Weston Ochse - Age of Blood

“Hey, gal. What’s up?” Walker asked.

Even with all the bullshit, she was glad to see him here and it made her heart warm.

Yank was thrilled to get his equipment back. Going into battle with only a pistol and a knife made him feel like a samurai attacking Godzilla, especially in light of recent events. Without their weapons and equipment, defeating the homunculi wouldn’t have been so easy. Likewise, the QuadEye and the HKs had contributed significantly to their complete domination of the crazy leper people. Their ability to communicate and attack in a synchronized fashion was integral to their success. He’d always believed that if the Crips, Bloods, or MS-13 of his hometown Los Angeles had even a modicum of SEAL training, they would have taken over L.A. long ago, instead of firing from car windows like overgrown Shriners in spoke-wheeled clown cars.

Downstairs they’d found all of their gear, plus some appreciated ammunition and pyrotechnics courtesy of GAFE. The Pelican cases of computer gear were brought up first so the techies could begin their search for the mystery vehicle Holmes believed YaYa had taken. Personally, Yank felt it was an incredible leap in reason to assume that YaYa had stolen a car. He just as easily could have had an accomplice. Didn’t they say there’d been a phone call right before YaYa had begun acting strangely?

Yank felt a surge of goose flesh flow over his arms. If the call had “activated” YaYa then they had a chance of targeting whoever was controlling him. Even money was on Ramon, but Yank wasn’t so sure. Ramon was a werewolf or skinwalker. Did he really have the power to control someone over the phone? It just didn’t feel right.

So then who?

They’d been back and forth from Room 333 to their own on the seventh floor three times. On the way back down, the elevator stopped on the fifth floor. A white family with a little boy and a little girl stepped into the car. Behind them came two Hispanic men, both dressed in suits. Yank looked for it and saw the bulge of a weapon underneath the left arm of each of them. They stepped aboard but didn’t make eye contact. Yank let his gaze slide to the floor, and searched for a bulge at the ankle. The taller of the two had one, but the other man didn’t.

Yank exchanged a quick glance with Walker. He’d seen the same thing.

Yank and Walker were back against the rear of the car. The family was probably getting off in the lobby, starting a day with coffee, juice, and cinnamon churros in the plaza. Yank had already depressed the button for three. Now he wished he hadn’t. Whatever was going on, they didn’t want to show these people the location of their weapons cache.

So when the car stopped, the control panel dinged, and the door opened, he and Walker remained motionless. For a few uncomfortable moments, no one moved. Then the blond-haired little boy turned around and stared at Yank. The kid seemed about to say something, when his father turned him around and hugged him to his side.

The door closed. Yank glanced up and saw that the taller of the two men was looking at him. Yank gave him a gentle smile, even though he felt anything but gentle on the inside, then resumed staring into space, all the while keeping everyone within his peripheral vision.

The car began to descend. When it reached the lobby, one of two things would happen. Everyone would get out or the two men would keep Yank and Walker from leaving. Yank’s fingers itched to pull the knife from his right cargo pocket. In close quarters, it was the perfect weapon.

Yank let his gaze stray toward the shorter of the two men. The haircut didn’t have the spit and polish of an American agent. For that matter, neither did the suit. On closer inspection, it was ill-fitting and looked more like what an insurance agent would wear rather than a businessman.

The ding of the elevator was followed by the door opening onto a bustling lobby. First the family got out, then the two men, then Yank and Walker. To stay would bring more attention to them than they needed. The men went straight to the counter. Yank made for the restaurant. Walker followed close behind.

As Yank moved through the crowd, he became aware of how unlike everyone else he and Walker were dressed. Had they paid attention, they wouldn’t have left the room looking like road-worn military contractors, the modern mercenary, or tactical Mormon missionaries. With their military haircuts, boots, tactical cargo pants, and sweat-stained T-shirts tight over well-muscled chests, they looked like anything but tourists. What they needed to blend in were shorts and flip-flops. Realizing that they were being noticed by several people of unknown origin, Yank opened the door to the stairs and they ran up the three flights.

Thirty seconds later they were in Room 333.

“Who were they?” Walker asked.

“Don’t know.” Yank put the privacy chain on the door, then ran over to check the lock on the sliding glass door that led to the balcony. “One thing is for sure, though. We shouldn’t be seen out in public unless we have a change of clothes.”

Walker looked at the equipment spread over the two beds in the small room. “And we shouldn’t leave this room unguarded. The last thing we need is a maid coming in, or worse. I’ll take the first shift. Why don’t you go up and tell Holmes.”

“I’m sure he’ll concur.”

“Maybe see if someone can’t go out and buy us some clothes.”

“Good idea, but that might depend on the plan.”

“You mean Holmes’s plan?”

“None other.”

“A little light on details, though, wasn’t it?”

Yank grinned. “It’ll come together. I’m pretty damn sure of it.”

The barking wouldn’t stop.

Loud, then soft.

Savage, then timid.

Rapid-fire, then monotonous.

A growl came now and then, but it was always the barking. No matter which bark, it rang hollowly in the darkness, the immense space magnifying the sound and smashing it against the stone walls, where instead of being shattered, it bounced back even more powerful.

They’d chained him to the steps. The chain was thick, tasted cold, and bit into the skin of his ankle. Where it touched, he was already bloody. He didn’t know why the chain was there. He was their dog. He’d been their dog for a while, the thing inside him recognizing the thing inside the master. Both of them were from the same family. Both had been old when man first broke wood to make fire.

They’d told him to stay.

They’d told him to guard.

They’d told him he was a good boy for bringing them the senator.

He stopped barking for a moment and ran on all fours to a bowl of water. He lapped both furiously and happily, vaguely aware how strange it was for those two emotions to be so intertwined. He snapped at the water and watched it splash on the stone beside the bowl, darkening the stone, making it almost black. Then he saw himself in the water. He recognized everything and nothing. For a moment he remembered a time when he’d stood upright and he’d been called by a different name.

Then he struck the water with his hand, destroying his image.

He turned and ran the other way to the length of the chain and began to bark once more.

Barking. Always barking. It felt so joyous to do so.

Three hours later Walker was wearing flip-flops and shorts. What had started out as a joke had become reality, except that he now had a knockoff Hard Rock Mexico City shirt and pink sunglasses, and was sitting in the lobby with Jen, pretending to study a tourist map, but really watching the frenetic population of the hotel lobby. American, Canadian, and French families wore garish clothes and dragged along tired children and small, ratlike dogs. Men in stylish suits commanded small groups of thugs in cheap suits who stood around glaring at each other. A small army of staff wearing charcoal-gray clothes and red-and-white name tags moved to the gravitational pull of everyone’s needs, most happy when they were crossing the lobby, their eyes on problems yet to be reported.