Chapter 30
Annoyed by Alura’s silly rhyme, I threw my pizza crust at her and she caught it in her teeth, and then proceeded to eat it. Good reflexes. Thyzil asked what a baby carriage was, which caused Alura to almost choke on the pizza crust. Serves you right smarty pants. She didn’t respond, but I nearly bust my gut laughing.
The remainder of the evening went by in a relaxing way. Empty pizza boxes littered the floor and Sally was sleeping next to the fireplace with a full belly of her own. It was good to be home.
Alura told me that Sarila sent Lieutenant Mack and his team to maintain surveillance at Howe. Good idea, don’t want fur balls sneaking in on us. Sarila also sent the three titanium nets to Howe. Once all the lycanthropes were inside the cavern, Mack would seal it up tight – with us inside. If things went bad, we’d be trapped and thinking what a terrible idea it was to seal the exits. But then again, this was an opportunity to dust some big shot VIP fur balls, and hopefully and banish their boss – totally worth the risk. We reviewed our battle plan and Alura then headed to her apartment with Thyzil to get some rest.
Every muscle in my body was aching. I was aching in places where I didn’t know muscles even existed. Hauling silver bars and climbing rope ladders was not easy work for a couch potato like me. What I need is to learn a levitation spell for the next time lifting more than the weight of my staff was required, and my staff is nearly weightless.
Exhausted, I fell onto my bed and began a nightly routine of trying to clear my mind, which is not the easiest thing to do when considering the upcoming battle. If our plan worked, we might actually survive the day.
It has to work. Ah Chuy Kak must be banished even if it takes my last breathe to send the grand fur ball to the dark void.
None of this second guessing was a recipe for a good night rest, so I tried to stay positive. I finally fell asleep, but it seemed as if it was a short night when my alarm went off. No annoying rooster this time. Instead, the entire wall of my bedroom became a rainforest, complete with a cascading waterfall.
I walked over to the wall and felt a breeze and mist from the waterfall. I knew the image was a hologram, but it seemed real enough to walk into. I touched the wall with my finger and a ring of light formed spreading out like ripples on water, then the rainforest slowly disappeared.
Whoever constructed this alarm system, most likely me, did so with a strange sense or humor, or just screwed up the design entirely. On a positive note, my aches and pains were gone.
Sally looked up with her bright eyes and thumped her tail on the floor when I entered the living area. Alura and Thyzil had already let themselves in, so more eggs and bacon went into my flying pan to ensure Sally and I got our fair share. Actually, a lot more eggs and bacon went into four frying pans in anticipation of the hardy appetites of my breakfast companions.
“Do you two have a food detector hidden in my apartment?” I asked.
Thyzil tapped his nose while taking a deep breath and said, “Here wizard. Good detector, yes?”
“Less talk cook, more food,” Alura said as she sat at the kitchen table. “Don’t forget the coffee dear brother.”
“Sure, why not. It’s not like I have anything better to do, such as banishing an ancient Mayan overlord.”
Alura and Thyzil held up their empty cups.
“Blah, blah, blah … always thinking of yourself,” Alura said. “Alright brother, I’ll help you and get my own coffee.”
After breakfast was over, Alura opened her duffle bag and began loading up with all her usual arsenal. Thyzil took his claymore out of a golf bag that had a golf sock over the sword’s hilt.
I laughed. “A golf bag … really Thyzil?”
“Your baby sister says I need to fit in. Look like other city people.”
Alura frowned and shook her head. “He needs some more work with this image thing.”
Thyzil could try until the cows come home to look normal and fit in, but it’s just not going to happen. I doubt anyone in Manhattan would even notice the claymore strapped on his back, but I bet he got a lot of looks at that golf bag. I mean, who carries a golf bag in Manhattan? I’ll try to help him with the ‘fitting in’ thing later, assuming we live through the night and there is a later.
Alura tossed a small lipstick style container to me and another to Thyzil and said, “Rub some of this under your nose to help with the smell in the cave.”
I opened up the container and held it up to my nose, but smelled nothing. It looked like bees wax. I rubbed some of the ointment under my nose as Alura instructed and hardly notice it was there. If it works, great. Any help would be welcomed to reduce the smell of dead bodies. Alura and Thyzil also rubbed the ointment under their noses.
“Sally, take care of our home,” I said and she woofed and rubbed her head against my leg.
Each of us took turns patting Sally’s head and said goodbye. I frowned thinking this might be the last goodbye I say to Sally and looked back at her hoping it wasn’t. She sensed something wasn’t right and put her head down on her paws and whimpered.
We stepped into my bedroom pentagram. I held my staff above the center of the pentagram and said, “Ready to enter the belly of the beast?”
Thyzil grimaced. “Ready to split beast belly with sword.”
I closed my eyes and crushed a blue magic coin under my foot.
“Transmati Howe,” I said, causing blue-white light to pour up from the pentagram and transport us to the cave.
The ointment Alura gave me worked. I couldn’t smell anything, which helped me to keep my breakfast inside my stomach and focus. Thyzil and Alura wasted no time uncovering the weapon cases and making a final inspection. Sure seemed like a lot of weapons to me, but Alura and Thyzil are the weapons experts and they always preferred more than less.
Alura placed all the grenades on the cave floor in neat rows of five secured to straps. She put a wire through the grenade pins with a leather pull loop to set each strap off simultaneously if needed. She also stuffed silver daggers in her boots, under her wrist sleeves, and under her pants belt.
“Alura, won’t all those grenades put us in jeopardy when they go off?” I asked.
“No, the silver fragments will not penetrate anything but lycanthrope skin. If fragments hit you, it might feel like a hornet nest fell on you, but it won’t break your skin. Placing these belts at different areas of the cavern will allow me to swing out five grenades each time to cause maximum damage.”
“Sure are a lot of grenades.”
Alura grinned. “The more the merrier. Besides, who’s counting, except you?”
“You’re the expert grenade handler, so who am I to question.”
“Darn straight wizard boy, and don’t you forget it,” she said, then winked at me as she started reloading the weapon cases.
Thyzil loaded up on Gatling gun wheel magazines and was smiling ear-to-ear like a cat with a mouse in its mouth. He tucked the two inferno crystals under his belt and went up the rope ladder leading to the cavern while Alura tied the case handles with a rope. Thyzil then pulled up all the cases effortlessly and began emptying their contents.
“Heads up brother,” Alura said, then tossed a couple bags of silver fragments to me. “Hang on to those. They may come in handy if we find ourselves in a jam.”
I stuffed the bags into my coat pockets and followed Alura up the rope ladder. Thyzil had already snapped several glow sticks to light up the cavern so I could begin constructing a pentagram from the PVC pipe. I decided a having a ten foot diameter pentagram would suffice, provided that Ah Chuy Kak is sitting in his throne. After all, there is no need to have a throne unless he plans on putting his furry butt on it.
A larger pentagram would make it difficult for me to touch the wizard star on a dodging Mayan overlord. A smaller pentagram might miss the fur ball altogether and risk having Ah Chuy Kak escape again. This reminded me of Goldilocks and the Three Bears – everything had to be just right. Sure, the bear story was
about beds, but the concept is the same. The slightest error in constructing the pentagram could ruin everything, not to mention increasing the likelihood of being torn apart by a bunch of fur balls.
I first made a circle joining the PVC pipe ends together with pipe cement. Then I cut six straight sections of the pipe to form two triangles. I placed the triangles into the circle and tied them off with zip locks to form a pentagram. It wasn’t very sturdy, but it didn’t need to be. Pentagrams only directed magical energy once a spell is cast – it could be made with toothpicks and still work.
Hopefully, Ah Chuy Kak would soon be inside my trap while he watched all his groupie fur balls get dusted. The thought of waiting another 25,000 years to dust the flea bag was disturbing to say the least. We had to trap and banish Ah Chuy Kak tonight, period.
Alura finished placing grenade belts around the cavern with wolfsbane to hide any scent of gun powder. Once done, she came over to inspect my plastic pentagram.
“Ready to lift this work of art above the throne,” she asked.
“Yup, let’s get it done.”
Alura tied the end of a wire spool to the center of the pentagram and we held it up over the throne. The neat thing about PVC pipe is that it doesn’t weigh much and is easy to balance. With one hand holding the pentagram and the other a crossbow, Alura shot a dart dead center into the cavern ceiling over Ah Chuy Kak’s throne.
“Not bad, and with your first shot.” I said.
Alura grinned. “As always brother,” she said. “It looks like the dart set well and will hold your pentagram.”
After hoisting the pentagram up 30 feet to hide it among the dripstone formations, I took a white magic coin from my wizard bag and snapped it in half. The two halves sparkled and turned into powder in my palm. I then raised my hand and blew the powder up toward the pentagram and said, “Ecasenah,” causing the PVC pipe to fade and disappear. Bees wax aerosol spray made a perfect second pentagram around the throne. Once the bees wax dried, it too could not be seen.
“Okay, the trap is set. Now we cross our fingers, wait until the party begins, and hope everything goes according to plan.”
Thyzil finished hiding weapons and wolfsbane in various nooks and crannies of the cavern and then joined Alura and me at the rope ladder. I noticed our footprints were everywhere on the dirt floor – a small detail left out of our battle plans – so I summoned Kyiel and asked if he had any idea how to make the footprints disappear.
“This is a simple spell Azul that requires no magic coin,” Kyiel said. “All you need to do is call up your internal magic, speak the work windstar, and what you wish erased will be made so. First, find a spot where you will not make more footprints.”
Sound simple enough. I found an out of the way spot near the hole leading to the cave below. We stacked the emptied weapon cases next to large rocks and I cast another clamor spell making them invisible. We could see from behind them, but the other side looked like rocks and blended in with the cavern wall. I then pointed my staff toward the cavern floor and said, “Windstar,” creating a light breeze that turned into a gust and swirled the dirt around on the cavern floor. When the wind subsided, our footprints were gone and the wolf footprints remained.
“Okay guys, nothing left to do now but wait for the fun to begin,” I said. “Make yourself comfortable and get some rest. It’s going to be a long night.”
“Should I take my leave Azul?” Kyiel asked.
“You might as well hang around and keep an eye on things. Let us know if anything unnatural moves.”
“About Kyiel ... exactly what is his role in all this?” Alura asked.
I sat down leaning my back against the wall and tilted my hat over my eyes.
“It’s a surprise. Don’t do anything until after Kyiel finishes his magic show.”
It didn’t take long, maybe a couple of hours, when Kyiel appeared as instructed and announced he detected movement in the tunnel behind the throne. A few minutes later, several men wheeled a wagon into the center of the cavern. I wiped the ointment off from under my nose and smelt wolf. They were lycanthropes, not men.
The wagon had portable flood lamps attached to telescopic stands. Large batteries were taken off the wagon and placed at each corner of the cavern. The flood lamps came off next and the first one was hooked up to a battery only a few feet away from our weapon cases. I held my breath while one lycanthrope lifted his head up and sniffed. Could he smell us? Wolfsbane was all around where we were hiding to hide our scent. The fur ball made a quick inspection turning his head back and forth, then went about his business placing flood lamps at other areas.
Wolfsbane … don’t leave home without it … at least not on a full moon.
Several minutes later, a bunch of well dressed lycanthropes entered and took seats on the benches carved into the cavern walls. Things were taking on a real carnival atmosphere, missing only vendors selling balloons, soft drinks, and cotton candy.
Two large lycanthropes dressed in tradition Mayan garb placed drums on each side of the throne and began banging a beat. Then there was a sight I did not expect, not in the twenty-first century. Two fur balls walked out into the center of the cavern floor, faced each other, and turned into their natural ugly selves. They were large, seven or eight feet tall, and growled loud enough to nearly drown out the sound of the beating drums.
So, this is a lycanthrope’s version of a night out on the town. Their own members only fur ball fight club.
The two lycanthropes circled each other with their long black claws scratching at the air. Snarls and teeth gnashed as they drew closer to each other and began landing bloody blows. Some of the seated fur balls began changing and howled while the light of the full moon shined down through a ceiling hole at the top of the cavern. I’ll say one thing for the smelly wolfs. They can take a beating and keep on fighting like there was no tomorrow.
The two drummers began to slow down their beat and then stopped. Another fur ball came out from behind the throne, also dressed in traditional Mayan garb, and blew an ear piercing note from a long horn. The two fighting lycanthropes backed off from each other and limped slowly away.
Another wagon that looked like it belonged to a circus was rolled in. This wagon had bars on it, like a jail, and three people were inside. They were showing signs of transforming into wolves and it reminded me of the old lady in the cabin at Moon’s arena. Still human enough to recognize what was happening, they kept screaming in terror, which excited the fur ball audience.
Three lycanthropes pulled the infected prisoners out and placed their heads and arms into the stocks, like those used at the Salem Witch trials. All three prisoners were young and one was a women. The lycanthropes then walked over and stood next to their cheering audience.
Another horn sounded, this time three blasts in succession, and everything went completely silent. A gust of wind rushed from the tunnel behind the throne and a large eagle flew in circling the cavern several times to loud cheers and howls. The eagle swooped down in front of the three prisoners and changed into Ah Chuy Kak.
The grand fur ball stretched his slimy body into the air with arms raised high. Then he made a nightmarish scream that silenced all his cheering groupies. Strands of misty light began to leave the prisoners and enter Ah Chuy Kak’s mouth. He was sucking what was left of their life out of them. In a few seconds, the prisoner bodies shrank and shriveled up. Their eyes and mouths remained wide open showing the horror they had experienced, just like those at Sunset Park and in the cave below.
There was nothing we could do. They were still part human and Zeshtune law prohibited harming humans, even for mercy killings. Any harm against a human, even if only part human, carries serious consequences. The Zeshtune elders would not accept an emotional defense. I grimaced and Alura looked furious with tears running down her face. Thyzil gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on the large claymore hilt he carried.
Ah Chuy Kak changed back into an eagle and flew to his thr
one where he transformed back to his hideous self. His audience howled and cheered as one well dressed fur ball approached the center and faced him. It was Senator Kendrisol, and this time he was campaigning to be named alpha. He spoke to his master in ancient Mayan.
“Great one, your children are here to honor you once again in celebration of the new moon. We ask that you name a alpha this night to bring order once again to the packs who serve your pleasure. Lupzarro and Moon are no more and I am next in line to be your first servant, should you find me worthy to receive such an honor.”
Politicians … I’m not sure what’s worse, the fur balls or our elected officials.
While Kendrisol continued his sucking up routine, I focused on building up my internal magic to cast the impenetrable barrier around Ah Chuy Kak’s throne. Magic surged inside me and it required all my effort to hold it back. While still invisible, I opened my eyes, raised my staff pointing it at Ah Chuy Kak, and shouted, “Cellvarim.”
The spell worked. Blue-white light rushed from the pentagram around the throne up to the one hanging above and trapped Ah Chuy Kak inside. The fur ball jumped off his throne and slammed into the barrier which made a loud crack sound while pushing him back. He tried again and again, and each time was pushed back by the barrier. Ah Chuy Kak then stood still looking around his magical prison and let out a terrifying scream.
Kyiel appeared in front of the lycanthrope audience who had now all changed into their natural selves, including Senator Kendrisol. Kyiel held out his hands and palms up with fire blazing out ten feet high, which stopped Kendrisol from advancing toward him. Then, five Alura and five Thyzil holograms appeared at different areas of the cavern, each with swords drawn and swooshing in the air as they stared down the snarling lycanthropes.
The real Alura smiled. “Nice diversion brother.”
Thyzil also smiled and said, “I look good out there, yes? Five Thyzils better than one.”
I had built up more internal magic and was ready to cast a silver dust spell. I raised my staff and shouted, “Clotasia soot,” causing a stream of white-silver light to disperse from where we hid the silver bars and race up the walls to the ceiling, as well as cover the dirt floor. Silver strands of light also stretched out into the air across the cavern.
Ah Chuy Kak pointed at the hologram warriors and screamed, “Kill them.”
The lycanthropes started chasing ten holograms that continued somersaulting and dodging in all directions. A few lycanthropes crossed paths with the silver streaks of light and were cut into halves that burst into fiery ash. Once the fur balls cornered the fake Aluras and Thyzils, they attempted to tackled them, but to their surprise went right through the holograms and tumbled across the dirt floor. All the fur balls were stunned and went silent.
“It’s the wizard. He is here. Find him, kill him,” Ah Chuy Kak shouted.
It’s too late you slimy freak. I shouted the word, “Ecasenah,” which created a vacuum and expansion of air that pushed silver dust all over the floor, walls, ceilings, and of course, the angry fur balls. The dust stopped them in their tracks while they howled, coughed, and rubbed their eyes. Some fell to the ground gasping for air
Three loud explosions went off and I saw the hole in the cavern ceiling sealed off with a titanium net. Lieutenant Mack also sealed off the other two access points. No way out now. Kill or be killed.
I looked at Alura and Thyzil and grinned. “Your turn,” I said.
The silver dust made the fur balls perfect targets for the real Alura and Thyzil who sprang into action. Alura ran forward jumping from the top of a rock and somersaulting into to several rolls. She bounced off one lycanthrope to the next all the while slicing them with her two silver swords. By the time she landed on the ground, more than 10 fur ball were burning piles of ash.
Thyzil ran into the battle with a Gatling gun in each hand shooting bullets filled with liquid silver into anything with long teeth and furry faces. Lycanthropes dropped to the cavern floor howling in pain as they also burned into piles of red hot ashes.
Not to be left out of all the fun, I ran into the battle swirling my staff shouting, “Raza zitum,” sending blue-white saw discs out like Frisbees with razors. One fur ball jumped in front of me as I ran toward Ah Chuy Kak. My reflexes caused me to point my staff forward which struck the fur ball turning it into flames. Another two came from each side as I turned in a circle repeating the words raza zitum, sending out more magic discs – they were like hot knifes cutting through fur ball butter. The discs entered and exited them repeatedly until they fell to the ground in flames.
Ah Chuy Kak kept screaming, “Kill them, kill them, kill them,” while banging on the barrier with his fist. I looked up and pointed my staff at him.
“Be patient ugly, I’m coming for you next,” I said, causing Ah Chuy Kak to pause and stare me down, to which I grinned and nodded. “That’s right, your time on Earth is up, and this time there’s no escape.”
Ah Chuy Kak continued staring showing pure hatred and contempt. “Kill them, kill them, kill them,“ he shouted again as he banged his fist against the barrier. The great Mayan overlord was acting like a toddler having a tantrum – not so tough now.
Alura jumped up in the air and spun like a deadly top as her swords glowed blue-white and swooshed through the air. At least eight fur bars were taken down before she landed and rolled picking up two grenade belts that were covered under dirt. She swung the belt around her head and released them pulling the pins free. When the grenades exploded, several nearby fur balls lost their heads – I mean they literally lost their heads. Their bodies fell to the ground and burned while other fur balls lost arms and legs that also burned into ashes.