River of Eden

by Glenna Mcreynolds

  A monkey?

  Will opened his eyes to a bare slit and slanted them toward the old man.

  “What monkey?”

  Tutanji pointed to a spot in the forest, and by the light of the torches, Will saw a small emperor tamarin monkey with a flowing white mustache sitting on a low branch in a tree no more than five feet away, the ring of keys clutched in its tiny hands. Its little face was turned toward the torches around the plaza, its expression one of pensive anticipation—as if it knew something terrible was going to happen.

  Fucking doomed.

  “Is that you?” he asked Tutanji.

  “No. I am a caiman, an anaconda, a jaguar shaman, but never a monkey shaman. Call to him,” the old man suggested. “Maybe he will come.”

  Maybe? That was the best Tutanji could come up with after three damn years? Will wanted to reach out and grab the little monkey by the throat, because he sure as hell didn't think the animal was going to walk over to the cage and hand him those keys.

  Frustration made him shake the bars again, and this time they did make a small grating noise, enough to make the monkey turn and look him straight in the eye.

  Will held himself very still, not daring to blink.

  “Little brother,” he said softly. Behind him, he heard Tutanji start to chant in a soft singsong cadence, the notes lifting on the slight breeze blowing through the trees.

  The monkey just sat and stared, its jaws working on an invisible nut, its expression as worried as ever.

  “Get your skinny little ass over here, little brother,” Will crooned, working hard not to grit his teeth. “Get your skinny little ass over here, or I'll hunt you down with my bush knife and use your guts to string my bow.”

  Still staring right at him, the monkey stopped chewing, leaving its jaw hanging open. Then it screamed and took off up into the tree.

  Will swore and hit the cage. So much for Tutanji's idea. He whirled around, searching for an alternative—and damn near passed out again, but with more of a hallucination problem than just the simple dizziness of before, a bright, neon-pink snake dancing before his eyes.

  Slowly, he straightened back up, his gaze sliding toward Tutanji.

  “What did I drink, older brother?” he asked. Now was not the time for visions and the Otherworld, not the time for caapi. If he was going to save Annie, he needed to be in this world.

  “The snake will pass by,” the old man assured him, “and then you will be strong. It is not yagé, not vine of the soul. A little tobacco maybe, to make you strong again, to make you forget where you were hit, where you were shot with the white man's bullet.”

  A nicotine rush then, Will realized. That's all it was, a slightly hallucinogenic nicotine rush. Ingesting the stimulant as brewed sludge was about a thousand times more potent than smoking it and just about guaranteed a man was going to see something that wasn't really there—like a pink snake phosphene.

  “The mother of the mother of tobacco was a snake, little brother,” the shaman continued. “You need the power of snakes.”

  Will bit back an irritated retort. According to Tutanji, he was always in need of something's power. In truth, what he needed was to get out of the friggin' cage.

  A collective gasp in the glade brought his head around, and this time there was no dizziness, no hallucination. He was getting stronger, and in the nick of time. Corisco was coming. The sound of boots in a lockstep march could be heard approaching on the river path. Fear rippled through the plaza, a palpable fright jumping from cage to cage, making the Indians nervous as hell. The soldiers came into view, and Will swore. Corisco must have had a hundred men with him, each with a semiautomatic rifle and double bandoliers of ammunition crisscrossing their chests. There was enough firepower on the plaza to annihilate a thousand people, cut them down into shreds. Taking out a hundred unarmed Indian woman and frightened old caboclos was nothing less than slaughter—and there wasn't a damned thing Will could do to stop it.

  Unless…

  The guard was coming back again on his next round, and when he got close, Will grabbed the bars of his cage in both hands and started shaking them.

  CHAPTER 28

  Corisco entered the plaza flanked by a hundred men, each of them ready to die for him, each of them ready to kill for him. Today he had required both.

  Fat Eddie's jagunços had descended on Reino Novo like a swarm of mosquitoes, no match for trained soldiers except in their irritating numbers. His guerilla tactics had held Vargas's army at bay at the number two mine for most of the day, his snipers picking off Corisco's snipers in a game of attrition, but not for much longer. Corisco had cut off the fat man's escape and was going to blow the number two mine, Fat Eddie, and his mosquitoes to hell.

  What a waste of a day, he thought with disgust. He was unbeatable in a penny-ante war, and soon would be unbeatable on a much larger scale.

  Fools. Everyone who defied him was a fool, and no one had defied him more than Annie Parrish. She'd been such a disappointment when he'd returned for her answer at midday, begging for the gringo's life instead of her own, telling him everything, promising him hundreds of orchids and her services in discovering their secrets, giving it all up with barely a threat between them.

  Utter and abject surrender, he'd discovered, was the greatest defiance of all, depriving him of more sadistic delights, but he would take her offer. He would let her slave for him in exchange for William Sanchez Travers's life.

  His mouth curled in distaste. He couldn't believe how cheaply she'd sold herself, and for nothing. The sodding gringo wouldn't last the night. She'd thought herself worth more in Yavareté. Much more.

  He strode across the plaza and took the stairs up the tower two at a time, while his men lined up in formation in front of the cages. Despite Fat Eddie, the Night of the Devil was coming off as planned. Tonight, a legend would be born. He would not be made to look the fool, not by a fat man from Manaus, and not by a gringo whose preferred weapon was a primitive blowgun.

  Good Lord. How far had the man thought to get with a blowgun? Corisco wondered.

  Farther than most, he had to admit, remembering the ease with which Travers had dispatched his guards and the hapless Fernando. Fat Eddie had been wrong about the gringo's death on the Rio Marauiá, as he was being proved wrong about everything, especially his decision to bring war to Corisco's door.

  But it was Dr. Parrish's capitulation that irked him even more than Fat Eddie's acts of aggression. If she wanted to enslave herself for the love of a drunken has-been who happened to be handy with a blowgun, fine. He would see to it that she paid the price in a thousand little ways every day. She'd stolen guns from Fat Eddie in Manaus, and the little filha been heading up the river to do him in with grenades and dynamite.

  His man in Manaus had discovered the facts surrounding Fat Eddie's flight up the Rio Negro after the good doctor and his stolen guns. He'd even seen Johnny Chang's severed head, before it had been sent to Ecuador, an interesting item, but one that did nothing to address the real problem as Corisco saw it.

  Scale. Simple scale.

  The difference between him and all the other would-be river lords was scale. No one was thinking outside the box of their measly little existence, except him.

  He made the landing where Annie Parrish was tied to the golden fangs twenty feet above the plaza, and knew he had his foolish moments, as well. He should kill her, let her fulfill her place in his planned ceremony. Her martyrdom would do far more to promote his cause than any amount of orchid research she might manage.

  But her skin was soft, so very smooth, looking like gold satin in the light of the flames. The silk he'd wrapped her in was nearly transparent, it was so finely spun. Her hair was wild in its little-boy cut, but would grow in time, if he gave her time—and he was tempted, so tempted to keep her. He had a terrible sadistic streak when it came to women, and he'd hurt her before, but he actually thought that for her he could change. That he could control his more primitive instinct
s and perhaps re-learn the art of tenderness.

  She was so unusual, so unique, truly a prize worth keeping.

  Or he could make an offering of her to the devil gods of the Amazon and send those images rocketing around the world via satellite and make himself a name unlike any other in history.

  Decisions, he thought in irritation. He usually had no trouble making decisions, but just like in Yavareté, she made him hesitate, made him doubt.

  He came up behind her on the golden platform and smoothed his hand over her bare shoulder, and felt her flinch. Sex had been so strange for him since he'd first taken the devil frog potion. The visions, which had made him powerful beyond his dreams, had also made him impotent, an odd contradiction he'd learned to live with in his own twisted fashion.

  “What am I going to do with you, Dr. Parrish?” he asked, letting his hand continue to trail over her skin, all the way across her shoulders and then down the lovely curve of her back.

  She trembled beneath his touch, and Corisco found her reaction appealingly erotic.

  “Keep our deal,” she said succinctly, and he smiled again. No one made him smile more than Annie Parrish.

  “You should know better than to deal with the devil, Doctor.” He continued along with his hand on her body, walking around the platform, breaking their contact only once when he rounded one of the fangs. Then his hand was back on her, trailing down the front of her arm and coming to rest on her breast.

  With his other hand, he lifted her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. Nothing but revulsion showed in her eyes, but he found that erotic as well, so much so, a spark of life actually stirred in his groin.

  It happened now and then, but never with enough force to accomplish anything. So why keep her? he asked himself, and with his answer, her fate was sealed. He lowered his hand from her breast. She was unique, yes, but still no match for him.

  As for the orchids? The Amazon's single most unendangered species was the Cientista south americanus. They could be found hanging from the trees, snorkling through the water, padding around after the Indians, cutting plants, stealing insects, tagging mammals, tracking birds, and generally sticking their noses in, under, and around every single living thing in the rain forest. If he needed one, he wouldn't have to look far to get one.

  ANNIE HEARD CORISCO descend the stairs behind her, and she wanted to scream in frustration, which beat the hell out of giving in to her fear. She'd seen the look in his eyes, and he was going to kill her and Will. She knew it. Her strategy had backfired.

  Biting off an oath, she jerked against the ropes tying her to the golden fangs.

  She'd clung to stoic resistance in Yavareté, close-mouthed, unyielding resistance, and gotten herself beaten from head to toe and hung naked in chains. She'd thought she'd try a different tack this time, and though Vargas hadn't raised so much as a hand to her, and she was still clothed—in a manner of speaking—overall, she feared the consequences of capitulation, even feigned capitulation, were going to be far harsher.

  And where was Will? She'd been brought to the plaza hours ago and had yet to see him. The light from the torches caught every ounce of gold on the paved courtyard and the snake tower, making the plaza shimmer with flickering brilliance, but it also made seeing into the cages on the perimeter impossible. Everything outside the circle of gold was cast in the deep darkness of the rainforest night. Now and then, she glimpsed the movement of one of the guards patrolling the cages, or caught a brief shift of shadows inside the iron bars, but nothing she could identify, and certainly not Will.

  Below her, row upon row of armed soldiers were standing at attention, their assault weapons in their hands. It was going to be a massacre, a bloody, bloody massacre, and she was going to have a bird's-eye view.

  Corisco was crazed.

  And she was trapped in the mouth of a giant snake hammered out of gold. Tied to its teeth, for God's sake.

  She jerked her arms again and swore beneath her breath, her fury and her fear rising to the surface in equal measure. She had to get free. Will was down there, wounded, and if she couldn't get free, she was going to end up watching him die.

  CHAPTER 29

  Will dragged the unconscious guard into the forest, his knuckles still smarting from the hit he'd taken, before he'd grabbed the man's rifle and jerked him hard into the iron bars, knocking him out cold. As soon as he'd unlocked his own cage, he'd tossed the keys to Tutanji. The captives were already swarming out of the cages, keeping to the shadows, and as soon as someone noticed—any second—all hell was going to break loose. Will was going to use that chaos to get to Annie.

  He grabbed the guard's rifle and pumped a fresh round into the chamber. He'd seen Corisco bound up the stairs to see her. The bastard hadn't stayed long, just long enough to manhandle her a bit and cop a feel.

  He jerked the guard's knife out of its sheath and took off running, his jaw tight with anger. He'd graduated from Harvard summa cum laude, but he hadn't played this hand smart at all.

  He was halfway to the snake tower, skirting the outside edge of the cages, when a huge explosion from down by the river stopped him dead in his tracks and almost stopped his heart. The earth shook with the force of it, the tremors racing beneath the ground and knocking half of Corisco's troops in the plaza off balance. Will rode the tremor out and knew there would be hell to pay, a thought he no sooner had than he heard a tree crash in the forest behind him, taking out everything in its path. Above the river, a huge fireball lit up the night sky, with smoke and flames spewing from its core, and Will wondered who in the hell was blowing up Reino Novo.

  FAT EDDIE SAT in his big wooden chair with the detonater in his hand, chuckling, his big belly rippling in cadence with the sound. What a day, he thought. What a hell of a day.

  He and his men had taken over the camp of the number two mine on Reino Novo's northernmost boundary early in the afternoon, and he'd had the jagunços hauling out gold all day—up until Vargas's troops had flanked them and cut off their route to the river.

  Things had gotten sticky then for a while, but in the end, sheer numbers had prevailed. When they'd discovered Vargas's men rigging the camp and mine to explode, they'd taken over the job and done it right.

  Maybe too right, Eddie thought, grinning through the soot and ash that now dusted everything in sight.

  One of his men came running up to where he sat, mouthing words and gesturing, and Eddie realized he couldn't hear him through the ringing in his ears. But he understood exactly what the man was saying—“The second blast, she is ready, senhor!”

  ANNIE HUNG PETRIFIED from her ropes, trying to stand perfectly still, a near impossibility with the snake tower swaying from side to side. As terrifying as her situation was, she found herself suddenly fixated on who in the hell had designed the tower, and if its infrastructure had been engineered to withstand small earthquakes.

  She didn't think so. She could feel the tremors running through it.

  In the aftermath of the explosion and all the chaos erupting on the plaza, with downed troops trying to scramble to their feet, and her own immediate problem, it took her a moment to realize the captives in the cages were escaping.

  Her thoughts immediately flew to Will. He had a chance.

  But in the next moment a second explosion rocked the sky, sending another shock wave through the ground. The tower shuddered beneath her again, a long, deep, aching shudder centered in its core, sounding a lot like collapsing panels of steel, or the opening up of a giant, squeaky door hinge.

  Not good, she told herself, wrapping her fingers more tightly around the ropes, and when she heard a higher pitched noise from above, her assessment dropped even lower—until she looked up and saw a deep crack inching its way across the top of the snake's right fang.

  She jerked on her rope, using all her strength, trying to help the crack along. If it gave way, she might be able to get free.

  A similar high-pitched noise sounded from behind her, and she swung her head a
round to see what else was giving way. It was another crack ripping down the snake's throat, following the pattern of the golden scales and leaving an ever-widening gash in its wake.

  The tower was going to collapse, one way or another, and the only question in Annie's mind was whether or not she'd still be on it when it did.

  CORSICO PICKED HIMSELF UP off the stairs for the second time, his jaw clenched to the point of pain.

  What were those fools down at the number two mine thinking?

  Looking around the plaza, he saw utter chaos, but not the chaos he had planned, and his cordeiros were escaping, sneaking off into the night, running for their miserable lives.

  He jerked his head at the lieutenant on his right. “Round them up! Imediatamente!” Frightened women and old men shouldn't be too hard to corral, not by armed soldiers. “The ones you cannot catch, shoot.”

  The lieutenant snapped off a salute and quickly barked off a set of orders to the others.

  Corisco watched his soldiers regroup, some to follow the lieutenant, others remaining to secure the plaza.

  More trees crashed in the forest surrounding the plaza, convincing him to stay put until everything could be set back in order. He looked up the tower to see how his most important captive had taken the explosions, and felt the oddest sensation—a ripple of unease, a first niggling of doubt about the immediate future.

  El Mestre, his beautiful snake tower with the diamond and emerald eyes and the seven-foot-long golden fangs, was cracking. He took a step down to get a better view and felt a second ripple of unease. The biggest gash was going straight down the throat, and if it didn't stop, the golden snake was going to break open like a cracked egg, and like a cracked egg, everything that was inside it was going to come pouring out.

  Everything.

  More than a ripple of unease washed through him at the thought.

  Carefully, he took another step down, and suddenly the whole world came out from under him.