About an hour later, the first SUV pulled into the parking lot of Enchanted Rock, and Sam set his little drone, Sugarplum up into the air and handed control over to Frank back in Austin. I had my phone propped up in front of me to my left so I could watch.
As the drone flew into the air, I could see the three men standing on the amazing massive pink granite dome of rock sitting there in the middle of Hill Country and rising to over 1800 feet of elevation. Besides Sam, Damon, and Jesse, there were about fifteen people wandering around the massive surface of the dome and exploring the edges and split layers of rock sitting along the edges of the incredible geological feature.
A little over a billion years ago, a pink granite batholith was created by cooling magma. It sat there undisturbed until weathering and erosion exposed what is called an exfoliating dome of the stuff. When humans showed up, it quickly became an important geographic marker and the Indigenous peoples used it as a focal point of their religious rites for centuries. Sam called it a locus of power.
It was a huge mound of pink sitting in the middle of flat, desert scrub and cedar trees. The biggest thing around, sitting there majestically dominating the scenery for miles.
All along the edge of Enchanted Rock were fissures and granite flakes that had peeled off the main formation like layers of an onion over the last millennia or two. Deep fissures, dangerous cracks, and chimneys created some great technical rock climbing at the site, but what we were more interested in was avoiding falling off the steep sides and edges into what would be a fatal drop onto the boulders below.
Sam and crew had picked a huge, semi-detached flake with a large flat surface to stand on. The flake had a rather large gap of about twelve feet at its widest separating it from the rest of the summit, but it tapered down to nothing as it angled in towards where it remained attached to the dome. Behind where they were standing the flake slopped steeply about four feet down to another small ledge about twenty-four inches wide before ending at a sheer drop of about seventy-five feet to the boulder field at the base.
The drone moved off towards the parking lot at the base of the trail to the top.
The first car was alone. We watched three security exit, and one of them opened the back door to let Shannon Byrne step out and into their protective circle. She looked up the mountain and said something while pointing to the trail, the guard looked at his watch and said something back. She looked agitated and pointed at her feet while yelling at him, and realizing what she was angry about, I started laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Sam asked.
“She’s wearing heels. Her feet will be killing her by the time she gets to the top.”
Frank laughed over the headset and said, “She’ll start up soon then, so she doesn’t embarrass herself by holding up Carrick. It’ll probably take her about an hour instead of the forty minutes it took you guys.”
She was about halfway up with her three men when Dillon Carrick arrived with his entourage thirty minutes later. Two vehicles pulled in and eight people got out, including the aforementioned Carrick. He immediately pulled out his cell phone and made a call. Sugarplum showed us Ms. Byrne looked down at her suit jacket pocket and pulled out her phone.
After a quick conversation, Carrick sent four men running up the trail while three stayed with him and began the hike.
“Okay everyone,” Frank said “we have twelve hostiles. Ten soldiers and two principles. As we discussed, they are not here to talk, they are going to try to take you three by force, but I don’t see any rifles, so we have the opportunity we planned for. It’s a public place and they are unlikely to display weapons unless they need them. Don’t spook them, just do what we planned.”
“We’ve done stuff like this before,” muttered Damon.
“No we haven’t,” replied Jesse. He put his hand on Damon's shoulder in a friendly gesture of comradery, “Get your game face on brother, this relies on you more than anyone.”
“Everyone relax and try to have some fun. If this works out right, this is gonna be hilarious,” said Sam. “They’ll never know what hit them.”
Damon sat down and started praying, while Sam and Jesse settled down to wait for the Druids and their men to arrive.
I moved the phone a tiny bit further away from me and made a few final adjustments to my surroundings and my position. I said over the headset, “I know this is the best place for me, but I wish I was there on that rock.”
“We discussed this, Dru,” replied Frank. “You and I can’t be there, because they are expecting us to be there.”
“Understood, but I still wish I could get my actual hands on those two shithead Druids.”
“Dru. Are you making this personal?” Frank sounded shocked. “Remember your orders, soldier.”
He wasn’t wrong. I had never made anything personal in the entire time he’d known me until that day in the village. I was abruptly uncomfortable in my own skin. Who the hell was I? What the hell was I becoming?
“Dru? You understand me?”
I shook my head. Focus Dru! Get your shit together! After a few seconds, I said, “Yes, LT I’m back.”
“You good?”
“Yes, LT.”
“Alright. Stick to the plan, do your job, keep your promise, kill those bastards.”
“Understood,” I growled.
Watching on the drone camera, Damon stopped praying and stood up. He extended his hands towards the big crevasse separating the flake they were standing on from the main dome of the summit. Nothing seemed to happen on camera, but Jesse started laughing and clapping his hands, and Sam turned to Damon and put his hands over Damon's. On the headset, I heard Sam say, “Your skills are progressing quickly, Damon. Maintain your focus and remember that this is your one essential job. Don’t let this slip away until we spring the trap.” Damon lowered his head and closed his eyes momentarily in a posture of gratitude.
“I won’t, Raven. I have it locked down. The power here is…astonishing. I feel so strong.”
“Don’t let it fool you. There’s a price you’ll be paying later because that power isn’t yours, it belongs to the mountain and the hundreds of years of sacrifice and prayer of those who came before you, and you are only borrowing some. If you don’t pay attention to your body, you could cook yourself from the inside out. Try to send the power directly from the locus to the illusion and not through you.”
“Understood.”
Jesse looked over at Damon with awe and said, “You are one scary Shaman, Damon. I’m glad you’re on my side.”
On camera, I saw Damon smile and move to the back edge of the flake, where it dropped to that lower ledge.
We sat and watched as four security guards ran up the trail to catch up to Ms. Byrne and her trio of guards already with her. Mr. Carrick and his three tromped steadily on, slowly eating up the gap between the two parties.
Eventually, the four caught up to the front party and became eight fish out of water hiking up a state park mountain in business attire. They drew a few looks, but nobody on the trail said anything to them. I guess the grim looks and angry semi-permanent snarl on Ms. Byrnes's face as she tripped her way up the path in heels discouraged communication.
As the large party arrived at the summit, Mr. Carrick and his three remaining guards were about five minutes behind. Ms. Byrne talked to the group she had and they spread out around the summit looking for us. Sam started waving his hands over his head when the first guard came into sight, and after doing a quick double-take, he turned around and ran back to report.
In a short time, the guards fanned out and approached Sam, Jesse, and Damon. As they neared the Flake, they seemed to ignore the large gap and spread out into an arc of bodies designed to prevent escape.
“That’s far enough!” yelled Sam as they got within feet of the gap.
Standing behind her men, Ms. Byrne said, “It appears you weren’t entirely truthful with us, Mr. Trickster.”
“How so?”
“I’ve been told our building is completely destroyed.”
“I never said I wouldn’t destroy it. I said I wouldn’t tear it down. It still stands.” Sam said with a huge smile on his face.
“What about Mr. Seta and Mr. Egils? You said they’d be here.”
“I also told you to come alone as the three High Priests, yet I count eight of you in front of me, and four more are coming, Ms. Byrne.”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
If she was bothered by the fact that he knew her name, she didn’t show it. “Please, Mr. Trickster, you knew we’d bring our security. And you are of course armed? ”
“One pistol for my associate Jesse, here. We come in peace.” He laughed “But where are the two others of your Triumvirate? I don’t see them anywhere.”
“One will be along in a few minutes.”
“You mean, Mr. Carrick of course, but where, I wonder, is Mr. Louis Hughes?”
She ground her teeth together for a moment before she said, “Mr. Hughes is in our East Coast Office. He couldn’t possibly make it here in time for the meeting.”
“Well, I guess we’ll have to wait for Mr. Carrick, and we’ll see where this fun little conference leads, won’t we?” replied Sam
“Where are Mr. Egils and Mr. Seta?”
“Well, much like Mr. Hughes, Mr. Egils is too far away to get here in time. He’s recovering from your torture quite nicely, by the way. Shame on you.”
Completely unmoved, Shannon asked, “And Mr. Seta?”
“Drustan doesn’t play nice. I decided it was better for all of us to put him somewhere safe. If he was here, he’d be trying to kill you.
She laughed as three more security men arrived and Mr. Carrick stepped up beside her. “You should have brought him. You might have had a chance to make it out of here. As it stands now, you and your two subordinates will be coming with us, and after we’ll go get Mr. Egils and Mr. Seta.”
“How do you think you’re going to pull that off?” Sam asked.
Into my mic, I said, "Sightline clear, target acquired."
Frank replied with a terse, "Roger." while Sam only smiled wider.
Carrick spoke for the first time, “Come now, Trickster, you have to know how this is going to work. We are going to take you. We don’t want to make it violent here in public, but you either walk with us down this mountain or these ten men surround you three with their stun guns and we carry you down. “Victims” of heat stroke or dehydration or whatever story gets people to shut up and look the other way.”
“Do you think that would work? There have to be two or three dozen people wandering around this rock right now. We’ll fight, and we’ll be loud.”
“And we have one pistol,” Jesse added with a smile.
“Pull your gun and we pull our ten. We have more than stun guns, I assure you. So yes, It’ll work. We have a few skills we use in these situations. It’s been done many times before. Believe me, you three are coming with us.”
“Ah yes. Your magic.” Sam replied. “Which God is it? Who is so close to returning that they have given you the means to shape reality?”
There was a dead silence while Carrick and Byrnes looked at each other out of the corners of their eyes quickly and then turned back to face Sam. It was brief, but even over a drone camera, I could see they were rattled.
“Magic?” Carrick asked.
“Enough. No lies. Let’s not waste each other's time. I know far more than I let on in my little video. You’re extremely close to bringing a God back, that much is obvious. Is it a South American God? Celtic? Certainly not Norse?” Sam asked, “My money is on South America, but I’m really only guessing that because of all your work in Peru and Chile. I guess Celtic would be the obvious choice though.”
Byrnes smiled a nasty smile, “You’re not as smart as you think, Mr. Trickster.” She looked over at Carrick and they stepped back behind the line of security surrounding Sam, Damon, and Jesse.
The goons started forward, but Sam held up his hands again and said, “Wait! Isn’t there something we can do to negotiate some sort of coexistence? I’m serious when I say I’m not against a God or two here on Earth.”
They paused, and Carrick said, “Sure. Give us the two troublemakers right now and come with us to Baltimore. As our guest.”
Sam smiled, “Guest? What are my assurances? I have no love for Dru, you can have him as far as I’m concerned. He’s been nothing but a pain in my ass. Mr. Egils, on the other hand. Well, I’ve kind of grown to respect him a little bit. Are you sure you need him?”
I snarled to myself, I knew he was bluffing for the sake of getting knowledge, but screw him. I didn’t have much love for him either.
“Non-negotiable. We get them both,” said Carrick.
“As far as assurances,” Byrnes said, “What would work for you? What could we say that you’ll trust?”
“Well, first I guess you’ll need to tell me why Baltimore?”
“Because some asshole terrorist destroyed our Dallas building today.” cut in Carrick.
Heh. That was actually pretty good.
“Plus, that’s where Mr. Hughes is.” finished Ms. Byrne.
Off to the side, Damon grunted and swayed on his feet. In all the fun, I hadn’t noticed him. He was sweating and looked like he was barely able to stand. I didn’t understand what was going on, but it was clear Sam did. His face turned grim and he looked back to Byrnes and Carrick. “We need to move this along, my associate isn’t feeling well.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Carrick asked suspiciously.
“Fever, I think. He’s worked too hard planning a surprise party,” Sam answered. “He needs rest.”
“Well then, Trickster, decide. Are you coming peacefully, or are my men coming to take you?”
Sam sighed dramatically and struck a pose like a boxer out of the 1800s, fists raised and arms moving in small circles. “I guess you’ll have to come and take it.”
Carrick and Byrnes blinked with incomprehension and Sam shook his head sadly, “Nobody appreciates the classics anymore. You’re standing in Texas, damn it.”
They stood there for a few more seconds so Sam added, “No. It means no. Come get me, you sons-a-bitches.” Jesse moved up and stood in front of both Sam and Damon with his hands up like he was going to fight ten trained soldiers from Broadhead, all of whom were pulling out their tasers.
Behind the soldiers, Byrnes and Carrick reached out joined hands as they started a quiet chanting. Sam said out loud, “Now would be a good time. They’re about to throw some magic at us.”
Over the headset, Frank said the single-word command, “Go.”
I pulled the trigger and watched through the scope as Jesse smoothly reached into his waistband pulled out the pistol and started shooting at the soldiers on his left, closest to where the flake was attached to the main rock. Sam turned and jumped off the flake onto the narrow shelf behind him.
Then my bullet finally got there and took Mr. Carrick in the head, which then disintegrated all over Ms. Byrnes.
Almost as one, the Broadhead soldiers disguised as security guards in suits dropped their stun guns, reached for their pistols, and charged Jesse, who had grabbed Damon and turned to jump down onto the shelf with Sam. Two soldiers managed to pull the triggers of their guns and they ran forward, one striking Jesse with a glancing blow, turning him away from Damon.
And then those poor sonsabitches enthusiastically and professionally ran off the cliff into the gap between the flake and the main summit. Like they never even saw it there. Because they hadn’t. Damon had created an illusion that it was solid rock.
Five of them were near the outer edge and they never even made a sound as they almost comically sprinted off into space and fell seventy-five feet onto the rocks below.
At the other end of the flake where the gap was much smaller, three ran off the edge and smashed into the flake on the other side. Two of them slipped down the gap and fell to their deaths. One held on to the flake and began pulling his way up.
Jesse had put the two on his far left down with double taps, and straightening up, he walked over to them, putting one more into the skull of each. I could see blood on his left arm. He walked over to the man hanging on to the flake for dear life, said "Sorry about this." and shot him in the head.
I think it barely needs to be mentioned that tourists all over the summit started screaming and running down the trail. Many reached for their cell phones, but Sam had taken care of that right before the Druids had arrived at the top of the rock. There was no cell reception for about twenty miles around the Rock. Fredericksburg was down entirely.
Damon swayed one more time, collapsed onto the flake, and would have fallen off if Sam hadn’t been standing on the lower ledge behind him laughing hysterically. He reached up and grabbed onto his body after he fell down on the rock.
Ms. Byrnes had been standing there in shock, staring at the carnage of what had once been her cohort, and her eyes widened even further as she seemed to see the large gap between the flake and the summit for the first time and she turned to stare in horror at Sam.
Sam looked at her with a malice I had never seen on his face before and he said a single word as if passing a death sentence upon her, “Magic.”
She screamed and turned to flee. She made it about five steps before she twisted her ankle and crashed down onto the granite surface of Enchanted Rock.
Sam stalked over to the edge of the flake and leaped to the summit. He walked to Shannon Byrnes and stood over her, saying, “Not what you were expecting, you Druid bitch?”
Terrified, she asked, “Who are you? What are you?”
Using his Voice, Sam said, “I am Raven, and you are my enemy.”
Everyone flinched as massive feedback blared through our headsets and they all went dead.
Because the headsets died, Frank was cut off from communicating with us, and I could not hear what Sam and Ms. Byrnes were saying, but the drone had stayed up in the air despite a moment of static from the camera and a steep, but momentary dive from the drone itself. So we were at least able to watch what transpired next.
Sam turned to Jesse and said something to him. He shook his head yes, walked over to Damon, and began helping him to rise and walk off the flake and back onto the summit. Damon looked completely exhausted, but he waved to Jesse in affirmation of whatever Jesse had asked him.
Sam turned back to Shannon and knelt. He reached out to her and she flinched away from him, still visibly terrified. He roughly grabbed her chin, turned her face to look up at him, and began speaking. Her terror soon melted away and she visibly relaxed.
Then, the most incredible thing happened. She smiled. And she started talking. Sam listened.
As I said, all the tourists on the rock had run off screaming as soon as Jessie fired his gun, so I figured we were short on time, but Sam sat there next to her as if he had all the time in the world.
He asked a few questions and she answered them. On the third answer, he stood up and rocked back as if he had been slapped. Jesse looked shocked and turned to stare at Ms. Byrnes and Sam started yelling at her. Shannon looked confused and upset that she was being yelled at, and tried to explain to Sam whatever it was they were talking about. Her expression was earnest and she seemed desperate to make Sam understand what she was saying.
Sam stood up and screamed to the heavens. Jesse, Damon, and Shannon slapped their hands over their ears, and I, from almost a mile away on Dutch Mountain, heard it clear as a bell. It was a scream of rage and loss. I felt it on a visceral level that almost turned my bowels to water, and I was forcibly reminded that Sam was a God, whose voice was a Power. Suddenly, I was very happy to be so far away from him.
Sam turned away from Shannon as if she no longer existed and gave a single terse order to Jesse that was something along the lines of “Let’s go” because they both helped Damon and started walking down the path to the base of the mountain.
After walking about a hundred feet, Sam turned back to Shannon and said something that must have broken the spell because she looked at him and her face took on that terror again as she huddled up, turning her back to Sam. He, Jesse, and Damon turned back to the path and walked away.
The three of them left her curled up there on the top of the granite mound. After they got out of sight, she struggled up into a sitting position put her head into her hands, and sobbed for a few seconds, getting herself under control. Eventually, she struggled to her knees and gingerly stood up to put some weight on her injured ankle. She looked around at the now empty space of Enchanted Rocks summit and limped a few steps towards the trail down. She wobbled in obvious pain and she seemed to realize something that made her stop and turn to look out in the general direction I had sent my sniper fire at them.
The bullet took her in the center of her chest and flung her off her feet and onto her back. Through my scope, I watched her take three shuddering breaths before her chest stopped rising and falling. I took out two painkillers and dry-swallowed them while I watched her die. Then I quickly broke down my rifle and spotting scope and hauled ass down Davis Mountain to await pickup from Sam.
That made two-thirds of my promise to Sarah finished. I had to kill one more asshole and he was in Baltimore, a few hours away from my house. Phase two of the mission was complete. Time to plan phase three.
