Carpathian 23 - Dark Storm

what appeared to be tiny flakes of moving snow.
    La Manta Blanca. Tiny midges. Some said tiny mosquitoes. Riley had never researched
     them, but she’d certainly felt their bites. They blazed like fire and afterward, the
     itch drove one crazy. Once scratched and open, the little bites became an invitation
     for infection. She dragged a blanket off the flat board seat and threw it over her
     mother, trying to smash the little bugs as she took her mother to the floor of the
     boat, rolling her as if she was putting out a fire.
    “Get it off of her,” Gary Jansen called. “You won’t get them all that way.”
    He crouched down beside Annabel and yanked at the blanket. Annabel rolled back and
     forth, her hands covering her face, the insects attached to every bit of exposed skin,
     clinging to her hair and clothes. Many were smashed from Riley’s efforts. She continued
     to slap at them, trying to save her mother from further bites.
    Jubal snatched up a bucket of water and threw it over Annabel, brushing at the insects
     to get them off of her. The porters immediately added buckets of water, dousing her
     again and again, while Gary, Jubal and Riley scraped the soaked insects from her with
     the blanket. Ben eventually crouched down beside her and helped to pick the bugs from
     her skin.
    Annabel shuddered violently, but she didn’t make a sound. Her skin turned bright red,
     as a thousand tiny bites swelled into fiery blisters. Gary rummaged through a satchel
     he carried and drew out a small vial. He began smearing the clear liquid over the
     bites. It wasn’t a small job as there were so many. Jubal held Annabel’s arms pinned
     so that she couldn’t scratch at the maddening itch spreading like waves across her
     body.
    Riley clutched her mother’s hand tightly, murmuring nonsense. Her previous suspicions
     came roaring back to life. The tiny little midges had gone straight for her mother.
     There was no one more attuned to the rain forest than Annabel. Plants grew abundant
     and lush around her. She whispered to them and they seemed to whisper back, embracing
     her as if she were Mother Earth. When her mother walked through the backyard at their
     home in California, Riley was fairly certain she could see the plants growing right
     in front of her. For the forest to begin attacking her, something was terribly wrong.
    Annabel gripped Riley’s hand tightly as the two researchers lifted her to her feet
     and helped her stumble back to their sleeping area made private by the sheets and
     netting hung across thin ropes.
    “Thank you,” Riley said to the two men. She was all too aware of the stunned silence
     out on deck. She wasn’t the only one to notice that the white bugs had attacked her
     mother and no one else after their initial swarm. Even those knocked from her body
     had struggled to their feet and crawled toward her as if programmed to do so.
    “Use this on the bites,” Gary Jansen said. “I can make up some more once we’re in
     the forest if she runs out. It will take the edge off.”
    Riley took the vial from him. The two men exchanged a look above her head and her
     heart jumped. They knew something. That look had been meaningful. Profound. She tasted
     fear in her mouth and quickly looked away, nodding her head.
    Annabel attempted a halfhearted smile and murmured her thanks as the two men turned
     to go, giving the women privacy to find bites beneath clothing.
    “Mom, are you all right?” Riley asked, the moment they were alone.
    Annabel gripped her hand tightly. “Listen to me, Riley. Don’t ask questions. No matter
     what happens, even if something happens to me, you must get to the mountain and complete
     the ritual. You know every word, every move. Perform the ritual exactly as you’ve been taught. You’ll feel the earth moving through you and . . .”
    “Nothing’s going to happen to you, Mom,” Riley protested. Fear was giving way to sheer
     terror. Her mother’s eyes reflected some inner turmoil, some innate knowledge of a
     danger she knew of that Riley was missing—more a terrible vulnerability that had never
     been there before. None of the married couples in their family ever long-survived
     the loss of a spouse, but Riley was determined her mother would be the exception.
     She’d been watching her mother like a hawk since her father, Daniel Parker, died in
     the hospital following a major heart attack. Annabel had been grieving, but she hadn’t
     seemed