Spencer stopped talking, his head tilted at an angle, listening. A faint thumping sounded in the distance, rhythmic, its beat echoing off the trees. Spencer began moving toward the sound in a low crouch, his rifle in front of him, pushing the bushes aside. Allie and Drake followed him, the wet leaves beneath their feet absorbing any noise from their boots as they edged along another trail, this one more defined. Drake saw footprints in the wet mud – bare feet – which confirmed Spencer’s guess that the voices belonged to tribesmen.
They approached a particularly dense thicket, and the drumbeat seemed only a stone’s throw away. Spencer slowed and eased a branch aside to peer into an open area beyond. Drake edged alongside him and did the same, Allie right behind them, and froze at the spectacle that greeted his eyes.
Two dozen dark-skinned men with their faces painted like skulls waited with spears, bows and ten-foot-long blowguns, watching a stone podium where a figure straight out of hell stood gazing at the drummer, who was beating on a hollow log. The figure was naked, as were the tribesman, but white as a ghost, his hair matted with pale mud that coated his entire body. Streaks of black darkened his eyes, giving his face a cadaverous look. Drake’s skin crawled instinctively at the apparition.
Then the figure moved, and Drake could see it was in actuality an old man, his body thin and frail, the mud lending him an even more skeletal aura. The man barked something unintelligible, and the drummer stopped, waiting.
From the edge of the clearing another tribesman entered, dragging a small figure. Drake saw it was a boy, no more than ten years old. The boy stumbled. His ankles were bound with a leather cord, as were his wrists, and another leather tether had been wrapped across his face, blinding him and muffling any cries. His captor pulled him by the arm, and Drake could make out a wound on his abdomen, blood crusted around it. When they reached the stone podium, Drake realized with a jolt that it was an altar.
Allie inched next to him and watched in horror as the boy struggled to stand, obviously in agony, trembling and tiny as the collection of natives observed in silent witness. The white-clay-covered man leaned his head back and emitted a blood-chilling moan at the sky, only vaguely human in timbre, and then spread his arms wide, as if welcoming the boy.
What happened next caused Allie to grip Drake’s arm and press her head against his shoulder, tears streaming down her face.
The captor struck the boy in the back of the head with a heavy wooden club, and he collapsed in a heap at the man’s feet. The man knelt down, lifted the boy ceremoniously, and placed him on the stone altar.
The mud-smeared elder brandished a shining metal blade over his head – what looked like a machete ground down to a sharper point for more sinister duty than clearing brush. The captor took it from the elder and bowed, and then turned to the boy’s prone form and held the blade above it with both hands.
Drake flinched and turned away as the captor brought the knife down in a violent arc, and didn’t need to hear the murmur from the gathered men to know that the boy’s life had been brutally ended. When Drake returned his attention to the altar, blood streamed down its sides, and the men were stomping their bare feet against the ground and pounding it with their spears. The mud-caked old man did a little jig as he moved to the boy’s corpse. With a howl like a demented wolf, he plunged his hand into the new wound gashed wide by the knife, and with the boy’s blood smeared a design on his muddy white forehead.
The eerie ritual went on as the mud-smeared shaman anointed each of the gathered natives with a smudge of the crimson. When he was done, two of the tribesmen approached the altar and dragged the corpse unceremoniously into the underbrush, likely destined for one of the bone piles on the perimeter.
Spencer held his finger to his lips and pointed the way they’d come, and Drake nodded. He put his arm around Allie, whose eyes were clenched tight, and leaned into her.
“We need to get out of here,” he whispered.
He led her carefully back along the track, Spencer guarding the rear. As they arrived at the riverbank they paused, waiting for Spencer to catch up. When he joined them, he shook his head, his expression dour.
“I guess we know why your shaman’s daughter didn’t want to set foot near here,” he said.
“Pretty obvious. Is human sacrifice common with the natives in these parts?” Drake demanded.
“No. This is some kind of an abomination. Craziness.” Spencer paused. “Did you notice that the head of the party was considerably taller than the others? I made him for Caucasian. Hard to tell with all the mud, but he looked like a white man to me.”
Allie’s eyes met Drake’s. “The Inca used to perform human sacrifices. The ceremony was called capacocha. But it was nothing like what we just witnessed.”
“Really? I thought that was only the Aztecs,” Drake said.
“The Aztecs were certainly the most flamboyant, cutting hearts out. But the Incas also had their savagery. Children, often of royalty, spent a year at feasts leading up to their sacrifice, stoned out of their minds on massive amounts of cocaine. At the end of the year, they would go to the highest points in the Andes and be buried alive, left to die.” She swallowed hard. “This is nothing like what we know of those ceremonies. I agree with Spencer. This is some new ceremony that’s only slightly drawing from the capacocha tradition.”
“Could the shaman…be Palenko?” Drake asked, eyes on the jungle they’d just fled through.
“Who’s Palenko?” Spencer asked, and Drake remembered he’d never shared that part of the story with him.
Drake sat down, Allie next to him, and gave an abridged version of the Russian’s history, including the speculations about Palenko’s technology. Spencer’s eyes narrowed dangerously as he finished.
“So this is another little surprise you left out of the mix? A lunatic Russian with a doomsday weapon?” Spencer growled.
“It’s not a weapon. We actually aren’t sure what it is, other than some kind of ore.”
“Our deal was full disclosure. Now I’m facing some Russian who’s as nutty as a Christmas fruitcake, who’s set himself up a death camp with an entourage of cutthroat natives. Did I miss anything?” Spencer seethed.
“It doesn’t change much, does it? We found Paititi. Now we just need to locate the treasure.”
“Right. While we’ve got a lunatic mass murderer defending the place.”
Drake couldn’t argue with the assessment, so he didn’t try. “I didn’t say it would be easy.”
“You weren’t honest about what I got myself into.”
A crack sounded from the trees, and Spencer swung around, his weapon leveled in the direction of the commotion. A simian shape flitted among the branches, and they relaxed. When Spencer returned his focus to Drake, any trace of anger was gone.
“Whether or not their leader is this Palenko character doesn’t matter. The natives are the only thing standing between us and the city, and I didn’t come this far to turn tail and run. Frankly, I’ll feel pretty good about taking out a bunch of child killers, so I say we watch, figure out their weakness, and then exploit it.”
“That sounds fine, but how?” Allie asked.
“We’ll start with surveillance. I want to understand whether that was the whole group, or if we’ll be facing down more. The good news is that I didn’t see any guns. Although we shouldn’t underestimate the effectiveness of the blowguns. But in a straightforward assault, spears against AKs aren’t going to fare well,” Spencer said.
“It doesn’t look like they’re worried about being attacked,” Drake said.
“No, any natives in the area are probably scared out of their minds. Like your shaman was. I bet everyone gives it a wide berth. Especially if the Paititi residents are poaching for sacrifices from other tribes, which would be my guess. I have to admit, it’s an effective way to ensure nobody comes calling on your discovery.”
“It’s cold-blooded murder,” Allie said.
Another rustling came from the
trail leading to the city, and Spencer turned to face the dense underbrush before whispering to Drake and Allie, “Let’s get moving. I don’t like being this close to an enemy camp with no plan.”
Drake was rising when something whizzed by his head. He wasn’t sure what it was, but Spencer didn’t hesitate. He grabbed Allie’s hand. “Run. They’re firing darts at us.”
Spencer and Allie sprinted along the water’s edge. Drake was scrambling to his feet when a dart hit his backpack with a thump and another brushed his cheek. He didn’t wait to find out whether the next volley would be better aimed, and bolted after Spencer and Allie, who were now thirty yards down the river.
Drake’s foot hit a slippery stone and he lost his footing. Tumbling sideways, he slammed against the ground. A bolt of agony shot through his ribcage as he felt something crack – he’d fallen against his elbow, breaking a rib. Drake gasped for breath and tried to get up, but the pain was momentarily blinding, each inhalation sending spikes of agony through him. He was fighting to stand when something struck his head, and everything spun and went dark.
Allie’s and Spencer’s footsteps thumped along the bank as they ran, putting as much distance between themselves and their attackers as possible. Not sensing Drake behind them, Allie slowed and looked over her shoulder. Spencer tried to pull her along, and she jerked back, hard.
“Stop. We’ve lost Drake,” she said.
Spencer slowed, rifle gripped in his right hand, and looked back over his shoulder before coming to a halt. They’d rounded a bend in the serpentine river, so they couldn’t see more than a dozen yards behind them.
“Damn.”
“We have to go back,” she insisted.
Spencer hesitated, but Allie made the decision for him when she began retracing her steps. Spencer caught up with her and grabbed her arm.
“You can’t just go charging in, or you’ll wind up dead. Do you understand? If Drake ran into trouble, getting yourself killed isn’t going to help him.”
“Fine. But we have to get him.”
Spencer grunted and nodded. “Stay behind me. Keep your finger off the trigger unless you need to shoot. Which you shouldn’t unless someone’s trying to kill you.”
“Got it.”
They crept along the riverbank, Allie six paces behind him, their senses tingling, ready for an attack that never came. When they reached the spot Drake had been sitting, there was no sign of him. Spencer scanned the jungle, the barrel of his weapon searching the undergrowth for any hint of a threat, as Allie knelt by the river.
“Spencer, this is bad,” she whispered, holding up two fingers red with blood. “They’ve got him.”
He squinted at the leaves and saw the red droplets on the dirt, already coagulating in the heat, and returned to his scrutiny of the surrounding jungle. Allie stood and he shook his head, annoyance coming through his whisper.
“Allie, just hold your horses. We need a plan. Otherwise, even with superior firepower, we could fail, and it’ll cost us our lives.”
“Then start planning. Because based on what we know, we were out of time the second they got their hands on him.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Drake came to slowly, his skull throbbing, his shirt wet with blood from his head wound. The tribesman who’d whacked him with a club stood over him as he gradually regained consciousness – and was the first thing Drake registered when his eyes opened, the lids heavy, reluctant to cooperate. Drake peered around the native and saw that he’d been carried to the clearing, near the altar, and laid on the ground there. The clay-covered man was rooting through Drake’s backpack as the natives stood guard over him. The man held up Drake’s pistol and studied it with interest before dropping it on the ground next to Drake’s rifle and continuing to remove gear from the pack.
Drake’s bindings cut into his wrists, but he knew better than to struggle – an exercise in futility, given that he was outnumbered over twenty to one. Pain seared down his neck as he tried to turn his head, and he cursed silently. This was the second time in a week he’d been tied up by natives, suffering from a head wound. And something told him that this time his experience wouldn’t end with him being led to safety by a shaman’s comely daughter.
His blurry gaze drifted to the altar, still stained rust-colored from the blood of the sacrificed boy, and locked with the clay-smeared man’s, who’d spread out Drake’s meager possessions in front of him. The man approached and Drake could see that his eyes were bloodshot, with a crazed, manic look. Some kind of drug, perhaps from a hallucinogenic plant, Drake thought…and something more. Something deeper than a chemical reality, more akin to barely controlled blind fury.
The man spoke in halting Spanish, watching Drake for a reaction, and when he didn’t get one, he moved closer. Drake could smell him now – a dank, primitive stink, like an animal used to sleeping in filth. The man barked the same words, this time more clearly, but they meant nothing to Drake.
He felt a tug at his belt. The man had his knife and was staring at it as if possessed, his grin displaying diseased gums with only a few teeth left. Drake watched as he keened an atonal hum and then did a little dance to music only he could hear, brandishing the knife like a trophy. For some reason, the display frightened Drake more than anything so far, and his breath froze in his chest as he watched the bizarre performance.
The man seemed oblivious to Drake now, completely entranced by the play of light on the oversized blade. Just as suddenly as his focus had shifted to the knife, he whirled with a cry and moved back to where Drake lay. He screamed, his voice a shriek, holding the knife above Drake’s throat, repeating the gibberish.
Drake clenched his eyes shut and cried out, “I don’t speak Spanish!”
The man stopped, the wicked blade only inches from Drake’s neck. His smell was overpowering, and for a moment Drake thought he would pass out again. Then he sensed the man moving away, and he opened his eyes. The mud-smeared figure was grinning demonically, the boy’s blood still caked on his face as he regarded Drake, the knife hanging loosely at his side, his arms only bone, thin to the point of being emaciated.
“You…speak…English.” The words sounded unfamiliar on the man’s tongue, heavily accented and coarse, as if he was just learning them, the notes different than those he was familiar with – than his native Russian.
“Yes.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “Ah. American.”
“Yes.”
The man nodded as though he’d discovered a great secret, and the tribesmen around him watched with interest as their leader communicated with the captive.
“Why…are you…here?”
“I’m looking for Paititi,” Drake said, seeing no point in lying.
“Paititi? Paititi! Paititi!” the man cried, and then sang the word over and over in his eerie falsetto. He began his shambling jig again, and Drake saw that his toenails were long, yellow, and cracked, like a wild animal’s. The odd song faded as he seemed to lose steam, ending with a wet cough before he stared at Drake again. “This…is lucky day, then…for you. You…found…Paititi.”
“Who are you?” Drake asked, playing for time, praying that Spencer and Allie had registered his absence and returned for him.
“Me? I…I am…called…many names. They mean…nothing…to you. For I…I am ruler…of Paititi. The lost city, da? I am king. A god…here…in earth’s womb.”
“Grigor Palenko?” Drake tried.
Something shifted behind the man’s eyes, and a look of sly cunning returned to them as he licked his lips. “Da. That…was…one of my…names. But he…he is dead. Reborn as…as a god. Risen like phoenix, yes?”
Drake didn’t know how to respond. Palenko had obviously crossed an important line beyond which reason had been abandoned, and now inhabited a dark world of shadows where he was a deity, with the power of life and death in his grasp, worshipped by the men around him. Drake waited for him to continue, wary of saying anything that would set him off.
Palenko shambled to the backpack, knife still clenched in his hand, and picked up Drake’s flashlight. When he clicked the light on, the tribesmen gasped in astonishment as he played the beam into the darkness of the brush.
“See? I am bringer of light. I rule this city…of the dead. Of riches…beyond…imagination…” Palenko seemed to deflate, his train of thought lost. He stopped, defeated; a tired, old, sick man. Turning to his followers, he flicked the light off and raised it over his head, like a high priest preparing to sprinkle holy water upon a crowd.
Drake tried to recapture the Russian’s attention. “Then you found the treasure?”
Palenko’s cackle was maniacal, a half shriek, deranged beyond imagination. “Treasure? Oh, foolish boy. Da, I found. But…real treasure…is in my head…in city of the dead…encased in lead…while rivers run red…” His voice rambled off until Drake couldn’t make out his words any more. Palenko shifted from bare foot to bare foot, his leg muscles also wasted to nothing, and Drake began working his wrists around, trying to free himself.
Palenko seemed departed for another plane, but returned to the present as he tossed the flashlight on the ground near the rest of Drake’s things. He cocked his head from side to side like a bird of prey, the light glinting off the knife blade as he moved it slightly, enraptured by the reflection. Then, without warning, he hurled it at Drake. The blade plunged into the ground barely six inches from Drake’s head. Palenko’s laugh rang through the trees, and then he called out to the assembly in a native dialect.
The same tribesman who had dragged the boy to the altar approached Drake and grabbed him under his arms. He said something to one of the others, and a second native hefted Drake’s feet. They carried him squirming to the altar and set him on top, facing the sky, as Palenko hummed tunelessly to himself, mumbling nonsense as he shuffled his feet in the wet leaves.
The pounding of the nearby drum sounded like cannon fire to Drake as the nightmare performance he’d just watched played out again, only with him as the intended victim this time.
Ramsey's Gold (Drake Ramsey Book 1) Page 27