“I cannot explain his current behavior,” Van Resen said sadly. “Except that anything being reborn must pass through the innocent nothingness of oblivion that might at least offer a new start for the returning life. Tabula rasa. Perhaps he came back a blank slate.”
“So. Look, you got the bit between your teeth, you’re galloping, and I just want off,” Seward started, and then glared directly into the scientist’s eyes. “Yes or no, is there something you can do for Lilly or for the rest of us?”
The scientist shook his head and set a hand on the big ranger’s arm.
“I mentioned the wooden stake. Without it, we are defenseless here,” Van Resen said glumly, “when she rises.”
“Rises?” the ranger hissed. “You said she was dead.”
“And not dead...” the scientist said dismally. “I read an account of this phenomenon. She will soon rise to feed upon us.”
“What are you saying?” Seward gripped Van Resen by the shoulders and pulled him close.
“Nosferatu,” the scientist said quietly. He glanced at the others, but his eyes rested solely upon Miss James. “The only way I can help her now is to spare her the ordeal that is to come...”
“Doc...” The ranger scowled, releasing Van Resen who stumbled back a pace or two.
“Like the white-skinned man Lilly is a complicit ‘victim’ of an evil that has stalked humanity since the dawn of time.” Van Resen laughed without humor. “Why not? Many of my colleagues hope to trace the line of human evolution to the African continent. Does it not follow that if these dark jungles are our wellsprings that they might be a similar fount for creatures that have preyed upon us for eternity?”
“Wait!” Seward looked toward the fire. “The drumming has stopped!”
“What did I tell you?” Phillip Holmes moaned from close to the ground where he held himself upright with his arms wound through the bars. “Eternity... You two chatter while the end comes.”
Van Resen and Seward watched a group of skull-masked men armed with bow, arrow and spear approaching the cage.
CHAPTER 34 – Attack
“What has the crow to say of harm and hazard?” the capan had asked of a young man called “crow” before the fellow climbed up the ropes to his moonlit nest on the mainmast. Seetree was worried that the River Demon’s death and its servants’ capture might draw other minions across the river and to the Bakwaniri ship for revenge. “And the other crows?”
This crow had only shrugged and shaken his head in answer for nothing had yet been spied from above. Like his brothers and grandfathers before him this crow had climbed the mainmast daily where he stayed in the “nest” atop it to watch for enemies and hazards in the windy waves of emerald jungle that swept around the ship.
None could remember a time when there was no flock of crows to do this duty, yet had there been a record written within it would be mentioned a first father who excelled at climbing his last ship’s rigging, and who had taken on the crow’s duty when the three-masted village had first been launched.
Ever after had it fallen to his kin to climb the ropes and watch the green—like the crows, they were, and proudly had they watched over the ship and crew. These crows wore masks like the other Johnnies though theirs differed in design and duty, were shaped like the long-beaked skulls of the birds for which the sentries were named.
More than emblematic it was, for the pointed masks were used to focus one’s eyes along the beak like the sights upon a rifle, and the crows would watch the green through deep-set eyes that killed the glare.
It was a quiet shame they bore that they’d caught no more than a glimpse of the River Demon at its years of reaving. But their lofty position was ill-suited to action close at hand—by the river or just past the palisade—being focused as they were upon the greater world from which the larger dangers came roaring.
And there were fighters whose task it was to guard the safety of those who bathed and used the water, and to them had fallen the punishment for failure to halt the River Demon’s ravaging. When their first reckoning came, the capan had started the fire himself, and the angry crew had feasted on their flailing flesh alive and raw.
This crow who climbed from the ropes into the nest was all of 14 years as he saluted his brother.
“Save me a bite of a white one,” he said to the other sentinel who slid down the rope to join in the evening’s bloody revel. There was much talk of the strangers white and black who would go to the fire; and many wondered what the flesh of a monster’s servants might taste like.
The full moon surged past the froth of storm clouds that had piled high as the night came on, and its pale light poured down on the Johnnies and Hearties and little swabs at the great fire.
This crow’s heart thrilled to the beat of drums and dancing, knowing sadly how his night in the nest would feel becalmed.
It was their way for the crew to celebrate what few gifts the jungle cast up, and now with the River Demon’s death the great fire roared for roasting flesh to feed those who had killed the beast.
The crow glanced up past the hanging trees where stars shone in the deep blue that edged the gleaming coast of the rising clouds—and he smiled.
True, he had just come of age, and suffered his first bad bout of weeping boils, but with the River Demon’s death, life ahead was smooth as the crow flies—first a wife, then wee swabbies...
Just as the moon dipped behind a reef of cloud something caught his eye, and he leapt to peer off the port side of the nest. Straight out he stared at great tree boughs that wept green down on the ship where the shadows were deep, and dark against the light from the cooking fire.
There he saw a bright reflection flicker like a panther’s eye, and then, it appeared again—just seconds later, the red lights shining in the night and moving they were. In a white face they shot, closer: five fathoms, and two and then...
Something struck his throat.
Gazda hit the high mast and rebounded wildly as blood jetted up to blind him. He fell but caught the edge of the platform as the bone-face’s body slumped.
The head and mask bounced from one side of the crow’s nest to the other, splattering blood, and rolling along the edge. With a desperate leap and swing, Gazda kicked out to stop its falling but had to scrabble fast as it pitched off the other side.
The night ape snagged the mask by the beak, and pulled it up to his chest.
Panting, relieved and thirsty he set the grisly thing by the body and licked the fresh blood from his hands.
Moments before Gazda had sprinted the length of a broad branch that pointed toward the bone-face lair. Then, at the final instant, he had made the mighty leap across the distance.
Like a knife he’d cut through the air and struck hard enough to sever his enemy’s head.
Gazda glared down from the heights and sneered at the gathering that crowded the great fire below. Ginny was down there, Lilly too, and Vanray with the rest of their tribe of night apes—each of them helpless in bone-face hands.
Gazda smiled. He had enjoyed killing the young Bakwaniri and he panted good-humoredly, tempted to take a lock of hair for Harkon who would be climbing the wall of sticks to kill the guards at the gate with her arrows.
But, he hooted with excitement for there would be more than enough souvenirs once Gazda climbed down to join his enemies.
First he would spread the flame to the nests as Harkon had explained, and then kill as many bone-faces as he could while the huntress opened the gate.
She would go to the cage and free Ginny’s tribe and then go to the stone lair where the night ape had seen her folk put beneath the ground.
Gazda saw no bone-faces at the base of the tall pole upon which he perched, so ignoring the ropes that hung near, he climbed from the platform and started down headfirst, driving his strong nails into the wood for grip...
...until he stifled a playful hoot near the bottom for there he found Omag’s severed head, strung up and still dripping gore.
>
And a sudden wicked notion seized the night ape’s mind that started him panting face to face with his old enemy.
With a wrench of his powerful fingers, Gazda snapped the ropes that held the prize aloft, and hefting the grisly thing he climbed to the ground and carried it to the closest hut.
Inside the small nest, it was as Harkon had thought, for the night ape had seen in her mind a small fire in a ring of stones. Over this Gazda pulled blankets from the bed and held them there until they were engulfed in flames.
He threw this surging orange blaze into the corner, and watched the fire raced up the wooden wall. Smiling, Gazda hoisted Sip-sip’s head and hurried to the next hut.
As the cage door swung open Captain Seward doubled up his fists and ran at the first masked men to enter, but they were ready for the tired old ranger’s charge. A savage struck his gut with a heavy club and another smote his head when he doubled over.
The captain dropped to the ground insensate as still more armed men surged in, their skull-masks otherworldly in the eerie light from the blazing cook fire.
They kept the other prisoners at bay with their swinging clubs, forcing the castaways back to Lilly’s lifeless form.
Jacob and Mr. Quarrie shouted and ran forward, but the older man was felled by a glancing blow to the face, while his manservant was beaten down by a pair of ready warriors.
Virginia James leapt to counter these assaults by throwing herself between the invaders and poor Lilly where she received one vicious blow to the shoulder that knocked her into a club hurtling at her head.
There was a resounding crack of wood on bone and the governess fell motionless on the floor.
Van Resen had watched all this from his objective state, measuring the witch doctor, medicine man or shaman as he entered and approached, ready with an appeal to the savage’s reason.
He had guessed the fellow’s occupation by the air of authority he carried with him beneath a long snakeskin coat that was draped over his thin shoulders and decorated with an old nautical quadrant that hung from the collar. That, and by the way he held the battered spyglass clutched before him like a wizard’s wand; and by the warriors with him who clearly feared the man.
But, Phillip Holmes lurched up from where he hid with the old slaves cringing by the bars, for as his companions were beaten senseless Holmes had been encouraged to see that the shaman’s clothing was patterned after old European styles, and the devices he held western in design.
“I am Phillip Holmes!” he cried, voice breaking, holding out his hands and bowing unsteadily. “A castaway of a wealthy family that has gold for you!”
Two masked men pushed Mrs. Quarrie away from Lilly and lifted the pole to which the girl was tied.
“Step back, Holmes!” Van Resen ordered as the young man moved aside, as the savages bowled the scientist out of their way and passed from the cage.
“She’s dead anyway!” Holmes snapped, sweat streaming over his face. “Worth nothing to what I am alive.” He held his right hand out to the medicine man who paused to appraise the gold cufflinks he held. “Spare my life for these!”
The shaman nodded, smiling through his beard as if he understood before pressing his palms together and bowing.
“I don’t belong here,” Holmes said with some relief, stepping close to the medicine man as the guards gathered to leave. “Let me come with you.”
The shaman frowned.
“For the gold!” Holmes cried, grabbing the man’s shoulder with his free hand.
The medicine man shrugged and took the cufflinks, then grunted to his skull-masked guards who grabbed Holmes by the arms and dragged him from the cage.
The door slammed shut before any within could move.
Holmes struggled in their grasp, crying out to the others but Van Resen could only strain against the bars with the ranger who staggered into place beside him. Mrs. Quarrie and Jacob crawled into view and joined them pleading for Lilly and now Holmes.
The Englishman realized he was headed to the fire, so he screamed and begged until his captors clubbed him into silence.
The savages began to pound their drums again, a constant steady throb like a heartbeat.
“Lilly!” Seward moaned, blood sprinkling from his brow as the wooden bars rattled in his grasp.
Holmes was thrown beside the girl where two savages took instructions from the great fat savage in a red skull-mask. A knife exchanged hands.
“Mrs. Quarrie...” the scientist started to tell the woman to turn away, but he found she had fainted at her unconscious husband’s side.
“Oh Doc...” Seward groaned, tears tracing over his bloody face. “I gotta do something. What can I do?”
“Pray she does not come for us,” Van Resen rasped, clutching the big man’s wrist.
The old ranger winced, but swung around when a loud hiss cut through the night.
The drumming halted and the revelers went quiet, for there by the fire, Lilly had come wide awake. With her hands and feet still bound, she struggled against the carrying pole; but her eyes were a blazing crimson.
And there was no fear in them.
Two savages had been kneeling to cut her bindings, but there was no need for with a shrug the girl snapped every rope that held her, and in a single action she leapt to her feet.
“Lilly’s alive!” Jacob wept from the ground.
“Run girl!” Seward roared with newfound passion, his big fists shaking the bars until their bindings creaked.
The savages were also surprised, and from out of the group of stupefied revelers, the shaman approached the girl with spyglass pressed to his eye.
At Captain Seward’s side, Van Resen watched paralyzed with fear and fascination as the medicine man lifted his free hand, and shouted a command at the girl.
But Lilly moved quickly, and with a pile-driving action of her hand drove the spyglass deep into the shaman’s eye socket and out the back of his head.
The man fell dead instantly as his masked guards charged at Lilly.
She slashed at the first with a claw-like hand and he fell spraying blood from his throat. Another guard tumbled over his crumpling legs, and the girl pulled him close to rip his jugular with her teeth. Thick red blood spurted into Lilly’s smiling mouth.
She stepped forward cradling the dying man in her dripping embrace, moving away from the fire and toward the stunned gathering like a ghastly thing of nightmare.
“Lilly!” Seward hollered, but he went unheard as the girl lapped at her grisly feast, walking slowly as blood painted her cheeks and flowed over her night dress, moving across the bare ground between the savage revelers and the fire.
“What did they do to her?” The ranger turned to Van Resen.
“Call her no more! That is not Lilly Quarrie,” the scientist warned coldly, eyes gleaming with excitement and terror. “She is a changeling—of the kind!”
“What in hell...” Captain Seward growled and then cried out as skull-masked warriors formed a half circle before the girl with arrows nocked and bows raised.
Lilly saw them too, hissing as she raised the corpse and flung it at the group.
The savages dodged the gruesome missile and shot their arrows.
Seward and Jacob cried out for the girl.
But there would be no saving her. At that distance it was an easy shot and fully nine arrows dug into her bosom and abdomen.
Then Lilly’s face began to change. Where she had once been in all aspects beautiful, now her every feature turned to dark desire and ugly, hellish rage.
She slashed with her hands where the missiles protruded from her body to snap their slender shafts away, but they had struck her deeply.
Poor Lilly staggered back toward the fire.
As the castaways cried out helplessly, the warriors shot more arrows home and the girl’s appearance altered again as she writhed bloody and steaming beneath the onslaught.
Then the burnished hate was swept away like vapor, and in its place was th
e lovely girl again—Lilly Quarrie.
Frightened now as she stumbled barefoot between rocks that ringed the roaring blaze, she fell back upon the gleaming coals and burst into hot, white flames.
“Lilly!” Seward reached through the bars to claw the air as the savages closed to shoot more missiles at the shape that writhed in the fire.
“Poor Lilly!” Jacob moaned, weeping against the bars. A terrible expression gripped his features as he glanced back at the unconscious Quarries, as he lowered his head.
“Bastards!” Tears burned across the ranger’s glaring face. “Oh my girl!”
“Purified by fire...” Van Resen muttered to himself, lifting his eyes skyward.
As the savages approached the flames with caution, one knelt by Phillip Holmes who had come to consciousness as Lilly took her final steps. He made as if to plead his case, but the warrior drew a knife and plunged it into the Englishman’s heart, fearful that he too would spring up and kill.
Reeling, the castaways shouted their fury at such bloody-handed murder, but their outrage was drowned out by a new and terrifying sound.
CHAPTER 35 – Fire and Death
A blood-chilling roar rattled the palisade wall, causing the ground to shudder and the savages to fall upon their faces. This challenging cry rang with raw nature and passion, yet some other force was there to shape it—a fierce primordial essence unheard since the dawn of time.
“What in hell was that?” Seward muttered, wiping tears away and glancing about, fists ready, hoping that violence could put Lilly’s death from his mind.
“The worst I fear...” Van Resen said, grabbing the overwrought ranger’s forearm and pulling him close.
“From the beach, doctor!” Mr. Quarrie cried, brought full awake by the sound. “We heard something like it there...”
“And the night Miss James was taken,” Jacob remarked, face ashen as he helped Mr. Quarrie to his feet.
“What was it?” the old ranger rasped through gritted teeth. From the mad set of his features he was ready to strike at friend or foe alike.
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