I don't care how bad everybody thinks this guy is, MHI don't roll over and take it from no five-hundred-year- old pukes,' Sam said. 'If he shows up, we cap his trash. That simple. Fricking magic tattoo bullshit. I've got a magic tattoo. It's a frog with a banjo and it's on my ass. I got it in Singapore.'
'Classy,' Holly said.
'Wanna see it sometime?' he asked as he removed his can of Copenhagen from his armor and snapped his wrist repeatedly.
'I'll pass, thanks.'
'There was something else. The Old Man warned me. He said we're going to have a big fight today. He didn't say what, but I got the impression it was going to be bad.'
'Figures. Anything else?'
'Nope.'
'Lee? Give everybody the rundown on what we've gotten from the archives,' Harbinger ordered, 'anything that might prove useful.'
'Sure.' The diminutive Hunter cleared his throat. 'There were no records of a conquistador general named Lord Machado anywhere. There were, however, some signs pointing to what was called the lost expedition. Early in the 1500s, the very first group dispatched into the interior, same basic area where Orellano would later discover the Amazon, but this group was never heard from again. All of the records about this expedition were destroyed by the military governor at Isle of the Cross, which is what they called Brazil back then. Even Walter Raleigh mentioned this lost expedition in his writings about El Dorado. Looking at what Owen has told us, I'm betting that was Lord Machado's group.'
'What about the artifact or the Old Ones?'
'Just vague references to great and terrible evil. Lots of old Hunters have mentioned it in their writings, but I get the impression that none of them really knew what they were. Byreika's journal had the most about them.'
