Immortals After Dark 09 - Pleasure of a Dark Prince

on a mission?”
    “Nïx, the apocalypse! Come on, snap out of it!”
    Silence for a long moment. “Oh, I remember,” she sniffed huffily, as if Lucia had broken her sunshine. “Yes, I have all your deets right here—where you need to be and what you need to do. All the specifics already foreseen. Basically you have to be on a particular boat in the Amazon jungle by three sharp tomorrow afternoon.”
    “The Amazon? That’s thousands of miles from where I am. Besides, I’m a hunter—not an explorer.
Find someone else
,” she grated as she maneuvered another dozen feet higher. Her fingertips were on fire.
    “Ah, but would anyone be as qualified as you? You see, the source of this apocalypse is… Cruach.”
    Lucia felt like her stomach dropped the four thousand feet to the ground.
    “Yes, I thought you’d want to take care of this one,” Nïx said in a thoughtful tone. “
Since he’s your husband.”

EIGHTEEN

    Iquitos, Amazonia
Fifteen hours later…
    Lucia sprinted from the heli pad through the remote river-port town, her senses bombarded by scents and sounds: the smell of hot peppers and green bananas in the market stands; the incessant horns from motorcycle rickshaws; street vendors hawking their wares, unaffected by the on-and-off drizzle of rain.
    Though already exhausted from the last few weeks and wiped out from the constant travel over the last day, Lucia adjusted her backpack and travel bowcase to run even faster.
    The time was a quarter after three.
    Breakneck flights had gotten her out of the North-lands, then even more connections had followed to get to South America and into Iquitos.
    She’d logged seven thousand miles in the last day.
    Weary to her bones, she again cursed the instigator of this disaster—Nucking Futs Nïx.
    She couldn’t have seen a freaking
apocalypse
sooner? To give Lucia time to buy a damned mosquito net, and maybe an Amazon river guidebook!
    Lucia was almost to the water—not difficult, since Iquitos was encircled by the Amazon and two other tributaries. The sun peeked through lowering clouds, spawning a vibrant rainbow that seemed to end on the far banks of the Amazon.
    Soon, a red clay shore came into view. Just at the water’s edge, a neighborhood of thatch-roofed houses floated on balsa platforms. A few large riverboats were lined up beside them, beached on the muddy banks.
    As she ran headlong, she recalled the rest of that fateful conversation with the soothsayer:
    “Nïx, how can Cruach bring about an apocalypse?”
    “Apparently, he’s no longer your personal domestic problem. It’s foretold that he’ll start a plague of human sacrifices.”
    Cruach’s other name was To Him We Sacrifice. He had the power to infect beings, engendering a mad need to kill whomever the victim loved most. “A plague?”
    “Before, he could only afflict one with his madness by direct contact and only once he escaped his lair. But soon his influence could potentially be spread like a disease, passed from one person to another.”
    “How? Black magic, the help of another god—”
    “The countdown has begun. Ticktock, ticktock.”
    “What do you want me to do?”
    “Go to the docks. I’ve got you booked on a ship called the
Contessa.
For weeks, you’ll travel into the jungle, to the deepest, darkest part of the Amazon where no other boats dare to go. Find the Rio Labyrinto—a mystically hidden tributary. Have you heard of it?”
    Lucia had exhaled a stunned breath. “Yeah. No onecomes back when they go looking for it. Not even immortals.”
    “Are ya feelin’ lucky, punk?”
    “What’s there to help me fight Cruach? A weapon? An ally? Don’t suppose I’ll find a dieumort there.”
    “Now what’s a dieumort?”
    “Never mind! Nïx, what’s down there?”
    “Call me when you arrive on time—otherwise all this could be moot—then I’ll reveal the rest to you. Unless, of course, I forget.” Which was entirely likely.
    Lucia had known Nïx wouldn’t divulge more logistics. She divvied information like a miser parting with gold coins. Lucia had learned, like all other Valkyrie, to go on a little faith—and forbearance—with Nïx. “At least tell me what the stakes are,” Lucia had demanded impatiently. “What happens if I fail?”
    “The end of life as we know it.”
    “Nothing else you’d like to impart?”
    “Everything you’ll need will be aboard the
Contessa”.
A blare of static-like noise crackled. “Oh, and beware of the
barão da