In the aching emotion of her loss, Madalina tried to determine her location. It did not feel like Portugal or Spain, though it was certainly as hot. The climate was moist and the birds sounded different. “I can’t see,” she whined, rubbing her eyes. Her surroundings remained blurry, no matter how hard she blinked.
“Oh my God!” she gasped in terror. “My eyes! My eyes! He did the same thing to me that he did to Javier!” Her heart raced madly at the horrific notion of joining in her brother’s fate, and she found herself crying like a child. But all the tears she shed did not correct her vision and she imagined those final moments with Javier when he had gone completely blind. The white film over his eyes as he groped around to find her hand haunted her. She could still feel the weak pressure of his fingers over hers.
Madalina was crying shamelessly, stretching her eyes to try and focus. Soon she realized that nothing she did would better her sight. Miserable, she lay down in a fetal position on the stretcher. “He did the same to me. I’ll never see again! I’ll never…”
“Oh be quiet,” she heard Dr. Sabian’s voice. A jolt of hate-fueled panic shot through her whole body. “It’s just the tranquilizer. You’ll get your vision back in a few hours. We kept you heavily sedated for the whole trip.”
“Why?” she asked. “Where am I?”
“We are just outside Pucallpa, a town in the Amazonian rainforest. Do you really want me to explain the obvious?” he asked, sounding less tolerant than before.
“Okay, but you did not have to bring me along on your… trip… where is Raul?” she said, vocalizing several thoughts at once.
“Raul is none of your business anymore, but we had to bring you along. You are the Last Mother,” he informed her. She could see his phantom shape through her defective eyes, moving around in what appeared to be a tent or a gazebo.
“What is the Last Mother, for God’s sake?” she groaned. “More of your mumble jumbo bullshit?”
He paused in place, leering at her. “I see antagonism runs in the family.”
“Only when dealing with mental fuckwits like you,” she bit back. “And I doubted Javier when he blamed you! Now I know what you are.”
“What I am is too much for your simple mind to comprehend, my dear,” he replied nonchalantly. “What you are part of is bigger than people like you can understand. But you play a role, regrettably, and I have to tolerate you until you’ve done your part.”
“Oh, geezuss,” she rolled her eyes. “I’m going to be mummified alive too?”
He crouched next to her, his white clothing looking like a shapeless haze. “Your brother endured an exquisite death once considered an honor, a condition only saints could boast of. Some enlightened Buddhist monks practiced the ritual of self-mummification, called Sokushinbutsu,” he said, his voice gaining a sense of fascination. “Imagine what it took; imagine the discipline and devotion these men had for the sake of attaining enlightenment!”
Madalina glared at him with contempt, even though she could only hate him with the percentage of what she could see of him. “You are insane. Why don’t you practice that ritual on yourself, become enlightened, and bless the world with your absence?”
He sighed. “I knew you would never embrace your role in Raul’s ascension.”
“What do you mean?” she asked quickly, terrified of the boy’s lot in the hands of Sabian’s cult. “What role am I playing in your twisted bible?”
“Bible? A relatively new book compared to what is happening here. You are the Last Mother. You must bring Raul into the next world.”
“What the fuck?” she shrieked. “The next world? Like… the afterlife?”
“Now you’re getting it,” he smiled. “You were chosen thousands of years before your birth, Madalina. Long before the Inca Empire fell to the Spaniards, your forefathers. Raul was also chosen, though he is not of Spanish descent.”
“He’s not?” she asked.
“Raul is the last of the Inca emperor’s bloodline. He is the last full blooded Q’ero, the people of the emperor Atahualpa.” Dr. Sabian hummed the revelation like a song. “And you will have the honor of taking him to the next world.”
Madalina’s frown deepened as she tried to veer towards not dying in the story. “Right, so what use is he as emperor if he’s in ‘the next world’?”
Dr. Sabian erupted into a roaring laugh that terrified Madalina. It was a strange uttering that reminded her of a demon from an old horror film. “He’s not here to rule a dead empire, my dear, dear girl,” he gasped in amusement, “he is here as the sacrifice to open El Dorado!”
“Jesus Christ! Have you abandoned your wits completely?” she shouted. “You’re going to kill a child? And for what? For gold?”
Dr. Sabian was pleased. Finally the Last Mother fully understood her role, set forth according to the prophecy. “This was scribbled in a Nazi officer’s journal from 1944, recovered from a sunken, unregistered naval vessel off the coast of Peru,” he told her. “Shall I read it to you?”
The Martyr will fall when Inti makes fire of earth.
The Golden Woman will save the Empire when her heart is cut out.
And the Last Mother will bring the Red Messiah to the mouth of the Promise.
When Inti blinks, he will ascend in blood and renew the Temple.
Madalina tried to keep her senses straight while she bided her time for her sight to fully recover. For now, she pretended to have surrendered, to keep Sabian talking so that she would learn where Raul was being kept. “The Martyr is my brother,” she said.
“Uh huh,” Dr. Sabian affirmed. “Inti is the sun god, in other words, the sun.”
“And I am the Last Mother, but who is the Golden Woman?” she asked.
Dr. Sabian exhaled laboriously. “That, we are still not sure of. Only World War II legends have referred to something similar. The ship that sank off the Peruvian coast during the Second World War apparently had a sister ship somewhere in the Mediterranean. Both ships were to moor in Argentina, where the Spanish relics, once plundered from the Incas, would be reunited with the artifacts from the Peruvian-based ship.”
“So it is not a real woman?” she wanted to know, although she would never admit that she had become a bit intrigued by the story.
“We think it is a golden statue stolen by the conquistadors in the sixteenth century, one that had been stashed in a convent in Spain. However, I don’t care so much if our associates in the Mediterranean find her,” he confessed.
“Why not?” Madalina urged, playing dumb for now for the sake of her eyesight.
“Because she can save Raul from his fate, and I don’t want that. He must ascend for El Dorado to open, you see, for the ‘temple to be renewed’.”
“You think Raul’s death is going to open up the mountain and voila! Your city of gold will welcome you to pillage it?” she gasped in a shrill tone that irritated the Santero beyond measure. He wished he could silence her like he’d silenced her equally inquisitive and antagonistic brother.
“Yes, in fact. His death will renew the temple. According to historical accounts, the Inca Empire boasted several temples hidden in the rainforest, made of solid gold. When Inti blinks… when the solar eclipse commences in three days from now… we will go up to Macchu Picchu, where you will kill Raul to bring the Prophecy to fruition.”
“You must be hard of hearing,” she repeated. “I am not killing that boy. You cannot make me!”
Dr. Sabian shook his head and smiled tenderly at her, his condescension undeniable. “My dear Madalina, if I can make your brother starve himself to death and I can make you walk into a motel to kill someone, trust me,” he leaned closer, his malevolent eyes looking into her soul, “I can make you.”