The Devil's Assassin (12 page)

The creature is
watching the camp from a distance and he begins to creep quietly and very
slowly around the ring of guards. He is looking for the weakest link, the
sleepiest, least alert man. He finds one who has been yawning often, his eyes
closing for a few seconds at a time. Then he jerks awake and is somewhat
attentive for a few minutes. This is his target.

The Maero is in
the tall grass. He begins to move slowly forward toward the man, toward the
flickering ring of orange light. He is moving slowly, cautiously, using all of
his evolution granted abilities of stealth to get closer to the sleepy man, who
is only four or five feet away from more alert companions on either side.

It is almost
unchallenging for the creature.

SQUEEEAAALLL.

The sudden, loud,
high-pitched sound was enough to stop his heart with fear. The Maero felt the
furry lump as it squeezed out from under his foot and fled. Then there was a
loud shot and the creature was moving the other direction as fast as he could
go, no longer concerned with stealth but with preserving his life.

Pablo, who’d been
the target of the Maero, fired the shot, and he’s standing now. The first shot
he’d fired was at the squealing noise. He and the men next to him are now
firing at the receding wave of bending grass in front of them.

Pablo shouts, “I
see it! I see it!” He fires again.

Linus grabs his
own gun and moves rapidly from his seat near the campfire toward Pablo. He
skids to a stop and grabs a flashlight on the way. Other men start moving
toward the ruckus as well.

Linus stops when
he gets to Pablo who points at the receding wave of grass. Linus shines the
light which catches a brief glimpse of the creature’s brown head in the
increasing distance.

“There’s the
bastard. You’re not getting away this time.”

Linus turns to
Pablo and two men nearby and his tone brooks no argument. “You three follow
me.”

The three have
flashlights and guns, so as soon as Linus starts a sprint after the creature,
they are sprinting close at his Linus’ heels, all of them eager to catch the
killer.

›

Arroyos comes
out
of his tent, dressed but obviously tired. He looks a question at a nearby man
and then watches the four men running into the grass.

“The American has
taken three men out after the creature!” says a man named Miguel.

“All that shooting!
Did anyone hit it?” asks Arroyos.

Miguel shrugs.
“It’s hard to tell, but it left at a run.”

Arroyos holds
back
a curse. He reaches into the tent and grabs his gun and flashlight. Meanwhile,
June has come out of her tent.

“I’m going out
there to turn him around before he gets lost or killed,” says the detective.

“Who gets lost or
killed?” asks June.

“Guess.”

June is surprised
and fearful. Arroyos nods to Miguel in the expectation that he’ll follow. “The
rest of you get BACK to your posts. Half of us could have been dead by now if
the diablo has a friend.”

He doesn’t wait
for comments; he’s out of the ring before a stunned June can say anything, and
an armed Miguel is close on his heels. She reaches into the tent and grabs her
dart gun and a flashlight.

She’s not far
behind the two men when she starts running and actually closes the distance.
Miguel and then Arroyos notice her coming up behind them but do not take their
focus off the bouncing light in the distance that they are following.

The three are
running in a line in the trail left by Linus and his group. The sounds of their
own breathing, their footfalls as they run, and the grass giving
way before them are
loud in the cloudy night. Their
flashlights jump around in the dark.

After some time,
and a great distance, Arroyos stops, and the two behind almost run into him.
Each of them continues scanning the dark for trouble.
Arroyos
puts
a finger to his lips to indicate quiet when June starts to ask him
why he stopped.

Now there is
silence and beams of light. Ahead of them, behind them, and all around them is
darkness and silence. “Damn it!” says Arroyos quietly. “He is one reckless,
hombre that friend of yours.”

“You’d have done
the same thing,” says June. “You want this animal as much as we do.”

“I will not
be understanding
if his recklessness causes the death of
more of my men.”

Miguel has taken
to watching their rear so that they cannot be attacked from behind, but he
doesn’t have a light. He gets June’s attention and points to the rear so she
will shine her light back that way. “I can’t see the campfires,” he says.

“We can’t be
far,” says Arroyos.

“I am a runner,”
says June. “I’d say we just covered about two miles.”

“What?!” exclaims
Arroyos. “I don’t like the sound of that. Turn off your light for a minute.”

June does so as
well as Arroyos and the trio
is
engulfed in almost
total darkness. There are no stars or moon to lighten the night sky, no dome of
light from a nearby city and no sign of the light from the campfire or from
Linus’s group of hunters.

Arroyos flicks on
his light and June does the same, aiming behind. The detective blows a quiet,
airy whistle and tries to look confident. They all are a little relieved that
the flashlights are back on.

“All my life I’ve
lived here and I’m still amazed at just how dark it can get,” says Arroyos.

“We have to find
them,” says June.

Arroyos is
silent.
He looks at Miguel. “You have your radio?”

“Yes.”

“Try and get
ahold of Linus or someone else in his group. If we are lucky, they brought a
radio.”

Miguel nods, one
hands his gun and speaks into the radio. He continues scanning the area. “Unit
two, this is Unit eleven, come in.”

There is only
silence in answer. He repeats it and the same thing greets them.

“Any
unit respond
, this is Unit eleven.”

The three of them
are sweating in the warm, clammy air.

“This is Unit
three. Where are you eleven?”

“I’m out in the
grass with the detective and the woman. There’s no sign of the American, and we
can’t see the camp.”

“Tell the
detective that I respectfully suggest that you three come back while you can.
The American can make it back with three armed men all right.”

“We cannot see
the camp at all,” says Miguel.

“Copy that. We’ll
stoke up the fire to give you some light to aim for.”

“Thanks.
Unit eleven out.”

Miguel clips the
radio back to its loop and grabs his gun with both hands.
Arroyos
looks
at June.

“We’re going
back,” he says. “You can stay here by yourself and look for him if you want,
although I wouldn’t suggest it.”

She’s upset at
his decision not to look for Linus, but she sees she will gain nothing by
arguing with the detective. She knows it would be foolhardy to stay and look
for him by
herself
and so she grudgingly follows the
man as he heads off in the direction he thinks they’ve come from. The three
move into the darkness in a tight group.

›

Linus Hather is
alone. He has his light and his gun, but he’s lost the three other men. It is
silent and dark outside the flashlight’s beam. At the moment he is one handing
the gun while the other hand holds the flashlight. He shouts to try to locate
the other men. His voice seems not to carry too far. Linus is a little worried
that his voice could attract the Maero,
then
realizes
that the flashlight would do that as well.

He wonders where
the three men who were with him for some time have gone. He looks at the sky
and strains to see the campsite. Linus turns off the light and scans the
horizon in a circle but still sees no sign of human activity. He turns the
light back on and walks forward a little ways. He stops and scans the grass
with the light as if he’s heard something, but he doesn’t find anything. He
turns the light off again and darkness encloses him like a black canvas tent.
This time, almost immediately, there is a rustle nearby in the grass. A grunt
is heard and Linus’s gun and flashlight fall to the ground. The thud of bodies
hitting the ground is heard.

›

Arroyos, June,
and Miguel are moving at a steady walk. Their two flashlight beams bouncing and
sweeping forward and back.

“It’s been an
hour, Detective,” says June. “We’re going the wrong way.”

“Your job is to
light the way and watch out for the diablo.”

“Yes, sir!” she
says sarcastically.

“We can’t get
lost out here, Doctor, just misplaced for a little while.”

The trio
continues on in silence for a moment.

“I’m more worried
about being dead than lost, Detective.”

“I thought you
wanted to look for your friend.”

“How about if we
just stop,” says June
irritatedly
. “Then we won’t get
farther and farther from the camp!”

“We are not
getting farther from the camp.”

“Oh, really.
Isn’t
that the Andes Mountains up ahead there?”

Arroyos looks
and
sees nothing. “Oh, I see, a comedian. I wouldn’t quit your day job, Señorita.”
He starts walking again and they continue on in silence. A light rain begins to
fall.

“What do you
think, Miguel?” says the detective as they walk. “Do we keep going or stay in
one place?”

“I think we are
safer if we keep moving, sir.”

Miguel’s radio
comes to life. “Unit eleven, this is Unit three, over.”

“Unit eleven
here,” says Miguel.

“Linus’s group
has returned.”

June’s eyes light
up.

“Without the American.”

The three stop
moving and there is silence for a moment. Miguel looks at June. He queries the
radio, “What do they say?”

“They lost track
of him. They looked for a while but it was too dark so they came back.”

Arroyos shakes
his
head with a dour expression.

“Ah, where are
you guys? We expected you back by now.”

“We may have been
on an incorrect heading, but we’ve decided to keep moving.”

“Copy that. You
may want to sit still from now on though. I’ve called for choppers with the car
phone, to come from Buenos Aires. They’re to look for you and Linus.”

“Thanks Unit
three. We can hardly wait.” Miguel hooks the radio back onto his belt.

“It’ll be an hour
before the helicopters show up,” says Arroyos.
“How about if
we keep going?
A different direction.”

“No!” says June.

They look at her
as she sits down, surprised at her resolve. When the two men sit down, they do
so back to back so that the three of them are facing all directions. There is,
however, nothing for them to see but grass all around them and a dark, wet sky
above them.

“At least we are
fairly well hidden.” she says quietly.

“Yes,” says
Arroyos equally quietly. “Let’s conserve the lights so we have something to
signal with when the chopper gets here.

After a while,
June feels the need to say something because the darkness and the tall grass
are making her claustrophobic.
“Detective?”

“Yes?”

“You know what I
am tired of?”

“The dark?”

“
Yes,
and the constant vigilance. How do you maintain
hyper-alertness for so long? It is difficult to do.”

“Never thought of
it quite that way, but I’ve felt it. You get used to it after a while. But a
moment’s lack of focus gets more than a few policemen killed.”

They are silent
for a couple more minutes, listening to the night because their sight is such
little use to them.

“Señorita,” says
Arroyos. “I hope Señor Hather is okay.”

June makes a
sound to let him know she heard him. She doesn’t know what else to do. She had
been focused on her immediate danger and had put Linus in the back of her mind.
Now she couldn’t help wondering why he’d been split from his group and where he
was. Maybe he was the third victim of the creature on this horrific safari. A
tear rolls down her cheek as she thinks of the man she was beginning to have
strong feelings for laying lifeless in the pampas grass.

›

Linus’s gun and
flashlight have fallen to the ground, and he is on the ground as well. The
flashlight is still on and though it is shining into the grass it does allow
him some little bit of light. The creature is on top of him. They are
struggling and Linus has the creature’s lance arm with two hands. After some
rolling around, the creature bites one of Linus’s arms and he lets out a yell.
This results
in him having just one arm controlling the
creature’s lance arm.