Madalina was in no way restrained once they arrived at the base of the mountain. Raul and Dr. Sabian were traveling together, while she was accompanied by three women. They were ordered not to speak to her unless they had to convey Dr. Sabian’s commands, yet they did not hold back with snide remarks about Madalina’s figure or her profession. Normally she would have given them a piece of her mind, but she elected to act indifferent, almost slow-witted, in order to survey them objectively.
They were, in her opinion, easier to handle than the therapist who had betrayed her. Yes, they were tough women with oddly retrospective mannerisms and looks, but they couldn’t control her mind. Physically they could probably destroy her, but she also knew that they were not allowed to harm her before she’d fulfilled her role in the sacrifice. Had she traveled with Sabian, he may have rendered her powerless to her own actions while still forcing her to do his bidding.
Among all the unpleasantness, she had to concede that the landscape was breathtaking. She had never traveled before, and it was a potent experience to be on another continent amidst other cultures. When she looked up, she gasped in awe. All around them the jagged-faced mountains reached through the clouds like cathedrals of might. Their peaks touched the heavens like no mountain she had ever regarded, and where the rockiness hid, it was green as emerald and lime. When the drizzle started over the high regions, she could have sworn that the clouds circled the magical rainforest like a bird of prey.
The sky had already begun to dim, changing the hue of the terrain as far as she could see.
“Come, Madalina,” Maria snapped, pulling her by her upper arm. “I hope you’re fit.”
“I’m fit enough,” she replied casually, as they started up the winding path through the trees.
“You could be an Olympic track star, sweetheart, but the altitude here will knock you down,” Hannah said from the back of the line. “Hope you make it to the top before the mosquitoes kill you.”
They all snickered, but Madalina focused her attention on the route and she used unusual formations and branches as beacons. Not intending to go through with the sacrifice, she made mental markings of the way back so she would know where to to flee with Raul. Her eyes admired the beauty of the endless peaks and their silent power. She could almost feel the concentration of energy when the sun fell against the rocks were she hiked. The women with her were babbling incessantly about nonsense, from their favorite alcohol to their sexual achievements.
And I thought I was a slut, she thought to herself as she listened to them. In her heart she laughed at their conversation, and sometimes she almost chimed in, but she knew she could not get personal with them. They belonged to the wizards who kill children, and she would sooner set them on fire than socialize with them. She did, however, have one question, and she briefly glanced at Maria, walking next to her, before lowering her eyes to the pathway.
“Maria, where are we conducting this ritual? I mean, Machu Picchu is a tourist destination. How will we be able to kill someone during the daytime in front of everyone without being arrested?”
“You’d be the only one arrested,” Isabella laughed.
Maria ignored Isabella. “Do you think we’re going to do this in Machu Picchu? Are you stupid?”
“Apparently,” Hannah mumbled.
“Grow up, you subservient bitch!” Madalina shouted at her, an outburst she hadn’t been intending. She waited for a painful reprimand, but instead Isabella cracked up in her shrill, childish way, slapping Hannah mockingly. Maria was unfazed by Madalina’s reaction and told her what she wanted to know. She was going to die after she had killed the child anyway, so there was no reason to withhold it from her.
“We are going to the Forgotten Lake, a secluded rock pool inside the adjacent mountain face. Only the Children of the Sun knew about it, until we obtained the location from their scrolls during an excavation at Lake Guatavita in Colombia,” Maria told Madalina. Her plain tone of voice and demeanor made her almost seem seemed human. “There is a sacrificial slab, divided in three layers. You’ll see. When the eclipse comes, the sun will have fallen directly on the duct at the bottom of the slab.”
“A duct,” Madalina sighed. “For Raul’s blood, I suppose.”
The two women behind them applauded Madalina’s deduction, again provoking her rage with their juvenile attitude. “Yes,” Maria confirmed.
“But the rays will be gone when the sun darkens. Does that not thwart the whole ceremony?” Madalina persisted, adamant to find out as much as she could.
“Oh, Jesus, isn’t she just full of beans?” Hannah groaned.
“Be quiet, Hannah. You’re beginning to irritate me,” Maria warned. She sighed at Madalina’s relentless questioning, but she mustered one more piece of information. “It’s not about the heat of the rays, my darling girl, or the light being dimmed.” She shrugged. “It’s about the moment in time, the celestial alignment that is marked by the eclipse.”
“So it’s about timing?”
“The eclipse is only a marker, just so that we know when to do the ritual,” Maria disclosed. By the way she acted after this, Madalina knew that the husky-voiced Maria was done explaining; she was done being amicable.
Suddenly she pushed Madalina sideways, corralling her towards the right of the rising cliff face before them. The path went left, but Maria shoved the Spanish teacher into a clump of lush trees that grew from the cliff side. “What the fuck are you doing?” slipped out of Madalina’s mouth, but Maria gave her no explanation. The pathway was suddenly barely a few inches wide and to the sides, the rock they walked on fell away into two flanking drops so steep that they disappeared into chasms on each side.
Madalina felt her stomach contract and her heart hammered in her bosom. “Oh God, I’m going to fall.”
“Don’t,” Isabella said behind her, as the women progressed in a single file.
From somewhere in the mountain Madalina heard Raul’s voice. Her heart jumped. As she followed Maria, she listened keenly to ascertain his mood, but he did not sound distressed. Above them, the sunrays fell through the broken mountain rocks that split it into two cliffs. The sunlight highlighted a small area inside the shadow, like a spotlight on an operation table. A column of pure sun poured through the hole above and revealed Madalina’s greatest horror.
Raul was naked, tied to the slab face down, with leather restraints fastened to the rock by long, thin spikes. His face rested on a pillow of stone that elevated his head, curving his neck backwards. “Oh Christ, no!” she shrieked. “Raul! I won’t hurt you, sweetheart!”
“I know,” his shrill little voice answered, the sound muffled by the rock under his face. “But you do not make your own body move… and you will kill me.”
She started to sob uncontrollably, resisting what felt like a natural urge to tear his limbs from his tiny body. It was Sabian’s influence. The sensation had the same gentle drive she’d felt that night when she’d killed Mara. “No! No! I won’t!” she kept wailing, but she was dragged to the slab and made to stand between two men — Sabian and a grotesque stranger she did not know.
The light began to fade rapidly now, as the moon gradually slid over the sun to obscure it from sight. Sabian and the ugly man with the big teeth were chanting in a monotonous cadence, using words unknown to any modern tongue. Still, Madalina recognized the syllables as those used during her sessions with Sabian, and some she’d heard him use on Javier.
They were controlling her actions, and as long as she could hear, her mind would obey. The murderous charm was growing stronger inside her unwilling mind, but she thought of her darling Raul, she thought of her brother, her parents, and all the things she loved about her life.