by Justin Sloan
Marcos clicked the safety off and smiled. Without moving his eyes, he said, “Nora, I want you to step outside for this. Then we’ll be on our way to Machu Picchu.”
This couldn’t be happening. Rohan glanced at Nora, watching as she made a move for the door—she’d betrayed him? A strong urge to vomit hit him, and his felt his mind spinning. But then he saw her glance back, and something was wild in her eyes. She had the stone ashtray in her hand, and a split-second later, she’d launched it so that it slammed into Marcos’s gun, knocking it across the floor.
Marcos cursed, gripping his hand in pain, and dove for the pistol.
Rohan and Nora raced past the door as he recovered the pistol, then threw themselves down the stairs as a shot blew a hole in the door behind them.
“You don’t want to do this!” Rohan shouted. “The world—”
“Screw the world!” Marcos said, kicking open the door and aiming at them again.
They ducked, running into a hallway as Marcos continued to curse from above.
“God, why didn't I see this coming?” Nora said as they turned a corner.
Suddenly, Marcos leaped down from the balcony in front of them, pistol aimed. Nora stood in front of Rohan, arms spread.
“Stop this!” she shouted.
“None of this matters without you,” he said. “You think I give two hoots about some stupid orb and its magic if you’re not at my side? I did this all for you!”
“I’m sorry,” Nora said, biting her lip.
“Nora, please… trust me when I say you don't know what the hell you've gotten yourself into. And you,” he said, spinning back to Rohan, “you're beyond naive, my friend.”
“And you're a coward,” Rohan said. “If you're going to shoot us, get it over with.”
“The orb and Nora come with me.”
“Not a chance,” Rohan said
Nora stepped forward, shaking. Whether from rage or shock, it wasn’t clear. “You're one of them. You're a Defendero.”
“Not quite. But they're going to kill me if I don't deliver a body and the orb. Now come with me.”
When Nora didn't move, Marcos yelled and turned the pistol on her, jamming the barrel against her temple.
Rohan fought the urge to react.
Not yet, he told himself. Not yet.
“I wish you two had died on your way to Vilcabamba. That would’ve made this easier.”
“And our past?” Nora asked. “For the respect you once had for me, for the ‘love,’ or whatever this is you still feel… let us go.”
Marcos’s eyes flashed with anger. “NEVER!”
His trigger finger moved, and Rohan knew it was time to act. He threw himself at Marcos, pushing the gun up and away from Nora. Then he brought an elbow into the man’s throat, knocking him off balance.
“Get out of here!” Rohan yelled to Nora.
She dashed away, while he struggled for the pistol. Marcos was strong, however, and was able to keep his grip on it. Two shots went off, exploding chunks of the plaster walls.
Somewhere in the distance, a baby cried and a woman started screaming.
“How long do you think you have before the police arrive?” Marcos asked, kneeing Rohan in the ribs.
Rohan winced, but used the moment to ram his head into Marcos’s nose. He pushed Marcos in the chest and slammed his arm against the wall. The pistol dropped, thudding in the dirt.
“I knew there was something weird about you,” Rohan said.
He plowed into Marcos, tackling him to the ground with a well-placed punch to the face for good measure, and then scrambled toward the light of the market. He was almost there when he heard another gunshot.
“This way!” Nora said, and he saw her at the corner of an empty vendor stall. He followed her, then looked behind and saw that two men had joined Marcos in the pursuit.
“There!” Rohan said, and they dove sideways into another small alley. A small wrought iron gate stood in their way, but a solid kick sent it clattering down the alley, and they were past.
He paused to hold his hands out and help Nora over a small, stone retaining wall into a courtyard with two lime trees and a bicycle—someone’s backyard.
He didn't care. He threw himself over the wall and hoped the men didn't see him.
Rohan and Nora crouched in the shadow of a lime tree, listening to the sound of feet echoing by in the alley.
When they had heard no suspicious sounds for several minutes, Rohan held up a hand to wait, then cautiously looked over the wall.
“Clear,” he said, sinking down next to her and wiping the sweat from his brow. The scent of mint and thyme hit him, and he realized this was a garden. There could be worse places to be stuck hiding.
“Bastard,” she said, glaring at the dirt beneath her. “I never would’ve suspected—”
“It’s done,” Rohan said, a bit more snap to his voice than he’d anticipated.
“Do you blame me?”
His first thought was that she had been the one to introduce Marcos into this. But he said, “There’s no way you could’ve known. Love is blind.”
The last bit kind of slipped out, but he found himself looking out of the corner of his eyes to see how she’d react.
For a moment she continued to stare at the dirt, then she picked some up and flicked it at him with a smile.
“What was that for?” he asked.
“My history with him is none of your damn business, anyway,” she said. “But no, it wasn’t love or anything like that. I’m a professional, and was here on work. For the record.”
“You can’t say it was nothing.”
“I didn’t say that, either,” she said with a blush. “But, again, not that it’s any of your business…. God. Why am I explaining my relationship with a guy who just tried to kill us? Whatever.”
Rohan waited, not saying a thing.
Finally, she said, “It was a work thing. Met him at an event for archeologists, we kinda hit it off… took a walk under the starlit sky, and kissed. That. Was. It.”
He was kind of happy she told him, but then felt his stomach clench up at the image of them kissing.
“See, I told you it was too much information,” she said, smirking.
For a second, it looked like she was going to lean over and kiss him. Part of him, probably the part that was still surging with adrenaline from having just almost died, wanted it more than anything. The rest of him wondered if he was ready, emotionally.
Not that it mattered, because just then an elderly Peruvian lady walked out of her back door and saw them sitting in her garden. She yelled and threw packets of seeds at them.
“Come on,” Nora said with a laugh, and they ran past the lady and into her house, headed for the front door.
At the door, Nora paused at a set of keys hanging on a peg on the wall. The woman was still yelling at them, and then a pounding of footsteps sounded upstairs. More people.
If they didn't do something soon, they were going to cause a scene.
“We can’t,” Rohan said, looking from Nora to the keys, but she reached out and snagged them, then broke for the beat-up red truck parked just outside, halfway on the curb.
They heard more screaming from the woman, and then a huge man in a tank top appeared at the top of the stairs. He had a gun.
“Sorry,” Rohan said in broken Spanish, and he ran to hop in the truck that Nora had already started.
They sped away as the man came chasing after them.
“Please don’t let him catch us,” Rohan said, sinking into his seat and covering his face. “Too bad we had to steal this truck.”
“It was this or our lives,” Nora said. “It was this or let Los Defenderos or Marcos kill us.”
She turned down a side street, and Rohan saw they were going into a less crowded area that led to a part of town with churches and trees in the distance.
“Well... Machu Picchu, here we come,” Rohan said.
Chapter 12: Macchu Picc
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They ditched their stolen truck at a train station and decided to catch an evening train to Machu Picchu, a more expensive route than Rohan had thought. They bought bottled water and eased onto the almost empty train. Soon they were making their way through the Peruvian mountains.
Rohan would have liked to see more of the mountains, but he could only make out their silhouettes in the moonlight, flanked here and there by trees and forest.
He told himself this was a place he had to return to when the journey was over.
Halfway there, Nora fell asleep with her head on his shoulder, just like she’d done on the flight to Peru… And just like Senna used to do.
He thought of his love in the afterlife, how she was probably smiling at this moment. Maybe he would have felt guilty, once, but not after the goodbye the two had shared.
In fact, this felt good. Maybe even right. He fell asleep with his head resting against the window.
Before long, the train stopped at Aguas Calientes, a small town at the base of a mountain. It looked like it had been grafted onto the mountain, with colorful homes and buildings crowded along the base. Train tracks dissected the streets, and railcars sat in the middle of the road after a day’s journey, waiting to be picked up by the next morning’s train.
“Machu Picchu is up there,” Nora said, pointing at the mountain as she yawned.
Rohan’s ears popped and he felt a little sick, his stomach churning. The sky wobbled, and he wished that he could enjoy seeing the city in all its glory, taken it in as a tourist. But he was too focused on stopping himself from throwing up.
“Drink water,” Nora said. “You still haven’t acclimated yet.”
“God. I’ve been here long enough already.”
“It usually takes a few days. Come on, go easy on yourself. I don’t need you having a nausea attack before we get to Machu Picchu.”
Rohan sat on a bench in the station and took in several deep breaths. Nora joined him. She clearly looked exhausted and sick too, but not as bad as him.
“There are some tricks,” she said. “The first is to take it easy.”
“Yeah, we definitely didn’t do that.”
“The second is to drink a lot of water.”
“Another fail.”
“The third,” she said, smiling as she produced a pink pill, “is to medicate.”
Rohan downed the pill and finished off his bottle of water.
“It’ll kick in soon,” she said. “It’s for altitude sickness.”
“Then let’s go,” Rohan said, jumping up. “I’ll be fine.”
Nora eyed him cautiously, and then they traveled to the edge of town, where they rented a car from a rundown office that only had one SUV left. Following Nora’s map, they drove along the winding mountain roads, through mist and fog, climbing ever upward as the drop-offs became deeper. Several times they encountered hairpin curves and had close calls with passing vehicles who blared their horns at them. Rohan told Nora to drive slower, but she ignored him and kept her speed.
The moon was high in the sky when they reached a parking lot for tour buses. They parked, shut off the car, and snuck into the Machu Picchu tourist site. The mountain air was crisp, and a hotel built into the side of the mountain twinkled in the night.
A couple of security guards stood their posts, but Rohan and Nora avoided them. Soon they were climbing a long, steep hill, until the majestic ruins of Machu Picchu stretched before them. Carved into the top of a mountain, it was more epic than the images Rohan had seen in the history books, more mysterious than he’d ever imagined.
Nora tapped him on the shoulder. “Impressive, huh?”
“Definitely.”
“Well, we’ve got to get to the Temple of the Sun.” She pointed to a terraced area with a large stone structure on the far side of the site. “Let’s go. We’re coming up on sunrise.”
Rohan checked his watch. The day and night had flown by. It was hard to believe that just at sunset, they had been fighting Marcos.
Rohan’s body ached with exhaustion, but he pushed himself to keep up with Nora as they scrambled down the mountain.
The mountain gave way to grassy, green spaces of the site, and Rohan marveled at the stone walls and monuments as he passed. He wondered how beautiful they must look during the day, when they were intended to be seen.
At least twice, Rohan had to brace himself and catch Nora after she stumbled. When he almost lost his footing and she pulled him back by the collar of his shirt, he fell into her and paused for a moment at the longing in her eyes. Had he noticed that before? But it was gone before he’d even had time to think about it, replaced with the terror he felt pounding in his chest.
Before long, they reached the Temple of the Sun. They climbed a long set of stone stairs up to a half-circle that looked like an altar. Several square windows were cut into the walls, and Rohan could tell immediately that this was where the ritual was supposed to take place.
They entered the small temple, where two figures stood. One of the figures turned, and in the bright moonlight, Rohan saw a face he hadn’t expected to see—Tess. And beside her, Beverly.
“Bev, Tess,” Rohan said. “What are you doing here?”
Beverly was still wearing her work clothes. A blue blouse and khakis with a scarf around her neck. She looked exactly as Rohan had left her back in D.C., and that troubled him.
And then his fears were confirmed. The voice that came out of her mouth was not hers at all. It was him—Altemus.
“Call this an insurance policy,” Altemus’s voice said. “One wrong move, and we destroy their bodies.”
Nora looked like she was about to fight, but Rohan couldn’t let any harm come to his sister. Plus, he felt he owed Tess for getting her into this mess. He stood in front of Nora and motioned for her to stand down.
“They’ve won,” he said, hating the words as they left his mouth.
“Rohan, no.” Nora stared at him, blinking. “You can’t be serious.”
“I can’t fight him. Not like this, I can’t.” Rohan shook his head, furious at himself for allowing this to happen. “I wasn’t expecting the collateral.”
Tess, who was inhabited by Anne, produced the orb from her pocket, and Altemus took it in one hand, the tablet in the other.
Anne linked her arms with Altemus. It was hard not to think of them as an innocent girl and his sister, but Rohan pushed that from his mind. They walked to the doorway and stopped there.
“This is too weird,” he said to Nora as they watched Altemus.
“I recognize the one woman from my house, but the other?” Nora asked.
“My sister.”
Nora gave him a horrified look, then continued to follow Altemus and Anne with her eyes..
The sky was turning to dark blue with purple at its edges, the slightest hint of pink on the clouds past the hills. There was a small, bowl-shaped impression in the ground, and Altemus stood over it.
“This is it,” Altemus said with a wide, greedy smile. It looked so wrong on Beverly’s face. “It’s time.”
As the rays of sun shot out from behind the hills, Altemus stood in front of the square window, measuring his pace so that he stood at exactly the angle depicted in the paintings. He jammed the orb into the opening at the top of the tablet, and then held the tablet high into the air.
He laughed as he waited, then said, “This is the time when you bow down to me and accept me as king of the world of the living and the dead.”
“You can kill me before that happens,” Rohan said.
“Duly noted.” Altemus smiled at that.
Light angled in from outside, nearly at the dais. Beverly’s eyes, with Altemus behind them, lit up with an excitement unlike anything Rohan had ever seen from the old man.
“Watch this,” Altemus said. He paused, taking a deep breath, and then the sun rays hit the tablet, lighting it up in a brilliant flash.
Sunlight sprang to life all around them, then exploded outward
back toward the ruins. Where at one moment there had been crumbling rocks, now the golden light was forming walls, columns, and domes over their heads, as if a ghost city were springing up around Machu Picchu.
“Oh my god,” Nora said, taking a step toward Rohan and grasping his hand in hers.
There was movement outside the temple. At first it was distant, like a faint glow in the fog, but then something was walking—no, trudging through the grass. Something bright gold.
People.
Spirits.
From the looks of them, they appeared to be the long dead residents of Machu Picchu.
Beverly screamed as Altemus floated out of her body, then she fell to the floor, shaking. Tess’s body fell beside her.
“Thank you, Rohan. Now, feel free to die,” Altemus said. He and Anne carried the tablet between them and flew off, laughing.
The newly arrived spirits didn’t notice Rohan and Nora at first, but Altemus flashed and got their attention. He pointed at the Temple of the Sun, and suddenly the spirits began to groan and make their way toward the stone structure, their faces filled pain and anger.
Altemus shouted a chant in Spanish, and the golden structures that had sprung up around Machu Picchu glowed brighter than before.
Thunder and lightning filled the sky, and then it was like the world was turning upside down, folding in on itself, like a ship capsizing in the water. With a crash, the golden glow fell to the ground and was replaced by black, and the spirits were consumed by dark clouds.
Screams echoed through the mountains, and the black rose until it covered the sky, blocking out the sunlight. Lightning sparked in the darkness, and then, with a flash of red light, the chaos stopped. In its wake, the black structures remained, but the spirits of Machu Picchu had been replaced by crimson red spirits, the same red as the demon from Vilcabamba.
“This isn’t good,” Nora said.
“Yeah… that’s a bit of an understatement.”
The demons turned their way. Then, with a command from Altemus, they surged up the stairs of the Temple of the Sun, flying for the attack.
Chapter 13: Worlds Inverted
