When it was Iak’s turn, he looked at me with amused wonder. “You think Iak go there?” he said, pointing at the balloon as if I were playing a prank on him.
“Of course!” I said. “That’s why we built it!”
The Menkragnoti shook his head. “No. This thing for you only. I go rainforest, walking.”
“But what about the Morcegos? They’ll hunt you down even if you leave the city.”
“No problem. Iak escape in rainforest. Iak more smart.”
“I’m sure you are, but it would be safer if you came with us. In the air we’ll be absolutely safe.”
Iak looked up once again, staring at the enormous contraption which strained at the ropes that held it down to the ground as if impatient to take off for the moon.
“No,” he said, almost laughing. “Iak think not.”
“Don’t let the looks of it fool you,” I insisted for the last time, though I knew there was no way I would change his mind. “They say flying’s safer than driving a car.”
The Menkragnoti fixed his eyes on me. “Iak not idiot.” He pointed at the balloon. “Iak prefer fight Morcegos than that.”
“Suit yourself…” I gave in and hugged him. I knew there was no way I could convince him. “When we reach civilization, I promise we’ll tell them about everything we’ve seen here. We’ll stop the dam being flooded and save your people. And it’ll be because of you.” I put my hands on his shoulders. “And when we meet again I’m sure you’ll be a great chief of your people.”
In spite of the thickening darkness, I thought I saw some unlikely tears moistening his eyes as he hugged me goodbye.
“Muito obrigado,” he said as he took a step back. He shook hands with the professor and Cassie, who had been watching this scene hanging from their harnesses.
Then, without more ado he turned and disappeared into the thick vegetation, with his bow and arrows and small shoulder bag as his only resources against the menacing night that hung over the rainforest.
“Muito obrigado,” I replied when he could no longer hear me, and prayed that he would get back to his people safe and sound.
When I turned around I saw my friends staring at me, waiting for an explanation.
“I couldn’t convince him,” I said as I spread my arms wide.
Avoiding their accusing looks I went to my harness, which was slung at one end of the dirigible (God only knew whether it was the prow or the stern of the wretched thing), secured myself, and took out the knife which I had got back in the camp. Holding it high in my right hand, I grabbed one of the tethering lianas with my left.
“Ready?” I asked.
“Ready,” Cassie said.
“Not in the least!” the professor said.
“On the count of three we cut loose!” I said once I was sure they were both doing the same as I was.
The sun had just disappeared below the horizon. We could not wait a second longer.
I breathed in deeply, said a mental goodbye to pyramids, temples, and dismembered bodies and counted:“One! Two! And three!”
Together we cut the lianas we were holding. The balloon, full of hydrogen, freed at last from its ties, leapt forward and up, rising several feet… to come slowly back down a moment later until we touched the ground with our feet once again.
We had not gone very far after all.
97
The professor shifted restlessly in his harness. “What the heck happened?”
I was as confused as he was. “I… don’t know. I have no idea. Are we sure all the ropes are loose?”
“Positive,” he replied, looking all around.
“Fuck!” I said. “What the hell’s wrong?”
“Will it help if I get off and push?” Cassie asked sarcastically.
“Maybe,” I said, annoyed. “Why don’t you try?”
“Don’t start your bickering for once!” the professor said. “What we need to do is lighten the load. Let go of the weapons, the food, anything that might weigh us down.”
“You’re right,” I admitted. “We’ll have to get rid of everything.”
Reluctantly, with a string of expletives in Mexican Spanish, Cassie dropped her weapon and cut the rope which held the bag with our food in it.
We all did the same, discarding anything that weighed more than a hundred grams.
At once the balloon gave another small jerk upward. It seemed to be rising at last… but seemed was the operative word.
Stubborn gravity soon pulled us down again.
So there we were, hanging impotently like hams from a preposterous multicolored balloon, with Valeria tied to her stretcher somewhere in the middle. I realized she had her head on one side and was looking at me uncertainly.
“Where are we?” she muttered, her voice clouded by the morphine.
“How do you feel, sweetheart?” her father asked.
“It hurts…” She raised her head in an effort to try and see her wound, which was covered with a mass of bloodied gauze strips.
“Don’t you worry,” he said with an attempt at a smile. “We’ll get out of here in a jiffy and then we’ll take you to a hospital. You’re going to be all right, my love.”
Valeria looked up, then at each of us hanging from our harnesses and touching the ground with the tips of our toes. “Please, tell me we’re all dead… and this is how we get up to heaven.” She smiled weakly, coughing up blood as she did so.
“We’re trying to get away in a balloon,” her father explained. “But we’re having some… trouble taking off.” He gave me a piercing look as he said this.
“In a balloon?” Valeria asked, her voice getting weaker as she squinted her eyes. “What have I missed?”
“Oh, we’ll tell you later. You just relax now. We’ll handle everything.”
She tried to speak again but was prevented by a new bout of coughing that brought up more blood. When she recovered she looked down at the ground, “Then… if we’re in a balloon, why aren’t we flying?”
“Damn good question,” Cassandra said.
“Maybe I miscalculated the amount of hydrogen we needed,” I said hesitantly.
“…or else there’s too much weight,” Valeria said with just a thread of voice.
“Perhaps. But we just got rid of everything we could, and it’s a little late to go on a diet. The only thing I can think of”—I reached for my harness buckle—“is to get off and pump more hydrogen…”
Just then a sequence of howls broke the quiet of the twilight.
But they were no longer distant…
About half a mile away, I calculated.
They knew where we were, and they were heading straight for us.
“They’re coming!” the professor cried in terror.
“The vegetation began to seethe with the relentless approach of the Morcegos, revealing that they were much closer than I had imagined.
They would be upon us in less than a minute.
Then I discovered Valeria getting rid of her stretcher straps and trying to stand up.
“What the hell are you doing?” I said in disbelief. “Strap up immediately! You could fall off!”
Instead, she looked at her father. She gave the ghost of a smile, looking oddly serene, and put her right hand over her heart. “I’m sorry we didn’t have more time to get to know each other…”
“What? Oh yes, sure. But don’t worry, sweetheart. As soon as we get home, we’ll make up for all the lost time. Now, please strap up again.”
“I… I’m really sorry. I hope you’ll forgive me for all this.”
“Forgive you? What for?”
Then his daughter closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I love you… Dad.” And before anyone had time to stop her, she rolled over and fell on to the mud at my feet.
Smothering a horrified cry, Cassandra covered her mouth with her hand.
The professor shouted his daughter’s name with all the strength he had. He was struggling with his harness to free himself and
jump down to the ground.
“No!” I shouted when I realized what he was doing. “Stay where you are, Doc. I’ll get her up!”
If he had gotten loose as well, I would never have had time to get them both strapped in again. The only chance to get her back up was to do it alone.
With a quick move I freed myself from my harness and fell to the ground beside her. To my surprise she raised her head and motioned me to stop.
Then I understood that she had not fallen after all. She had thrown herself.
At the same time, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the professor’s feet leave the ground. Very slowly, the balloon began to rise as the noise coming from the seething vegetation began to sound like a stampede.
Valeria turned toward the sound, knowing full well what was coming.
“Get back up right away! The balloon’s rising!” Cassie yelled desperately.
“We’re getting back on that balloon,” I said to Valeria, ignoring the yelling coming from the balloon and the howling from the approaching Morcegos. “I’ll tie a rope around your waist and pull you up before they get here.”
“There’s no time…” She sighed, seeing the balloon rising higher. “It really is flying now… you must go.”
“Forget it. I’m not leaving you here!”
“I want to stay.”
“But don’t you understand?” I said, and waved my hand at the moving rainforest. “They’ll kill you!”
“You’re wrong,” she said. She put her hand on her blood-soaked bandages and winced in pain. “I’m dead already.”
“No way,” I said bluntly, and tried to pick her up in my arms. “I’m getting you on that balloon right now.”
She struggled with what little strength she had left, making it even harder for me. “No,” she said through her clenched teeth. “Go…”
The noise from the wave of Morcegos was overwhelming. They were close, very close, and approaching us fast.
The professor yelled urgently behind me: “Valeria! Valeria!”
“For fuck’s sake!” I grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. “Your father’s waiting for you!”
“Tell him… I love him.”
“Don’t do this to me,” I begged her. “Don’t do it to him…”
She shook her head and smiled, in spite of the pain.
I heard the professor’s voice again, urging her. It was on the brink of hysteria.
The snarling was less than two hundred yards away. Maybe even less than that.
“I’m doing it for him…” she whispered. She reached her hand to touch my face, “For all of you…”
“I’m not leaving,” I said crossing my arms in an attempt to convince her that her fate and mine were bound together. “That means we’ll both die.”
“I just want you to… do one thing for me,” she said instead, then closed her eyes and let her head fall back.
The roaring of the advancing Morcegos had now reached the edge of the rainforest. I knew they would burst into the clearing any moment now.
Cassandra yelled my name. “Ulysses!” There was panic in her voice. “They’re here!”
There were only a few seconds left before those demons fell on us.
There was nothing to do.
I shook my head sadly in resignation.
“Whatever you want,” I said to the professor’s daughter. I understood at last what I was confronted with. It was the final wish of someone on the verge of death.
She looked at me for a moment, then her eyes fell on the butt of the gun at my belt.
As soon as I realized what she wanted me to do I tried to refuse, but no sound came out of my throat.
“Please…” she whispered, and took my hand when she saw the doubt in my eyes.
I was paralyzed. Unable to do what she was begging for. Valeria was sacrificing herself for all of us, but I felt there was no way I could abandon her and get on the balloon, which was already ten feet off the ground and rising fast.
When the first shadows surged out of the vegetation, only a dozen yards away, the woman I had only seen for the first time in a photograph with her father, a million years before, guided my hand to the gun with an imploring look.
“Do it…” she urged, pressing my hand, aware that the Morcegos were almost on us. “Now.”
I took a swift look behind me.
The balloon, relieved of the weight of two people, was rising faster. Even so, I could clearly see the two contorted faces looking down at us as they moved away in the twilight.
Professor Castillo, a crazed look on his face, was calling his daughter over and over. In desperation he reached out his arms toward her.
Cassandra was yelling too, pointing at the thick vegetation.
“If you don’t do it, we’ll both die,” Valeria said. With her scant strength, she took the gun from my belt herself, put the barrel to her forehead, and pressed my hand to the butt.
Perhaps there was no other way out, but there was no way I was going to do it.
Not like that. Not to her.
“If you don’t do it…” she hissed without letting go of the gun and reading my mind, “they will.”
“I can’t… I’m sorry.”
“Watch out!” I heard Cassandra shout.
I looked up. A group of black specters were running directly toward us, eyes bursting out from their sockets, drooling jaws open in a bloodthirsty roar.
I aimed the Glock and fired at the nearest one.
I hit him in the shoulder. He tripped, but that was not enough to stop him.
I aimed at three others and fired again, managing to slow them down a little. But this did not stop their advance, amid terrifying howls.
“Ulysses!” Cassandra called again, unexpectedly distant.
The balloon was nearing the tops of the trees, and the harness that was supposed to hold me was already too far out of reach.
Then, taking advantage of that brief distraction, Valeria grabbed the barrel of the gun and put it in her mouth, gripping it with her teeth. Before I could stop her, she put her finger over mine and pressed the trigger.
98
A scream of horror tore the roof of the rainforest. “Nooooooo!”
The bullet had gone through Valeria’s head, and she lay inert in my arms.
“Valeria!” the professor cried hoarsely, uselessly, overwhelmed with his own impotence. “Valeria! Valeria!”
But she was past hearing.
For an instant, soaked with Valeria’s blood, I looked at the gun in my hand and thought of doing the same.
It was the easy way out.
Perhaps the only way out.
Then someone shouted my name, perhaps knowing what was crossing my mind.
“Ulysses!” It was a pleading cry, too high up above my head. “Please!”
Cassandra.
Her voice was like a life jacket just when I was beginning to sink.
She gave meaning to my life. She made it worth fighting for. Even dying for, if it came to that.
I looked up.
A new wave of Morcegos was coming out of the forest.
A swarm of sadistic demons emerging from all directions, howling with a hate they had been feeding on for centuries.
I dropped Valeria’s lifeless body, grasped the gun with both hands, and began firing.
There was nothing else I could do. Fight to the last minute, before I fell into the claws of those half-men who had me surrounded already.
As soon as my bullets were spent, my life would be over.
“The cylinders! Shoot the cylinders!” Cassandra shrilled from above.
I looked toward where those massive bottles of compressed hydrogen we had not needed were still piled on the ground, and it all became clear.
Without stopping to consider for a moment, I aimed at the cylinders. Clenching my teeth, I fired my last three bullets at them.
The first two made frustrating holes in the dirt beside them.
My hand wa
s trembling. In the state I was in I would not have managed to hit a sleeping elephant.
I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. Holding my breath, I opened my right eye to fire my last bullet.
Then it happened.
A huge ball of fire sixty feet high exploded in the night, illuminating the clearing as if dawn had suddenly broken. The shockwave threw me several feet away and the heat which followed burned my face and arms.
Even so, the nearest Morcegos got the worst of it and either died in the explosion or ran around engulfed in flames, yelling with pain.
The rest, struck by the power of the explosion and scared at seeing their companions burning alive, took a step back in fear.
A fear which took only a few seconds to turn into redoubled rage, with me as their target.
I looked desperately around for something to defend myself with, regretting not having an extra bullet in the chamber of the Glock. It was useless now, so I dropped it to the ground.
Thirty feet away I saw one of the submachine guns we had discarded to shed weight, but in all honesty, thirty bullets were not going to make that much difference either.
I thought of running, but realized they would catch me immediately.
There was no escape.
I was exhausted. I lowered my arms, surrendering to the inevitable.
Then Cassandra’s voice reached me from high above once again. It sounded reproachful.
“Carajo, Ulysses! Climb the fucking tree at once!”
I looked up, perplexed, and there was the balloon.
Stationary, for no obvious reason.
It took me a moment to realize what had happened.
Somehow, Cassie had managed to tangle one of the loose ropes to the top branch of a great ceiba, and there they had stayed, tethered more than a hundred feet above the ground.
“I can’t believe it…” I mumbled in amazement.
In the end, it seemed I was going to have one last chance.
I ran past two Morcegos rolling in the mud with terrible burns and grabbed one of the thick creepers that coiled around the smooth trunk of the ceiba. Calling on the last traces of strength in my muscles I began to climb, barely able to see where I was putting my feet and hands.
BLACK CITY (Ulysses Vidal Adventure Series Book 2) Page 43