Weston Ochse - Age of Blood

But YaYa would have none of it. He took off like a shot toward the back of the chamber, running on four legs toward the ’cabra pile. Gunshots peppered the ground around him as he ran, but YaYa was a constantly moving target.

Then he reached the fallen obsidian butterfly and skidded to a stop. He howled once, the sound of a tortured animal turning into a horribly human scream. He held out his left arm and approached the wing. He held it high, then suddenly slammed it down, letting the viciously sharp edge of the wing of the obsidian butterfly sever his arm from his body.

Blood spurted as YaYa screamed.

He toppled to the ground, his life flowing from his body.

Holmes started to run to his aid, when something landed next to him, a shadow covering everything around him.

The other obsidian butterfly.

Laws was close enough to Walker and Hoover to call out to them, but when he heard YaYa’s scream, he turned and watched the other SEAL fall, saw his blood pumping out of his arm stump like something from an Akira Kurosawa picture. He had no choice but to jump to YaYa’s aid. He turned and ran, calling for Hoover over his shoulder.

The dog followed and they arrived at about the same time. She paced nervously as she saw her onetime handler lying in a growing pool of blood. She started to sniff at the severed arm, then backed away and growled instead.

YaYa had already lost a prodigious amount of blood. Laws put a knee and all of his weight on the soft spot of YaYa’s shoulder. With his left hand, he shoved two fingers into the remarkably clean wound, applying pressure to the median cubital vein. The amount of blood immediately decreased. With his right hand, he reached into the cargo pouch on Hoover’s vest and pulled out a med kit. He grabbed a pouch of QuikClot gauze and ripped it open with his mouth. Then, as best he could, he unrolled one end and began to pack it into the wound, inch by bloody inch. The gauze contained kaolin, which promoted clotting like no one’s business. He’d seen a training video where they’d cut the femoral artery of a pig and using just one packet of gauze, had completely stopped the bleeding within minutes.

After he packed the first one, he packed a second one.

The bleeding had stopped, but was it going to be enough to save him?

YaYa came to. “Laws, is that you?” he asked groggily.

“Just leave it, kid. Save your strength.” With the loss of blood, YaYa was bound to become hypovolemic, which meant Laws also had to treat him for shock. He needed to find something he could use as a cover. Glancing back at the pile of dead ’cabra, he knew what to do.

But then he saw the obsidian butterfly. It had Holmes pinned against the side of the pyramid. While Laws needed to treat YaYa, he also needed to help the boss.

He fed YaYa the remainder of his own Fentanyl lollipop, then made his move.

Walker needed a weapon. Jen was still firing from above, but it had become clear that although she was slaughtering the hell out of the ceiling, there really wasn’t much danger of her hitting anything else. Yank had begun firing somewhere near the pyramid, but Walker needed to be careful because the obsidian butterfly had flown in that direction. By the sudden maddeningly increased rate of fire from them, they must have just seen the thing.

Walker had hit hard enough to stun himself when he’d fallen, but he hadn’t broken anything. Still, as he stood and his thigh engaged around the deep bruising of the quad, it was pure pain to take the first couple steps. He ignored it. He had to get a weapon.

He picked his way free from the mess of metal and hauled himself to clear ground. He limped as best he could toward where the squad of Zetas had held their stand against him, until he’d overcome them with fragmentation grenades. He hoped that at least one of their weapons might be in working order.

As Walker got near, he noticed one of the Zetas from the pyramid area had a similar great idea. They both reached the dead soldiers at the same time. Each grabbed a Fire Serpent assault rifle, and while Walker did a combat roll to his right, the other did a combat roll to his left. They both brought their weapons to bear at the same time and were both surprised to hear clicks instead of bangs.

They both stared for a stunned moment at their weapons. Then, they dropped what they held, picked up new ones, and combat-rolled in the other direction with the same results.

Click.

Click.

Somewhere in the great sky above Mexico City a god was laughing at them. Walker grabbed another weapon, but saw right away that it was broken. He tossed it aside, then picked up yet another.

The Zeta had beaten him to it and brought a Fire Serpent to bear. He fired once, the round impacting on Walker’s chest plate. Walker grunted and staggered backward, then fired his rifle.

Click.

The Zeta grinned and squeezed his trigger again.

Click.

Walker snatched up the Ultimax from the ground and held it in both hands. It was a big heavy weapon, but it wasn’t anything anyone could stand against. He was prepared to squeeze the trigger when he saw that the drum magazine was empty. Then he looked up. The other man held a weapon and stepped forward. His weapon looked anything but empty.

“Your mother sucks donkey cocks,” Walker said. He couldn’t believe that after all this, after all the creatures he’d encountered, it was a piece-of-shit narcotrafficker who would be his end.

The Zeta sneered. “It’s your mother fucking sucks donkey cocks.”

“Really?” Walker asked. “Is that the best you can do?”

The Mexican’s eyes narrowed and he adjusted the rifle in his hands. “What you say, dead gringo?”

“If you’re going to be the hero of the Mexican people for killing a U.S. Navy SEAL, you need to have a saying which inspires. Can you even imagine young kids at school learning how to say sucks donkey cocks every year on the holiday of my death?” Walker gritted his teeth and waited for the man to squeeze the trigger.

The man’s eyes widened. Instead of simply firing, he adjusted his stance so he could bring the rifle to bear. That’s when Hoover came in low and fast. The Zeta fired but Walker had already dropped. Hoover twisted instinctively at the gunfire; then she regathered herself, shot forward again, and sank her teeth jaw deep into the Mexican’s crotch. The man’s screams were overshadowed by the staccato of automatic fire as the rifle rattled bullets against the ceiling, draining the clip at the same time his face drained of blood.

As Walker ran toward him, he pulled a knife clear from his left leg sheath. While Hoover worked the man’s crotch like a favorite bone, Walker raked the working edge of the six-inch blade across the man’s neck. The Mexican’s arms shot out still holding the gun. Walker snatched it, freeing the man’s hands, which went to his own neck, trying to pull it back together. His horrified eyes captured Walker’s gaze for a moment, begging to get a second chance. But Walker didn’t have the power to take the man back to when he’d been a boy and decided to make a life from the sale of drugs to those who really couldn’t afford it. So much water had passed under that bridge that Walker had no feeling for the man when he stood. Instead, he loosened his mask and twisted it so that it rested against the back of his neck. Then he reached his index finger into the blood bubbling from the man’s neck and made streaks across his own cheeks.

He took the dead man’s weapon, then found several working magazines in his cargo pockets. He jammed one into the base of the weapon, charged the handle, and let the bolt carriage snap forward. He put the others into his own pockets.