Once in the tree line, Ash slowly turned in a circle as he walked, intensely focusing on his Root and Third Eye chakras to confirm the danger originated from this side of the farm and opposite the driveway and road to town.
The narcos almost always attacked at night, which made this incursion out of the ordinary, but Ash didn’t hesitate and dashed through the trees toward the threat.
Ten minutes later, Ash reached the border of the grove. This section shared a boundary with a protected area that included a large lake and far too many crocodiles. Half a mile away, at the edge of the lake, he recognized one of the local cartel’s lieutenants, a man he’d named Stash because of the thin mustache the man constantly touched.
The group Stash spoke with had arrived in a pickup truck containing a machine gun mounted to the truck’s bed. The five men around the truck wore black body armor and carried automatic rifles. The truck almost certainly made them cops—probably from Guadalajara.
Ash used his Root to pull energy from the ground and concentrated on where he thought his Crown chakra resided. Using some willpower from his Solar Plexus chakra like his grandpa had taught him, he tried to will himself out of his body, hoping to activate his Crown chakra, but like every other attempt, nothing happened.
Ash crept to within five hundred feet, not close enough to hear their conversations, but near enough to see more details. Stash gave one of the cops a stack of cash, and Ash didn’t need his hearing to know what came next. He studied the five-armed men and guessed they likely had advanced training as they studied their surroundings instead of lounging around and smoking.
Even when dating Maria, Ash rarely went into town, meeting her instead on the town’s outskirts. The last time he’d ventured into town had been when his grandpa hadn’t returned from getting groceries. The local branch of the cartel hadn’t hurt Grandpa Pine and had only rerouted him. The purpose of that had been to delay the old man long enough to flush Ash into the open, and he’d obliged.
Stash had led that team of thugs and hitters, and Ash had killed every one of them except Stash, allowing him to live and relay a message back to the cartel’s local bosses. Anyone who interfered with Grandpa Pine would die. Period. Grandpa hadn’t had any problems since.
It made sense that Stash had needed to find cops from Guadalajara, because no one local would risk their life coming to this small avocado farm for just cash. Locals only came in large groups and when forced by the cartel.
Anger at Stash erupted inside Ash, and he grabbed the emotion with his Solar Plexus chakra, converting it into speed and agility as he raced through the trees in the direction of the group. The ground thrummed with energy, and he pulled it up through his feet to strengthen his body.
Their old truck, as loud as his grandpa was deaf, announced the departure of Grandpa Pine from the farm. Ash could take his time killing the outsiders without risking discovery or his grandpa’s life. He continued past the location the kill-team would enter the grove, and a minute later entered the nature reserve. Not slowing, he rapidly approached the only road leading out from the lake.
Stash had lived through their first encounter because Ash had needed a messenger. Instead of taking that warning and keeping away, Stash had returned to the farm. Perhaps he didn’t know Ash well enough or thought too highly of his own skills. It didn’t matter now, as Stash had used up all his luck surviving the first encounter and wouldn’t leave here alive.
Ash slowed as he approached the tree lined road. He sensed the crocodiles in the area as small clumps of danger, but the sensation felt primal, and he could easily tell them from the humans.
Now that Ash had reached the road he moved back toward the original group. As he neared Stash and the death squad, his Third Eye warned him of four others, hidden in the dense foliage surrounding the meeting point.
Ash slowed further as he considered. The local bosses had figured out he always knew about their attacks somehow. They had used that to their advantage by setting up an ambush. He guessed the cops wouldn’t venture too far into the avocado grove so they could quickly return to support the attack on Stash.
Squatting down, Ash placed his hands on the ground, increasing his connection to the earth. Third Eye triggered when he focused on the car, making him think either another person had hidden in the vehicle, or it had something like a bomb in it.
A five-man police-trained hit squad, four ambushers, Stash, and whatever danger the car held made Ash pause. He had certainly faced larger attacks, but he’d always had darkness to hide his movements, although that had become harder when the local cartel had bought IR goggles. Only his ability to briefly adjust skin temperature had saved him that time.
Grandpa Pine had worked with Ash for over a decade on finding, activating, and awakening his chakras. The constant life and death battles had made his Root chakra the strongest, followed by his Third Eye which had benefited from the constant danger. He hadn’t found his Crown or Divine chakras and the other three, Sacral, Heart, and Throat only worked sometimes but only at the most basic level.
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The Solar Plexus benefited from his Step training. It strengthened and focused will power, and Ash’s grandpa had plenty of stories passed down through the generations on its uses. One such tale came to mind now, of a young priest who’d used the focused willpower from his Solar Plexus to fend off a jaguar. Not only creating a physical barrier with it but affecting the jaguar’s actions as well.
Ash sat cross-legged, the thick grass under the trees hiding him from sight. He placed his mind in the second sphere of meditation and concentrated on the area around his stomach. Following his grandpa’s training, he visualized his Solar Plexus chakra, ran a mental finger across it, and touched a nearby crocodile. He used the energy of his willpower to force the beast toward an ambusher a hundred feet away.
Nothing happened.
Instead of a finger, Ash swiped his mental hand across the chakra. He placed the mental hand on the crocodile, forcing his will onto the beast and pushing it toward the hidden attacker.
Still nothing happened.
Threads of frustration and doubt trickled into Ash’s meditation, but he ignored them. This time, he visualized two hands, cupped together, and dipped them into his Solar Plexus chakra, before dumping the captured willpower onto the crocodile, along with the urge to rush the ambusher.
This time, the crocodile moved, and it shot through the underbrush, its movements surprisingly quiet. Before the first scream shattered the silence, three more crocodiles had already surged toward their targets.
Automatic gunfire sprayed wildly from the hidden attackers as they detected the oncoming crocodiles, and Stash ducked, moving toward the front of the SUV to crouch near the radiator. The windows of the SUV, while darkened, remained mostly open, and as Ash had expected, another ambusher, this one with a large pistol, revealed himself as he tried to see what had caused the gunfire.
Ash funneled his intent to move toward the SUV through his Root and Third Eye, keeping his eyes on Stash, not bothering to glance at his surroundings. The moment his chakras quieted he dashed forward, running as fast as he could toward Stash.
It had taken Ash many years to trust his instincts, amplified by the Root chakra as it slowly awakened, and now he moved with a decisiveness that appeared foolish and dangerous. He entered the clearing around the SUV, the gunfire continuing. Thirty feet away, Stash peeked out from the side of the vehicle, looking toward the lake and yelling into a walkie-talkie as he tried to see the threat.
Ash closed the distance in a heartbeat, but as he neared the SUV his Third Eye flared with danger, causing him to slide the last few feet, as if trying to score the winning run off a safe triple. He lifted his foot at the last moment, striking the front bumper and stopping his progress.
Stash turned toward Ash, who’d already rotated his hips in a kick, striking Stash in the diaphragm and knocking the wind from his lungs. He gasped and fell forward, hitting his head against the grill. A veteran of hundreds of fights, he raised his arms, not to surrender, but to help calm his spasming diaphragm.
Ash wanted answers before he killed the man, so he flipped himself to his feet, grabbed Stash’s hands, and broke both the man’s wrists. That would keep him from pulling a knife or gun and attacking Ash from behind. He struck the cartel leader in the back of the neck, directly on the never bundle two inches from the top of the spine. The man collapsed and Ash laid him on the ground as he fed his intentions to his Root.
Without air, Stash hadn’t even gasped in pain when his wrists snapped, and with all the noise from the constant gunfire and terrified screams, Ash didn’t need to worry about noise. He picked up the walkie-talkie, the sound of desperate questions constantly repeated, likely from the quickly returning cops. Not pausing, he crept silently along the side of the SUV opposite the kill team.
Ash glanced in the side view mirror and located the ambusher in the SUV. They stood on their knees, legs pushed against the rear bench seat, pistol aimed out the open back window desperately searching for the cause of the screaming.
The man muttered the same phrase over and over, his voice terrified. “Mano de la Muerte.”
The phrase meant “the hand of death,” and it’s what the locals called Ash, as the few survivors who’d escaped after attacking the farm had never seen him with a weapon.
Ash stood a little from his crouch and tossed the walkie-talkie into the driver’s seat, immediately ducking down. As he’d expected, the sudden appearance of voices inside the vehicle made the man whip around to look. Ash stood and used a Viper Step called Mantis Petal to spear the man’s neck, bursting the brain stem. He curled his fingers and slammed the heel of his palm into the man’s spine, snapping it.
The returning cops saw the man in the car slump forward and they fired their weapons, spraying that side of the SUV with bullets. Ash jumped to the rear tire, protecting his legs from the bullets. To the left, from near the lake, one of the four ambushers escaped the grass. Blood soaked the man’s clothes because a crocodile had ripped off most of the man’s left shoulder and bicep. His right hand still gripped a machine gun, and as he staggered forward, he fired at Ash.
Ash remained still, having long ago learned to stay put unless his Root or Third Eye chakra reacted. So, despite the stumbling attacker firing in Ash’s direction, he remained calm and waited. Two seconds later the attack ended as the gun ran out of bullets. The man threw the weapon away, his ravaged left arm and shoulder making it impossible to reload.
Instead, the man continued toward Ash, pulling a large knife from a hip sheath. Ash kept an eye on the approaching knife wielder while pulling deeply on his Root chakra, searching for details on the five returning cops.
The approaching officers revealed themselves via vibrations they created with every step. Ash’s Root hadn’t advanced enough for all the details, but he could tell they were fifty feet away and closing at the pace of a quick walk.
That meant Ash had time to take care of the bloody knife wielder and still escape. If that group of five arrived and he hadn’t disappeared, they’d flow around both sides of the SUV in a pincer move that would be hard to survive.