You don’t have a soul. You are a soul…. You have a body.
Twelve hours later
It was going on eight o’clock in the evening and Jack was huddled in the back of the rust-colored pickup as it wound its way up a gravel road through looming pines to the top of a craggy bluff.
His clothes were torn and muddy from his ordeal in the caves. The gash in his leg was bandaged and his hands were cuffed behind his back. And the sheriff they had called Carson—who Jack now knew was no real sheriff at all—sat beside him with a gun in his hand pointed at Jack’s chest. Malcolm Browne, the guy who had first picked Jack up on the highway, was driving. And the doctor named Henderson, who had bandaged Jack’s leg, was sitting beside Browne in the cab.
They continued up the wooded hillside until the road leveled off and the trees parted to reveal the enormous log-beam mansion perched near the top of the bluff. It was quite impressive—a place that normally he’d like to spend a week in. Though considering his current circumstances, Jack could only feel a sense of great peril waiting for him inside.
Carson yanked him out of the truck and ushered him up the gravel drive through the main entrance. He escorted Jack across the foyer into an expansive central hall.
A man stood with his back to a wide bank of windows. He was lean and quite pale with a thick mass of black hair and very light-green—nearly yellow—eyes that gave his appearance a disturbing, vampirish feel.
He strode across the room somewhat casually, as if to give Jack a closer look. “Welcome to Beckon. My name is Thomas Vale. They tell me your name is Kendrick. Is that right? Jack Kendrick?”
Jack looked around at the others. “Do I know you?”
“No,” Vale said simply. “They also say you’ve been inside the caves.”
Jack could see where this was going. He suddenly realized that the less he knew, the safer he might be. “Uh… no. I haven’t been in any cave. I’ve just been out hiking—”
Vale waved off his attempt at a lie. “Because you may just be the only person to have ever made it out of there alive.” He circled Jack as if inspecting him. “I can’t tell you how fascinating that is. I have a million questions.”
“So do I.”
“They tell me you’re some sort of anthropologist, yes?”
Jack shook his head. “I’m not answering any questions until I get a phone. I want to call—”
“Call who? The authorities?” Vale gave an icy chuckle. “Jack, in this town I am the authority.”
“What’s going on here? Who are you people?”
Vale ignored him. “It’s pretty impressive, really. I mean… finding a way into those caves was unlikely enough. But actually finding your way out again… well, that was just extraordinary. You have no idea how lucky you are.”
“Funny, I don’t feel very lucky at the moment.”
“Oh, but you are,” Vale said. “You see, the N’watu hate outsiders with a passion. And for you to have survived your encounter is nothing short of amazing.”
Jack leaned forward. “What do you know about them?”
Vale scratched the back of his neck. “Not nearly enough, I’m afraid. Though probably more than anyone else.”
“Who are they?”
“The last remnant of a pre-Columbian civilization that predates the Mayans. Probably even the Olmec.”
Jack frowned. His father’s theories continued to be validated—a fact that both thrilled and frightened him as he feared he would never escape to share the discovery with anyone else. There was something obviously sinister going on in this town, and Jack wondered if his father had stumbled across this place and perhaps been kidnapped as well. In either case, he needed more information. He needed to find out what this guy knew about the N’watu.
“And they still exist today, living entirely underground?”
“Yes…” Vale looked almost giddy, like a parent talking about his child. “The truly incredible thing is that their culture has survived essentially intact for thousands of years, completely undetected by the modern world.” He paused, and his expression grew somber. “Of course, my intention is to keep it that way.”
“Why?”
“Why?” Vale looked incredulous. “You’re an anthropologist, aren’t you? To preserve their culture. To protect them from the invasive scrutiny of modern society.”
Jack scowled. “But science is all about scrutiny. It’s about exploration and discovery.”
Vale clucked his tongue and shook his head. “Perhaps some things weren’t meant to be discovered. I’d have thought you would understand the consequences to their way of life if news of their existence ever got out.”
“Way of life? What kind of a life do these people have? They’re living inside a cave at a Stone Age level of existence.”
“This culture has evolved in a completely isolated subterranean environment. The N’watu live their entire lives underground. And yet somehow they’ve managed to survive. Think about how remarkable that is.”
“I guess I just don’t share your enthusiasm,” Jack said. “Besides, I think they’ve had more contact with the outside world than you’re leading me to believe.”
Vale’s eyes flicked to the three other men in the room, then back to Jack. “Do you have any clue what kind of secrets such an ancient culture might hold? And what we can learn from them?”
“Oh? Like offering human sacrifices?”
Vale leveled his gaze at Jack. “You say that with such vitriol and judgment. But is our modern, civilized society any better? How many innocent lives have we surface dwellers taken in the name of progress or security? Or just plain convenience?”
“So I assume you know about their bone pit.”
“I’ve never actually been that deep into the cave,” Vale said. “But I don’t presume to judge their religious practices.”
“Religious? They’ve been practicing ritual human sacrifices for years. And I’m guessing you’ve either known about it or have been directly complicit in the act.”
Vale laughed and shook his head. “I don’t think you have a clue what’s going on here.”
“I think I’ve seen enough.”
Vale nodded to his men. “Excellent; then let’s see how much you know.”
Carson yanked Jack backward, and they followed Vale down a corridor off the main room. Browne and Henderson brought up the rear. They turned down a narrow side hall, where Vale led them through another door and descended a flight of stairs.
They arrived in a dimly lit basement, where Jack found himself in a narrow concrete-block corridor with three metal doors: one on each side of the hall and a third at the far end. Vale opened the door on the right and ushered Jack into a large room lined with cabinets and shelving units and lit by two rows of cold fluorescent lights. Situated throughout the room were several long tables, each one cluttered with a variety of laboratory equipment.
At the far end of the room was a pair of enormous glass terraria, five or six feet in length. Vale strode to the first terrarium and tapped on the glass. “Have you fed them yet today?”
Henderson cleared his throat. “Uh… no. I figured you might want to do that yourself.”
Vale waved Jack over for a better look, and after a sharp nudge from Carson, Jack complied. He could see that the bottoms of both tanks were covered with a layer of mud, pebbles, and small rocks. On one side of each tank was a large pile of leaves and sticks. Jack could see the leaves jittering as Vale tapped the glass.
“Bring me a rat, please.”
Henderson went over to one of the shelving units along the wall. It was packed with rows of wire cages. And each cage contained one or more of a variety of rodents: rats, mice, guinea pigs, and even a few rabbits.
He retrieved a white rat by the scruff of its neck and handed it to Vale. Vale flipped open a small plastic hatch in the cover and dropped the rat into the terrarium.
The rodent sat there for a moment, its whiskers twittering as it inspected its new surroundings.
Suddenly the leaves shook as something emerged from under the pile. Jack let out a yelp and jumped backward.
Vale grinned. “You’ve seen this before, yes?”
Jack’s throat was dry. “Yes.”
The armored arachnid was a miniature version of the monsters Jack had seen inside the caves. It was only six or eight inches across but had the same dark coloration on its top and a pale-gray underside. It reared back, raising its saber-like forelegs in the same menacing pose that Jack had seen before. Its two palps slapped together in rapid bursts, creating a soft but all-too-familiar clicking sound that sent chills down Jack’s spine. And while this spider was much smaller, it looked no less fierce under the brighter lights. A moment later three more had appeared from under the leaves.
Vale leaned close to the glass as the creatures pounced on the hapless rat, overwhelming it. Fangs punctured fur and skin. Claws dug deep into its flesh, twisting and yanking the limbs in various directions, and their tiny jaws tore off bits of tissue while the rat squealed and writhed. Jack grimaced as he watched the horrid spectacle.
Thankfully, the rat was dead within seconds, and the spiders began systematically dismembering its corpse.
No, Jack thought, it was hardly systematic. It was a frenzied, monstrous attack like he had seen in the caves. Vicious and chaotic. One of the spiders clutched a hind leg with its fangs and forelegs and spun its body to twist off the limb much like a crocodile would do to an antelope. The others tore into the carcass with their claws, gnawing flesh off bone. A flurry of blood and fur spattered the glass. Jack had never witnessed anything so brutal in his life.
He noticed Browne and even Carson kept their distance from the terraria.
But Vale seemed positively giddy and grinned at Jack. “The N’watu call them kiracs. It’s derived from their word for terror. Aptly named, wouldn’t you say?”
Henderson sounded less enthusiastic. “We believe they live in a colony structure with dozens or even hundreds of male hunters serving a single queen.”
Vale leaned close to the glass, pointing at the carnage. “See… the males—the warriors—they’ll eat anything. Bugs, birds, reptiles, mammals… even each other.”
Then he straightened up and moved to the second terrarium. “But the female, the queen… now, she’s more discriminating in her tastes. She’s far more… refined.” He tapped the glass.
Jack’s eyes widened at what he saw.
The queen kirac crept out from under the sticks and leaves, revealing her gnarled, armored bulk inch by inch. She was at least three times the size of the males and completely black with yellow spots dotting the top of her jagged shell. She moved slowly and deliberately… menacingly… clicking her palps in search of prey.
Vale motioned for Henderson to bring him another rodent. A guinea pig this time. Vale held it by the scruff of its neck outside the glass. The queen seemed to ignore it completely, though the guinea pig wriggled and twitched at the sight of the kirac, struggling to free itself from Vale’s grasp.
“See, the queen doesn’t eat flesh,” Vale said. “She only drinks the blood. But here’s the thing: it has to be a living victim.”
He lifted the lid and dropped the guinea pig into the cage. The queen turned, clicking her palps in short flurries. She seemed to locate her target quickly. The rodent scrambled away, instinctively backing up to the glass. Its nose and whiskers twitched furiously as it rose up against the glass in search of an exit.
The queen crept closer with slow, menacing strides. She first backed the guinea pig into the corner and then quickly moved in for the kill. The rodent jerked and struggled in a futile attempt to flee, but the queen clutched it with her massive forelegs. Jack could see the agitated animal growing increasingly desperate as the queen closed her legs around it, pulling it tightly into her embrace. It kicked against the rocks but couldn’t free itself from her bony grasp.
Vale had a look of pride as if watching his prize hunting dog corner a fox. “And she doesn’t poison it, either. She overpowers it, holds it tightly, and sucks out all of its blood.”
Jack saw the queen sink her long fangs into the throat of the guinea pig. The animal’s sides pulsed with each frantic breath but gradually slowed and within a minute had stopped altogether.
After another minute, the queen slowly loosened her grasp and moved off toward her lair, leaving the rodent’s corpse lying in the mud.
Henderson lifted the lid and picked up the limp guinea pig with a pair of tongs. Then he dropped it into the first terrarium, where the ravenous males dispatched the carcass with the same speed and ferocity as they had the rat.
Jack swallowed back his nausea. “So she lives off the blood?”
“It’s more than just blood. We think there’s something else.” Vale glanced at Henderson, who seemed to take his cue.
“We know she won’t touch a corpse,” he said. “She has to have live prey. But when we give her a choice between two identical rats, one of them sedated and the other fully conscious, she’ll ignore the sedated one even though it’s an easier kill.”
Jack frowned. “She only picks the conscious one?”
“Every time. She won’t feed on a sedated animal even if that’s her only option.”
“So… her instincts are based on movement?”
Henderson shook his head. “That’s what we thought at first, but when we suspended a sedated rat from a string to keep it moving, she still wouldn’t go for it.”
Jack nodded. “She must be keying in on something else. Maybe respiration or heart rate…” Jack recalled something Running Bear had said. The N’watu believed that Sh’ar Kouhm—the Soul Eater—fed on emotions.
On fear.
“The Caieche said the Soul Eater feeds on fear and anger.” Jack scratched his head. “So what if she can sense fear in her prey? Fear has a physiological effect on the body. Elevated heart rate, respiration…” He shrugged. “Maybe she has a taste for adrenaline.”
Vale offered a thin smile. “Very good, Jack. I’m impressed with your powers of deduction. I want to know everything that happened in those caves. I want to know everything you know about these things.”
“What?” Jack scowled. “Why should I tell you anything?”
Vale shrugged. “Because the only thing keeping you alive at the moment is that I believe you have information that could be useful. So as long as you stay cooperative, you’ll stay alive.”
Jack felt his jaw tighten. He had no doubt these people would make good on that threat. He had no interest in helping them, but he also needed to learn more about what was going on in this town.
He sighed. “Fine… what do you want to know?”
Henderson gestured to the glass. “I’ve been studying these things for a while now, but there’s still so much I don’t know. What can you tell me about what you experienced in the caves?”
Jack just stared at the kiracs, wishing Rudy were still alive. He was the biology major with all the theories. Jack shuddered again at the memory of his friend succumbing to the spider’s poison.
“Well… we found out their venom is extremely toxic. And fast. It causes massive internal bleeding and… a very painful death.”
“We know,” Henderson said. “But only the males are venomous.”
Jack pointed to the terrarium. “The ones I saw in the cave were enormous. Five to ten times the size of these. Are they all juveniles?”
“No, they’re fully mature at twelve months,” Henderson said. “But some arthropods never stop growing.”
“My friend had a theory,” Jack said. “We saw enormous millipedes and beetles feeding on some kind of bioluminescent microorganism—bacteria or something. And he thought it might be producing oxygen. Through some kind of reaction.”
Henderson was nodding. “So an increase in the overall oxygen levels would support the increased mass… provided they had a sufficient food supply.”
Vale interrupted them. “Well, it sounds like you two have a lot to discuss.” He seemed satisfied with Jack’s cooperation. “I have some matters to attend to upstairs. Let me know if you come up with anything useful.”
Vale left the lab, followed by Malcolm Browne.
Carson checked to make sure Jack’s handcuffs were still secure. “Don’t try anything stupid, kid. I’m right outside.”
Carson left and locked the door behind him, leaving Jack and Henderson alone in the lab.
Jack sat down on a stool, suddenly overwhelmed by fatigue and hunger. “Look, you seem to be the only one in this town who’s not psychotic. Can you please just tell me what’s going on?”
Henderson looked away. “It’s complicated.”
Jack shook his head and laughed a hopeless, empty laugh. He truly felt at the end of his rope. “Of course it’s complicated. There’s a pile of human bones down in those caves. There are legends of human sacrifices. And now you people are holding me captive, I assume because I’ve seen too much and you can’t let me go.”
“You’re here because you serve a purpose for Thomas Vale,” Henderson said. “All of us serve some kind of purpose for him.”
“So… are you saying you’re being held here against your will too?”
Henderson bit the inside of his cheek. “I suppose I could leave if I really wanted to.”
Jack wrinkled his forehead. “I don’t get it. Don’t you want to leave?”
“More than anything.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
Henderson’s gaze fell and he shook his head. “The problem is, I’ll die if I leave. And I’d die a pretty painful death.”
George peered out his window yet again. It had been hours since Vale brought them back to their suite and posted Henry Mulch outside their door. George paced through the suite, checking every window numerous times for an avenue of escape. But none of them were very promising. All the windows, George had discovered, were of an odd configuration that opened enough to let in a breeze but not enough to let someone escape. Not without breaking the glass and bringing Mulch in to investigate.
And more than that, it was at least a fifteen-foot drop to the ground from any of their windows or balconies, and there was no way to sneak from one balcony to another. It was as if Vale had designed his guest quarters with an eye for security as well.
This prison cell was a bit more comfortable than the ones George and Miriam had seen in the dungeons far below the lodge. But it was a prison nonetheless.
George checked in on Miriam again. She had complained of a headache and gone to the bedroom to lie down a couple hours ago. She’d been somewhat sullen since their trip into the tunnels beneath the lodge, which surprised George. He had expected her to respond with more emotion to the situation she had witnessed in Vale’s dungeon. More indignation, more anger. Something. But she looked like she was preoccupied. Or perhaps slightly disoriented.
Vale had essentially sent them to their room without any supper. He’d had a small tray of food brought up for lunch, but it’d hardly been filling. It was well past the dinner hour and George was starving. He could only imagine how Miriam must have been feeling.
At length George grew tired of pacing and sat, brooding, in one of the chairs out in the sitting room of the suite. He had given up hope of escaping. Or leaving. Vale had muttered something about instilling a sense of priority in them—whatever that meant.
After seeing the prisons down in the tunnels, George knew Vale would be capable of anything. Neither he nor Miriam was safe at this point.
It was getting dark by the time Mulch came in. “Mr. Vale would like to see you now. Just you.”
George made his way down to the great room, where Thomas Vale, Malcolm Browne, and Sam Huxley were already waiting. A fire was blazing in the fireplace. And Huxley was holding a folder with a sheaf of papers inside.
Vale still wore his pained expression as if George had deeply offended him. George stood in front of him like an errant son waiting for punishment to be handed down by his father. Not so far off, George thought, as Vale was more than twice his age.
“I want you to know that I’m willing to overlook your indiscretion earlier today and am still prepared to move forward with our arrangement.” He gestured to the folder in Huxley’s hand. “I have the papers here ready for your signature, George.”
George blinked. “Signature? You really expect me to go through with this deal after seeing your dungeon down there?”
Vale shrugged and went to pour himself a drink. “Yes, I expect that once you understand what’s at stake, you’ll sign this contract. Gladly.”
“Well, you can toss that contract in the fire, because after what I’ve seen, I don’t want anything to do with you or your little community.”
“You know, I don’t make these types of decisions lightly. So when I offer someone such an opportunity, I don’t expect him to start nosing around my home. It’s an odd display of gratitude.”
“When we’re dealing with the kind of money you’re asking for,” George said, “you can’t expect me to make that decision without trying to find out what kind of man you are.”
“Such relationships must be based on trust, George. You trusted me to help your wife, and I trusted you to respect my property and privacy.”
“Privacy? You kidnap people and lock them up in your own personal dungeon. That’s not a matter of privacy. It’s criminal!”
Vale sipped his drink and paced the room as if contemplating his next words. “I don’t think you fully grasp the scope of the gift I’m offering you. Perilium is not just some remedy for cancer or senility. It brings the human body back to its original design. Immortality, the way God intended it. Just as it was in the Garden.”
George shook his head. “We won’t be a part of what you’re doing here.”
“Oh, but I’m afraid refusal is no longer an option,” Vale said. “You see, perilium is an exacting master, not something to be taken casually. She requires your full commitment. And once you’ve tasted the elixir of life, you become one with it. There’s no turning back.”
George felt his neck bristle with a chill. “What do you mean?”
Vale drew another sip from his glass and looked at his watch. “It would actually be more dramatic for me to show you.”
He motioned to Browne, who left immediately.
Vale went on. “The survival of our community depends on two basic elements. One is a fair amount of seclusion from the rest of society. As you can imagine, we don’t wish to attract too much scrutiny here.
“And the other is balance. Every member of our little family has a specific function. We’re all dependent on one another to ensure the continuation of our way of life. So when one of us is no longer willing or able to function, they must be… reevaluated.”
Browne returned, leading Amanda into the room, her hands cuffed in front of her. She was sobbing. And George could tell immediately that something was wrong with her. Her complexion was pallid and her hair and clothes were nearly drenched in sweat.
Vale gestured toward her. “You see, Amanda here requires a daily measure of perilium just like the rest of us. Typically right after breakfast. But today I had to withhold her allotment as there were certain issues I felt we needed to discuss.”
Amanda sank to her knees, sobbing. “P-please… why are you… doing this?”
George frowned. “What’s wrong with her?”
Vale tapped his watch. “She’s nearly twelve hours overdue.”
He reached into his trouser pocket and held up a glass vial of the yellow liquid.
Amanda saw it and struggled to her feet. “Please…” She tried to reach for it, but Vale held it just out of her grasp and she collapsed again to the floor.
George looked on in horror. “What’s happening to her?”
“As I said, perilium is an exacting master.” Vale stared at the vial in the firelight. “And she demands a heavy price for disobedience. The body goes into a sort of toxic shock if not supplied with a regular dose. It’s a rather unpleasant sight to witness.”
“What did she do? Why are you doing this to her?”
“To make an example,” Vale said. “See, I’ve been observing her over the last few days, and lately I’m just not so certain of her commitment to our community. She seems to have developed something that could be an impediment to our existence.”
George couldn’t bear to look at her any longer. “What is it?”
“A conscience.” Vale knelt beside Amanda’s quivering form, dangling the vial over her head. “Apparently she’s been having doubts about our way of life. And I’m afraid we can’t tolerate such a lack of moral clarity. We have far too much to lose—all of us. We all depend on maintaining that precious balance, and she has become the weak link. A dry branch that needs to be pruned.”
Amanda reached again for the vial. George could see genuine terror in her eyes. “I… I’ve always been faithful…. I’ve done everything you asked….”
But Vale withdrew the vial once more and stood.
George stepped forward. “Stop it! Just give it to her!”
Vale wagged his head. “Here’s the thing, George. I have to make room for Miriam, and if I were to keep Amanda on, I wouldn’t have enough perilium left for your wife. I’m afraid there’s just not enough for both of them.”
George blinked. “Not enough? But you said—”
“What I said is that we must maintain a delicate balance. So if Miriam is to join us here, then unfortunately there will be no room left for dear Amanda.”
George cursed at him. “You’re a monster.”
“Monster? Me?” A cold smile spread on Vale’s face. “But this is your choice, George.” He held up the vial. “Amanda or Miriam—which one will it be?”
Amanda writhed on the floor, gasping for breath. “George… p-please… help me.”
George could feel his rage growing, but his old body would be no match for Vale in a physical altercation. He just shook his head in frustration and swore.
“Her life is in your hands, George,” Vale said again. “Just say the word.”
Seconds ticked by. George couldn’t bring himself to speak. Part of him didn’t believe Vale would help Amanda regardless of his choice. But it was a moot point. He couldn’t risk it. He couldn’t let Miriam die.
“Or…” Vale narrowed his yellow eyes. “Have you already made your choice?”
Amanda’s tremors quickly became more violent. Her spine arched with a sharp spasm and her eyes rolled back in their sockets. Her quivering body bumped and jittered on the floor as the rest of them looked on. George watched, horrified but unable to turn away.
The seizure lasted for more than a minute before it finally ended in a long, painful groan. Amanda’s body lay in a contorted, twisted mass on the floor.
Vale sighed and clucked his tongue as though he’d just lost a pet fish. Nothing more. “Now we’re both monsters, George. But more to the point, I think you needed to see precisely what awaits your beloved wife if you cross me again. Or in case you were thinking about leaving our community.”
George growled, “I’ll kill you.”
Vale laughed, replacing the vial inside his jacket. “Well, it wouldn’t be the first time. But you may want to reconsider your refusal of my offer. I’ll give you another twelve hours to think it over.”
Henderson opened a small refrigerator and produced a glass vial. He held it up for Jack. It was sealed with a black cap and inside Jack could see a yellow viscous substance.
He wrinkled his forehead. “Okay… what is it?”
Henderson gazed at it and shook his head. “It’s called perilium. And it’s probably the most valuable substance on the planet. And the most dangerous.”
“Why?”
“It’s an organic compound that the N’watu have been producing for centuries now. They ingest it for medicinal purposes.”
“Medicinal?” Jack didn’t know if he was joking or what. “What do you mean?”
“Perilium appears to hyperstimulate the body’s immune system, making it far more aggressive at repairing damaged cells or destroying diseased ones.”
“So basically it helps the body heal itself faster?”
“Exactly.”
Jack folded his arms. “How fast?”
Henderson just stared at him a moment and then rummaged through one of the drawers until he found a box cutter. He rolled up his sleeve and held his arm out for Jack to see.
Jack frowned. “What are you doing?”
Henderson winced as he ran the razor down the length of his forearm, slicing open his skin along an eight- or nine-inch track. A dark trail of blood rolled off his arm onto the cement floor.
Jack backed away. “Are you crazy?”
“Just watch.” Henderson held his arm still under the lights.
Jack watched as the wound stopped bleeding all on its own. The skin seemed to close up right before his eyes, as if someone were zipping it shut from the ends toward the middle. In seconds, a bright-red scar formed and faded back to the color of the original flesh.
Within two minutes’ time the scar completely disappeared and Jack could see no trace of the wound whatsoever. He blinked and shook his head. Was his extreme fatigue playing tricks with his mind? Had Henderson performed some kind of sleight of hand?
“I don’t believe it,” he said. “How does it work?”
“I told you. It enhances and accelerates the body’s natural ability to heal itself.”
Jack’s hands were still cuffed behind his back, but he leaned forward to examine the vial. “So… what? You just drink this when you’re sick or injured?”
Henderson rolled his sleeve back down. “Something like that.”
“And… a person who drinks this… can’t be killed?”
“Not exactly. If the physical trauma is too severe, the body may not have time to heal itself before succumbing to death.”
Jack nodded at the terraria. “And you think the spiders—the kiracs—are the key to how they make the perilium?”
“That’s our theory,” Henderson said. “They exhibit an uncanny resistance to disease and extremely fast recuperative abilities when injured.”
Jack recalled the spider Ben had tried to kill. It wasn’t until he had caused enough physical tissue damage with his knife that the animal finally died.
“But you don’t know how it’s made.”
Henderson shook his head. “The N’watu guard this secret closely.”
“No doubt.” Jack sat on the stool. For now all of his weariness had left him. His mind was active with the possibilities this substance presented. It needed to be shared with the world. So why was it being kept a secret?
“There’s some catch to it, isn’t there?”
Henderson sat down at the table across from Jack. His expression turned grim. “The impact on the body is enormous… but only temporary. Once perilium enters the system, the body requires regular doses to survive. Otherwise, it goes into shock. Convulsions, seizures… and death.”
Jack’s mind was racing. It was making sense now. These people needed a constant supply of this perilium, and the N’watu were the only ones who knew how to make it. So they had some kind of contract. He recalled Running Bear saying the N’watu had made a similar bargain with the Soul Eater. To offer it human souls in exchange for their own lives.
“So this is where the legend of the Soul Eater comes from?” Jack said. “The N’watu worship these kiracs. They offer up human sacrifices and get this perilium in return.”
“We figured you knew about the legend.” Henderson drew a long breath. “The N’watu will only accept a human soul. The legend goes that the Soul Eater consumes the life force of the soul, and by drinking her nectar, a person can gain the power of the other’s life force. One life for another.”
“One life…” Jack couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He could still see the tribe inside the cave, gathering round to eat the baby kiracs right out of the egg sac. And how the others were thrown into a bowl to be mashed up. This must have been the way they produced the perilium. He looked again at the vial on the table. It was something inside the spiders’ physiology that the N’watu—and the people here—were ingesting. He shook his head. “Is that where you all come in? You supply them with fresh souls to be offered?”
Henderson’s jaw clenched. “We do what we have to do to survive.”
“Do what you have to do?” Jack cringed. “You’re killing people!”
“Don’t you get it? We’ll die without the perilium.”
“Then die! What gives you the right to take someone else’s life like this?”
“That’s why I’ve been studying it,” Henderson said, raising his voice. “If I can synthesize it or find a way to replicate it, we can make it ourselves and I can end this nightmare!”
“And in the meantime… what?” Jack said.
“In the meantime we have to maintain the status quo.”
Jack eyed him with disgust. “Status quo? Meaning you keep herding innocent people to the slaughter?” He nodded again to the terraria. “To be fed to those things in the cave?”
“No.” Henderson shook his head. His eyes seemed to glaze over. “To be fed to her.”
“Her?”
“Sh’ar Kouhm. They feed them to the queen. The others—the males—just get the leftovers.”
Jack sat dumbfounded, staring at the second terrarium and recalling the larger specimen and how it fed. His heart raced at the thought of one of the queens lurking in the caves. Something even more terrifying than the males he had encountered. He remembered the massive shape he had glimpsed in the cave as he and Ben were making their escape. Could that have been the queen? Jack shuddered. “And she drinks their blood?”
“Drinks their souls, yes.”
“And since she feeds on fear,” Jack went on, “these victims are alive and kicking. They’re filled with terror when they get thrown to the Soul Eater?”
“I don’t know how the ritual is performed.”
Ritual? Jack squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath. “Look… Dwight. This… this has to stop. You can’t let this continue. These are people you’re killing. Human beings!”
Henderson stood. “I haven’t killed anyone. I’m trying to end this.”
“But you’re helping them do it.”
“And I’m telling you, your only chance of staying alive is if Vale thinks you still have some value to him. So you decide. Help me find a solution and live. Or stand there moralizing and get thrown into the pit.”
Jack took a long breath. “Is everyone in Beckon trapped here like you? They’re all involved in this?”
“Everybody in this town was lured here by Thomas Vale at some point; they were chosen for a reason. They each had something Vale wanted to exploit. Money, expertise… Malcolm Browne was a businessman worth millions. Sam Huxley was a lawyer. Frank Carson is ex-military and Vale wanted him for security purposes. And the others… we were all facing death in some way and gave up everything for the promise of a miracle. A second chance at life.”
“A second chance?” Jack frowned at him. “So wait a minute. If this stuff can eliminate disease, then how…?” Jack was trying to piece together the information Henderson was giving him, but he couldn’t think of how to frame his next question. It sounded too crazy. “Exactly how long have you been here?”
Henderson just looked at him for a moment. “You’re starting to understand the true secret of perilium.”
“So you’re saying this stuff… enhances longevity?”
“Significantly.”
Jack blinked away his shock. “Seriously… how old are you?”
“Let’s just say I’m older than I look.”
Jack’s mouth hung open. This guy looked like he was in his twenties. Thick, chestnut-brown hair without a hint of gray. And perfect complexion. Not a trace of age lines by his mouth or crow’s-feet around his eyes. No moles or liver spots. But how old was he in reality? Forty? Fifty? Jack pressed him for an answer, but Henderson refused to provide further details. Finally Jack shook his head in frustration. “But you’re telling me that if you leave here or stop taking the perilium, you’ll die.”
Henderson nodded and his lips grew tight. “I’ve seen it before. There have been others. The day you fail him or the day he decides you’re no longer useful to him, he cuts you off.”
Jack fell silent for a moment, taking this all in. Then he snorted. “So basically your whole job here is to find new victims for the N’watu to sacrifice.”
“Because if we don’t, the flow of perilium stops. And we all die.”
Jack stared at the first terrarium. The kiracs had picked clean both the carcasses of the rat and the guinea pig. All that was left were bloodstains and bones scattered around the cage.
“What happened to you?” Jack asked. “You’re a doctor. You used to value human life, didn’t you? You should know better.”
Henderson issued a long sigh. “You need to see things with a little more objectivity.”
“Objectivity?” Jack said. “You kidnap innocent human beings and bring them here to die.”
At that point the door opened and Vale entered, shaking his head as if he’d been listening in on their conversation the whole time. “You know, Jack, I was really hoping you would work out here. That you’d be able to see the bigger picture.”
“I’ve seen enough,” Jack said, his teeth clenched. “I’d tell you how wrong all this is. How evil. But I’m guessing you’re beyond even grasping those concepts.”
Vale chuckled. “It’s funny how quick people are to judge evil, while so blind to seeing it in themselves.”
“Don’t you drag me down to your level.”
“Oh, I think you would be capable of greater things if properly motivated. We’re all willing to sacrifice others for our own purposes.”
“Not like this,” Jack said. “Not like you.”
“No? Tell me, Jack Kendrick, what moved you to come here in the first place? What drove you to search those caves? Something did. Some ambition. What was it, Jack?”
Jack’s jaw clenched. Did he dare bring up his father? Would these people know what had happened? Or had his father just been one of a multitude of victims? Despite how painful the truth might be, Jack needed to know.
“I came here to find out what happened to my father.”
Vale narrowed his eyes and the corner of his mouth curled up slightly. “Your father?”
“His name was David Kendrick, and he disappeared somewhere out here twelve years ago.” Jack found his voice quaking slightly. “He was an anthropologist doing some research. I’m guessing you probably remember him. You know what happened to him.”
Vale merely shrugged. “But unfortunately I don’t.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Sorry to disappoint you,” Vale said. “It’s sad, really. You coming all this way, looking for answers and not finding them. And it sounds to me like your friends paid the ultimate price for it.”
Jack opened his mouth but could find no answer. His anger drained away as he pictured Rudy’s terrified convulsions and death. And he could still hear Ben screaming as he was pulled back down the tunnel by the same creatures.
“So was it worth it, Jack? Was it worth their lives?”
Jack stared at the floor. “I… I didn’t kill them.”
“No? It was your obsession… your desire to find answers that killed them.”
Vale gestured to Frank Carson, who entered the room with a dark grin. Fear and anger gripped Jack as he snapped out of his guilt and looked for some way of escape. But there was only the one door, and his hands were still bound behind his back. Still, he made a dash for the doorway, trying to plow through Carson. But Carson grabbed him and wrestled him to the floor, knocking a table over in the process and scattering papers everywhere.
He yanked Jack to his feet and slapped the back of his knuckles across Jack’s face. Jack swooned momentarily and his legs buckled as he struggled to stay standing. He blinked the stars from his eyes and looked up at Vale.
“What… what are you going to do with me?”
Vale’s yellowish eyes stared at Jack, seemingly void of any emotion. “Unfortunately you pose too great a risk for us. So you might say we’re donating your body to science.”
Jack felt himself being half carried, half dragged through darkness as the world spun around him. His head and jaw throbbed from where Carson had belted him, and Jack dimly added a concussion to his mental list of injuries. Only vaguely aware of his surroundings, he could tell he was descending deeper into darkness as shadow and cold folded around him and a sickly familiar scent of damp earth and stone filled his head.
Fear swirled inside his chest, though he was too groggy and disoriented to realize just how afraid he should be. Far down in his consciousness, he knew they were taking him back into the caves. Back into the horror from which he had barely escaped.
He heard metallic sounds: the jingle of keys and some kind of latch and then the dull wooden creak of a door. And then he fell flat onto a cold, hard stone floor. Human voices wailed and moaned in the darkness.
Above them all, Carson’s harsh voice muttered something, but Jack couldn’t respond; then the sound of their footsteps quickly receded into the darkness. And as Jack lay on the floor, he felt an insurmountable sense that he was completely alone.
“Hello?”
A woman’s voice echoed somewhere nearby. Jack wondered if he was dreaming. Then a male voice—also nearby—responded. Jack thought he was speaking Spanish.
Jack opened his eyes. He lifted himself off the ground and surveyed his surroundings. He could see the vague rocky surface of walls. Along one side, a pale beam of green light streamed in through an opening. Like a small window in a door. Jack squinted. A prison door.
He rubbed his head and jaw, which still throbbed, though less intensely now. Carson’s punch had packed considerable wallop. He almost thought he had heard voices calling to him.
“Hey in there… can you hear me?” The woman’s voice came again.
Jack felt his way to the door and peered out into what looked like some kind of tunnel. Across from him, he could see another wooden door with a small window cut into it. Iron bars were embedded in the wood. A sick feeling grew in the pit of his stomach.
“I… I can hear you,” he said.
There was a pause. Jack was both relieved and disconcerted to hear others down in the darkness. Obviously this was where Vale was stockpiling new victims for his monsters. Then the voice came back.
“My name is Elina Gutierrez. I’m… I used to be a police officer from Los Angeles.”
“Los Angeles?” Jack said. “How did you get here?”
“I was looking for my cousin, Javier. He’d been kidnapped and brought here. I followed their van from California but they caught me, too.”
At that point Jack heard another male voice off in the darkness, speaking Spanish. Elina responded in Spanish as well.
“Who are they?” Jack said.
“That’s Javier. They brought a whole vanload of workers—they said they had jobs in Las Vegas but then brought them here four weeks ago and locked them in this place. I think they’ve been doing this for a while.”
Jack grunted. “Huh… I guess that makes sense.”
“Why? What are they doing to them?”
Jack leaned his forehead against the bars. “You don’t want to know.”
“They said there’s something down in the caves. Do you know what they’re talking about?”
Jack couldn’t bring himself to tell them what he knew. He could barely stand to think of it himself.
After a moment Elina’s voice came again. “What’s your name?”
“Jack.”
“Jack… how did you get here?”
Jack closed his eyes for a second. He had lost track of time. It had been only a matter of days, yet it seemed like forever. “I was in the caves, trying to find some evidence of an old Indian legend….”
He gave her all the details of his expedition. How he had discovered his father’s papers and the article on the Caieche. He told her about the legends of the N’watu and the Soul Eater. He described how they had found the cave and the kiracs in the bone pit. His voice grew a little shaky as he described Rudy and Ben and how they died. He told her about his encounter with the N’watu remnant still living in the caves and his escape. And finally how he had been captured by the people in Beckon and everything he had learned about perilium and their dark history of human sacrifices to the Soul Eater.
Elina seemed particularly interested in that part. “Perilium? Well, that explains how Carson recovered from his gunshot wound.”
“Gunshot?” Jack said. “When did that happen?”
Then Jack listened as Elina told him about her own encounter—how she had followed the white van with the Nevada plates to Wyoming and how she had shot Carson nearly point-blank and he had appeared to recover.
“But the trouble is, they all have some kind of addiction to it,” Jack said. “If they ever stopped taking it, they would all die.”
“So they’ve been smuggling illegal immigrants for years,” Elina said. “Now I know why.”
“But they don’t know how to actually make this stuff themselves,” Jack said. “So they’ve been forced to keep this bargain with the N’watu.”
“Well, you said they thought it was somehow connected to these creatures.”
“Yes, but they don’t know how exactly,” Jack said, lowering his voice. “When we were inside the cave, we saw the N’watu performing some kind of ceremony where they pulled the hatchlings out of an egg sac and ate them. Then they poured the rest into a bowl and started mashing them up.”
“So you think they make perilium out of the… baby kiracs?”
“And that’s what the Soul Eater legend says,” Jack said. “The queen kirac supposedly devours a human soul and then imparts its energy back through her nectar.”
“That’s disgusting,” Elina grunted.
“Yeah, but it makes sense,” Jack said. “There must be something in the kiracs’ physiology—some type of enzyme or something, maybe active just during that stage of their development—that causes the effect on the body.”
“There’s one thing I don’t get,” Elina said. “How has this tribe been able to survive for so long? You said you only saw the one female in the cave. That’s not much of a gene pool.”
Jack shrugged. “I don’t know. There must be more of them that we didn’t see.”
“Or maybe they’re just like those creatures,” Elina said. “Like you said, a group of hunters around a single queen.”
“Maybe.” Jack rubbed his eyes. “I don’t care anymore. I just want to find a way out.”
Elina seemed to brighten. “There were two people who came down here earlier. I don’t know who they are, but I don’t think they’re part of all this. They said they were guests or something. They were going to try to get help.”
“If they’re guests here, I’m not so sure we can trust them,” Jack said. “I wouldn’t trust anyone connected to Thomas Vale.”
“I don’t think they knew what was going on here. They said they were going to try to contact the FBI.”
“I hope you’re right.”
Although hope was not something he sensed much at the moment.
George had watched Miriam sleep fitfully throughout the night. He had tossed and turned himself, as he found he couldn’t get the vision of Amanda’s agonizing death out of his mind. And Vale leering over her, playing mind games with him. The man was clearly used to manipulating his subordinates and circumstances, all to his own advantage.
George woke every time Miriam coughed or rolled over, afraid she would start having seizures during the night. And by the time morning came, he’d not slept more than a few minutes at a time and was still bleary-eyed when he heard voices outside the door.
George slipped out of bed to see what was going on just as Dwight Henderson entered with a tray of food. Through the doorway, George spotted Mulch still standing guard outside.
Henderson set the tray on the table and glanced into the bedroom. “How is she doing this morning?”
George glared at him. “As well as could be expected.”
Henderson was silent for a moment and then shook his head. “Why did you go nosing around? Why did you have to go down into the tunnels?”
“Why were you down there?” George said. “What does Vale have you doing? Checking on all his prisoners?”
“You don’t know the whole story.”
George could see some kind of conflict in Henderson’s eyes. Whatever was going on in this town, it looked like Henderson was more of an unwilling participant. Much like Amanda had been.
“Then why don’t you tell me? You can start with how you got here.”
“It’s not important.” Henderson looked away. “It was a long time ago.”
George sighed. “Vale lured you here the same way he did us, didn’t he? To save someone you loved?”
Henderson didn’t answer.
“Who was she?”
Henderson’s gaze fell, and after a moment he took a long breath. “Her name was Julia. She was my wife. But she’s been gone more than eighty years now.”
“From the perilium?”
“No…” Henderson sat down. “No, she hanged herself.”
“Suicide? What happened?”
Henderson’s gaze shifted around the room. “I was a doctor in San Francisco when Julia became ill with leukemia. It was 1897 and we tried every treatment available to us, but she only got worse. And that’s when Vale contacted me. I… I don’t know how he found me, but Julia was quite literally on her deathbed and Vale said he had this medicine—an old Indian treatment that would heal her. But he said it would come at a cost. My family was quite wealthy, but he said he didn’t only want our money. He just said the cure would require us to move to Beckon.”
“Sounds familiar,” George grunted.
Henderson shrugged. “We were desperate, and I would have done anything to save her. So, of course, I agreed. We were both in our fifties at the time and soon I found what you did. That perilium reverses the aging process and makes a person young again. Within days, Julia looked like she was thirty years younger.”
George nodded. “You thought it was a miracle.”
“Yes,” Henderson said. “He offered it to me as well, but he said he needed me to return to San Francisco for a few years. He said he had work for me to do.”
George frowned. “What kind of work?”
“Horrible work.” Henderson looked down and shuddered. “The devil’s work.”
“What was it?”
“He said he needed… specimens, he called them—five or six every month. He gave me very detailed instructions on what to do and how to have them sent. He said I would find plenty of suitable subjects in San Francisco. People no one would miss. Vagrants, prostitutes, criminals. He said I would be doing the city a favor. All I had to do was sedate them and have them transported to Wyoming. Henry Mulch would arrive with a coach every month like clockwork. And Vale said if I missed a single deadline, the perilium would stop and Julia would die. If I told anyone or tried to send help, Julia would die.”
George recalled Vale’s boasting about his negotiation skills. “So he found out what you needed most and exploited that to get what he wanted. He used your fear against you.”
“It’s what he does best. It’s how he has survived here for so long.”
“So what did he do with them? The… specimens?”
Henderson grew pale at George’s question. “There’s something down in the caves. The N’watu call it the Soul Eater—they worship it like some kind of god. And it’s the source of the perilium.” He turned away. “The N’watu must supply it with a new offering—they… feed it a human soul in exchange for the perilium.”
“Feed it?” George couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “What do you mean? What is this thing?”
“It’s… some kind of animal.” Henderson seemed to struggle for words. “A creature that drinks the blood of its prey. The N’watu say it feeds on a human soul and in exchange provides that soul’s energy back to them.”
“This is crazy!” George found his mind reeling again. He got up and paced the room. The more information he gained about this town, the more hideous and terrifying it became. “So then everyone’s role here is somehow involved with finding new victims.”
“One way or another,” Henderson said. “If we don’t provide the N’watu with a new sacrifice, the perilium will stop. And if the perilium stops, we’ll all die. Just the way you saw Amanda die.”
“How many specimens did you send him?”
“I don’t know.” Henderson rubbed his eyes. “I wouldn’t keep count. You have to understand, I had to become another man altogether to do this work. Like Jekyll and Hyde. Sometimes I would find two or three at a time to send. I swear I didn’t know what he was doing with them.”
George grew indignant. This man truly believed he had done nothing wrong. He had justified his role in the deaths of possibly hundreds of innocent human beings. “What did you think he was doing? You’re a doctor. You’re supposed to save lives!”
“I saved Julia’s life. As long as Vale kept getting his specimens, she had enough perilium. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t sacrifice a stranger—or a thousand strangers—to save Miriam.”
George’s indignation suddenly abated. He’d made just such a choice last night. Amanda’s life had been in his hands and he’d sacrificed it for his wife’s. He no longer had the moral high ground from which to judge Henderson.
He wondered how long Henderson had kept this secret bottled up inside him. His voice softened. “Then what happened? How did you end up here?”
Henderson sighed and sank onto the couch. “It got to be too dangerous for me to stay in San Francisco. I was getting old by then and in danger of getting caught. Vale said it was time and I could come to Beckon to stay. He said he would give me the perilium and he had additional work for me to do.”
George frowned. “You wanted the perilium too? Even after everything you knew about it?”
“For a chance to regain my youth? To live with my Julia forever? Yes, more than anything. I drank it too.”
“Despite all the people that had been killed.”
“These were vagrants, criminals. After a time I came to accept what had once been unacceptable.” His gaze turned cold. “Don’t judge me too harshly. It’s not as hard as you might think.”
“And what happened to Julia?”
Henderson turned away. He went to the window and hung his head. “She never knew the truth about her cure or the things I had done on her behalf. She only knew that perilium was a fountain of youth, and she was perfectly happy in her ignorance. Then one day she found my journals. She confronted me and I had to tell her everything. She hanged herself not long afterward.”
George didn’t know whether to hate the man or pity him. Despite his complicit role in all this evil, George couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. Because now he found himself in the same predicament.
Henderson left, and George woke Miriam to give her some breakfast. She ate quietly, not speaking much. George knew she must be preoccupied with thoughts of her own mortality. He tried to engage her in conversation but with little luck.
Vale kept them consigned to their room, and as the hours passed, George could see Miriam was growing more and more withdrawn. By noon she complained of a slight fever and a headache that grew worse as the day wore on.
George sat at the bedside, wiping the sweat from her forehead with a cool, damp washcloth. He still couldn’t get the vision of Amanda’s death out of his head. And now as he watched Miriam’s condition worsen by the hour, he found his own resolve weakening.
He stood over her bed as she opened her eyes, shadowed by dark circles, and offered him a weak smile.
“I can’t do this,” he said at last, his voice shaky. “I can’t just stand around and watch you suffer.”
“George…” Her voice was soft and her breathing grew labored. “This place—this man—is evil. You need to be strong. You can’t… give him what he wants.”
“I’m not going to let you die.”
“I’m… not afraid. You need to let me go. You’ll never be free of him if you don’t.”
George shook his head. He’d just gotten her back after four years, and he wasn’t about to let her go again. He went to the door, where Mulch was standing guard.
“I need to see Vale—now.”
Mulch led him to the dining hall, where everyone was gathered eating. The Brownes, the Huxleys, the Dunhams, along with Carson and Henderson. George noticed that this evening there was little conversation and the general mood seemed more subdued. And no wonder, George thought. Vale had just killed off one of their own with about as much detachment as if he had traded in a used car for a newer model. He sat in his normal place at the head of the table and raised an eyebrow as George entered.
“Hello, George,” he said, glancing at his watch. “I’ve been expecting you. I assume you’ve had a change of heart?”
“Yes.” George tried to mask his contempt. “You win. I’ll do whatever you want me to do. Just give her the perilium.”
“A wise choice,” Vale said. “I’m looking forward to integrating you into our group. And now that Amanda has left us, I think Miriam would fit this role perfectly.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that.” Miriam’s voice came from the doorway.
George turned. “What are you doing?”
Miriam’s face was deathly pale and glistening with sweat. “I’m coming here to s-stop you from making… a mistake.”
“It’s okay,” George said. “The money doesn’t matter to me.”
“It’s not about the money,” Miriam said, stepping gingerly into the room. “It’s about your soul. I can’t let you… get involved in what they’re doing here. I won’t do this.”
“Come now, Mrs. Wilcox, get off your high horse.” Vale gestured to the others at the table. “In Beckon, we have found an end to disease and suffering. And even time has no power to ravage your body. I’ve made you young and beautiful again.”
“On the lives of those people down there?” Miriam looked at the others. “Do they have to… die so you can live?”
“All species live at the expense of others,” Vale said. “That’s the way it is in nature.”
“Perhaps that’s the way of animals. Not us.”
“Criminals, indigents, and the dregs of modern society. Those are the types of people down there. We have made the world a better place by eliminating them.”
“Those are human beings. Created in God’s image. You have no right—”
“God’s image?” Vale laughed. “In a great house, there are vessels designed for noble purposes and others for ignoble, remember? God Himself creates the distinction. God Himself destined them for this purpose. To be given for us. We’re simply ridding His house of the ignoble vessels. In our own way, we’re doing His divine will.”
“You are not God… and this is not His will.” She looked at the others gathered around the table and sucked in a long breath. “He’s played on your fears… and used them against you. You were all so d-desperate to save yourselves or your loved ones that you were willing to do anything. Anything. And now look at you. You’re like slaves. You do whatever he tells you to, no matter how terrible. You think… you’re immortal… but you’ve lost your souls long ago.”
“I don’t care.” George grabbed her shoulders. “I can’t lose you again.”
“Lose me?” Miriam touched his cheek and smiled. “After all these years you still don’t… understand? Death isn’t the end, George—not for me. I’m… just going home.”
“Are you so sure of that?” Vale pointed to the windows. “Death and disease rule out there. But I saved you from it. Here in this town, I’ve given you immortality.”
“You’ve made them prisoners,” Miriam countered. “They live in fear of you. Afraid that one day you’ll take it all away from them.”
Vale’s eyebrows went up. “And you would have them believe you’re not afraid of dying?”
Miriam shook her head. “I may be… afraid of dying… but I don’t fear death.”
Vale grunted. “And why is that?”
Miriam grimaced and doubled over, leaning on George for support. And then with all her strength, she straightened again, leveling her gaze at Vale and the others. But George saw in her eyes neither hate nor anger nor even defiance, but rather…
Compassion.
“Because… I know the Author of life.”
Vale scowled and looked away from her. “It’s not too late, George.” His voice was even and confident. He got up from the table and slipped a glass vial from his pocket. “I can stop her suffering. I have it in my power.”
“Yes!” George reached out his hand. “Give it to me.”
But Miriam clutched his arms, refusing to let go. “No! I won’t live like that.”
“George?” Vale held out the vial and moved closer. “Do we have an agreement?”
“Yes, yes. Give it to me.”
Miriam lunged forward, snatching the perilium from Vale’s grasp. She fell in a heap, smashing the vial onto the floor. Glass shattered and the yellow liquid splashed across the tiles. The others gasped and scrambled to their feet.
“No!” George slumped to his knees and wrapped his arms around Miriam, lifting her to his chest. “What are you doing?”
Miriam’s breaths came in choppy bursts. “Setting… you… free….”
Tears poured from George’s eyes as she began to shake, her arms and legs quivering with increasing violence. He wept with bitter moans, desperately trying to hold her body still. But she arched back in his arms. Her head twisted and she groaned through her clenched teeth.
“No, no… dear God.” George sobbed like a child. “Please don’t leave me.”
Miriam’s body shook in violent surges, and he tried to hold her tightly but couldn’t prevent the ravaging onslaught of her spasms. He couldn’t ease her suffering or fend off death. He couldn’t…
He couldn’t save her.
George felt the whole world shift as his brain shut down to the trauma. This wasn’t happening. Miriam wasn’t dying. They never came to Wyoming. He never heard of perilium.
Seconds crawled past like hours. Eventually her tremors weakened, her body relaxed, and her eyes rolled back down. They seemed to fix on him for a brief moment as a sigh escaped her lips.
“No… sting…”
Then her eyes lost focus and she fell limp in his arms.
Elina still had more questions than answers. This newcomer, Jack, fascinated her, but his story was chilling. And while there were still some missing pieces, he had certainly shed light on the N’watu and why the people of Beckon were doing what they did.
But she didn’t know how many others there were. Was the whole town infected by this substance? This perilium?
And she wondered further about the couple she had encountered the day before. They seemed genuinely unaware of what was going on in this place and completely appalled by their discovery of the dungeons below Vale’s palatial lodge.
But it had been too long since their encounter. Clearly, if these people had been able to call for help, they would have heard something by now. Either they had been caught or killed—or worse, perhaps they were both part of the town’s conspiracy and had just been toying with them by pretending to help.
Elina felt like screaming. She hated not knowing what was going on. Hours had passed since they had brought Jack, but she couldn’t tell what time it was or even what day it was. She was filthy and hungry and now more angered than scared. But at least with Jack she had someone who knew more about what was going on.
They discussed various theories about the N’watu and the creatures that were apparently lurking farther down in the cave. They talked for hours, but Elina was getting more and more frustrated. All this talk was just fine, but it wasn’t getting them any closer to escaping—even to formulating a plan for escape. And in the back of her head, Elina knew it was only a matter of time before Vale came for another sacrificial offering. Before it was time for the Soul Eater’s next meal.
She peeked out the window in her door. “Jack, I can’t just sit here and wait around for them to come and get one of us. We have to try to escape.”
She heard Jack’s voice reply, “What exactly did you have in mind?”
“I don’t know, but I’m tired of waiting.”
“How many others are down here?”
“The best I can tell is maybe five or six,” Elina said.
Elina could hear Jack testing his cell door, inspecting the lock, the hinges, and the window bars. After a few minutes he issued an exasperated sigh. He sounded like he was giving up hope. And she couldn’t let that happen. Down here, hope might be all they had.
“Jack… do you believe in God?”
There was silence for a few seconds. “I guess so. I mean, my father would take me to church when I was a kid, but it always seemed so… I don’t know. Lifeless. And when I see places like this, I wonder if He’s even real at all. And how He could allow stuff like this to happen.”
“I don’t have a very good answer for you there,” Elina said. “I’ve only been going to church for a couple months.”
“A recent convert?”
“Well, more like a revert.”
“What do you mean?”
Elina sighed. She’d never shared this part of herself with anyone before. She had never seen the need to. She had always been too arrogant and independent. But her current circumstances seemed to provide an opportunity.
“My father was such a good Christian man. I was only thirteen when he was murdered… and something happened to me. I guess I just stopped caring about God. I couldn’t forgive Him for letting my father die.”
She heard Jack grunt softly. “I think I can relate to that.”
“So I was angry most of my teenage years and even through college. And when I joined the LAPD, I was an angry cop. A good cop, but an angry one.”
“You said you used to be on the police force. What happened?”
Elina’s chest began to ache. “I was on a call, a robbery. And I ended up pursuing a suspect. I followed him down an alley and lost sight of him for a moment. When I found him again, he had turned and was walking toward me.”
“Was he armed?”
“I thought he was, so I fired my weapon. But I didn’t warn him. I didn’t identify myself. I just fired. Three or four shots. One to the head. And I didn’t care. I didn’t know who he was, but I hated him and I wanted him to die because he was just a thug like the one who killed my dad.”
“But it wasn’t the right guy, was it?”
“No….” Elina could feel the tears in her eyes. They dripped down, cutting a salty path through the grime and dirt on her cheeks. “He was just some kid. Some innocent kid the guy had passed in the alley. Some kid just walking home from a party.”
“Let me guess—an internal investigation, a reprimand. Mandatory leave?”
“The suspect was black. The kid was black, and the guy who killed my father was black….”
“So… they tried to make it a racial incident?”
“Somebody had heard me make derogatory comments in my rookie year, and all that came back to haunt me too.”
“So was it about race?”
“That’s the thing,” Elina said. “I’ve been hating black men since my father was killed. And I didn’t care what people thought.”
“I guess there wasn’t much tolerance on the LAPD for that mentality.”
Elina wiped her eyes. “I kind of hit rock bottom. I had lost my job and stirred up all kinds of racial tension in my neighborhood. Then a few months ago I started to rethink some of my values. Started going back to church. Praying more. You know, trying to humble myself before God.”
“Do you still hate black men?”
“Not since I’ve come back to God.” Elina chuckled softly. “Now I only hate some of them.”
Jack laughed. “So why are you telling me all this?”
Elina sighed. “I don’t know. I guess it’s a little cathartic to talk about it. But mostly to pass some time.”
She could hear Jack moving around in his cell again. His voice held a tone of frustration. “There’s got to be a way to break out of here.”
“I haven’t seen any way out,” Elina said. “They feed us twice a day, I think. A bowl of oatmeal slop and a cup of water in the morning and evening. No utensils.”
“Have they taken anyone away during that time?”
Elina paused. “Mmmm, no. Not that I heard, anyway.”
“So as far as we know, it’s been at least a few days since this thing was fed. I wonder how long it goes between meals.”
Then Elina heard voices echoing up the tunnel, getting closer. Her heart began pounding. “I’m guessing a few days.”
The chorus of wails and curses from the other prisoners started up again, and Elina pressed her face against the bars, straining to see into the main passage. She glimpsed the erratic beam from a flashlight glancing off the sides and floor of the tunnel.
In moments a group of figures appeared around the corner. In the painful glare of the flashlight, Elina thought she saw four men. One in the lead with two others behind him, carrying a fourth man between them.
One of the men chuckled and Elina recognized his voice: Carson.
“It’s like Grand Central Station down here.”
The man in the lead stopped at the head of the passage and pointed to the door next to Elina’s. “Put him in that one.” She could tell it was Vale.
The other two dragged the man past Elina’s cell. She caught a glimpse of his face and gasped.
It was the man who had discovered them yesterday. The man she had hoped was going to call for help.
They deposited him in the cell with a sick-sounding thump and closed the door. Vale shone his flashlight in the window. “I’m sorry your wife lacked the vision to join us, George,” he said. “But I’m a forgiving man. You know that you’re more than welcome to come back, should you have a change of heart. You could still have a long and happy life here with us.”
Elina heard muffled curses from behind the door, but Vale only laughed and then turned his attention to the other cells, peering in through the bars.
“Good evening, Jack,” he said. “You must be feeling a bit of déjà vu, I bet.”
Then he crossed over to Elina’s door, and she backed away from the window.
“Ahh, Former Officer Gutierrez.” Vale peered in at her. She could see his yellow-green eyes inspecting her for what felt like an endless moment. “Yes… it’s been quite some time since she has enjoyed the taste of a woman.”
Elina retreated farther into the cell. “What are you talking about?”
Vale chuckled. “You mean you haven’t told them what’s waiting for them, Jack? Down in the caverns? You haven’t told them about Sh’ar Kouhm?”
“Of course I told them,” Jack shot back.
“She’s hungry tonight.” Vale’s eyes again appeared in Elina’s window. “She feeds on fear, you know. She can smell it in your blood. It’s like a drug to her. And women are capable of generating such… pure, unbridled fear.”
Elina’s pulse raced and she pressed against the wall as Carson unlocked her cell door. She could hear Jack and the others yelling and pounding their doors. Her senses heightened as adrenaline surged through her veins. Elina coiled down, ready to attack. She was outnumbered by bigger, stronger men, but she refused to go with them quietly. The door opened and Carson entered, carrying the black stun baton. Elina gritted her teeth against the pain she knew was coming. She would make them kill her rather than take her to this creature. She sprang forward, aiming her foot at Carson’s groin.
She was still in the air when Carson swung the stick toward her. She saw a blue spark of light and felt her limbs involuntarily stiffen. She hit the ground like a sack of rocks, her throat tightening so violently that she couldn’t breathe.
Then Carson pulled the stick away, electricity still sparking from the tip. Elina lay completely stunned and gasping for breath as the other man entered with a rope.
Jack screamed until his throat was raw, his throbbing fists pounding against the door. He alternated between threatening and reasoning with Vale as Carson and another man entered Elina’s cell.
But Vale ignored Jack, and a few minutes later his men emerged again, carrying Elina between them. She was bound and gagged, her hands and feet wrapped tightly with rope.
They hauled her back up the tunnel, around the corner, and out of sight. Jack leaned his head against the bars, listening to the other voices echo curses through the tunnels.
Jack closed his eyes and struggled to keep his thoughts focused. He tried to talk to the man in the cell across from him. The newcomer they had just brought down. Vale had called him George.
“Hey… hey, George.”
Jack could see a vague shadow moving behind the bars in the window.
“George,” Jack called again. “Did you ever find a way to contact the FBI?”
A voice replied from behind the door. It was husky and hollow, empty of emotion. “No. They were waiting for us as soon as we got out of the tunnel. Vale’s had us locked up in our room ever since.”
“Elina said you were with someone else…. Was that your wife?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to her?”
Jack could see the vague shape of George’s face through the bars of his door. “She’s dead. They said they had a cure for her Alzheimer’s, but… they lied to us. It killed her instead.”
Jack heard him begin to sob in the darkness. He stepped back to process this information in silence. It was just like Henderson had described. Vale lured people to town with the promise of curing some disease. George was probably wealthy or had something else Vale needed to continue his smuggling of human beings into town. That must have been why they were chosen.
“I’m sorry for your loss” was all he could think of to say.
The soft echo of footsteps brought Jack up from his thoughts. He strained to listen. Someone else was approaching.
A minute later another figure appeared in the tunnel, carrying a flashlight. He moved slowly down the passage, peering into the cells. The light glared in Jack’s eyes for a moment, then flicked away.
“He’s going to kill her,” a voice said.
Jack’s hope lifted. “Dwight?”
Dwight Henderson’s eyes darted around the tunnel. “We… we have to save her.”
“Save Elina?” Jack said. “Yes, we do. But you need to let us out so we can help you.”
Dwight shook his head. Jack thought he looked disoriented. “I—I begged him not to take her, but… he said she was too dangerous to keep.”
“Dwight, let us out of here. We’re running out of time.”
Dwight shone the light into George’s cell. “I’m sorry about Miriam. I’m sorry that you lost her.”
George’s voice took on a biting tone. “Oh, I’m sure you are.”
“Why didn’t she want to live here? Why would she do that?”
“Because she wasn’t afraid to die,” George said. “She would rather die than be a part of what you people are doing here, and she wanted to set me free. She…” His voice cracked. “She believed something better was waiting for her when she died.”
Dwight leaned closer to George’s window. “Do you?”
George was silent for a moment, then said, “I don’t know.”
“Dwight,” Jack said, “do you have the keys?”
Dwight held up a ring of keys. “He’ll kill me for this.”
“We’ll help you,” Jack said. “Just let us out of here.”
“He’ll kill me.” Dwight stared at the keys, though his gaze seemed unfocused. “He’ll get rid of me like he did with Amanda. He’s going to kill all of us sooner or later. Eventually we’ll all stop being useful to him.”
“Listen to me,” Jack persisted. “We can help you.”
“No, you can’t, Jack. No one can.” He turned back to George. “Do you think Miriam was right? Do you think there’s anything waiting for you when you die?”
“If there is a hell, I know you’ll be there. You and all the rest of the people in this town.”
Jack could see Dwight wavering in the darkness. Teetering on the brink between hope and despair. Struggling perhaps with a newfound conscience. A sense of moral doubt that had been buried too deeply and for too long but that now seemed to be reemerging. Jack tried to tip the balance further, even if he wasn’t quite sure of it himself.
“That’s not true, Dwight. There’s still hope.”
“No, there’s not. I’ve done terrible things.”
“I know it,” Jack said. “Horrible things. I don’t have all the answers, but I have to believe that God’s bigger than all that. I have to believe He can forgive you. That He wants to forgive you.”
“That’s what she thought too.” Dwight furrowed his brow and snorted. “But God left this town a long time ago.”
“No, He didn’t.” Jack felt his heart swelling now with courage. He could sense the tiniest spark of hope in this dungeon. Elina had ignited it in his heart almost without his knowing it. And now it was struggling to shine again right on the other side of his prison door. He just needed to coax it a little. To fan it into flame. “I used to think that way too, but maybe God’s here now. Right here in the darkness. Maybe it’s why He brought Elina here. To help you find Him. Now please, let us out so we can save her.”
Dwight blinked and looked down at the ring in his hands. His jaw clenched, and he slipped the key into the lock.
Jack pushed the door open with a rush of emotion flooding over him. He grabbed Dwight by the shoulders, wanting to hug the man there in the tunnel. “We have to free the others.”
They unlocked George’s cell and the one on the other side of Jack.
The young man who emerged from that cell was emaciated and filthy. He looked barely eighteen or nineteen and rail thin. His tattered clothes reeked. He was talking rapidly in Spanish. Jack handed him the keys and motioned for him to open the other cells.
George emerged from his cell as if in a daze. Jack could see he was an older man, maybe in his seventies. He was tall and perhaps at one time rather distinguished-looking, but now his face looked gaunt and gray as if worn out by sorrow. A large purple bruise puffed out on his upper cheek.
“We have to go after them,” Jack said to Dwight and George. He could hear the other cell doors opening, accompanied by yelps and hoots of relief.
Dwight was shaking his head. “You need weapons first. Frank has a gun.”
By now, the other kid had returned, out of breath and followed by six exhausted-looking Hispanic men. They were all speaking Spanish, and Jack couldn’t understand what they were saying.
He turned back to Dwight. “Where are the weapons?”
Dwight pointed up the tunnel. “Frank’s ex-military. He’s got an armory in the basement, right across from my lab.”
Jack looked at the group of Hispanic men. “Which one of you is Javier? Who’s Elina’s cousin?”
One of them stepped forward, the tallest of the group. His long black hair was matted and tangled.
“We have to save Elina,” Jack said.
Javier started to reply in Spanish, but Jack shook his head.
“Wait… uh, no… no habla es—”
Dwight cut him off. “Han llevado a Elina a la cueva. Tenemos que ir por ella.”
Javier nodded excitedly. “Sí, vamos a prisa!”
They rushed through the tunnel and up the stairs into the basement of the lodge. All of them shielded their eyes from the fluorescent lights and moved out into the corridor.
“Here,” Dwight said. He stopped at the door across from his lab and fumbled with the keys. “It’s this one.”
All of the prisoners with the exception of Javier scurried past them toward the stairs.
“Hey, wait! Hold up,” Dwight called after them. “Espera, espera!”
But they ignored him, obviously too relieved to be free.
Dwight looked at Jack and George. “We have to stop them. The others are still upstairs. If they find out what’s going on…”
George’s eyes took on an icy glare. “I’ll take care of them; you guys go after the girl.”
Dwight unlocked the door and opened it into a small room with gun racks on the walls and a shelving unit crammed with boxes of ammunition. They snatched weapons and ammo in a mad flurry. Jack found a rack of shotguns.
He tossed one to George along with a box of shells. “Guard the entrance. Make sure none of them come after us.”
George nodded and headed up the hall, loading the shells as he went.
Dwight was busy loading the other shotguns. He slung one over his shoulder and handed another to Jack. Jack looked it over, familiarizing himself with the weapon. He had fired a gun a few times on a target range, but he’d never used one in any kind of violent action.
“Point and pull.” Dwight tapped the barrel. “Just don’t point it at me.” He gave one to Javier as well and rattled off some instructions in Spanish.
Jack spotted a box of flares on one of the lower shelves. He grabbed a handful and shoved them into a canvas bag.
Meanwhile Dwight had loaded a pair of .45 revolvers; he shoved one in his belt and held the other ready. Inside of three minutes they were loaded and ready for war.
Dwight stopped on his way out the door. “Hold on.”
He grabbed a couple items off one of the shelves and showed them to Jack—small, black metallic spheres with handles on one side.
Jack’s eyebrows went up. “Grenades? He’s got hand grenades too?”
Dwight shrugged. “Like I said, Frank’s ex-military.”
Jack glanced back along the corridor where George had disappeared up the stairs. Then he turned and followed Dwight and Javier through the storage closet and down into the tunnel.
Elina struggled against the ropes, but they were far too tight. Obviously these guys had done this before and knew the best ways to subdue and transport their prisoners. They had gagged her as well.
They carried her out of the cell and down into the darkness of the tunnel. There was no more lighting and no stairs carved beyond this point, so the two men moved slowly through the rough passage, lugging her between them. Vale stayed in the lead with the flashlight.
They carried her for nearly ten minutes, descending deeper into the cave until they came at last into a larger chamber. They set her down on the ground, a cold mixture of pebbles and mud. Elina watched her two bearers step back while Vale moved forward to a section of the wall where Elina could see what looked like wooden timbers. Another doorway built into the rock.
Vale picked up a large stone and pounded it against the wood. A dull, hollow thump rang out in the cavern. Then he stepped away. The other two men retreated even farther, taking cover behind a large rock.
At first nothing happened. And then came a long, low creak as the door swung open. Vale shut off his flashlight, plunging the entire chamber into blackness.
In the middle of the darkness, Elina saw two lights glowing. She peered more closely, her heart racing now. These weren’t flashlights or torches she saw, but rather they emitted a soft, steady glow. Two orbs of pale-yellow light suspended in the darkness.
And yet Elina saw the lights were moving, floating closer until she could see they were in fact two lanterns of some sort, being carried by a pair of human figures walking toward them. It wasn’t until they were much closer that Elina was able to determine what they looked like.
And then she wished she’d never seen them.
They were tall and gaunt and ghostly pale, their skin reflecting the light of their lanterns with an eerie luminescence. They moved with smooth, sure-footed strides through the dark cavern, naked except for the loincloths tied low around their hips. Their translucent white skin was covered with strange black markings, just as Jack had described. But in fact the N’watu were more terrifying by far than Elina had imagined from Jack’s account.
Now she could see four of them, each one carrying a thick spear topped with a long, serrated tip that looked like it had been carved from some sort of bone or shell. And behind them, Elina spotted a diminutive shadow moving. Black against the darkness beyond.
The N’watu approached Elina and loomed over her with eerie, colorless eyes gazing down. Their skeletal faces were hideous—fierce and misshapen. If Carson hadn’t stuffed the rag in her mouth and tied it there, Elina would have been screaming.
Then the fifth figure drew up behind them. The woman Jack had described, dressed in veils and dwarfed by her accompanying warriors, approached Elina. She bent down as if to inspect her, like a woman examining a cut of meat at a butcher shop. She hissed some muttered incantation over her, then straightened and faced Vale.
Vale bowed low in her presence. “Nun’dahbi.”
“Another outsider,” the woman’s voice hissed. The sound was somewhat unnerving to Elina, at once beautiful and yet filled with venom.
“Yes,” Vale said. “She… she wandered into town—and she knew too much for us to let her go.”
“She will be missed. More will come searching.”
“No, Great Mother, they won’t find anything,” Vale said. Elina could tell he was trying to exude confidence, but he looked nervous. “I’ll make sure of it.”
“There were other intruders. You could not keep them away.”
Vale nodded in earnest. “We captured one of them, and the others are dead. They had discovered another entrance into the caves. A hidden entrance. But we will block that also so no one else will find it. Your home is still safe.”
Nun’dahbi paused. Elina could not see her face and so could not tell if she was satisfied with his assurances. “They are growing too numerous,” she said at last. “More and more they come.”
“Your home is safe, Nun’dahbi.”
“But for how long?”
Vale looked surprised. “I… I assure you,” he stammered, “we… we have everything under control.”
Nun’dahbi paused a moment—perhaps to let Vale stew in a bit of uncertainty, Elina thought. He might have been in charge up on the surface, but clearly he was the subordinate down here.
Then Nun’dahbi produced a vessel of some sort from the folds of her cloak and held it out in white, bony hands. It was a tall, dark-colored decanter that Elina could see held some sort of liquid. Vale bowed his head and reached forward to take the jar from her hands, but she clung to it a moment.
“Do not fail me.” Her tone was soft but strident.
Vale looked up sharply. “I… I have never failed you, Great Mother.”
The faceless veil issued a soft hiss, a sigh perhaps. Or perhaps it was a laugh. Elina couldn’t be sure. But after a moment Nun’dahbi released the jar into his grasp.
“See that you don’t.”
Then she turned away and with a brief gesture of her clawed fingers waved him off.
Vale skulked away, clutching the jar in both hands as two of the N’watu lifted Elina by the ropes and carried her through the doorway into the tunnel beyond. She could hear a heavy, wooden groan as the door swung shut behind her. Elina found her pulse racing as she struggled against the ropes.
They carried her through the passage. Elina could see one lantern ahead of her and one behind, both casting a pale glow against the jagged walls and ceiling.
Before long they came into an open space, a larger cavern. Situated about the chamber were dozens of lanterns like the ones the two warriors carried. Their glow lit the cave in a mesmerizing yellow light. Elina struggled to stay focused and aware of her surroundings. The room was about a hundred feet across and the floor was smooth and flat, almost artificially so. Not like a natural cavern. The walls as well were too straight to be natural formations, with openings cut into them leading perhaps into other rooms.
They came to the edge of a precipice that plunged into darkness. She glanced, wide-eyed, down at the abyss.
They moved along the edge of the pit until they came to a wide, stone slab and laid her on it. Elina noticed now that several other warriors had joined them, and she fought through her fear to try to count them. Nearly a dozen of them but still the woman, Nun’dahbi, was the only female Elina had seen.
She was lying on some sort of table in a large oval-shaped chamber. Recalling her training, Elina tried to get her bearings. In the middle of the chamber was the large, round pit. Elina guessed it was twenty or thirty feet across. And on the ledge she could see the outline of a large structure—a stone base supporting a thick log that extended out over the mouth of the pit.
Nun’dahbi strode into Elina’s view, carrying a staff with beads and feathers dangling from the top. She swept it over Elina’s body from head to foot and back again, muttering a gargled series of incantations. She motioned to some of the men standing around her, and they brought a few lanterns closer, setting them on the edges of the table. Another man brought a small wooden bowl, the size of a coffee cup, and set it beside Elina’s head. She squirmed and rolled on the table, determined to make whatever procedure they might have planned as difficult for them as possible.
But apparently Nun’dahbi would have none of it. She hissed something at her men, and four of them stepped up to place their long hands firmly on Elina’s body and hold her still. For all their lean and bony appearance, these men seemed to possess great strength. Elina felt like she was being held by iron restraints.
Nun’dahbi leaned close over Elina’s face. Behind the veil, Elina could see vague, pale features and colorless eyes gazing down at her. The woman reeked of human stench. Elina’s breath came in sharp, rapid bursts, and she could feel herself choking on the rag.
Nun’dahbi whispered another unintelligible phrase and then slowly lifted her veil.
Elina’s heart pounded hard inside her ribs.
The woman’s face was as hideous as it might have once been beautiful. Her skin held no pigmentation whatsoever, though it was perfectly smooth and without blemish, like a layer of white latex stretched over a human skull. Only her thin lips and eyelids held any color, painted as black as her fingernails. And she was completely hairless. No eyebrows or even eyelashes that Elina could see.
She picked up a stick out of the bowl. It was long and slender like a quill of some kind, and Elina could see the tip dripping with a viscous black liquid.
Nun’dahbi issued a sharp, guttural command, and two more of the men grabbed Elina’s face. Cold, hard fingers clamped onto her jaw and skull, holding her immobile as the woman leaned close.
Elina screamed through the mouthful of rag, choking and sobbing as the woman etched marks across her face, whispering unknown words that only Elina could hear.
Jack, Dwight, and Javier followed the tunnel deep into the mountain. Dwight had taken the lead, carrying his flashlight in one hand and a revolver in the other. As they descended, the tunnel became rough and harder to navigate.
Jack found himself praying desperately as he plunged further into danger. It was a strange sensation. Before meeting Elina, he hadn’t even thought to pray. Not earlier in the caverns. Not even when he was being chased by the N’watu. But now… now he was heading back into the pit. Back into the danger he’d escaped from just one day before to try to save a woman he hardly even knew. And he wondered if there really was a God who would help him. Or at least give him some answers. Was this the right course? Or would they have been better off staying on the surface and contacting help?
But he knew Elina didn’t have the luxury of waiting for the authorities to arrive. He also knew every step was leading him back into the horrors to which he had sworn he would never return.
Dwight held up his hand and shut off his light.
“What’s the matter?” Jack said between breaths.
Dwight whispered, “They’re coming. I hear voices.”
Jack squinted into the darkness. He could see a faint shaft of light drifting across the tunnel up ahead. “What’s the plan?”
Dwight flicked his light back on and inspected their surroundings. The cavern passage was low and wide and marred by numerous rock formations that had slowed their progress.
“Take cover off to the side,” he said. “We can ambush them when they come by.”
Jack’s pulse was racing as Dwight explained the plan in Spanish to Javier. Jack had never fired a weapon on another human being before. Now he wasn’t sure he’d be able to. But he heard himself saying, “Fine.”
They found a couple of rough boulders against one of the cavern’s sides and took cover behind them. Jack crouched in the darkness, watching the light approach and now hearing voices as well. It was Vale all right, and Carson, but Jack couldn’t make out what they were saying.
Minutes crept by, and finally the men came into view. Jack couldn’t see well enough to shoot at any of them. And on top of that, he was having doubts about killing anyone in cold blood. No matter how much he felt they deserved it.
“Aim for the head,” Dwight whispered. “Perilium begins the clotting cascade almost immediately, so hitting them anywhere else may not do the trick.”
Vale and Carson were discussing something about the prisoners. Jack thought they were trying to decide whom to sacrifice next. The big man was following close behind.
Suddenly Javier leaped from cover and started firing his shotgun toward the flashlight. Which immediately blinked out, plunging them all into darkness. Jack could hear Dwight yelling and firing his revolver as well. He stood, aimed in the direction he thought Vale was, and pulled the trigger. The blast kicked the shotgun back into his ribs.
It was over in seconds, and the rumble echoed off along the tunnel. They emerged from cover slowly, and Dwight swept the area with his light. They spotted one man—the big one—splayed across a rock. Rivulets of blood dripped down from his head into the mud. In front of him was Frank Carson lying on his back, staring up. His chest and shoulders were soaked with blood, his gun still clutched in his grasp. But there was no sign of Vale. Dwight moved his beam across the rocks and found a trail of blood leading back up the tunnel. But they couldn’t see any movement.
“He’s still alive,” Jack said. “He got away!”
“He won’t get too far.” Dwight was staring at the ground a few feet away.
At his feet Jack saw a shattered glass jar. Its yellowish liquid contents were seeping into the mud.
Dwight bent down and lifted one of the pieces of dark glass. “This was a week’s worth of perilium for all of us.” He looked up at Jack. “What have I done?”
“We can find another way,” Jack said. Though even as he heard his own words, he knew they rang hollow. “How much is left up at the lodge?”
“Vale keeps it under lock and key. Maybe a few vials. They always give us just enough to last until the next feeding time.”
Jack took the flashlight and cringed as he inspected the bodies. “The big guy’s dead. Half his skull is gone.” He came to Carson and saw him blink. His bloodied chest was moving. Perhaps already recovering from the wounds. “Let’s just take his gun and get going.”
Javier pried Carson’s revolver out of his fingers and checked the bullets. Then he leaned over him. “Cómo cambian las cosas en un par de semanas.”
Jack looked at Dwight. “What’d he say?”
Dwight just grimaced and shook his head.
They continued on. Jack had walked only a few paces when he noticed Javier was not with them. Suddenly a gunshot cracked the darkness behind him and Jack spun around. Dwight shone the light behind them, but all they saw was Javier walking toward them, sticking Carson’s smoking revolver into his belt.
He didn’t say a word.
Elina was nearly faint with terror as Nun’dahbi finished marking her face with the black ink. She spread her hands over Elina’s body, then took the staff and swept it across her again, rattling the beads and the round gourd affixed to the top.
After this she lowered her veil again and barked a few more commands to her men. They lifted Elina from the stone table and carried her toward the edge of the pit.
They looped additional ropes around her and tied them to another line connected to the log. Then one of the N’watu lifted Elina up and dropped her over the edge of the pit.
She screamed a muffled cry of terror as she felt herself fall away from the ledge over the open black maw. She swung out and then back, dangling from the log like a fishing lure.
She kicked frantically, trying to swing herself back to the side, but another N’watu loosened the rope and began to lower her into the hole. Elina descended slowly into utter darkness. The smell of death and rot wafted up from below, a sickly sweet odor that filled her with fear. She could feel that her struggling was beginning to work the gag loose from her mouth.
Her heart pounded against her chest and she prayed desperately, wondering what was down here, what kind of horror she was about to encounter.
Then her toes scraped against something solid; she hoped it was a rock but couldn’t be sure. They let her dangle there, twisting in the darkness. Waiting. She looked up and could see the black outline of the rim against the faint glow of the lanterns above her.
She hung in silence, weary from struggling. Yet her terror was like a noose, strangling her. She stared into the solid black void, waiting to die.
Suddenly a muffled clap of thunder echoed through the cavern. Elina looked up and heard some sort of commotion among the N’watu. Clearly whatever made the sound wasn’t something they were expecting. She could hear them speaking to each other—arguing in their choppy, guttural language. Their sounds quickly receded, leaving her in silence again.
But now she felt a spark of hope kindle inside her. Maybe the others had gotten free somehow and were coming for her. Maybe someone had finally notified the FBI.
Or maybe…
Somewhere in the darkness in front of her came another sound. A low, erratic tapping, unlike anything she had ever heard before.
The passage came to an abrupt halt, depositing Jack, Dwight, and Javier into a large, open chamber. Jack took one of the flares from his bag and snapped it open. The bright red-orange glow lit up the whole room.
Along the far wall was a large wooden gate of some kind. It stood over eight feet tall and at least six feet wide.
“Not another one,” Jack groaned. He slid his hand along the wood. “So that’s where they took her?”
They inspected the surface, looking for a way to open it. Jack told them about the first door he had encountered and how it opened upward. Yet this one was different. There was a clear crease running vertically up the center that seemed to indicate it opened from the middle. But there were no handles. They pushed against it to no avail, and there was clearly no way to pull it open either.
Dwight stepped back. “Looks like it only opens from the inside.”
Jack sat down and rubbed his eyes. “Any suggestions?”
Javier reached into Jack’s bag and pulled out one of the grenades they’d taken from the armory. “Vamos a tocar a la puerta.”
Jack stood. “Is he going to try what I think…?”
Javier scooped a bit of mud from under the middle of the door, pulled the pin out of the grenade, jammed it under the wood, and ran for cover.
Jack and Dwight scrambled back to the other side of the chamber and flung themselves behind a jutting rock formation. A few seconds later the ground shook as a clap of thunder erupted in the cavern. Jack felt his ribs jolt from the force of the blast. Rocks and debris scattered across the room, and when the air cleared, his ears were ringing from the explosion.
He stood and brushed off the mud. “Are you crazy? You could get us all killed! You don’t just go setting off explosions inside caverns. You could bring the whole place down on top of us!”
But Javier was shining his flashlight at the doors. One side was cracked and splintered and had been torn off its hinge. And the other had swung wide open. He turned and grinned at Jack. “Good, yes?”
Dwight shrugged. “Well, now they know we’re here.”
Jack grabbed the flare and tossed it into the passage beyond the doorway. The place seemed deserted. At least for now. They got their weapons ready, Jack grabbed another couple flares, and they proceeded inside.
They spread out and moved along the passage quickly. Dwight held his flashlight out along with his gun. Jack snapped a second flare and tossed it farther ahead.
He looked into his bag and now wished desperately that he’d brought more of them with him. And to make matters worse, there was only one hand grenade left.
Dwight paused in the tunnel, his shoulders stiffening. Jack nudged him gently. “What’s wrong?”
Dwight shook his head and shuddered. “Jack… I have to tell you something.”
“What is it?”
Dwight flicked the light toward Jack’s face. “We’re probably not making it out of here alive.”
“Come on, Dwight, don’t talk like that. We’re going to find her.”
Dwight leaned close. Jack could see a strange sort of resolve in his eyes. Or maybe it was resignation. “If you do—if you make it out of here—there’s something in town you need to see.”
“What?”
“In my office, in the back room, is a closet—a supply closet full of boxes. They’re my journals. And there’s something under the floor that you need to see.”
“What? What is it?”
Dwight shook his head again. To Jack it looked like he was shaking himself out of a trance. “You have to make it out of here to find out.”
He turned and continued through the tunnel. They walked on for several minutes before Jack could see a dim light ahead. The tunnel widened and he noticed a few side passages leading from the main tunnel. Jack saw that the passages here seemed larger and more evenly shaped, as if the N’watu had carved them right through the rock over the years.
One of the tunnels opened into a long, oval-shaped room with several small glass jars of the glowing slime scattered around the perimeter. In the middle were two long wooden tables and a large wooden chair. Dozens of pots and jars and other vessels of various sizes littered both of the tables. The whole scene reminded Jack of something out of the Dark Ages. Like an ancient alchemist’s laboratory.
Jack noticed one bowl in particular looked similar to the one he had seen during the ceremony earlier. The interior appeared to have some sort of thick, dried residue on it. Jack also spotted several more glass jars of a milky, yellowish liquid stacked along the wall.
He pointed to the jars. “Is that… perilium?”
Dwight inspected one of them and nodded. “This must be where she prepares it.”
“Who? The woman I saw? Who is she?”
“They call her Nun’dahbi. She’s the matriarch of the tribe. Their queen.”
Jack just shook his head as he looked through the objects in the room. “This is pretty incredible. These tables and chairs definitely show an outside influence on their culture. Maybe they’re not as xenophobic as Vale says they are.”
“Trust me,” Dwight grunted. “They hate outsiders.”
Javier had been waiting by the entrance and motioned for them to continue on. He was obviously anxious to find his cousin, and Jack quietly chided himself on getting distracted by this room. Elina was in serious peril.
They moved onward and soon emerged into another open cavern. Only this one was different from all the others. Jack could see that this one contained remnants of structures. Pillars and archways in varying states of decay. And all around them were glass lanterns similar to the one Jack had seen out in the bone pit. Clearly this was some sort of common area of the N’watu.
Jack shone his flashlight around, momentarily stunned by the discovery.
“Look at this place,” he said softly. “My dad always said there was an underground city somewhere out here. This must be part of it.”
Suddenly Javier grabbed Jack’s shoulder as if trying to tell him something, but instead he seemed to be choking. His eyes bulged and blood dripped from between his lips as a serrated spear tip emerged from the middle of his chest and a skeletal face loomed up from behind him.
“No!” Jack shouted.
Javier slumped forward and Jack stood, stunned at the sight. The pale N’watu warrior yanked the bloody spear from Javier’s back and now fixed his white eyes on Jack.
Jack could see the warrior towering over him, but he was frozen with shock. Paralyzed. He tried to will his arms to raise his weapon or his legs to run, but he felt like he was in a dream, unable to even control his limbs.
Then a gunshot rang out, snapping him out of his daze. The warrior lurched backward as a bullet tore into his chest. Jack glimpsed Dwight standing a few yards behind him, his revolver smoking. Jack spun back to see that the N’watu had quickly recovered his balance, his face contorted into a mask of fury. He raised his spear.
But now Jack lifted his shotgun and fired. White-hot pellets hit the N’watu’s chest at close range, tearing through his flesh and ribs. The warrior stumbled back another few steps as Jack felt rage welling up inside him. He pumped the next shell into the chamber and fired again. This time the shot blasted directly into the warrior’s face, lifting him off his feet and flat onto his back.
Before Jack could react or even check on Javier, another spear came whizzing out of the darkness and sliced across his upper arm. Jack ducked, clutching his tricep. He could feel warm blood on his fingers. He snapped another flare and tossed it out in front of him. Immediately the chamber lit up, overwhelming the soft glow of the lanterns. And Jack saw two of the warriors cringing from the light not more than fifty feet away. He strode forward, keeping his eyes fixed on the N’watu, and fired another shot. This time he was aiming high—straight for the head. One of them dropped like a sack of rocks. Jack pumped and fired at the second one, who dove behind a crumbled archway.
Jack snapped another flare and tossed it back in Dwight’s direction. He could see that Dwight had both revolvers drawn and was keeping a couple more warriors at bay. One pale corpse lay at his feet.
Jack knelt next to Javier. He was coughing up blood and was barely coherent.
“Elina,” he said, blood spattering from his lips. “Find… Elina.”
Elina could hear the tapping sounds echoing in the darkness, almost like someone hitting a pair of baseball bats together. Fast, then slow, changing timbre ever so slightly.
She struggled to free herself. Twisting her neck, she could feel the rope holding the rag in her mouth slide down farther.
Now off in the darkness, along with the tapping, came more noises—a series of thuds like a pickax jamming into rocky soil, and the sound of something heavy scraping along the ground.
From above she heard gunfire echoing across the cavern. Several shots were fired, and they sounded close by. Hope rose again in her, and as she twisted her head sideways, she could feel the rope slipping from her mouth.
She worked it down below her chin until at last she was able to spit out the rag, suck in a lungful of air, and scream….
Jack and Dwight moved back-to-back across the cavern, guns poised to fire. The flares seemed to be keeping the N’watu at bay, and they resorted to flinging their spears blindly from their positions of cover.
“Do you see her anywhere?” Jack said.
“No, I—”
Suddenly a terrified shriek echoed up from somewhere in the darkness. Jack snapped his head around and saw an open pit.
“Elina!” he cried out. “Where are you?”
“Down here!”
Jack rushed across the cavern with Dwight following close behind. Jack ignited another flare and flung it ahead of him. It hit the ground and the orange glow lit up more of the chamber. He could see several carved stone structures all situated around a central pit. A stone table stood off to one side and another structure—some sort of primitive altar—had been built right at the edge of the pit. A thick log had been mounted to the altar and extended out over the hole. Jack could see a rope hanging down from the end.
“There!” He leaned over the edge as Elina’s frantic voice called up from below.
“Pull me up!”
Dwight climbed onto the wooden beam where the rope was fastened. “I’ll pull the rope over.”
Jack could hear the sheer terror in Elina’s voice as she cried out, “Please hurry!”
Dwight scooted forward, stretching his hand out for the rope. The beam extended perhaps eight feet from the edge, and the rope was just out of his reach. He inched out a little farther, but the whole structure shifted under his weight.
Dwight slipped and plunged into the darkness.
“Dwight!” Jack screamed. Just then he saw movement from the corner of his eye. A shadow detached itself from behind one of the carved figures and shot toward him like a missile.
Jack leaped out of the way as the dark shape landed in the spot where he had been standing. In the flickering glow of the flare, he recognized the diminutive figure, the tribe’s matriarch who seemed to be the leader. Dwight had called her Nun’dahbi.
She was cloaked in black veils and holding a long wooden shaft tipped with a jagged spearhead that looked like it had been fashioned from part of a kirac’s foreleg. She shrugged off her outer cloak and crouched before Jack. Jack suppressed a gasp as he got his first good look at her.
Her skin was ghostly pale and her head was completely hairless. Beneath the veils she wore a snug jerkin made from some kind of animal skin, interwoven with beads and animal claws. And Jack could see she was also still wearing the amulet she’d had on earlier. The image from his father’s papers.
Nun’dahbi glared at Jack with yellow eyes reflecting the light of the dying flare. The skin around her eyes was blackened, accenting the glow of her irises and giving her gaunt face a skull-like appearance. Her black lips peeled back and she hissed words Jack could not understand. Though one of them did register.
“Outsider!”
She spat the word with such contempt that Jack could almost feel her venom.
He swatted the spear away from his face and was reaching for his shotgun when something hard slammed into his ribs. He fell to his knees, gasping for breath. The woman’s bare foot drew back as Jack blinked, wondering how she had struck him with such power for her size.
He rolled to the side as the spear flashed out at him, slicing his shoulder. Jack sucked in painful gasps of air. He hadn’t seen anyone move so fast in his life. The woman crouched low and moved sideways, circling him like a cat preparing to strike. Jack had never taken any formal hand-to-hand combat training, no martial arts, nothing. So reacting purely on instinct, he swept his leg back across the woman’s feet, but she jumped easily out of the way.
Jack struggled to stand, dazed from the blow to his ribs. But before he could even straighten up, he felt another kick to his side and tumbled back to the ground. Nun’dahbi leaped in and out of the ring of light like a panther, striking hard and then jumping back into the darkness.
Jack had managed to stagger to his feet again when she drove a fist hard into his jaw and another one just under his sternum. He crumpled to the ground, gasping for breath. His mind wavered on the brink of consciousness and he reached blindly for his gun. Nun’dahbi leaped to the edge of the pit, raising her spear to finish him off.
But Jack rolled to the side and brought his shotgun up into her abdomen. His lips parted in a bloody grin.
“Not… so fast….”
Her face twisted into a mask of hate as Jack pulled the trigger. The blast launched her diminutive frame off the ground and out over the pit. She plunged, shrieking, down into the darkness.
“Jack!” Elina’s terrified voice cried from the pit.
“I’m coming.”
The wooden beam was tilted downward after Dwight’s fall. Jack leaned against the altar, gasping for breath. He was stretching out for the rope when a deafening shriek echoed up from the pit. But Jack knew it had no human source; he had heard that sound once before, out in the caverns as he and Ben were escaping.
Elina screamed again.
Jack snapped another flare and dropped it into the pit. Now he could see the hole went down at least twenty feet. Dwight lay in the mud, and Nun’dahbi’s twisted body was sprawled out on the rocks, covered in blood. Elina lay on the ground between them, wrapped tightly in ropes.
She looked up, wide-eyed. “Jack! Get me out of here!”
“I can’t reach the rope!”
“Hurry; something’s down here.”
Jack secured his shotgun and the bag of flares around his back and leaped out for the rope. He felt it in his fingers and clutched it. The log shifted again, and he slid down several feet before managing to stop himself. The rope tore the skin off his palms as he lowered himself farther into the pit.
He reached the bottom and bent over Elina’s quivering body. They had painted her face with what looked like the same type of marks that the warriors had covering their bodies.
“Are you hurt?” He fumbled with the ropes in his bloody hands. “Is anything broken?”
“No… I’m okay,” Elina said. “You’re bleeding.”
Jack shook his head. His wounds throbbed and stung, but he couldn’t afford the luxury of worrying about that now. “I’m okay.”
Jack surveyed the elongated cavern that extended away into darkness. The flare lit the immediate area, and Jack could see numerous tunnels and side passages leading off the main chamber. Large rocks and bones cluttered the floor of the pit. The remnants, he guessed, from an untold number of human sacrifices to the Soul Eater.
Beside them, Dwight groaned.
Elina sat up. “He’s alive?”
Jack moved to check him. “Dwight? Are you okay?”
Dwight groaned again and rolled onto his side. He looked up at the top of the pit and rubbed his head. “What happened?”
“You fell,” Jack said. “You should be dead.”
“Yeah…” Dwight sat up gingerly. “I should’ve been dead a few times in my life.”
Jack was still struggling with Elina’s ropes. “I can’t get them untied. I need to cut them.”
“Hurry.”
Jack turned to retrieve the spear wedged in the rocks beside Nun’dahbi’s limp body when he saw the amulet glimmering in the light of the flare. His eyes widened. He’d lost his pack in the caves earlier and with it, all the evidence he and Rudy had collected. But this medallion would be even better. To come back with an actual N’watu artifact, a piece of their culture…
Momentarily forgetting everything else, Jack crawled over and reached out for the amulet.
A cold, bony grip clamped onto his arm. Nun’dahbi clutched his wrist and lifted her battered head. Blood gurgled though her clenched teeth as she grimaced, hissing with what seemed to be pure vitriol.
Jack let out a yelp. Obviously the perilium made the N’watu as hard to kill as the kiracs.
Just then a second chilling shriek burst out of the darkness at the far end of the cavern, followed by a familiar tapping. Whatever was in the darkness was getting closer. Jack could hear a scraping sound—like something big being dragged across rocks.
Something very big.
“Hurry, Jack!” Elina’s voice came from behind him.
Jack yanked his hand free from Nun’dahbi’s grip. She immediately clutched the amulet in her broken, bloody fingers, still hissing curses at him and struggling to move. Jack picked up the spear instead and returned to Elina.
Dwight stumbled to his feet. “How do we get out of here?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been in this part of the caves.” Jack sliced through the top rope and started on the bands around Elina’s feet. Then the flare died out and darkness folded over them like a wave. Jack could hear Dwight digging through the bag for another one.
He snapped the cap off and ignited it.
Elina screamed.
Shadows fled away, partially revealing the bulk of an enormous, armored beast looming directly over Dwight. It reared up, flexing its huge mandibles. The jaws opened to reveal a hideous mouthful of dripping fangs. It lifted one of its massive, spiked forelegs and stabbed at Dwight, who barely managed to duck out of the way. The pointed claw sank into the ground where he had been standing. Then it swiped sideways and flung him into the rocky wall of the chamber. Dwight fell back to the ground, groaning.
Jack found himself stunned by the sight. This thing—this Soul Eater—was more hideous than he could have imagined. Based on what he’d seen in Dwight’s lab, he had expected the queen to be larger than the other kiracs… but not this big. Its long, bony forelegs looked like gnarled tree branches, and its jagged shell was the size of a large dining room table, ringed with hundreds of spiked protrusions.
Jack reached for his shotgun and fired directly into the beast’s underside. It shrieked again—deafening at this close range. Jack pumped in another shell and fired once more. The Soul Eater lumbered backward, maneuvering its bulk with stilted, jerky movements.
Jack could sense great age in it. A twisted, hulking beast that had been stalking these tunnels perhaps for centuries. The creature swatted at Jack with its other foreleg, sending him tumbling across the rocks. He felt like he’d been hit by a truck.
He looked back to see Elina kick her feet free of the ropes and scramble against the wall of the pit. The giant kirac swiveled its massive body around, clicking its palps as if in search of new prey. Suddenly the beast turned, raised itself off the ground, and lumbered away from Elina. Then Jack saw its new target.
Nun’dahbi was dragging herself with one arm toward the far side of the pit. Her other arm hung limp at her side and both of her legs were contorted, with a bone jutting through the flesh of one calf. Still, she struggled furiously toward one of the side tunnels. Jack spotted the amulet still in her grasp.
But the Soul Eater stalked hard after her, raising its foreleg and impaling Nun’dahbi through the back. She let out a horrifying scream and flailed her arm as the beast quickly pulled her writhing body under its bulk and sank its fangs into her neck. Nun’dahbi’s cries were cut mercifully short as the Soul Eater sucked out what little life was left in her.
While the beast was occupied, Jack scrambled to his feet and rushed over to Elina. “Are you okay?” His voice was a hoarse whisper.
“I’m okay; I’m okay,” Elina whispered back. “How do we get out of here?”
For a moment Jack thought they might be able to use the rope to climb out, but they’d never get up fast enough and would only be an easier target. He shrugged, keeping an eye on the giant kirac. He was quickly running out of time and his thoughts were scattered. But he couldn’t let fear overwhelm him. This creature could probably smell fear from a mile away.
Just then the queen kirac lifted itself from its food and turned toward him.
Jack pulled Dwight to his feet and pointed toward one of the side passages. “Through there!”
Dwight nodded groggily as Jack pushed Elina down and into the tunnel first, then Dwight, and then…
Another high-pitched roar thundered through the chamber as the Soul Eater lumbered toward them.
Jack scooped up his gun and the bag of flares and dove into the dark tunnel, bashing his knees against the rocks as he scrambled forward. “Move, move!”
He turned to see the creature’s bulk blocking the entrance to the tunnel. Its mouth filled the hole with a tangle of twisted fangs, hissing and snapping in a blind fury. The confined passage was filled with another piercing screech.
Jack crawled on, fumbling through the bag for another flare. He found one and ignited it. The light revealed a rather tight space, barely two feet high and curving out of sight ahead and behind. He looked into Elina’s eyes and then Dwight’s.
Fear was painted on both of their faces like the marks on Elina’s skin. He could hear the beast still growling behind them, but they seemed out of reach and safe for the moment.
“What now?” Elina said.
Jack shook his head. “I don’t know. I guess we keep going. See where this leads.”
They continued on, following the narrow passage as it curved away from the sacrificial cavern. They crawled for several yards until it opened into a smaller chamber. Jack stood, thankful to at least be out of the cramped tunnel. As they ventured across the room, he could see that all over the floor were scattered curved, bony shells and fragments of appendages.
Then Elina pointed at something up ahead. “What is that?”
Jack held the flare out and spotted what looked like a large rock of some kind, an unnaturally rounded boulder nearly two feet in diameter. He stood, frozen. He had seen this before. He raised the light and could see more of the objects scattered around the chamber.
Elina leaned toward Jack and whispered, “What are those things?”
But Jack stood still. Too frightened to respond.
“Jack?” Dwight whispered. “What is it?”
“I think…” Jack’s throat was dry. “I think we’re in some kind of… nest.”
George Wilcox sat in Thomas Vale’s spacious office, behind Thomas Vale’s burnished oak desk, in Thomas Vale’s exquisite leather chair, with a shotgun across his lap.
Malcolm Browne—Thomas Vale’s business manager—lay dead in the other room in front of Thomas Vale’s massive stone fireplace. Loraine Browne, along with the Huxleys and the Dunhams, had already left for the evening and had probably gone to bed some time ago. George would deal with them later. In fact, he probably wouldn’t need to do a thing.
But for the moment, all was quiet in Thomas Vale’s mansion. So George sat there in the darkened office, waiting for Vale to return.
He felt little emotion, numbed by Miriam’s death. Some part of him suspected he might soon join her, and that thought no longer filled him with apprehension. His wife had faced her end with courage. A courage born out of a faith that he now knew was more than empty religion. He would mourn for her when this was over. But for now he just needed to be patient.
He swiveled around and stared out the window into the night. The moon was nearly full and had already risen high into the night sky and lit up the whole countryside.
Shortly after midnight, the silence was broken by the sound of footsteps. George could hear them coming up the stairs. He listened closely. They were hurried and uneven. Someone was frightened and perhaps injured. And George could also hear the sound of labored breathing.
The footsteps reached the top and were now coming down the hall. George spun around to face the door. Moonlight streamed from behind him and lit the room with a dim but usable glow.
A silhouette appeared in the office doorway and stopped. George heard the breathing pause a moment and then resume.
Vale felt for the light switch and flipped it on. His shirt was drenched in blood, his face ashen with dark circles under his eyes. His hands were trembling, and he was sweating. Profusely. Yet he didn’t look at all surprised to see George there.
George nodded toward Vale’s bloodied shirt. “It looks like you ran into some trouble. It’s a good thing you’re immortal.”
Vale scowled and lurched into the side room where he stored the perilium. George listened carefully for the sound of his reaction when he saw the refrigerators. The mangled, empty refrigerators.
A full twenty seconds later, Thomas Vale emerged from the room, his eyes looking glazed and unfocused. He clutched one trembling hand in the other. “What do you want?”
George’s eyebrows went up. “Excuse me?”
“How much do you want? Ten million? Twenty?”
“Money? You think I want money?”
“What, then?”
George raised the shotgun and aimed it directly into Vale’s face. “I want my wife back.”
Vale’s breathing grew more labored. “It wasn’t… my fault. It was her… choice.”
“Well, in that case, I’ll settle for watching you die.”
Vale glared at him. “What did you do… with it?”
George shrugged. “It’s gone. Every last drop. I flushed it all down your own toilet.”
George watched Vale’s incredulity turn to hate. “You… have no idea what I was… offering you.” He was sucking in air hard now. “The chance to be… young again.”
George leaned back in the chair. Vale was no longer fearsome—now frail and thin, wrapping his arms around himself in an attempt to keep from trembling.
“When did you become so arrogant,” George said, “to think you had the right to live off the deaths of innocent people like this? As if there would never come a reckoning.”
“Off your… high horse, George,” Vale said. “You know what you’re capable of. We’re… not so different… you and I.”
“Tell me something, Mr. Vale,” George said. “What are you afraid of? After all these years of cheating death, it’s finally catching up with you. How does that feel?”
Vale opened his mouth, trying to respond, but his voice was already gone. He could no longer stop the tremors. Nor hide the symptoms of his impending fate. Both hands quivered violently. His arms began to tremble and then his legs.
He turned in a feeble attempt to leave. George imagined it was to find a place to hide. To keep George from witnessing the convulsions and so to rob him of that last bit of satisfaction. But his motor skills were negated now by the onslaught of his death.
George watched it spring upon him like some kind of predator as Vale crumpled to the floor—a trembling, contorted mass in its grip. His spine arched as his muscles contracted with violent spasms. His legs and arms stiffened at odd angles. Tremors racked his body and his head flung backward too, as far as his neck could bend. His jaw clenched tight as white foam frothed between his teeth. And George could see one of Vale’s yellow eyes through the black snarls of hair, wide open in terror. His body flopped and jittered on the wooden floor, almost like a fish in the bottom of a boat or like some grotesque windup doll.
George drew long, slow breaths, fighting the urge to look away. It was a more gruesome spectacle than he had expected, and at length he could no longer stand to watch. His eyes moved to the clock on the wall.
Thirty seconds…
Forty-five seconds…
A full sixty seconds before the tremors finally abated and Thomas Vale lay still in a twisted heap.
But for the gagging rattle deep in his throat, it had been a silent, protracted death.
Elina peered at the spherical objects in the light of the flare and could now see they weren’t rocks at all. “What are they?”
“Egg sacs.” Jack’s voice grew shaky. “Like the one I saw before.”
Dwight kicked the smaller shell fragments. “Then… I’m guessing these are bodies of the males. Maybe the ones who get eaten after mating or something.”
Elina shuddered. “Mating?”
Then the flare went out and darkness fell around them. Elina reached out for Jack, but the only sound was their breathing, echoing through the chamber.
Complete, smothering darkness hung on them like a death shroud. Then out of the inky black void, Elina heard the tapping sound she’d heard in the other chamber, and it sent a shiver through her body.
Jack lit another flare, and the brightness of its orange light filled the nesting chamber… with the exception of a large shadow that emerged from a tunnel on the far side. An enormous black shape hauled itself into the room.
The beast paused just outside the circle of light, clicking its fangs together as if trying to get its bearings. Or trying to locate its prey.
Elina fought to keep still, remembering what Vale had said about the creature’s being able to smell fear—sensing it somehow in its prey. She sucked a long, slow breath into her lungs and held it.
But at that moment the beast lurched toward them. Its armored legs pounded across the stones in great, jerky strides and its jaws opened in a deafening shriek.
Jack yelled, “Get back in the tunnel!”
They spun around and dashed the way they had come with the creature lumbering after them. Elina’s foot twisted on the shell fragments littering the floor and she tumbled to the ground. She felt a hand on her arm and saw Jack leaning over her, holding the flare.
“Come on!”
He tugged at her arm, trying to help her up, but it was as if time had slowed down as a huge, twisted shadow appeared behind them.
Suddenly Dwight leaped into the kirac’s path, holding another flare in one hand and a pistol in the other. He fired off several shots directly into the creature’s mouth, but the bullets only served to enrage it further.
The beast lifted one of its forelegs to strike.
Jack pulled Elina to her feet just as the giant queen impaled Dwight through his chest and pinned him to the ground. It reared up and hissed. Dwight’s limbs quivered as blood poured from his mouth. One arm reached frantically for his gun but instead found the canvas bag Jack had dropped in the scramble toward the tunnel. He clutched it as the beast wrenched him sideways with an angry growl.
“Jack!” Elina grabbed Jack’s arm and pointed to Dwight.
“Get out,” Dwight gasped, choking on his own blood. “Go!”
He lifted his hand and Elina spotted a round, metallic object in his grasp. She blinked. It looked for all the world like a…
Hand grenade.
She saw him pluck out the pin as the giant spider growled and pulled him into its embrace, sinking its fangs into his chest.
Jack darted forward to grab the bag, then took hold of Elina’s wrist and yanked her back into the tunnel as the explosion shook the entire cavern.
The roar was deafening and followed by a loud, steady rumble. She could feel the ground vibrating beneath her. Her mind gave way to terror as she realized she had escaped this horrible beast only to be buried alive under tons of rock. The roar of the quake seemed to go on forever. Dust filled the passage, choking her and stinging her eyes. She squeezed them shut and prayed as a strange peace began to fill her mind. Her heart calmed; her breathing slowed. If this was the end, then she knew her life—her soul—was in God’s hands.
Elina lay in complete darkness for what felt like several minutes, wondering if she was dead. She was cold and wet and every muscle ached from her ordeal, yet she knew they weren’t safe yet. The explosion had collapsed the cavern behind them, sealing them inside the tunnel. Her ears still rang from the blast, and she lay in the cold mud. The vision of the enormous armored spider had been etched into her brain. That and her experience with the N’watu would certainly rob her of sleep for many weeks to come.
As her hearing returned, she could make out Jack’s steady, rapid breathing next to her, and she knew at least they were alive.
“Jack,” she whispered, “are you okay?”
She felt him stir beside her. “I… I think so. How about you?”
“I’m okay. Nothing broken.”
She could hear Jack feeling around the passage.
“Well, I still have my shotgun,” he said after a moment. “And the bag of flares. But I only have a few left and they won’t last long.”
“How… how did you even manage to find me?”
“It was Dwight,” Jack said. “He came down after Vale took you away and let the rest of us out. Apparently something gave him a change of heart.”
“He freed everyone?” Elina’s hope rose. “What happened to Javier?”
Jack didn’t answer right away. There was a muted pop as he lit one of the flares. Sparks flew all over in the cramped space and Elina’s eyes ached from the light, but she could see that Jack’s face looked grim.
“What’s wrong?” she said. “Where is Javier?”
Jack shook his head. “He came with us to save you. But he didn’t… I’m sorry. He was killed during the fighting.”
Elina stared at him. “Dead?” She ached as though a weight were pressing down on her shoulders. She had come all this way to find him. Now all the emotions she had tried so hard to control over the last few days finally broke through. She began to sob even as she tried to tell herself this wasn’t the time for crying.
After a minute she felt Jack’s hand on her shoulder. “Look, I’m sorry. I know it’s a shock—and I’m really sorry—but we have to get going; we’re running out of flares.”
Elina sucked in a deep breath and wiped her eyes, choking back her tears. She knew he was right. She could mourn for her cousin later. “What do we do now?”
They inspected the tunnel. The way behind them was thoroughly closed off. Several large boulders blocked the entrance, and they couldn’t move them.
Finally Jack sighed. “I think there was a side passage up here.”
They had to maneuver on their hands and knees, which was slow going, but after several dozen yards the tunnel split, and the secondary tunnel eventually opened into a larger chamber. They emerged and stood up. Jack held the flare aloft and looked around. Elina peered up at him. He wasn’t what she had expected. He was taller than she had imagined, for one thing. Taller than her by several inches and slender with short-cropped black hair, large brown eyes, and…
“Listen, Jack… thank you for saving me.” She looked down sheepishly. “But… why didn’t you tell me you were black?”
Jack blinked and looked down at his arms. “I am?”
Elina couldn’t help laughing. “I mean, after I said all those things?”
Jack raised an eyebrow and smiled. “I guess I didn’t think it mattered at the time.”
Elina shook her head. “It didn’t. I just—”
“And for the record, technically you never told me you were Hispanic.”
Elina laughed again. Despite all the horror she’d just been through, in her exhausted condition it felt good to laugh. “You mean my last name being Gutierrez didn’t give it away, or…”
She stopped as she saw Jack’s smile fade.
“What’s wrong?” she said.
Jack shrugged. “This place… looks a little familiar.”
Elina wasn’t sure this was a hopeful sign. “So you know where we are?”
Jack tossed the flare ahead of them. It flew up in a long arch and bounced to a halt in front of another strange rock formation. Only as Elina looked closer, she could see it wasn’t rock at all. It was a pile of white… bones. A huge stack of bones piled high against the side of the cavern.
“Are those what I think they are?”
But Jack had fallen quiet.
“Jack?” she said again. “Please tell me those aren’t human—”
“We need to get moving,” Jack said as he ignited another flare. “I think I know the way.”
Jack pointed in the direction opposite the pile of bones and moved quickly across the uneven floor. Elina hurried to keep up but could feel a presence somewhere off in the darkness. Some kind of impending menace, like an enormous shadow preparing to swoop down and swallow them.
After a moment Jack stopped, tilting his head.
“What is it?” Elina said.
At first the only sounds she could hear were her own breathing and the hiss of the flare. Then soon she heard something else. The eerie tapping sound she’d come to dread. But this time it was different. This time it sounded like more than one.
A lot more.
“Jack…”
But Jack grabbed her hand. “Run!”
He led her on a zigzag route across the cavern. The flare crackled and sputtered and Elina thought she could see shadows scurrying along the ground just outside the ring of light. Jack pulled her behind him until they finally reached the other side. A black wall of rock loomed up in front of them. Jack looked like he was searching for something.
Maybe another tunnel. Hopefully the way out.
Something skittered along the rocks behind her and she screamed. A black shape raced toward her out of the darkness. It was a miniature version of the giant kirac, only the size of a dog. But it was faster and seemed far more aggressive.
Jack charged the creature, flare held out in front of him. He swung his leg and booted the beast back into the darkness. Then he turned and yanked her arm. “This way!”
They moved along the wall until they came to another opening. A passage leading up at an angle. Jack tossed the flare behind them and boosted Elina into the tunnel.
The flare landed a few yards away, where it illuminated a horde of the spider creatures—of all sizes—scurrying toward them.
Jack pumped his shotgun and blasted the closest one, flipping it backward into the pack. The others immediately converged on the wounded creature, tearing it to pieces. One of the bigger creatures launched itself toward them. Jack raised the shotgun and fired point-blank, blasting a hole right through it. It bounced off Jack, knocking him down, and landed on the ground, twitching in front of him.
Jack scrambled to his feet, covered in yellow guts, and pulled himself up into the tunnel. “Go, go, go!”
Elina turned and climbed up the angled passage, scraping her hands and cracking her head against the jagged walls.
“I can’t see where I’m going!”
Jack lit a flare and handed it to her. “Last one,” he said. “Now go—hurry!”
Elina held the crackling flare in one hand and climbed as fast as she could up the tunnel. Water trickled down past her and she had to keep the flare from getting wet. At length the passage widened out and came to a dead end.
She crouched in the space and turned around. “What now?”
Jack was clawing his way up just a few yards behind her. “Up. Climb straight up.”
Elina could see a small opening above her, perhaps into another passage. Water was streaming down through it. She stood and tried to find a foothold but couldn’t reach the opening.
In moments Jack had joined her in the cramped space. He took the flare and boosted her into the opening. Elina scrambled up and found herself in a wide, low passage, worn smooth by a constant flow of water. She could feel it angling the other way, sloping down into complete darkness.
Jack struggled to climb into the passage. “Pull me up!”
Elina reached down through the opening and clutched his arm. Suddenly she saw something moving in the passage behind him. One of the spiders, a big one, was coming up fast.
“Jack!”
“I know!”
He turned, pointed the shotgun down the tunnel, and pulled the trigger.
Click.
He pumped and tried again but was clearly out of ammo. He jammed the gun diagonally into the passage, wedging it tight between the walls just as the kirac slammed into it, hissing and growling. Elina could see its fangs twitching. Its forelegs reached through and clawed at Jack’s feet, but the gun held fast.
Behind it, Elina saw movement. More were coming.
Jack turned and jumped for Elina’s hand. She caught hold and pulled while he scrambled up. “Don’t let go!”
Elina pulled his arms and shoulders into the passage.
“Pull me up!” Jack said frantically. “Pull me up!”
Elina strained, her muscles burning. She leaned back into the tunnel as Jack clawed at the rocks, trying desperately to pull himself up. She could feel her hands slipping.
Jack shook his head, his eyes wide in terror. “Don’t let go!”
Elina pulled with all her strength. But his hands slipped through her grasp and her momentum sent her sliding backward down the passage into the darkness.
“Jack!”
Elina slid through total darkness, clawing at the sides of the tunnel but unable to stop. She slid down the passage until she felt herself falling through empty space and plunging into icy waters. She surfaced, gasping for air, and felt a current pulling her along, swirling and spinning until at last she felt solid ground again under her feet.
A rush of terror swept over her. She was lost in complete darkness, and now she was utterly alone.
And Jack was probably dead as well. He had risked his life to save her, but she hadn’t been able to save him. Elina couldn’t hold back her tears.
Then, above the sound of the waterfall, she thought she heard another sound.
It was soft but grew steadily louder until she finally recognized it. It was Jack’s voice. She heard him emerge from the tunnel above her and splash down into the water.
Her hopes rose. “Jack!”
“Elina?” he called back.
She laughed as relief washed over her. They called out to each other in the pitch-blackness until at last she felt his hands. She threw her arms around him and hugged him tighter than she had ever hugged anyone in her life.
He was laughing. “I know where we are. There’s an underwater passage here that leads outside. All we have to do is wait until daylight.”
With Jack leading, they found the shoreline and collapsed on the soft, pebbled ground, flooded with relief.
Elina lay on her back, exhausted.
Jack woke up to a dim gray light filtering into the cave. His head was still buzzing from the horrors he’d seen back in the tunnels. And yet his chest ached at the thought of losing the amulet in the pit. He wondered what the artifact meant and what significance it held for the N’watu. He’d actually held it in his grasp for an instant, but now it was likely lost for good. His lips tightened. He’d come so close.
If only he’d had a few more seconds.
He touched Elina’s shoulder to wake her. “I think the sun’s up.”
He helped her up and led her along the shoreline until he could see daylight through the underwater tunnel. They plunged one last time into the water and swam through to the other side, where they emerged in the small lake under a blue sky.
They swam to the shore and lay in the dirt, soaking in the sunlight. After a minute, Elina crawled back to the edge of the water. Jack could see she was staring at her reflection. Her face was covered with black marks, obviously something the N’watu had done as part of their ritual.
Elina stood up to face him. “All I can say is this stuff better not be permanent.”
Jack looked her over now in the daylight. She had short black hair and beautiful brown eyes. But any other feminine softness her face might have held was tempered by a firm jawline and a two-inch scar that ran across her chin. She carried herself on a short athletic frame with a rugged sort of beauty. Jack could tell she had been a cop, and a tough one.
The black marks on her face had faded a bit from being in the water but were still fairly distinct. There was no telling what kind of substance the ink was made from. Jack grinned and tried to sound reassuring. “Actually, it’s kind of attractive.”
“Said the guy with no funky marks on his face.”
Jack laughed and pointed toward the trees. “C’mon. The road isn’t too far.” He led her through the woods, retracing the route he had taken only two days earlier.
“What day is it, anyway?” Elina asked.
“Uhh…” Jack rubbed his eyes, trying to calculate the number of days he’d spent in darkness and terror. “It’s Saturday. Or, no… Sunday, I think.”
At length they came to a highway. Jack explained that this was where he had first run into Malcolm Browne. He pointed up the road. “The town’s just up that way.”
Elina stopped. “We’re not really going back there, are we?”
Jack thought about that for a moment. “Well, Carson and that big guy are both dead back in the tunnel. And I think Vale was injured pretty badly too, so I’m guessing he’s either dead or will be soon.” He shrugged, recalling Dwight’s enigmatic message to him before he died. “Besides, Dwight said there was something in his office that I needed to see.”
“What is it?”
“That’s what I want to find out.”
They walked through the morning, slogging along the pavement without seeing a single vehicle. They passed the time talking, sharing their respective histories. It felt strange to Jack, but there was something about Elina that made him feel as if he’d known her for years. He told her more about his own journey and his father’s disappearance. Elina seemed fascinated by the mystery but stopped short of saying what Jack himself had been thinking all along, though his heart had not wanted to speak the words.
“I can’t bring myself to think about how he might have died,” Jack said finally. “That they would have sacrificed him to that—”
“But you don’t know that for sure,” Elina said.
Not knowing was of little comfort. Something inside Jack still yearned to find out exactly what had happened to his father. Despite how gruesome it might have been.
His thoughts drew back to the mysterious amulet. It had been the confirmation he’d been looking for, the evidence he had come all this way to find, and now it lay under a mountain of rock. Forever out of reach. He could have validated his father’s theories, but now he was leaving empty-handed with so many questions unanswered. He still didn’t know what the symbols meant, and now he feared he never would.
But even worse than that was what he had lost along the way. He’d come through his nightmare having left his best friend back in those caves.
It wasn’t until the sun was directly above them that they finally reached Beckon once more. They walked through the middle of town, where everything seemed as quiet and as still as death.
They came to the old Saddleback Diner and peeked in the windows, but no one was around. Then they crossed the street to Dwight Henderson’s office and went inside. The place was cluttered and musty, and Jack made his way down the hall to the back room.
The door was locked, but after a few attempts, Jack managed to kick it open. Inside stood an antique desk, a couple chairs, and some file cabinets. In the corner was a door to the supply closet that was stacked full of boxes.
Jack inspected the boxes as he pulled them out. Each one was packed with notebooks. He shuffled through the top box and grabbed one of the books. “Looks like Dwight had been keeping quite a few journals.”
Elina peered over his shoulder for a better view. “What do they say?”
“Whoa.” Jack tapped the cover. “Look at the date on this one.”
Elina took the book and frowned as she scanned the pages. “Nineteen forty-seven?”
Jack opened a second box and pulled out another leather-bound journal. “Nineteen twenty-one.”
“These can’t all be his,” Elina said.
But Jack was busy digging through another box. “He must have wanted me to find them.”
Elina began searching through the boxes as well. A moment later she pulled out a folder and showed it to Jack. Inside was a photograph. A very old photograph. In the picture, Dwight stood in front of what looked like a saloon. He was wearing a striped shirt with a vest and a bow tie. Beside him was an attractive Hispanic woman. And next to them stood Frank Carson and Malcolm Browne. The sign behind them read, The Saddleback.
Elina stared at Jack. “This can’t be for real… can it?”
Jack shrugged. “He told me perilium not only enhances the body’s immune system but also slows down or even reverses the aging process.”
Elina gestured to all the boxes on the floor. “Well, these dates would mean that Dwight was more than a hundred years old.”
“At least,” Jack said. His gaze beat a trail around the room. “I wonder how old the others were. For that matter, how old were those N’watu in the cave? They might have been down there for hundreds of years.”
The thought was staggering to Jack. He shuddered when he considered the implications of such a miracle drug. And the cost for the people trapped in this town by it. No wonder Vale went to such lengths to protect his secret.
Elina lifted out another leather-bound journal, this one tattered, its pages yellowed and stained. She thumbed through the brittle pages. Coming to one passage in particular, she stopped and read the words aloud.
“I am finding that my great distaste for these activities has waned of late, as well as for Mr. Vale and that godforsaken town. Regardless of my part in the matter, I can no longer pity those souls I have sent to their destruction. I no longer have the room left in my heart for it, for I am driven too deeply by love for my dearest Julia and I am ever compelled to save her. I will not lose her. My soul be cursed, I will not lose her.”
She paused before reading the date. “October 11… 1899.”
They looked at each other in silence. After a moment Elina said, “I wonder if he found it again. His conscience, I mean.”
Jack had found a bitter reflection in Dwight Henderson’s words, echoed by the stinging indictment he had received from Thomas Vale. He’d been driven here by his obsession to solve his father’s mystery. And more than that, to validate his father’s theories and perhaps thereby gain some of that legacy for himself. But at what expense? Jack wondered now if he had lost a portion of his own conscience somewhere along the way, buried deep beneath his ambitions.
Alongside the bones of his friend.
But more importantly, would he ever find it again?
He looked back at Elina and gave a faint smile. “I think maybe he did.”
Then a thought struck him. “Wait a minute.” He began to dig furiously through the boxes, searching the dates until he located the right one. He looked up at Elina. “Twelve years ago.”
Elina’s eyebrows went up. “You think there’s something about your dad in there?”
Jack flipped through the notebook, his hands nearly trembling, following the dates until he discovered the one he was looking for. Part of him hoped he would find something—some clue or mention to help him gain closure. To know at last what had happened. But part of him hoped he wouldn’t.
Then Jack froze as his eyes fell across his father’s name. His heart was beating so fast he could barely read it.
“He was here,” Jack said. “Vale lied to me.”
“Of course he lied,” Elina said. “He wanted to keep his little operation here a secret.”
Jack scanned the pages. They had indeed captured his father. He had come upon the town and was asking questions. Asking for directions to the nearby Caieche reservation. Not suspecting a thing.
Jack fought back his emotions. “He… he never even made it to the reservation.”
He read further as Dwight detailed how they had held his father captive in Vale’s compound on the hill. Vale had hoped to utilize his knowledge to study the N’watu for his own advantage. Vale was, after all, a prisoner of the lost tribe like everyone else. And he was searching desperately for some clue to the secret of the perilium. A way to concoct it for himself. They held Jack’s father there for several months, giving him limited access to part of the caves and allowing him to study the tribe at some length. Even to meet Nun’dahbi herself. No doubt his father had seen the woman’s amulet even as Jack had. The artifact that appeared to have been so important in his father’s other notes. Jack read until he came to a section that sent chills down his back.
One day his father had attempted an escape and fled into the woods. Dwight detailed how Carson and the others had tracked him down. They used dogs and hunted him. Cornered him like an animal. But his father was not going to give up easily. There was a struggle, and…
And shots were fired.
Carson acknowledged that Kendrick had left him little choice. In the end, the man was simply not willing to cooperate, and while his elimination was regrettable, he was too great a risk to keep alive any longer. And Vale has never been one to risk much.
Jack stared at the words on the page. The account had been written with such clinical detachment. Almost as if they had put down a rabid dog and not a human being.
He wept as Dwight described how they had hauled his father’s dead body into the cave to be fed to the kiracs.
But there was something else.
Dwight also indicated that he had retained the research journal Jack’s father had kept in hopes of eventually finding something useful. He wrote that he had hidden it under the floorboards inside the closet.
Jack went back to the closet and knelt down to inspect the floor. One of the boards was indeed loose and rattled beneath Jack’s hand.
His heart was pounding as he pried it up, surging with the same emotions he’d felt when he first discovered the hidden compartment in his father’s desk.
Under the floorboard was a thick notebook covered in dust. Jack lifted it out and blew the dirt off. He opened it and felt as if his heart would burst through his ribs. On the inside cover, written in faded ink, was a name.
David C. Kendrick
He held up the book. “It’s his journal!”
Jack thumbed through the pages and found that the entries went back several years before his father’s disappearance. They appeared to chronicle most of his expeditions. Some of it was written in English, but other parts were in Latin. Some in Greek and even some in what looked like Hebrew. But parts of the last several pages were written in…
Jack peered closer. The writing used the same characters he had seen inside the caves. He looked up at Elina, not knowing whether to scream or laugh or cry. A thousand emotions clamored for dominance. He couldn’t wait to pore over the pages of the book. To find out what secrets it might hold. And what answers. He rocked back on his knees, clutching the journal to his chest as though it were his father himself.
They left the office and stepped out onto the street. Jack held the old journal tight under his arm. Down the street he saw Malcolm’s rust-colored pickup parked at the filling station on the edge of town. George Wilcox stood beside it, pumping gas.
Elina waved and shouted, “George!”
“So you made it out of there,” George said as they ran up.
“Barely.” Jack looked up at the shadowy lodge perched at the top of the bluff. “What about the others?”
“Most of them are dead. Or dying. I watched Vale die myself. Just after I told him I had flushed the last of his precious perilium down the toilet.”
Elina peered into the garage windows. “They’ve got my car almost completely disassembled in there.”
“Yeah, mine too,” George said.
Elina shook her head. “They had their own chop shop set up to hide the evidence.”
George pointed to the fenced-in yard behind the station, overgrown with weeds. “They must turn them into scrap metal and stick them out back.”
Jack noticed a large bundle of linen lying in the bed of the pickup. It looked like a body wrapped in sheets.
“Is… is this your…?”
“My wife, Miriam,” George said, putting his hand on the sheet. “I brought her here to try to save her life, but she…” His voice cracked with emotion. “But she ended up saving mine. I’m going to bring her home for a decent burial.”
“Would you mind giving us a ride?” Jack said. “I have an old RV that should still be parked a few miles away.”
George gestured to the cab. “Hop in.”
They climbed into the truck, and as George pulled back onto the road, Jack noticed the old wooden sign at the edge of town.
And it struck him just then how true it was.