LITMIR.BIZ

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Hawk false information.

      She was glad that she anticipated the best spot for Knight Seven to land and attempt to engage the convoy. Her brother, Wilson Sere, had taught her well; military tactics were as second nature to her as the complex coding of high-powered computer programs.

      As she watched on the Predator’s true video feed, the Pave Hawk swerved off course from the main Shining Warrior Path camp, soaring toward the canyon. She directed the drone, piloting the remote-control spy in the sky after the helicopter. The Pave Hawk had slowed considerably, allowing the 150-mile-per-hour unmanned aerial vehicle to do more than keep pace. Putting on a burst of speed, she targeted the American helicopter.

      The Predator was unarmed, but in effect, it was a slow-flying, guided missile. One that was big and heavy enough to do a lot of damage to a helicopter just by crashing into it. Ka55andra smirked as the distance between the two craft shortened.

      Algul’s men wouldn’t need to use their RPG rockets to bring down the aircraft. There was a good chance, too, that they would be able to capture some of the American soldiers alive.

      Algul was exactly the wrong kind of person that American soldiers wanted to be in the hands of. He liked to promote the rumor that he was one of the avenging dead. Even his name was Arabic for the blood-drinking nightmares that stalked the night, a Pan-Arabian version of the vampire. Prisoners who fell into his hands were bled dry into goblets, their vital fluids occasionally drunk in an orgy of madness.

      Ka55andra wanted that on live, streaming video, presented to the world.

      American soldiers, slain by her very own pet ghoul, would be an excellent calling card, a chilling message to be sent back to the leaders of the Department of Homeland Security.

      The Predator transmitted its final images, the Pave Hawk looming in the view of the monitor. The door gunner screamed, sending out a blast of .50-caliber shells, but it was too little, too late. The Predator’s video image jerked violently and turned to static.

      Knight Seven was screaming over the radio.

      The helicopter was fatally hit, but somehow the pilot was directing the wounded aircraft to a landing.

      It didn’t matter.

      Algul was waiting.

      MONSTERS DID EXIST, and as Captain Kensington struggled to push open the crumpled door of the helicopter, he saw them rise from the African jungle, blood-streaked, horror-faced monstrosities that moved with unnatural quickness. Wild eyes rimmed with red focused on him and his team, and he brought up his Barrett M-486. The Barrett was an M-4 rifle that had been chambered for the new Special Forces 6.8 mm Special Purpose Cartridge as an improvement over the smaller 5.56 mm NATO round. Grabbing the rail-mounted forward grip to stabilize it, he flicked the rifle to full-auto and fired through the gap between the door and frame of the downed aircraft, spitting a stream of SPC rounds. The heavy bullets smashed into a trio of the charging shadows.

      His commandos struggled as hot brass rained down on them. They tried to get up, to gather their own weapons.

      The first three attackers were swatted down in Kensington’s initial burst, but moments later other bodies slammed into the hull of the Pave Hawk. He whirled, but the barrel snagged in the grip of one blood-caked, snarling madman. Wrenching with all his strength, the Special Forces captain tried to pull free, to regain control of his gun.

      It was like fighting a gigantic octopus. Other hands gripped the barrel of his rifle, fingers clawing at his sleeve and snagging it. The ripstop material resisted Kensington’s efforts to pull free, and he found himself being dragged through the gap.

      The captain’s mind flashed back to the zombie movies he’d watched in his youth, remembering the horror of being torn from a place of safety and security, being hauled into the merciless grip of a horde of snarling, bloodthirsty things. He kicked frantically at the doorjamb, his team clawing at his back, trying to keep hold of him as he was being hauled through the dented doorway.

      “No! Let me go!” The M-486 was empty. He’d burned off the whole magazine in a mad attempt to drive off the marauders, but with each corpse fallen away, another 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

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