Temple Dog Ch. 01: Inanna's Hope

"Akilah. That was amazing. You have no idea how much I've wanted you, nor how long. I've dreamed of this moment for weeks. Thank you." Jeff said earnestly.

"We have to get dressed. Your sergeant will be less than pleased if he catches you with one of your civilian charges. Come on, soldier boy!" She kissed him one last time.

"Will we be able to do this again? I'd really like to be able to keep seeing you." He said, enamored with the vision of beauty he had just spent himself in.

She had tears in her eyes as she looked at him. She had never felt so torn following her Lady's commands. She knew what was coming, what was in store for this brave soldier, and she dearly wished it could be different. She wished they could escape somewhere, and be a normal family, but that could never happen.

"Jeff, I wish it could be so, but you won't even remember this in a moment," she said with anguish in her voice.

Jeff barely had enough time to get out a "what?" before the effect she had put into place earlier took the memories of the encounter and sent them to her Mistress. He stood there blankly while she took time to master her warring emotions.

Once she had composed herself, she brought him fully back to consciousness. He blinked several times, before coming back to full awareness.

"Ok, thanks again for the lessons, Ms Hadi! I think I'm really starting to pick this up! I think when my enlistment is up, I'll look into studying Assyriology. This whole dig has been fascinating. Have a great night!" Jeff waved, then headed out into the camp. With no memory of what had happened for the last hour. He only remembered going over cuneiform translations.

Akilah waited for him to leave, then collapsed on her cot, and silently cried before finally succumbing to sleep.

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The dig team had made a new find that afternoon. In the temple of Inanna, a hidden door had been found. Once the door had been excavated, a stairwell descending into darkness had been discovered. Flanked by statues of large mastiff looking dogs the either side, it was intimidating, yet it beckoned to be explored.So, lantern in hand, one of the team descended the stairs which led into a huge room at least 100 feet to a side, with decorated columns and bas reliefs all over inside what was supposed to be a solid stone construction.

Statues stood watch, in remarkable untouched condition considering their age. Mastiffs and Greyhounds sat upright or stood on all four legs vigilantly. Iconography of the cult of Inanna was prominently displayed in the bas reliefs. The young archaeologist took pictures until the call that dusk was approaching came from Staff Sergeant Bugman, and it was time to head back to camp.

The team was excited and urged the staff sergeant that was in charge of security to let them explore despite the descending sun, but he was adamant that they wait until the following morning. He wanted no chances taken with the safety of the civilian team, and if someone should be injured, it would be easier to get them to medical help in the daylight. Plus, the nights here could be unnerving. Sometimes it sounded like voices whispered in the darkness of the ruins.

Despite the setback, the archaeological team was abuzz with excitement that night. Wine flowed with dinner, a special vintage said to be made following a recipe from a tablet deciphered just two years ago. Speculations and hypotheses were exchanged. Spirits were high. Laughter was audible for some distance. Plans were made for tomorrow's exploration of the new find. One of the doctors even sang an ancient drinking song that had been found inscribed on a beer cup found in a midden.

Then the squad radio had come to life with an overlay of static that made it difficult to hear. The seriousness of the voice, however, was clearly audible.

"Base to Echo 12, base to Echo 12, respond!"

Staff sergeant Bugman, or Bug Man to the squad, due to his extreme district of anything resembling an insect, picked up the mic and responded.

"Base, this is echo 12, go ahead" he said, laconically.

"Echo 12, there is the mother of all sandstorms headed right for you. You have NO time to return to base or get to town, repeat NO TIME. You need to find a place to ride it out. You have less than 5 minutes to find shelter! Bunker down somewhere and we'll send a relief squad in the morning in case you need any help." The radio told us.

Bug Man paled briefly before settling his features back to calmness. Sandstorms were no laughing matter. They could be deadlier than hurricanes if the wind speeds were high enough.

"Base, Roger that. Sandstorm incoming. Will look for shelter. Will bunker down until relief comes in the morning." He stated calmly, but the only answer was static.

All conversation had ceased. Bug Man looked around. The previous excitement of the team was replaced with nervous anxiety. Members of the squad within earshot of the radio were already grabbing gear.

"For those of you who may not have heard," the staff sergeant said in a command voice, "we have a sandstorm approaching. We have less than 5 minutes. Grab only essential survival gear and prepare to head out. We have to find some form of shelter. Our tents are no good for this. And even though I know what you're gonna say already, do you have any ideas, Dr Anderson?"

Dr Anderson, the leader of the dig, smiled in response.

"Yes, staff sergeant. And my recommendation is exactly what you think. Go into the temple. It has weathered countless sandstorms over thousands of years, so it should be safe enough." The skinny, bald archaeologist replied as he pushed his glasses back up his nose.

Nodding, Bug Man had everybody gathered with survival gear and weapons, and had them proceed to the temple as debris picked up by the storm was starting to zip through the area. Less than 5 minutes was an overestimate, as the storm had gathered speed and hit them in under 4.

About halfway to the temple, the metal sign denoting this was an official dig site was carried by the storm at high velocity and embedded itself into Sergeant Jackson's head, right between the eyes, like an enormous axe blade. He dropped like a stone, dead immediately. That shocked everyone. Sandstorms don't have velocities like that, usually no higher than 15 mph, but these winds seemed like those of a hurricane. The wind was picking up even higher.

More debris started buzzing through the air. A collapsed folding chair came out of the sand and nearly took the corporal's head off.

"Move! Move! Move!" Bug Man shouted to be heard, doing his best to hurry everyone along, just as, like magic, the sign came out of Sergeant Jackson's head, barely missing the medic checking for vitals and came spinning like a saw blade and took his right leg off just below the knee. Jeff stopped running when he heard Bug Man scream, turned, and ran to get him when he saw his condition. Akilah had also returned when she heard the scream.

Knowing the first priority was to get out of this damned storm, they each took an arm and lifted him up and dragged him, cursing like a sailor, to the doorway. They were just behind the squad medic, Johannes, carrying Jackson's blood leaking body.

"WHAT THE FUCK?" Bug Man yelled. It was the only way to be heard over the storm, which now sounded like the voices of thousands of damned souls.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON? THIS ISN'T A SANDSTORM, IT'S A GODDAMN FUCKING SAND HURRICANE!" He continued, face pale from the blood continuing to spurt from his leg. It had been less than two minutes since he had been struck by the sign, but his talking had dropped tremendously in volume right after the last outburst.

As they neared the stairway, Jeff could hear sudden screaming, followed an instant later by mass gunfire from the squad. There was also a keening wail that shook Jeff and Akilah to their souls. He experienced a cold shudder down his spine, and failed to notice the look of righteous fury that appeared on Akilah's features.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?" Jeff yelled to be heard over the sand, instantly alert to any threats that might approach from the rear, and worried about what the squad was experiencing below at the bottom of the stairwell.

The sounds of gunfire intensified, then slowly died down, as the screaming continued for more long seconds, terror evident in the voices, before they, too, faded.

Jeff had no clue what the situation was down below, but they had no choice. Let Bug Man bleed out in the storm, or go see what the fuck was going on inside. Inside was out of the storm. He quickly removed Bug Man's belt and combat knife, and used them to place a tourniquet on the staff sergeant's leg.

That was the best he could do. He needed the medic. Hell, he needed a fucking hospital. But right now, Johannes down below was the only thing they had to help. If he was alive. Those screams sounded so severe that might not be the case.

Inside it was. He needed to know what was going on, and if there was any way he could help. He fished out his flashlight and attached it to his webbing facing forward, and motioning Akilah to stay and help Bug Man, started down the ancient stairway.

As his light shone into the room on the bottom of the stairs, his stomach lurched. There were corpses everywhere. Dried and desiccated, he would have assumed they were mummified ancient remains, if they hadn't been wearing camo and battle rattle. Brass casings surrounded almost all of the squad's corpses.

Just beyond them were the bodies of the archaeology team, in the same condition, faces contorted into horrified screams, locked that way for all eternity.

"What the fuck?!" Jeff whispered to himself, as he scanned the light around for any sort of a target. Some part of his mind realized that "what the fuck?" was becoming his new theme, even as he scanned the shadows. The light wasn't strong enough to pierce the darkness, but he could FEEL something nearby.

He heard a choking rasp behind him, and whirled to see Johannes, feet held a foot off the ground as...something black and impossible to clearly make out even by the flashlight's illumination held him by the throat. Light glinted off Johannes's combat knife as he buried it in the chest of the thing to no effect, just before it opened a horrendously distended jaw and fit the man's entire head into it's maw.

Jeff dumped his whole magazine into the thing. Center mass, like he was taught his entire time in the Army, but to no effect. After his mag clicked empty, he could swear he heard a slurping sound, before the creature spat out the head and dropped dessicated, mummified remains at its feet, before it looked at him. He could feel the mocking derision from the creature, before it stepped back and melted into the shadows.

An enemy. Combat loomed. As a new burst of adrenaline flooded his system, his member flooded with blood, and a feeling of euphoria settled into him. He was ready. He was eager for combat. He lusted for it. He switched mags, for all the good it would do him.

Something killed his squad. It killed their civilians. He was gonna kill it back, if it was the last thing he did.

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Meanwhile, Akilah had removed Bug Man's medkit. She hit him with a dose of painkiller and tightened the tourniquet. He had stopped bleeding, but had also stopped cursing, and was starting to go into shock. She laid him down and turned him onto his side. Without immediate medical attention, this was all she could do for the staff sergeant.

She retrieved his 9mm from it's holster, thought for a moment, then replaced it. If this was what she thought it was, the pistol would be useless. Damn. She hated close quarters.

Sighing, she drew two black bladed karambits, and muttering a prayer in ancient Sumerian, carved a protective sigil that should protect the downed soldier from the notice of the demons she worried lurked below, then descended into the darkness to find the corporal. The Mistress was going to owe her big time.

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Jeff stalked the darkness. He seriously disliked his flashlight giving his position away, but his NVGs were in his ruck, and he didn't think he had the time to dig them out, so he made do with what was available right now.

He heard sounds in the darkness. Mocking giggles. Whispers that seemed to come from damned souls, taunting him in a language he could barely understand. It was meant to terrify him. It made him angry.

He wanted to hate fuck the skull of whatever did this. He would get payback. Whatever did that to his squad deserved a righteous justice he was more than willing to serve. If he could figure out how to kill something that ate 20 rounds of 5.56 like it was a slight breeze.

He was nearing the far wall of the room when he saw the bas relief on the wall start to glow a faint golden shimmer. Several of the cuneiform words started to glow with increasing intensity, as did the carved figure beneath them. It seemed the carved figure was expanding in size. The inscription seemed to be a spell of protection, according to his lessons from Akilah.

Several rapid heartbeats later, this was confirmed, as the figure was now the height of the entire inscription. It stretched, as though it were a living being, then...stepped out of the relief.

It was tall. At least 8 feet. It had the head, torso and arms of a man, with the sides of it's head shaved and the hair on top pulled into a topknot between the obsidian bull's horns that sprouted from it's skull. It's skin was the olive shade of the locals, and it had a goatee that grew down into a braid that hung 5 inches below it's chin.

It had the lower legs and tail of a bull, and wore a leather harness vaguely reminiscent of his own combat harness, festooned with knives and pouches. A broad leather belt held more pouches and anchored a kilt of leather strips hanging to just above the creature's knees. And it wielded an obsidian bladed axe, the head of which appeared to be the size of a compact car's door. And it looked PISSED.

It turned its squinted, beady eyes toward Jeff, as a look of rage contorted it's face. It raised it's axe above its head as it snarled a single word.

"Rabisu!"" And the axe was thrown straight at Jeff. He felt time come to an adrenaline fueled standstill. As the axe flew towards him, three braziers along each wall of the room started to ignite, granting some light while shadows still remained in the center of the room.

Everything snapped back to normal, and Jeff dropped into a prone position and loosed a 3 round burst into the center of mass of the thing that just tried to kill him. Just as he did, the axe passed over him, and he heard a THUNK behind him.

He turned over and looked behind him to see...it was humanoid...ish. About 7 feet tall, and almost impossible to discern, even with the light from the braziers. It seemed to actively drink in the light. It's head had a mouth and nose, but above that was bare tissue thin flesh pulled tight against an elongated skull. The mouth hung open, large enough to fully encompass a human skull, though it had no teeth. The "nose" was that of a pig. This was the thing that killed Johannes, and most likely everyone else, too.

It's head and upper body were perfectly bisected by the huge axe that was still embedded in the corpse. It slowly fell forward onto it's knees, then onto its side.

Jeff heard the thumping hoofbeats of the creature he had shot come up behind him. The creature looked at him like a drill sergeant inspecting the shittiest new recruit on day one of boot camp. It held it's hand out to him, fist closed, like it had something for him.

Jeff opened his hand beneath the creature's, and it dropped 3 deformed 5.56mm bullets into his palm, then backhanded Jeff with what felt like a sledgehammer, as he started yelling like a drill instructor, but in a language Jeff could not understand, his horns tipping forward like a marine DI's hat to touch Jeff's own forehead.

Jeff had been to boot camp, obviously. He knew a dressing down, regardless of language or species. He was getting reamed out for shooting a monster he thought was trying to kill him. By the monster he'd shot. 3 entry wounds right in his center of mass were healing as Jeff watched, the flesh knitting back together like some time lapsed video of a healing wound. The words sounded familiar. Like the voices he'd daydreamed about before the assignment went all to shit.

Fuck that. Jeff didn't know this fucker from Adam, and monster or not, the fucker didn't exactly declare himself an ally. He was about to start yelling back when the thought occurred to him that the thing had actually just saved his life. Thebrage at the bull man turned into a feeling of chagrin.

"Ah, fuck. You're right and wrong at the same time. Yeah, I fired without knowing who you were, but it's not like you yelled out that you were friendly before you launched that fucking huge axe at my face! Can we just call it a wash and start over?" Jeff asked the creature, who understood him about as well as he understood it.

The sentiment, though, seemed to get across. The big guy shrugged, turned around, and picked up his axe from the deliquesced goop that was all that remained. The horny fucker reached into a pouch tied to his belt and pulled out a giant fistful of White crystals, and scattered them on the goop, which then evaporated completely.

He held out his hand to Jeff, who again extended his open palm. The beast released some into his hand, then opened his own hand and licked up some of the crystals. He pantomimed for Jeff to do the same.

"Well, here's hoping this guy didn't just give me a super version of demon coke," Jeff sighed to himself as he extended his tongue and licked the crystalline flakes.

Salt. It was the same sea salt the locals used for cooking. What the fuck? The bull man pushed the pouch to Jeff, who took it, and dropped the salt in the bag long enough that he could tie it to his belt. Thinking better of it, just in case, he retrieved another handful.

As Jeff was finishing this task, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. A shadow amongst shadows coming from around a pillar opposite the braziers, and behind his new bull horned friend, just as something drew the creature's attention from the other end of the room.

It was another of the shadow demon things, trying to flank the distracted bull man. It was less than 5 feet away. Without conscious thought, Jeff threw his handful of salt at the monster's face as his right hand drew the giant knife from the bull man's belt mounted scabbard. If the bull man's axe downed these things, maybe his knife would, as well.

The salt struck the demon, causing it to unleash an unearthly wailing scream so loud it made Jeff's eyes vibrate. As skin started to dissolve, the pitch rose so high that Jeff simply stopped hearing it, only feeling his pulse and a constant pressure in his ears.

He brought the obsidian bladed knife, large enough that it was more of a short sword, up and across the creature's throat as fast as he could, severing it's head, and raised his foot to stomp it flat as hard as he could as soon as the oblong skull hit the ground. With a crunch, it was a pile of quickly dissolving goo, as the body also immediately started to lose cohesion, adding to the growing puddle.

The bull man meanwhile had brought his axe to bear and charged in the direction that had been behind Jeff at another of the creatures that was silently stalking toward them. He shouldered aside a blow from one of its gangly arms, and brought the axe up into it's chest before yanking it out, and bringing the back side up and right into it's chin, splitting the head like a melon from the force of the blow. He snorted and stamped at the ground, looking for additional targets, before again dousing the thing in salt.