 
### Little Wolf

### By

### R. Kane
Little Wolf

By R. Kane

Smashwords Edition | Copyright 2014 R. Kane

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may be given away to other people. In fact, it's encouraged so if you would like to share this book with another person, please feel free to pass it along. Thank you for reading the hard work of this author.

http://www.rkanepublications.com

' _What the_ _philosophers call character is an incurable disease.'_

Friedrich Nietzsche 'On Ethics', 1868

The boat ride was mercifully short and rough as hell due to the pouring rains and howling winds of one bitch of a raging storm. The dark clouds hid the setting sun as a single fishing trawler fought its way through the storm to a destination no one could yet see. Samuel Swift Crow, the last name he never used while in the teams, hadn't been back on the water since leaving the Navy some six years ago and his return was admittedly less than memorable as he leaned on the railing keeping his balance as the ship rocked. There was plenty of room on the fantail of the fishing trawler, the only boat he knew of going out to the small island off the Maine coast where Harris (the name he used while in the Military) and the others stood. The others were four men, and all were young and ill-equipped from what he saw, in gear and training, for the night ahead, Swift Crow thought. Samuel reached under his Gore-Tex jacket, past a warm fleece pullover, and felt the reassurance of the black material of the custom combat shirt keeping him warm while mentally gauging the men around him one more time. Not one of the young men wore a waterproof jacket to protect them from the rain and while he wore black BDU's with special combat boots designed custom for particular clandestine work not one of the other young fighters wore anything that looked even comparable. Hell, two of them were wearing regular jeans with cowhide work boots. They were apparent amateurs, probably ex-grunts from some Military infantry unit lured out here to the unknown by the promise of a substantial payday. What these amateurs didn't understand though, a hard rule was the fact that the more the amount of said payday grew it also exponentially increased the chance of death for whatever you were being paid to do. Hell, it even upped the gruesomeness of the way your life might end. Swift Crow had learned, more than once, that an offer of an excessive and obscene amount of money was equaled only by an immeasurable amount of unexpected danger and unforeseen consequences that no amount of preparation or experience could prepare you to face. Yeah, Samuel was older by far compared to the others, but with that age came the experience of conducting numerous espionage missions and completing 'black bag' ops for certain three-letter agencies. Too many covert missions if you asked him, which is why he had always turned down these types of offers from the peddlers looking for his specific skill set, the kind of job where you get paid that huge of money when its all over

The payment was never enough, and in the end, it never felt right to him to take the cash. Sam had seen many a good man lose his life to some stray bullet that would have missed if not for a skipped piece of intel, men whose families would never know the whys and the hows of what happened to their loved ones. No amount of money was worth burying a colleague, a friend, and brother in arms, and then having to look his widow or fiancée in their tear-filled eyes and tell them 'sorry, I don't know what happened to him.' The lying, that's what tore him up at night.

Samuel pulled the black wool cap on his head down tighter and made a quick check of the deck's occupants once again, the count was still four. Swift Crow then looked at his hands and began to rub the rainwater between them in an attempt to keep the appendages clean, maybe wash away a stain even though there wasn't a spot on the tan flesh. Swift Crow then turned his attention from his hands back to the bow of the ship, which was breaking the waves with a tremendous splash, and watched as a single dock appeared out of the storm like a ghost just off the starboard side. Even looking at the pier, Samuel still kept track of the others on the deck with the usual practice. His mother didn't raise a fool, and the SEAL chiefs in BUDS didn't train one. The trawler suddenly shuddered as the captain put the engines in reverse and on cue the first mate appeared on deck ready to tie off the ship to the dock.

He reached down and picked up the single black bag sitting just against his leg on top of an old box to keep it off the wet deck. Something else the other four didn't do Swift Crow noted, obvious amateurs he told himself with a sigh. The weight of the bag in his hand brought back old feelings, pure sweet reassurance. All the tools necessary for Sam's old life felt good being back in his grasp again, even if he was about to go to war with four of the most unprepared men he had ever come across in his special ops career. The reassurance also made him ill for a split second because with that assured feeling came the old memories and dark nature of war, that side of him he had hoped was shut off but came alive now way too quickly for his liking. He watched the first mate leap down to the dock while holding the bowline in his hand and a minute later, the boat was tied off and moored. Swift Crow moved and followed the other men as they jumped down from the side of the trawler and onto the dock. The wood creaked loudly from the men's weight signaling the old pier might fall into the water at any moment, but not a soul moved to walk onto the island. They just calmly stood on the worn dock waiting till all had disembarked.

"What are you looking at?"

Swift Crow turned to see a young black muscular man staring menacingly at the first mate who didn't give a damn about the look because he just leaped back onto the fishing boat with the bowline in hand again. The man of color turned to walk away when the first mate answered his question with that usual Maine accent like there was never a thing to worry about at all. "Well, I just watched five men carrying identical black bags land on a piece of rock that has nothing on it except some large old house and a slew of run-down shacks that was at one time a fishing village, many, many years ago. Just makes a man wonder is all." And with the exchange done, the fishing boat pulled away from the rickety dock. It slipped into the rainy haze and out of sight while the men watched.

"Man, screw that cracker!" The young black man spat and walked away up the pier.

Hope you don't take a good look in the engine room bud, Swift Crow thought as he watched the group move off up the pier and then rise before he began to walk after them. The words from the first mate grinding in his head with every step. All five men carried the same type of black bags, and they all rode on the same boat to get the island, this was most certainly not the normal he was used to Swift Crow thought. Whoever's running this op needs to take a day course on setting up the travel arrangements for your super-secret assault team because this group did a terrible job of keeping a low profile he surmised, and now walking in a single file line toward their final destination, we must look like a herd of cattle going into the slaughterhouse. Swift Crow made a mental note of how they arrived, maybe we should have worn name tags and had some punch on the dock while getting to know each other. The line of men continued to march along a marked path, a rope with a red flag attached every ten feet showed them the way to where ever it was they were going. No one spoke a word, just held their heads low to the wind and rain as they walked alongside the rope. First, there was nothing to look at, and then shacks began to appear on the edge of their sight, run down and ram shackled abodes popping up out the dark. Twenty minutes later, an old three-story house came into view, right on time, Swift Crow judged as night was on them and already decreasing their prep time. The house was old, just like the first mate had said, but it wasn't in bad shape from what they could tell. The Victorian was out of place on the island though, the steeple roof stood out like a sore thumb in contrast to the shacks they passed. They stepped onto the front porch, thankful to be out of the rain and cold, but no one made a move to open the door. They each just looked from one to the other waiting for someone else to be the first to open the portal.

"Bollocks blokes, just open the bleeding door!" The tall white man said with a British accent. Swift Crow made another mental note; this one about the man as he watched him open the door with a quick push and step inside the house. This guy seemed to want the job of being the self-appointed leader, so Samuel decided he could have it for the moment. When and if he needed, he'd take control. The men ducked one-by-one through the portal quickly to get out of the elements.

The inside was dry but just as cold as the outside. No heat or warmth for this job, Swift Crow thought, too much like the old days. There was no furniture, no lights except for LED lanterns, and not a touch of a human presence except for the man standing in the center of the large front room holding a briefcase and a woman and her daughter standing just to his side. The group of men stood across the expansive foyer from the trio, the man shifting his weight from one foot to the other as if impatient because the group was late. Samuel moved silently and took a spot off to the right side away from the others, a quiet attempt to distance himself, and began to slide off his wet Gore-Tex jacket and watch cap exposing a head of short black hair shot through with grey and white. He knew the man with the briefcase was either a lawyer or a gopher by the expensive shoes and cheap suit he wore, someone of low importance wherever he worked when he wasn't picking out hired guns off the Internet. The woman was a redhead, as was her daughter, with sharp facial features. Both exotic beauties from European decent Swift Crow thought. The women were dressed in leather coats, sleek dress pants, and expensive boots from a designer. He looked down, seeing his fleece pullover, BDU's, and combat boots and wondered just exactly who was more out of place in the environment. Maybe someone should call Norm from the 'New Yankee Workshop.' He'd fit right in with this place. Yet it wasn't the way the pair was dressed that caught his attention as much as it was the look in their eyes, the fear there was too easy to spot, and it was growing.

"Nice to see that you gentlemen finally had the good sense to arrive. I've been waiting here for some time due to your lateness." The lawyer spat rather impatiently.

"You want punctual then you should have stopped the rain." One of the men said with a southern accent pulling off a wet bush hat. His hair was cut into a classic 'high and tight,' a Marine Swift Crow instantly assumed to himself.

"Yes, well, you're here. I don't want to be here, and I need to explain what needs to be done so I can leave. Please listen without interrupting as this will be the only time I'll be giving you your instructions." The lawyer said producing a set of five envelopes from his briefcase. "You have all been contracted by my employer to do a critical job, and if you complete the said job, a handsome reward awaits one of you back on the mainland."

"One of us," The young colored man asked mimicking the lawyer.

"You were recruited to protect my employer's significant package here for the night." The lawyer, now the acting narrator, continued ignoring the black man's question while throwing the envelopes on the floor. "The envelopes here contain the address to a certain hotel on the mainland, which has a rather large safe, and a key. In that safe is a box that one of the keys in these envelopes will open. Inside the box is five million dollars that will go to the man who can leave the island with my employer's package. Each of you will possess a single key at the start of the night, but whether the key you have will open the box with the money will be an unknown until you try it."

"We're human beings you ass!" The woman suddenly hissed with an Irish accent. The girl she guarded and held began to cry into her stomach where her face was hidden. Irish, well that explains the European facial features Samuel thought sliding off his fleece pullover, and there was that fear again in the eyes of the pair. The sight made Swift Crow wince, but he held his emotion in check as the lawyer spoke up.

"Are there any questions? None, good," the lawyer asked and answered quickly, trying to walk for the door while ignoring the woman's remark. And hopefully any inquiries from the men carrying the black bags. He got two steps there before the Marine, and the British man stopped him with a combined body block.

The lawyer looked up and remarked with disdain. "I take it we have a question?"

"What exactly are we protecting them from, that is assuming the woman and her progeny make up the 'package'?" The British man asked.

"I am not at liberty to say what is coming for the package, only that you are to guard it till first light." The lawyer responded, trying to walk out again. This time the Marine got directly in the man's face with a silent death stare.

"If we kick your ass bad enough will you suddenly have the 'liberty' to tell us whatever we want to know Mr. Cheap-Suit." The muscular black man stated with a malicious grin from where he stood off to the side. That one's real cocky Samuel thought, another mental note written in his mind about the man.

The Marine sneered and remarked coldly ignoring the black man's comment for the moment as stared hard and mean at the lawyer. "You need to explain this whole 'one' key thing a little more because it doesn't make all that much sense to me, and I hate being in the dark."

"I think it's pretty simple," Swift Crow heard himself say out loud suddenly while pilling the Gore-Tex jacket and fleece up at his feet, "we all showed up for a big payday, but only one of us is going to walk away with the money. You know, sort of a last man standing kind of a thing."

"Is that it Cheap-Suit, the man with the most keys at the end wins?" The Marine asked the lawyer with a mean grin.

"The older gentleman in the back picks up things very fast for a senior citizen. I'm no mathematician, but even I know it is better odds with five tries then just one if you get my intention. Now, if that's all gentlemen?" He asked, trying to leave again. The Marine's hand shot out and grabbed the man's jacket.

"I have a few more questions suit," the Marine barked, but before the lawyer with the briefcase could say a thing the woman answered for him.

"You've all been bought, like a bunch of whores, by my husband. If any of you were smart, you would have stayed on the boat that brought you here and let this place be damned!"

"Sorry pretty momma, but the boat left thirty minutes ago, and I don't think it'll be back till morning." The black man said with a leer at her.

"What? The boat wasn't supposed to leave until I was aboard, there were explicit instructions! Damn you, let me go!" The lawyer with the briefcase squealed breaking free from the Marine's grasp. He was out the door and into the pouring rain and darkness before anyone could stop him.

The British man spat in disgust watching the lawyer run before turning back to the others. "Oh, bloody hell! There goes our source of intel!"

"No need to worry English. We have a nice, sweet source for information right over there. All we have to do is ask the little lady our questions, and I'm sure she'll answer them all for us." The Marine said with an evil grin that was a perfect match to the muscular black man's.

The mother instantly directed her daughter behind her with a quick push of one hand while the other reached into her jacket pocket. The defensive maneuver, a hateful look for the men accompanying it, smelled of the fear she had been trying to conceal. The testosterone in the room went into overdrive as the hired guns began to size up the woman and her daughter, especially one in particular. The Marine moved in with a snarl, his hand resting on a large K-Bar knife at his hip. Who knows what might have happened next if Swift Crow hadn't stepped in to stop the advance of the Marine.

"You know, don't you think we need to worry about a few other things right now, like just who we all are and what each of us can do." He said it loud enough to grab everyone's attention while shoving the wet pile of jackets into a corner behind him with the back of his foot. The remark was made to catch the men's attention in the room, and it worked to perfection.

The Marine stopped dead in his tracks while the black man eyed him suspiciously. The Brit set his jaw, and the fourth man who had been keeping quiet all this time paid Samuel little attention as he unzipped the black bag he brought. The Marine stepped up close enough to be face to face with the old man in the room, looked around, and then back before addressing Swift Crow with a contemptuous why-the-hell-do-you-even-matter manner.

"Really, old man, why should I worry about that? Why should I even worry about you at all?"

"Use your head for a second kid," Samuel responded, opening his black bag and pulling out the custom modified AR-15 with a rail system and suppressor he brought along. The appearance of the rifle equipped with special scout light mounted on the left side, AIMPOINT Tactical sights, and front grip made the Marine instinctively take a step back while Swift Crow continued. "You didn't take this job without thinking about it first, right? We didn't come out here with the promise of five million dollars to just sit, have a drink or two, and swap a bunch of war stories. It's like the lawyer said, we have to protect the package from something, and based on the fact he just ran out of here to catch a boat that's already on its way back to the mainland, whatever it is coming for the package won't be sweet or nice. The sooner we start working together, the better, right?"

"Whatever man, all I have to do is protect my beautiful black ass from you four. That money is mine and mine alone, people!" The black man called out with a smirk.

Swift Crow just grinned and remarked coldly while still eyeing the Marine the same, "money's no good in hell, soldier."

"Yeah, that's right yank, you got the right idea." The Brit spoke up, ignoring the black man's comments. "We need to know what each of us specializes in so we can formulate a good defense, I'll go first. My name is Will Jacobs, British Special Air Service."

Well, that was a lie Samuel noted looking to the Brit. He spent time around the SAS, and those guys didn't show up to a fight unless they were prepared for the Apocalypse and knew where the exit was just in case the end of days got hairy. This guy Jacobs may have been in the British Army at some point, but anything more than that was just bullshit. He wasn't anywhere near as prepared as a real SAS operator would have been.

"I'm Rodger Thomas, was a US Ranger at one time." The black man called out while sliding the bolt on his Colt XM-177 closed.

Maybe he was one of the Army Elite Swift Crow thought, his run-ins with the Rangers was limited, but still it was hard to buy the story when Thomas wore Timberland boots and FuBu jeans to an op. What, did he think they were just going to run down to the club and make it 'rain' on a bunch of strippers? He looked around and noted with the crew here, that kind of a mission might be asking way too much.

"I'm Peter Davis, just got the boot from the US Marine Corp, Recon." The Marine spoke up with a sneer, producing an AK-47 with a suppressor from his bag.

Seriously, Marine Recon, who were these guys trying to kid with this stuff? A Marine Recon with a Kalashnikov rifle, really? Sam had worked with Recon before, and those guys only carried and killed with American made things, be it knife or gun or water bottle.

The fourth finally spoke up as he stood and slammed a clip home in his Bushmaster M-17. "I'm Patrick McGillis, Ex-US Ranger."

The room was quiet suddenly as the men all stood looking at Swift Crow, waiting to find out who the old man was in this motley crew. He kept quiet though, inspecting his gun and then ammo clips before putting the metal boxes into the many pouches that hung on the black nylon tactical vest he had put on over his combat shirt. Finally, Davis, the Recon Marine, decided he had waited long enough and walked over to Swift Crow getting into his face again.

"You feel like sharing with the rest of us, or do we have to ask you to leave?"

A moment passed before he spoke, but when he did the ripple in the room was like a tidal wave in a bathtub. "My name is Samuel Swift Crow, Lakota." He smiled, feeling better for using the name given to him by his father. It felt good to say it just like Grandfather said it would be Sam thought with a small smile. Before going into the Navy, he changed his name because it always took anyone outside the reservation about three seconds to make a 'Tonto' reference or ask if he was a Chief. Some did it out of true ignorance and some just to see if they could get a rise out of the 'Red' man. He didn't want to deal with that kind of stuff when he was in SEALS, and once BUDS was done, Swift Crow learned he wouldn't have to. The Teams were a brotherhood of warriors, and your ethnicity didn't figure one bit with anyone in them.

The Marine shook his head and retorted quickly, "Don't know that name, and I really don't care if you're an Indian or not, Tonto."

Yep, took all of three seconds. "I use to go by another name, Samuel Harris, retired SEAL." Swift Crow spoke calmly letting the intolerant remark pass. His satisfaction came as a gasp went up in the room, the reaction of the men noted in his mental log with a sweet smile.

Davis stepped back, again, immediately while Thomas and Jacobs looked to each other with shock. McGillis was the only one who didn't seem surprised, probably because he was too busy eyeing the woman and the daughter with a look of disgust. Swift Crow noted that entry high in his mental log and marked it with an exclamation point. He'd need to keep an eye out for McGillis.

"The 'Samuel Harris', everyone said you were MIA or just dead?" Davis said with a shake of his head.

"Hardly, I've just been lying low for a while, been using my real name." Swift Crow remarked, pulling a double combat holster from his black bag. He eyed the mass of envelopes on the floor where the lawyer left them.

"So I guess all the stories I've heard about you are true, huh? I mean, a man of your reputation must be nothing short of being the baddest mother walking the planet, right?" Thomas asked, stepping over to the pile of envelopes.

"I guess we all get to find out tonight? You were planning on passing those out, right?" Swift Crow asked the ex-Ranger with a cocked eyebrow as he finished snapping on the low slung double rig.

Thomas let a big smile slip across his face as he bent down and picked up the pile of envelopes. There was almost a second where Swift Crow thought he saw a look in the ex-Ranger's eyes, the kind where a person dares you to take something out of their hands if you can. Then Thomas threw the large manila folders to each person labeled on the front in big block letters. Samuel took the envelope and put it under his combat shirt next to his chest, as good a spot as any he figured. McGillis almost missed catching his pouch because he was still busy eyeing the mother and daughter, which was beginning to really annoy Swift Crow, that kind of obsession isn't healthy or proper he thought as he slid two Colt forty-five's into the holsters that were positioned on the side of his thighs after checking to make sure a round was in the pipe of both. All the men were busy loading and getting weapons ready when the rain outside began to pick up, and the wind blew hard enough to howl with an eerie high pitch drawing their eyes away. Samuel used the distraction and walked over to the mother while taking a deep breath. "Ma'am, if we are going to protect you, then we need to know as much as possible to get through the night. Do you know who's coming for you?"

"You don't care about protecting me! The money is all you care about!" The mother spit, her words like venom.

"I don't get the money unless you and your daughter are alive, or so the lawyer says." Swift Crow responded, ignoring the vitriol while calmly trying to soothe the woman with his voice.

"I don't trust you, Mr. Crow, so stop trying to be my friend!" The woman hissed sharply.

Samuel nodded and smiled warmly letting the anger pass him by, "It's Swift Crow, two separate words used together to form a surname."

The woman just shook her head looking at all the men as she spoke coldly, "it doesn't matter does it since all you want is the money, Mr. Swift Crow."

"Well then, it was nice talking with you, ma'am, guess I'll have to save you anyway to prove my point," Samuel remarked with his slight smile before turning back to the group of men. "I'm going to go upstairs and check out the lay of the land. Maybe someone should do the same down here."

"Good idea, we'll start barricading the downstairs with whatever we can find lying around," Jacobs answered back as a groan slipped from Davis's lips. Guess he did think we'd just talk the night away Swift Crow thought as he headed upstairs via the stairs.

The woman watched Samuel walk upstairs, but not before pulling one last item from his black bag. An olive-green satchel, the size of a football, went quickly over Swift Crow's right shoulder as he went upstairs. She started to worry about the man finding the secret room on the second floor too soon, but then pushed the thoughts out of her head. All hell would break loose soon enough, and she knew she had to stick to the plan. A chance at escape would only come once and she had to grab it with both hands, for both her and daughter.

Their lives depended on it.

Dan Wilcox wasn't your typical lawyer by any stretch of the imagination, and that was the gospel truth. He'd seen the inside of a courtroom only twice, and both times it was a blood bath for him and his client. The judge almost broke his gavel the second time. The man hit it so hard on his bench while admonishing Dan at the top of his lungs that the gavel sounded like thunder. The screaming was so bad the lawyer never went back to the courthouse after the verdict was read for fear of running into the judge again. No sir! Dan was not a good lawyer at all, but he had other qualities that surely made up the difference. You see, Dan knew certain people, the kind of people who did certain things for a certain amount of money. Is there a person making a problem in your life? Do you want to get rid of the said problem but don't want to deal with the 'mess' it makes? Well then, just call Dan Wilcox, the agent for 'special men and women' who deal with 'special situations.' He thought that last line up himself. Kind of spiffy, don't you think? Not good enough it seems Wilcox thought. How did I end up here, an 'agent' for mercenaries with a sweet brand slogan on this old dock? How did I end up in a torrential downpour standing here, on some ass-end-of-the-world island off the coast of Maine?

"A pair of green eyes ringed by fiery red hair and an Irish accent," Wilcox muttered pulling his raincoat tighter around his shoulders.

Then his ears picked up something, even with the rain and wind whipping around his head. It was a growl, no wait, a groan maybe. Whatever the sound was, it sent a shiver up the lawyer's spine and suddenly being outside wasn't such a good idea anymore. The sound came again, and this time Wilcox definitely knew it wasn't a growl and it wasn't a groan. It was breathing, a deep rumble from a large chest. Oh yeah, this wasn't a good time to be outside he thought over and over abruptly. Wilcox turned back to the rope and began to pull himself back toward the abandoned hotel, it wasn't much for defense he thought, but the guys with guns were there, and that was always a plus.

Swift Crow came downstairs after a few minutes to find the others hard at work boarding up the windows and the front door. The question of where the group got the hammer and nails popped into his mind as his eyes swept the room, taking more mental notes. Standing well enough away from the hired help, the 'package' watched intently as everyone worked while McGillis eyed the woman back just harshly. In all the hurry to re-enforce their position, not one of the men noticed Swift Crow had dropped the satchel by the wall. They never would have even if they were paying attention. Swift Crow looked down to his palms again, pulled out a water bottle stored on his belt rig beside his knife, and washed his hands a second time. He looked up just quick enough to see the little girl watching him curiously. Swift Crow smiled at her while drying his hands on the sides of his pants when the Brit spoke up, breaking his connection with the little one.

"What's the upstairs look like?" Jacobs asked suddenly from the side.

"Six rooms, three evenly spaced along the east and west wall, just at the top of the stairs. There's no way to make the third floor, the stairs are gone." Swift Crow answered without turning around so he could keep an eye on the other men, especially one. He didn't feel right about letting McGillis out of his sight for a second.

"Are any of the rooms solid enough to give us some protection?" Jacobs asked quickly.

Swift Crow turned to him finally and flashed a small smile. "All the rooms look pretty bad, but the west ones will probably hold up a little longer than the east ones."

Jacobs smiled with a nod. "Now you wouldn't be giving me a bit of false information yank, get me to make a mistake, and you move in for my key."

"Guess you'll find out if we have to evac upstairs. Where did all the hammers, nails, and wood come from?" Swift Crow asked back.

"Found it all stacked neatly in what was the kitchen at one time. The Marine wanted to make weapons with the nails, but I convinced him it would be better served to fortify the front walls." Jacobs said watching the last nail go in place.

"Now how did nails, hammers, and wood get neatly stacked out here I wonder?" Swift Crow inquired rhetorically eyeing the woman and her daughter again.

"I got one better than that. The rains turned to a fine mist, and there's a fog rolling in fast from the west." Thomas called out from a window.

"So?" Davis remarked sarcastically.

"The wind's blowing north to south at 15 to 20 miles per hour, the fogs not even stopping or breaking up."

The room fell quiet as Davis walked over to peer out the boarded-up window from between the slats. Swift Crow turned his attention from the woman and her daughter to the window and Thomas. He cracked the knuckles on his right hand and then on his left hand with a loud pop. It was just about time to get this op rolling, he thought. "Let's take up positions. The fun's about to begin, I think." Swift Crow said feeling the sweet weight of the AR-15 in his hands and arms as the custom sling that went around his shoulder settled in.

Thank heavens the rain stopped Wilcox thought, he could quit pulling on the rope and concentrate on walking fast. The house and the men with guns were just ahead, so he pushed his legs harder, trying to keep ahead of the fast-moving fog. The breathing was still there with him; floating all around, chasing him as if he were some kind of an animal. Wilcox didn't look back. He didn't want to see what was chasing him. His imagination told him the thing was scaly with large cat eyes and claws that would rip all of his flesh free from the bone in seconds. His legs pumped faster as all he cared about was getting inside the house and behind those heavily armed, specially trained men. His feet finally touched the wooden steps of the porch and Wilcox breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Then he felt something touch the back of his leg, just above the knee, and the man lost all his control giving into pure panic.

"Hey, the lawyer dude's back! I guess he figured out we locked the front door, huh?" Thomas yelled out, refusing to turn away from the boarded window.

Davis looked out just as the Wilcox's hand came through the opening between the boards covering the window almost hitting him the face. "Whoa, he looks a little scared to me. Say, anyone, want to let him in?" He said with an unusually cruel look on his face while dodging the man's flailing hand.

"OPEN THE DOOR! THEY'RE AFTER ME, LET ME IN!" Wilcox screamed hysterically.

"Don't open the door! We can't take any chances!" Jacobs ordered loudly.

Swift Crow watched the sick scene play out in front of him, but he also used it as a distraction again, slowly sliding over the woman and her daughter. "The second we start to fire I want you to run for the stairs and get into the back room on the right. You know the one you had fixed up, get inside and wait for me."

"I don't follow your orders, Mr. Swift Crow." The woman spat back.

"I haven't got the time to play with you, Maggie! You have no idea how much danger you and Amanda are in because I can tell you that sub -9mm handgun you brought along won't stop a thing, and the backroom you fortified won't stand up either. If you don't start following my orders neither of you will live to see the morning much less get off this island!" Swift Crow hissed sharply trying not to attract attention to them while taking control of the conversation.

"How did you know my name? How did you know about the gun and the room?" Maggie asked with a shocked look and a matching whisper. The anger that braced her spine just a moment before was gone now as she realized what Sam had said.

"I know about your escape plan, Maggie, and I know it's not going to work. You have no choice but to trust me or Amanda will die."

"How do you know what I have planned?" Maggie demanded with her voice full of fear.

"Just run for the room and get inside no matter what!" Samuel hissed again.

"How do you know about me?" Maggie demanded a second time with a harsh whisper.

Swift Crow didn't have time to answer, though as he turned and went back to the others. If the SEAL was worried about attracting attention he didn't need to, the men were too busy teasing and playing with Wilcox, who had become deranged with fear. He was trying to shove his whole body through the gaps in the boards over the window, and he was partially succeeding. Davis and Thomas howled gleefully as the lawyer sickeningly pushed one arm and his head through the gaps.

"You're not going to fit man!" Thomas screamed between laughs.

"No, wait! I'll bet you ten dollars he'll make it!" Davis guffawed.

"LET ME IN! LET ME IN!" Wilcox chanted over and over like a mantra, seemingly willing his body through the opening no matter how small.

"Listen, mate," Jacobs said, walking over, trying to get the lawyer to calm down, "you're not going to fit through that bloody hole so-. "

The British SAS soldier didn't finish the rest. He never had the chance to as something outside in the fog decided to interrupt their conversation, and whatever it was it had to be quite significant as the house shook from its approach. In the blink of an eye, the military training kicked in as the men brought their weapons up pointing at the wall and the source of the sound. A second later, the house shook again as Jacobs backed away from a terrorized Wilcox. With the approaching thuds, the lawyer redoubled his efforts to gain entry to the safety of the house. He tried hard enough to dislocate his shoulder, a loud wet pop emanating from the joint when it slipped inside finally.

"What the hell was that? It sounds like it was just outside on the front porch." Davis asked with a snap. His voice quivered with fear.

"I don't know, but I think it likes the taste of lawyers," Jacobs whispered with the business end of his rifle never wavering from following the noise.

"LET ME IN! LET ME IN PLEASE!" Wilcox began to cry. Swift Crow would have put a round in the terrified man's head just to put the poor bastard out of his misery, but the thing outside had other plans. The lawyer began to kick at whatever it was that held of him, trying to keep it from doing what it wanted to do. His plan didn't work though because Wilcox suddenly screamed one last time and then he disappeared from the hole with a flash. The snatch, fast enough that everyone had to do a double-take, caught the armed men by surprise, making some take a step back. Thomas though ran over to the window just as another boom shook the house.

"What is it, man?" Davis whined.

"I don't know man," Thomas signaled with a shrug of his shoulders and a shocked expression, "I've never seen anything like it before. It looks like some kind of mutated porcupine or something, a weird cross between a giant roach and big ass beetle."

Jacobs moved over quickly to the other window and peered out into the dense wall of fog about ten feet away. He just caught the last bit of Wilcox and the beast that was pulling him into the mist. The lawyer was being dragged kicking and screaming by something that was at least nine or ten feet tall, it's rippling muscles protected by a thick hide, and large quills all over the beast back. The sight left Jacobs speechless, something unusual for him.

"What do you see, man? What is it?" Davis yelled from his position.

"Just like the Ranger said mate, the thing looked like a giant mutant porcupine or something. It just disappeared into the fog with the lawyer." Jacobs muttered in disbelief.

"Oh, no way, man! I didn't sign up for this shit! No one said anything about getting it on with some mutant bug!" Davis screamed out, beginning to rant nervously.

"Yeah, what the hell are we going to do now?" Thomas spat from his spot on the wall.

"The first thing we do is stop crying like a bunch of schoolgirls and grow a pair." Swift Crow stated loudly taking control of the room and the men with his voice just like before, drawing their attention to him. "We're all Special Forces here, the top of the food chain in the Military, and we've all been up to our necks in bad situations. We adapt, we overcome, and we kill all the bad guys' every time, read me!"

The speech may have been a little hokey, but it had the desired effect. Davis stopped pacing and began to squeeze the handle on his AK-47 rhythmically. "Yeah, yeah, that's what we do. Mess with the best and die like the rest baby!"

"No one is getting in here gents especially that damned mutant porcupine!" Jacobs screamed, getting his spine back.

Everyone listening to Jacobs screamed 'hoorah' with gusto, all except for Swift Crow. He was watching McGillis out of the corner of his right eye, and what he saw made the hair on his neck stand out. The man's posture didn't fit the situation at all. His weapon was forward, toward the commotion at the front of the house, but his body had a slight twist toward Maggie and her daughter. Swift Crow instinctively knew that stance, it gave McGillis an easy option to spin around and shoot the women. The man would have to be dealt with before this night was over, but maybe he could stall the inevitable Swift Crow thought.

"McGillis, move over by Jacobs to even out the fire line in the room." Swift Crow barked out the order.

The young man didn't move, though, at first. He just starred at Swift Crow and then stiffened his shoulders. If the muscles tensed with anger or resolve, Swift Crow wasn't sure, and frankly, he didn't care. "I think I'll stay right where I'm at," McGillis stated flatly.

"You must have heard me wrong McGillis, I didn't ask you to move. I ordered you. Now get over by Jacobs to even out the line." Swift Crow growled, his eyes squinting.

The showdown between the two lasted for a second, no one moved or spoke or breathed. No one looked outside at the fog or the shadows moving in it. There was just Swift Crow and McGillis, each fingering the triggers of loaded sub-machine guns, and each ready to kill. Another second passed, and then McGillis broke the stalemate by giving in. He moved slowly but steadily toward Jacobs and away from Maggie and her daughter. The tense situation didn't subside, though until Wilcox's screaming started a second or two later.

The first scream was a banshee wail, loud and high-pitched enough to send an army of shivers down your spine. No one had to ask if it was the lawyer, you just knew deep down it was Wilcox. The banshee wail died out and then he started to scream for help, he pleaded for someone to come out and save him. They, whoever or whatever was out there, was killing him. Maggie pulled her daughter close and covered her ears, hoping to keep the sound out.

"Anyone see anything?" Swift Crow asked.

"Visibility is still at ten feet. I think I can actually hear them eating the lawyer." Thomas called out.

Wilcox kept screaming and pleading for help, and then abruptly, he stopped, and an eerie half-silence fell on the room. There was nothing but the sound of the wind flowing through the porch and the boarded windows. The appetizer was finished, now for the main course, Swift Crow thought slowly moving to Jacobs's window. The Brit moved over to another gap to allow the SEAL to look out into the empty night. There was little moonlight, no starlight, but he could still see the dark shadows moving against the white fog background. The quiet was broken suddenly by a voice filled with demonic evil. The sound came from all around the house, the very walls it seemed. The crumbling structure was enveloped in it, but the voice mainly came from outside, calling to them from inside the fog.

"I, Bezokk, have come for my tribute! Give me my due or I will feed on all your souls."

"Screw that shit man, what the hell is a 'tribute'?" Davis asked from his ready position.

"It wants my daughter!" Maggie spat then turned and screamed at the empty ceiling. "Well, you can't have her, you demonic whore! I won't let you take her, do you hear me! I WON'T LET YOU HAVE HER!"

"What is that thing out there, lady?" Davis screamed at Maggie.

"You need to tell us, or you can count on your daughter not getting out of here alive!" Jacobs yelled next.

"I don't know what it is? I don't know a damn thing!" Maggie yelled back. The room was accelerating into a deep panic, but then there really wasn't a need to get scared, right Swift Crow thought?

"Something's coming to the perimeter!" Thomas yelled, suddenly pointing his rifle muzzle just past the wood boards.

Swift Crow turned from Maggie back to the window, the muzzle of the suppressor on the AR-15 sticking out the open slats of the window. The swirling fog began to move, part like some weird zipper being pulled down to open a jacket. The porcupine-beetle stepped into the visible ten feet radius with two huge steps that literally shook the very ground. The beast rippled with muscles along its massive stubby legs, claws hung from a set of oversized hands attached to two ridiculously long arms. The chest was a solid mass of teats, like those on a sow pig, but its head was a beetle, or that's what Swift Crow would best describe it as. The mandibles on its head opened and closed every few seconds, like an odd nervous twitch. The thing's eyes were like a spider's with at least twenty to thirty independently blinking orbs. Suddenly Wilcox appeared from around the mammoth, and it coddled him with one giant hand, stroking the lawyer gently before giving him a small push forward. Wilcox approached on unsteady feet stepping up onto the porch like a drunk and swaying over to where Swift Crow's face appeared out the opening. That's when the SEAL noticed the damage to Wilcox's body, the chunks of flesh missing from the lawyer's thighs, the claw marks from head to toe, and stuck to the side of Wilcox's head was something like an enormous jellyfish. It shook with each labored breath the lawyer took, but it never moved off the man's temple, and the blob's tentacles ran all over his face digging into his eyes and nose.

"Give my mistress her tribute, give it to her now, and you will walk away unharmed off the island," Wilcox said in the same demonic voice.

Swift Crow just smiled while answering back. "Lady said no way, but if there is anything else, we can help you with just let us know. We all get paid by the job."

"Can we discuss this first, maybe take a quick vote on if we really want to fight this thing?" Davis called out from his spot on the wall.

"Hang tight Marine!" Thomas spat at his cohort.

Jacob whispered something about a merciful God and staying alive behind him, but Swift Crow couldn't turn away from the aberration he was conversing with on the porch. This was like watching a train wreck, you just couldn't turn away, and under the circumstances, it might not be a good idea if you did.

"Do you understand what you do? The wrath you are facing?" Wilcox asked.

"It's simple, really. I'm telling you the buffet isn't open tonight." Swift Crow remarked with a smile again.

"You are interfering in something that is ages old. You are breaking a covenant drawn in blood. If my mistress does not receive her tribute by the first rays of sunlight, then the bargain will be broken. Everything will be lost in a sea of pain, including all of you." Wilcox hissed.

"The lady didn't sign any contracts or make any deals with your mistress. There won't be any tributes tonight or any other." Swift Crow responded flatly.

"My mistress will have her tribute, and you all will die horribly!" Wilcox whispered low before breaking out in an evil laugh. If it was supposed to scare or otherwise affect him, Sam wasn't really sure. He really didn't care because that last bit was just about all the conversing he wanted or could take. Swift Crow let the thing that was Wilcox laugh for two seconds, and then he shot the jellyfish off the lawyer's head with one quick burst from his rifle. Almost at once, Wilcox stopped laughing. He grabbed his head where the jellyfish had been and screamed like a banshee again in pain.

"Why the hell did you do that?" Jacobs asked with a loud yelp.

"I can't stand a one-way conversation. Get ready people, here comes big momma!" Swift Crow yelled back.

The beast that is Bezokk took one lumbering step forward, shaking the decrepit house, and then the men opened fire on her. Swift Crow and the others used their training and experience by keeping their fire to controlled 3 round burst. The muzzle flash lit up the small ten-foot area like it was noon and the bullets struck home against the beast chest and mandible face. For a second it looked like the attack had worked as Bezokk spun away from the house hastily, but Swift Crow knew better. His combat experience saw the move for precisely what it was, and he bolted for Maggie and her daughter with a single spin.

"Get down! EVERYONE GET SOME COVER!" He screamed over the gunfire.

At the spin Bezokk began to inhale air at a quick rate, its chest and stomach expanding outward unnaturally fast. The quills all along its back began to tremble as it grew in size and girth, twitching in the separate sockets like worms. The great beast brought both of its enormous hands overhead just as the prolonged intake of breath began to slow.

"She's going to counter-attack!" Thomas screamed just before dropping to the floor in a classic cover move. Davis, Jacobs, and McGillis followed suit right where they stood, all hitting the floor at once. The beast Bezokk finally stopped inhaling, its hands still held skyward pointed toward the moon. Wilcox was still screaming and wailing on the porch in agony shambling back and forth across the wood walk. Not one bullet had grazed the man in the small firefight, which was somewhat surprising.

Swift Crow reached Maggie and pulled both the ladies down and into the large hearth using the stone wall for the perfect cover. He covered their heads with his chest and waited for the blast that he knew was coming.

Everything froze for a second, that strange calm everyone says happens before the storm opens up and dumps all it's got on you. Then Bezokk threw her hands down to her legs in a giant sweeping motion, and the quills across her back launched from their sockets in a mass attack. The long spines flew straight into the front of the building like a thousand missiles, ripping holes in the front and ceiling. Wilcox never got a chance to move, never knew what hit him you might say, as the needles tore his body into pieces when the quills went right through him like a hot knife through soft butter. The needles continued on through the old house in straight trajectory after smashing holes in the ancient walls, whizzing through the interior and then out the other side without losing one notch in power. Swift Crow felt debris hit his back as Maggie screamed into his arms and clutched him. Thomas covered his head just as the first spine crashed overhead missing him by inches. Davis let out a scream as one grazed his arm just cutting it. Jacobs and McGillis were never touched by the missiles, both knocking away wood and debris from the attack.

The microsecond the attack was over Swift Crow stepped away from Maggie and jumped back into the fight with reflexes honed from a thousand hours of training. "Get up! Get ready for the rush!" He commanded the others.

The men followed the order immediately, jumping to their feet in one swift motion with weapons at the ready. Outside, visible through all the holes now in the walls and through the windows, the fog changed and that made the blood of the men turn to ice. Bezokk suddenly wasn't alone, as if she needed help, and there were so many shadows the mist had gone from green to black. The shadows scurried on four legs, bent over and snarling it sounded like.

"Maybe we should have given them the girl?" Davis whispered in shock, looking out on the scene.

"I think it's too late for heroism now Marine, just stay with the line and wait for my signal." Swift Crow ordered as his eyes swept the hundreds of holes in what used to be the front of the hotel.

The seconds ticked off the watches of the Special Forces men, and nothing happened. Swift Crow tried to get a quick count of the enemy, but it was useless, too many shadows moving too fast, and then the wall of fog began to move on its own, coming right for them. At first, it was slow and deliberate, but then it merely rushed the porch like a charging army with the fog pouring through the holes in what was left of the windows and walls. Suddenly the room was flooded with the living mist from the outside, pooling and building up. The visibility quickly dropped in the room. The men turned their attention to the inside now as the fast-moving fog swirled around them like some animal.

"Keep your cool men! No one fire until you identify what you see!" Swift Crow yelled out, keeping one eye on the mist and the other on the line of men. Fingers carefully rubbed triggers in anticipation. Tongues licked along lips trying to moisten dry skin. There was no sound again as silence enveloped the room, a sure sign something was about to go down.

And then the shadows came for them.

Maggie helped her daughter Amanda to get up from the floor just in time to see the fog rush into the old hotel lobby. She cradled her daughter to her stomach while pulling the small compact 9mm from her coat pocket that Swift Crow told her would be useless. Her plan was simple, the best kind. Maggie just had to wait until the men were occupied with whatever was coming for them before running out the back of the hotel with Amanda. Then it was across the island to a beach where a boat had been stashed, and oh yeah, hold off anything coming at them with the gun. It was a good plan, a careful plan until the fog turned up along with the ten-foot-tall DEMON! Now she just wanted to get to the stairs and the very last room, but something inside her head said stay perfectly still and don't move a muscle. Something was inside the room now, and there weren't just one of these things her brain told her. These things were everywhere, and they were coming for Amanda.

"Swift Crow," Maggie yelled, eyeing the fog swirling around her.

"Just sit tight everyone, nobody does anything." Swift Crow yelled back to everyone in the room. The night suddenly split with a mighty scream, not like the one Wilcox used that was filled with pain. This one was full of anger and hatred, followed by something that sounded like a stampede. Sam turned back and saw enough through the fog and out one of the hundreds of holes the quill missiles had made of the front wall. He saw Bezokk, or whatever it was, screaming into the night air and then what must have been thousands of bodies began hurtling through the mist right at the wall, charging them at an all-out run. The funny thing, if you could find anything humorous with the present situation, each body running toward him was just about three feet tall. Even with the fog, he could see the charging army was muscular with tiny barbs all long their stout bodies, a miniature version of momma. The mass of small bodies hit the damaged wall in unison, the weakened wood splintered and exploded inward from the weight of so many. Shards of what was left of the front of the house flew over Swift Crow and the others, raining down on them.

In the blink of an eye, the men fired their guns into the front ranks of the mini-Bezokk's stopping the flood of small bodies just at the breach. Swift Crow and the others all fired with controlled burst devastating the beasts, dropping the one's in front dead in their tracks, and sometimes sending their small bodies end over end backward into their oncoming brothers or sisters. But nothing stopped the onslaught as the living stepped on the dead to get to the men. There seemed to be an infinite number of them too as Swift Crow reloaded with his left hand while the right never moved, letting the clip from his AR-15 drop to the floor just an instant before as he pushed another home while screaming out 'Reload!' He noticed the razor-sharp teeth drenched in yellow foam behind the small mandibles, the tiny spider-like eyes, and the long claws on each oversized hand as he got back to laying down suppressing fire. It was then he realized what these little terrors were, what special relationship they held with the more massive thing outside. Just as Swift Crow knew his ammo clip would pop home with a click he knew this was Bezokk's brood, her children gladly dying for their mother in heaps on the floor.

To Sam's right, Thomas suddenly stopped firing for a second to reload, as did Jacobs on the left, and that was all the time Bezokk's brood needed to overrun the line. The little demons pushed the men back two steps in retreat, gaining a foothold in the room. They started to jump and began to climb the remaining walls and ceiling. Swift Crow looked up in frustration as the little demons poured in like roaches and began to cross the line and get around the men, outflank them. The little bastards were actually trying to box them in.

"Get up the stairs! Retreat to the rooms!" Swift Crow yelled, firing into the backs of the brood crawling across the ceiling. All at once, the men broke for the stairs in an orderly fashion, covering their backs and their heads with fine-tuned military precision.

Maggie watched in frozen horror as the mercenaries were suddenly overwhelmed by the flood of the little beast, and with such quickness, it was like rats storming a room full of expensive cheese. Small bodies dropped from the ceiling as Swift Crow shot them, each going splat on the ground like an over-ripened tomato. Yet, for everyone, he shot three more, took its place, they were being overrun. Finally, with a jerk, Maggie began to move, pulling Amanda with her toward the stairs. She fired the nine-millimeter once at a brood on the wall, it's body dropped to the ground convulsing from the pain, so she fired a second-round into it. The thing finally stopped shaking as Maggie and Amanda ran away from it. She converged with the men going for the stairs. McGillis was in front of Thomas and Davis right behind her. They scrambled up the stairs in single file reaching the second floor just ahead of the brood flood.

As the men broke for the stairs, Swift Crow was last, just like he wanted to be. He released his AR-15, letting the sling keep it next to his body while falling in behind Jacobs. With his left hand, he drew the forty-five on that side while his right hand grabbed for a wire just protruding from the small green satchel he left at the foot of the stairs. Jacobs fired a last burst from his weapon and headed up the stairs, Swift Crow was a step behind pulling the cord on the satchel charge. At the top was a sudden, unexpected logjam of people. Jacobs was just pushing his way past when the explosion of two pounds of shaped C4 shook the entire foundation of the house. The brood never had a chance to prepare because Swift Crow made the fuse for the satchel charge short, on purpose. The first line of offspring closest to the charge didn't feel the heat or the blast. They simply disappeared in the white flash. The explosion left a number of the brood alive but injured, bones crushed from the concussion and skin burned from the fire and heat. The small bodies were flung backward out of the hotel in lifeless lumps landing outside just by the feet of the beast. Bezokk looked around its feet at its dying children before filling the night air with a wail of despair and anger.

The plan Maggie spent many a month bring to fruition never took account of what happened to her at the top of the stairs. You really can't plan for some things even if you try. She and Amanda were just a step behind McGillis at the very top of the landing when the young man abruptly turned and pointed his rifle at her head. The shock of looking down the barrel of the massive weapon froze Maggie to the spot as the man yelled at them. "For all of Ireland," he suddenly screamed in a broad Irish accent.

McGillis might have blown Maggie's head off, what he had planned to do all night, if not for her daughter Amanda. His finger began to press on the trigger on the Bushmaster, just an ounce or two more of pressure and he would have fired the bullet. Amanda though stopped him with a swift counter-attack, reacting like a trained soldier as she screamed with a warrior-like yell right back at McGillis, and with a perfect strike punched him in the stomach just below the belt buckle. The blow drove the air out of his lungs and caused him to drop down to a knee gasping for air. Maggie snapped out of her shock as he fell and immediately began to push Amanda forward toward the last room on the hall, but then a hand suddenly grabbed her shoulder, shoving savagely, slamming her headfirst into the wall and door jamb of the first room. The world spun as blackness began to wash over her eyes. Maggie tried to hold onto reality, she could see Davis running by with his hand still on her shoulder where he gave the vicious shove. The black man Thomas was with him, she watched them grab Amanda by the arms and begin to fight over her. She struggled with what little strength she had, but the dark of unconsciousness finally won out, and Maggie collapsed to the floor in a lump.

Davis and Thomas might have pulled Amanda's arms from her sockets fighting over the millions of dollars she represented, but then Swift Crow came from nowhere, and his exploding satchel changed everyone's future with a loud boom. One second the two men were yanking on the little girl's arms and the next the world roared and shook with unrelenting force. Neither man was prepared for the sudden blast as they lost their grip on Amanda's arms and fell back against the walls. Jacobs and Swift Crow reached the floor leaping like gazelle's a microsecond later just out of the satchel charge's reach.

The Englishmen felt the heat from the blast, and he saw the three others stumble off balance from the concussion. The confusion and the bomb blast gave the Brit his chance and Jacobs decided his fate in a single blink of a thought. Truthfully he had been waiting for the opportunity to drop Sam Swift Crow since hearing the man's name downstairs. The other men in the group didn't scare Jacobs, not one bit. He had planned on someone like Thomas and Davis and McGillis showing up in this deal, fresh faces with no real talent. Those three thought they were Special Forces, but the fact was not one of three would make the first phase of the intense training it took to become elite. Just look at the way they stumbled from the bomb's blast, un-bloody-prepared! No, what he didn't expect was Swift Crow, a full-fledged legend in the murky underworld of black bag special operations. Which is why he chose here and now to get rid of the SEAL. And if the Brit bettered his chances to get all the money for his retirement fund, well so be it. The only viable opportunity he may have all night he thought. So with a loud grunt, Jacobs swung the butt of his rifle in a vicious arc to his rear fully intent on separating Swift Crow's body from his head with one mighty blow. Yet, the ex-SEAL was already making his own play for the money as Swift Crow ducked the incoming attack and continued to move forward without skipping a step, running right at a rising McGillis, and the stunned Thomas and Davis. The momentum from the swing and the fact the butt of the rifle never made contact with a solid surface caused Jacobs to lose his balance for a moment, and that was all it took to cost him the money for his retirement and his life moments later.

Bezokk's wail died off and around it the brood formed, a crowded mass of hundreds more of its children. Their small bodies shook with anger and anticipation, their immature mandibles clicking and chattering rapidly. The demon bent down and lifted one of the wounded brood in its large oversized hands gently cradling the battered body as gunshots echoed from inside the wrecked house. It ignored the reverberations as it slowly rubbed the side of the brood's face with its own mandibles and the smaller Bezook issued one last whine before expiring in its mothers' hands.

The other restless brood watched intently as their mother laid the small broken body back on the ground with a gentle touch. Then Bezokk rose, filled her lungs with the night air, and screamed for its children to destroy everything. No one was to live.

Swift Crow kept running down the hall while pulling the forty-five from his right side with a quick jerk. The forty-five in his left hand took aim at McGillis's chest and fired a single round as he flew by in a full sprint. The pull over the man wore caught fire from the explosive gasses of the discharge from the barrel of Swift Crow's gun singing his face, but the bullet slamming through McGillis's upper chest did considerably more damage. The Ranger, if he was one, felt his body involuntarily leap backward from the force of the projectile striking him at around 900 feet per second. The round was a jacketed hollow point designed to flatten out on impact to deliver maximum penetration and stopping power. The bullet and impact sent the man's body flying through a rotten door and into an empty room. McGillis wasn't dead, but he sure felt close to it.

The SEAL kept moving as Jacobs regained his stance and brought his rifle back around to fire a shot. Thomas was getting back in the mix as well as he began to raise his Colt, but Davis only watched with a stunned look bordering on stupid at the action in the hall. In a single spectacular move, Swift Crow brought the butt of the forty-five in his right hand across the Marine's head with a whip crack that echoed in the hallway, and then he dropped to a quick kneeling position by Maggie's body while spinning 180 in the process. The last part of the maneuver saved Swift Crow twice over as both Thomas and Jacobs fired where his head had been just a split second before, the bullets striking the walls in puffs of old plaster. Swift Crow returned fire from both of his guns with a loud burst. A single shot from the left forty-five struck Thomas dead in his thigh a couple of inches above the knee causing the Army Ranger to scream in pain, drop his weapon, and grab the wounded area of his leg with both hands. The round from the right forty-five hit home on the Brit's hip spinning him into the wall with a loud scream of pain and a thud. The hall went silent then as Davis got up groggily from the floor with a shaky step followed by Swift Crow and his two smoking forty-fives.

"The first man to blink gets a blowhole in his forehead!" Swift Crow threatened while moving in front of a stunned Amanda, putting the gun in his left hand in its holster.

"All right old man, now I'm going to have to hurt you real bad for hitting me," Davis hissed wiping the blood away from the gash over his eyes.

"Not in this lifetime kid." Swift Crow smiled back as he squatted down and gripped Maggie's jacket with his free left hand, the right one with the gun pointed down the hall at the trio.

No one spoke as the SEAL drug the unconscious Maggie while ushering Amanda down the hall to the last door. He opened it with a quick back kick of his left foot. Suddenly the night filled with the sound of the demon's wail from downstairs and Swift Crow smiled a little more full.

"Uh-oh, boys sounds like momma's calling in the second wave."

The sound of thousands of chittering bugs rose from the destroyed downstairs, and this time there was no fire line to keep them at bay. For a second, no one moved, and then with a flash, everyone was scrambling for his or her life. Thomas and Davis ducked into the same room on the left slamming the door shut with a loud pop as Jacobs stumbled to a door just across the small hall to his right. His hip screamed with pain as the shattered bones scraped against each other, it was amazing the man was still standing. The Brit slammed his door shut just as Swift Crow finished moving Maggie and Amanda in the last room on the left. The passageway was quiet for a second, and then hundreds of Bezokk's brood scrambled up the walls and ran along the floor pouring down the hall like a black wave.

McGillis knew he had a sucking chest wound, he could hear the air escape from the large entry hole in the middle of his chest, and that was just about the worst damn thing you could get in the field. He heard the wail from outside, he listened to the others scramble for cover, and he could make out the little bugs coming for him. There was no door to stop and hold the small beasts back, and the first of the brood came in clinging to the ceiling followed by a mass crawling on the floor, circling his barely moving body. McGillis tried to take one last breath, but the sucking chest wound kept him from getting most of the air, and he just gurgled and coughed up blood like a small fountain. The brood waited for him to finish the ragged breath, and then the ones on the ceiling dropped onto him, followed by the ones on the floor. It was a feeding frenzy as McGillis was torn apart limb from limb in a shower of blood. Yep, those damn sucking chest wounds are a real killer.

Sam moved quickly after getting Maggie and Amanda in the room, he closed the door with a hard shove then set three big boards against it at an angle with the use of another set of boards bolted to the floor and on the door. The wedge worked perfectly as the brood slammed against the door and clawed at it but never got through. That's when Amanda noticed the door was brand new, as was the framing around it, and most of the four walls were refurbished with a latticework of boards. A sanctuary had been built from new wood and tenpenny nails inside the rotting hulk of the house. Swift Crow pulled something from a holder on his vest, a pouch on a leather string that one might hang around your neck. With a quick pull, the bag was opened, the sand contents sprinkled in a line next to the door. Amanda was about to ask him what he was doing when the clawing sound from the door stopped, the small bugs had abated their assault. The SEAL stepped away from the door and ran to the window following the same steps of pouring the powder on the window sill. After that was done, he turned to Amanda and pointed to her with a quick finger.

"Are you all right little one?" He asked.

"Yes, considering where I am at the moment." She answered in an angelic voice steeped with a harmonious Irish brogue, just like her mother.

"No cuts, no bruises, and no complaints, right?" Swift Crow asked, walking over and taking Maggie's hand in his. One of the others down the hall began to scream obscenities about Swift Crow and his birthright, but the pair chose to ignore the remarks.

"The weather could be a bit more accommodating?" Amanda whispered eyeing Swift Crow's every move with her mother.

"Yeah, I could definitely use some time on the beach after tonight. By the way, what was the deal with that guy McGillis and 'Ireland'?" Swift Crow asked with a shake of his head and a small smile.

"I suspect he didn't like the fact that my father has chosen British interest over Irish quite a few times in his business dealings," Amanda spoke softly looking to her mother concerned. "Will she be all right?"

Swift Crow's smile broadened as he spoke. "I think so, but let's check her out though to make sure."

The SEAL checked Maggie for any sign of bleeding, but the only spot was a small cut on her head from the blow Davis administered from ramming her face-first into the door jamb. Sam pulled the water bottle from his belt and poured a little in a towel he produced from a pocket on his vest then dabbed Maggie's forehead gently. Amanda was suddenly struck by the scene, here was a man who just seconds ago was killing everything like a cold machine, and now he was dabbing her mother's forehead as gently as a lamb. Maggie began to stir, and her eyes opened slowly.

"Mother, are you all right?" Amanda asked quickly.

"Besides my splitting headache, I feel just fine. What happened? Where are we?" Maggie asked, slowly moving to a sitting position against the wall.

"Mr. Swift Crow did what he does best, you might say. He killed Mr. McGillis and shot Mr. Thomas and Mr. Jacobs." Amanda answered.

"Are you okay? Did they hurt you?" Maggie asked quickly with fear in her voice, checking her daughter out with a hasty exam while ignoring the girl's answer. What memory she had just before passing out ran through her mind and scared her terribly.

"No, they never had a chance too because of Mr. Swift Crow. He told them if they moved, he would give them a blowhole." Amanda responded with a small giggle. Maggie looked over to the SEAL, who had crossed the room back to the door, with a shocked expression. She didn't expect this from any of the five men. They were bought and paid for, mercenaries with no morals and surely no sense of chivalry. She had assumed all were supposed to be lacking in both and now it looked like she was wrong about one.

"Thank you for saving my daughter," Maggie said with a small, and amazingly unforced, grateful smile.

"She's not out of the woods yet." Swift Crow said from the door where he was listening. "But I think the odds of getting her off this island just got a lot better."

Maggie looked to Amanda with a questioning expression, but her daughter was too intent on watching the SEAL. An ear to the door, the man stood trying to listen for the brood outside in the small hall. He stood still for a second or two then walked over to Maggie and knelt silently, as a matter of fact, Swift Crow didn't make that much noise when he did anything Amanda thought.

"I think we're okay for now, but you might want to cover your ears." Swift Crow remarked, taking a quick sip from his water bottle. Amanda took a mental note, she never saw the man reach for his water bottle either after putting it away. He must be some kind of magician.

"Why do we need to cover our ears? Do you have another bomb ready to explode?" Maggie asked with another twinge of fear in her voice.

"No more bombs on me, but the others are about to meet the bugs up close if you know what I mean." Swift Crow remarked, holding the bottle out for the women to get a drink.

"Oh, yes that would be bad." Maggie replied giving the bottle to her daughter for the first chance to quench her thirst. Amanda took a deep drink, some of the cold liquid spilling from the side of her mouth. She gave the bottle to her mother while wiping her chin with her left hand.

"Sorry sir," Amanda apologized while Maggie drank deeply of the water.

"Oh, yes, that would be bad," Maggie replied, giving the bottle to her daughter for the first chance to quench her thirst. Amanda took a deep drink, some of the cold liquid spilling from the side of her mouth. She gave the bottle to her mother while wiping her chin with her left hand.

"Sorry sir," Amanda apologized while Maggie drank deeply of the water.

"Nothing to apologize for little one, I got more if we need it." Swift Crow remarked with a wink.

Maggie was about to ask how he knew to bring the extra water, or how he knew about her secret plan to escape when the first scream came from somewhere down the hall was followed by the shrill sound of a hundred bugs' chittering as if the little roaches were screaming in victory. Amanda fell into the nook of her mother's arm instinctively, and Maggie quickly held her shielding her daughter's ears from the wail. Swift Crow pulled a forty-five from a holster and reloaded the gun with a fresh clip all the while eyeing the door with intense eyes. Then the wail stopped followed by a minute or two of silence. Maggie was about to ask if that was it when gunfire erupted from down the hall and a stray bullet actually pierced the wall with a puff of smoke.

The door was so old, and rotten Jacobs practically put his hands through it slamming the thing shut. He leaned against it to bar the incoming bugs from getting to him, but he also needed the rotten portal's support. The Brit looked down to see the front of his jeans stained deep red with blood from the gunshot wound. This was bad; he was going to bleed to death real soon without medical attention. Jacobs quickly put his weapon to the side, jerked his pullover off, and pressed the fleece to the entry area of the wound which made him groan in agony. He bit down so hard to keep from screaming his teeth squealed in protest, and the muscles on the side of his jaw flexed like snakes. A normal man would have succumbed to the wound, given in to the agony, but Jacobs was almost S.A.S, and they never let anything stop them. The pain was acceptable, if you felt it, you were still alive, and you were still able to fight.

"Oh Yank, I am going to kill you ever so slowly when this is over." Jacobs spat through the fiery pain.

What happened next went so fast Jacobs never had a chance to stop it or run from it, that being if there were anywhere could hobble to. The rotten door split in half, the top portion stayed intact, but the bottom blew inward from a tremendous blow, a battering ram of the little bugs. The force sent pieces of the door across the room in a shower of debris. Jacobs followed right with the remnants of the door flipping back through the air and landing on the injured hip with a meaty thud before bouncing up to a sitting position. He let out a bellow from the pain that raced through his nervous system, unconsciousness threatened to take the Brit as he slowly started to collapse to the floor, but the brood wouldn't let him last long enough to slip away.

The brood had barreled through the rotten door with such explosive energy that it sent everything by it flying. The bugs were on Jacobs before he could lie back on the floor or scream for help, their immature mandibles making short work of his flesh and bone. A muscular snap and his head popped free from his shoulders tumbling through the mass of bugs like a bouncing ball. A victory cry of sorts went through them as he was torn into chunks and gobbled down by the lucky ones able to get close enough to get a piece. The brood chittered in high-pitched clicks and screeches, two dead, three more to take for mother.

"Damn this hurts!" Thomas hissed tying off his leg with the length of cord from the waist of his pullover, forming a makeshift tourniquet. "I'm going to cut out your heart old man, cut it out and stomp on it you son-of-a-bitch!"

"Screw your leg dude, the roaches are about to get in here and eat us alive!" Davis yelled at his new roommate from the door where he stood, bracing it against the inevitable rush of the brood.

Thomas hopped over and leaned against the door, a grunt for each bounce. All his weight was added to that of Davis, pressed against the wooden obstacle to the brood. For a second, nothing happened, and then something slammed hard enough into the door to move both men like they were mere pebbles. At the attack's end, Davis stepped back away from the door abruptly and right to the center of the room raising his rifle up, the business end pointing directly at the Ranger's head. Whatever he was doing, the Marine wasn't guarding the door against the brood. Thomas fought the pounding on the door, but trying to keep the offspring out with a busted leg wasn't easy. His boot was filling with blood, and it squished every time he put weight on it, which by the way sent a shock wave of pain through his body. Then Thomas noticed his partner and the fact he had a loaded weapon pointing at his head.

"What the hell are you doing? Put your God Damn rifle down and help me for Christ's sake!" Thomas screamed as blow upon blow landed on the door almost dislodging him from his post.

"Give me your key," Davis demanded flatly.

"Are you high?" Thomas screamed in utter disbelief. "We're about to get overrun by a bunch of bugs, and you're worried about my key?"

"Give it to me now!" Davis demanded with more authority.

"Screw you cracker!" Thomas yelled. Those were the last words he ever said.

The shot was straight and true, Davis put the bullet right between Thomas's eyes like the marksmen he was trained to be. The Ranger never felt a thing as he crossed over from our world to the next. He was there one second and the next he was shaking hands with Saint Peter explaining a long list of prior mistakes under his name in a big book. Thomas's body slumped to the floor from the spectacular shot, crumpling in a funky sitting position as all communication from his brain ceased. Now there was a new problem though. Nothing was holding Bezokk's offspring back, and in a flash, the terrors were inside the room. The brood broke the door down, crushing Thomas's body under the massive weight of their charging numbers. Another group suddenly poured in from a single broken window in the east wall, the room was filled with brood in seconds.

As if he needed another reason Davis lost his composure entirely now, long gone was the steady three-shot burst at a single target. He began to fire his AK-47 without stopping, sweeping the entire room from one side to the other in a hail of gunfire. One of the many rounds blew through the paper-thin walls of the room, sailed across space, and missed Swift Crow, Maggie, and Amanda by a foot or two. The first of the brood died from his bullets, but not all of them met the same fate, and they simply ran at the Marine until he finally fell to them. Davis felt the first bites, felt his legs separate from his body right below the knees, and then shock set in thank the lord. He never felt the rest of his body being dismembered with the keen precision of a surgeon, and maybe that was a good thing for the Marine.

"Do you think they suffered when they...died?" Amanda asked from the nook of her mother's arm, the last part sticking for just a moment. It had been minutes now since they had heard a noise in the hall and to assume the worst had happened to the other men came as natural as taking a breath.

Swift Crow shook his head, taking off his AR-15 rifle and sling before laying the weapon upright against the same wall the ladies were sitting by. "They were a little too greedy and unprepared little one. They were doomed the minute all four stepped on this island, fate saw to it."

"What does that mean, 'fate saw to it'?" Maggie asked, eyeing the SEAL closely.

"When I was in BUDS in San Diego, I had this Master Chief as an instructor that took a particular fancy at punishing us when we made mistakes." Swift Crow said with his small smile while pouring water into his hands again absently. "I mean he would have us doing hundreds of push-ups and sit-ups on the beach after screwing up one of the evolutions, and all the while he would be screaming at the top of his lungs 'Gentlemen, you need to be prepared for anything on a mission because if you're not you'll come home in a box, fate will gladly see to that. And SEALS never leave anything to fate or chance."

"He sounds like quite the charmer." Maggie responded with her first smile.

"Master Chief was more than a charmer. He was the United States Navy to the bone." Swift Crow chuckled with a small laugh while washing his hands.

"Are you prepared Mr. Swift Crow?" Amanda suddenly asked. The mood dropped like a rock as reality set back in.

"I've never walked into a room without knowing where the exit is little one." Swift Crow remarked calmly. "I looked into the background of the mission, did a recon, you might say, before accepting Mr. Wilcox's offer."

Maggie's face changed to one tinged with shock as she asked low, "you looked into the mission beforehand?"

"Yeah," Swift Crow smiled warmly and nodded hoping Maggie would take some solace from what he was about to say, "I have some contacts who told me about the wood you had delivered to the island just two weeks ago, and it only took a quick look around to find out what you did with it. I also know there will be no five million dollars in a hotel back on the mainland in some box in a safe. You lied to get us out here Maggie, and I'm pretty sure you instructed the late Mr. Wilcox to drag the bottom of the barrel because you just wanted cannon fodder."

"What's 'cannon fodder'?" Amanda asked as Maggie looked away for a second, Swift Crow thought it might be because a proud woman felt just a little bit of shame, and that made him stop for a moment. She didn't need to endure a guilty conscience, not one bit, because if it were his daughter facing certain death, he'd sure as hell do whatever it took to keep her alive

"Your mom had a plan little one, a pretty good one, too, in my honest opinion. You see, when the wood was delivered, she also had a boat stashed on the shore. My guess is you, and your mother would make a break for the boat and ride to safety when all the fighting started, be it with whatever was coming for you or over the keys to the money that didn't exist, leaving the rest of us to fend for ourselves through the night." Swift Crow answered while taking a seat on the floor next to Maggie with his back to the wall.

"We were never supposed to end up in the room. I had it reinforced so maybe one of you might survive the night." Maggie whispered, still choosing not to look at Swift Crow.

"And the wood we used downstairs?" Sam asked.

"I wanted you and the others to keep whatever it was at bay long enough for Amanda and me to cross the island and make it to the boat. You were going to need help to make a stand in this old house. I never considered what would come after Amanda, or how many of them there would be. I never..." Maggie answered slowly.

"The devil is always in the details, Maggie. I don't think you or anyone could have prepared for that thing outside." Swift Crow remarked, handing the water over to Amanda. She took it from him and drank a quick succession of sips.

The room was quiet for a moment as it all sank in, the confession and the acceptance before Maggie asked with a whisper finally looking up to Sam. "If you knew there was no money, why did you come here and risk your life, Mr. Swift Crow?"

"That answer, Maggie is a long road, maybe too long to tell right now." He answered, looking to his boots while chewing on his bottom lip.

"Please tell us, Mr. Swift Crow, tell us please," Amanda asked quickly.

Maggie nodded, taking the water bottle from her daughter and adding her support, "yes, please tell me, I mean, tell us, please. I would like to know."

He looked back to the ladies with a big boyish grin noting Maggie's answer, her words, before responding. "All right, but only if you both agree to stop with the Mister stuff, and I mean both of you, okay?"

Both ladies nodded quickly looking eager, which was out of place if you think about it for a moment, but now that it was Sam's turn to pay up for the agreement he felt his mouth go dry and his resolve falter and weaken. He wasn't sure if he could do it; tell the story of how he ended up here, helping Maggie and Amanda, intervening for them with that beast downstairs. This is what happens when you bury certain things in your past, Sam thought, grave dark deeds that should never see the light of day. You clam uptight having trouble finding the right words to say, to speak. This is why you bury them deep Sam thought because you're never supposed to talk about it, ever again. Then someone countered all that logic, a voice-only Swift Crow could hear. You have to tell them, Samuel, it's the only way to walk the path again he listened to the voice of the man who raised him to say in his mind, whisper in his ear. The strength of the elder flowed to him suddenly, his beloved Grandfather, like a light in the dark and Swift Crow drew in that illumination as he spoke to Maggie and her daughter.

"When I was young, my father would read stories about great Indigenous warriors like Hiawatha and Sitting Bull and Geronimo to me. He would read to me at bedtime the tales of great chiefs and braves from all the tribes of The Nations, and he would always say he did so because we are all of one Nation, one great wandering tribe, and as such we should know more of each other. He read to me every night till he was hit by a wayward driver one dark morning while changing a flat tire by the side of the road. After he was gone, all I had were the stories, the memories of him, and this burning need to be a great warrior just like Little Wolf. I wanted my father to look down and see that his son had become something to be proud of, but I found that becoming this great warrior also made my spirit dark because everything has a price in the end."

"What could you have done to warrant being here, facing that thing downstairs?" Maggie asked between sips from the water bottle.

"Is that why you wash your hands so many times, Sam?" Amanda added quietly and slowly, almost as if she were afraid to voice the question.

He sighed and remarked absently letting the words just flow and roll out of him. "I've done some very terrible things in my life little one, acts that would give you nightmares, and because of that I have blood on my hands that I can't wash off no matter what I do. For freedom and country, I've killed and maimed all over the world. An admiral once called me a hero and gave me a medal in a closed room by ourselves because no one could ever know what I had done to receive it. Men like me who do the work I do, we don't do it for the parades or the awards little one. We do it because the others who can't need us to and they can never know about it."

"Is that why the other men seemed to be in awe of you, because of the medal?" Maggie asked, taking her daughter's hand in hers.

"Medals don't impress the men who work my old career, Maggie. No, they heard the story about Juan Garzon I guess, among others. Tales, every good warrior has a few, it seems even though no one is supposed to talk about what we do, and everyone likes to tell them." Swift Crow answered with a chuckle.

"Who is Juan Garzon?" Amanda asked.

"He was a rather large drug lord living in South America that a teammate and I were tasked to monitor and observe for a certain group I am never allowed to talk about and you wouldn't know of anyway. We were only two because the mission's objective, what we called a 'shadow' op, was a simple reconnaissance mission. We were to remain silent and watch all personnel movements, not to engage or give away our presence to Juan, his men, or anyone else. We dropped into the South American jungle at night from a helicopter prepared to spend a couple of relaxing weeks sitting and watching Juan's comings and goings. The first few days were slow with little movement, but on the sixth night that changed. I watched a girl all of twelve years old get dragged from a truck and into this building on Juan's compound. I never found out what she did to get pulled into that hell hole, but I knew what they were going to do...I knew."

Maggie and Amanda sat quietly hanging on every word and back in the dark part of their minds they knew too what Sam was going to say, they could sense almost what he was going to say before he did. "I was following orders I told myself. I was keeping the mission and the op the priority, or at least that's what I told myself while I sat there doing nothing. When she started screaming from the torture, my blood went cold, so bad I started to shiver and couldn't stop. She lasted exactly twenty-two minutes before they finally finished. I know the exact minute because I counted every single second while she screamed, and I still remember how the night suddenly got so quiet after she stopped, it was as if the jungle knew her soul was rising to the Great Spirit and everything paused in reverent respect."

"What did you do then?" Amanda asked before Maggie could shush her. He needed to tell this at his speed she wanted to say to her daughter. He needs to explain this to us because somewhere deep inside, he has too.

"I did what I do best little one. I waited for three hours until every building went dark, and then I went hunting. I left my teammate to stand watch, slipped into the compound unseen, and found Juan sleeping contently in his four-post mahogany bed on the second floor of the main house. He was laying on his back snoring like a rolling train. The man wouldn't have heard me coming if I had stomped up the stairs doing a dance. Juan was so comfortable and relaxed in his big bed. I knew what I had to do then, what had to be done because that little girl suffered while he slept like a baby. I walked up to the side of his bed, and took out my knife, pushed his head down into the pillows with my free hand and sliced his throat with a quick pull of my blade. Juan didn't die right away. A person rarely does when you cut their throat. They just get this scared look in their eyes because they know what's going to happen, that their life is pumping out with each beat of their heart. Juan knew it when he rose up to a kneeling position on the bed clutching at me trying to scream for help but having no airway to do it with. I stabbed him in the chest twice, right in the heart, to make him let go and he was dead before he fell to the mattress."

This was it Maggie thought, the reason he was here when he shouldn't have been. Oh why are you here Sam, what penance are you paying she felt while listening intently as Swift Crow took a drink and then continued on. "I remember standing in the quiet bedroom for a minute or two looking down at him knowing full well he was dead, in my work you know what death is and Juan was most certainly with his ancestors. No, I remember telling myself this was it, no more missions after tonight. I crossed the line, I killed a man without an order or in self-defense or in defense of another, and that meant I did it for a personal reason. I chose to take Juan's life, wanted to kill him with my own hands, and in the end, I knew I would have to pay for that because to take a life with evil in your heart only darkens your spirit."

And there it was, the reason he's here. Maggie swallowed hard marveling at the strength it must have taken to empty one's soul like that. She would have done the same with him, explained why she was on this island with her daughter, that was if Swift Crow hadn't looked into the offer made by the late Mr. Wilcox. We're all paying for our crimes in one way or another she wanted to say, but Sam only smiled and spoke up.

"Hell of a time to get religion, huh? Anyway, on the way out of the compound, I retrieved the girl's body and two large black bags filled with hundred dollar bills, two million to be exact."

"You stole money from a drug baron?" Maggie asked in shock after taking a minute to take in what he had just said.

"Just a little bit, and after giving my partner a share, there was more than enough to live on. I invested all of it in Tech stocks this guy Jim Cramer said to on TV and made quite the killing." Swift Crow offered up with a wink.

"And your superiors didn't do anything to you?" Maggie asked again.

"I didn't leave a trace of myself in the house or compound. My teammate covered for me with the higher-ups, and in the end, everyone just ruled Juan's death as an assassination by someone trying to advance in the cartel, a hit done by an inside man. No one asked about the money, and I didn't offer up any information about it. I retired after that mission and walked away from the world wanting nothing but to be left alone, and I was when I got a call from a man who knew of an offer from one Mr. Wilcox. He had a job that was just handmade for a man like me, he said."

"What did you do with the girl's body?" Amanda asked with a whisper.

"We buried her under a tree on this hill that overlooked a small valley. The rising sun would greet her every morning. She deserved so much more, but in the end, I wasn't able to do anything but say a small prayer over her grave." Swift Crow remarked with a distant look in his eyes as if he were seeing something else at the moment.

"And you came here tonight to save us because of her?" Maggie asked, breaking the moment for Sam. She knew the answer already, but for some reason, she needed to hear him say it, to make it real with his words in her mind.

"I let them torture that little girl to death Maggie. I sat there and listened for twenty-two minutes doing nothing because I chose orders over life. She never deserved to die like that, not screaming and begging for mercy from a bunch of deranged individuals she didn't know. Coming here and helping you, it won't bring her back, but maybe it will appease the shadow that covers my soul." Swift Crow said, shaking his head.

"I am sorry, Mr. Swift Crow. I truly am," Amanda offered with a sincere whisper.

"I'll be all right little one." Swift Crow remarked with the same boyish smile. "So, you never knew anything about that ugly son-of-a-bitch downstairs?"

Maggie shook her head and exhaled with frustration. "I had no idea that thing existed. I could never dream up something like that."

"What does it want with Amanda?" Swift Crow asked between sips of water from a second water bottle he had.

"You mean your contacts didn't tell you?" Maggie asked back with a sudden small smile.

"Well let's see, I know your Margaret O'Shea Sullivan, married to one Peter Sullivan who is the CEO of Shamrock imports, a family-owned business. A very original name for an Irish company by the way. He's a shipping magnate worth somewhere in the range of a few billion dollars. You had Amanda Margaret Sullivan twelve years ago in a private hospital just outside of Dublin." Swift Crow stated like he was reading from a script.

Maggie smiled a little more full with raised eyebrows, "I am impressed, Samuel."

"Thank you, but excuse my interruption, please continue with your story Madame." Swift Crow said with a mock wave of his hand and arm.

"Oh yes, the story about Peter, well, my husband's family is linked to that thing through some pact that his great grandfather orchestrated," Maggie stated.

"And that would be one Shamus Sullivan?" Swift Crow asked.

"How did you know that?" Amanda asked with her mouth open.

"I pay my connections very well little one because they are outstanding." Swift Crow smiled with another wink. Amanda smiled with just a little blush to her cheeks as her mother continued on with how she ended up on the island.

"Yes, it seems you do. Peter told me in exchange for the riches and power his bloodline receives from the pact that they would forever hand over one son or daughter every twenty years to whatever it is downstairs." Maggie stated sternly, the anger building inside her easily detected in her voice.

"How did it fall to Amanda to be the one picked?" Swift Crow asked carefully. Just as she let him tell his story at his pace, so did he with Maggie. She blinked and without hesitation or waver began to speak.

"Of that, I am not sure. Six months ago, Peter came to me and told me that our daughter was chosen to fulfill a special task, something extraordinary for the family. I asked him what this task was eagerly thinking it was some great honor. That is when he told me this story about his great grandfather Shamus fleeing Ireland on a ship that sunk just a few miles off this very island. At that time there was a thriving fishing community around here, and he was found by some local fishermen floating in the sea. The men brought him back to the island, but they should have just let Shamus drown. The man built a life here working on the fishing boats for what money he could get, but that wasn't enough for Shamus Sullivan. He wanted riches and power, something he would never get working in a small fishing village."

"So he finds a way to contact the beast downstairs and makes a pact?" Swift Crow implied, assumed while handing the water bottle to Amanda.

"Yes, and from that damnable covenant, everything he and his progeny touches turns to gold, you might say with the small price of one offspring every twenty years. Peter told me male members of the family hold a ritual on the year the due comes, one family member is chosen at this meeting somehow, and the pact is kept intact for the next twenty years. The fortune and power continue to flow for Shamus and his offspring until another is required for this agreement. This time it was Amanda, but I won't let them have her Samuel." Maggie hissed the last with such determination her eyes flashed with fire.

Swift Crow only nodded again letting her continue when she had taken a breath to steady herself. "I found out the history of the pact. I discovered the location of this island risking the exposure of my intentions and my plan.. If Peter had caught my snooping, there is no telling what he would have done to me. I hired Mr. Wilcox to find me five mercenaries with a disreputable past who could handle anything, and then I stashed a small boat on the shore just east of here to make our escape. I have hidden away a considerable sum of money for a new life, and I have risked everything to save my daughter. She will not die tonight. She will not be sacrificed, so Shamus's bloodline can live a life of luxury!" Maggie hissed again as a single tear rolled down her cheek.

The SEAL didn't say a word for a minute as he stared at the lady. He could sense the anger in her, and there just below the emotion was something even more profound in Maggie churning her spirit like a storm of rage, and all of it wasn't for Peter or Shamus. She had a good bit in reserve, and it all pointed right at her own heart, indicting herself with ease for getting Amanda in this mess Samuel told himself. Guilt's crazy like that, it made Maggie angry for marrying into the Sullivan's. It made her think she was to blame for all this, the danger to Amanda, which was insane, he thought. She had no idea what the man's real past was and when confronted with what he wanted of his daughter to say no, well, that was nothing short of the purest courage. To protect one's own, that's what he became a SEAL for because that's what Little Wolf did. It was why Sam did all those missions in those dark, dank places. Sam smiled slowly while he reached into the collar of his combat shirt and pulled out a second pouch from around his neck. "What do you think would happen if Amanda got off the island?"

"I'm not sure. I've never made a pact with a demon broken before." Maggie responded with a new smile now. She had a sudden feeling that maybe there was just a bit of hope now.

"What do you say little one, you want to find out what'll happen if you make the great escape?" Swift Crow asked Amanda.

"I think I might fall in love with you, Mr. Swift Crow," Amanda said with a smile.

They were up to something. The beast could feel it from the blackness in its being. Its brood couldn't breach the chamber door because of the earth's magic, a first in the long memory of its existence. No one had ever defied Bezokk like this. No one had ever found a way to stop Bezokk, until now. So many of its brood had died this night, a night where it was supposed to accept its tribute. These humans would pay a dear price for this effrontery to Bezokk and its offspring and the pact. The marrow of their bones will taste sweeter as the memory of their screams echoing on the night wind played in its vast mind.

Bezokk let out a scream full of anger and intention. Almost at once the brood massed just outside the door to the last room on the second floor of the wrecked hotel screeched back in unison. They began to maneuver and rally around the door, some standing on top of another.

They were getting ready to go to battle with Samuel Swift Crow.

"And just how do you plan on getting us out of here, Samuel?" Maggie asked perplexed just a little while watching the SEAL stand up from his sitting position on the wall.

Swift Crow turned and remarked calm and matter of fact. "You're going to walk out while I draw the kids and mamma away."

"We are going to do what?" Maggie gasped. Next, to her, Amanda's eyes went full open with the statement. Yes, the believability factor was a little low Sam thought while looking to them as he reached into a pocket of the cargo pants and pulled out a bandanna. He spoke up as he wiped the girl's brow with a small and gentle stroke of his gloved hand.

"It's all been arranged Maggie, like your boat and the wood. All I need is a little of Amanda's scent here."

"Are you playing with me?" Maggie wailed. "How in the devil are we going to walk out of here?"

"Listen, time is short, so pay attention to every word. This pouch contains the powder of six crystals ground and mixed together in exact measured parts that form a natural barrier for mamma and her kids. It's different from my other pouch that only stops them from touching you. With this pouch, the brood can't see you, hear you, or even smell you. This, in effect, will hide you from them as long as you keep it in contact with your flesh. You hold the pouch Maggie and keep in touch with Amanda, and she'll be under the protection too. But the second you drop or let go of the pouch then you better be ready to fight for all your worth, do you understand?" Swift Crow explained handing, putting the pouch in Maggie's hand then gently pulling her to her feet along with her daughter.

"I am not very sure of this Mr. Swift Crow," Amanda whispered with a twinge of fear in her voice as she clutched her mother.

Swift Crow looked down into her brown eyes and knew Amanda had the strength and courage to do this, she just needed something else to hold onto. So he knelt down and looked right into her eyes still while taking her hand in his. "I let one little girl die already while sitting by and doing nothing. I won't let it happen a second time, even if it means my life in return. Faith is the hardest thing in this world to find, but I'm asking you to believe in me right now. I promise you, Amanda Sullivan, if it comes down to sacrifice for that thing downstairs then I will gladly give it my life so your mother can kiss your cheek every morning from now to eternity. Do you believe that, Amanda?"

The words had just the effect Sam wanted as he watched Amanda suddenly take them and draw on them to enable her own strength, even smiling a little on the verge of tears. "Yes, Mr. Swift Crow, I believe you."

"Then trust me, believe in me little one when I tell you this will work, I promise." Sam pledged, giving the small hand one last squeeze.

"Yes, sir, Mr. Swift Crow, I trust you," Amanda stated with a resolve that was growing more solid with each passing second, which made Swift Crow smile.

When he stood back up though he saw tears forming in Maggie's eyes and he panicked for a second. "What? Is there something wrong?" He asked quickly.

It was the sudden realization that made her cry, that and watching a man who could kill you a thousand ways give a single pledge to her daughter to keep her alive. As he asked his question, Maggie felt the shame in her heart twist her insides just a little more. "You knew what was coming for us, didn't you, Samuel? You've known the whole time, and yet you still came here to this island to save us."

"Yes," Sam admitted with a small exhale hating to see her fight with that shame like this, "I knew before I came here what was waiting for you, Maggie."

"I never meant this for you, Samuel. I only wanted men with no honor or integrity, people the world could survive without and be the better for it. Why did a person like you take this job? Why did you have to show up tonight?" She asked, the Irish accent almost singing to Swift Crow.

"Because it's what I do, Maggie, call it being a SEAL or a warrior or whatever. At the end of the day, I protect the people who need to be protected, no questions asked." Samuel answered with the boyish smile both Maggie and Amanda had come to enjoy seeing.

"But I don't want this for you. I don't want someone like you, someone so honorable and just to die for something-" Maggie said, fighting back the tears, her trembling hand reaching out for Swift Crow's free one.

He could see her fighting it, the shame, and knew what that was like. Those months after the girl died in Juan's compound, he had fought his own shame, was still trying to win over it in some ways. Sam took her hand in his and using his commanding voice, cutting her off in mid-sentence, "Do you still want to save your daughter Maggie?

"Yes," she whispered, looking at him calmly now. The passing moment of weakness gone now, Swift Crow could see as he squeezed her hand.

"Then never feel that shame again Maggie, not one bit of it, tonight or any other night. You do whatever is necessary to make sure Amanda gets off this island alive, and if that means taking my help to do that, then you do it. That's all that matters, Amanda, understand? The only thing that matters is she gets away, understand?"

"Yes," Maggie nodded this time breathing deep, getting her feet back under her his grandfather would say. The pair stood quietly with eyes locked and may have stayed that way if not for a smaller version of Maggie calling to him.

"Promise me you'll find us after tonight Mr. Swift Crow." Amanda suddenly demanded with such a stern look. The request took the breath from Swift Crow's lungs. The look on his face must have said it all because Amanda gave his hand a solid squeeze in hers while her lips drew a small taught line. He looked over to Maggie, and her expression was exactly like her daughter's, a 'make the promise, or I'm not leaving' look that made him marvel just a bit.

"Promise me Mr. Swift Crow, or I will not leave," Amanda demanded again pulling his attention back to her. Sam grinned small wondering at how close these two were taking cues from each other without really knowing they were doing it.

"All right little one, I promise I will find you when this over." Swift Crow stated finally. And with it he saw both ladies instantly smile, their true strength now showing, and he knew then they would make it to freedom. They would escape, and really that's all that mattered to him. If his life had to be given so they could escape, then so be it. All he wanted was to complete one last task to set both truly free, and as they stood there in the quiet, he took a bit of their fortitude to finish this fight. The break wasn't long though as the brood began to chitter and squeal, moving into place to do something.

"So I guess we're going through the door, huh?" Maggie asked starring at the portal with a hated look while wiping away a tear. The thought of going through-

"Nope, you're going out a different way." Swift Crow answered, walking over to the boarded-up window on the wall. Maggie was about to ask Sam what he was planning, then he produced a small ax from behind his back, a tomahawk almost. It was cold black steel with a leather-wrapped handle and the blade made short work of the boards covering the window. In a few seconds, it was open again, but the SEAL wasn't done, though. He pulled a length of rope from the belt on his waist and unraveled it. With a few quick loops of his hand, he made a small harness and motioned for the women to come over by the window.

"I'm going to lower you both down to the ground. Do you have the pouch in your hand?" Swift Crow asked, and when Maggie nodded, he smiled while helping them get ready to escape. "When you're on solid ground, make sure that pouch is still in your hand and make for your boat like your life depends on it because it does Maggie."

"What are you going to do?" Maggie asked quickly as she and Amanda slowly slid out the window, careful not to disturb the powder.

"I've got a plan, hopefully, a good one. Now take a breath and get ready to run." Swift Crow answered one last as he controlled the descent of the women's drop by using his back and shoulder as a pulley. As he watched them disappear he tried not to disturb any of the powder he laid out in a straight line on the window sill earlier that kept the brood out, but it was impossible too. The sparkling dust scattered from the rope sliding on the wood. This party was about to get crashed Swift Crow thought to himself as he heard the scurrying sounds of hundreds of brood. Less than a minute later, Maggie and Amanda touched terra firma just before the first of Bezokk's children came rushing up and in.

Maggie pulled Amanda close as the bugs skittered up to her. One hand clutched her daughter while the other squeezed Swift Crow's pouch in a death grip. There was a moment of great trepidation as the large bugs stopped inches from her frozen form and for a second she was sure they would rip her and Amanda to pieces. The pouch was a bust she wanted to scream, but then the brood shuffled on by paying little attention to her before climbing the wall to the open window. It was apparent they had other plans. Maggie and Amanda looked up to see a mass of bugs climbing the wall with ease, streaming into the room they had just climbed out of. They stood for a second pondering Swift Crow's fate before Maggie moved them north with slow practiced steps dodging the fast scurrying brood. They walked for what seemed an eternity, but it was actually only a few minutes before up ahead, they could hear the waves washing up on the beach. Once, just before they reached the small cove and the watercraft, two of the brood suddenly appeared out of the fog and dark. Maggie and Amanda stopped as the insects passed by never slowing and never showing a sign they knew the two were there at all.

The boat was a V hull with a small steering stand in the center, moored just on the sand bar of the beach, capable of getting them to the shore of the mainland. As Maggie pushed it off the beach with her shoulder, Amanda asked a small question from her hunkered spot on the bow.

"Do you think he'll keep his promise, Mother?" Amanda asked silently.

"Mr. Swift Crow is a man of his word, Amanda. I think if it's possible, then you'll see him one day very soon." Maggie said, hopping into the boat. They were gone in seconds, slipping away into the cover of the night, and escaping their predetermined fate. A few minutes later, they both saw the huge fireball that lit up the night, and both immediately wondered about the promise Samuel Swift Crow had made Amanda.

At least the woman got to the ground, and hopefully, that pouch full of crystal dust did what it was supposed to do. Swift Crow didn't see Maggie and Amanda walk away and make good their escape. He had just enough time to pedal back into the room before the bugs climbed in through the open window. The brood advanced fast into the room, some on all fours and others on two like small humans, but all had their mandibles clicking with each step. He opened the first pouch and poured what was left of the contents in his gloveless left hand, and immediately, the bugs stopped advancing. He looked to the AR-15 leaned up against the wall and with a grimace, watched as the bugs tore it to pieces. Swift Crow sighed and then slowly backed over to the door and pushed the three boards that made the wedge holding it in place out with a swift kick of his right foot. The bugs moved with him making sure the small gap between never opened more than was allowed, the powder Sam held made the brood stay just at a three feet radius to him. It was why the powder kept them out at the window and the door, a ring of ebbing energy holding the small insects at bay. The entrance to the room swung open with a squeal when Swift Crow pushed it. He took a quick back step into the room, making sure to keep the bugs honest before stepping out.

The hall was a solid mass of moving insects, yet the small bodies parted like the Red Sea as Swift Crow moved out among them with slow steps. The ceiling, walls, and floor undulated in rippling waves as the brood squirmed to and fro. This must be what it looks like on the inside of a beehive. Someplace he really didn't want to be, just like the here and now. Sam advanced slow enough for the bugs to get out of his way as he finally reached what was left of the stairs to the bottom floor. The satchel charge had been shaped to blow outward maiming and killing anything with the explosion covering their escape, but Swift Crow could now see a good part of the bottom section of stairs was gone due to the bomb. The last four feet would be a simple hop to the ground, that's if the top part held long enough for him to get down. The floor below was now carpeted with the brood that stood looking up waiting for him with a hundred eager beady eyes. All right first problem, he had to use what was left of the stairs cause jumping down ten feet into the pit of moving bugs below was out of the question. Any slip or fall and you could bet the house that the bugs would be on him before he could recover, and the landing from a jump at the full ten-foot height might cause the powder in his hand to possibly fly out. Swift Crow looked back in the hall behind to see the little buggers waiting for him to start his descent. The only way out is through he thought to himself, so the SEAL took a quick breath and a small, steady step onto the first step of the damaged stairway.

What was left of the landing groaned loudly as his weight settled on one foot, and it screamed practically as Swift Crow took the second step. On the third step, the wood of the landing wailed but held, till two brood jumped on and it gave way. The wood snapped and started to fall. Swift Crow was already in motion though sensing what was about to happen, the brood was not about to play nice here. Just as the remains of the stairway began to collapse with a loud crash, he leaped forward and away from the falling mass of old wood and nails. The drop to the floor was maybe six feet. Swift Crow wasn't really counting the distance at the moment when the ground was rushing up at him. Then he hit the floor with both feet, literally, and just like he was trained, Sam used his forward momentum from the height of the fall tucking to a roll. His legs folded up and in as he went into a perfectly executed roll. Only the SEAL had never done one from that height before while holding onto a handful of ground crystal. One or two of the ribs on his left made a slightly sick crunch sound as he rolled and Swift Crow wasn't a hundred percent sure but he might have just avoided breaking the damn bones by climbing down the few steps that he did.

He came up kneeling with his left hand still clinching the crystal dust and just in time to see the brood rushing out from the upstairs hall dropping down to the floor like a flood of lemmings running off the cliff. Some though crawled down the walls, these broods landing with a lot more grace than Swift Crow, as others climbed up to the ceiling trying to outflank him, but not one of the offspring approached closer than the three-foot circle. In a second, the downstairs was filled with the small insects climbing over each other to get to Sam, but again not a single one dared or could get close enough to do anything. Swift Crow rose slowly from the ground stretching his left side with the bruised ribs and looked out the gaping hole which at one time was the front of the house. He could see big momma out there just waiting on him. She swayed uneasily from side to side, as if threatening to faint, but the SEAL knew better.

Swift Crow walked with easy steps toward her as her children parted for him, just like upstairs in the hall. The brood from inside fought and pushed with offspring outside, everyone lining up for the dinner bell Swift Crow thought, encircling him to keep the SEAL from getting away. He moved out past the wrecked walls of the hotel and into the night with the chittering bugs staying with him step for step. The cold wind felt good against his hot skin as Swift Crow slowly moved past Bezokk making sure to keep his distance. He kept walking, away from her and toward the dock. He had to get back to the pier. He had to be ahead of all the little insects here. The last part of his plan was there at the dock...he had to get to the dock.

"Where is my tribute insignificant one?" Bezokk asked with that evil voice that sounded like it came from everywhere at once. Her brood all squealed and screamed in unison, causing Swift Crow to wait before answering.

"The girl's gone you, ugly bitch, so you and the kids might as well pack it up and hit the road. If you leave now, you might even catch Dan Patrick on the radio." Swift Crow remarked.

"You lie!" Bezokk screamed at him, taking a thundering step forward.

The move the massive beast made was more frustration than intimidation, more anger than daunting, and as such Swift Crow just pulled out the bandana, he swabbed with Amanda's scent and smiled his broadest boyish smile. "You've been following the wrong scent. Your 'tribute' is long gone, lady. Your pact is broken, courtesy of one Patrick Sullivan."

The beast known as Bezokk stood starring at Swift Crow with its litany of eyes for a second, and then it screamed in pure anger at him again. The sound and force of the bellow this time hit the SEAL like the concussion wave from a bomb that was too close for comfort. His hair and clothes whipped back, and it took a bit of strength to keep from flipping backward, but Swift Crow didn't fall and only squeezed his left hand holding the gem dust tighter. Suddenly his right hand brought out an oversized grenade, his thumb over a button on the top of it. "You want to dance with me, sweetheart? Maybe you want to take a shot at the belt?" Swift Crow threatened with a sneer.

Bezokk strode forward with a long stride that rumbled the ground, but Swift Crow never moved from his spot.

"Good, the night wasn't a total waste then." Swift Crow spat. He pushed the button on the grenade and tossed it at Bezokk's feet among the number of brood gathered around her. The beast screamed once and swung her oversized hand at him, but Swift Crow was already dropping down and away. He felt the breeze of the large appendage as it passed over his head maybe by an inch or two, guess the dust doesn't work on big momma like it does on her brats Swift Crow thought coming up out of his roll with his eyes closed. A second later the flash grenade went off like clockwork illuminating everything in a five-foot area in harsh light and a disorientating blast. Bezokk and her brood, even the ones who had him circled him, screamed in pain and rage from being blinded by the sudden bright light and a loud explosion. Swift Crow used the precious seconds the flash grenade bought him by running for the dock through the stumbling bugs knocking a couple over on the way out. He dug deep into his energy reserves, pushing his legs as fast they could carry him, and from behind the sounds of the brood starting to chase him hit his ears.

The race was on; the first one to the dock stays alive.

"Is this the dock?" A voice asked with an elegant male Irish accent.

The ship's captain could barely see out of his swollen eyes, which happens when you take a beating for an hour or so. His ribs were also broken along with his jaw, nose, and right hand. Both kidneys and other internal organs were severely bruised from the numerous body punches delivered over that same hour. All the combined injuries were probably why he had to be held up by his arms by two rather large men. A third stood ready to deliver more pain with a bloody set of brass knuckles if told to while a fourth watched from his spot by the rail of the ship's bow. After watching the four men attach a 200-pound chain around his first mate's legs and then toss the poor bastard in the ocean kicking and screaming while they were steaming back to this infernal island gave the Captain enough incentive that this was not a good day to die, so with a bit of pain, he answered.

"Yes, sir...I dropped them all off here."

"And what did you do next?" Peter Sullivan, the CEO, asked with that elegant Irish accent. His expensive custom fit Gabardine trench coat covered a thousand dollar suit from the drizzling rain. One man on the dock below kept watch while the four others went about their boss's bidding without question or hesitation.

"I told you, I left for the mainland." The captain spoke grimacing from the pain in his jaw and face.

"Who paid you for this chauffer job?" Sullivan asked, squeezing his hands, which were covered by leather gloves.

"I don't know. It was some guy's voice on the phone. I drop off a group of five men, and a package would be delivered to me with the money in it." The broken man wheezed.

"Refresh my memory, Michael, whose voice was that on his phone?" Peter asked, looking over his shoulder to the lone man by the rail.

"The voice was one Dan Wilcox, Attorney at Law. The money was delivered from his office." The fourth man, Michael, stated coldly. His Irish accent wasn't so dignified and sounded more guttural, like a guy from the wrong side of the tracks.

"So I know more than he does right now Michael is that what you're telling me?" Peter asked the man quickly.

Michael nodded his head and chuckled with evil. "That you do sir, that you do."

"There's nothing else you know, Captain? Not a single scrap of information?" Peter asked, turning back to the injured man being held up.

"Hell no, I told you everything." The Captain spat.

"Oh boyo, that was the wrong answer," Michael said, shaking his head this time.

The Captain inhaled painfully intent on asking what Michael meant, but Peter had already given the nod to the man with the brass knuckles. The end came slow and painful. The man with brass knuckles beat the Captain mercilessly until he finally slipped away from this world. The two men holding the body up simply let it fall to the deck with a thud then pulled out handkerchiefs and wiped off their hands.

"Should we go after the five guys he dropped off?" Michael asked.

"I think we need to find out where my loving wife and devoted daughter have gone?" Peter countered with a voice dripping in cruel sarcasm. Since learning that his wife Maggie had withdrawn several million dollars from a secret account where he kept undisclosed funds from specific 'unclassified' shipments three days ago, Sullivan had watched his plans for this night literally fall apart at every turn. A tip led him to the man who had been paid to watch his daughter, Amanda, sleeping like a baby on the floor of a rather nasty hotel room where sex was sold as natural as drinking water. He was charged with taking Amanda to the island, to tie her down so Bezokk would have its tribute. Instead, he was found unconscious from a sedative, given to him by his wife Maggie who was posing as a prostitute. It was then he realized just what his significant other was up to, trying to save her daughter from what had been decided and could not be undone. He had to find Maggie and Amanda, Peter had to set this right or the pact would be broken and there was no telling the devastation that would cause. Peter was about to give an order to his 'specialist.' Michael handled most of his unseemly needs, but then someone bolted past the guard on the dock headed for the ship.

"I think your answer is coming to you right now." Michael hissed with a malicious grin. Peter turned just in time to see this new man jump onto the boat with a quick leap. The three men who had brutally beaten the Captain of the ship to death drew matching nine millimeters with a quick snap of their wrist from inside their coats.

He had kept a good lead on the insects by running all out, that's why the idiot on the dock never got a chance to even raise his gun as he ran past. Swift Crow flew by the man in a flash gaining entry to the boat in the blink of an eye. The momentum from jumping up onto the deck throwing him against the bulkhead with a crash. The group on board stared in disbelief for a second before the guns came out, and the tall man in the middle decided to say something witty.

"Running from something are we?" Peter Sullivan asked cocking his head to the right.

"You don't know the half of it, Pete. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to take a quick breather." Swift Crow remarked calmly while leaning up against the bulkhead for balance.

"Just who the hell are you?" Peter asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I could say I was the guy who left you the tip on what your wife was planning out here, but I can't lie to you, Pete, that wasn't me." Swift Crow said, bending over now at the waist to catch his breath.

Peter's eyebrow rose an inch, just the right one, as he spoke. "The tip came from a woman, not a man. And just how do you know about the tip by the way?"

Swift Crow straightened exhaling as he smiled, "I know the right people in the wrong places Pete, certain Organizations with the ability to track everything you do. Hell, I had your private number and what brand of underwear you buy in five minutes."

"You had someone else make the call, to get us out here. Now that makes me wonder why you'd do that lad." Michael pointed out, joining the conversation.

Before Sam could answer though Peter sneered while bringing his eyebrow down as his brow furrowed, asking his own question of Swift Crow, "I am more interested in who you are than who you know. What did you say your name was sir?"

Sam didn't answer right away, only held up his hand to request a pause before taking a sip from his water bottle. The move didn't sit well with Sullivan, who ground his teeth while Michael to his side growled. "I'd say from his get up this guy's Special Forces, probably a hired gun from Wilcox's group. You catch a ride earlier tonight on this here boat lad?" Michael asked, standing just to Peter's right.

"My name's Johnny, Johnny Walker, and yes, I did catch a ride on this boat. You know, I think I might have left a bag on board too, mind if I go check?" Swift Crow lied with his broad smile after finishing off the last of the water in the bottle. He tossed the receptacle over the rail calmly before turning back to the men holding guns on him.

"Tell you what Johnny, why don't you tell me where my wife and daughter are instead," Peter said with the beginning of an evil grin.

"Oh yeah, Maggie and Amanda, that's a really nice family you have their Pete. I helped them escape from that old house in the middle of the island about eight minutes ago. They're okay if you want to know." Swift Crow responded still grinning with his boyish smile.

The look Peter Sullivan made after hearing where his wife and child had gone turned Swift Crow's blood cold, it was somewhere between a mass murderer and Satan. The left side of his mouth opened in a snarl exposing a set of sharp canines and his brow furrowed even more into a mass of wrinkled flesh. He was about to scream in a tirade, which probably wasn't going to be very nice, with pure anger when what sounded like chittering bugs coming from the dark behind the CEO stopped him cold. Everyone turned to look at what was coming down the hill at the dock, and everyone heard the words Swift Crow spoke with a low whispered tone.

"Uh-oh, boys here comes big bad momma and all her kids."

The hill was suddenly alive; it moved and swayed from side to side. A half-minute passed before Peter, and his men realized what was really moving. It wasn't the hill itself, but hundreds of giant insects that looked like cockroaches were running and squirming toward the dock. Michael ran to the rail again and screamed at the man standing watch on the pier. "Get up here NOW!"

The single guard both took off running just as Bezokk crested the hill and came into view. The loud rumble from her movements became audible on the night air, and one of Peter's men said a prayer to his Lord to protect them all, even the nut who just jumped on board. Bezokk's brood parted to let her pass, each step just missing crushing one of them. The giant demon and the small ones moved in mass and then stopped at the water's edge, just feet from the boat. The brood crowded around their mother excitedly as she stood ramrod still, the water lapping against her feet. Some of the offspring chased the guard from the dock onto the boat then patiently waited there, dinner it seemed was just a minute or two away.

"Where is my tribute?" Bezokk demanded to know with her demonic voice that rippled on the air from everywhere at once.

"Oh great Bezokk, your tribute was brought here as ordained by our pact," Peter responded back.

"The tribute is no longer here! It has left, and you have disgraced me!" Bezokk countered with a scream.

"No great one, I have not disgraced you. This man and my traitorous mate have deceived you and me this night. Oh great Bezokk, hear my pleas and know I speak the truth to you." Peter exclaimed pointing to Swift Crow.

"You're bloodline is running out of time, our pact will break at sunrise! Give me my tribute or face destruction!" Bezokk screamed again blowing Peter's hair back.

"No, wait! This man knows where your tribute has gone." Peter wailed pointing at Swift Crow before turning to his slack-jawed and shocked assistant Michael while hissing. "Make him talk, or we are going to die very horribly!"

The appearance of Bezokk and her brood provided the necessary time Swift Crow needed to make his move, his last stand you might say. The six men were too busy watching the large insect with the hundred smaller ones running around its feet to pay any attention to the strange man behind them. Even though some had their guns drawn, not a one was concerned with Sam. Then Michael spun around suddenly pointing to the SEAL. The three in front turned to do what was ordered, the last guard just stood mouth agape by the man who ran past him. Swift Crow was fast and smooth, not a single hesitation in his movements as he drew then leveled both forty-five's before firing with fiery burst while shuffling sideways across the deck working from the outside in with his shots.

The first man on the right, the guard from the dock, and the first on the left never had a chance when the slugs from the twin forty-fives slammed into their chest driving them to the deck. Only the other two men had a chance, but Swift Crow was already shooting them, two bullets into each chest finished them. Michael was the only one left, and for a second, he paused, from shock or fear the SEAL guessed, which caused Swift Crow to stop shooting. The two stood looking at each other for another second more before Michael made a move for his holstered gun, and Swift Crow shot him in the shoulder, just at the brachial nerve. Peter's assistant felt his arm drop and the limb go dead. The whole shoot out was over in a matter of seconds, the smoke from the gun powder quickly fading in the drizzling rain and wind.

Swift Crow kept his right gun pointed at Peter and Michael, but he also kept an eye on the massive demon standing just about ten feet away. He holstered the left forty-five and then reached into one of the pockets of his vest. No one spoke for a few seconds, and then Peter whispered with a growl.

"Do you have any idea what you are doing?"

"Yeah I do, I mean I did plan it." Swift Crow remarked sarcastically with a small laugh.

"You have not a clue what you are threatening to undo here!" Peter spat.

"Oh but I do know Pete. I know exactly what I did tonight when I helped Amanda escape." Swift Crow stated coldly to the fuming Irish man letting his words sink in. And when Peter's expression changed from anger to enlightened, when Sam knew the CEO understood what was happening, he pushed the knife in just a little deeper. "Maggie and Amanda won't be truly free till you're no longer here in this world so tonight it all comes to an end Pete, the pact and you and that big ugly thing right over there. The ladies deserve to start a new life, and that 20 million Maggie stole from you will give them a good head start."

Sullivan inhaled through his nostrils which bellowed with the effort and sneered. "Then you plan to shoot me? And just what are you going to do when Bezokk comes for you?"

"I wasn't going to shoot you, Pete. I won't let your blood stain my spirit or the spirit of your wife and daughter." Swift Crow answered, still looking down his gun at Sullivan. The CEO inhaled again, on the cusp of asking this fool just what he was going to do when Sam put the final step of his plan in motion by screaming to Bezokk. "Hey lady, your friend here's trying to weasel out of the pact you made with his great grandfather."

"What are you saying?" Peter gasped, realizing finally what the crazed man had planned. He could stop this Sullivan told himself. He was a CEO, he could talk his way out of anything, and that was just what the man was going to do he thought, turning to the large beast. "No, Bezokk, he's lying!"

"Am I? Just ask yourself how I knew what island to come to Bezokk? How did I know this was the night of your tribute?" Swift Crow asked the beast.

"Shut up!" Peter spat at Swift Crow.

"What is he saying, Sullivan? Did you conspire with him to break our pact?" Bezokk suddenly asked the CEO.

"No great one! He is lying to you. The man is a liar and a killer! Look at how many of your offspring he destroyed this night." Peter countered, screaming to the beast.

"I killed them under orders from him." Swift Crow retorted, pointing the finger at the CEO while adding a little 'umpf' to the ball he had started to roll. "He wanted to destroy you and your brood. He gave me information on ways to hurt you, ways to hinder you at the house, and he ordered me to use any means necessary to wipe you and your seed from the earth. He even brought in the others to kill you."

"SHUT UP!" Peter bellowed, taking a step toward the SEAL. Sam immediately turned and fired a round between the CEO's feet, causing the man to jump and scream with a high-pitched wail.

Swift Crow never skipped a beat as he turned back to Bezokk and kept talking. "Sullivan here is a businessman lady, and like all good businessmen, he oversees his bottom line meticulously. All the power and money you heaped on his family started costing too much, I guess, and he wanted a better deal. Only I don't think you'll take anything less than a firstborn and he probably thought the same thing. He hired me for a few dollars to get rid of you and free himself of his end of your pact."

"HE'S LYING! I TELL YOU, HE'S LYING!" Peter howled in a high pitch. He knew it was over now even before the beast Bezokk screamed at him, and the angry voice his mind told him so. He had lost it all the CEO thought, and now he might just lose his life as well.

"I do not believe either of you!" Bezokk bellowed as she stepped up to the bow of the fishing boat taking the rails of the bow in her large hands.

"Oh great Bezokk, please listen-." Peter tried to say, tried to plead his case one last time, but it was too late now to stop this train from rolling down the tracks.

"Enough! Both of you will die for what has conspired this night! Kill Them All!" Bezokk screamed. She raised both hands high overhead meaning to smash all three men with a tremendous downward blow.

"No! NO!" Peter Sullivan snarled before stepping back, his man Michael doing the same but taking one more to the left.

"See you around Pete, I got to run!" Swift Crow yelled, noting his plan was done and it was time to do some E&E. He took two long steps to the Port side of the trawler and jumped over the rail for the safety of the sea. No one saw his left hand click a remote trigger hidden in the pocket of his cargo pants as he started to count back from sixty in his head.

Peter and Michael both turned and ran for the cover of the interior of the ship at the same time, just as Bezokk's meaty hands came down and crashed into the deck of the bow. The blow cracked the wood deck like an egg and sent the stern of the fishing trawler upwards lifting it free of the water exposing the rudders and propellers. The floor beneath them suddenly went to a steep angle, and wet metal and wood offer little grip to expensive dress shoes. Peter and Michael abruptly felt weightless, floating for a brief moment, before beginning to slide back toward the beast. The CEO grabbed for a door handle to keep from falling back toward Bezokk as his worker Michael scrambled for a purchase with his one right hand, able to hold onto a pole with a deathlock grip. The two men looked over their shoulders just long enough to see the small brood scrambling toward them. They obviously had no problem with the slippery deck at its present position.

The ocean water was cold as it shocked Swift Crow's system for a split second as he sank, but then his feet hit the mud with a reassuring whump. The water around the dock where he jumped in was just over twelve feet deep, and the fall from the deck of the fishing trawler along with his clothes and weight was just enough to sink him all the way. Sam pushed off from the bottom, arching his body slightly away from the boat as he traveled upward. He broke the surface just in time to see Bezokk's blow knock the bow almost off the fishing trawler, Peter and his goon were nowhere to be seen. Maybe she got them already? Then his ears caught the sound of splashing, a lot of splashing, like a lot of small bodies hitting the water in one long continuous flow. Swift Crow looked over his left shoulder while treading water and he saw a good number of the brood coming for him, running right into the water.

"Oh come on, you're kidding me, right? These little bastards know how to swim!" Sam screamed before kicking over and diving for the bottom again. Maybe, he thought, the things wouldn't be able to go deep.

His mental countdown clock hit fifty.

The metal and wood of the ship screamed as the bow of the fishing boat couldn't withstand the strength of Bezokk. The beast's blow tore the section of bow free from the hull of the ship driving it into the mud of the shallows, and as it pulled its massive hands back, the trawler fell back into the water with a loud crash. Peter Sullivan gained his footing quickly, the sight of Bezokk crawling over the decimated bow and coming for him, giving the CEO just the proper motivation to get the hell out of the area. He pulled the door open he had clung to with the handle that had just saved his life with a hard pull and ran inside, leaving Michael to fend off the brood and the best alone. Loyalty has a price, and all good businessmen know precisely where the buck stops, pal. Michael might have screamed for help, but the CEO of Shamrock Imports didn't hear a word, and he wouldn't have helped anyway if he did, it was most certainly that time when it was every man for himself.

Michael watched his boss disappear into the ship through the door, and he had every intention of following except for the fact the little bugs chasing them were fast. The brood cut him off from that escape route, leaving Michael with only one choice and he took it. Michael spun and started to run down the small side, passageway toward the aft of the ship while holding his damaged arm to his side. The brood never hesitated in chasing the man. The insects poured over the structure of the trawler in pursuit, climbing the walls and the hull in their chase. He made it to the aft section and was just four steps from leaping into the water like that fella who shot him had done, then Michael felt something land on his back. Oh, Christ, one of those ugly insects had jumped onto his back! Panic set in and Michael stopped running and began to try and swat the thing off spinning in small circles, but when he reached back, he heard an odd sound, like the click of a pair of scissors. And it was right then his hand suddenly felt strange like it wasn't there anymore. Michael gasped as he saw his own hand hit the deck and bounce, that was just a second before the rest of the brood caught up to him and just like the others from earlier he quickly fell to pieces before the sharp mandibles of the offspring.

The brood could swim. As a matter of fact, the little things could swim really well. They looked like small baby crocodiles, only uglier if you could imagine. Swift Crow watched as not only had they began to catch him, but actually surround his position in the water where he floated just above the bottom. The SEAL knew his best chance was in the water if he tried anything else anywhere else he was a goner. Swift Crow pulled his survival knife from the sheath on his belt and readied to make another last stand as the bugs approached.

His mental countdown clock hit thirty-five.

Bezokk pulled its body onto what was left of the bow feeling the wood and metal give under its weight. The bow was still attached to trawler though by the long super sturdy keel that ran the length of the ship. As Bezokk moved along and over the crushed bow, the boat shifted and rolled as she pursued Sullivan. The beast saw him go through the door and with a jump across the broken bow, it lunged at the door with both hands that Peter Sullivan had gone through. The beast ripped and pulled at the metal garnering access, basically opening the ship up like some crude tin can and the fruit inside was a man who had dared to break her sacred pact. Even some of the brood felt her wrath, their bodies getting flung from the structure of the ship into the water as it was peeled apart. Sparks flew from broken wires that were still live with electricity while lights all along the boat popped and exploded as the beast gave chase to the man who broke the pact. Bezokk had given the Sullivan family all they wanted and more, and now they refused to provide her with the necessary tribute, mocked her and her powers openly. Well, the Sullivan's would all pay for this one's gall. They would all pay with their tears and with their blood.

Peter ran for his life. He ran down the hall just a few steps ahead of the force that was tearing the ship apart to get to him. The walls bent and ripped amazingly to the physical power of Bezokk while floor fell inward and downward into the bowels of the ship, the destruction was following right on the CEO's heels too. Sullivan ducked into a room that had nothing but an open hatch in the floor. The sound of metal being torn apart and rain suddenly entering the dry sanctity of the ship signaled that Bezokk was not going to give him up or let him be. Peter could hear her closing in like a lion, only more extensive and more dangerous. The CEO didn't look down inside the hatch or even try to climb down into the room below using the ladder like a sane man would do. No sir, he just leaped right in. Desperation makes you do the craziest things, and this thought crossed Peter's mind, right before the eight-foot fall came to a bone-crunching conclusion. His ankles didn't like the force of the landing, and both bones snapped clean, sending the CEO sprawling and screaming across the hard deck plates, which were now under about an inch of rising water. Peter rolled over onto his back, teeth clenched from the agony, and then he saw the ceiling buckle as a large pair of hands with sickle sized claws tore through it.

The metal of the ship tore freely in its hands as Bezokk watched the fool run for his life, a step ahead was all the lead he had now. Bezokk pushed its body farther into the interior of the ship, tearing at the walls and overheads to fit, to chase its prey. The beast caught site of Sullivan ducking into a small room just ahead and so with a might yank the wall standing between it, and the man disappeared as Bezokk muscled and squeezed its body farther into the interior of the ship. The room was bare though, nothing except a small hole in the floor was the only thing in the room which confused the beast for a second, but then a wail of pain echoed from the hole signaling Sullivan's whereabouts. Bezokk kicked and pulled its body farther inside the hull, ignoring the fact it was becoming caught in the torn metal and wood. The floor gave way quickly to Bezokk's claws, and finally, Sullivan was in sight once more as the deck opened up with a loud screech of protest.

The first brood went for Swift Crow with a sweep of all four of its tiny legs for a powerful swim stroke, but the SEAL reached up and grabbed the bug's mandible with his left hand. The right hand came from the side in a sweeping motion with the knife stabbing the small insect's body over and over instantly clouding the water green. The other brood behind never slowed and Swift Crow had to use the twitching body of their kin as a shield as the insects began to finally close in. He pummeled one that tried to cut him with a great bite with the dead body of its brother, or sister, and a third felt the blade of his knife after getting too close.

His mental countdown passed twenty.

The floor was covered in the kind of paint with the pointy stubble to create traction, and at the moment, that was hindering Peter in his crawling attempts. The water that washed across the floor wasn't helping either as it splashed into Sullivan's face after hitting a pipe or stanchion. Still, though, he pulled with both hands on the sharp floor trying to escape Bezokk feeling the flesh on his hands cut and his thousand-dollar suit tear. He suddenly heard the metal ripping apart above him and somewhere deep inside, he knew there was no way he was getting away alive. Bezokk would hound him till it tasted his blood, then the beast screamed for him, and Peter rolled over to see it crawling through the newly made hole to get him. It was only a matter of seconds now he thought, just a matter of seconds.

"There is nowhere to run now Sullivan, nowhere to hide fool!"

Bezokk never hesitated as it plunged through the rip in the floor to get at the man who defied the pact. Retribution was just a few feet away, justice was at hand. Then suddenly, with a loud screech of bending metal, the beast came to a complete stop. Its enormous body covered with an even more giant carapace didn't fit through the tear in the deck, it was stuck like a cork in a bottle, and that didn't make the beast happy one bit. Bezokk began to struggle to throw its weight from side to side trying to get free, but the only thing it did was wedge itself even tighter in the hole. An infuriated Bezokk began to scream with anger and lash out at the fleeing Sullivan who had somehow just crawled out of range of its claws. If it was possible to make Bezokk even angrier than it already was then Sullivan had found it because the beast began to thrash and strike at the motors and walls of the space in hatred and boiling rage.

They were closing in too fast. The SEAL's only chance was to retreat, so Swift Crow pushed off from the bottom, propelling his body backward. The brood closed in trying to keep the prey pinned, but the man was too fast, and he escaped for now. The bugs swam after him with four powerful strokes of their stubby legs. This one would taste good. The ones who fought the most always tasted the best. Swift Crow kept counting as his mental timer passed ten. Houston, hurry up with that countdown because I'm running out room down here on the ocean bottom the SEAL thought as the brood reeled him in. He readied the knife for the brood's charge.

"Are you ready to deal, oh great one?" Peter asked with a sarcastic tone just before laughing even more. He was enjoying the moment as much as a man with two broken ankles being chased by a nightmarish beetle could enjoy the situation.

"No! I will never give in to you!" Bezokk screamed it's thrashing increasing with every second.

The CEO started to chortle now. The mighty beast was caught like the proverbial rat in a trap. He didn't try to hold back any of his contempt. He let it all out in great guffaws and gasps. Was this what he feared? This nothing of a bug! Peter Sullivan ran the third-largest import business in the world, he made billion-dollar deals over breakfast, and he feared this pathetic thing that was busy doing a great imitation of a boxer's speed bag. He turned his head to the side to try and give his burning lungs a rest, and that's when his eyes saw the small-sized black bag tucked neatly under a large square tank. On the side of the tank, sizeable red lettering read 'Fuel Tank #1', and underneath that, a second label reads '1000 gallons when full'. Hey, didn't that crazy yank say something about accidentally leaving a bag behind? Yes, he did say something to that effect, didn't he?

Swift Crow lashed out with a quick stab at the first brood as it came in range, and less than a second later, he drew back what was left of his knife. The little bastard had bitten clean through the steel with one chomp of its mandibles. The countdown hit one, Swift Crow knew it had to be done by now. The brood went in for the kill, all the ones left swam at him with their mandibles and maws open.

This was it, game over.

Bezokk screamed so loud in frustration that Peter covered his ears, trying to block the sound out, which was causing a dramatic stab of pain through his brain. He looked over at the black bag one last time and asked a question to no one but his own mind. Could that yank have filled that big bag with explosives maybe, snuck it on board, and placed it in the engine room without being noticed? If that bag was full of an explosive and if it were to be set off while sitting under that full tank of fuel...well then, the blast was going to be unbelievable. Peter Sullivan wasn't able to ask another question to himself, he didn't have the chance to form another thought or another idea. There was no bright flash like those you see from expensive Hollywood movies when an explosion happens, not even a sparkle. One millisecond Peter Sullivan was watching a ten-foot beast scream and thrash in anger, and the next he simply didn't exist anymore.

The fishing trawler heaved upwards from the detonation of roughly 5 pounds of plastic explosive, or C4 to those who know it by that name, covered with nails and round metal balls. A single charge from a small electric device triggered by remote control and the resulting explosion of the C4 blew through the fuel tank, which was three-quarters full, igniting the rich gasoline and creating a two thousand degrees fireball. The blast tore through the hull so fast it ripped the ship in half, both ends drifting apart before settling into a boiling sea.

The brood, who were jumping and down on Bezokk's back trying to force its bulk through the rip in the deck, disappeared in a flash from the explosion. The metal around the offspring erupted upwards and outwards from the force of the blast, a microsecond before the fireball swept through what was left of the compartment. There was nowhere to hide or run as a two thousand degrees monster blazed and burned them alive in an instant, leaving nothing behind. The ones caught topside on the main deck didn't fare any better as the metal from the walls below blew through the floor like missiles. Between the flying shrapnel that cut them to shreds, the ever-expanding fireball that burned them, and the concussion which flung their small bodies through the air, not a brood survived.

Swift Crow saw the explosion from underwater, but there was no way to prepare for the shockwave that was traveling through the ocean at him. He was barely quick enough to blow out the air in his lungs just as it hit him and the last of the brood, the force driving them all into the sandy sea bed and flattening them out like pancakes, the shockwave registering somewhere between heavy and 'oh-my-god-its-crushing-me' on the pain scale. Everything went dark, and Swift Crow started to slip into unconsciousness, his body slowly floating up from the seafloor while all around him the dead bodies of the brood hung in suspension. Then suddenly he moved, a twitch at first followed by a flutter of his arms, and finally, the SEAL was swimming, but not to the surface. He wasn't sure what was up or down or right or left, the world was too dark and muddy to him. Swift Crow stayed calm, trying to orient his bearings to his surroundings, but nothing in his training helped his lungs which screamed for precious oxygen. Then something told him to arch his back, the surface was overhead and a few feet away. Swift Crow knew the voice instantly. The two had been conversing for months now in his waking dreams. He did exactly what it said and swam for what was left of his life in the direction it told him to go.

When he broke the surface of the sea a few seconds later, Swift Crow gulped down the smoky air reviving his spent lungs. He trod water as best as his battered body would and searched for the shore, but his eyes wouldn't focus enough for him to see. The voice again guided Swift Crow, it was there about twenty yards over his right shoulder but be careful, it was littered with debris it said. He turned and began to swim with small side strokes that hurt like hell to perform, even taking a breath hurt like a mother. The voice though implored for him to swim, willed him to finish the task and reach the safety of the beach. A few minutes later he crawled up on shore, the debris from the fishing trawler was mixed with the dead bodies of the brood. Some were burnt, some in pieces, and some were whole but twisted in awkward positions. Swift Crow couldn't see any of this, though, his eyes still refused to focus.

"All right, it's official, this is definitely the worst I have ever felt. I think it's time for a nap." Swift Crow gasped lying down on his stomach in the sand and rocks as his body refused to move one more inch.

The voice told him no, he couldn't fall asleep it ordered him to stay awake. He was hurt and injured. He had to stay awake.

"Where am I bleeding from? I can feel it running down my cheeks. How bad is it?" Sam whispered out loud to the wind.

Your bleeding from both eyes, both ears, and some cuts and scrapes...but you will live though, nothing is very serious the voice reassured.

"I don't know, from where I'm laying it feels severe." Swift Crow spat with a cough that hurt like nobody's business. The voice didn't respond, and after a minute, he spoke again. "Please show yourself, I know who you are. I've known for a while now who you are."

For a minute, there was no answer, and Samuel Swift Crow, a veteran of countless combat incursions felt a twinge of fear. He was alone in the dark, wet, and cold from the sea, with no one to listen or comfort him. But then he felt something, a small vibration like a hum which ran through his entire body from somewhere deep inside, and it felt so good, so warm. Swift Crow was so busy with the hum; he never noticed the approaching ball of light until it was all around his body. The light from the floating orb bathed him, took away his pain for a brief second giving him a peaceful respite as it began to shapeshift and take on another form. When he looked up to the brightness, his damaged eyes magically focused and staring back at him was the most beautiful pair of eyes he had ever seen next to Maggie's. The orbs were what his father use to call 'doe eyes.' The eyes were large, round, and filled with a stunning brown iris. The tortured girl from the jungle, the one he had buried with dignity, simply smiled back with a slight cock of her head. The bruises and cuts that ravaged her body were gone, in their place, the glowing skin of an angel.

"I knew it was you." Swift Crow sighed calmly with a small grin.

The girl said nothing, but the voice was in his head again. It told him to rest, he would not be alone here, she would stay with him.

"Thank you for not leaving me. I've always been scared of dying alone." Swift Crow confessed with a shake of his head.

The voice told him to stay strong, help was on the way. Another vessel on the night sea saw the fiery explosion and was steaming this way. He just had to stay strong and rest.

"No thanks, I'm done with this life. Just let me die and find peace on the other side." Swift Crow remarked.

The voice demanded he had to stay alive, to never give up like his SEAL motto said, and then she reminded him of the promise he made to Amanda. He had to stay alive. He had to find her just like he vowed he would.

"Are they safe? Did Maggie get Amanda away?" Swift Crow asked quickly, the want to leave this world abruptly forgotten with the mention of the two ladies.

Yes, both are safe. They would reach the shore of the mainland soon and then start their new life, free of the dark now because of him.

"I guess they won't be affected by the destruction of the pact." Swift Crow whispered lying his head back down on the sand.

The end of Bezokk would only affect the families who had kept the profane pact with the beast the voice whispered. The end for the ones who honored the horrendous bargain is coming on swift wings for them, but nothing would happen to Maggie or Amanda.

"I would hate to be in their shoes." Swift Crow remarked with another cough.

Then the voice asked him to look to her again, and with a small inhale, Sam looked back to the girl's face. She was reaching out with ghostly fingers to touch his forehead, and he didn't' flinch or pull away when the small gossamer appendages entered his skin. He knew she wasn't going to hurt him because she wasn't capable of that now in her new place. And suddenly a flurry of images played out for him in his mind's eye, she was showing him something, using the pictures to tell him a story, how all of this became to be.

He saw Amanda as if she were standing a foot or two away, hiding just outside her father's extensive study. He knew this wasn't allowed, if her father caught her, she would feel his wrath, but curiosity was sometimes stronger than fear. He could hear Peter and Maggie yelling, they were talking about Amanda, and the discussion was very heated. Somewhere in the yelling, she heard what she was never to know. What her life was meant for now. Amanda ran from the study back to her room and cried until she could produce no more tears and then fell into a deep but troubled sleep. Swift Crow could see her dreams, or nightmare in this case, and the truth of being a 'tribute' was laid before him. She was to be a host, a bearer for the great Bezokk who would bury an egg deep inside Amanda's body. Two weeks would pass before the egg would reach a particular stage of maturity, and then Amanda would feed the larvae with her own flesh. The thing would eat her alive from the inside out, she would feel each and every bite until it finally had grown enough to shed its host like an old skin. That's how Bezokk bred. Why the beast traded power and money with its 'magic' to a family in exchange for one member every few years. There were so many families, so many more than just the Sullivan's. Amanda saw this, she felt it, and in her nightmare, she screamed for someone to help her. The spirit of the girl from the jungle found Amanda, followed the pleas for help, and comforted the girl slowly telling her that everything would be all right. She knew of a man who would help her, a hero just like the Lancelot Knight she loved to read about. That's why she sought out the SEAL, that's why he became the young woman's protector for this night. The voice paused, and the hum increased warming, Sam's spirit just a little more.

Swift Crow didn't know if his damaged eyes would produce tears, but if they did, then he was crying like a baby. How strong could that young girl be? To live every day knowing that one night you would be given over to a beast so it could breed its own brood by consuming you bit-by-little-bit. Amanda Sullivan would make one hell of a SEAL he thought to himself.

The voice told him Amanda was strong, her desire to live was enough to attract her attention, and that's why she sought him out. Samuel Swift Crow was her Lancelot, a hero who would always protect those who could not defend themselves, a hero who was brave and gentle. That's why she chose him to be the girl's protector, that's why he was given all the knowledge needed to prepare for the battle, and why in the end he would be the one to kill Bezokk and free Amanda.

"I'm no hero...I just couldn't let anything happen to her..." Swift Crow whispered, laying his head back down, trying to fight the need to sleep.

No, my hero, the voice replied, you kept Amanda from being sacrificed. You gave her egress when there was no chance for her escape. You were willing to lay down your life for hers without asking for payment like the others the voice pointed out. In the end, you destroyed Bezokk and freed the tormented souls of the others who were sacrificed in the name of evil. You saved her from certain death just like her Lancelot would have done, facing your own injury and demise with gallantry.

"I'm no hero." Swift Crow whispered again, barely audible this time. "After I saw them standing in the house...the look of fear and terror in their eyes...there was no way I could walk away."

Go to them, Samuel Swift Crow the angel smiled as the voice sweetly spoke to him. Find Maggie and Amanda, start a new life with them and rest your weary soul. You have won and deserve that much for what you have endured this night. Swift Crow didn't say anything. Talking was no longer high up on the priority list. He just wanted to lie still until the boat that was coming finally got here. The angel stayed at his side, never moving or leaving him alone as all around them what was left of the brood simply fell apart in small tendrils of smoke and embers. Without the life of Bezokk to keep them sustained even the uninjured ones disintegrated screaming in either pain of death or joy of being freed. Soon there was nothing left to show the massive beast or her brood had ever existed at all.

Nine months later...Little Eagle Monument Powwow, Little Eagle SD

The open plains of tall grass rolled by the window of the crossover her mother had rented as Amanda looked out with eager eyes noting the vastness of the prairie, the sheer fact the open plains seemed to stretch on forever to the horizon enthralling her. The pictures she had looked up on the internet hardly did justice to seeing the reality of it all. Amanda sighed with a smile as the image out the window brought back memories of her old home, the green rolling hills of Ireland. After escaping from the island and landing on the Maine coast, she and her mother had made their way down to Tennessee, to a small community in the mountains just outside of Pigeon Forge. The Smoky Mountains were beautiful to Amanda but now seeing the openness of these lands, it just brought back her memories of home...and then she thought of Samuel. She hadn't been able to stop thinking of him since the package arrived by special courier three weeks ago, a box containing two white Stetson hats made for women and a letter asking them to come to South Dakota to see him and Grandfather.

"How close are we Mother?" She turned away from the window to her mother and asking with a smile still.

Maggie just smiled herself and kept an eye on the road as she listened to the GPS in the dash give her directions, "just a little more, do you see the sign?"

Her daughter turned back around just in time to see the large sign go by the passenger side window of the crossover SUV. The excitement in Amada's soul leaped into the morning sky as the words Little Eagle Monument Powwow appeared and then disappeared in a flash but not so fast as to make her heart skip when she read them. She turned back in her seat and fidgeted the last three miles to the Reservation grounds and the site of the Powwow while in her lap she held a small box like it was a precious one-of-a-kind diamond. When the SUV pulled up to a small booth at the entrance to a large open field which was where all visitors were parking a pleasant woman smiled and walked up to Maggie's window. She looked beautiful, Amanda thought with beads and feathers tied in her hair. Before the elder O'Shea could ask what the price to park was the Lakota woman spoke. "Are you Maggie and Amanda?"

A twinge of fear and enthusiasm gripped the pair, Maggie suddenly went into her emergency 'escape and evade' mode while Amanda just gasped and smiled wider. The older O'Shea was still looking over her shoulder at every sound or move, and Maggie knew she might always be, even after the death of Peter and his family; she was still wary of strangers. Yet something kept her from acting, the warmth of the Lakota woman's smile maybe, but whatever it was that calmed her Maggie just nodded and smiled back. "Yes, we are. How did you know we were coming?"

"Oh, Sam told us to look out for you two. He said to look for two of the prettiest wiyans that will arrive today, and I can tell you both he wasn't close to describing just how pretty." A man said walking up, his voice sounding like music to Amanda's ears making her giggle.

Maggie blushed a little at the compliment as the woman turned and admonished him in her unique tongue, her words dancing on the wind. Then she turned back to them and sighed, "Please forgive George, he hasn't quite grown up yet."

The remark made Maggie and Amanda laugh, put them at ease, and when George only laughed as well, it made the pair in the SUV warm. "Sam took care of your parking and tickets, so just follow the signs to the special parking area for VIP's." The woman said, stepping back waving to them.

The SUV pulled away slowly as Amanda waved to the pair at the gate, her need to see Swift Crow only growing with each second. The pair found the area with no problem as it seemed everyone knew they were coming, and everyone was quick to point them in the right direction. After they parked the SUV Amanda ran out of her door as Maggie stepped out of hers, in control somewhat better than her daughter. If you asked the older O'Shea she would have stated without hesitation, she barely contained the excitement in her heart as well. She'd readily admit that she wanted to see him as well, needed to see him, and as they walked along with others toward a large gate where people were entering the grounds for the powwow they both slowed to a stop together almost at once.

There he was, standing in a pair of jeans and a chambray shirt untucked. His hair was longer now, Amanda thought as she took a step forward, pulling her mother with her who strangely enough was thinking the same as she was being pulled along. He turned seeing them finally, walking up in their White Stetsons and cowboy boots, and only smiled and waved to them. As he did, Amanda took notice of the bone choker necklace he wore and the bracelets wrapped around each of his wrists. He didn't look anything like the man in the house that night, the one who came ready to protect and kill, and that suited Amanda so well. She liked this Swift Crow better than the other one from that night but even as young as she was Amanda understood both were part of the same man she had come to love like a father and to accept one was to take the other. The strong and purposeful knight and gentle, compassionate man.

"Hello Maggie," Samuel Swift Crow said with his boyish grin as he walked up to them. Before she could answer Maggie watched as her daughter threw her arms around his waist and squeezed hard. The move made Sam smile wider as he hugged the little girl back while Maggie only watched barely able to hold a tear back. "Hello little one, I'm happy to see you too."

He hugged her as hard as he dared while looking up to see Maggie, and he saw the tears she was trying to hold back. Then Amanda finally let go, and Sam looked down to her, into those matching green eyes, and felt a connection like he had never known. He was so proud of her that if Amanda was of his own flesh and blood, Sam couldn't be more honored to know and watch after her. "Do we look like real cowgirls Mr. Swift Crow?" she asked quickly straightening the Stetson and sending a chuckle through Sam.

"You and your mother are the prettiest cowgirls at the Powwow today little one." Sam smiled, looking up at Maggie. She was about to say something when her eyes finally caught sight of the small hearing aids in both of his ears.

"Oh Mother, Mary, and Joseph," Maggie whispered, putting her hand to her mouth.

Amanda looked up and just as her mother did she gasped a little at seeing the buds in his ears. Swift Crow though only shook his head, refusing to let the moment be ruined by something no one could have prepared for or stopped.

"You're both alive ladies, and that's all that matters now, all that matters." Swift Crow said, pointing to his hearing aids. "Yeah, I had to have some work done and answer a few questions from men in suits before I could come looking for you, but it doesn't matter now."

Both of the ladies only smiled as Sam reached down and took Amanda's hand in his and squeezed it to reassure her as he looked to Maggie. "And might I add you did a great job in hiding Maggie, it took some of my best detective work to track you two down. I like the last name now, O'Shea, it fits nicely."

"Thank you, but will you tell us what happened to you after we left?" Maggie asked locking eyes with Swift Crow, letting her emotions show as she took his hand in hers.

"We can talk about that later." Swift Crow whispered, returning the look and emotion.

"Who asked you questions?" Amanda inquired suddenly breaking the stare between Swift Crow and her mother with a broad grin. Oh, she knew what was happening between her mother and Sam, and she was so happy she could almost burst from it.

Swift Crow shrugged his shoulders before answering. "The Police and a few government officials who wanted to know exactly what I was doing on that island."

"What did you tell them?" Maggie questioned with a whisper and a little worry.

"That I was working on the fishing vessel when a fire broke out in the engine room, and the main fuel tank ruptured and exploded." Swift Crow winked.

"And they took that as the truth?" Maggie smiled with the worry gone from her voice.

"It was close enough to the facts for the government, and when a few important and wealthy individuals died rather strangely, they stopped coming around. Agendas change really fast when major donors to Political PACS begin to die off in numbers." Swift Crow responded.

Maggie sighed with a shake of her head. "I read about them in the papers. I guess you got an answer to what would happen if Amanda escaped."

"And I've never been happier for being right," Swift Crow stated looking down at Amanda and winking again.

The group fell silent for a second and then Amanda held up the box she had been carrying carefully and protectively for the last two weeks. "Mother and I got this for you. We wanted to let you know how much we think of you and what you did for us."

The gesture left Sam speechless as all he could do was reach down and take the box from Amanda's with a shaky hand. He opened it easily and then felt his lungs stop for a brief second, the air in them hanging in suspension. And as he pulled the small necklace free from where it had been carefully kept, he finally took a breath. On a long leather cord hung a hand-carved image of a wolf howling made from blue Turquoise. It dangled for a second before he was speaking with loving reverence. "A wolf, the perfect gift ladies...thank you, but I don't need a gift for what I did."

Maggie heard his words and had already expected them, knowing full well the man called Swift Crow would take nothing for doing such a brave act. "No sir, you deserve so much more for saving us, for finding us to make sure we were safe."

"Yes, Mr. Swift Crow, you deserve more," Amanda added, and with both sets of green eyes now on him Sam knew better than to try and fight them.

"I always keep my promises little one, especially the important ones." Swift Crow said with another wink to Amanda before slipping the necklace over his head and around his neck. As he did, he smiled and nodded back to the powwow, "would you like to meet Grandfather?"

"Yes, we would Sam, so very much." Maggie chuckled, squeezing his hand.

"Oh yes, Mr. Swift Crow, can we meet him?" Amanda begged.

"Well, he's right inside waiting for us," Sam said while turning and then guiding both Maggie and Amanda in past the gate. He nodded to one of the attendants who only smiled and nodded back before saying something in the Indigenous tongue of the Lakota, which made Amanda giggle thinking the way the people of these lands spoke was pure magic.

The trio walked among the Lakota with every few calling out to Samuel in their special greeting, a lyrical phrase of two words that Swift Crow would answer with a single one. Maggie and Amanda looked around, taking in all the sites, from the woman dressed in traditional dancing garb to the men wearing formal tribal wear. Amanda would gasp then give Sam's hand a small tug asking a question about something she had just witnessed, and Swift Crow would only grin and answer her explaining his traditions. Then they reached a large circle surrounded by other Lakota who stood and sat watching lady dancers dressed in special regalia, bright colors and long feathers and sweeping shawls swirled in a breathtaking display. Maggie and Amanda watched with open mouths at the beauty and may have stood there till night came if not for the sound of an older man speaking. When they turned to see who it was talking they were looking right at an older version of Sam if one were to age him 40 years.

"Ladies, this Grandfather...this is Maggie and her daughter Amanda Grandfather." Sam stated making the introductions.

The elder Swift Crow only smiled and nodded, "Hello, ladies, welcome to our powwow."

"Thank you, sir," Amanda replied with a small blush to her cheeks.

"Yes, thank you...the dancers are lovely." Maggie added

Grandfather turned away and looked at the dancers then back, "yes they are. The women are doing the shawl dance now, but soon the men will be doing the Traditional Grass Dance for us."

Sam chuckled and nodded. "I can't miss that one. I better get the drinks and get back, everyone wants one?" Everyone nodded before he turned and left, leaving Maggie and Amanda alone with Grandfather. As the dance continued on, and they watched with joy at the sight, Amanda looked up and smiled, "they're wonderful."

"Yes they are, and so is the wolf necklace you gave Samuel," Grandfather answered winking just like Sam to the little one.

Almost at once, Amanda gasped while Maggie looked over with a look of shock and surprise, "How did you know we gave him a wolf necklace?"

"Because those with right hearts see Sam for what he truly is, the same as the Lakota and Cheyenne saw Little Wolf," Grandfather answered with a grin. When it was apparent, the ladies were still in shock; he only smiled more and continued on. "Little Wolf was called the Sweet Medicine chief, the incarnation of Sweet Medicine. It was this way because Little Wolf only cared about his people and not himself, and it's the same with Sam. It's why he went to help you, why he became this SEAL for the white man's Navy...all those he loves comes before him. He was lost when he came back to us so many years ago, that was till he found you two Maggie and Amanda, and now he has a purpose again."

Maggie finally smiled, leaving her shocked expression behind as she whispered, "it's why we care for him as well because he asked for nothing when he came to help us."

Grandfather only smiled, seeing that Maggie felt more for his grandson than just caring, and he felt his heart swell just a little from it. Then Amanda was looking up to him and whispering, "How did you really know we gave him the necklace?"

The elder Swift Crow bent at the waist and looked the little girl in the eyes with a mischievous grin, "I saw it poking out of his shirt."

Amanda broke out in a laugh as Grandfather winked once more. Maggie only shook her head chuckling low before turning back to watch the dancers again. They waited happily for Sam to return with the drinks while a new world unfolded before them.

The End

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About the Author...

R.Kane lives in the Southern US where he was born with his family. He enjoys the occasional fishing trip for bass and throwing the ball with his Golden Retriever.

_Please visit the website for updates -_ http://www.rkanepublications.com

