To Kavanaugh, an eternity elapsed between the time he opened the door and put the rifle stock to his shoulder. He half-expected to find himself staring directly into the snarling snout of a Deinonychus. He experienced a wave of relieved surprise when he saw that the two creatures were still engrossed in prying up the transparent panel from the roof. However, he had not expected the rush of the wind to be so strong and his eyes stung.
A raptor caught Kavanaugh’s sudden appearance at the periphery of its vision. Its head whipped toward him, jaws opening either in astonishment or anger. Bracing his elbows on the edge of the train car roof, Kavanaugh sighted down the rifle and squeezed the trigger of the Kel-Tec.
The round punched through the roof of the creature’s mouth and into its brain. Vomiting blood, it flailed backward, its tail slamming down hard against the roof of the coach. As it rolled off, the Plexiglass panel collapsed inward, carrying the second Deinonychus down with it.
Even over the sound of the rushing wind and the drone of the monorail’s engine, Kavanaugh heard the blended screams and skreeks.
The Plexiglas panel narrowly avoided cracking Mouzi on the crown of her head, but the swinging tail of the raptor smacked into Crowe’s right side, knocking him against a seat back. He struggled to stay on his feet. Shouting obscenities, Mouzi thrust at the Deinonychus with her butterfly knife.
The shrieking saurian struck at her hand, the jaws snapping shut so close to her wrist its snout brushed her skin. Crowe kicked at it, missed and the Deinonychus responded by lashing out with its right foot. The sickle-shaped claw on its second toe ripped a long, deep rent in the seat cover.
Crowe swung a knotted fist in a ram’s head backhand. The blow connected, the raptor’s head jerked around on its neck, and pain blazed through Crowe’s knuckles, halfway up his arm. It was like back-fisting a statue. The Deinonychus staggered, then bent forward, pivoted around on its toes, and clubbed him in the chest with its tail.
Crowe felt like his heart had been hit with an axe blade. His lungs seized and he doubled over. He collapsed into a seat, clutching at his ribs. Over his own agonized gasps, he heard Mouzi scream “Duck!”
A heavy weight thumped down near him. Drops of something warm and gelatinous splattered across his cheek. Gasping, he forced his vision back into focus and saw the head of the Deinonychus lying on the floor only inches from his face. Dark blood pooled at the stump of its sheared-through neck.
Crowe struggled up to a sitting position. To his amazement he saw Bai Suzhen standing directly behind him, her jian sword angled over her left shoulder. Although her face was nearly white, the haggard look was gone from her features and her eyes were clear. The breeze coming in through the open rear door stirred her sleek black locks.
“Bai,” he managed to stammer. “Are you all right?”
Slowly, she lowered the sword, and then dropped into a seat. “I feel much better, thanks.”
Belleau and Honoré stared at Bai Suzhen, shocked into silence. Less than a minute before, the woman had lain senseless. Then, mere seconds after the Prima Materia had entered her wounds, her eyes snapped open. She saw the threat presented by the Deinonychus, and without preliminaries, she arose, grabbed her sword and swiftly decapitated the creature.
“I don’t believe it,” faltered Honoré. “You were unconscious, feverish—”
Bai ran a trembling hand over her sweat-slick brow. “Still feel shaky.”
She allowed Honoré to examine her wounds. Oakshott and Kavanaugh returned to the interior of the coach, standing nearby. “What happened?” asked Kavanaugh.
Honoré didn’t answer immediately. The gashes on Bai Suzhen’s torso were filled with a thick, semi-solid fluid. It bubbled and foamed along the edges of the lacerations. Choosing her words carefully, Honoré said, “All I can think of is that this substance acts as both a natural coagulating agent as well as a stimulant…accelerating Bai’s metabolic functions, boosting her immune system.”
Belleau revolved the empty glass vial between thumb and forefinger, then brandished it over his head like an Olympic runner who has just passed the finish line with the torch. “My great-great-grandfather spoke the truth! Prima Materia, the one true thing!”
Kneading his ribcage, Crowe glared at Belleau. “Do you even know what the hell you’re talking about? Do you know what that sludge is made of?”
“Of course I do. It is the original soup of life. It is the autocatalyst from which all genetic materials on Earth sprang.”
Crowe eyed him distrustfully, but he began to look intrigued. “You can prove that claim?”
“Of course I can, I wouldn’t have made it otherwise.” Belleau glanced over his shoulder at Oakshott. “Now, if you would be so kind—”
Without hesitation, the big man chopped with his right hand at the back of Kavanaugh’s neck, just below his right ear. The blow numbed him. Dimly, he felt his knees folding and he tried to catch himself on a chair back, but his arms had no strength in them.
Oakshott easily wrested the rifle from his grip, aiming it at Crowe and Mouzi. Between clenched teeth, Crowe grated, “This is getting very old, Belleau.”
“Oh, I entirely agree. That is why unless you force Mr. Oakshott to fire off the one remaining round in the rifle, you will cede authority of this expedition back to me.”
“Expedition?” echoed Honoré in disgust. “Is that what you call this series of abductions and hostage situations? This is intolerable!”
“You won’t have to tolerate it for much longer, darlin’. No one will.”
Rubbing the back of his neck, Kavanaugh slowly got up, turning around to face Oakshott. “You ever heard of the American concept of payback, Hamish?”
Oakshott shrugged. “I could’ve just as easily broken your neck, Jack. Consider yourself fortunate.”
Belleau chuckled, but it sounded forced. “Don’t take it out on him. We’re so close to the objective of the expedition, I don’t want distractions.”
“You’re about to get a big one,” Mouzi declared. “We’re almost at the end of the line.”
Everyone looked out the front window. The dark bulk of the escarpment loomed gigantic, almost filling the view. The rail ran straight and true, terminating in an L-shaped barrier cushioned by layers of rubber.
“We ought to be hitting the braking points any time now,” Crowe said.
The coach lurched as if it rolled over a pothole and they heard a brief screech of metal.
“There’s one of them,” he went on.
Metal clanged loudly and a shower of sparks flew up from beneath the car. “And another.”
“Can’t you disconnect the power?” Belleau asked anxiously.
“Too late for that,” replied Mouzi. “Best sit your ass down.”
As everyone dropped into a seat, the train jolted and jarred. Sparks flew from beneath it like the fiery tails of crashing comets. The entire coach shook violently in a series of bone-jarring impacts as it continued to slide ahead. The smell of overheated metal and burning rubber drifted in.
Only when the nose of the coach slammed into the barrier did the train come to a full halt, tipping slightly to the right. Hissings and clankings came from underneath. Kavanaugh found himself lying across the body of the decapitated Deinonychus.
He picked himself up quickly, turning around. To his disappointment, he saw Oakshott had managed to retain his seat and his grip on the carbine. Bai Suzhen sat on the opposite side of the coach, her expression blank, hand held over her right shoulder. Honoré stirred beside her, her face pale but composed.
Helping Mouzi to her feet, Crowe said, “We’re without power now. The impact must’ve knocked the connection loose.”
Kavanaugh fanned the air as the coach began fill up with smoke. “We also burned out some bearings. Time to get out. Let’s dump our headless hobo just in case we have to come back here.”
The seven people filed out through the rear door. Crowe and Kavanaugh carried the corpse of the Deinonychus while Mouzi brought out the creature’s head. They hurled both over the side and into the thick brush.
Belleau opened the Darwin journal, flipped to the map, scanned the terrain and pointed toward the escarpment. The peak looked black against the blue-white of the sky. Cloud streamers whipped around the pinnacles of the extinct volcanic cone.
“That way,” he announced. “We’ll walk the same path to the Mountain of Mystery as my forebear.”
Kavanaugh gestured toward the outer fringe of jungle, less than a mile distant. “Be our guest. We’ll wait for you here.”
Belleau shook his head. “No, that won’t do. I have my reasons for not leaving anyone behind. But I assure you––there’s no need for us to be antagonists, sir, not at this late date.”
“If that’s the case, you could tell Hamish to drop the rifle, right?”
“I could—but I won’t. Not only are you an impetuous man, but Madame Suzhen has threatened my life. You can’t blame me for preferring a bit of protection, even it’s only a single bullet’s worth.”
To emphasize the little man’s words, Oakshott leveled the carbine at Bai Suzhen. She affected not to notice the silent, implicit threat. Kavanaugh exchanged glances with Crowe and Mouzi, both of whom kept their expressions neutral, but their eyes said, now isn’t the time.
Kavanaugh shrugged. “All right, Aubrey. Lead on.”
Honoré Roxton settled her Stetson on her head and quoted softly, “ ‘Over the Mountains Of the Moon, Down the Valley of the Shadow, Ride, boldly ride.’ ”
Automatically she checked her watch and murmured wearily, “All of this before noon. Almighty God.”
* * *
The jungle filling the ravines around the base of the escarpment was deceptive. It was not quite the tangled green hell it looked from the verge. By following Belleau, they came upon a rutted pathway, laid with flat stones. It led through a rich maze of white orchids, clouds of whining insects and flowering plants of such brilliant colors, they defied the imagination.
“Who made this path?” Crowe asked, the survival kit tucked under an arm.
Belleau grinned jauntily. “Would you believe that it was first laid out by the second expedition to Big Tamtung, in 1840? And that it was kept up by various scholars of the School of Night?”
Crowe didn’t respond.
Bai Suzhen brought up the rear. She remained silent, stoically enduring the flies crawling over her blood-caked blouse. Her detachment disturbed Kavanaugh because he could not afford to divide his concentration by worrying about her. He dropped back to walk beside her.
“How are you feeling, Bai?” he asked in a low voice.
She did not respond for so long he almost repeated the question. Then, softly, she replied, “I feel very strange, Jack. Like I’m not really here. I am dreaming this, aren’t I? I’m lying in bed with you, dreaming about you.”
Kavanaugh struggled to keep the sudden cold shock from registering on his face. He said, “Poor way to spend your time.”
Bai whispered, “This is real, not a dream?”
Kavanaugh forced a grin. “Maybe it is and you’ll wake up in your dressing room in the White Snake club and wonder why the hell you were having a crazy dream with an ugly scarred up American in it.”
Bai’s eyes cast him a penetrating stare. He met her gaze. Her smile was slow to come, but it grew like an unfolding blossom. Her long black hair half hid the smile and turned it into something mysterious and meaningful.
She whispered, “When you are ready to make your move, I will be, too.”
She lifted her sword. He nodded in acknowledgement.
“Pick up the pace back there!” barked Belleau. “No need to conspire in whispers against me, either. You’ll be thanking me soon enough.”
Mouzi said angrily, “We’re just humoring you, y’know. You don’t scare us. Because without that giant to back you up, you’re just a damn dwarf with an attitude. ”
“You’re not the first to say so,” Belleau shot back haughtily. “But you will most definitely be the last.”
“Drop the threats, Aubrey,” Honoré said.
He cast her a glance full of wounded innocence. “Threats? By no means…that was a promise.”
The treeless summit towering over them was a monolith of dark, buttressed rock, slashed through with deep, shadowed crevices. The terrain gradually sloped upward toward it. The waterfall looked like a translucent veil over the face of a cliff. A thin mist lay over the high ridges.
The seven people walked under the permanent cloud that clung to the base of the escarpment. Under it spread the rain forest, damp and steamy. The sunlight became suffused, as if they were at the bottom of a silt-clouded pond. The world seemed to turn a bilious gray-green around them.
The heat of the day increased and the air grew thicker, more difficult to breath. The path became less visible and they came across great mushrooms and huge spongy masses of fungi that grew six feet across.
The sour smell of mold and mildew clogged everyone’s nostrils. Mouzi rubbed her nose with the back of a hand and muttered, “Place smells like my Gran’s basement.”
The trail worsened, becoming very hard to see in the mist. A little stream ran near it, between high banks of dark soil. A bird twittered somewhere overhead and a heavy something made a crackling noise in the underbrush to their right.
After half an hour, it began to drizzle and within seconds everyone was soaked to the skin, but there was no relief from the heat. Their sweat mixed with the water and made for a slimy, slick coating on their skin, but they marched on until the rain ended a few minutes later.
Kavanaugh called for a halt when he saw Bai Suzhen stagger and nearly fall. Belleau gave him a hard, challenging stare but he didn’t object. He moved on down the trail, to scout out what lay ahead, ordering Oakshott to stay behind.
Kavanaugh watched Bai stand uncertainly for a moment, then sit down on the path. Crowe and Mouzi seated themselves on either side of her. Honoré walked along the edge of the stream and sat down on the bank and unlaced her boots.
Kavanaugh sat down beside her with his back to a broad-rooted tree, out of sight of Oakshott. The air felt a little cooler beside the placidly flowing water. The top of the tree soared into invisibility, lost in the steamy fog. He asked her quietly, “How are you doing, Dr. Roxton?”
“I’m fine, except for my feet.” Stripping off her socks, she plunged her toes into the purling water and sighed in relief. “What about Bai?”
“What about her?”
“She acts…strange. Out of it.”
Kavanaugh glanced over at Bai Suzhen, peering through the fog. She sat between Crowe and Mouzi, hugging her knees and staring off into the mist, as if she were looking into another time or another reality.
“Yeah,” he said. “Maybe it’s a reaction to that stuff you treated her with. The Prima Materia.”
Honoré nodded. “I wouldn’t be surprised, particularly if its chemical composition is anything like Aubrey described.”
“How so?”
“It’s possible that the material increased Bai’s own production of catalase and dismutase enzymes…jump-starting the healing process.”
“Do you really think it could be a genuine miracle cure?”
“Isn’t that what you and Flitcroft believed?”
“I just went along with the results of Howard’s scientific tests. Still, I should have died when the Deinonychus gutted me. Anywhere else, the injuries would have been fatal.”
Honoré opened her mouth to reply then shook her head. “I don’t know anything any more. I’m a scientist, I should have known better than to listen to Aubrey. But here I am, in the middle of nowhere, looking for the equivalent of the fountain of youth. I must be insane.”
“I should’ve known better about a few things, too.”
“Such as?”
“About letting Aubrey and Oakshott get the drop on us. At some point soon, we’re going to jump them. They’re going to get hurt, maybe very badly.”
Honoré drew in a sharp breath. “I don’t think that’s necessary.”
Kavanaugh said in a harsh whisper, “I don’t want it to be, but that decision is totally up to them. I need to know which way you’re going to jump.”