Carpathian 23 - Dark Storm

prepared her defenses carefully, using torches she could easily light, even
     going so far as to build a small circular fire wall around her mother’s sleeping area.
     As she unhooked her netting, she caught sight of Raul creeping toward her. He was
     staying low and to the shadows, but she could make him out, sliding from one dark
     place to another, stalking prey. Riley glanced over at her sleeping mother. She feared
     Annabel was the porter’s intended prey.
    Heart pounding, tasting fear in her mouth, Riley slipped from her hammock and drew
     her knife. Going up against a machete, especially one wielded by a man who used one
     on a regular basis, was insane, but he was going to have to go through her to get
     to her mother, just as the vampire bats would have to do. And it wouldn’t just be
     her knife, if he came at her mother. Riley picked up a torch and held it to the low
     fire she’d prepared earlier as a defense against the bats.
    She would kill him if she had to. The idea made her sick, but she steeled herself,
     going through each move in her head. Practicing. Bile rose, but she was determined.
     No one— nothing —would harm her mother. She’d made up her mind, and nothing would stop her, not even
     the idea that what she was about to do might be considered premeditated murder.
    Raul inched closer. Riley could smell his sweat. His scent was all “wrong” to her.
     She took a deep breath and let it out, easing toward her mother’s hammock, putting
     her feet carefully in position. She could feel the ground under her, almost rising
     to meet each footfall. She’d never been so aware of the heartbeat of the Earth. Not
     a leaf rustled. No twig snapped. Her feet seemed to know exactly where to step to
     keep from making a sound, to keep from twisting an ankle or falling on the uneven
     ground.
    She positioned herself in front of her mother’s hammock, picking a spot she could
     easily move in to try to keep any attack from her. Movement close to her sent her
     pulse pounding. A man’s shadow loomed over the hammock, thrown by the flames in the
     fire pit suddenly leaping toward the sky. She never would have seen him otherwise.
     Jubal Sanders was that quiet. She twisted fast to face him, but he’d gone past her
     to take up a position at the head of Annabel’s hammock. Had he wanted to kill her
     mother, she would already be dead—he’d been that close without Riley’s knowledge.
    She knew, almost without the confirmation of turning her head, that Gary Jansen was
     at the foot of her mother’s hammock. She’d spent the last four days trekking through
     the hardest jungle possible and she knew the way he moved—silent and easy through
     the rough terrain—but it still surprised her. He just seemed as if he’d be more at
     home in a lab coat, the absentminded professor. Clearly he was brilliant. You couldn’t
     talk to him and not realize he was extremely intelligent, but he moved every bit as
     easily through the jungle as Jubal and he was equally as well armed and probably just
     as proficient with weapons. She was glad they had chosen to help her protect Annabel.
    The terrible buzzing in her head increased so that for a moment her head felt as if
     it might explode. She pressed her fingers tightly against her temple. She was looking
     directly at Gary when the pain exploded through her skull and rattled her teeth. He
     gripped his head at the same moment, shaking it. His lips moved, but no sound emerged.
     She looked at Jubal. He, too, was feeling the head pain.
    The words were foreign. Jumbled together, almost like a chant, but definitely words.
     She had excelled in studying ancient and dead languages as well as modern ones, but
     she didn’t recognize even the rhythm of the ­words—­but both Jubal and Gary clearly
     did. She saw the expressions on their faces, the alarm exchanged in their eyes.
    Ben Charger staggered up to the other side of Annabel’s hammock, pressing his hands
     to his ears. “Something’s wrong,” he hissed. “This is about her. Something evil wants
     her dead.”
    Jubal and Gary nodded their agreement. The bats overhead stirred. Riley’s heart pounded
     hard enough that she feared the others could hear. She took a better grip on her knife
     and torch and waited in the darkness while Annabel moaned and writhed, as if evading
     something terrible chasing her, haunting her dreams.
    Raul came out of the shadows, machete clutched in his hands, muttering