The Lost Continent
Page 11
“Wade told me either you don't survive this job or I don't, there's no two ways about it,” he said. “So now, I have to live up to my end of the bargain and if I don't, I end up dead.”
“Cold-blooded murder was never your style,” said Elisa. “Like you said, you didn't want it to be this way. So just turn your back, make up some story about how I got away at the last minute.”
“We both know they won't buy that. It's all or nothing time, sweetheart.”
“Then why haven't you pulled the trigger?”
Lucas sighed and lowered the gun. He pushed past her and went to the controls, starting up the boat. “Well what are you waiting for, pick up anchor and let's get the hell out of here.”
Elisa smiled and did as she was ordered, hoisting the anchor and Lucas moved the boat into gear, heading back towards Yonaguni Island. When they reached there, he helped her get King out of the boat but he remained inside.
“Do whatever you have to so the pilot will take you where you want to go, not where the Order wants to go,” he said.
“What about you?” asked Elisa. “Aren't you coming with?”
“Who are you kidding, Elsie?” asked Lucas. “Thanks to you, I've got to disappear now.”
“Guess that means goodbye, huh Davalos?” asked Elisa.
Lucas shrugged. “Never know, you might get lucky.” He moved back to the boat controls.
“Hey Davalos!”
He looked over his shoulder.
“Better luck next time,” said Elisa.
Lucas smiled back. “I'll see you in hell, Elisa Hill.”
CHAPTER 20
Elisa sat in a bar in Narita International Airport in Tokyo, slowly sipping on the gin and tonic she ordered. A hand fell on her shoulder and she heard a soft voice from behind.
“Is this seat taken?”
Asami slid onto the stool and smiled at Elisa. “Max and Laki are safe.”
“Thanks,” said Elisa.
“Don't mention it,” said Asami. “Been a while since I tore apart the Order's hired help.”
“Back there, Wade told me a little bit more about everything that's going on,” said Elisa. “He said that there's a war brewing between man and the gods, that we're heading down the same path as the Naa'cal did. You know anything about that?”
“Not at all,” said Asami.
“Are you telling the truth?”
Asami just smiled. “Would you believe me if I said yes or if I said no?”
“I don't know, so why don't you answer the question and let me come to my own conclusions.”
“Pass.”
“Excuse me?”
“You want to know is there something bigger going on behind the scenes?” asked Asami. “Truth is you already know the answer to that question. Now what you have to ask yourself is whether or not Wade can be trusted. More than that, you've known from the moment we met that I'm not human. But has Wade been as upfront about his identity?”
“So you're saying the Order isn't run by humans?” asked Elisa.
“I'm saying there are other links between the Order and the Naa'cal than just their interest in Lemuria,” said Asami. “What those links are, well that's for you to discover on your own. I can't give you the answers.”
“Can't or won't?”
“Doesn't matter. What does matter is you need to stick to your principles and do what you think is right.”
“And will you stick with me?”
“This time, our paths coincided and we were able to help each other out,” said Asami. “Next time, you might not be so lucky.”
“Does that mean there will come a time when we're forced to kill each other? Is there any truth to what Wade said?”
“Maybe yes, maybe no, maybe I haven't any idea,” said Asami. “Things aren't always so black and white.”
“Guess so,” said Elisa.
“By the way, you get any evidence from Lemuria?” asked Asami.
Elisa held up a digital camera and tossed it. Asami caught it in one hand and turned it on. The display screen said the memory card was empty.
“What's this?” she asked.
“Maybe some sort of electromagnetic interference from the gateway or maybe it was magic,” said Elisa. “Either way, any evidence I had of Lemuria was gone.”
“I'm sorry, I know you were counting on that. Proving your parents right and everything.”
Elisa looked up in surprise. “What?”
“You know, redeeming their reputation.”
“Asami, I never told you about my parents,” said Elisa.
“You didn't?” asked Asami. Elisa shook her head and Asami shrugged as she stood. “Word must get around then.”
“Did you know them?” asked Elisa.
Asami tipped her hat. “Enjoy your flight. It's a long way back to America.”
THANK YOU!
Thank you for reading The Lost Continent! Be sure to follow the adventures of Elisa Hill and her allies to the next book, Dragon Kings of the Orient!
Follow Asami in a solo adventure in “The Wild Hunt,” a short story available for free to subscribers of my mailing list! Just go to percivalconstantine.com/subscribe and sign up!
If you have a few minutes to spare, a short review where you bought the book would be greatly appreciated! Reviews are one of the biggest factors in whether or not a new reader will give a book a chance, so please help if you can!
Thanks again, and I’ll see you in the next book!
Turn the page for a sneak peek at Dragon Kings of the Orient!
PREVIEW OF DRAGON KINGS OF THE ORIENT
As a thank you, here is a sneak preview of the next book in the series, Dragon Kings of the Orient!
There were few people who would risk climbing Mount Rushmore alone. Even fewer would do so in the dark. And to perform a free solo climb, without the use of any support equipment in the dead of night is what most would term insanity.
Elisa Hill might be termed insane by many. To begin with, despite being a respected professor of mythology at the prestigious Burroughs University in Lester City, she spent her off-hours operating as what many in academia might refer to as a “crank.” Elisa spent her time away from the university exploring the legends and mythologies of the world. Stories which any rational person knew were pure fiction.
A cool wind chased away the heat of the day as she dangled between the monolithic features of Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. She ignored the hooks driven into the cliff face for the use of the National Park Service, because a rope climb would take more time than she could afford.
The night-vision goggles she wore were indispensable on such a climb and the pack fixed to her back was light. She carried only emergency supplies, flashlight and smartphone onto which she had downloaded maps of the area. Affixed to the back of her belt were a pair of scabbards filled with kukri—curved Nepalese daggers. Hanging by her side were a rope and grapple. Normally she preferred to travel with a bit more protection, but she had to travel light on this expedition.
Elisa’s hands were gloved, the grips on the palm aiding her ascent. As she chimney-climbed up an opening, the anticipation almost made her mouth water. She was on the verge of uncovering a myth long associated with the North American continent, one which Coronado had set out to discover centuries earlier.
Her night-vision goggles flooded her eyes with a sudden brightness that blinded as she was reaching for a handhold. She slipped, skidding down the rock, blindly scrabbling to catch some projection that might arrest her fall. She stuck out a foot, managing to land some slight leverage on a climbing hook for the National Park Service maintenance team. Her hands found some cracks she could jam her fingers in and maintain her balance. Once she was sure that she could maintain her grip, she removed the goggles. At first she saw nothing but spots swimming before her eyes and she wondered if the sudden flare of light might have permanently damaged her vision, but slowly her eyesight returned and when she looked toward the summit she saw the night sky illumin
ated by a floodlight.
She feared that momentarily the spotlight might be shifted to reveal her hanging on the face of the cliff so she shifted her body in order to reach the grapple. Elisa had to act fast to avoid detection, but nothing could prepare her for what came at her next. Looking up at the summit, the light was obscured by a silhouette of a man. The silhouette raised his arms and something he held in them.
Elisa threw the grapple and it clattered across the bridge of Roosevelt's nose. She carefully reeled the rope tight and breathed a sigh of relief as the grapple latched onto Roosevelt’s mustache. She released her body from its tenuous perch and swung from the rope just as the man opened fire on her with an automatic weapon. The muzzle flash strobed against Roosevelt's feature and bullets cast past Elisa. On the apex of her swing, Elisa realized that her rope wasn't long enough to take her to safety. With the black chasm of the steep cliff face yawning below her Elisa took a horrible chance and released the rope. Her momentum sent her flying to the tip of Roosevelt’s nose. She impacted and made a grab for some sort of hold, but her hands could not beat the force of gravity which pulled her inexorably downward.
Elisa exhaled in relief when her feet found leverage on Roosevelt's mustache. She drew one of the kukri, jamming it into a crevice between strands of Roosevelt's mustache hair and holding her grip. The gunman changed position on top of the cliff and Elisa drew her second kukri. It was forty feet from the spot where Elisa clung to below Roosevelt's nose and where the gunman took up his new vantage point. Forty feet was a considerable throw on flat land, let alone straight upward—but Elisa rarely let the odds deter her. She threw the kukri at the gunman, striking him in the shoulder just as he was about to open fire again.
The wound was a surprise and the gunman lost his hold on his rifle. It clattered down the side of the monument, echoing as it fell.
She rested atop Roosevelt’s mustache and pulled the kukri from the stone. Before she could continue her ascent, the wind began to pick up and Elisa heard the thumping sound of a rotor. Looking over her shoulder, she witnessed a helicopter rising through the gloom, a belly-mounted spotlight sweeping across the craggy faces of the past presidents as it neared her location.
“Oh you have got to be kidding!” she muttered.
The helicopter hovered with the side door facing Elisa. It opened and a gunman emerged, taking aim with his rifle. Before Elisa was revealed in the spotlight she knew she had to take decisive action—something unexpected. Something crazy. She clamped the kukri between her teeth and sprang from the monument. She soared over the gap, the jagged slopes yawning beneath her, as the gunman opened fire. Bullets whined past her, narrowly missing her athletic form. Elisa’s hands latched onto the skid and the gunman tried to peer over the edge of the copter to get a good shot off. Elisa switched her orientation so she was facing the monument and swung her legs up with all her might.
The soles of her boots struck the gunman’s rifle, shoving it back into his chest. She swung again, this time releasing the skid and flying into the copter’s cabin, temporarily pinning the groaning gunman to the ground beneath her legs. She could see his fallen rifle lying on the floor of the helicopter and she reached out to grab it—the kukri still between her teeth.
Her intention was to turn the rifle on the pilot before the gunman beneath her legs could recover from the stunning blow she had dealt him, but her attention had been so focused on that gunman that she had failed to realize there were actually a total of three men in the chopper.
The second passenger pushed a Beretta against her head and she heard the click of the bullet loading into the chamber as he pulled back the slide. This passenger's face was deadly serious beneath his closely-cropped brown hair and thin beard. “Drop the rifle. And the knife.”
Elisa opened her mouth, the kukri falling from her teeth and clattering on the floor. Then she uncurled her fingers from around the stock of the rifle and let it drop. She raised her arms in surrender. The gunman relaxed a little. “I have to admit, I’m impressed. I’d heard stories about how good you were but they’re not as impressive as seeing you in action.”
“You know me?”
The man chuckled and relaxed the Beretta. “You’d be hard-pressed to find a myth hunter who doesn’t know about you, Ms. Hill. Not to mention your family.”
“Who are you?” asked Elisa.
“My name is Jason Shroud,” he said.
“I’ve never heard of a myth hunter by that name.”
“No, you wouldn’t have,” said Shroud. “My organization goes to great lengths to keep our activities a secret.”
“What organization?”
“If you’re willing to remain civil, I can put this gun away and explain everything to you once we land. Deal?”
Want to know what happens next? Pick up your copy of Dragon Kings of the Orient today!
ALSO BY PERCIVAL CONSTANTINE
Vanguard
The Event
Come The Exemplar
Cold War Frankenstein
Air of Revolution
Power Surge
Rise of the Red Fist
Infernum
Love & Bullets
Outlaw Blues
Gentleman Rogue (Coming Summer 2015!)
The Myth Hunter
The Lost Continent
Dragon Kings of the Orient
The Wild Hunt
Curse of the Necronomicon
Luther Cross
The Reckoning
Ties That Bind
Bloodlust (Coming April 2015!)
Non-Series
Fallen
SoulQuest
Short Stories
Tales of the Rook
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Percival Constantine is proud to be part of the New Pulp movement as an author, editor, and book formatter. Born and raised in the Chicago area, Percival has a Bachelor of Arts in English and Mass Media from Northeastern Illinois University and currently lives in Japan’s Kagoshima prefecture, where he also works as a literature and writing instructor. His first book, Fallen, was published in 2007 and he has since written a number of other works for PulpWork Press, Pro Se Productions, Airship 27, and others. He’s perhaps most well-known for two of his pulp series, Infernum and The Myth Hunter. View all of Percival’s books here.
Percival is also a contributor for WhatCulture and GaijinPot, as well as the Regional Partner for Kagoshima at JapanTravel.
You can connect with Percival on Twitter at @PerConstantine, subscribe to his Facebook page, or follow him on Goodreads. His website is PercivalConstantine.com.
Percival also hosts The Exploding Typewriter: Pulp Writers on Writing Pulp, a podcast featuring various New Pulp creators discussing their craft. He also co-hosts The Geek Screen podcast with John Bracich, where the two comment on movie and TV adaptations of comic books.