Inca Kings

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

In darkness, they waited.

Drake stared at the mountains, purple and huge and stained by drifting shadows. Breezes played across his face with icy fingers. No flickering lights met his gaze, no shaded insanity loomed large, but he knew — knew in his soul — that the monsters were coming.

Dantanion the Mountain Demon would send them.

He crouched atop a low roof, watching the ways into Kimbiri. Alicia crouched by his side.

“This has to be the creepiest op we’ve ever been on,” she said softly.

“They’re just people,” Drake said. “Nothing more or less.”

“You’re kidding? They’re bloody cannibals.”

“Well, yes, I guess. It’s not something you come across every day.”

Alicia shifted. “Now that’s one stupid statement, Drakey. I thought cannibalism died out years ago.”

“The Incas used to practice it. Aztecs too. It’s not like we’re in the wrong place.”

“I’d really like to be in the wrong place. Just this once.”

Kinimaka occupied the same roof as them. “This is for the people that live in Kimbiri,” he said. “We could head up to the mountains, camp there. Reccy for days. But who would help the villagers then?”

“Same people who’ve been helping them all along,” Alicia muttered. “No-bloody-one.”

“If they come, they’ll be better prepared this time,” Drake pointed out.

“Oh, that helps.” Alicia shook her head, patting her H&K for the eighth time. “Man, do I hate spiders.”

“They’re not—”

“Whatever. Just glad I got me this can of Raid.”

She held up a blue can she’d bought in Cusco earlier that day.

Drake laughed as he had when she’d purchased it. “So it’s a spray or shoot situation?”

“Later maybe. Let’s get the fighting over with first.”

Shadows deepened. A crescent moon rose over a far peak, casting a silvery glow. The trio shivered up on the roof. Directly across they saw figures move: Hayden and Smyth. Another roof concealed Mai and Yorgi. They could not be more ready for an attack.

Villagers manned other vantage points. Those that couldn’t fight were tucked away safely in the only basement in town. Kimbiri was ready.

Drake saw movement first, just a huddle of shapes flowing over a rise in the distance. At first he thought his eyes might be deceiving him, but Kinimaka spoke out too.

“They’re coming.”

Alicia petted her rifle. “If I see pointy teeth I’m gonna scream.”

Drake smiled to himself, unable to imagine Alicia Myles being scared of anything. But then everyone had a skeleton or two in their closet — and the SPEAR team more than that if Webb’s statement was anything to go by. They hadn’t had time to sit down and discuss it yet, and nobody had been forthcoming. Was there worse to come? Quite possibly depending on Smyth and the murder of Joshua.

He switched the distractions off. Good news was better to dwell on anyway. They’d received a message today from the Mad Swede. Both he and Kenzie were on their way to Peru with information. Drake looked forward to seeing the big idiot again, but only because it gave him someone to take the piss out of.

His earpiece crackled. “Enemy sighted about a mile off.”

“Got ’em,” he said. “Remember, we don’t know what to expect this time.”

Flickering torches illuminated the outskirts of the village. It had been weeks since the power died here; and nobody came to help. Villagers had tried in vain to locate the problem, but it seemed something more fundamental might have happened. Someone in Cusco wanted Kimbiri forgotten.

Drake saw the first shadows slink into the light like creeping wolves, a limb stretching at a time, bodies low to the ground. Nothing appeared to have changed — black clothing stretched over all flesh including the skull. Limbs moved awkwardly as if each was about to break. The spidery movements gave every watcher an involuntary shiver.

“God help us,” Mai said over the comms.

Drake watched closely. The team stood at the center of a moral dilemma. No shots had been fired. No proof was evident. An individual had tried to carry off a villager last time — but that didn’t give a soldier free rein to fire upon the group. So far, all they were guilty of doing was a bit of crooked crawling. And looking shifty, he thought. Behind the main large group which had paused as it approached the flickering lights, a line of black-cloaked individuals walked normally. These carried the lights, and probably illuminated the way down the mountain passes. Of course, their faces could not be seen inside the cowls — which were mere black holes that could lead to a new kind of insanity. The line they made was twenty strong, and they did not move.

“I really don’t like this,” Kinimaka said.

Drake’s fingers flexed over the reassuring metal at his side. “Aye, pal. Never seen anything like this in my life.”

As if by telepathic signal the creepy horde exploded into action. Not as a mass this time, but instantly separating and coming at the village from as many different directions as possible. They broke off in twos and threes, scampering between houses and along rutted lanes, crawling through gardens, hugging walls like enormous slugs, scuttling close to the floor without space between them so they resembled one, terrible, giant spider.

Doors could be heard smashing, windows opening. And that gave the SPEAR team some leeway. Hayden rose from her position across the street and shouted at the top of her voice.

“Stop, or we will be forced to fire on you. This is your only warning.”

Blank, featureless faces turned slowly and looked upward. Drake suppressed an eerie shiver and readied his weapon. Were these people really cannibals? Were they seeking a sacrifice?

You’re a long way from home, matey.

Cold winds gusted by, the mountains watched impassively and the wild, untamed lands spread far and wide. The rooftop was exposed, dirty and unsafe. But they were soldiers and they were here to do what they did best — protect the people. Help the villagers in their time of need. It wasn’t only a duty; it was a calling.

Still, the faces were pointed up at Hayden, disconcertingly quiet and immobile. In stillness, they watched. Hayden stared back and seemed at a loss.

“What the hell am I supposed to do now?” she whispered over the comms.

“Go down there,” Alicia whispered back. “We’ll watch.”

“We’ll all go down there,” Drake decided. “Maybe we can talk some sense into these muppets.”

At the edge of town, where the darkness held sway, twenty black-robed figures with twenty burning torches shifted their weight, making the flames flicker and the black smoke billow.

And right below, Drake saw the unmistakable movements of enemies reaching for weapons.

“Cover!” he cried.

Kinimaka hurled his bulk to the ground, making the roof creak ominously. Drake and Alicia paused just one extra second, concerned to see what manner of weapon the creatures pulled out.

Not believing their eyes.

“You gotta be kiddin—” Alicia managed before the first thick black arrow whistled overhead.

Drake met her eyes. The two were lying flat on the roof, protected by the height of the house but still vulnerable. Alicia blinked rapidly.

“You believe this?”

“Because Incas,” Drake said, as if explaining the answer to a fundamental question.

“You tryin’ to be funny? This ain’t the time, Drakey.”

“No. It’s just like the answer to every motoring related question is simply: Because race car. This is Inca country.”

A shaft struck the corner of the roof and tumbled onto Drake, its momentum spent. He picked it up and took a look. “Nothing special about ’em,” he said over the comms. “Rudimentary, no metal at all. I can’t tell if the tips are poisoned though, so take care.”

He looked over at the other roofs. Arrows lanced through the air and the gaps between houses, a deadly wooden shower. Unreality washed over him. If some crime lord was trying to unbalance them with peculiarity, then he was doing a damn fine job of it.

Rushing noises from below told him the creatures were on the move again, searching for victims. He rose fast, wishing there was more light. It would be too easy for these things to hide in the dark shadow and take pot shots.

Other figures rose all across the rooflines. Hayden leaned over and took the first shot. An arrow flew past her face. She fired again. A figure shrieked and then fell, twisted all wrong. Drake lined another up but a twitch in the dark made him duck away. The arrow parted the air where his head had been. Crawling forward, he peered over the edge of the roof, took aim, and sent a bullet into the ground an inch wide of its mark. Gunshots filled the night and the villagers clasped their weapons, unable to help for now but desperate to save their kin and their way of life.

“Time to move,” Mai said. “We have to get among them.”

Drake agreed. The real battle was in the streets, not up on some low rooftop. Crawling fast, he made his way to the ladder at the rear of the house and hesitated as Kinimaka reached it first.

“You go, bro.” Kinimaka heaved out a sigh. “Ladders and I just don’t get along.”

Drake swung onto a rung and climbed down, Alicia a foot above his head. He jumped off into darkness, checking for enemies around the narrow alley and seeing nothing. Rifle ready, he moved off just as the ladder creaked alarmingly to signal the steady descent of the big Hawaiian. Indistinct shapes flashed across the far end of the alley, becoming larger as Drake moved closer. Alicia breathed in his ear.

“Look out for teeth.”

He nodded, focused ahead. Bows and arrows might be rudimentary but they could kill as well as any bullet. And who knew what other weapons might be still concealed? He paused at the exit, hugging the wall and looking around. Something low to the ground squeaked and sprung up at him, arms and legs striking hard, surprising him more than anything. The training was usually to look above ankle height, and the black-clad figure had been crouched incredibly low. A spindly elbow smashed his head back, bruising his cheek, but he managed to hold on to his weapon. As he fell back he registered another shape creeping across the wall at head-height, clinging to a row of trashcans, before launching at Alicia. She fell back, grunting, striking the opposite wall and trying to get a grip on her attacker. Drake managed to get a secure grip on his own assailant and threw him bodily against the wall, hearing bones crunch. Kinimaka jumped from the third rung of the ladder, coming down full force on Alicia’s opponent. The creature fell without a single sound, obliterated.

Drake ran out into the street, spotting a bow-and-arrow wielding man and firing first. The bullet struck; the body fell. He spotted Mai and Yorgi to the right; the others coming up the main street. Darkness flowed toward them.

“Come on!”

Drake found himself kicking out at the low-scuttling pack, striking what he assumed and hoped were ribcages, thighs and shoulders. Some collapsed or flew backward, smashing into their colleagues, upsetting the entire pack. Chaos took hold. Dark creatures rose fast, weapons in their hands, and now Drake saw an assortment of knives, scalpels, a sword and even a scythe.

It was the scythe that swept toward him, blade glinting red with reflected torchlight. Drake danced back into a deeper dark, then jammed the barrel of his rifle into the figure’s stomach, doubling it over. The scythe fell.

Alicia was battling alongside, face to face with a man, his features partially hidden but thankfully all too normal. Drake heard her sigh of relief above the din of fighting.

“It’s truly just a man.”

Drake elbowed another. “Ya got a good look at the choppers yet?”

“No, hang on.”

And then what Drake thought would be a punch, a tilting of the head and a second sigh turned into a terrible, sharp intake of breath.

“Oh, shit. Jesus, Drake. Fuck off!”

Alicia punched and kicked and threw her opponent across the width of the street, freaked out; acting crazy. “I was joking!” she cried at the swaying man. “Joking, you hear!”

Drake lifted his own enemy by the chin, ignoring the empty, staring eyes and the hard jabs to his body. With force he managed to wrestle the face mask over the lips. A punch to the nose made the mouth open and exposed the teeth.

Incisors. Sharp. Filed to a point. Other teeth made sharp with a rasp or similar tool, perfect for cutting through tough flesh.

His stomach churned. The man wriggled away, leaving Drake grasping at thin air.

Until now, he hadn’t truly believed.

Another sprang at him, leaping off the ground and hitting his legs. Then another, striking his midriff. Drake went down beneath the combined weight, still struggling to believe all he had seen. A knife appeared low down, thrust up at his abdomen. The tactical vest caught the worst of it, but the blow still hurt and brought Drake back to the real world. He kicked out at the covered, faceless head, saw it jerk back and fall away. The figure grabbing his midriff slid up his body now; it was the same man whom Drake had already exposed.

Teeth came fast at his face, blood tipped.

Feeling the same revulsion as if a giant creepy-crawly had landed on him, Drake gripped the throat and smashed the man again and again, bloodying the teeth even more and the nose too. Squirming, spitting and snarling, the man forced his head closer, fighting like a furious animal, his weight a deadly restriction. Drake saw more coming, their masks up, teeth and noses and eyes exposed, crawling at him from left and right, grinning with feral pleasure, limbs twisting in awkward angles as they crept in their unnatural way. Chilling faces filled his vision.

Then a boot came down inches from his nose, a trusty, worn, old boot that he recognized. Alicia stomped on the head of the closest, kicked another in the teeth, booted a third’s skull from behind, burying his face in the earth. She jumped among them, striking down at the crawlers, forcing them away. Drake rolled into space, staggering up. Blessed cold air and sky filled his senses. Alicia fell to one knee as two creatures caught her right leg.

Drake stumbled as an arrow bounced off his ribcage and pain exploded from the impact.

Kinimaka was a train. A pounding, runaway juggernaut of a man, stomping and ramming his way through the crowd of attackers. An arrow struck his chest but made no visible impact. Those that crawled, he broke their bones; those that crouched, he made them fly and stagger and stumble into brick walls and ungiving sidewalks and each other, turning the melee inside out.

Alicia pointed her gun. “Fuck this shit.”

Drake watched her back. The attackers scattered as she fired. Kinimaka threw three into nearby walls, then watched them crawl brokenly after their brethren. Drake now saw first-hand how strong they were. Two reached down to pick up their fallen and drag or carry them away.

A dozen of the creatures then crouched, poised, and leapt up at the three soldiers. Drake braced for impact, determined not to go down under the impact. But as they waited, as they prepared to make like a formidable wall, the town’s villagers came screaming past them, picks, spades and shears flashing and smashing down. They hit the creatures head on before they could leap, forcing them back, breaking them this way and that. Some screamed in fear as they fought, others in release — at last they had found the courage to fight their nightmares.

Drake took a moment to survey the rest of the street. Creatures were being beaten back. Hayden fired close to them, still reluctant to kill. A flurry of arrows fell among the SPEAR team, striking Smyth’s and Mai’s shoulders and driving them to their knees. Mai spun on a knee as a blade flashed at her, caught it at the handle and twisted it from its owner’s grip. Then she returned the weapon, point first.

The man’s companion shoveled him up as another engaged with Mai. Smyth headbutted a creature, then came up staggering, forehead crossed with four large spots of blood. His flesh had met sharpened teeth. The blood began to flow and Smyth brought up a hand to wipe it away, still reeling.

Mai protected him, pushing him away toward Hayden. The boss spun three times, firing on each rotation and hitting her enemies center mass. The battle was well and truly engaged. Black-clad figures fell and groaned and were dragged away.

Drake saw Yorgi use his buildering skills to leap from a garden wall to a trashcan and off a drainpipe to land on the back of two aggressors, bearing them to the ground where Mai finished them off. Then the Russian thief employed similar skills to escape a set of fangs. Drake fought down disbelief once more. An arrow sent Yorgi to the ground but bounced away, bruising being the only outcome.

What the fuck have we landed ourselves in the middle of?

Never in all his years of world-weary labor had he experienced anything like it.

Blackness separated from blackness to his right like two items glued together being pulled apart. It was something incredibly tall. Seven feet? And it pointed a bow and arrow at his heart.

Drake drew his Glock and fired, a gunslinger against a demon; his bullet striking as the arrow flew; the shaft nicking a scrap of flesh from his arm. The tall figure disappeared back into the darkness from whence it came.

Drake fought off two more, shot another, then saw the bulk of the attackers beaten back by the villagers. Men traded blows, catching knife thrust on spade blades, using shears to force bodies backward, a garden fork to thrust away a scuttling spidery attacker at ground level. The creatures hissed endlessly, like steam escaping a narrow vent. Alicia kicked at one that snapped at her feet, but it only kept coming.

“For fuck’s sake!” she cried. “Why can’t you fight like normal people?”

But they were backing off, vanishing into the shadows one by one, melting away toward the mountain passes and the ghostly hills. They took their arrows and their secrets with them; and they also took their dead.

Drake stood in the main street of Kimbiri, glad to be alive, surrounded by villagers who talked happily of their win and tended to their wounded. Shouts came up that nobody had been taken.

The SPEAR team assembled, walking over the shafts of arrows and cast-off knives, picking their way between pools of blood, embarrassed at being thanked by the villagers and hugged until their chests hurt.

“You don’t have to thank me,” Drake said for the dozenth time. “We want to be here.”

Alicia peeled a woman away from him. “He’s taken,” she said. “All the other guys are free if you fancy one. Oh, and the women.”

Mai stared with venom. “One day you will regret all this.”

“One day.” Alicia glared back. “Maybe.”

More people came up, shaking hands and clapping shoulders. The villagers chatted away, happy, and Brynn translated where she could — though most facial expressions were translation enough.

Drake felt more than a pull, a tug of compassion toward them.

They were fast turning into an extended family.