Four Summoners Tales Part 68

What will you give me for what you want?

What indeed.

G.o.d . . . what had he told her?

How had he answered that horrible question?

There was a rustle and he spun around. Bear had turned his face toward

Finn.

Finn stared in horror, trying to understand this.Was it rigor mortis? Was

the heat from the fire shortening the tendons in Bear's neck? Was . . . Jazzman and Cheech Wizard turned their heads, too.

All three of his men stared at Finn with eyes that were nothing but fire

and smoke.With the eyes of h.e.l.l.

All Finn could do was scream. It was the only reasonable response to this.

It was the only choice left to him.

6.

echo teAm The shooter was so close that I heard him racking the bolt a split second before the shots started banging their way through the day.That little bit of warning saved my a.s.s, because as soon as I heard it, I threw myself off the path and behind a heap of fallen rock. The bullets hammered a line along the ground where I'd been standing. I saw that much as I scurried like a lizard into the smallest crevice I could find. The impact points walked up the path a yard from my nose.

I realized that it was only a single shooter and started to breathe a sigh of relief.

Then I heard other guns open up from back the way I'd come.

I heard someone yell: "It's more of them! Kill the unholy! Allahu akbar!"

We'd walked into a nice trap, but then I heard Top and Bunny open up with their M14s set on rock 'n' roll and immediately the valley was filled with thunder. There were some yells amid the thunder. Screams of pain and curses in Pashto.

I had my own worries.

I rolled sideways and peered around the corner of the rock and saw a man firing an AK-47. He stood with one foot braced on the boulder he must have been hiding behind. His clothes were streaked with blood and dirt, and his eyes were completely wild. His turban was in disarray and the ends of it flapped in the hot wind. He burned through an entire magazine, shooting the whole landscape around me, and all the time he screeched prayers to Allah. Calling me a demon. Begging for protection from Allah.

The bullets ricocheted all over the d.a.m.n place. One plucked at my sleeve, which made me yank my arm in tighter and utter another in a long string of promises to Jesus I knew I'd later renege on. I meant them right then, though.

When he stopped to reload, I leaned out with my Beretta in both hands and put three rounds into his chest. He fell back and the AK dropped onto its stock, stood for a moment, and then fell over with a clatter.

Dangerous guy, but a stupid guy.

Now a dead guy.

I got to my feet and ran in a low, fast crouch across the path and knelt by the man I'd killed-and then did a double take as I looked at him. He was a mess. When I'd seen the bloodstains on his clothes, I'd thought that it was somebody else's blood. Survivors get like that after a battle, and we had to presume that these guys were the ones who ambushed Rattlesnake Team. But this guy's clothes were torn, and when I poked around I could see long lacerations-days old-that were festering with pus and crawling with maggots. This guy was more than half dead before I shot him. He had to have been in agony and probably out of his mind with fever.

The wounds were a mix. Long slashes in parallel lines that looked like they might have been done by a rake. Or a set of claws. A big hunting cat might leave marks like that. But there were also burns in weird segmented sections around his face and throat.

I had no idea what could have caused marks like that.

The gunfire abruptly stopped.

I tapped my earbud. "Cowboy to Echo Team. Give me a sitrep."

"All clear, boss," said Bunny. "Three up, three down."

He was right. As I rounded a shoulder of the mountain, I saw Bunny standing over three bodies while Top knelt between two of them. He used the tip of a knife to lift sections of torn, bloodstained clothing, then glanced up at me as I approached.

"Looks like Rattlesnake Team had some fun with these jokers before we got here," said Bunny, nodding to the bodies, which were all as torn as that of the man I'd killed.

Top nodded, but he didn't look convinced.

"My guy, too. Cuts and burns."