Under the Incan sun the child drove the Santero mad with his petitions.
“What language is that?” Purdue asked.
“Quechua,” Raul answered him innocently before resuming his invocation upon Sabian and his associate. Barnard turned and looked at Sabian.
From the ledge, Capt. Sanchez peered around the rocks to witness the phenomenon. Barnard’s eyes became bloodshot, and then he smiled. Sabian ignored him and walked briskly toward the boy. Barnard bared his oversized teeth and cackled with delight before he ran Sabian down with such force that they both tumbled over the edge behind the sacrificial slab.
Sabian’s screams could be heard in the dark ditch where the ground dipped into shadow. Nobody wanted to say it, but they could hear Barnard’s huge teeth clap as he devoured Sabian in cannibalistic insanity.
Nina thought nothing of it.
“My research has proven repeatedly that South American tribes across the Amazon used to become infused with urges that turned them into man-eating hunters and warriors,” she said, shrugging. “After all, there is no better punishment for child killers.”
“Amen,” Purdue replied. Sabian’s wails had ceased, but Sam was concerned about the monster that took him out. Raul returned to his last mother and took her hand. He led her toward Capt. Sanchez, who helped them walk the ledge out of the cavern. At the same time, Nina, Sam and Purdue kept an eye on the darkness at the back of the mountain.
“Don’t worry about him,” Raul told them. “I told him to eat the sun man, and wait.”
“Wait?” Nina frowned, reluctantly turning to follow them onto the ledge.
“Sí,” the boy said cheerfully.
“Wait for what, Raul?” Sanchez asked.
“Just wait. He will wait now, until I tell him different. But I am not coming back in here.” He smiled, caressing Madalina’s hand. She was stone deaf now, but ecstatic that Raul had chosen to stay with her.
“Oh my God, that is deliciously gruesome, don’t you think?” Maria gasped, admiring the boy’s command. “He will starve to death in there and he will never know why.” Sanchez and Purdue were helping her across the ledge and delivered her to Interpol agents as soon as they got to the winding trail to Machu Picchu.
Raul led Madalina aside to a wild part of the jungle between the mountains. They remained a few hours in the meadow and admired the streams of clear water that led into an ancient aqueduct in the grass.
“Let’s go home, sweetheart,” Madalina shouted, unable to control the volume of her voice. Raul laughed with her. He pulled her face down to his so that she could see what he was saying.
“We are home, Madi. Remember my ice cream castle?” he asked.
She nodded in affirmation, recalling the pudding creativity back in Sax. He winked and motioned for his new mother to look to his left. She gasped, tears filling her eyes as she saw the cascading stone peek through the thick vines and overgrown trees.
“Shh,” he said and brought her over the aqueduct. Madalina could not believe her eyes as the elaborate city of masonry and gold appeared from behind the dense forest growth. He smiled and said, “See? My home.”
As they walked deeper into the lost city, they left behind the mountain where they’d almost died. In their wake, the sacrificial cavern grew smaller and Barnard stayed inside, waiting.
33
Edinburgh
“It’s so good to be back home,” Nina cried happily, relishing the delightful Edinburgh storm outside Purdue’s dining room window.
“This was one trip I could have done without,” Sam remarked from where he sat at the hearth. His cast had all kinds of doodles on it, evidence of his boredom, a boredom he confessed to enjoying thoroughly. “Nina, would you believe that that black circle with the edges of light that I saw under the water looked just like that goddamn eclipse we saw in the cavern.”
Purdue turned in astonishment, neglecting the papers of the logbooks he’d obtained courtesy of Hannah, the mole. “Um, excuse me? Did you also see that?” he asked Sam. “My God, Sam, I saw the exact same vision while we were being dragged along the hull of the Cóndor!”
“The circle that grew wider?” Sam asked.
“Correct! It grew wider and had shining edges and the inside fell in,” Purdue reported.
“You two saw the same thing at the same time?” Nina said, staring at them with a raised eyebrow. “And it was a portend of what was to come in Peru?”
They nodded together.
“Holy shit! Maybe there is really some esoteric basis to that area of the Alboran Sea,” she hypothesized. “That could explain the sinking of the twin Nazi ships at the same time.”
“Oh, I have one for you,” Purdue interrupted her, waving the logbook pages in the air. “The mummified bodies on the wreck? Hear this… Raul is not the first Red Messiah, Nina. Here is your answer.”
“Shoot,” she urged.
“His great grandfather was the previous Red Messiah of the Inca prophecy. According to these journals, he was abducted from his parents’ home by Nazi soldiers looking for gold to ransack for Hitler’s hoard. The Black Sun, of course, knew about his significance, so they had the same plans for him in Spain. But…”
“Here it comes,” Sam jested, twirling his glass of scotch.
Purdue smiled. “While the unmarked vessel sailed back towards Argentina, he had already mind-fucked the soldiers through suggestion while they were stationed at the convent. It says here, ‘We are so very cold. So cold. We feel the uncontrollable urge to crawl into the warmest areas of the ship and wait there. For what, we do not know yet.’
“Fuckin’ hell,” Sam said, looking at the amber liquid in his glass and remembering the traumatic experience against the hull of the Cóndor. He held up his glass against the cloudy gray daylight that filtered through the tall window and smiled timidly. Finally safe, Sam reveled in the amber whiskey that mimicked the sublime yellow glow of the golden woman in the corner. Vincent’s golden woman was safely in Purdue’s keep. Sam narrowed his eyes as he inspected her form. “I wonder what is hidden in that chest.”