implacable man-thing lunged into place, fingers tearing at his battle uniform and flesh like talons. Icy fear filled his bowels as two of his men wrapped their arms around his legs, pulling with all their might as he was almost out of the helicopter now. His uniform blouse was torn out of its web belt. His backpack and load-bearing vest were peeled from his skin, and the chill of the night could be felt on his naked skin where the dozens of hands weren’t clutching him.
Kensington twisted his head. He bit into one marauder’s forearm and hot blood gushed over his lips, the skin bitter and tasting of clay and earth. He spit the foul concoction out of his mouth and felt his scalp yanked, his nonregulation-length hair knotted with clutching fingers. His lungs squeezed out a wail of horror. He was being dragged to his death.
A thumb gouged his eye. Fingers slipped into his mouth and yanked him by his upper teeth. He kicked and struggled, but his arms and legs were too firmly held. His spine creaked under the sheer pressure put on it by the tug of war. Gunfire exploded over the eerie silence.
That was the greatest of horrors. There were not even shouts of anger, no mocking taunts. Just quiet, voiceless violence. Like something out of the zombie movies, but there wasn’t even a soundtrack of moans or eerie music. Except for the rattle of M-4s, there was numbing silence, just the clutching of hands, the clawing of fingers, the tearing of skin and cloth and hair from its roots. And his own terrified screams for mercy and help.
To Kensington, that was the worst of all. As a commander, he led by example. That was why he struggled to his feet first, that was why he volunteered to be first through the door on countless terrorist-hunting missions. He didn’t want his men to face any dangers he wouldn’t. But now he was caught in his ultimate nightmare, out of control.
When darkness descended upon him, he almost welcomed what he knew to be his death.
THE HORROR WASN’T OVER. Captain Jacob Kensington opened his eyes. He was in front of a white drape, lit up by klieg lights. He squinted past the glare and could see men with video and still cameras. Flash elements flared and made him blink and wince. When he looked at the ground, he could see the forest floor. Trees were visible on the other side of the lights now that his eyes had adjusted. He was still in the jungle.
To his horror he found he was tied to a giant wooden X, his men around him. Six lay on the ground, their bodies ravaged and torn, their skin ripped out in chunks, eyeless sockets staring into the sky above them. He prayed that they were dead long before they were mutilated. He didn’t want to think of the possibility that the wounds on his dead boys were from bite marks, that they had been partially eaten alive.
Kensington saw a man wearing fragments of skull wired together into a mask on his face, two long animal fangs bolted into the cheeks, framing a wide, swarthy mouth. The man wasn’t African, though his skin was browned, heavily tanned. Clear blue eyes stared out of the eye sockets of the skull. They looked him over, making his skin crawl.
“I am Algul,” the man said. His cape fluttered on his shoulders. For a moment Kensington thought it was made of leather of various colors, patch worked together with coarse twine, but on closer examination, he saw tattoos on each of the bits of flesh. He recognized the unit insignias of dozens of military units from around Africa and the Middle East, each tattoo centered and perfectly visible.
Cold dread filled Kensington’s gut as he realized that the madman calling himself Algul was wearing the skin of dozens of soldiers, claiming their tattoos for his multicolored cloak.
The skull-masked killer smirked at Kensington’s fear and brandished a wicked, bone-handled knife. He stepped to the half-naked Special Forces captain and walked behind him. Kensington tried to turn his head, to follow the man, but instants later the skin over his shoulder blade burned.
“What a lovely skin tag you wear, Captain,” Algul whispered seductively into his ear. “It will look wonderful on me, do you think?”
“Get fuck—!” Kensington gasped, pain choking off his words. Blood poured down his back now. Algul stepped in front of him, licking the back of the patch of skin, and the Special Forces captain couldn’t restrain a shudder of cold fear and revulsion.
“Delicious,” Algul said with a grin, his teeth stained with blood.
Kensington tried to swallow, but his throat was too tight, too dry. His heart hammered in his chest. “The U.S. government will not negotiate for our freedom. We will not give in to terrorist demands!”
Algul quirked an eyebrow and handed Kensington’s skin to one of his followers. “Terrorist demands? You silly, silly fool.”
The bone-handled knife rose to the captain’s throat. “First, I am not a terrorist. I am the spiritual leader of my people, the warriors of the night who seek freedom from the oppression of those who seek to shine their light upon us.”
The edge slit Kensington’s skin, a slow trickle of blood crawling down his chest.
“Second, I do not have demands. Indeed, I wish for more of your compatriots to throw their lives away in coming after me. I am Algul, the demon blood-drinking prince of darkness. And I thirst greedily.”
The knife bit deeper. One of Algul’s followers pressed a goblet into his master’s hand, and the madman brought the rim up to catch the sudden splash. The cut was wicked, bleeding profusely, but it hadn’t severed a major artery. Kensington knew he’d bleed to death from this wound, but unfortunately, it would be a slow, arduous process. He struggled against his bonds, spitting and cursing, but Algul held his cup steady as it filled.
Then the madman stepped back and raised the goblet to the cameramen. “This is the blood of the enemy, which I give to you, my followers!”
Kensington watched in horror as Algul decanted the blood into his mouth, streaks of crimson rolling down his chin, pouring onto his chest. The American’s heart hammered and he struggled, trying to rip free, but his strength poured out of him, down his own torso in the torrent of life that pumped from his wound.
Algul turned to Kensington, and smiled, his mouth a crimson mask. “You may feast now, my friends.”
Suddenly, red-clay-caked bodies blocked the glare of the klieg lights, bloodshot eyes staring at him, their mouths agape and slack.
Kensington swore he wouldn’t scream in horror, but when they lunged at him, his howls streaked through the darkness as if on the hooves of a nightmare.
AMANDA CASH CHUCKLED into the phone as she listened to Carmen Delahunt on the other end of the line.
“I’ll be there in a couple days for the Expo,” Delahunt said. “Maybe then we can get together and you can update me on your hunt for Ka55andra.”
Cash looked at the calendar. The San Francisco Law Enforcement Technology Exposition was scheduled for that Friday and “white-hat” hackers like her team would be attending. “White hats,” as they called themselves, were computer experts who used their skills for the sake of preventing cybercrime. Some, like her friend Carmen, worked for the government, even though Delahunt never really let on exactly where in the government she worked. Amanda herself, and her team, freelanced their work.
Delahunt had tapped Cash and her crew for assistance in tracking down a notorious cybercriminal who called herself Ka55andra. Identified only by her call sign, she proclaimed to be a prophetess of a new age, seeking to tear down the stone walls of the government and to destroy the Department of Homeland Security. So far, the cyberwitch had proved herself to be a formidable force, sending military units and agents into
