Special goggles donned, Wareagle threw himself over the threshold and brought his Sterling SMG upward. One of the black figures was laying another explosive charge against an inner door when Johnny pulled the trigger. The Splat blew out his midsection and rocketed him against the door just as his charge detonated. Airborne, he crashed through the door’s remnants and into a woman who seemed to be poised to make a defense.
Another pair of black figures spun away from the blown door toward Johnny. One had a dark, egg-shaped object clutched in his hand. In the instant it took him to aim the Sterling, Wareagle realized that the blindness-inducing aerosol would be released as soon as the egg-shaped housing shattered. He fired his next bullet at the figure wielding it.
The Splat lifted the figure into the air and slammed him against the wall, his blood spewing in all directions. The egg-shaped housing shattered with a poof! within the outer room.
The third and final figure turned away from the blown door and lunged at Wareagle. Johnny got his barrel righted and went for the trigger.
Clang!
The thud of something smashing down hard on the rifle’s barrel weakened his grasp. In the next instant what felt like a vise grasped the weapon and tore it away. Johnny wavered, and before he could fully recover his balance, the figure had rammed the rifle’s butt under his chin. Johnny staggered backward through what remained of the door into the inner room.
One woman lay dazed on the floor, partially pinned by the first of the figures Wareagle had killed. A second woman, ancient, sat cross-legged in a corner, undaunted by what was happening.
The dark figure stormed forward and lashed at Johnny with one of its black steel hands. Johnny lurched from the hand’s path, and the steel sliced through his Kevlar vest and nipped at his flesh. The burst of pain made his back arch. He saw the next strike surging toward him like a spear. He twisted sideways and blocked it downward, but the move left him open for the figure’s second hand, which sliced upward.
Johnny turned again, and the blow scratched against the left lens of his protective goggles. He backpedaled and faced off against his adversary, thinking that Joe Rainwater had not been granted such a chance. The black figure lashed at him with his right hand and followed up quickly with a swipe from his left. Johnny deflected both blows, then ducked under a sweeping side-mounted double strike and dropped into a roll. He snapped quickly to his feet, shaking the wall he came to rest against. Above him something that had been hanging there dropped onto a nearby dresser. Wareagle stole a glance at it.
It was a cat-o’-nine-tails.
Johnny grasped the ancient whiplike weapon and sent it swirling outward, just as the figure spun into another attack. Enough of the cat’s tails raked across his face to draw blood and a gasp. Wareagle swung his weapon in again and the figure, on the defensive now, blocked it with one of his steel hands.
He tried to grab it with the other, which opened up his midsection for Johnny’s feet. A kick landed squarely in his groin, and he bent into an agonized hunch. Johnny drew the cat back and around, the tails catching his assailant in the right shoulder and spinning him into the wall.
The dark figure retaliated by surging forward again, Johnny’s throat his target. Johnny let him think he had it and whipped the cat-o’-nine-tails out with a snap at the last possible instant. Air surged by Wareagle’s throat as the cat tore down across the figure’s face.
And eyes.
The man’s scream was bloodcurdling. It was barely a breath in length, but a breath was too long. His hands whipped down from his ravaged eyes. By then, though, Johnny had come in fast and to the side, the cat whistling through the air ahead of him. The tails swirled together and sliced into the black figure’s exposed throat. Wareagle felt warm blood splatter him, as the figure’s breathless scream gave way to a wet gurgle. The figure collapsed, writhing and twitching. Johnny backed away, and his eyes fell on the old woman who had remained seated calmly through it all.
“I was waiting for you, warrior,” she told him, her mouth squeezed between thick layers of wrinkled flesh. “What are you called?”
“Wareagle,” Johnny replied, breathing hard.
“Yes,” the Old One said, showing a glimpse of a smile. “Yes.”
Across the room, Heydan Larroux moaned and stirred.
“My lady,” from the Old One.
Johnny lifted the corpse off the woman he sought. She was still groggy, but had recovered her senses in time to hear the Indian-looking figure call himself “Wareagle,” and recalled the Old One’s vision of a bird of prey painted with the colors of battle.
An eagle.
“Jesus Christ,” she muttered, accepting the giant’s help in getting to her feet.
Johnny then crouched alongside the figure he had killed with the cat-o’-nine-tails. After removing the goggles the Israelis had given him, he pulled the corpse’s strange-looking headpiece off and regarded the face curiously. He knew the face of a killer when he saw one; death could not take that look away.
Wareagle’s eyes scanned the man’s upper body where the cat had shredded his body armor and shirt. There was a mark on his left shoulder, partially covered by blood that Johnny wiped away.
The mark was a tattoo, a swirly line stretched across the top of a slanted one.
It was the Greek letter tau.
“His boot,” the old woman said from the corner, pointing. Wareagle realized that she was blind. “What you seek can be found in his right boot, warrior.”
Johnny crouched down next to it and ran his hand along the boot. He squeezed the thick heel and felt it move a little. A harder pull snapped it off and revealed a secret compartment containing a state-of-the-art pager complete with miniature LED screen. Johnny switched it on. The screen remained blank.
“Nothing,” he told the old woman.
“Its secrets remain within.”
“Told and gone.”
“No, warrior. Not for one who knows the box’s ways.”
Johnny almost handed it out toward her. “You?”
He watched the old blind woman smile. “No. Another we will meet soon.”
“Where?”
“Where we are going, warrior.”
“There could be more of them,” Johnny Wareagle told her, as he slid the sleek pager into his pocket. “We’d better be fast.”
The old woman turned Heydan Larroux’s way. “Tell him of the boat, child.”
Heydan couldn’t take her eyes off the giant Indian. “There’s a raised platform built onto the underside of this house. A boat is stored upon it. Not much, just a small outboard …”
“It will do,” said Johnny.
“You will make it do, warrior,” the blind woman said quite assuredly.
Heydan instructed Wareagle to pull up the throw carpet from the center of the floor. When he did so, a small hatchway was revealed. He yanked it open, and the black water of the bayou glistened beneath him. He could see the rigging holding the boat to the platform. A hand crank resting just to his right would lower it onto the water ten feet below.
It took a full minute of turning before the outboard’s bottom kissed the surface. The boat wobbled under Wareagle’s bulk when he dropped down into it. Steadying himself as best he could, he stood up and raised his hands toward the hatchway.
“Let me help you,” he said to Heydan.
She slid her feet over the edge and felt a pair of powerful hands lock on to her ankles and accept her weight. Then she watched as the warrior named Wareagle lowered the Old One into the swaying boat as well.
“The engine,” Heydan said, shifting toward it.