I nodded. “Let’s all go, then.”
Ali wanted to meet up at a beachside café, which meant coffee water. As meetings went, it had the potential to be superior.
“How do you know Ali?” I walked by Tess’s side as we meandered toward the cafe. We walked along the beach since it was the easiest way to navigate.
The water was a stunning shade of turquoise blue, inviting and alive. People were already playing in it, even though the hour was still somewhat early. Some workout junkies ran by the water, and sun worshippers lay on towels, positioning themselves to catch every ray once the day truly began in earnest. A person could live perfectly happily here in Belém without ever leaving sight of the water.
“I don’t, not really. Captain Logan put me in touch with him, back when we were on that cruise ship to Bermuda.” Tess grinned at me. “We’ve texted back and forth a few times. He’s part of the network, and Logan trusts him, but I haven’t met him face to face yet.”
“Tess, Logan trusts cannibals.” Zarya made a face. “I’d take anything he says with a grain of salt.”
I hid a laugh. “He’s part of the network, though, right?”
Tess turned the glare she’d been ready to deliver to Zarya and Kamila, who’d sailed with Captain Logan, toward me. “Yes, he’s part of the network. He sent me some information when we were in Belize, just in case, and it turned out to be helpful.” She held her head high. “I do know how to do this, you know?”
“I know.” I grinned outright. “So this guy’s able to help out in Belize and here?”
“He’s a businessman. He’s got interests all over South and Central America, but his base is here in Belém. Anyway, here’s the cafe.”
I looked up at the place she had in mind. It was a small place, more of a carryout window with tables outside. Clearly, this place catered to a tourist market. The menu was written in Portuguese, Spanish, English, and Arabic. I hadn’t realized there was such a big community of Arabic speakers in Brazil, but Lila set me straight.
“There’s actually a large Lebanese community here, and we get plenty of tourism from over there. It’s worth having the signs.” She went up to the window and ordered a drink.
We all got coffee drinks and sat down. No one spoke, and we all had a hard time keeping still. Anticipation hadn’t been our friend over the past few weeks. It wasn’t doing good things to us now.
We didn’t have to wait long. A handsome, dark-skinned man of about thirty joined us five minutes later. He wore a suit and came out of the little cafe. “I apologize for being late,” he said in English with a moderate accent. “We had an issue with one of the coffee machines, and I had to call to get it serviced. They only wanted to talk to the owner. Such a pain.” He shook his head. “I am Ali. You must be Tess.” He shook her hand. “And you, of course, are Jason.”
“I am. This is Kamila, Zarya, and Lila.” I introduced them around. “Thank you for your help.”
“It’s not a problem. A Ferin saved my great-grandfather from death. We’re happy to help any Ferin we can. Is the apartment working well for you? Is it comfortable?”
“We couldn’t be happier.” Tess smiled at him.
“Excellent. It’s yours for as long as you need it.” He reached into his suit coat and pulled out a piece of what looked like hotel notepaper. “I asked you to come here today because I have a message for you. It was supposed to reach you in Belize, but you had already left by the time it got there. It was sent to strategic points in Central and South America, with the instructions that it should be given to Jason, Kamila, and Tess if they showed up.” He eyed Zarya and Lila. “Apologies, but it seems you were unexpected.”
Zarya shrugged. “I’m always unexpected.” She smiled.
Ali’s cheeks darkened, and he had to clear his throat a few times before he passed the paper over to me.
The handwriting was a little shaky, and it was purple. Tess, Jason, and Kamila. I am alive. I arrived safely in Idaho. I didn’t get much of a chance to enjoy meeting with my old friends in Twin Falls, however. A raid forced me into hiding with others. I will send word when possible. For now, keep going. Do not stop.
I had no idea when the note had been sent, but the sender was clear enough. I passed it over to Tess and Kamila without a word.
They read it over. “Mort’s alive?” Tess whispered.
I bit the inside of my cheek. I was glad he was alive. I truly was. I still couldn’t be sure I trusted him. How could he have survived everything? Assuming he was on the up-and-up, how could he tell us to keep going when he had no idea where we were going, what we were doing, or whether we were on the right track or not?
This had been written before we’d even heard of Patagonia. How could he tell us to keep going when we didn’t know if going after the place was good or bad?
And if Mort was not being honest, it meant we were compromised in way I preferred not to consider.
“I’m so happy he’s safe.” Tess covered her face for a moment. I thought she might cry. “It would be better if we were all together, but at least we know he’s out there. We’ll find our way back to each other someday.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then I pulled out my map with the red circle. “Ali, thanks for getting us that message. It’s from an old friend, one who’s been missing for months. We’re all a lot more comfortable knowing he’s alive and safe. Listen, do you happen to know anything about this area down here?” I indicated the red circle area.
He grimaced and looked up at me. “Are you serious about going in there? I can’t recommend it.”
I met his eyes. “Why not?”
He grinned. “You aren’t Brazilian, never mind local. You’re Ferin, so you’re inherently athletic, but you don’t seem to be the, ah, ‘hiking in the jungle’ type. The Amazon rainforest is beautiful. People come from all over the world to admire it, but they take safe, guided tours.” He thumped his finger on the red circle. “This area? Guides don’t go in there. For a variety of reasons, many of which have nothing to do with vampires.
“I’m sure whatever brought you to Brazil in the first place is the reason you want to go there. Sadly, Ferin rarely seem to go visiting for the fun of it. Perhaps when this is all over, you can enjoy my country the way it is meant to be enjoyed. In the meantime, you should do what you have to." Ali’s smile was serous, but friendly. “All I ask is that you take every precaution you can.”
I sat back and smiled. “I think I can safely promise you that. Tell me, how do you feel about dogsitting?”
29
We thanked Ali and promised to check in with him again. He gave us directions to an outdoor gear store that carried items for the hardcore crowd.
Like us.
I had a strong suspicion he owned this store too, or at least the building, but I didn’t mind. The guy was helping us out significantly, and if he wanted to make a buck—or real—here and there, I wasn’t going to try to stop him.
And our list was impressive. We needed special boots to avoid snake bites. We needed clothes to repel moisture. We needed food and water purifiers, and medical kits, and things I hadn’t even considered prior to deciding to enter the heart of a primal rainforest. Everything in the forest could kill you or at least make you wish you were dead.
We left with enough gear to equip a platoon of marines, and Ali got his cousin to drive us to a village near the border of the rainforest. We got a few funny looks from the locals, with a lot of the older folks shaking their heads and turning away. No doubt they saw plenty of this kind of thing—wealthy Americans or Europeans, all in brand-new gear, showing up to play explorer. I supposed it must have seemed like we were both insulting them and taking a horrific risk. Neither was true, but their conclusions didn’t matter. Results mattered, and that meant we were going in regardless of their reproving glares.
On a hunch, I asked Lila and Zarya to talk to a few of the locals before we went in. I wanted to know the lay of the land, what we we
re getting into, and what to look out for. They told us there had been gang activity in the forest, but they rarely troubled tourists so we should be okay. I wasn’t sure I found that reassuring, but I kept my mouth shut. Some of the animals had been unusually restless lately, and that was equally concerning. We paid them for their information and moved on, our thoughts whirling with possibilities.
Going into the rainforest was a profound and moving experience. For one thing, nothing could have prepared us for how lush and green everything was. The phrase teeming with life might be overused, but it had been created for this place and this place alone. Even the soft, dark earth on the ground writhed with new beginnings, from tiny little sprouts and spores just starting out in the world, to worms and young snakes slithering along the ground. There were chirps and squawks and noises in between, all punctuated with the sounds of animals fleeing our approach.
The snakes made it clear they wanted nothing to do with us. They recoiled from us at lightning speed, vanishing into the undergrowth before we could ever truly see them. I didn’t know if they recognized they couldn’t eat us, or if they sensed our Ferin nature. I had no idea if that would hold once darkness fell, but we would find out soon enough.
The first animal we made contact with was a creature that bridged cute and disdainful all at once. The capybaras were plump, slick-nosed, and skittish, though they would turn to regard us with looks of disgust each time we routed them from their chosen browsing areas.
And then it rained. Hard.
We didn’t have time to hide under trees and take cover. We were on the clock. But the heavy rain did make things worse for us, as the ground turned into a slick morass of grasping vines and sliding mud. The mud was like concrete, clinging to our boots, our legs, our hands, and everything in between. Later, I would appreciate the rain because it kept the insects holed up, but during that initial downpour I wondered if it was possible to drown while standing up.
Back home, I’d sometimes enjoyed going hiking with my ex-wife. We’d been careful to stay on the trail all the time because we heard plenty of stories about people who strayed. Sometimes, they just got lost, or stepped on a bear trap or fell into a sinkhole or any other number of stupid things humans can do to hurt themselves while in the wild. I took that lesson and carried it with me, keeping my eyes open and watching each footfall as we made our way deeper into the green. I told my ex-wife that a life goal of mine was to never be on the local news. Getting lost or stepping in a bear trap was an easy way to get famous for being dumb, and that goal helped us as we ground our way across the yards, the rain pummeling the land around us.
Here, there were no trails. If trails had been blazed, they would have been overgrown quickly, possibly in a matter of days. It was all well and good to say “be careful,” but harder to actually do it, especially when the ground itself was moving.
Zarya was the first one to go in. She took a normal step on abnormal ground when she sidestepped to avoid an animal. That was all it took. The ground she stepped on looked perfectly solid, but it was not.
I heard a splash. Then, “Oh shit.”
We all turned around to see Zarya standing chest deep in mud.
Fortunately, she only had to glower at the mud, and she could lift herself back out of it without a problem. She was still covered in mud, but she wasn’t in danger of drowning or suffering more than dirty clothes and some irritation. Her pack was watertight because we’d paid extra, so we didn’t even have to worry about her rations being ruined.
The leeches she’d picked up along the way were another matter. We spent twenty minutes picking them off her body. While Zarya’s body was an amazing work of art, leeches were a little too close to what we hunted for me to be a fan. I roasted each leech from her body with my power, watching them flare into ash when they hit the sodden ground. It was strangely satisfying, but then, I have a natural aversion to parasites.
Once we’d gotten past the first rain, though, the humidity became foul. As in repellent. It smelled like when the air conditioner went bad, half-rotten and pungent with flowers lying over the top of it, like someone tried to cover it all with an air freshener.
I wouldn’t have traded it for the world. It stank and moving through the air was like walking through a warm pool, but it was still beautiful. Growing up, parrots had been birds we saw on television or in the homes of people who loved loud noises. Here, they flew around us wild and free, bold splashes of color that darted about in brilliant streaks.
The monkeys were another issue entirely. They popped out of everywhere, dropping from trees, vines, and even hitching rides on other animals. They were curious little creatures, either brown or black and yellow, and they didn’t have a lot of fear. One sat on my pack for a while, hitching a ride just to see where we could take him. His chittering commentary rose and fell with my steps, lending some humor to what was becoming a serious slog.
He didn’t do much for stealth. In fact, he called out for the whole hour he rode there, wanting all of his friends to know exactly where he was so they could come and get a load of his brand-new transportation, but he left when we found the first skeleton.
The skeleton wasn’t ancient. I didn’t need a degree in forensic anthropology or archaeology to tell me that. The shredded, rotted remains of the heavy metal T-shirt hanging from their ribs told me that much. So did the metal plate in its femur, surrounded by bone.
Kamila eyed the metal plate with suspicion. “Well, if that don’t beat everything. I’ve read about that, but I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Lila gave her a long look. “It’s times like this I remember you’re a lot older than you look.” She shook her head. “The women in the village mentioned gang activity. It wasn’t vampires that got this guy. He was chained up here, see?”
Zarya gave her a look. “And this disproves vampires somehow?”
“Sure it does. Vampires are cruel, yes, but they wouldn’t waste blood like this, and they wouldn’t leave a corpse so close to the village. We’ve been out here what, two hours? Three? That isn’t enough time. I’ve been watching them and how they behave in Brazil for a long time. My father watched them for longer than that. If vampires had gotten to him, they would have disposed of the remains or left him right in the village to scare the people there. They wouldn’t have chained him in a helpless position like this and left him to die.”
Even Tess did a doubletake on that one. “You can’t know that’s what they did. You had me until you got to the ‘left him to die’ part.”
“Stabbing would have left marks on the bones. Instead, we have animal claw marks.” She squatted down by the remains like they hadn’t been a person. “No gunshot. It’s possible a ligature mark would have rotted away, but then they wouldn’t have bothered chaining him in a position of stress.” She indicated the shackles. “Whoever this guy was, he pissed off the wrong people.”
Tess nodded slowly. I made myself crouch down beside Lila. Now that I was closer to the remains, I could see the rusty glint of a possible reason why he’d been killed this way—a badge, sticking out of the dirt.
“He was law.” I bowed my head. “A cop.” I stood up. It took a second to break the chains, but it had to be done.
The others looked at me. “What are you doing?”
After tearing down a cliff the other day, excavating a hole wasn’t difficult. It wasn’t much of a grave. It was damp and watery, but it would have to do. Since I dug the grave directly underneath his body, I didn’t worry about missing parts or anything. I closed the grave after him, leaving the chains on top as the only marker.
“Why, Jason? Did we really have time for that?” Zarya asked.
“We did, actually.” I swallowed. “Look. We weren’t going to get much farther in the whole ten minutes it took us to check this guy out. He was trying to investigate the drug runners, who were working with our enemies. So in a way, this guy was on our side. And they tortured him to death. We’re not in a position to go back and
report his remains to anyone. We can’t answer any real questions about who we are and why we’re in the country. But we could give the poor guy an attempt at a decent burial.”
Part of me felt like I had wasted time, because bones have long since stopped caring. The cop was dead. But Lila slipped her hand into mine and gave it a little squeeze. Tess kissed my cheek, and I knew I wasn’t the only one who’d felt that way.
Even Zarya softened a little. “You’re right. It didn’t take that long, and it’s not like ten minutes here or there is going to make much of a difference in the greater scheme of things.” She trudged forward, wary of the placement of each foot. “We’re not getting through the rainforest half as fast as I’d hoped we would, though.”
“No, we aren’t.” I looked up into the trees and saw a jaguar looking back at me. It seemed content to stay where it was but followed us with its eyes as we trudged through the brush. “There are a lot of things to keep an eye out for. I’d rather be slow than dead.”
“You and me both.” Kamila put a hand on my back, and we kept moving.
30
We kept trudging through the rainforest for another six hours, until darkness became a problem. I decided we would make camp before actual nightfall. I didn’t want to contend with setting up camp in the dark, because there were as many nocturnal predators as there were daytime threats.
We set up our tents in a circle near a tiny stream, which would be a risk because water attracted animals, but we needed it too. The small stand of trees we were in was lush with blooms, and their heady scent would act to cover our Ferin blood, at least to some extent. In our headlong charge, every little advantage mattered.
“My father taught me that,” Lila told us with an air of quiet pride.
I smiled at her. She was so proud of her father and his ingenuity. Her pride was well placed. I was glad to have her along, giving us the benefit of his wisdom.
Forever Young - Book 3 Page 16
