SEAL Team 666: A Novel

Behind her, the lead SEAL let his MP5 drop on its sling and pulled his MK3 knife free from the sheath on the side of his right thigh. He knelt on the demon’s outstretched right arm and began to saw madly at the wrist. The hand came away just as Hoover jerked the jugular free like a dirt-encrusted vine. While one of the SEALs opened a canteen filled with holy water and poured it in the empty space in the demon’s neck, another pulled out a flare and jammed it in the center of the unholy beast’s chest. A platoon of Vatican exorcists couldn’t have done a better job.

As the SEALs and the dog worked their way back down the hall, the demon burst into flame and was soon consumed, turning to an ashy reminiscence of its former shape before dissolving into nothing.

They cleared the rest of the second floor with no further interaction.

Outside, they could hear reports of gunshots from SEAL Team 6, as well as those of their sniper, but they couldn’t concern themselves with that at the moment. Whatever was happening outside would be taken care of by those assigned to that mission. For now, all they had to worry about was their target on the third floor, someone the entire world had been searching for over the past ten years.

They repeated the same method for breaching the third-floor door as the second, but the door swung open to an empty, dark hallway. They stepped carefully into the hall, hugging the walls and wishing their NVGs were still working. Only two doors exited off the hallway. From the week of practice they had in the mock-up, constructed based on intelligence from the interrogation of an informant at Bagram Air Force Base Detention Facility, they knew the one on the right was a storage room. Their target was through the door on the left. Still, the storage room had to be cleared. Two of the SEALs did so, while the remaining SEALs and the dog made the left-hand door their universe.

Once the storage room was cleared, SEAL Team 666 converged on the last door.

The lead SEAL checked. It was unlocked.

They exchanged glances; then the SEAL turned the knob and pushed the door, which opened into a bedroom suite. The only light in the room came from a fire burning in a brazier on a central table. Behind this sat the man they’d come to kill. But instead of concerned, he appeared unfazed, drinking from a silver goblet.

“Down on the floor!” the SEALs shouted, first in English and then in Arabic.

The man made no move to comply.

Two SEALs moved into the room and searched the corners. They each raised a hand signal that meant clear.

Hoover stalked forward, growling, one stiff leg at time.

The lead SEAL kept his MP5 trained on the man. “If you won’t get down, then stand the fuck up.”

The man placed the goblet on the table and slowly got to his feet. He was very tall, with a graying beard that flowed to the center of his white-robed chest. His face had an almost cherubic quality that could have inspired a smile had it not been universally known that he was the mastermind of thousands of innocent deaths.

A shriek erupted as a woman charged from the inside of a wardrobe. She struck one of the SEALs in the back with the blade of a knife, but it snapped against his Kevlar body armor. The SEAL spun and caught her on the side of the head with the barrel of his Super 90. She fell to the ground, unconscious.

Another shriek erupted, this time from the other side of the room. Another woman leaped free of a wardrobe. This one took two bullets in the leg. The SEAL who shot her then kicked the knife free from her grip. It skidded across the floor and stopped beneath the bed.

The tall man started to change after the failed attack from the women. His face contorted. His features shifted and reshifted, changing the architecture of the human face into something else entirely.

The lead SEAL opened fire, but the bullets had even less effect on this figure than they’d had on the demon one floor below.

The other SEALs opened fire as well, unloading every slug and round they had into the creature. The MP5s ran out of ammo first. The SEALs let them fall on their slings. They opened metal canisters filled with holy water and doused the newly formed creature.

Where the water hit, smoke rose. A multi-octave scream filled the room, the sound of hundreds in agony coming from the mouth of one.

The lead SEAL knelt and withdrew an ancient blade from where it was secured in Hoover’s tactical harness. The blade was black with age. Etchings from a dead language adorned the surface. The shape was a like a tongue of flame, and as he held it toward the creature, the creature recognized the blade and showed fear for the first time.

The SEAL and the beast clashed in a mad jumble of punches, blocks, and kicks. One was fueled by the righteousness of his mission and thousands of hours of practice, and the other was fueled by the infinite darkness that had filled its soul.