The Smoke Hunter

by Jacquelyn Benson

  “Get this straight: You scream; I answer. I don’t care whose goddamned rules it breaks. Clear?”

  Ellie nodded. Adam turned on the man behind him as Jacobs stepped quietly into the tent.

  “Were you just going to stand out there and listen to her scream?” he demanded, his voice low and dangerous. The guard protested.

  “Our orders were to—”

  “I don’t give a damn what your orders were. Someone—anyone—in this camp starts screaming, you go and help them. Is that understood?”

  The guard looked helplessly from Adam to Jacobs. It was Jacobs who answered.

  “Perfectly,” he said, his voice cool and calm.

  Adam flipped the knife easily in his hand and returned it to the guard, then left without another word.

  Jacobs turned to the pair.

  “Are you familiar with what the word ‘guarding’ means?”

  They nodded.

  “Then guard her. Until I say otherwise.”

  “Yes, jefe.”

  They followed Jacobs out of the tent, leaving her alone once more.

  The encounter had passed so quickly, she half wondered whether she’d still been dreaming. But no: She had not imagined that fierce protectiveness in Adam’s face, the outraged power that had been written into every line of his frame.

  He had come for her.

  The thought shouldn’t have made her heart jump. After all, Ellie told herself firmly, he would have done the same for anyone else in danger. It was one of his basic rules of engagement, as she’d learned firsthand in the bathroom of the Imperial.

  But would he have done it so ferociously for someone else?

  She thought of the power in his frame as he’d forced his way in, the urgency. It was exhilarating—or would have been, if not for the lingering terror of her dream. And what was it about that vision that had set her screaming? It had been clear as day a moment before but seemed a blur of smoke and shadows now. Not that it mattered.

  Adam had just been doing his duty, she told herself firmly. It didn’t mean anything. She contorted herself to lie back down on her cot. The thought that followed was even more uncomfortable than her position.

  What did she want it to mean?

  Walking was heavenly. Ellie had never appreciated using her own two feet back in London, and certainly not over the days when she’d been trudging behind Adam through the bush. But after twelve hours being bounced around on muleback the day before, the chance to move under her own propulsion felt like a gift. She didn’t even have the burden of any extra weight to carry. Her pack had been confiscated and was most likely stashed on one of the patient animals that surrounded her. Combine that with the fact that the pace was far from strenuous, and their trek felt a bit like a stroll through the park. Except that in the park, she wasn’t usually tied up and under armed guard.

  Armed guards, a fleet of mules, and an army of men… Ellie couldn’t see the front of their caravan. The length of it was lost in the bush ahead of her. This expedition had to be costing someone a fortune, and they’d mounted the whole thing for a single artifact—an artifact that may or may not even exist. And what would it look like if it did? A piece of reflective glass? An idol?

  She had heard of the mania of collectors, men with means who got their hearts set on acquiring prize pieces of history. They were certainly capable of taking extreme measures to get what they wanted. But what kind of collection would this Smoking Mirror belong to?

  Something was missing. The parts of the puzzle didn’t add up to a complete whole, and there certainly must be a compelling whole to justify all this effort. To justify murder, she reminded herself. She had no doubt that was what Jacobs had in mind when he spoke of disposing of “loose ends.” It was what he undoubtedly still had in mind for her and Adam, once Dawson no longer had a use for him.

  She was so engrossed in her thoughts, it took her a moment to realize that the caravan had stopped.

  Mendez asked a sharp question in Spanish and received a quick reply.

  “What’s going on?” Ellie asked.

  “They found something,” Flowers replied.

  The words had an unusual weight: found something.

  She saw the big man make an instinctive gesture with his hand, a motion to ward off evil. She felt a chill and wondered what sort of “something” had ground the whole expedition to a halt.

  It was a stela. Adam could see the dark stone peeking out from behind the thick wrapping of strangler-fig vines. Judging by the insistent tugging at the buckle of his belt, it had the same strange magnetic properties as the other stela and the medallion.

  There was enough of the monument still uncovered for him to make out the massive figure carved onto the surface. This image was recognizable even through the strange iconography of the men who’d made it: the skeletal visage of Death.

  It was fitting, given the tribute that lay at the pillar’s feet. The jaguar was a fresh kill, blood barely dry on the ground, flies just beginning to buzz around it. Adam guessed it to have died the night before, or perhaps even early that morning. From the look of it, its passage had been far from gentle.

  The animal was butchered. Its belly had been slashed open from throat to tail, the dark red viscera spilled out onto the ground. More gouges marked its back, with particular attention having been paid to the neck, where the mutilations appeared deeper and more deliberate.

  “Natives?” Dawson asked. He had dismounted from his mule and was staring down at the corpse greenly.

  Adam was saved from the need for a reply to this idiotic theory by Velegas, the foreman, who knelt over the body.

  “They wouldn’t damage the pelt like this.”

  “So an animal,” Dawson deduced. “But what animal could do this? Another jaguar?”

  “Possibly. It’s not unheard-of for them to attack their own in territorial disputes.”

  What the foreman said was true, but something about it didn’t sit right. Jaguar kills were vicious, certainly, but could another cat have really ripped this animal open so neatly?

  But if it wasn’t a jaguar, what else could it have been?

  Adam didn’t have an answer.

  “Remove it before the rest of the men see,” Velegas ordered, motioning to a pair of bearers. They dragged the creature off into the brush. It left a dark, wet trail behind it.

  “We should get some distance between us and whatever did this before we make camp,” Dawson suggested.

  “We still have a few hours of light. We’ll use them,” Velegas confirmed. He rose and brought the caravan back into line with a few sharply shouted orders. The men obeyed, only Dawson remaining behind. He moved to Adam’s side, following his gaze to the dark figure grinning out from the half-concealed stone.

  “What do you think it is?”

  Adam could hear the reply in his mind. It came in the voice of the Mayan from the hidden village, Amilcar Kuyoc.

  Because Death lives there. Death and the rest of the old gods. And he and his servants feast on the flesh of those who trespass in their realm.

  “A warning,” he answered flatly, then stepped past the stela and rejoined the river of mules and men.

  17

  ELLIE WOKE IN THE dark. She felt a rush of panic, her pulse pounding, breath short and quick. She tried to sit up, then cursed as her arms caught on the line that tethered her once again to the tent post. She forced herself to still, listening. There was nothing stirring in the tent, no cause for alarm. The truth stole over her, settling her heartbeat. Another nightmare.

  She searched her memory for some sense of what had haunted her this time, but she could recall nothing. Maybe it was for the best. Judging by the cold sweat covering her body and the frantic pace of her heart, it hadn’t been a pleasant dream. At least this time she must have managed not to scream.

  Ever since they had been conscripted into Dawson’s expedition, Ellie’s dreams had taken a darker turn. She supposed it was understandable. After all, her circu
mstances weren’t exactly promising.

  There was also something about this particular jungle that seemed to weigh on her, and she wasn’t alone. The mood of the camp had shifted since the gruesome discovery earlier that day. Though the dead cat had been removed long before Ellie passed the spot, word of what had lain at the foot of the massive black stone had traveled quickly down the caravan. Even if it hadn’t, the sight of the blood-spattered ground before the stela would have been unsettling enough.

  There had been plenty of speculation about what might have killed the jaguar, but no one had an answer. One thing was certain: Whatever could ravage a powerful and dangerous predator wasn’t something she was likely to want lurking around.

  Then there was the jungle itself. Though they were climbing continually higher into the mountains, the midday heat remained oppressive, if anything becoming even thicker than before. The sky, when she glimpsed it through the canopy, was equally heavy with an uncanny haze.

  It was also oddly silent. The bright chirpings and hoots she’d grown accustomed to in the lower altitudes were absent here. There was only a thick buzz of insects. In fact, since they’d passed the slaughtered cat by the stela, Ellie couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen any animal larger than a swallow.

  These mountain regions must simply be more sparsely populated, but the effect was admittedly eerie. She supposed a few nightmares should hardly be surprising.

  She shifted on the cot, trying to settle back down, then groaned. Apparently the bad dream hadn’t been the only reason she’d woken up. Her bladder had contributed. She weighed the possibility of simply holding off until dawn, then dismissed it. At least getting up in the dark would give her a chance to stretch her legs and increase the likelihood of catching a bit more sleep before morning.

  “Anybody out there?” she called softly. A rustle of the tent flap answered, and she was relieved to see Flowers step inside. It must be nearly dawn if he was already back at his post, and she felt significantly more comfortable with the big, quiet man than she did with the set of rather unsavory fellows who took shifts watching her through the night.

  “You need to stretch your legs?” he asked politely.

  “Just for a minute,” she replied, flashing him a pleading smile.

  Flowers freed the rope that held her to the post and motioned her out of the tent. He collected the lantern that sat by the log he was using as a chair and led her from the camp out into the dark of the bush.

  A short distance later, he turned his back politely as Ellie fumbled her way through her necessary business, which was significantly trickier with bound hands. She nearly lost Adam’s knife in the process, barely catching it before it tumbled to the ground. At least she didn’t have skirts to wrangle. Who knew how she would have managed with petticoats?

  She buttoned herself back together and turned to Flowers, then froze as a scream ripped through the still night air.

  Flowers met her eyes across the small pool of lantern light. He had gone pale, his hand clenched tightly on the rifle as the echo of the scream was swallowed by the thick foliage that surrounded them.

  “What was that?” Ellie instinctively kept her voice to a whisper.

  Flowers didn’t answer. He edged closer to her, his eyes darting around the clearing. She wondered whether she looked as obviously terrified as he did.

  “We need to go,” he said, voice low and urgent.

  A second scream tore through the silence, and continued, howling on in pain and terror.

  Ellie turned and ran toward the sound, Flowers hesitating only a moment before following.

  The screaming drowned into a thick gurgle as they got closer, and another sound, more delicate, tickled at Ellie’s awareness. It was a quick and regular thumping, accompanied by rustling leaves. It momentarily stopped her in her tracks.

  I’ve heard this before.

  But that was absurd, she thought numbly. Then Flowers charged through the foliage behind her, nearly knocking into her. She shook off the weirdness and pushed through a curtain of branches.

  A man lay on the ground before her, revealed in the glow of the lamp, his rifle lying a few feet away. Flowers scooped it up, slinging it over his shoulder, then adjusted his grip on his own gun as Ellie approached the victim.

  From throat to groin, the man’s body was a wet, glistening wreck. The flesh around the wound was ragged, as though it had been torn rather than cut. His eyes, white and wide in his blood-spattered face, stared up at the darkened leaves overhead.

  Ellie fought the wave of horror that momentarily rooted her to the spot and knelt, pressing her fingers to what remained of the man’s throat. She withdrew them a moment later, looking up to see Flowers watching her. She shook her head, half stumbling back to her feet.

  They stared down at the dead man.

  What could have done this?

  There was a sound of crashing footsteps, and men spilled into the clearing. Jacobs came with a trio of armed guards, who quickly aimed their weapons at Flowers and Ellie but faltered as they saw what lay on the jungle floor.

  “Make way,” the foreman, Velegas, ordered as he pushed past them.

  Adam was behind him. At the sight of him, she wanted nothing more than to cross the clearing to his side, letting his solid presence banish the numb, shaking feeling the sight of the corpse on the ground had filled her with.

  She forced herself to resist, instead standing still and quiet as he quickly took in the scene, his eyes moving from the man on the ground to where she stood beside Flowers. They shifted down to her hands, which were still red with the victim’s blood, and sharpened.

  She realized what was coming next and shook her head quickly, warning him off of the demand to know whether she was hurt. That was the last signal she wanted to send with Jacobs standing next to them.

  Adam frowned but turned from her and joined the foreman beside what remained of the man on the ground. Behind them, Dawson pushed into the clearing, then went pale as he stared down at the butchered flesh. He stumbled back a step, then caught himself.

  “Another jaguar attack?” he asked thickly, his hand over his mouth.

  “No,” Velegas replied.

  “Then what?”

  The foreman stood and stepped back. “I don’t know.”

  There was a silence, heavy with unspoken dread.

  Jacobs broke it.

  “Where is his partner?” He looked impatiently back at the blank stares that answered him. “These men are patrolling in pairs.”

  Ellie realized that she had been hearing it the whole time: a wet, irregular gurgle, whispering out of the thick growth behind her. She plucked the lamp from Flowers’s hand and turned with it, slipping through the branches into a small clearing beyond.

  The other man lay spread-eagled on the ground, the dried leaves beneath him stained red. Like his partner’s, his body had been torn open. His viscera hung off the branches of a nearby bush like nightmarish garlands. His breath was shallow and wet, the pale white of his eyes visible as they rolled toward her.

  Adam brushed past her, Ellie’s skin jumping at the unexpected contact. He moved quickly to the victim on the ground, pulling off his shirt as he went. He pushed the fabric against the wound in what Ellie could see clearly was a vain attempt to stanch the bleeding.

  She heard rather than saw Jacobs and the others crash into this second clearing, her attention locked on the scene before her.

  The wide eyes of the wounded man wheeled to Adam’s face. His arm flew up, clamping onto Adam’s shoulder like a lifeline. He gasped out a babble of words along with a froth of red film that covered his lips.

  “He says it came out of the night,” Flowers translated from where he stood beside her.

  “What did?” Adam demanded.

  The man coughed up the answer in a spray of blood. The coughing continued, degrading into agonized gasps. The sound was horrible, accompanied by sharp twitches of the limbs. She realized it looked as though he were d
rowning.

  Velegas crouched beside the man, his face hard. He studied him for a moment, then pulled the machete from the sheath at his waist.

  Adam stepped back. His face and chest were slick with the dying man’s blood, his hands red to the elbows.

  The machete flashed, and the terrible noise fell silent.

  Velegas wiped off the blade, then solemnly returned it to his belt.

  Dawson stepped forward, his face pale and sweating.

  “What did he say?” he demanded. “What did this?”

  “Los ángeles de la muerte,” Flowers replied. “The angels of Death.”

  The gathering of men in the small circle of lamplight went silent, and Ellie felt certain all of them were thinking the same thing: There was something haunting this jungle, something deadly. But for her, there was another implication, one that went beyond the primitive fear of being hunted.

  Adam looked at her from across the body of the slaughtered guard. She saw the warning in his eyes and knew he’d realized it, too. There would be no slipping away from their captors, no quiet escape. How could they even attempt it, knowing what was out there in the darkness of the bush, waiting for them?

  Or not knowing. It was clear from the reactions of the men around her that the violence on the ground had not been the work of a jaguar, or some other familiar predator.

  It came out of the night.

  Ellie thought of the noise she had heard as she approached the clearing, the one that had stopped her in her tracks until Flowers nearly ran her over.

  Wings, she realized. That was what it had sounded like. The beating of mighty wings.

  The morning was a blur of tedious motion, the usually boisterous chatter of the bearers strangely subdued. It was not a surprise. Word of the events of the night before had traveled quickly through the camp, a grim murmur that had men casting their eyes to the sky, crossing themselves, and muttering quick prayers when no one else was listening.

  Ellie trudged up the increasingly precipitous ground. The night had been virtually sleepless, and she was fighting weariness, almost wishing she had accepted Flowers’s perennial offer to saddle one of the mules for her.