The Immortal Collection (A Saga of the Ancient Family Book 1)

by Eva García Sáenz

  I remembered that there was a lioness below me and, looking down, saw that the two spears had hit her in the back and a hind paw. The animal was lying on the ground but it was still breathing. The spears were ridiculously small for the animal’s size. Luckily, Iago reached the tree in two strides.

  “Throw the child down to me!” he shouted as he positioned himself with his arms outstretched, too close to the lioness.

  I pulled Álex away from the tree trunk and dropped him down to Iago, who placed him on one hip and began to run toward a rocky outcrop visible behind the trees.

  What’s he doing? There’s no way out in that direction, I remember thinking.

  “Dana, jump down now, and follow me!”

  I looked at the lioness apprehensively. She was angrily trying to get up on her good paws. I steadied myself, jumped, and landed with a roll between two trees, injuring my right ankle. Despite the pain I started to run, as I realized the lioness had managed to get up and was heading in our direction. Iago was quite a few yards in front of me and on the verge of reaching the wall of stone.

  “Where are we headed?” I shouted.

  “There’s a fissure behind the first mound. The three of us will fit!” he answered without looking back.

  And then the pain hit me and split me in two—almost literally.

  42

  IAGO

  Midsummer solstice, Litha Eve, 2012

  I made it to the crevice in the rock wall and put the child right in the back of it. I had no spears left, but the thrower was dangling from my wrist, and I left it there in case it should still prove useful. I waited for Dana to appear so she could go inside the fissure ahead of me, and that way I could protect them both.

  I waited. And waited.

  There was no sign of Dana.

  I began calling her name, because I wasn’t confident there were no other lionesses around. In their own habitat they always hunt alone, but in a reduced space, such as this old iron-ore mine, they would have to become more sociable out of necessity.

  Dana wasn’t answering. Something had happened to her, and with a child to take care of, I was handicapped. I squeezed into the crevice, dragging myself along the ground until I reached the little boy.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Alejandro,” he said between sobs.

  “Very good. Álex, I have to go and look for Adriana. You have to promise me that you won’t move from here. Do you understand?”

  He moved his head up and down. He was too frightened to speak. I put my hand in my pocket and verified that I hadn’t lost my mobile. I punched in Father’s number. He had stopped the first car that went by and gone to fetch the park director, while I had raced off like a madman in the Jeep to the lion enclosure. Luckily, we had a few spears left over from the previous weekend, when we had gone to hunt wild boar. We’d think about explanations later.

  “Iago, where are you?” came my father’s prompt response.

  “I’m with Elisa’s son in the Inar crevice, but I’ve lost Adriana. She was following behind me, but the wounded lioness had nearly caught up to her. I hit the lioness twice but have no weapons left.”

  “We’re almost there, and we’ve got tranquilizer darts with us. You stay where you are with the child.”

  “Héctor, I’m going back out.”

  “Don’t. We’re almost there.”

  I hung up. Time was running out. I left the fissure without making a sound, signaling to the child not to move. I retraced my steps and climbed several yards up the rock wall to get a better view. I would have preferred not to see what I was looking at. Dana was sitting on the ground, gripping one of the bloody spears. Her hair was in disarray and her white T-shirt was torn open, exposing a wound that ran diagonally down her back and was oozing blood, which was staining the garment. The lioness was in front of her, moving angrily from side to side, with the other spear still in her back paw. They were on an equal footing: both wounded, both alert.

  The lioness wasn’t coming any closer, because Adriana was threatening her with the spear, but the big cat was enraged. It was a matter of seconds before she would attack. I jumped down onto the ground and worked my way along to Dana. I grabbed the spear from her and aimed it at the lioness. I knew I had to get closer to her if I didn’t want to miss. I assumed I’d end up with some claw marks, but I figured I’d survive.

  I rolled toward the animal until I was practically right under her body. I reached back my arm as far as this unnatural position allowed. Then I heard my father’s shout and the sound of a dart embedding itself into the back of the lioness, which fell on top of me, pinning me with its body. The spear snapped against my torso, but the tip didn’t wound me; the weight of the lioness had deflected it. I was lucky. I sensed the heat of her body on top of my chest. I closed my eyes so that I could concentrate better on listening. Her heart was beating; she was just drugged. Even so, I was breathless for a few seconds, and then a pair of familiar hands removed the animal’s head from my face.

  The park attendants lifted the sleeping body and freed me. My father discreetly took the thrower from me and kicked it under some shrubs.

  “It’s been a while since you were this close,” he whispered to me in our dialect.

  “Nalungivara,” I replied. I know.

  But my thoughts were with another person. I stood up without giving any consideration to checking if any part of me was injured, and turned to look for Dana. She was nowhere to be seen.

  “They’ve taken her to the infirmary,” said my father. “Calm down, Iago, she’s okay. It seems the lioness caught her and clawed her back. I’ll stay here. Adriana told us there was a cub, and we’re looking for it.”

  I showed Héctor where the little boy was and raced to the road and my 4x4, which was waiting for me with its door still open, just as I’d left it. I started the car and drove to the park infirmary, a cabin made out of logs located next to the reptile house. The door was closed, but that didn’t stop me.

  “Sir, you can’t come in,” the nurse protested pointlessly.

  Dana, minus the T-shirt, was sitting on a gurney with her back to me. She was slashed diagonally across her back from her right shoulder blade to her lower left side, just above her waist. I stepped closer and examined the wound. It was very long but not deep. They’d applied Betadine to disinfect it, but it wasn’t going to need stitches. They’d given her a tetanus shot—the vial was empty, and the nurse was throwing the syringe into the yellow Sharps container.

  “Could you leave us for a moment, please?” I asked in such a way that there was little option for the nurse to refuse.

  Dana turned around at the sound of my voice. She must have seen the scared look on my face, because she gave me a slight smile, as if she needed to cheer me up.

  “I have to thank you,” she said, although the look she gave me was a bit unfocused—she wasn’t quite with us.

  “Does it hurt?” I asked her anxiously, sitting down on the bed next to her. I ran my hand down next to the wound with all the gentleness I could muster.

  “No, they’ve given me a lethal dose of painkiller,” she said, winking at me.

  Denial. Good, her brain was blocking out the last hour. She still wasn’t aware of the danger she’d been in. But I was. I certainly was, and I could feel my nerves tensing inside me. I had to leave. I didn’t want her to see me in this state.

  I walked out of the room after saying good-bye to Dana and found Elisa at the entrance, hugging her boy as she talked with Héctor. It turned out they’d also come to the infirmary out of concern for Dana.

  “Would you mind telling me why Adriana and your son were in the lion enclosure?” I snapped at her, making no attempt to hide my anger.

  “Iago, I’m sorry. Your brother told me that you also helped find Álex.”

  “You haven’t answered my question.”r />
  “Well, we stopped the car to let the kids have a run, and Álex got away. I thought we were in the picnic area. It wasn’t Adriana’s fault.”

  Elisa was swaying back and forth with the child in her arms as if she was rocking him. The movement was threatening to make me explode, but fortunately Héctor could see it coming.

  “Elisa, I think you should go home. We’ll fix everything with the park director. And don’t worry; we’ll take Adriana back to her apartment, too.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered gratefully, then climbed into the station wagon with her children and drove off.

  Just then Dana emerged from the infirmary, limping and wearing her torn T-shirt, which exposed her back and the wound, bandaged with gauze and surgical tape.

  “We’ll give you a ride home, Adriana,” said Héctor, “though are you sure you don’t want to go to an emergency clinic?”

  “They say it’s not necessary,” she replied with a shrug. “But I have to have it checked as an outpatient every two days and keep an eye on it. Elisa’s gone?”

  “Yes, we sent her home. She was really stressed, and we told her we’d drop you off at home. I hope you don’t mind,” my father said, sounding her out.

  “I have to ring Marcos,” she said under her breath. “Although it might be better if I don’t.”

  Marcos again! Who the devil was he?

  “Okay, please take me home, if it suits you,” she acquiesced.

  The three of us got into my car, Dana in the front passenger seat, and Héctor sitting behind us. I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye as we drove out of the park and got onto the A-70 heading for Santander. She sat very upright, not leaning back in her seat. I assumed that, even if it wasn’t hurting due to the painkillers, she had to be uncomfortable because of the bandage. Even so, she was very calm—too calm. All I could think of was getting home and regaining my composure.

  “What did you tell the park director?” Dana asked as soon as we were on the road.

  “I imagine you’re asking because of the spears,” said Hector.

  “And the thrower,” she pointed out.

  “They didn’t see the thrower,” Héctor replied, taking it out from under his shirt and handing it to her. “Iago carved it. As you can see, he’s got it almost exactly right. This curve,” he said, pointing with his finger, “makes it much more aerodynamic, and it doesn’t interfere with the forearm.”

  Dana examined it as if it were a votive offering. “And the spears?” she asked insistently.

  “The spears were for the wild boar—we tend to hunt in the old way on the occasional weekend. We were really fortunate to have them with us when Iago called you. And as far as Lorenzo Herrera, the park director, is concerned, we told him they were displays for the Prehistory Hall. I don’t know if you’ve seen him around the MAC, but he belongs to the Friends of the Museum, and we’re on good terms with him. As far as Iago’s throwing skill goes, I invented the story that he was a javelin champion when he was in college.

  “By the way, Son,” my father said, addressing me, “I told him that it wasn’t at the state or Olympic level, just at the local level.”

  “Message received,” I replied.

  “And he didn’t suspect anything?” Dana asked.

  “Like what? The implausible bits?” my father replied. “No, of course he wasn’t suspicious. But he asked us to be discreet, which is to everyone’s advantage. It’s not in his best interest for this to come out in the press, and even less so for us. The lioness is wounded, but it’s not life-threatening, and we’ve told Elisa everything except the bit about the spears, since she didn’t see the animal at any stage. So she thinks you found her son and the lioness clawed you. Then, that Iago helped you both to hide until I arrived with the park personnel and they tranquilized the lioness. I’ve spoken to the little boy and asked him to tell me what he saw, and he didn’t see any spear either, so I think we’ve all come out of it all right.”

  He was silent for a moment and then he spoke to Adriana again. “My apologies for being so inconsiderate. You’ve ended up with a scar you’ll probably carry for the rest of your life.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” she said with a smile. “I can’t see it, so I don’t think it will give me a complex.”

  Just as I’d thought. Dana was still in a state of denial. Everything seemed fine to her.

  43

  IAGO

  Midsummer solstice, Litha Eve, 2012

  I crossed over the entire Paseo de Pereda and stumbled up the stairs to my apartment. It was an exercise in mental control to prevent each limb from rebelling and acquiring a life of its own. I entered the apartment as best I could and closed the door behind me.

  Alone at last! I had to calm down; I needed to calm down.

  I went into the kitchen in the vain hope that a cup of herbal tea might soothe my nerves. I hunted in the cupboard for my containers with the tea leaves and combined lime, valerian, lavender, and chamomile. Whatever. It was all the same to me.

  I put the water on to boil in a small saucepan and perched on the island bench to wait for it to start bubbling. I wanted to rush over to Dana’s place, but I couldn’t do it in this state. Finally, the bubbles announced that I could add the water to my herbal mix, but my hands were trembling so much that when I picked the little saucepan up by its handle, some of the boiling water spilled over my right hand. I bit my lip to stifle a cry. It hurt. That was good; I wanted it to hurt. As long as my brain was busy with this pain, the other much deeper and more terrible ache would remain in the background, for now.

  But I looked at my hand and saw that it was raw, at which point my practical side, which never switches off, insisted that I run cold water over it to prevent it from blistering. I felt an immediate relief, but then the other anguish returned: those minutes when I thought Dana was dead. It wouldn’t be the last time, and that’s what was killing me.

  Sooner or later I’d have to confront her death again. If I should ever have proposed to myself that I needed to abandon the identity of Iago del Castillo and disappear, that night was the moment. Because if I stayed, it would be to go and look for her, give her all the evidence she might ask for, and pray that the breach that had opened up between us would be closed once and for all.

  And yet even so . . . even so, I’d end up losing her. Sooner or later. Because of a breakup, an illness, or simply old age. Then I realized that I’d fallen into the same trap as Lyra. But until now I hadn’t been prepared to risk everything to live, to love, to lose.

  What a fool, I reproached myself. I had lived the past few millennia thinking I could rise above my human condition. So I rushed to the drawers in my bedroom and hunted for a large white envelope I remembered putting in one of them. I found it and examined its contents. It would do.

  My burned hand pulsated as if it had a heart of its own, but I locked the feeling away in a part of my brain where it wouldn’t bother me and headed for the front door just as someone rang the buzzer downstairs.

  “It’s Adriana.”

  “Come up. I was just on my way to your apartment to find you.”

  I waited for the two eternal minutes it took for her to reach the third floor, and then I opened the door before she could knock. She was shivering—at the height of June. I grabbed the doorknob with my injured hand to control my impulse to hug her and give her some warmth. She’d changed her clothes, and her wet hair was plastered to her face. Momentarily, I gave way to the fantasy that she’d gone home, showered, and been unable to delay any longer coming over here to talk to me.

  What idiocy.

  Wishful thinking.

  She looked beautiful, of course, apart from the grimace of pain she was trying to disguise with a smile.

  “The painkiller has worn off,” I said to her, and it wasn’t a question.

  “Yes, but at least
I’m not spaced-out now, and I can think clearly. I don’t want to take any more until we’ve talked.”

  She’s looking at me; she’s looking into my eyes again.

  Her lips were moving, and I forced myself to concentrate on what she was saying.

  “Okay, let’s talk,” I said, gesturing to the sofa with my hand, but I noticed that she was limping.

  I knelt down at her feet and took off her shoes. “Adriana, you’re going to need help these first few days,” I said, looking at her from this new angle. For the first time I was shorter than her and had to raise my head to look at her. I liked it.

  She placed her fingers on my lips to force me to be quiet and went and sat down on her side of the sofa, her back very straight. I remained where I was, looking at her from the entrance of the apartment.

  “Before you say anything, I want you to have a look at this,” I said, passing over the envelope. “Open it, please.”

  “What is it?” she asked without opening it.

  “It’s my orthopantomogram, a panoramic X-ray of my teeth and jaw. They took it when I had my most recent dentures made. I want you to keep it. On Monday we’ll send my molar for dating so you don’t have any remaining doubt, and then I want you to compare it to my plaque. In fact, you could superimpose the tooth and confirm that it matches the gap I used to have. We’ll go to the MAC right now if you want.”

  Dana gave me back the envelope without even opening it, leaving me stunned. “I don’t want to see it. That’s what I came to talk to you about. I don’t want you and your father to keep providing me with proof.”

  She said “father,” I thought, astounded, but I still refused to accept what that implied. That would be too much to ask for a man like me.