Immortals After Dark 09 - Pleasure of a Dark Prince

they no’ want to stay that way?”
    Lucia jabbed her elbow at him, and he grunted.
    Damiãno gave a tight smile that didn’t reach his vivid green eyes. “Several large oil companies are bidding on these remote territories, falsely claiming they’re unoccupied, so any tribes there will certainly be contacted regardless. My aim for this expedition is to get photos of them from a distance and prove their existence, which would halt all oil exploration on their lands.” He waved to the cowlick guy beside him. “Dr. Schecter?”
    “Right, right, I’m Dr. Clarence Schecter, a zoologist from UC San Diego.” He removed his glasses, polishing them with his shirttail. “My area of study is unculled species of reptiles.”
    Rossiter raised a brow. “Unculled?”
    “Yes, when men hunt, they pick off the largest of the species. Over time, the pool becomes smaller. So the deeper into the jungle we get, the more chance there is of spotting larger-than-normal river specimens.”
    With all their talk of
going deep
into the jungle, Lucia might not have to dump them as early as she’d thought.
    MacRieve scoffed. “What do you mean ‘larger than normal?’ Normal out here is no’ exactly small.” MacRieve had said he’d hoped never to come back here. How long had he been in the basin before? And why?
    The captain agreed. “I see giant animals every day. Tarantulas with meaty bodies the size of dinner plates. Foot-long scorpions. Twenty-foot-long gators. Giant otters and even catfish’ll stretch nine feet.”
    “And by
gator
,” Dr. Schecter said in a patronizing tone, “I assume you mean the South American crocodilian species called the
caiman
?”
    At Travis’s shrug, Schecter said, “That’s the thing. In other areas, we have fossil records of caimans reaching
forty
feet long. But they’ve been overhunted. Now, once we gain enough distance from civilization, and with the sonic baiting techniques I’ll utilize, I’ll be able to document primordial specimens.”
    MacRieve coughed the word,
“Sonic”
just as Rossiter made a sound of realization.
    “Megafauna,” the man said. “You’re searching for megs! If you’re a cryptozoologist, just admit it and take your ribbing.”
    Cryptozoology—the study of creatures from “myth.”
They’re in a room with at least two cryptids. And they don’t even know it.
    “Me? I’m not a cryptozoologist!” Schecter flushed red. “Otherwise I’d be aboard the
Barão da Borracha
.”
    As Rossiter groaned, Travis’s expression turned chilling, while Izabel studied her captain’s sudden change in demeanor.
    “Wait—what was that?” Lucia asked. Nïx had said,
Beware of the barão da borracha.
The Rubber Baron wasn’t a person but a ship? “Why do you say that?”
    Schecter answered, “The
Barão
is filled to the bevels with cryzos. You know, cryptozoologists. Captain Malaquí takes them hunting in the jungle for ‘demons’ and ‘shape-shifters’ in backwater tributaries.” He added, “I’ve heard passengers go out with Malaquí. But sometimes… they don’t come back.”
    Lucia waited for Travis to naysay that, to call it a baseless rumor. Instead he drank deep.
    She asked the captain, “Is that ship close by?”
    “Headed north in the opposite direction,” Travis said tightly. He added in a mumble, “As I like it.”
    Izabel canted her head at Travis, and her thick black braid swept off her shoulder. The young woman clearly carried a torch for the much older, and remarkably less sober, captain.
Good luck with the male specimen you’ve got there, Izabel. P.S.: This ship has been over-culled.
    “Where’re they searching for demons?” MacRieve asked. “Which tributary?”
    Schecter answered, “My guide in Iquitos told me Rio Labyrinto, or some such.”
    At that mention, Lucia tensed and of course MacRieve noticed. He put his callused hand on her back. It was warm against her, even through her shirt.
    “That’s nothing but a hokey legend,” the captain muttered into his cup. And for a second, Lucia thought he was lying.
    Schecter said, “Well, likely so. But I’d taken all that information with a grain of salt since the guide also told me that they were loading a coffin onto the ship!”
    Now both Lucia and MacRieve tensed.
A vampire?
What would a leech possibly be doing out here? For some reason she thought of Lothaire. He’d been making power plays throughout the Lore for the last year—
    “Your turn, Dr….” Schecter asked her,