Beyond the Pale (20 page)
As they neared the drop zone, Ryan applied his own camouflage makeup and Talon’s. The mage stowed the tarot deck inside one of the zippered pockets on his vest, then helped Ryan secure his parachute. When they were all set for the drop, Ryan decided to go over the plan. He laid out a paper map that he had printed out from the composite of the data.
“Where do we land?” asked Grind.
Jane’s voice sounded in Ryan’s ear, panting. “I’ve located Burnout,” she said between breaths. “Nearly got iced, but I found him.”
“Where?”
“He’s in the basement of the
teocalli.
They’re conducting a ritual on him now.”
“Good job, Jane,” Ryan said. “You all right?”
“Almost got pegged by some of the blackest ice I’ve ever seen,” she said. “But, yeah, I’m wiz now.”
Talon spoke. “What kind of ritual?”
“Frag if I know,” Jane said. “But it was very bloody.”
“Dhin,” Ryan said.
“Yes, Bossman?”
“How’s our time?”
The ork’s voice came husky over the ’com. “Drop zone in fifteen.”
“The whole area around the lake bed and the temple is crowded with people,” Jane said. “Finding a clear place to touch down might be difficult.”
“What about the
ollamaliztli
stadium?” Ryan said, pointing to the arena that sat a few hundred meters behind the
teocalli.
“Is there anyone inside?”
“No,” Jane said. “But Cluster was planning to blow it up as a distraction.”
Ryan was shaking his head, looking at the map. The stadium was the perfect place to come down, open to the sky. No people. He scanned the area for something else that would provide a good distraction. After a second, he saw it—the dam at the end of the lake.
Perfect.
“Jane, can you contact Cluster and tell him to blow the dam instead?”
“I’ll try,” she said. “Hold on.”
They waited in silence for a minute until Jane came back online. “Done,” she said. “They’ll blow the dam instead of the stadium.”
“Excellent.”
“Is everyone clear on the sequence of events?” Jane asked.
Ryan looked at each member of his team closely as they answered. “Yes.” They all looked fairly confident, but he decided to go over the plan once more anyway.
He reminded them of the jump, the landing in the stadium, the infiltration of the
teocalli,
some details of which would have to be determined onsite.
“When it comes to breaching the temple, there are two possibilities for cover entry,” Jane said. “The main entrance is watched, but many people go in and out. It’s not locked; you could go invisible and try to sneak in with the crowd.”
“What’s the second option?”
“I’ve found a rear entrance that’s monitored on the sec cameras.”
“Which one is closer to Burnout and Lethe?” Ryan said.
“Rear,” Jane said. “It comes out lower, perhaps even underground. Once inside, it’s just down one level.”
“I like that one,” Ryan said. “If we can find it.”
“Me too,” said Axler.
Ryan nodded, then moved on to the next point. He reinforced their objective—to reach Burnout in the basement of the temple and get back out with him, hopefully without triggering an alarm. And lastly, to reach the rendezvous point by the amusement park tower, assemble the Night-gliders, and fly out to safety.
As they discussed the details, it became increasingly clear to Ryan that this was probably the most dangerous run he’d ever attempted. He was working against time, against superior firepower, superior magic, and there was no room to breathe. No room for mistakes of any kind.
Ryan steeled himself.
Then we won’t make any mistakes,
he thought.
“Approaching drop zone,” came Dhin’s voice, pulling Ryan from his introspection. “Get ready to jump.”
Ryan stood and pulled open the side door. It was time for action.
Cool wind rushed into the cabin, and the plane canted for a second before Dhin adjusted for the differential drag. The ground was a patchwork of shadows below, the lights of Austin like a scab against the darkness. Ryan picked out the movement of cars and trucks on the old Interstate 35 moving south below them.
“Drop zone,” Dhin said. “Go! Go!”
Axler jumped first, then Talon, surprisingly without hesitation. Grind followed, and Ryan went last, tumbling through the vastness of the dark sky. Invisible as individual raindrops.
Plummeting to their fate.
Anger boiled inside Lucero. She had become what she most hated—a killer. A demon of blood and entrails who destroyed others in a jealous rage.
The hot, night air pressed around her. The beating of drums making physical existence a thickening, difficult experience for her. The astral atmosphere reeked of foul magic; it suffocated her.
A circle of mages sat on an obsidian black stone, seeming to laugh. Thousands of metahumans crowded around, their auras synched together like puppets. Innocent and mindless.
What has happened to me?
Lucero drew herself up, stopped her rampage. All around her the innocents continued to stare at her with awe. They did not draw back in terror at her hideous form, made from coagulated blood and innards. They did not cringe at the death of their companions, whose mangled bodies lay all around the Locus, their spilled blood collected by acolytes and given to Señor Oscuro who stood and watched, amusement flickering on his features.
The crowd is mesmerized. Their minds lost to Oscuro.
“Well done, my slave,” said her master. “You have exceeded all my expectations.”
Lucero’s own voice came like a gurgling of tar. “I hate
you.”
Oscuro merely laughed. “Many do,” he said. “I have become used to it, a small sacrifice on my part so that the greater power may be served.”
Around the Locus, acolytes and workers lifted the dead bodies and tossed them unceremoniously into a flatbed truck that sat at the head of a long line of similar trucks.
“Now let the construction continue as it was planned years ago,” Oscuro said. “Before the meddling elf brought his songbird and drove us away.” He held out a hand, its white skin prickled with black hairs. “We have the Locus now, and its power will accelerate our progress a thousand fold. Come, my slave. You are needed.”
Lucero watched in horror as the crowd filed one by one up onto the wooden steps. Drums beat a rich sculpture in the air as the innocents approached the waiting blood mages. The mages wielded
macauitls,
slicing up the sacrifices as they approached, one by one until blood ran as free as a river, drenching the Locus. They channeled the life energy into the stone, activating it.
Lucero felt the stone awaken beneath her. She sensed it come to life like a giant awakening from hibernation.
Then she was flying through astral space, following Oscuro across the reaches to the metaplanes.
They appeared side by side on the outcropping of stone. So familiar, yet so alien now. The light extinguished. The song silenced forever.
The sky was a textured gray now, like trideo static hanging above a burgundy earth. The thick metallic stench of blood dominated the putrid rot of the zombie corpses that clustered around Oscuro. Lucero saw no sign of the two strangers who had tried to save Thayla earlier. They must be dead or gone.
The outcropping stretched over the bottomless Chasm,
reaching for the other side. As Lucero looked out across
the space, wind slicing through her like flechettes through paper, she felt the dread again. The incipient horror, growing out from her core. Spreading slowly to take her over, threatening to freeze her solid if she did not wrench her attention away.
Creatures moved over there, writhing like bulbous slugs, amorphous and black. Lucero couldn’t make them out. They wanted her to help them. They desperately needed her to finish the bridge so that they could come across and repay her for her exquisite service.
Oh, the rewards they could give. Pleasures beyond her wildest fantasies.
“You will plant the sacrifices as they come,” Oscuro said, his words ripping her attention from the
tzitzimine.
Breaking the spell.
Lucero riveted her attention to Oscuro. Pain boiled inside.
“The souls of our devoted metahuman sheep will be coming fast. But you are a blood spirit, my slave. You have the speed and the ability to keep up the tireless construction.”
Lucero seethed. She was his ally and must obey. His magic bound her, and she hated him for everything he had done to her. Her hatred bathed her in crimson light, making her vision red.
“Like this,” Oscuro stepped to the very tip of the outcropping. The spirits of the dead who were being slaughtered at the Locus began to appear behind him. They were disoriented, lost. Groping in their confusion.
Oscuro took them bodily, one by one, and slammed them into the rocks on the very tip of the outcropping. One by one they sank into the stone, hardened and became stone themselves. The transformation was very fast, and Oscuro moved to the next one. Then the next.
He went faster and faster until the bridge had grown slightly. Moving closer to the other side, where the
tzitzimine
were building an outcropping of their own to meet with this one.
Abruptly, Oscuro stopped. “Now you,” he said.
Lucero shuddered and took his place. It seemed like such a long distance to the other side, but the spirits kept coming and coming, an endless supply of corpses to fuel the magic that built the bridge. And Lucero kept planting them into the stone, watching as they calcified and hardened. Then she stepped on the stony remains of their souls, moving aiong the lengthening bridge.
Soon she would be far out over the abyss.
Eventually the outcroppings would touch.
Lucero shuddered again.
What would happen then?
Even as the question formed in her mind, she continued her work. Her master had commanded it, and she had no choice but to obey.
Ryan fell through the darkness, the warm air blasting his face and hands. Luck had given them a clear night, and he could see the pinpoints of light that indicated San Marcos a good ten klicks south of their position.
“Condition?” he said into the tacticom microphone attached to his throat.
Axler’s voice came back first. “Check.”
“Check,” said Grind.
Talon’s voice was last. “I’m okay,” he said.
Even though he could hear the others through the tacticom, Ryan couldn’t see them. “Pull chutes now,” he said. “Our target is that cluster of lights to the south.”
The muted sound of chutes opening came to Ryan’s sensitive ears, then he pulled his own rip cord. There was a rushing whoosh, followed by rapid deceleration as the harness of his chute dug into his ribs and armpits.
Dhin’s voice came over the ’com. “Deploying drones now.”
“Copy that.”
Somewhere in the dark sky overhead, Dhin released the two drones that would be his eyes, ears, and his muscle during the run. The Condor II would float at high altitude and track the team and any opposition. The Wandjina was a military drone built around a Vindicator
minigun.
Very fast, very effective in combat situations. With it, Dhin could provide much-needed firepower.
As they floated down through the sky, the San Marcos site came into view far below. It was still some distance away, but its identity was unmistakable. Thousands of people clustered around in tents and makeshift structures, illuminated by portable lamps and barrel fires. There was a lot of activity despite the early morning hour. No one was sleeping; everyone was up and moving around. Dancing.
Around the perimeter, military personnel patrolled in tanks and LAVs. At the limit of Ryan’s low-light vision, he could see troop encampments in several locations at a ten-kilometer radius from the
teocalli.
Military choppers patrolled the sky above the temple, circling around the core area, but never flying directly above it.
Huge flood lamps cast harsh shadows on the centerpiece of the activity. Nestled into a lake bottom, between an old amusement park and a step-pyramid temple. The crowd was much thicker there, and Ryan could hear the faint rhythmic thumping of drums.
What the frag is going on here?
He remembered the last time he’d been to this place—the night of Dunkelzahn’s assassination. He had been alone, high up the amusement park ladder, to get a better view of an excavation Aztechnology was conducting in the lake bed below. He had watched the workers in their scuba gear, seen them uncover the huge stone that Dunkelzahn had called a Locus.
That had been the last time Ryan had spoken to the old wyrm. Dunkelzahn had been vaporized in an explosion in front of the Watergate Hotel less than an hour later.
Ryan shifted to his astral senses, squinting at the inferno coming from the center of the crowd. A huge column of blood-colored fire swirled up from what must be the Locus, stretching like a tornado into the astral sky.