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 resiliancy 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 snake from the Sucuri.
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 black-water 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.
Monstrous, and the sight of it paralyzed him.
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.
Will dodged the wet, gaping mouth and glistening teeth, his body running on pure, primordial adrenaline, his mind nearly completely shut down. He couldn't think about what he was doing, because any thought he might have would freeze him solid with fear.
The snake lunged twice more, hissing each time, while its tail glided in long, graceful arcs across the stairs, detached from the tension in high display along the rest of its body. After the third strike, the snake withdrew, keeping a slight distance from him and holding his gaze with its abysmally black eyes, while its body continued the slow steady clim
b to the platform.
Will had to make a move. Annie had stopped screaming, and the silence pushed him to full-out panic. He leapt up the final stretch of stairs, certain the snake was coiling around her body, making it impossible for her to draw another breath, but before he could make the platform, he was tackled from behind, his legs banded in an iron grip.
He fell to the stairs, twisting around, expecting to see the snake's tail tightening around him, but instead he came face to face with the end of a gun barrel, the pistol in Corisco's hand. The man weighed down on him, his other arm in a death grip around Will's legs.
“Let it have her,” the man rasped, cocking the pistol. “That was the plan.”
Will didn't think so.
“The plan's changed,” he growled, whipping his hand back and slinging his knife with a lightning-quick action.
Corisco's one open eye widened in shock, his blood flowing from where the blade stuck deep in his chest.
Without wasting a second, Will reached down and jerked the knife free, before rolling over and scrambling the rest of the way to the platform.
At the top of the stairs, he stopped, his way blocked by thick moving coils of dark-skinned green anaconda.
The snake was the only thing moving. Annie was utterly motionless, nearly nose to nose with the monstrous reptile, transfixed by its unwavering gaze. From the back she looked like an angel, her arms outstretched and hanging from the ropes, her fingers curled in a supplicating pose, and the diaphanous swath of golden silk wafting about her.
Cold dread washed through him. He didn't know what to do, what move to make. He stood perfectly still, his heart racing, his hand clutching the knife, watching the snake and the woman hang in timeless limbo together.
Incomprehensibly, the snake wasn't attacking her, only staring, its body swaying in front of her, its black gaze taking her measure.
The shot, when it came, caught him unaware. He didn't hear it until after it had hit him, and when he fell, he fell forward… into the endless green coils of the giant anaconda.
Annie jerked her head around, the spell broken, and saw Will collapse on top of the snake. Beneath him, the anaconda continued to bunch and move its powerful body. Corisco was oblivious to the danger, holding the smoking pistol with a look of triumph flashing across his face, but his victory was brief.
A second shot came quickly after the first, from out of the forest with all the force of a high-powered rifle. The bullet caught Corisco in the chest, and the man sank lifelessly against the stairs.
Its loops slowly uncoiling, the snake glided down the stairs to investigate, moving past Will to hover over Corisco's body. Long moments passed in which Annie feared any number of horrors might unfold, but the beastly serpent did nothing, only slid quietly off the tower and into the dark forest.
“CRAZIEST BLOODY THING I ever saw,” Mad Jack said, ripping open another sterile bandage to press over Annie's cut and bleeding wrists, doing a quick job of bandaging the raw wounds left by the ropes that had bound her. “A snake big enough to eat my horse and you hanging there like friggin' Fay Ray out of King Kong. God, Annie, I ought to tie you up myself and send you home on a slow boat. What's his name? The one who was going up the stairs with just a knife, for Christ's sake, to save you.”
“Will. William Sanchez Travers,” she said, though she truly wasn't paying any attention to him. Her throat throbbed from screaming so much. Mad Jack had brought three men and a woman with him, all heavily armed, and the four of them were up in the golden mouth, working quickly and efficiently to put Will in a body sling and lower him over the side of the tower to the plaza.
“The scientist guy who disappeared? I've heard of him. Don't worry, honey. I've got a floatplane on the river. We'll have him in Manaus in a couple of hours. We just have to get the hell out of here, before the soldiers decide to come back. There's another group working around these mines, but they're too busy stealing gold to bother with us.”
Fat Eddie, she thought, but what really got her attention was Mad Jack calling her “honey.”
He never called her “honey.” For years he'd called her “Pip Parrish,” as in “pipsqueak,” and during his teenage years, he'd called her “Pain Parrish,” as in pain-in-the-butt-Parrish-quit-following-me-around. She'd been twenty before he'd started calling her “Annie” on a regular basis, and for the last four years he'd taken great pride in calling her “Doc,” as in Dr. Parrish.
But he never called her “honey.”
She must look worse than she thought, and she knew she felt worse than she looked—all wobbly inside, really wobbly, from her brain to her toes.
“I'm in shock.”
“You've got that right, Doc,” he said, flashing her a quick glance. He looked worried. Worried as hell. He finished a cursory check of her body, then took off his shirt and put it around her shoulders. “You stay put.” He pumped another round into his rifle and laid it across her lap, before rising to his feet. “I've got to help your friend, Will.”
“Sure,” she said, and her voice sounded weak, even to her.
Frowning in concern, Mad Jack kneeled back down. A swath of midnight-black hair fell forward across his brow, and he brushed it back with a quick, restless gesture. “Annie. I'm going to get you out of here. You can count on that, and you know it, don't you?”
“Yes.” She nodded. Mad Jack never let a person down.
“And you know I love you.”
She nodded again. He'd always loved her, always been there, from as far back as she could remember, and after her mother had hightailed it out of Wyoming, Mad Jack had still been there, all of eight years old and ready to fill in the void her father had been too angry and too proud to notice.
“Good,” he said. “So I know you won't take this wrong.”
She watched as his gaze strayed past her to a sight she knew she couldn't handle—Corisco, where he lay dead on the tower stairs. His mouth tightened into a grim line.
After a brief, intense moment, his gaze came back to her, his eyes a blue so dark they bordered on a no-man's-land between black and slate-gray. Like a glacier-fed lake in high summer, a smitten, fifth-grade girl had once written to him in a heavily decorated poem. Boy, they'd sure gotten a hoot out of the perfumed note—but that little fifth-grade girl had gotten it dead-on.
“Annie, I know holding on to people is not your specialty,” he said, “but whoever this guy is, you might want to consider holding on to him. I love you, but there's no way in hell I would have gone after a thirty-six-foot anaconda with just a knife to save you.”
She gave him another little nod.
“You need to remember that, Doc.” He was frightfully serious, his voice low. “There are lines you can't cross without getting hurt, and I thought I taught you where those lines are.”
He had.
“And I thought I told you that if you wanted me to come back and take care of Corisco Vargas to let me know, and that I would see to it.”
He had.
“And I thought I told you to stay the hell out of Brazil.”
He most definitely had.
He swore, one succinct word, and then his gaze softened the slightest degree.
“And I taught you to stand on your own two feet. Cover me, Annie. I'll be back.” He stood up and strode toward the tower, where two of the men were holding a belaying rope, while the other man and the woman were putting Will over the side in the body sling.
Annie started to tremble. She was in shock, and she was in love, and more than anything else, she wanted to hold Will.
They'd survived. Against all the odds, they'd saved the Indians and caboclos, destroyed Corisco Vargas, and survived Reino Novo.
She'd lost her orchid, though, her beautiful, luminous orchid. Vargas had left both of the specimens in his office, and his whole house had gone up in flames when Mad Jack's team had blown the fuel depot.
She lifted her gaze to where Will was being belayed off the broken snake tower, and in her heart
, she let the orchids go. They didn't matter now. Nothing mattered— except Will.
EPILOGUE
six months later—
location unknown
MMMM, GATO, ANNIE PURRED AS will slowly pulled her into his arms.
He met her gaze in the deepening twilight, his eyes dark and slumberous, before he lowered his mouth to take hers in another wet, deep kiss. She tasted herself on his tongue. She smelled herself on his skin.
She'd marked him. Every time they made love, she marked him as hers, letting him absorb her until she was a part of him. And he was doing the same to her, in the most intensely physical way possible.
Still kissing her, he smoothed his hand over the curve of her stomach, letting his hand rest on the place above her womb.
A son, Tutanji had said, the only other person in the world who knew where they were. The old shaman had brought them in over the mountains, the promise he'd made to Will fulfilled. Some days, looking out over the ancient, rounded hills and the dark green canopy of the rain forest flowing to the horizon, even Annie forgot where they were. She forgot the place they called home was connected to the rest of the world. Some days she wondered if it really was, or if they had somehow disconnected and were floating free.
Not even Gabriela knew where they were. Their supply drop-off was miles and miles from where Tutanji had led them after Will had healed. There was only one way in to their lost world, and it was not a trail for the faint of heart.
He broke off their kiss, and she sighed in contentment, running her hands up along his scalp, holding him close. He'd loved her well. He was the jaguar, more so now than ever, and she was the cat's favorite snack, all of her.
Will knew when she drifted into sleep, and he pulled her close to hold her next to his body. Looking over her shoulder, he checked the sky. She wouldn't get much of a nap, but he would let her have what she could. She would never forgive him if he let her sleep into the dark hours of the night.
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