by Tara Janzen
But her skin was soft, so very smooth, looking like gold satin in the light of the flames. The silk he’d wrapped her in was nearly transparent, it was so finely spun. Her hair was wild in its little-boy cut, but would grow in time, if he gave her time—and he was tempted, so tempted to keep her. He had a terrible sadistic streak when it came to women, and he’d hurt her before, but he actually thought that for her he could change. That he could control his more primitive instincts and perhaps relearn the art of tenderness.
She was so unusual, so unique, truly a prize worth keeping.
Or he could make an offering of her to the devil gods of the Amazon and send those images rocketing around the world and make himself a name unlike any other in history.
Decisions, he thought in irritation. He usually had no trouble making decisions, but just like in Yavareté, she made him hesitate, made him doubt.
He came up behind her on the golden platform and smoothed his hand over her bare shoulder, and felt her flinch. Sex had been so strange for him since he’d first taken the devil frog potion. The visions, which had made him powerful beyond his dreams, had also made him impotent, an odd contradiction he’d learned to live with in his own twisted fashion.
“What am I going to do with you, Dr. Parrish?” he asked, letting his hand continue to trail over her skin, all the way across her shoulders and then down the lovely curve of her back.
She trembled beneath his touch, and Corisco found her reaction appealingly erotic.
“Keep our deal,” she said succinctly, and he smiled again. No one made him smile more than Annie Parrish.
“You should know better than to deal with the devil, Doctor.” He continued along with his hand on her body, walking around the platform, breaking their contact only once when he rounded one of the fangs. Then his hand was back on her, trailing down the front of her arm and coming to rest on her breast.
With his other hand, he lifted her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. Nothing but revulsion showed in her eyes, but he found that erotic as well, so much so, a spark of life actually stirred in his groin.
It happened now and then, but never with enough force to accomplish anything. So why keep her? he asked himself, and with his answer, her fate was sealed. He lowered his hand from her breast. She was unique, yes, but still no match for him.
As for the orchids? The Amazon’s single most unendangered species was the Cientista south americanus. They could be found hanging from the trees, snorkeling through the water, padding around after the Indians, cutting plants, stealing insects, tagging mammals, tracking birds, and generally sticking their noses in, under, and around every single living thing in the rain forest. If he needed one, he wouldn’t have to look far to get one.
~ * ~
Annie heard Corisco descend the stairs behind her, and she wanted to scream in frustration, which beat the hell out of giving in to her fear. She’d seen the look in his eyes, and he was going to kill her and Will. She knew it. Her strategy had backfired.
Biting off an oath, she jerked against the ropes tying her to the golden fangs.
She’d clung to stoic resistance in Yavareté, close-mouthed, unyielding resistance, and gotten herself beaten from head to toe and hung naked in chains. She’d thought she’d try a different tack this time, and though Vargas hadn’t raised so much as a hand to her, and she was still clothed—in a manner of speaking—overall, she feared the consequences of capitulation, even feigned capitulation, were going to be far harsher.
And where was Will? She’d been brought to the plaza hours ago and had yet to see him. The light from the torches caught every ounce of gold on the paved courtyard and the snake tower, making the plaza shimmer with flickering brilliance, but it also made seeing into the cages on the perimeter impossible. Everything outside the circle of gold was cast in the deep darkness of the forest night. Now and then, she glimpsed the movement of one of the guards patrolling the cages, or caught a brief shift of shadows inside the iron bars, but nothing she could identify, and certainly not Will.
Below her, row upon row of armed soldiers were standing at attention, their assault weapons in their hands. It was going to be a massacre, a bloody, bloody massacre, and she was going to have a bird’s-eye view.
Corisco was crazed.
And she was trapped in the mouth of a giant snake hammered out of gold. Tied to its teeth, for God’s sake.
She jerked her arms again and swore beneath her breath, her fury and her fear rising to the surface in equal measure. She had to get free. Will was down there, wounded, and if she couldn’t get free, she was going to end up watching him die.
CHAPTER ~ 29
Will dragged the unconscious guard into the forest, his knuckles still smarting from the hit he’d taken, before he’d grabbed the man’s rifle and jerked him hard into the iron bars, knocking him out cold. As soon as he’d unlocked his own cage, he’d tossed the keys to Tutanji. The captives were already swarming out of the cages, keeping to the shadows, and as soon as someone noticed—any second—all hell was going to break loose. Will was going to use that chaos to get to Annie.
He grabbed the guard’s rifle and pumped a fresh round into the chamber. He’d seen Corisco bound up the stairs to see her. The bastard hadn’t stayed long, just long enough to manhandle her a bit and cop a feel.
He jerked the guard’s knife out of its sheath and took off running, his jaw tight with anger. He’d graduated from Harvard summa cum laude, but he hadn’t played this hand smart at all.
He was halfway to the snake tower, skirting the outside edge of the cages, when a huge explosion from down by the river stopped him dead in his tracks and almost stopped his heart. The earth shook with the force of it, the tremors racing beneath the ground and knocking half of Corisco’s troops in the plaza off balance. Will rode the tremor out and knew there would be hell to pay, a thought he no sooner had than he heard a tree crash in the forest behind him, taking out everything in its path. Above the river, a huge fireball lit up the night sky, with smoke and flames spewing from its core, and Will wondered who in the hell was blowing up Reino Novo.
~ * ~
Fat Eddie sat in his big wooden chair with the detonator in his hand, chuckling, his big belly rippling in cadence with the sound. What a day, he thought. What a hell of a day.
He and his men had taken over the camp of the number two mine on Reino Novo’s northernmost boundary early in the afternoon, and he’d had the jagunços hauling out gold all day—up until Vargas’s troops had flanked them and cut off their route to the river.
Things had gotten sticky then for a while, but in the end, sheer numbers had prevailed. When they’d discovered Vargas’s men rigging the camp and mine to explode, they’d taken over the job and done it right.
Maybe too right, Eddie thought, grinning through the soot and ash that now dusted everything in sight.
One of his men came running up to where he sat, mouthing words and gesturing, and Eddie realized he couldn’t hear him through the ringing in his ears. But he understood exactly what the man was saying—“The second blast, she is ready, senhor!”
~ * ~
Annie hung petrified from her ropes, trying to stand perfectly still, a near impossibility with the snake tower swaying from side to side. As terrifying as her situation was, she found herself suddenly fixated on who in the hell had designed the tower, and if its infrastructure had been engineered to withstand small earthquakes.
She didn’t think so. She could feel the tremors running through it.
In the aftermath of the explosion and all the chaos erupting on the plaza, with downed troops trying to scramble to their feet, and her own immediate problem, it took her a moment to realize the captives in the cages were escaping.
Her thoughts immediately flew to Will. He had a chance.
But in the next moment a second explosion rocked the sky, sending another shock wave through the ground. The tower shuddered beneath her again, a long, deep, aching shudder centered in its co
re, sounding a lot like collapsing panels of steel, or the opening up of a giant, squeaky door hinge.
Not good, she told herself, wrapping her fingers more tightly around the ropes, and when she heard a higher pitched noise from above, her assessment dropped even lower—until she looked up and saw a deep crack inching its way across the top of the snake’s right fang.
She jerked on her rope, using all her strength, trying to help the crack along. If it gave way, she might be able to get free.
A similar high-pitched noise sounded from behind her, and she swung her head around to see what else was giving way. It was another crack ripping down the snake’s throat, following the pattern of the golden scales and leaving an ever-widening gash in its wake.
The tower was going to collapse, one way or another, and the only question in Annie’s mind was whether or not she’d still be on it when it did.
~ * ~
Corisco picked himself up off the stairs for the second time, his jaw clenched to the point of pain.
What were those fools down at the number two mine thinking?
Looking around the plaza, he saw utter chaos, but not the chaos he had planned, and his cordeiros were escaping, sneaking off into the night, running for their miserable lives.
He jerked his head at the lieutenant on his right. “Round them up! Inmediatamente!” Frightened women and old men shouldn’t be too hard to corral, not by armed soldiers. “The ones you cannot catch, shoot.”
The lieutenant snapped off a salute and quickly barked off a set of orders to the others.
Corisco watched his soldiers regroup, some to follow the lieutenant, others remaining to secure the plaza.
More trees crashed in the forest surrounding the plaza, convincing him to stay put until everything could be set back in order. He looked up the tower to see how his most important captive had taken the explosions, and felt the oddest sensation—a ripple of unease, a first niggling of doubt about the immediate future.
El Mestre, his beautiful snake tower with the diamond and emerald eyes and the seven-foot-long golden fangs, was cracking. He took a step down to get a better view and felt a second ripple of unease. The biggest gash was going straight down the throat, and if it didn’t stop, the golden snake was going to break open like a cracked egg, and like a cracked egg, everything that was inside it was going to come pouring out.
Everything.
More than a ripple of unease washed through him at the thought.
Carefully, he took another step down, and suddenly the whole world came out from under him.
CHAPTER ~ 30
Fat Eddie lay smashed into the ground where he’d landed after coming flying out of his chair. The only thing that had kept him from being broken into a hundred pieces by the last explosion was the resiliency and the sheer quantity of his fat, and that the forest had sheltered him from the worst of the flying debris.
Saved by his fat, the words ran over and over in his mind as he lifted his head and looked around. He’d been saved by his fat. Two of his skinniest men had been broken against the trees. They hadn’t been heavy enough to fall to the ground. Not so Eddie. It took more than the biggest fucking explosion he’d ever heard to throw Fat Eddie Mano into a tree. Just as it took at least three of his strongest men to get him to his feet.
“Getulio!” he shouted. “Joaquin! Alberto! Come help me!”
One by one, his men picked themselves up out of the forest and brushed themselves off. Most were cursing, but cursing happily. They were all rich men tonight, their boats loaded with gold and the night full of the promise for more.
The explosion, though, she’d been a mother, and Eddie doubted if Corisco Vargas still owned a fuel depot on the Cauaburi. No, no, no. There was no more gas, no more barrels of oil at Reino Novo. Nothing but the destruction of the fuel depot could have made such an explosion.
He hadn’t done it. Neither had any of his men. Gold was their only desire. Corisco sure as hell hadn’t done it to himself, which only left Guillermo, but Eddie would bet his portion of the gold that Guillermo hadn’t done it, either. Guillermo, if he was still alive, would be where Annie Parrish was, and the little cat had been tied up on that great gold snake all night.
Which meant there was someone else, someone damned serious about taking Corisco Vargas down and Reino Novo apart.
Night of the Devil, Eddie thought, grunting as his men got him rolled over onto his back. He was beginning to like this Night of the Devil.
Getulio had the strength of an ox. So did Joaquin, and Alberto was built like a bull. Between the three of them, they got Eddie back into his chair, where he settled in with a contented chuckle.
Yes. The noite do diabo had already made him a very rich man. There was only one more thing he needed, El Mestre, the towering snake altar where virgins died and terror was born, though Eddie had his doubts about Annie Parrish’s virginity after all those nights with Guillermo.
“To the plaza,” he ordered, and four men came forward to help with the lifting of the chair.
~ * ~
Nothing moved in the plaza. Everyone lay on the ground, stunned, knocked down by the sky-rocking explosion. Will had been sent flying—and he’d lost his gun.
“Damn,” he swore under his breath, feeling every ache and pain.
Bracing himself with his good arm, he slowly pushed himself to his knees. His head swam, but he rode it out. A soldier near the edge of the gold paving looked up and saw him, and for a moment, Will wondered if he was going to shoot, but the look in the younger man’s eyes told Will he didn’t give a damn about one more Indian escaping. The look in the soldier’s eyes said he didn’t give a damn about anything except finding a way out of Reino Novo and saving his own ass.
Too hurt to feel much relief, Will shifted his gaze to Annie and the tower. The altar was holding, but he didn’t think it could last for long. Corisco was lying facedown halfway up the tower stairs, bleeding from a gash on his forehead.
He had to get Annie free.
Pushing himself the rest of the way to his feet, he didn’t take his eyes off her. She looked very still, hanging from her ropes, her slight body limp, the wisp of gold cloth wrapped around her fluttering in a gentle breeze. The size of the explosion and the huge flames shooting into the sky down by the river told Will there probably wasn’t a gallon of fuel left to be had in all of Reino Novo. The night was lit up by the fire, and the heat of it had created wind on an otherwise windless night.
He didn’t think the tower could take much more. Its basic structure was cracked all the way down the middle now, and as he watched, a shadow moved out of the crack. It didn’t look like much to him at first, maybe no more than an odd flicker of flame, but as he stumbled forward, forcing his senses to clear, he realized it wasn’t a shadow at all, but a fer-de-lance sliding out of the tower in a long, sinuous movement. The snake, like any other wild creature, no matter how deadly, preferred the dark, safe forest to a glittering, firelit stage and quickly chose the shortest route to the ground, a speedy transverse of a curve of golden scales.
The snake that came after the viper probably didn’t give a damn about dark, safe forests or anything else, Will realized. It just kept coming, yard after incredible yard of huge, gargantuan anaconda, its tongue flicking, its powerful muscles bunching and stretching as it slid onto the stairs and started climbing upward toward the golden snake’s mouth.
He needed to move. He needed to save Annie.
But the snake... he came to a slow, stumbling halt. My God, the huge snake was like the one before—Tutanji’s anaconda, the snake of his nightmares.
The scars on his chest and back began to burn, transfixing him with the memory of pain, agonizing pain, reminding him of the night Tutanji’s anaconda had gone hunting in the lost world, of the night the giant serpent had found him asleep on the shores of a blackwater river and devoured him deep in the heart of the rain forest.
He had to go, had to get to Annie, but the snake was enormous.
~ * ~
With the last of her strength, Annie raised her head to look out on the plaza. Will was still there, looking shell-shocked, and her heart went out to him. She was so damned tired. She had no fear left. She was just going to hang from the ropes until Will could get up the stairs and set her free.
“Will?” she called out, and his eyes slowly lifted to meet hers. She knew the instant they cleared, the instant he came back to himself and truly saw her. It was the same instant he started running.
She slumped back down, and a smile almost touched her lips. He’d been wounded, and had to be at least as exhausted as she was, but the worst was over now. He was free, and—and what was that?
Her body stiffened.
What was that flickering over the edge of the platform?
Was it a darting lizard? The Amazon was full of lizards.
The thing slithered like a lightning bolt over the edge again, and the hairs rose all along the nape of her neck.
She’d been wrong. Dead wrong. She had plenty of fear left, and when a huge, blackish-green head of the biggest snake she had ever seen lifted into view and came swinging toward her, she let loose with a scream so bloodcurdling it echoed off the trees.
CHAPTER ~ 31
The snake, looking like a quarter of a ton and well over thirty feet long, actually backed off, swinging away from the shriek that emanated from one small woman’s mouth.
Will didn’t stop running. Even with the head backing off, the giant body was moving itself up into the golden mouth where Annie hung from the gleaming fangs, one great coil slapping down and sliding off another, yard after yard of snake slowly gaining the higher ground.
Will took the stairs three at a time, going right over the top of the unconscious Vargas and the dozens of kingmaker beetles scrabbling out of the broken tower. He had his knife in his hand, ready, but before he could reach the platform, the snake attacked him with a hissing strike, lowering its huge head from Annie’s level down to his and lunging.