Moon Mask Read online

  “Hold on,” Nadia shouted. “I have a rope. We will pull you out!”

  King stumbled to his feet, the smelly water draining off him and his clothes. His satchel was still wrapped around his shoulders and he scooped down to pick up his flash light. Free of the water, the torch beam cut through the darkness and King felt himself relax a little. He panned it around his surroundings.

  The chamber he had fallen into was about thirty feet in diameter and roughly circular, not unlike a giant well. The walls were the same jigsaw puzzle of misshapen rocks, some large, others small, as the rest of the underground complex.

  Scanning his torch up, he saw that a section of the ceiling, about five feet wide, had collapsed and through the hole, fifteen feet above, he could see Sid and Nadia’s worried faces.

  “I’m alright,” he called up to them, more firmly this time. “I’m in some sort of chamber.”

  He knew the implication of his statement would not be lost on the two women. No identifiable rooms or chambers had yet been found in the endless hundreds of feet of passages.

  “I wish you would stop literally stumbling onto discoveries like that,” Sid half-joked.

  King laughed then brought his torch beam back down. Shining it at the ground, he realised he had potentially been very lucky. Directly beneath the hole, he had landed on a partially submerged plinth of stone rising out of a much deeper pool. While the water landing may have been softer, there was no way of knowing what lay beneath the murky surface.

  He turned around and jumped in fright as a hideous visage peered back at him!

  It was another skull, this one alone, its lifeless expression somehow seeming to leer at him. It wasn’t just a skull, he realised. It was a complete skeleton. It was curled up on a recess cut into the wall at the back of the plinth, about seven feet off the ground.

  He moved towards it-

  Something slapped at his head and he spun around, arms up defensively only to discover a rope dangling down from above.

  “Ben, grab on,” Sid called. “We’ll pull you up.”

  He was about to take hold of the rope when something stopped him. He couldn’t explain what, exactly. Curiosity, he supposed. “Hang on a sec,” he shouted up to Sid and Nadia.

  He cautiously sloshed through the water, wading over to the wall beneath the recessed slot. He guessed the shelf-like recess had once held an idol or some other sacred object and wondered for a second whether the human remains were in fact that object.

  Ignoring all his archaeological training, he proceeded to use the joins between the blocks of the wall as finger and toe holds and hauled himself up to peer into the recess at the skeleton.

  Its back was slumped against the wall, its knees bent, legs folded under it. Focussing his torch on the remains, he was surprised to note fragments of clothing still clinging to the bones, most notably the rotten remains of a hat sitting lopsided on the skull.

  “Ben,” Sid called again from above. “Hurry up!”

  He ignored her, peering more closely at the man’s clothing, completely out of place in an ancient South American ruin hidden deep in the Amazon.

  “What have you found?” Nadia asked, her clinically detached demeanour making her more interested in his discovery than his welfare.

  “A skeleton!”

  “Wow,” Sid replied mockingly. “It’s not like we haven’t seen any of them embedded in the walls!”

  “This one’s different,” he swung his satchel around to hang in front of him and plucked out a pair of tweezers and a plastic bag with one hand while using the other to hold him to the wall.

  “It’s not just a skull,” he explained. “It is a complete skeleton. And, judging by its clothing, he wasn’t from around here.”

  “Where do you think he came from?” Nadia asked, a hint of excitement breaking through her icy demeanour.

  “Europe.”

  “Conquistador?” Sid asked. The Spanish Conquistadors had penetrated deep into the Amazon in their bloodthirsty quest for gold.

  “Not unless conquistadors wore tricorns,” he replied.

  “Tricorns?”

  Something just behind the unblinking skull caught the light, glinting, dully. Tentatively, he reached around the dead man’s shoulder and his fingers brushed cold metal. He peered over the skeleton and, as his eyes made out the distinctly metallic object amidst the gloom, a rush of boyish excitement shot through him, prompting him to act totally unprofessionally.

  “Oh my god,” he gasped, wrenching the object free with one hand and holding it before him. “It’s him.”

  “Ben?” Sid shouted to him.

  “It’s him!” he bellowed up excitedly, hearing his voice echo in the chamber. “Sid, it’s him!”

  “Who?” Nadia asked.

  “Death! It’s Death!”

  “Death?” Nadia mumbled uncertainly. “As in . . . the Grim Reaper?”

  “Not again,” Sid moaned. She didn’t share Nadia’s confusion. She knew exactly what King was talking about. How could she not? His obsession with an obscure historical reference to a man known as the ‘Black Death’ was an offshoot of his father’s own insane quest. That quest had led to the brutal murder of King’s mother and sister at the hands of the fanatical General Abuku, known as the ‘Himmler of Africa,’ in front of him when he was a young child. It had led to both he and his father’s ridicule in the academic community as they hunted for the origin of civilisation among ancient myths. Only months ago, it had ultimately led to his father’s disappearance somewhere within the heart of Africa, searching for the mythical city of the Bouda tribe, a remnant of what he called the ‘Progenitor Race’.

  The Black Death, King believed, had been a member of the Bouda, perhaps their chief, who had been initiated into the mysteries of the Moon Mask, the tribe’s central icon. According to legend, the mask offered its wearers’ glimpses of the future and, in one tradition, even gave them the ability to travel through it.

  “Ben,” Sid called to him but her voice seemed very far away. His own heartbeat thundered in his ears as King clung to the wall with one hand, while in the other he clutched a circular slab of metal.

  It can’t be, he thought.

  He had almost convinced himself that the legends of the Bouda and the Moon Mask were nothing but nonsensical oral traditions, passed down through his ancestors to his father.

  A sudden flashback to that terrible afternoon in Lagos assaulted his mind. The hate-filled face of General Abuku flashed in his eyes, just as they did in his nightmares every night. A spray of blood coating his face as a bullet blasted out his mother’s skull. A pool of red swelling across the carpet of the family’s rented apartment as his sister met a similar fate. The pain as the hot muzzle of the monster’s gun pressed against the centre of forehead, forever branding his flesh.

  He quickly pushed the memory aside, his thoughts drifting to a kinder time; sat around a camp fire outside of the Wassu Stone Circle near to the Gambian River, his father had finally explained to him what he had demanded to know since the day the ‘bad man’ had killed his mother and sister.

  Following the tragedy in Nigeria, father and son had eventually returned to London. It had all been a blur to the little boy. He remembered a memorial service. Lots of visitors, some official, others not. He remembered the irritating counsellor that had constantly tried to make him open up his feelings about what had happened. But mostly, he remembered how his father had thrown himself into his research, more focussed than ever. While always making time for his son, little Benny had seen the distance in his eyes, his mind constantly sifting through his research even when he was not at his desk.

  Two years later, when Benny was nearing his eighth birthday, they had flown to The Gambia. It wasn’t just for his research, his father had told him. Despite being a third generation British citizen, it was important that Benny learn about his ancestral roots.

  His father claimed that they were descend
ants of the Bouda, a mythical tribe who could transform themselves into hyenas and look into the future. But they were no mere myth, he had said. They were the forefathers of Africa, the remnants of a great civilisation which had spread across the continent, teaching the people the art of agriculture and stone working. It was this search that had bisected Abuku’s own insane quest. The madman believed such a claim could endorse his brutal elimination of all non-ethnic Africans from the entire continent and enforce a return to the old religions from before the days of Christ and Islam. An original, united Africa.

  Reginald had taken his son to some caves near to the stone circle where crude paintings depicted a ship attacking a city of stone. Throughout the Gambia, there were similar drawings, paintings and other depictions of the Black Holocaust, the years when Europeans raped Africa of her children. But this particular depiction, his father had told him, showed the destruction of the Bouda. It was drawn by a survivor of that terrible assault, a distant ancestor of the King family. And, prominent among the images of Africans being led to the ship in chains was a figure wearing a mask.

  The Moon Mask.

  Broken up by the ancient gods long before the King family converted to Islam. Broken and scattered across the globe so that no man could harness the power of god.

  But one man had tried, Benjamin King believed. The ‘Black Death’, one of only two survivors of the cursed transatlantic crossing of the slave ship, L'aile Raptor. His entire tribe had perished alongside the accursed crew.

  Ever since his father had told him the story of the Moon Mask, King had become equally obsessed with it. He had traced the Raptor’s voyage to Jamaica, pieced together the scanty clues about the Black Death’s life– his escape from the Hamilton Sugar Plantation, his theft of a ship, his turn to piracy. He had a paper trail proving his epic voyages in search of, King believed, all the pieces of the Moon Mask so that he could claim the power of the gods, the power of time, and save his tribe.

  And yet, for all the proof he had found of the Black Death’s existence, the one thing he had never found, the one irrefutable piece of evidence that he needed to convince the world’s scholars that the Bouda were real, and, therefore, so was his father’s proposed Progenitor Race, was the Moon Mask itself.

  Until now.

  He gazed reverently at the metal and shook off his reverie, turning the mask over. He struggled to keep his emotions in check, wanting to jump and whoop and laugh and scream in joy whilst resisting the urge to collapse to his knees and sob. All the years of ridicule, all the whispered murmurings behind his back, the rolling eyes, the scoffing cackles, now, he would throw them right back at the ignominious disbelievers.

  “It’s a piece of the Moon Mask! Sid, it’s the Moon Mask!” He whooped like a boy on Christmas morning, splashing back down into the water. “Oh my god, this is incredible!”

  “Ben!” Sid called.

  “I mean, this could well be the greatest discovery since-”

  “Ben!” Sid snapped, alongside Nadia’s own warning.

  King turned. And froze.

  Plodding up the ramp from the murky pool, moving with little haste yet exuding the utmost menace, was a nine foot long crocodilian. Its armour-like scales glistened as beads of water dripped off it, whilst, in the shaking beam of his torch, the beast’s eyes shone hellish red.

  He stared back at the enormous monster as it took another waddling stride, then another, the muscles of its legs flexing. “Um,” he mumbled. “It’s a crocodile. I’m stuck down here with a goddamn crocodile!”

  “Are you sure it is not a caiman?” Nadia queried. While Orinoco Crocodiles were known to populate the area, their numbers were so depleted by hunting that a black caiman would be more probable.

  Sid shot her friend an angry glance then peered back down the hole. “Ben, get out of there!”

  King tried not to panic. Despite the crocodile’s plodding manner, he knew it was faster than he could ever hope to be and should he panic and make a dash for the dangling rope it would have its jaws around him in seconds.

  Slowly, cautiously, he took a step towards the rope while tucking the mask into his satchel. Then he paused. “What about the remains?”

  “We’ll come back for them later,” Sid said urgently.

  “Okay,” he gulped and began a gentle, non-aggressive movement through the water towards the rope. Each footstep however brought him closer to the reptile and-

  A splash of water and a lunging shadow!

  Ben dived backwards, out of the wide-open jaws of a second crocodile. He went underwater, unprepared, and gulped in a mouthful of the foul tasting liquid before scrambling to his feet and back-stepping away from the beast as its shadow vanished beneath the surface.

  His heart raced, his body shook with fear- no, not fear. This went beyond fear! This was a feeling he had never experienced before, this was-

  “Ben!” Sid called anxiously. “There are more of them in the water!”

  “You think!?” he snapped.

  Indeed, beyond the shelf, where the water dropped to indeterminable depth, he could make out the disjointed silhouettes of maybe three, even four more of the monsters.

  “Damn!” he cursed. “I’m dead! I’m dead! I’m dead!”

  An explosion of red and purple light blasted into the chamber, half blinding him. The flare, fired from Nadia’s flare gun, part of the essential survival gear they were required to carry, shot down. It exploded just above the surface of the water, the bright light glaring from its black surface. It stunned the crocodilians, many of them lashing up out of the water and thrashing about.

  “Quick! Now!” Nadia shouted.

  Ben didn’t need to be told twice. He sprinted off the mark, darting to the dangling rope and the salvation which lay at the top of the long climb. But, as he was within arm’s reach, another croc broke the surface, jaws gaping open, breath foul and stinking. Somehow, King, marginally faster, twisted out of range, staggered back, hit the wall. The living dinosaur closed in, coming about for a second attempt.

  King fumbled inside his satchel, found his own flare gun, jammed a cartridge into the barrel, pressed his back against the wall, closed his eyes and fired!

  The flare shot out of the gun and drove straight into the crocodile’s gaping mouth. It exploded inside the beast’s head, blasting out skull, bone, teeth and brains in a downpour of gore.

  The body rolled off the shelf and was instantly set upon by the other crocs, all thrashing about, tearing great lumps of flesh from one of their own. The crocodile that had been plodding up the ramp rolled into the water to join the feast, thus leaving King’s way to the rope free. He didn’t waste a second as he ran forward, grasped the rope and heaved himself up.

  Sid and Nadia took the strain and tried to pull him up but, half way to safety, a commotion below caught his attention.

  He glanced down to see the crocodiles suddenly discard their meal, lunging beneath the water in a new frenzy, one which smacked of fear and survival themselves.

  Beneath the floating carcass a dark shape moved, twisting and undulating, sliding through the water carelessly. Whatever it was, it was massive and whatever could scare away ten-foot long crocodiles was not something he wanted to hang around to see.

  He continued with renewed haste towards the hole in the ceiling and was helped through by Sid and Nadia, while below him, the carcass was dragged silently beneath the surface.

  He afforded a quick glance back down the hole to note that the chamber was still once more, that the crocodiles and whatever leviathan that had scared them had vanished. Then he turned his attention to the object he retrieved from his satchel and stared wide-eyed at his prize.

  The Moon Mask.

  3:

  Sari . . . Sari . . .

  Airborne over Jaua-Sarisariñama National Park,

  Venezuela,

  The Huey swung low over the treetops, its downdraft blasting at the canopy of the Amazon rainfo
rest. Sprawling for thousands of miles in all directions was an endless ocean of green, broken only by the snaking meanders of the Orinoco’s tributaries.

  The small helicopter hurried south, passing mountain ranges and plateaus, magnificent waterfalls and gaping chasms. The noise of its propellers caught the attention of some of the jungle’s higher life forms, breaking into the grooming patterns of monkeys and scattering flocks of brightly coloured parrots.

  Nathan Raine threw the chopper from side to side, banking sharply, twisting and spinning the aircraft in ways that stretched the laws of physics to their limits.

  As tumultuous clouds gathered to the south, purple and menacing, he dropped the Huey into a nose dive and then pulled up sharply, flying only meters above the uneven canopy of the Amazon. The green ocean whipped by beneath him in a blur as he pushed the engines to their maximum one hundred and thirty miles per hour.

  It was a waste of fuel, he knew. But after being cooped up around Caracas Contract Choppers headquarters for so long, he used his fortnightly supply run as a chance to stretch his wings. Besides, he knew exactly how much the Huey could take, exactly how much fuel he needed to get to Sarisariñama and back again.

  The storm hit him violently, the sudden down pour hammering against the metal skin of the helicopter. The rain fell with such intensity that even with the Huey’s wipers on full, his view was obscured. But he did not decrease his speed but kept ploughing ahead, thundering through the vortex that whirled around him, battling to control the aircraft in the buffeting wind, even as its skids screeched by precariously close to the canopy.

  All it would take, he knew, was a single giant tree standing out above the rest and it would all be over. But he welcomed the danger. Nathan Raine wasn’t a man to live a comfortable, safe lifestyle. He thrived on peril, on knowing that any moment could be his last.