The Deadly Curse Of Toco-Rey Part 7

"Dr. Jacob Cooper." He took just a few steps toward the girl, reached into his shirt pocket, and brought out her small blowgun. "I believe this belongs to you."

She took one look at it and shook her head. "Oh no," she said emphatically. "That is not mine."

Hmm. Interesting. Dr. Cooper played along. "Oh. Well, it must belong to one of the men here." He tossed it to the nearest Kachaka warrior, who looked it over, shook his head, and then pa.s.sed it to the next. It began circulating among the men in search of an owner. "But please, can you tell me if you've seen my daughter? She's about your age and height, with fair skin and long, blond hair. She's lost somewhere in the ruins."

The girl's eyes betrayed some kind of knowledge, but she was hesitant to speak.

Jacob Cooper prompted, "That is my daughter Lila's hat. Where did you find it?"

She still hesitated until her mother bent and spoke some quiet but firm words in her ear. Then she admitted, "I got this hat from a mukai-tochetin."

That brought a gasp from some of the women standing nearby and alarmed looks from all of the men, including her father.

"Tell him the rest," her father ordered. "Tell us!"

"She was a girl, like me. Her face ..." She touched her cheek as she spoke it. "Her face was green, like a lizard."

The Kachakas muttered to each other, exchanging looks of alarm.

"Did she attack you?" the chief asked with a suspicious, sideways glance at Dr. Cooper.

The girl hesitated, then answered timidly. "S. She ... she jumped out of the bushes and screamed at me. She was like a crazy person... ."

"She was a mukai-tochetin!" the chief proclaimed as if trying to regain his pride. "What did you do?"

"I ran."

"You ran away?"

"S."

The chief patted her shoulder. "Ah. That was good."

Dr. Cooper asked, "Then ... how did you get her hat?"

The girl thought a moment, then replied. "I found her later. She was lying on the ground. And I took her hat."

Dr. Cooper leaned forward. "Lying on the ground? Why? Was something wrong with her?"

The girl looked from Dr. Cooper to the Kachaka men and women to her father and mother, and then at Dr. Cooper again. "She is dead."

SEVEN.

Jacob Cooper could not give up hope. "Can you take me to her? Can you show me where she is?"

She looked to her father. He nodded that it would be okay. "S, seor."

"We need to go," said Dr. Cooper. "Right now. Jay's out there somewhere, too."

Chief Yoaxa chose four of his toughest men to go with them. Then quickly, to get it over with, he handed Dr. Cooper his gun and two flashlights. "You will want these in the ruins."

Mara headed through the village while Dr. Cooper, her father, and four burly Kachakas followed. They took the main trail into the jungle, carrying torches and lanterns, guns and knives, as well as Kachaka blowguns with plenty of darts.

Jay thought he knew where he was when he came to an old stone wall, but it was so covered with jungle growth that he totally lost his bearings as he tried to explore around it. Finally, breaking out from under the thick jungle canopy, he saw stars overhead and determined which direction was north. He'd gotten turned around, all right. Doing a complete about-face, he headed the other direction, south, hoping to encounter the Pyramid of the Sun or any other familiar landmark. He had to get back to the compound and find help.

He was thinking of his father and sister, and how little time there was. Hope was hard to hang onto, but he tried.

Lila Cooper was not dead. She was dazed, half-conscious, half-dreaming, lying amid vines and rubble at the base of a lone, basalt pillar that had held up a roof centuries ago. She was still dressed in the extra clothes she'd put on to protect herself from slug slime, and she was feeling hot, sweaty, tired, and achy.

But she didn't want to wake up. Somehow she knew there was a very spooky world beyond her closed eyelids. It was better to hide inside her dazed mind where the world was all laughing, dancing colors; the ground was still moving like a carnival ride; and no bogeymen could get her.

"Seorita?" came a voice from somewhere.

Who was that, the bogeyman? Go away. I don't believe in you.

"Seorita?" came the voice again, and then it started talking in hushed tones with another voice. It was all Spanish; she couldn't understand much of it.

She could sense a light shining on her eyelids. It made her squint.

"Aha!" said the voice. "Est viva!"

She raised her hand to her face and then opened her eyes just a crack. There were lights out there, shining in her face.

"Seorita Cooper, it is us, Juan and Toms. Are you all right?"

Toms. It took her a moment to remember who he was. She opened her eyes completely and could make out two men kneeling beside her with their flashlights.

"Toms?" she heard herself saying.

"S, seorita. It is a good thing we found you. How are you feeling?"

"Hot."

She sat up and removed her gloves and extra shirt. When she raised her hand to wipe the hair from her eyes, she saw something peculiar. She looked at her hand again, then leaned forward to view it in the beam of Toms's flashlight. "What happened?"

"We think it was the carvy slime, seorita. It made you loco ... crazy ... and it made you look a little green." Toms chuckled, and so did Juan.

"A little ... ," Her hand looked very green to her.

Juan shined his flashlight on her hands and face and made some comments.

Toms agreed and told Lila, "It was much worse, but you seem to be getting better now. Can you stand up? We will take you back to the compound."

She tried to get her feet under her. With Toms's strong arms to help, she finally stood up. "Ouch!" Her hand went to her leg. "My leg hurts."

"Would you like me to carry you?"

She tried to walk. After a few shaky steps, it came a little more easily. "Where are my father and brother?"

"They are out looking for you. We'll get you safely back, and then we'll find them, don't worry."

Mara knew the ruins well, even in the dark. She led her father, the Kachaka warriors, and Dr. Cooper directly through the jungle to an old basalt pillar that had once supported a roof.

There Mara was disturbed to find Lila gone. "She ... was lying right here! I saw her! I took her hat!"

Chief Yoaxa puffed up his chest and crossed his arms. "Ha! She is a mukai-tochetin! She cannot die. She will haunt these ruins forever!"

Dr. Cooper looked at the area carefully. It was matted down as if someone had been lying there. "Mara ... how long ago was that?"

"It was before the mukai-tochetin chased me."

"The wild, green man?"

"Yes. He came from over there." She pointed toward a spooky looking, pillared temple just barely visible in the dark.

"He chased me, but you came to help me-"

"Yes, he came to help you, like the great hero!" Chief Yoaxa cut in, tired of hearing that story. He glared at Dr. Cooper. "Manito thinks you are okay, and Mara thinks you are okay, but I think you are a mukai-tochetin, like your daughter. You have bewitched Mara to lie!"

Dr. Cooper had no time to argue further. "Lila's still out here somewhere, and we have to find her-"

The scream. It came from out there somewhere, out in the limitless dark jungle.

Chief Yoaxa and his men were clearly frightened. "We must get back to our village now."

"No, wait," Dr. Cooper objected. "I need your help."

The Chief gathered his daughter close to him. "You do not need our help, Dr. Cooper!" He looked into the dead ruins and ink-black jungle. "You have the mukai-tochetin! They are your friends, yes? Your daughter is one of them. I think you are too. Maybe this is all a trap!"

Chief Yoaxa's men started to buy into his argument. They began to edge away.

"Wait!" said Dr. Cooper. "You know these ruins. You can help me search!"

The scream echoed through the ruins again, and they all turned tail and ran, leaving Jacob Cooper alone amid the aging stones, the bottomless shadows, the eerie sounds.

Dr. Armond Basehart held the syringe up to the light. It was full of red blood, a good sample. He was satisfied.

Lila had shed the extra clothes she'd worn into the pit and sat comfortably on a couch in his lab, pressing a cotton ball to the puncture in her arm. "What about my father and brother?"

"Toms, Juan, and Carlos are out searching for them right now," he answered, preparing to distribute 86 her blood into several small test tubes. "They'll be all right. But we have to do all we can to find out what happened to you before the symptoms are totally gone."

She looked at her arms. They still had a greenish cast but were steadily returning to their natural pink. "It's going away pretty fast."

He leaned over her with a cotton swab. "Lean back."

She looked up. "Huh?"

He forced her head back with his hand on her forehead, a touch she did not appreciate, and took a smear sample from her nostrils.

"What's that for?" she asked, wrinkling her nose to relieve the tickle of the swab.

Instead of answering her question, he asked, "Did you see or touch anything unusual before you fell into the pit the first time?"

She thought it over and then shook her head. "All I remember is falling into all those slugs and getting slime all over me."

"Anything afterward?"

"The pit," she answered. "The pit was weird."

"Mm-hm."

Dr. Basehart rolled the cotton swab along a microscope slide. Then he put the slide under his microscope and slowly turned the focus k.n.o.b.

From the look on his face, Lila could see he'd found something interesting. "What do you see?"

He ignored her question.

She didn't mind asking again. "What's ... uh, what are you looking at?"

He gave an exasperated sigh like he didn't want to answer her question, but then he turned and smiled at her. The smile looked a little phony. "Oh, pollen, dust ... even a tiny bug!"

In her nose? "Oh, yuk!"

He just laughed.

"Can I see?"

He waved her off. "No, not now. I have too many things to process here."

His tone actually sounded a little harsh. She didn't argue with him. She was too tired and she didn't want to aggravate him. Besides, a burning itch on her lower leg was screaming for attention. She pulled her sock down to scratch it and found a welt. "Hey, Dr. Basehart. The green's going away faster around this insect bite. Does that mean anything?"

He didn't seem to mind that question. He came over immediately to take a closer look. The welt seemed to fascinate him for a moment, but then he just shook his head. "Mm, no, I think that's coincidental."

"Sure hurts," she complained.

"Well, the insects around here can bite pretty hard!" He patted her on the shoulder. "I think I'm all through with you for now. Why don't you go to your trailer and see if you can sleep?"

He went back to the counter and started arranging various samples in a neat row. Lila recognized some of them: the slime he'd wiped from her after she fell in the pit; the blood he'd drawn from her arm; the smear he'd just taken from her nose. He wouldn't say anything, but he had figured something out, she could tell.

And he was excited about whatever it was.