River of Eden (37 page)

Not good, she told herself, wrapping her fingers more tightly around the ropes, and when she heard a higher pitched noise from above, her assessment dropped even lower—until she looked up and saw a deep crack inching its way across the top of the snake's right fang.

She jerked on her rope, using all her strength, trying to help the crack along. If it gave way, she might be able to get free.

A similar high-pitched noise sounded from behind her, and she swung her head around to see what else was
giving way. It was another crack ripping down the snake's throat, following the pattern of the golden scales and leaving an ever-widening gash in its wake.

The tower was going to collapse, one way or another, and the only question in Annie's mind was whether or not she'd still be on it when it did.

C
ORSICO PICKED HIMSELF UP
off the stairs for the second time, his jaw clenched to the point of pain.

What were those fools down at the number two mine thinking?

Looking around the plaza, he saw utter chaos, but not the chaos he had planned, and his
cordeiros
were escaping, sneaking off into the night, running for their miserable lives.

He jerked his head at the lieutenant on his right. “Round them up!
Imediatamente!”
Frightened women and old men shouldn't be too hard to corral, not by armed soldiers. “The ones you cannot catch, shoot.”

The lieutenant snapped off a salute and quickly barked off a set of orders to the others.

Corisco watched his soldiers regroup, some to follow the lieutenant, others remaining to secure the plaza.

More trees crashed in the forest surrounding the plaza, convincing him to stay put until everything could be set back in order. He looked up the tower to see how his most important captive had taken the explosions, and felt the oddest sensation—a ripple of unease, a first niggling of doubt about the immediate future.

El Mestre
, his beautiful snake tower with the diamond and emerald eyes and the seven-foot-long golden fangs, was cracking. He took a step down to get a better
view and felt a second ripple of unease. The biggest gash was going straight down the throat, and if it didn't stop, the golden snake was going to break open like a cracked egg, and like a cracked egg, everything that was inside it was going to come pouring out.

Everything.

More than a ripple of unease washed through him at the thought.

Carefully, he took another step down, and suddenly the whole world came out from under him.

CHAPTER 30

F
at eddie lay smashed into the
ground where he'd landed after coming flying out of his chair. The only thing that had kept him from being broken into a hundred pieces by the last explosion was the resiliancy and the sheer quantity of his fat, and that the forest had sheltered him from the worst of the flying debris.

Saved by his fat, the words ran over and over in his mind as he lifted his head and looked around. He'd been saved by his fat. Two of his skinniest men had been broken against the trees. They hadn't been heavy enough to fall to the ground. Not so Eddie. It took more than the biggest fucking explosion he'd ever heard to throw Fat Eddie Mano into a tree. Just as it took at least three of his strongest men to get him to his feet.

“Getulio!” he shouted. “Joaquin! Alberto! Come help me!”

One by one, his men picked themselves up out of the forest and brushed themselves off. Most were cursing,
but cursing happily. They were all rich men tonight, their boats loaded with gold and the night full of the promise for more.

The explosion, though, she'd been a mother, and Eddie doubted if Corisco Vargas still owned a fuel depot on the Cauaburi. No, no, no. There was no more gas, no more barrels of oil at Reino Novo. Nothing but the destruction of the fuel depot could have made such an explosion.

He hadn't done it. Neither had any of his men. Gold was their only desire. Corisco sure as hell hadn't done it to himself, which only left Guillermo, but Eddie would bet his portion of the gold that Guillermo hadn't done it, either. Guillermo, if he was still alive, would be where Annie Parrish was, and the little cat had been tied up on that great gold snake all night.

Which meant there was someone else, someone damned serious about taking Corisco Vargas down and Reino Novo apart.

Night of the Devil, Eddie thought, grunting as his men got him rolled over onto his back. He was beginning to like this Night of the Devil.

Getulio had the strength of an ox. So did Joaquin, and Alberto was built like a bull. Between the three of them, they got Eddie back into his chair, where he settled in with a contented chuckle.

Yes. The
noite do diabo
had already made him a very rich man. There was only one more thing he needed,
El Mestre
, the towering snake altar where virgins died and terror was born, though Eddie had his doubts about Annie Parrish's virginity after all those nights with Guillermo.

“To the plaza,” he ordered, and four men came forward to help with the lifting of the chair.

Nothing moved in the plaza. Everyone lay on the ground, stunned, knocked down by the sky-rocking explosion. Will had been sent flying—and he'd lost his gun.

“Damn,”
he swore under his breath, feeling every ache and pain.

Bracing himself with his good arm, he slowly pushed himself to his knees. His head swam, but he rode it out. A soldier near the edge of the gold paving looked up and saw him, and for a moment, Will wondered if he was going to shoot, but the look in the younger man's eyes told Will he didn't give a damn about one more Indian escaping. The look in the soldier's eyes said he didn't give a damn about anything except finding a way out of Reino Novo and saving his own ass.

Too hurt to feel much relief, Will shifted his gaze to Annie and the tower. The altar was holding, but he didn't think it could last for long. Corisco was lying facedown halfway up the tower stairs, bleeding from a gash on his forehead.

He had to get Annie free.

Pushing himself the rest of the way to his feet, he didn't take his eyes off her. She looked very still, hanging from her ropes, her slight body limp, the wisp of gold cloth wrapped around her fluttering in a gentle breeze. The size of the explosion and the huge flames shooting into the sky down by the river told Will there probably wasn't a gallon of fuel left to be had in all of Reino Novo. The night was lit up by the fire, and the heat of it had created wind on an otherwise windless night.

He didn't think the tower could take much more. Its basic structure was cracked all the way down the middle
now, and as he watched, a shadow moved out of the crack. It didn't look like much to him at first, maybe no more than an odd flicker of flame, but as he stumbled forward, forcing his senses to clear, he realized it wasn't a shadow at all, but a fer-de-lance sliding out of the tower in a long, sinuous movement. The snake, like any other wild creature, no matter how deadly, preferred the dark, safe forest to a glittering, firelit stage and quickly chose the shortest route to the ground, a speedy transverse of a curve of golden scales.

The snake that came after the viper probably didn't give a damn about dark, safe forests or anything else, Will realized. It just kept coming, yard after incredible yard of huge, gargantuan anaconda, its tongue flicking, its powerful muscles bunching and stretching as it slid onto the stairs and started climbing upward toward the golden snake's mouth.

He needed to move. He needed to save Annie.

But the snake…
he came to a slow, stumbling halt. My God, the huge snake was like the one before—Tutanji's anaconda, the snake of his nightmares, the snake from the
Sucuri.

The scars on his chest and back began to burn, transfixing him with the memory of pain, agonizing pain, reminding him of the night Tutanji's anaconda had gone hunting in the lost world, of the night the giant serpent had found him asleep on the shores of a black-water river and devoured him deep in the heart of the rain forest.

He had to go, had to get to Annie, but the snake was enormous.

Monstrous, and the sight of it paralyzed him.

W
ITH THE LAST
of her strength, Annie raised her head to look out on the plaza. Will was still there, looking shell-shocked, and her heart went out to him. She was so damned tired. She had no fear left. She was just going to hang from the ropes until Will could get up the stairs and set her free.

“Will?” she called out, and his eyes slowly lifted to meet hers. She knew the instant they cleared, the instant he came back to himself and truly saw her. It was the same instant he started running.

She slumped back down, and a smile almost touched her lips. He'd been wounded, and had to be at least as exhausted as she was, but the worst was over now. He was free, and—and what was that?

Her body stiffened.

What was that flickering over the edge of the platform?

Was it a darting lizard? The Amazon was full of lizards.

The thing slithered like a lightning bolt over the edge again, and the hairs rose all along the nape of her neck.

She'd been wrong. Dead wrong. She had plenty of fear left, and when a huge, blackish-green head of the biggest snake she had ever seen lifted into view and came swinging toward her, she let loose with a scream so bloodcurdling it echoed off the trees.

CHAPTER 31

T
he snake, looking like a quarter
of a ton and well over thirty feet long, actually backed off, swinging away from the shriek that emanated from one small woman's mouth.

Will didn't stop running. Even with the head backing off, the giant body was moving itself up into the golden mouth where Annie hung from the gleaming fangs, one great coil slapping down and sliding off another, yard after yard of snake slowly gaining the higher ground.

Will took the stairs three at a time, going right over the top of the unconscious Vargas and the dozens of kingmaker beetles scrabbling out of the broken tower. He had his knife in his hand, ready, but before he could reach the platform, the snake attacked him with a hissing strike, lowering its huge head from Annie's level down to his and lunging.

Will dodged the wet, gaping mouth and glistening teeth, his body running on pure, primordial adrenaline, his mind nearly completely shut down. He couldn't think
about what he was doing, because any thought he might have would freeze him solid with fear.

The snake lunged twice more, hissing each time, while its tail glided in long, graceful arcs across the stairs, detached from the tension in high display along the rest of its body. After the third strike, the snake withdrew, keeping a slight distance from him and holding his gaze with its abysmally black eyes, while its body continued the slow steady climb to the platform.

Will had to make a move. Annie had stopped screaming, and the silence pushed him to full-out panic. He leapt up the final stretch of stairs, certain the snake was coiling around her body, making it impossible for her to draw another breath, but before he could make the platform, he was tackled from behind, his legs banded in an iron grip.

He fell to the stairs, twisting around, expecting to see the snake's tail tightening around him, but instead he came face to face with the end of a gun barrel, the pistol in Corisco's hand. The man weighed down on him, his other arm in a death grip around Will's legs.

“Let it have her,” the man rasped, cocking the pistol. “That was the plan.”

Will didn't think so.

“The plan's changed,” he growled, whipping his hand back and slinging his knife with a lightning-quick action.

Corisco's one open eye widened in shock, his blood flowing from where the blade stuck deep in his chest.

Without wasting a second, Will reached down and jerked the knife free, before rolling over and scrambling the rest of the way to the platform.

At the top of the stairs, he stopped, his way blocked by thick moving coils of dark-skinned green anaconda.