It was no more than six or eight feet to the mouth of the well which opened above my head, my intended escape route. The problem was that the light shining through it fell full on my face, like a spotlight on a rock star in the middle of the stage.
Unfortunately, only a few seconds went by between this hopeful discovery and a hoarse growl, which echoed threateningly off the walls of the cavern.
76
Three pairs of blood-shot eyes watched me from the foot of that mountain of bones, anger flaming from their pupils.
Together with the enormous white fangs sticking out from half-opened mouths, they were the only thing I could see of the creatures on the edge of the shadows. Their ebony bodies melted into the darkness resembling bodiless beings, like the Cheshire cat, with only eyes and teeth floating in the dark.
The three Morcegos seemed furious and expectant at the same time, growling threateningly but not stepping closer. It was a very unusual behavior after what I had seen until then, since they usually attacked at first sight. But on this occasion they hesitated, swaying rhythmically as they showed their sharp teeth. I was wondering why they had not lunged at me the moment they had seen me when I noticed how one of them stared at the mountain I was perched on, then looked at me with renewed fury.
Of course.
That was it.
That pile of bones must have a meaning for them, and the fact that I was on top of it confused them and annoyed them at the same time. Maybe, as long as I did not come down they would not attack me. Although it was a precarious status quo that would end the moment they came out of their stupor. And I had a feeling, from the increasing volume of their snorting, that it would not be too long.
I had to find a solution to that fragile balance before they did. However, I was sure that if I tried to make it to the irregular edges of the hole and failed, they would come at me immediately.
I needed a miracle, but I was guessing that neither God nor any of his Saints were in the habit of looking down into that basement of the lower world.
I noticed then that I had been holding my breath for almost a minute. When I exhaled, that seemed to be the sign the Morcegos were waiting for, as they immediately took a step forward, and then another, and another. In reply I took one step back, and that was it. The confined space of my lookout would not let me go any further.
The Morcegos, though, stepped forward more confidently to the base of the mound.
My time was coming up, and the miracle was not.
I looked around, as if waiting to see the sign for an emergency exit light up in the darkness.
It was then that I felt something poking my back, something sticking up out of my back pocket.
It took me a moment to remember what it was. The flare.
Without thinking, I pulled it out and stamped the base. The burst of red light this produced blinded me momentarily, but made the Morcegos, who were beginning to climb up, jump back down with a start.
I swept the flare around my feet, trying to make them back up further. Then, as I looked up again I noticed a few red-stained lianas hanging from the ceiling not too far away. They stretched as far as the entrance of the well of light they crawled up through.
I put the flare between my teeth, ignoring the fact that it burned my lips and almost stopped me from breathing. I chose what looked like the sturdiest liana and leapt onto it, trying to make the most of my slight advantage.
Unfortunately, although the liana held, the tiny roots that joined it to the ceiling did not. When I let my weight hang from it, they tore from the rock, and part of the creeper I hoped to escape by fell far enough to come within reach of the Morcegos.
In any case, it would not take long for them to realize that from where I had jumped they would be able to reach the liana easily, so it was time to climb up and fast.
Luckily, the creeper I was clinging to like a monkey was thick and irregular enough to give me plenty of holds, to let me climb up quickly to the mouth of that vertical well. By the light of the flare I could see that in the skylight, which was not much more than three feet wide, there were no obvious supports I could use. There were irregularities on the rock wall, along with some projecting roots. These might be enough for a chimney crawl, with my arms and legs pressing on the sides of the well to force my way up and through.
Just then I thought to look down… to see that the Morcegos had recovered from the initial confusion and were proving to be excellent climbers. They were already on the lianas and less than ten feet from me, ascending much faster than I had managed to myself.
They were going to reach me before I could get out of the well.
Trying hard to ignore them, I began to slide up the vertical wall, straining my muscles, without really noticing where I was placing my hands or feet. It was madness, and it could easily lead me to a wrong step which would end up with my bones at the bottom.
But I had no choice if I wanted to survive.
At the end of the vertical tunnel I could see daylight, like a doorway to paradise.
In its deepest meaning, that light stood for life. The darkness which the ferocious, ever-closer, growls were coming from, on the other hand, represented death. A terrible death that I didn’t think I would be able to escape from.
I secured myself against the wall with one hand and my feet, then took the flare from my mouth with my free hand and aimed it down.
I should not have done that.
Immediately underneath, less than three feet away from the soles of my boots, two evil red ghosts roared in anger at being blinded. Two faces filled with animal rage, a blood-thirsty predator’s rather than a hominid’s.
For one instant I remained paralyzed with terror, and I nearly lost my grip and fell.
It was clear that if I went on climbing they would be upon me in a few seconds more. I stuck the flare in a tiny crack on the rock wall and prayed it would grant me some advantage.
I was ruining knees and nails as I desperately crawled upward, trying not to look down, keeping my eyes on the circle of light above my head which was getting closer inch by inch.
I gasped with each move in that desperate fight against fear, not to mention my own cramping muscles, which were in agony but still had to hold me for a few feet more.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that the reddish glare was fading. The short life of the flare must be coming to an end. As soon as this happened, seconds later, a new chorus of furious snorting echoed along the stone walls, and I knew the relentless hunt had begun again.
Thanks to the flare I had a slight advantage, but I was not sure it would be enough. In fact when I looked behind me I saw the gleam of three pairs of eyes much closer than I had expected.
The mouth of the well was close, but they were even closer.
The panting of their breathing and the stench coming from them were growing stronger every second, but there was nothing to do but keep going. I could even hear the irritating screech of their nails as they scratched the rock, getting inexorably ever closer.
The exit was less than twelve feet away. I was beginning to think there might be a chance for me yet, releasing me against all the odds from a certain death, when a powerful claw closed on my ankle.
The downward pull was phenomenal, and although I saw it coming and held onto a crack in the wall, I could feel my hands slipping. I lost my footing and fell into the void.
77
Before I had time to open my mouth and yell, I bumped into something in my way. Flinging my arms out wildly, I ended up clinging to something I did not recognize at first.
Inexplicably, I ended up clinging to the back of the Morcego that had pulled me down. There was not enough light to be clear about exactly what was happening, but there was really no need. I knew perfectly well that my right arm was lying over his shoulder and across his chest and that I was holding onto his forearm with my left.
I was just like a chimp clinging to its mom’s back.
If it were
not for the fact that the creature intended to bite my head off, the whole scene would have been amusing.
The Morcego’s hairless skin was oily and slippery, and now that my nose was so close to his neck, the stench coming from him was indescribable. It was a mixture of sweat, filth, urine, and rotting flesh that nearly made me faint.
He was as surprised as I was. He tried to get rid of me, but as he needed both hands to bear our weights, all he could do was shake himself spasmodically and roar threateningly.
However, the other two Morcegos that had been following could not be far behind, and no doubt, they would come to help any moment.
Technically I had managed a draw, but I could not keep it up much longer. I had to think of something.
Before I could come up with anything, the Morcego I was clinging to decided to act. At the risk of falling, he loosened his left arm from the wall and drew it backward, in an attempt to grab my head. I saw it coming and had time to duck, so that his sharp nails only grazed my temple. Without meaning to, I found myself wrapped around his neck, choking him.
In his violent attempts to get rid of me he clawed my arm. I cried out in pain and wrapped my left arm around his neck as well… At that precise moment another Morcego grabbed one of my legs.
With just one hand, the Morcego I was strangling found himself bearing his own weight, as well as my own and part of the Morcego’s that was pulling my ankle.
Predictably, what had to happen did happen.
Unable to bear it any longer, the Morcego let go, with me still on his back, and we both tumbled down on the ones below.
Instinctively I let go of the Morcego and flung out my arms in an attempt to grab at the wall, searching vainly for some support. In the event, perhaps to make up for all the bad luck of the past few days, fate smiled on me for once. One of the plastic bands Souza’s men had used to tie my hands together, which still hung round my wrist like a bracelet, caught on a piece of root that was jutting out of the wall. I was left hanging from that thin plastic band over the abyss.
The next I knew of my hunters was the noise their bodies made as they crashed loudly against the mound of bones. Apparently they had tumbled one on top of the other until the whole lot fell down the well.
When I had my breath back, I secured myself between the walls as best I could. As soon as I felt energetic enough I went on with the ascent, desperate to get out of that hole once and for all.
Taking exaggerated care not to slip at the last minute, I reached the top of the well and the longed-for early evening sunlight. At last, after what had seemed an eternity of darkness, I could feel it warming my face.
With one last push I crawled out on all fours. Once my eyes had adjusted to the bright light of day, I got to my knees to see where I was.
To my astonishment I discovered I was above ground level, somewhere that was very familiar. Then I turned around slowly and understood where I had come out. I found myself confronted with the inscrutable black stone monolith, which reared impressively some thirty feet above my head.
I still found it hard to believe I was back here again after crawling up what we had taken to be a bottomless well. I walked back to the edge with the idea of looking down, but then a chilling bellow, a mixture of pain and rage, came up from the depths of that shadowy stone gorge.
It was not hard to decide that this was a good moment to get away from there immediately.
Besides, I had an urgent meeting to keep.
78
I jumped down the steps of the pyramid-ziggurat as fast as my legs would carry me, and did not stop as I headed for the spot where I had left Cassie and the professor under the eyes of the two surviving mercenaries.
I had no intention of catching them by surprise: just the opposite, in fact. As I came close I put my hands in my pockets and began to whistle nonchalantly, trying to appear natural. I came up to the clearing where my friends were waiting as if I were taking a quiet stroll in the country.
A little further I reached the spot where both of them were still sitting on the ground, with one of the thugs pointing his gun at them. The other one moved forward to meet the newcomer and got the surprise of his life when he saw me, so calm and cool, instead of his boss and his two comrades.
“Hi there!” I smiled and waved both hands so he could see I was unarmed.
“What took you so long?” the professor asked, his hands behind his head.
“I got held up. I’ll tell you later.”
It took the mercenary a moment to react. Although he still looked stunned, he raised his semi-automatic and in two strides was in front of me aiming it at my chest. “O que ha aconteceu?” he asked, clearly confused. “Onde estão os outros?”
“Dead,” I said still smiling.
The mercenary took a step forward and pressed the gun barrel into my stomach. “Isso é uma mentira,” he said sounding incredulous. “Diga-me onde estão eles, ou eu vou matá-lo.”
“I’ve told you,” I insisted. “They’re dead, and if you don’t lower your gun, you’ll be dead too in a minute.”
“Tem certeza?” He gave a forced laugh. “Eu não acredito.” He pushed the barrel of his MP5 against me and added, “Temos as armas, e você não.”
“That’s true,” I said doing my best to look absolutely confident, “but what you don’t know is that there are more people hiding in the forest, and they do have weapons. They’re aiming at you right now and waiting for my signal to kill you if you don’t drop your weapons at once. Otherwise, why do you think I’m here and not Souza?”
“Você está mentindo,” he said placing the black hole of the gun barrel in front of my eyes.
Then, moving slowly so as not to make him any more nervous, I raised my right hand. In reply there came a single gunshot from the thick vegetation. It hit the ground less than a yard away from the mercenary’s foot.
He spun around immediately, toward the origin of the shot, but there was nothing to be seen in the undergrowth. In contrast, he and his comrade were in full view in the middle of the clearing.
“Do you believe me now?” I crossed my arms. “Drop your weapons and we won’t hurt you, we aren’t murderers. Otherwise, you’ll die here and now.”
Having threatened me with his submachine gun seconds before, he turned to his comrade with a silent query. The other gave a resigned shrug as if to say: It was a lousy draw; better get out of the game while we still can.
I could read surrender in the eyes of those hardened thugs. But suddenly, when the man closest to me was about to hand over his gun, his eyes shifted toward something moving behind me. His expression changed from defeat to a cruel grin. He raised the gun once again and pointed it at me.
Confused, I turned around to see what could have caused this sudden change in attitude. I would be lying if I tried to deny that I was speechless when I found myself confronted by what at first I took to be a ghost.
Limping, covered with blood from head to toe, with a nasty wound in his left shoulder and four wide parallel gashes crossing his torso diagonally, Lieutenant Souza was coming toward me. His gun was aimed at my head.
“Tell your friends out there to show themselves,” he muttered through his teeth. His face was contorted into a mask of hate. “Unless they want me to blow your head off and then go after them.”
“They won’t,” I said. “They’re armed and—”
Unexpectedly, with a quick movement he turned the gun toward Cassie and fired. She cried out in pain and fell on her knees in the mud, gripping her shoulder. “D’you want to try me?”
“Son of a bitch!” I yelled lunging at him.
But even in that pitiful state it was not hard for him to dodge me and point the gun back at me. “I won’t say it again!” he shouted. “Come out right now!”
A slight agitation in the bushes nearby gave away the presence of the survivors of Valeria’s expedition. Angelica and Claudio walked out of the vegetation with their hands in the air.
“These are
the only ones?” Souza asked, disappointed.
“We’re the only survivors,” Claudio said.
“So… what about the professor’s daughter? What’s the name of that bitch you came for?”
“My name is Valeria Renner…” said a voice behind his back, “and the bitch is your fucking mother.”
From that moment on things followed so fast, that I could barely grasp what had happened until it was all over.
First came Souza’s look of surprise when he turned to find a black-haired girl with eyes popping out of their sockets hitting his head with a log. The lieutenant fell to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, quite possibly with his skull crushed.
The reaction of the other two mercenaries was to shoot at once. Taking advantage of the fact that they had their backs turned to her, and in spite of her wound, Cassie thrust her hands into the mud up to her wrists. As if it were some strange piece of root, she pulled out the submachine gun she had buried at her feet before this whole farce had begun. Without giving the mercenaries a chance to react, she fired on the nearest one at close range and wounded the other one in the leg. He had time to jump behind a tree trunk, which Cassandra riddled with bullets until she had emptied the whole magazine.
Still, even wounded and alone, that man was a professional.
The moment he realized Cassie was out of ammunition, he left his hiding place. Leaning his back against the same tree to avoid being shot from behind, he faced Cassie, aimed his MP5 at her, and… we will never know whether he felt the 9 mm bullet from the gun I had grabbed off Souza’s dead hand go through his chest, making blood splatter all over Cassie’s face.
Stumbling, the mercenary looked down at himself uncomprehendingly. He turned to me, eyes wondering how I could have done such a thing to him.
BLACK CITY (Ulysses Vidal Adventure Series Book 2) Page 34