Apocalypto Şilť's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Apocalypto Şilť wanted a ghost army, and he meant to collect it tonight. He stood on the floor of his casino, a gambling den he had carved from the hull of an old bomb. He had killed the last owner for calling the place a dream too big. Now the house was his. But a casino needed guards no bullet could touch. He wanted the cursed doubloon chest and the spectre horde chained to it. He crossed the floor to the blackjack table. His skin-suit dripped at the hem. His bone cane tapped the tile, the blood diamond on top catching the neon. The dealer waited there. Jack Skellington shuffled a deck with long skeletal fingers, visor low, grinning because he could not stop. He was the only soul here Şilť paid for knowledge instead of muscle. He knew people. He knew things. "The chest," Şilť said. "Tell me where it sleeps." Jack stopped the shuffle. He set the cards down square. "Pyre and spirits, boss." His voice stayed warm, which made it worse. "A stake marked with demon signs. Pale flames crawling off it. Follow those, you find the gate." "A gate to where?" "Someplace nobody sane walks into." Jack slid a single card across the felt, face down. "Burial ground. A broken headstone marks the door. Under it, the mouth of a demon lord. That's your doorway to the doubloons." Şilť turned the card. A black spade. He almost laughed. "You'd send me to a hell-mouth." "You asked by any means." Jack spread his hands. "I'd go careful. Other hunters smell that chest too. I'd hate to scrape you off the felt." Şilť read the skeleton's tone. Not fear. Loyalty, with a warning folded inside it. He trusted Jack's word more than his own guards' fists. "Gather my men," Şilť said. "We leave now." He took his minions to the burial ground that night. The gate hung crooked on rusted rods. Dead rose bushes clawed the dark. His crew spread out among the stones, blades ready. Şilť found the cracked headstone Jack had named. Pale flames licked from a wooden stake beside it. The flames wore faces, blue mouths wide and screaming without sound. He pressed his cane to the stone and shoved. The ground split. A ring of blackened rock erupted and tore open. Fire roared up from the pit, red and hungry. The mouth of the demon lord gaped, exactly as promised. The doubloons lay somewhere down that burning throat. But Şilť was not alone in wanting them. From across the stones came the whine of an engine and a long war-cry. Hunters. His men turned toward the noise, blades up. Şilť smiled with borrowed teeth. He had found the door. Now he had to hold it, with rivals at his back and a hell-mouth at his feet.