“My child is chosen by the terrible curse, senhor, and I know she will die the same as the others,” Paulo said. Agony radiated from his leathery face.
“I don’t think so, not this time.” The doctor examined the young girl lying on one of many cots furnished by the United States government. As she slept, she moaned and tossed. He looked at her neck: the familiar two small holes were present. Another victim for this hellish thing. He ran frustrated fingers through his sweat-drenched hair and sighed. Damn, he thought, what can it be? Four years of medical school and six years field experience and never had he seen anything like it. No reference book described a disease caused by whatever insect or animal was inflicting these bites. His contacts back in the states couldn’t explain it. He’d lied to Paulo about the girl when he told him not to worry, but he hoped to discover a remedy before his lie could be known. He hated the way the natives looked to him as if he were a primitive witch doctor—that he could prepare a magic potion to drive away evil spirits. He’d heard rumors about a demon living in a great house not far up the river—the demon said to be responsible for the deaths in the village over the years.
Rain pounded the infirmary’s tin roof. He couldn’t think clearly. He’d been in the wild too long, perhaps. The natives living deep in the jungle he could understand and deal with, but what they claimed was doing this he couldn’t accept. And, he’d heard one victim crying out in her sleep—crying out having hallucinations of an evil beast with eyes that glowed amber.
He walked onto the screened porch and looked out across the Amazon River. It was late afternoon. Raindrops exploded across the river’s flowing surface. Then again, he thought, what is doing this? The doctor lit a cigarette and inhaled. “Paulo,” he called and waited until he heard the native’s bare feet stop behind him. On the river’s opposite side, an alligator emerged and scurried up the bank and disappeared into the brush. “Can you take me to the demon’s mansion?” he asked, not wanting to accept that he was ready to at least check the rumor for himself.
“If it help my little Juanita, I do anything you ask.”
“Fine,” he said, “we leave in the morning.”
PART ONE:
THE BEGINNING
CHAPTER 1
NEW SYMRNA BEACH: JUNE 1975
Jeff thought of his wife—of how death had stolen Pauline away so many years before. He wondered if her soul waited for him across the river. Or was death simply a cessation of existence, the decaying human body becoming an inanimate mass? In the distance, a pelican plunged into the lagoon’s blue-green surface and then rose, squawking as it triumphantly held a writhing fish within its huge beak. As the pelican’s image shrank into the pale horizon, Pauline’s memory bled back into his subconscious like a shadow into darkness.
In cut off jeans, he sat in his Jon boat sipping a cold beer and casting his shrimp-baited hook in hopes of catching a saltwater trout. Located between the peninsula and the mainland, the lagoon had been his favorite getaway spot since his father used to bring him there when he was a teenager. Its rustic waters and surrounding dunes caressed him like a mother comforting her child. Each wave lapping the boat’s hull soothed him, inducing images of exotic far away places.
A dolphin appeared and disappeared as it dove and surfaced across the lagoon. Birds—mostly sandpipers, pelicans, and blue cranes flew back and forth from the mainland to the peninsula.
Overhead, a Cessna made peculiar noises of high and then low hums as its student pilot practiced climbing and diving. A green International Scout sat parked on the peninsula near a huge, bullet-riddled concrete cube that had once been used as a target for training pilots during the Second World War. Beyond the Scout, a lone man stood on the crest of the dunes, looking toward the Atlantic. Jeff was too far away to make out the man’s features, but he saw that the man wore trousers and what appeared to be a blazer and some sort of cap. Jeff thought the jacket was odd in the ninety-five degrees temperature. Curious, he watched the man. The man mostly stood still, looking toward the Atlantic. Jeff figured he must be a tourist taking in the Atlantic and dismissed the man and went back to his own leisure.
The afternoon passed quickly. The student pilot left, leaving the sky silent. The sun started to slip into the horizon, mocking Jeff before he could catch the first trout.
Darkness began to descend on him as the pelican had earlier descended on its prey.
He cursed himself for not leaving quicker so as to clear the channels before dark. He glanced toward the peninsula and saw that the lone man was no longer in sight. The Scout remained where it’d been parked.
He changed to the spare fuel tank, making sure he wouldn’t run out while in the maze of narrow channels connecting the lagoon with the Indian River. He’d primed the fresh tank and was about to pull the starter rope when a bloodcurdling howl exploded through the air.
He froze.
CHAPTER 2
Water lapped against the sides of the schooner as he awoke. Karl Braun’s eyes opened to darkness, but he could easily see. Timbers groaned softly, straining with the anchored vessel’s undulating movement. Overhead, he heard his two servants pacing back and forth.
Two months had passed since he left Brazil where he’d survived for fifty years in the Amazon region. He recalled traveling the river to Macula where the two servants waited with the schooner. Cash was paid for the vessel.
Three crew members were shanghaied from Macula’s tavern population. Heading north, Braun used his powers to shroud the schooner, passing the authorities without notice. His diet required fresh sources at intervals not to exceed two days. He fed at Georgetown, Guyana, and several islands while waiting for news from a third servant he’d sent ahead into Florida to find a suitable dwelling.
Five weeks crawled by before news came that houses had been purchased at three locations.
After gorging himself, they cast off from the last island at daylight with Braun well into his special slumber.
He spent the evenings on deck as they sailed to the area north of Kennedy Space Center. For the past three days, they’d remained along the coast waiting for the pre-chosen date to come ashore. Each night, one of the crew hands taken on at Macula had disappeared.
Now, he listened to the waves lapping against the hull. Life aboard a ship made him weary and he yearned to be ashore—a much safer place for his kind.
“Sir.” A soft, cautious knock sounded on the cabin door. “It is time.”
Braun felt elated. He recalled his narrow escape from Brazil—he hoped things would last longer in this new land. He’d studied Florida’s history and knew it was a land brimming with tourists and transients. Also, there was an old debt to settle—one he intended to settle with ardent revenge.
He unbolted and opened the door. The sunlight was dim, but to Braun it was uncomfortable—he had a strong dislike for the sun’s rays.
The two German servants stood silently as he sauntered onto the deck. Braun’s gaze went toward the beach and he realized the shore was dangerously close.
“We are as near as I dared,” the manservant said.
Braun nodded and looked to the man standing on the dunes. This was Charles, husband to the woman servant on deck, and the third and most faithful servant who had gone ahead and made the arrangements for his arrival.
Braun’s vision was keen; to the south he saw a woman walking alone. He gauged her pace. She’d be between the boat and Charles waiting on the dunes by the time he reached shore.
“A convenient visitor.” The manservant smiled. Braun didn’t return the smile.
The woman servant’s expression conveyed her dislike for the man next to her.
“Raise the anchor,” he told the manservant. His keen sight revealed another woman to the north at a distance of almost two miles. She moved as if in a hurry. Braun considered whether or not he could intercept her as well as the sure one approaching from the south. His hunger surged as his servants lowered the rubber raft overboard.
They climbed into the raft.
The servants began to row.
Despite the salt spray and the raft’s precarious buoyancy, Braun couldn’t divert his attention from the woman approaching from the south. She had quickened her pace, no doubt alarmed by their presence.
The raft bobbed savagely as an incoming wave seized the small craft and hurled it toward shore.
The servant on land hurried from the dunes and waded out to pull them onto the beach.
The strolling woman was fifty feet to the north.
As the servants pulled the raft onto shore, Braun sprung by them and charged the woman, who began to run when she realized his intent.
He felt the transformation occur as he had willed.
The wind whipped at his face as he gained speed.
The fleeing woman screamed.
A huge silver wolf dragged her struggling to the sand.
Soon, the woman became motionless and the wolf
raised its bloodied head and expelled a long, chilling
howl.
A huge silver wolf dragged her struggling to the sand.
Soon, the woman became motionless and the wolf
raised its bloodied head and expelled a long, chilling
howl.