Abandoned Memories (14 page)

“Yes, yes, she’s fine.” Hayden held up a hand. “Surely you would know better than I.”

“No.” James lowered his chin. “I haven’t spoken to her in a few days.”

Hayden finally took the seat. “I thought you two…Word was that you were going to ask to court her?”

James frowned. “It didn’t work out that way.”

“I’m sorry.” Hayden couldn’t imagine the pain he would have felt if Magnolia had turned him down.

Yet it was probably for the best. Hayden had noticed the doctor’s interest in Angeline when they’d first set sail for Brazil. Then when he’d observed the playful dalliance between them here in town, he’d ignored it as innocent flirting. However when they began to spend more and more time together and he saw the loving glances between them, he’d become worried. Angeline had an obligation to tell James the truth. She should have told him the truth already, before they’d grown so close. And despite Hayden’s hatred of meddling in other people’s affairs, he could not risk the safety of his good friend. How could he ever forgive himself if something horrible happened? No, if Angeline accepted James’s suit, Hayden was obligated to tell him he was courting a murderer.

HAPTER
12

W
hat about Angeline? Did she say something about me?” James could tell from the look on Hayden’s face that whatever he had to say wasn’t good news.

“It’s nothing.” Hayden shrugged and moved to the window where James had attempted to cover the opening with palm fronds—two of which had already blown off and the rest now bent in the wind. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

Rising, James stretched the ache that spanned his shoulders and had now begun to migrate to his heart. He had tried to avoid thinking of Angeline the past few days, had buried himself in his translation. But fleeting glimpses of her around town without so much as a word or a smile had left him feeling as dry as a desert, despite the deluge outside. Now, Hayden had gone and brought her to the forefront of his thoughts again, resurging his loss. “If she’s in danger, please tell me.”

The flap opened and a blast of rain-saturated wind shoved Blake inside. He shook water from his coat and ran a hand through his wet hair. “I thought I heard voices.” His glance took in his friends before he slapped Hayden on the back, sending a spray into the air.

James smiled. These two men had become like brothers to him. Brothers he’d never had, being an only child. “If I’d known I was going to have company, I’d have asked Lewis for some of his rum.”

“Blaa!” Blake stuck out his tongue and shivered. “That stuff tastes like seaweed.”

“Ah, it’s not so bad when you really need a drink.” Hayden chuckled.

Thunder rode through the town, shaking the tiny hut. A few droplets squeezed through the extra fronds James had fastened on the roof. Soon there’d be no dry place in the whole colony. “The storm worsens.”

“Which is why I came.” Blake gestured for Hayden to take the only empty chair, but when the man shook his head, the colonel slid onto the seat, stretching his leg out before him with a wince. “Can’t sleep lately.”

“A common problem it would seem,” Hayden said as he attempted to steady the canvas door that flapped and flailed like an injured goose.

Blake pinched the bridge of his nose. “Eliza’s been suffering from terrifying visions of the war, and my nightmares have gotten worse. And this storm”—he glanced up as the pounding of rain intensified, reminding James of the war drums that haunted his dreams as well—“there’s something strange about it. I feel it.”

So had James. Which is why he’d been up studying more of the ancient book from the temple. He glanced at that book now with its Hebrew letters scrawled from right to left. Next to it, his own scribbles in English darkened a separate parchment in an attempt to translate a language he’d barely learned as a child.

Lightning flashed white through tiny slits and holes in the fronds that made up the wall. Wind snaked around corners in an eerie tune, sputtering James’s candle.

The flap opened again, and Eliza pushed past Hayden, fear sparking in her eyes until they landed upon her husband. “I woke and you were gone.” She moved and fell against Blake.

He embraced her. “I’m sorry, love. I didn’t want to wake you.”

“You know I hate it when you’re not beside me.”

James had never seen the woman quite so needy before, but he supposed the incessant storm had everyone on edge.

“I was just telling the men about your visions and my nightmares,” Blake said.

“My visions have increased recently as well,” Hayden added.

“Yes.” Picking up his pen, James tapped it on the edge of the book. “Things are definitely getting worse.”

“Have you discovered anything new in your translation?” Blake rubbed his leg as a barrage of rain struck the east wall, quivering the fronds.

“I’m finding out bits and pieces about the power of these beings and why they were put in chains. The first one,
Deception
”—he glanced at his friends—“has the power to deceive people by feeding them lies buried within half-truths. The lie could be anything from something about another person, or your own self-worth, the existence of God, to a lie that
Deception
, himself, isn’t even real.”

Hayden’s lips slanted in skepticism.

Ignoring him, James continued. “The next one,
Delusion
, has the power to create visions, mirages, various illusions.”

Blake rubbed the back of his neck while Eliza took his other hand in hers. “We’ve all experienced that, haven’t we?”

A clap of thunder slammed the skies. James jerked, blood pumping, wondering if someone or
something
didn’t wish him to continue.

Hayden held the flap down against another burst of wind. “And the one Graves released?”

“Destruction,”
James said. “He has the power to alter nature. He cannot kill anyone directly, but he can change their surroundings in order to destroy them.”

“The lightning strike, the ants.” Blake ground out, rubbing his jaw.

“Possibly.”

“But where did these beings come from?” Hayden asked.

“From the pit of hell is my guess,” James said. “Apparently, these particular fallen angels had become extremely powerful or perhaps they broke the boundaries God had set for them—some cardinal rule they were not permitted to break. In any case, God decided to lock them up until the end of the age. He sent Gabriel and other angels to do battle. The four evil beings lost and were chained beneath the earth near”—James shook his head, hesitating to tell them what he wasn’t sure he’d translated correctly—“near a branch of the lake of fire that burns at the center of earth.” He gazed at them, assessing their belief but found only stunned confusion. He sighed. “Although I don’t think the temple was there at the time.”

Groaning, Hayden swallowed hard, his face growing pale.

“What is it?” James asked.

He took up a pace, eyes darting over the hut, mumbling something they couldn’t hear over the storm. Finally he halted and faced them. “There was a priest in Rio. He told me there was a fire lake beneath the temple.”

“A priest?”

“Yes, some odd man I bumped into on the street. It was nothing, really. He was muttering crazy things. But I do remember him mentioning the fire lake. I thought him mad at the time, but now…” Shock leapt in Hayden’s green eyes as he gaped at them.

“Did this priest say anything else?” James moved to the edge of his chair.

“Something about six. I don’t remember.” Hayden rubbed his eyes.

“Surely it’s a coincidence.” Eliza hugged herself. “If all this is true, why would God allow these angels to be so easily released?”

“Not easily,” James said. “If the cannibals hadn’t built their temple in that exact location and then dug tunnels beneath it, these beings would still be locked below and we’d be knee-deep in sugarcane, coffee, and the utopia we sought.”

Eliza frowned. “Then it would seem Satan told the cannibals exactly where to build their temple.”

James nodded. “A reasonable assumption.” Though he could tell from her clipped tone that she was being facetious.

Blake snorted. “But why didn’t God bury them so deep they’d never be found?”

Tossing down his pen, James leaned back in his chair. “I don’t know. Something to do with man’s free will, I’d wager.”

“I’m starting to hate this free will thing.” Blake huffed.

“It does have its downfalls.”

Hayden shifted his stance. “Do you know how crazy this sounds? Invisible evil angels buried beneath the earth?”

“You saw their prisons yourself. How else do you explain your visions? And what this priest said?”

“I don’t know.” Hayden scrubbed his face. “Perhaps something in the food?” Though his tone bore humor, his expression was one of desperation—desperation for the normal life they all longed for. “The mandioca root we’ve been eating can be poisonous if not cooked right. And Thiago has been instructing the women to grind it into flour since we got here.”

Eliza smiled. “Your skepticism is good, Hayden. We should all question things. But ultimately, we must put the matter to God and see what He says.”

Blake lifted the flap and glanced out onto the street. “Perhaps we ought to pray for the rain to stop before we all drown. Wha—?” He disappeared outside. Hayden ran after him. Rain pelted James’s face as he followed and peered down the street—more like a brook for all the water streaming down it. A muffled shout came from the darkness. Blake charged ahead, his figure dissolving in the downpour. A man emerged from the shadows, another man hanging limp in his arms.

Eliza appeared beside James, lantern held high.

“It’s Mr. Lewis. Help! He’s hurt.”

Hayden grabbed Mr. Lewis from the man’s tired arms. Blood expanded on his saturated shirt and stormed down his trousers, coming so fast the rain couldn’t wash it away.

James’s throat closed. He stepped back.

“What happened?” Blake asked over the roar of the storm.

“Wolf! He was attacked by a wolf!”

James was a fish. A fish swimming through a lake plump with swaying ferns and dancing vines. He breathed in water. He coughed up spray. His boots sank in puddles up to his ankles. He yanked one from the clawing mud. If only he
were
a fish. It would be much easier to swim through this sodden jungle with fins and gills than plod through it with feet and lungs.

Dawn had crested the horizon over an hour ago, but you wouldn’t know it for the cloak that settled over the thick brush. If only that cloak would protect them from the rain that continued to spew from angry black clouds broiling across the sky. Rain that speared the leaves overhead like a thousand arrows before pummeling the group of five men below in a hail of violent grapeshot—saturating, stinging, biting.

The musket slipped in James’s hand. Readjusting his grip, he wondered if it would even fire if they found the wolf. Blake moved ahead of him, his soaked shirt plastered to his skin, water dripping from his black hair. To James’s left, Hayden slogged through puddles, looking more like a sea otter than a man. Another colonist angled away on James’s right while Thiago led the way up front.

James ground his teeth. He should be back at the clinic helping Eliza and Magnolia tend to Lewis’s wound, but instead he was traipsing through the jungle, soaked to the bone, looking for a wolf that was no doubt long gone.

If only there hadn’t been so much blood…

At least he had caught a glimpse of Angeline when she’d stormed from her hut, hooded cloak askew, at the sound of Lewis’s shrill screams. Their eyes reached for each other through the gloom of night, and he thought he saw sorrow in hers before she snapped them away.

Thiago halted, knelt, and examined the muddy ground, water trickling from strands of dark hair hanging at his jaw. Blake and James caught up to him as the Brazilian stood and shook his head. “We lost him. He not come this way. The rain hide tracks.”

As James had tried to tell the man before they left town. But Thiago had insisted they must hunt and kill this
Lobisón
, the man-wolf he claimed had attacked Mr. Lewis. If they did not, Lewis would become a wolf himself. Or so the legend said.

Rubbish. Just a ludicrous Brazilian superstition. One James supposed he should be thankful for since it had allowed him to escape a situation where his ineptitude would be on full display. He had a feeling Blake would rather be in the jungle than witnessing the bloody mess as well.

A guttural howl pierced the rain—distant and hollow. Thiago’s dark eyes narrowed as he scanned the maze of dripping green. “He watches us.” Rain beaded on his long lashes and slid down his jaw.

“What happens to Lewis now?” Hayden shouted over the din of the storm, the tremor in his normally staunch voice more than evident.

“We wait. If his blood is poisoned, he become wolf in three days.”

Above them, a colorful bird squawked at the ridiculous statement. James couldn’t agree more.

Hayden’s brow darkened as he absently rubbed his arm where Magnolia had stitched up a wolf bite two months ago.

Blake leaned toward him. “What’s that?” He pointed beneath his chin. “Is that fur growing on your neck?”