The Genesis Plague (2010)

the jar close to her breast, screaming wildly as they tried to tug it free. The handlers yanked back on the ropes until veins webbed out over her face and her eyes bulged. Finally the boys stripped the jar from her. She fell limp to the ground, retching.
    ‘ Ul cala ,’ Enliatu instructed the older boy. Open it.
    The boy was not keen on carrying out the task, for he was certain that the jar itself might contain the woman’s evil spells.
    ‘ Ul cala! ’
    The boy curled his trembling fingers under the lid, swiftly pulled it away. Immediately the dancing fire glow captured movement deep inside the vessel. He recoiled and stumbled backwards.
    Undeterred, Enliatu stepped forward and extended his torch over the opened jar. Upon seeing the hideous form nestled within the jar, he scowled in revulsion.
    The warriors exchanged uneasy glances and awaited the elder’s instruction.
    It would end here, tonight, Enliatu silently vowed. He instructed the boys on what to do next.
    The older boy returned to the fire pit and slid wooden rods through the handles on the simmering clay bowls. Then his partner helped him to lift out the first bowl. Steadying it over the woman’s jar, they decanted the glutinous, steaming liquid - kept pouring until the resin bubbled over the jar’s rim.
    The prisoner shrieked in protest.
    Again the owls screeched from the dark forest.
    Enliatu studied the concentric ripples billowing across the resin’s shimmering surface. The wicked dweller was trying to emerge.
    The petrified older boy replaced the lid, held it firmly in place until the thumping within the jar slowed, then ceased. He allowed a long moment to pass before pulling his hands away.
    Satisfied, Enliatu turned his attention once more to the prisoner. On hands and knees, she was growling like a wolf, tears cutting hard lines down her dusty cheeks. Their eyes locked - two stares searing with determination. He was convinced that this was certainly a beast in disguise, a creature of the night.
    Through bared teeth she hissed gutturally, spittle dribbling down her chin. All the while she kept her fingers wrapped around her beaded necklace - an object from her native land. Was this how she communicated with the other realm? Enliatu wondered. Regardless, he was certain that she was cursing him, summoning her demon spirits to destroy him.
    The time had come.
    He signalled to the warriors. They forced her to the ground, face up, and restrained her splayed limbs. The largest warrior came forward, tightly gripping the haft of a formidable axe, its bronze blade glinting orange in the firelight. He crouched beside her, grabbed a fistful of hair at the crown, and yanked her head back to expose the smooth flesh of the neck. A momentary assessment just before he raised the axe high, then brought it down in a precise arc aimed directly above the collar.
    The blade split the soft skin and muscle to bring forth a rush of blood that seemed to glow in the firelight. A second fierce chop sank deeper into the gaping muscle to separate vertebrae - the vile blood splashing up, painting the warrior’s face and chest. He delivered two more blows, until the head was cleanly separated.
    Grunting with satisfaction, the warrior tossed the axe aside and grabbed the severed head by its soft locks. But his smile vanished when he looked into the glowering eyes that still seemed alive. Even the soft lips remained frozen in a taunting grimace.
    Enliatu went to the fire pit. ‘ Eck tok micham-ae ful-tha .’ He pointed to the second simmering clay bowl.
    Extending the ghastly head away from his body, the warrior dropped it into the boiling resin. Enliatu watched it sink lazily into the opaque sap amidst a swirl of blood - its dead eyes still glaring defiantly, as if to promise that the stranger’s curse had only just begun.

1
NORTHEAST IRAQ
PRESENT DAY
    ‘I’m empty!’ Jam called over to his unit commander who was four metres away, crouched behind a massive limestone boulder.
    Keeping his right eye pressed to the rifle scope, Sergeant Jason Yaeger reached into his goatskin rucksack, pulled out a fresh magazine, and smoothly tossed it to Jam. Hot metal intermingled with the discharge gases blowing downwind from the muzzle vent on Jam’s rifle. ‘Slow it down or you’re going to lock it up!’ Precisely the reason Jam had earned his nickname, he thought.
    Jam ejected the spent clip, snapped in the new one.
    The unit’s mishmash of Russian weapons, scrounged from a