Weston Ochse: Reign of Evil

He choked back a sob. This was not her. This was a hellish creature of the Tuatha. This was…

Fuck.

It was her.

He reached out to her.

Hoover had had a grip on the hound’s neck before, but it had been inadequate. Now the SEAL dog reared back and sunk her teeth into the hell hound’s jugular. Growling and snarling, favoring her wounded rear leg, Hoover whipped her head back and forth.

The expression in the hound’s eye changed from wonder to pain. It blinked rapidly. Its hand stalled in its arc to meet Walker’s.

Then it screamed.

Hoover ripped the jugular free. Victory shone in her eyes.

Walker let out a barely audible, “No!”

He glared at Hoover, ready now to use the gladius.

But then the hound evaporated, leaving nothing of it behind.

Hoover limped over and licked Walker’s outstretched hand.

Walker sunk to his knees. He dropped the gladius and threw his arms around Hoover. Great tides of anguish flowed through him, rocking his shoulders.

“Hoover did it right.

“Hoover did it right.”

If he said it enough it might make it all okay.

“Hoover did it right.”

Walker spent a lifetime in a single second, living and dying with the woman of his dreams. When it was over, he felt different. Was it a sense of closure? He couldn’t be sure. All he knew was that the pain had receded to a dull ache. Seeing her in the hound, knowing that she loved him and had longed to be with him in that gesture of its hand, ameliorated some of his pain. Even so, he knew it wasn’t the end of it. He’d need more time. But that was a luxury he didn’t have at the moment.

Walker stood, shakily at first. “Come on, girl.” He closed his eyes tightly for a second, then collected his weapons from where he’d dropped them.

Hoover licked his back leg and gave him a sorrowful look. “Don’t be a sissy. We’ll fix you up later. We got beegees who need killing.”

His words went unheard because Hoover was already limping at a half run toward the line of red-robed druids. It was strange that they hadn’t done anything yet. What were they waiting for?

Walker ran after Hoover. The other SEALs were fighting a pitched battle with the remainder of the hounds and the cannoneer was down. So it was him, Hoover, and the druids. Fuck their magic.

He raised his rifle and fired several three-round bursts at the druids nearest him. He saw the rounds pass through the material of their robes but have no effect on the wearers. Still, he fired again. He wondered what the hell he was going to encounter when he reached them. After all, who or what could withstand 5.56mm rounds traveling at 788 meters per second? Certainly not anything natural.

He screamed and pulled out his gladius with his left hand as he ran. Firing one-handed with his rifle, he swung the machete above his head in circles until he reached the first statue-like druid. He swept his blade through it and felt no resistance. The material fell to the ground along with the bundles of sticks inside that had filled out its dimensions.

But these things had appeared. They hadn’t been staged.

Which meant they’d been populated—were populated—by Tuatha, but to what end?

Then it hit him.

Stalling tactic.

There was nothing here.

He’d felt it in the beginning.

Cadbury Castle, or Camelot, had been part of a wild-goose chase. So where was King Arthur and the rest of the Wild Hunt? If Arthur was intent on becoming the ruler of England, the only way to do it successfully was to depose the present ruler. So, wherever Elizabeth was, Arthur could be found.

Walker ripped apart the remaining stick-figure druids in a brutish rage. Hacking and slashing, kicking and punching, he finished off these ragged druid scarecrows, ripping them to pieces. He paused, panting from the effort, sweat-slick face regarding his work. Then he turned to his team and watched them locked in a desperate battle with the remaining hounds.

His men needed his help. It was fucking time to end this mission. He started to move toward them but felt a malaise take him over.

Hoover whined beside him and gave him a worried look.

Walker’s hand came up and he found himself looking at it. Was this his hand? He became aware that he wasn’t alone. The hairs on the back of his neck engaged. He felt an itch between his shoulder blades. He spun around, but no one was there. Still, he felt a presence. He looked up, then to the ground, but nothing was there. What was it?

Hoover stood stock-still, her body rigid and locked. Not even her tail moved. Odd that she’d stand that way.

Then Walker felt the same thing. His body was locked as well. And something continued to watch him, as if its face were mere inches from… then he knew. No no no no no no no no no no! he wailed within his mind. He remembered the Malaysian grave demon that had possessed him all those years as a child. He’d been spectator to what it had made him do, unable to stop it, unable to close his eyes because even his eyes were no longer his own.

Why hadn’t Sassy saved him?

Why did he have to be the one to be possessed?

What did it want with him?

And then the images flashed through his mind.

All of his team dead.

Three-story piles of bodies all throughout the country. Anyone without Briton lineage, rotting food for a trillion flies.

There was a change coming and he was to be a part of it whether he liked it or not.

Ian and his men helped end the battle when they swept up the road and over the hill. Other than the flechette cannon and the shredded empty robes, nothing remained to show the fierceness of the Tuatha’s attack. Even the archaeological dig was deserted.

Ian was plainly worried. “Where are they? Was there no sign?”

But as Holmes took care of Laws he ignored Ian. The second in command was bleeding profusely from the wound near his eye. The flechette had come so close to the orb, Holmes was afraid to remove it. The wound had swelled, making the flechette impossible to get to. So Holmes took care of Laws’s other wounds and cursed the Red Grove for taking a page out of the Vietcong’s book. Knowing they couldn’t defeat American forces during the Vietnam War head-to-head, the VC had waged a war of damage, wounding as many American soldiers as possible, delaying them, sapping their will. The flechette cannon was as good as a pungi stick. Not only had it put Laws out of the fight but also the rest of them until they could bandage their wounds and figure out a way to move on.

Yank worked on Sassy. Whatever she’d expected to find on Cadbury Hill, it wasn’t a body full of metal. She’d lost a piece of an ear and would have a lasting reminder on her right cheek, not to mention those that had pierced her triceps, quadriceps, and stomach. She fumed silently as Yank and one of the Marines worked on her, first removing the flechettes and then cleaning and bandaging her wounds.

No one had gone unscathed.

YaYa had a leg wound.

Walker had wounds on the back of his upper leg.

And Holmes had one in his arm in addition to the cut from Yank.

Still, they were lucky. Their body armor had caught most of it. Had the enemy really wanted to kill them, though, it could have set up a far more considerable ambush. Claymores, IEDs, machine guns with interlocking fields of fire, bouncing Betty mines, trip wires… Holmes could think of dozens of more efficient ways to kill them than the flechette cannon.

Was it a statement?

“Stop looking all motherly, Boss.”

Holmes finished affixing the bandage over and around the flechette next to Laws’s eye. “Not sure if you lost the eye or not, Tim.”