Edge of Dawn (2 page)

The sound of gunfire also meant that the Old One was not nearby, since modern technology didn't do well in the warped reality of a tear. The absence was good. If the creature had retreated into its own multiverse, all they had to do was fight their way to the opening, and the sword would close it, keeping the Old One from returning.

One of Uncle Teo's paramilitary men rolled into cover with Richard. His dark-skinned face was shiny with sweat, and he hugged his rifle like a kid with a teddy bear as he spat out a barrage of Spanish. Richard found the colloquial Spanish a bit hard to follow, but he could understand, and even make himself understood, in his more formal Spanish. Now the man was telling him that there was a trench seven hundred yards to the west dug by archaeologists a few years ago. It ran all the way to the temple and offered some protection from the guns of the fanatics who had spent the past two years worshiping the Old One and increasing its power with their sacrifices.

Damon Weber came racing across the open plaza, bullets whining at his heels. One must have hit his Kevlar armor, for he staggered before catching his balance. Richard's heart squeezed down tight with fear and anxiety, then Weber dove, sliding in beside him.

“Motherfucker! I'm gonna have a bruise from that one.” Weber was a tall man in his late forties with faint acne scars around his eyes and jawline. His brown hair was tinged with gray at the temples, his skin tanned and leathery. “The things you get me into.”

“Hey, at least this time somebody took it seriously, and gave us actual … oh … help.”

“Yeah, and let's not talk about the irony of
that.
”

Richard understood because the men fighting at the side of the Lumina security forces were the elite bodyguards and enforcers for Uncle Teo's massive drug cartel. Once upon a time Weber and Richard had worked together as police officers in Albuquerque, and tried to stop drug cartels.

Richard wondered if the Old One had any idea what had brought down this shit storm on its stronghold and its followers. Not that it could have changed the situation even if it did understand. Old Ones warped and disrupted the natural order. Wherever they held sway, magic worked, people went mad, and plants perished. Uncle Teo's pot fields had started to croak from the encroaching power of the Old One, so Uncle Teo had gone looking for help and come across the Lumina Web site which, in addition to listing its various business interests, made no bones about the other services the company offered.
We have the means to close rents in the fabric of the universe and destroy any creatures that may enter through those tears.

A few years before, they wouldn't have been so forthcoming. Partly because until Richard stumbled into this secret war, Lumina didn't have a paladin who could use the sword, and because the world at large didn't know about this age-old battle between magic, religion, and superstition, and science, reason, and rationality. Now the world knew, and Lumina didn't need to hide. Of course, what the Web site didn't mention was that that power rested in a young man of very modest height, with a rather shy demeanor, armed with a sword.

Richard had taken the call from Mexico, listened to the situation, called Weber, who was then in Africa, and ordered the security chief to gather a strike team and meet him in Mexico. They had been met with armored limos at the airport and driven to the drug lord's palatial hacienda, where on the sweeping stone steps at the entrance they had been made welcome by the stoop-shouldered, gray-haired man.

Once Richard and Weber were settled with chilled glasses of horchata and beer, respectively, provided by Teo's gorgeous wife who was at least thirty years younger than himself, the old man said with absolutely no irony, “
Those government
pendejos
in Mexico City won't do shit for an honest businessman.
”

He'd also been willing to help, augmenting the Lumina troops with fifty of his own men. Now, looking at that round, sweat-drenched face of the gunman, Richard wondered how many drug rivals, policemen, and maybe innocent citizens the man had killed.
Don't think about it. Do what we came to do. Get out.

Richard brought Weber up to speed. The older man popped up for a quick look, and ducked back down when a hail of gunfire hit the jeep. “Well, first we have to get you into the trench. Looks like a feint from the other direction is in order.”

“You'll lead that?” Richard asked.

“No, I'm going to be with you.”

“Don't leave it to Uncle Teo's thugs.”

But Weber was already on his throat mike calling his second in command. “Wangai, we need a distraction on the left.”

“How big you want it, bwana?” The woman's voice was a husky alto with a lilting accent of her native Kenya.

“Big.”

“Right ho. Give me five to get things arranged.”

“Copy that.”

“And take care of Richard.”

“I will.”

“I'm right here, Wangai,” Richard said, disgruntled by the unspoken implication.

“I know you are,
jumbe
. You do what Weber tells you.”

Richard broke the connection. “Why does she call you bwana and me
jumbe
?”

“'Cause you rate. Bwana just means boss.
Jumbe
is chief.”

“So why do I still feel like you're both treating me like I'm six years old?”

Weber just grinned at him and checked his watch. They waited, sweltering, as seconds ticked into minutes. The radio crackled back to life.

“One of Teo's madmen has a rocket launcher,” Wangai said. “When you give us the word, we'll light up that pyramid.”

“Archaeologists around the world are going to love us for this,” Richard said.

Weber shrugged. “We'll blame the drug lord. Ready?”

“Yeah.” They duck-walked to the front end of the jeep. Richard touched the hilt of the sword where it rested in a holster at the small of his back. He then hugged his assault rifle against his chest.

A wave of sound, physical in its intensity, swept past them, and the darkening landscape was lit as the dead and dying trees caught fire. Richard and Weber sprinted for the test trench as Weber panted, “You have got to get us some of those!”

Richard tucked and rolled into the trench, and grunted when his hip hit a piece of masonry in the bottom, followed by a squelch as he rolled into the mud. “Yuck.”

“Yeah, heaven forfend that you end up dirty while fighting in a military action,” Weber grunted.

They rushed down the trench. A shadow overhead was his only warning. Richard flung himself forward and twisted around to bring his rifle to bear. A man in ragged, mud-stained clothes was on the edge of the trench above him. Richard held down the trigger. A sharp short burst of lethal lead, and the man collapsed.

Twenty-nine.
He added this man to the mental list of people he knew he had killed with malice aforethought. There had been a time when such an action left him nauseated and shaken. He hated firefights, but he was getting coldly efficient at them, and he wasn't sure that was a good thing. Which was why he kept the count, to remind himself this wasn't a video game. These were real lives and real deaths with real consequences. Somewhere people would mourn this man. If they were true believers or servitors of the Old Ones, he supposed he would be less sorry. The kind of humans who would turn against their own kind deserved no regret, but still, Richard never wanted to stop being affected.

They charged forward, hoping the crazies only had enough foresight for one sentry. The trench ended at a doorway in the base of the pyramid. The archaeologists had started to excavate beyond but obviously hadn't gone far. They stepped through the door but could go only a few feet before dirt, roots, and fallen stones blocked their way. They exchanged a glance.

“Ah, shucks, we don't get to go into the dark, scary interior of an Aztec pyramid and fight an alien monster,” Weber said.

“No, instead we get to do a frontal assault up the outside steps of the pyramid, being resisted every step of the way by crazed cultists,” Richard said.

“Yeah, awesome.”

“At least we reached the pyramid.” Richard cocked his head as the sound of gunfire suddenly choked off. He then experimentally pulled the trigger on his rifle. It didn't fire. “The Old One. It's here.”

“Fuck. We never catch a break.”

Richard set aside his rifle. It was of no use now and could be a danger with a bullet lodged in the barrel. He pulled the sword hilt from its holster. The hilt looked like a piece of gray glass formed into intricate loops and curves reminiscent of a Klein bottle. Richard made a fist with his right hand, pressed it against the base of the hilt. He drew his hand away, and a space-black blade shot through with silver light like captured stars appeared as if from inside his palm. Drawing the sword was never a subtle act. A single musical chord and the accompanying overtones shimmered in the air as the blade appeared. It was a sound that shook a person down to his core, as if he were leaning against the biggest speaker ever made.

“Well, it knows I'm here now,” Richard said. His mouth felt dry.

Only a unique individual could draw the sword, an ancient weapon crafted thousands of years before. A person like Richard who possessed a rare genetic mutation. Magic had been bred into most humans by the Old Ones because it made it easier for them to feed, but Richard was a human born without a trace of magic. Right now he wished he wasn't quite so unique. Weber drew the kukri that hung at his belt. The glint on the curved blade was dulled by the overcast light, but that only added to its air of menace.

They retreated from the partially excavated room and found three raggedly dressed humans waiting. Richard lunged, rapidly tapping two of them with the flat of the sword. They screamed, collapsed, and began to convulse when the blade touched them and stripped from them the magic that was woven in their DNA. Weber had to handle the third, and his solution had to be lethal. They didn't like killing the people caught up in these tears. You never knew who were innocents and who had been willing participants, and even the willing could sometimes be salvaged once the sword had done its work. But sometimes it was unavoidable.

The rain that had held off all day finally began, a warm downpour that brought no relief from the oppressive heat. They started up the cracked stone steps of the pyramid, striking at the human servitors who tried to stop them. Richard's heart felt too big for his chest as it labored. His lungs pumped, trying to suck in enough of the bitter, sour air. They reached the top platform. A small stone pinnacle held a door into a small room. The opening between the multiverses was inside, a window on an alien world. Structures whose angles and bulk were disturbing to human eyes dotted the landscape. Alien suns, one bloated and red, the other small and blazing white, hung on that planet's horizon. Their light spilled through the tear and stained the Earth stones red, an echo of the blood that had once flowed across them and was now flowing again.

Richard laid about himself with wide, swinging blows. Worshipers screamed and collapsed. Richard started to rush forward to reach the opening and close it, and was knocked to the stone surface by a body leaping from above. A woman had been standing on top of the building, and he hadn't spotted her.

Gotta remember to look up,
he thought as she hit. The body armor helped, but he banged his left elbow hard, and his hand went numb. He couldn't keep a grip on the sword. The hilt fell from his hand and rolled away. The instant it left his hand, the blade vanished.

He managed to look to the right to see Weber struggling with a clot of eight or ten humans. A shadow fell over Richard. His assailant scrambled away, keening and crying, hiding her face in her hands and behind her long tangled and filthy hair. The Old One was just a confused image of claws and too many eyes, and it was
big
. Richard tried to roll away, to reach the hilt, but one of its segmented arms shot out, and claws dug through the body armor and into his side. Richard screamed. It felt like acid had been injected into the wound. It lifted him into the air, pulled him close like a mother embracing a toddler. Richard tried to struggle, but each movement was agony. His vision narrowed, darkness closing in at the edges. The thing was taking him to the dimensional tear.

“Damon! Help!” he called, but his voice was faint in his own ears.

Weber, beset on all sides, looked over at Richard. Richard had never seen such panic and desperation on his friend's face. “Richard!” Weber tried to break through the circle of foes but was beaten back.

A figure leaped up the final steps and onto the platform. It was Wangai. The beads in her beautiful cornrows were clashing against each other, and her chiseled features were set as if she were carved from ebony. She raced forward, scooping up the sword hilt as she passed, and she threw it unerringly to Richard. He caught it. The Old One gave an inarticulate roar and tried to paw it out of his hand with one of its claw-tipped arms, but Richard turned enough to shield it with his body. He felt more tearing as he moved, and he fought the impulse to just give up and faint. Now the creature drew back, trying to get away from Richard, but its claws were locked in the armor and his ribs. It was trying to shake him off like a person trying to fling shit off his hand. Each flick was agony, but Richard managed to get the sword drawn. Holding the hilt with both hands, he twisted until he was facing the Old One and drove the blade deep into the creature's chest.

An unearthly cry ripped at the sky, and the thing collapsed into black and bubbling sludge. The sound of gunfire erupted once more, a few explosions and a few screams as the bullets trapped in the barrels of guns detonated with unfortunate results.

“Oh, yuck,” Richard said faintly as he lay in the widening pool of corruption. Then he fainted.