Noboru clutched suddenly at Gabriel’s arm. Gabriel turned—and saw a fist-sized tarantula creeping across the branches directly in front of Noboru’s face. Noboru’s eyes widened and even in the dim light Gabriel could see the blood drain from his face. His jaw dropped open.
Gabriel clamped a hand over Noboru’s mouth before he could make a sound.
The tarantula continued picking its way along the branch and disappeared into the underbrush. Gabriel glared at Noboru, who nodded, and then he let go. Noboru swallowed hard and took a few deep breaths.
When Gabriel looked up again, the man in the robe and the skull mask was standing under the cage with his back to them. He’d picked up a long stick from the ground and was poking it up between the wooden slats at the person inside the cage, who stirred and moaned quietly. Whoever it was, she or he was still alive. Gabriel signaled to Noboru to stay put, then pointed to himself and the man in the clearing. Noboru nodded to show he understood, which was more than Gabriel could say for himself. He feared his gestures may have conveyed the impression that he had more of a plan than he actually had.
Gabriel rose quietly to his feet. The skull-faced man still had his back to them. Gabriel crept toward him, one hand on the butt of his Colt in case the man turned too soon. Luckily he was too intent on waking the person in the cage to notice Gabriel coming up behind him. Gabriel wrapped one arm around the man’s neck. He meant to put him in a sleeper hold but the man spun quickly, slipped out of Gabriel’s grasp, and went for his sword. Moving fast, Gabriel threw a punch, connecting with the mask, which shattered. The face below was pale, with bushy eyebrows and a scraggly beard—definitely not Bornean. It looked like it could be the man Joyce had described in her last journal entry. He opened his mouth to shout for help, but Gabriel dropped him with a second punch to the face.
Gabriel dragged the man’s body into the trees where it wouldn’t be seen, then returned to the cage. Up close, he saw that the chains it was hanging from were attached to gears mounted at the top of the arched tree trunks. He peered up through the mossy slats along the bottom of the cage. Lying inside was a woman in a torn blue-and-white shirt and dirt-smeared khaki shorts. She’d been gagged with a cloth tied around the back of her head, and had ropes tying her hands behind her back and binding her ankles together. She was facing away from him.
“Joyce?” he whispered.
She started. She struggled to sit up, then realized the voice was coming from below her and turned to lie on her stomach. Even with her face smeared with dirt, her hair tangled and matted, Gabriel recognized her and he felt a surge of relief.
Joyce squinted down at him, studying his face, then her eyes spread wide. “Ayiel Unn?” she said around the gag.
That took him by surprise. He hadn’t expected her to recognize him after so many years. He certainly wouldn’t have recognized her without the passport photo.
“Yes,” Gabriel whispered. He glanced at the hut. No one seemed to have heard them. Not yet, anyway. “Noboru’s here, too. We’re going to get you out of here.”
“Obo-oo eeyah?” Noboru’s here?
Gabriel looked around for some way to lower the cage. “Are you okay? Will you be able to walk?”
She nodded. “Uh-ee. Ay’ll ee ere oon.” Hurry. They’ll be here soon.
A wooden door was set in the side of the cage, locked with a heavy metal padlock. Maybe he could bash it open, or find a way to pick it, but first he had to figure out how the hell to get up there. He’d have to climb one of the trees and make his way down the chains…
Voices sounded from the hut, a sudden clamor that sounded like the “Hear, hear!” at the end of a convocation. He looked toward the door and saw a crack of light spill out as it slowly swung open. “Hang tight,” he whispered. “I’ll come back for you.”
Joyce’s eyes widened again and she shook her head vehemently, tried to say something, but Gabriel put a finger to his lips and ran for the shadows at the edge of the jungle. He slid behind a tree as a procession of robed men emerged from the hut. He counted twelve in total, then quickly amended it to thirteen when a man who was clearly their leader or high priest or something appeared behind them. Unlike the others, he didn’t wear a skull mask or a white robe. His face was bare and he wore a red tunic with curling gold designs sewn into the fabric. A rectangular headdress of the same colors perched atop his head and in one hand he held a staff tipped with a bronze blade that gleamed in the reflected light of the flames.
The men gathered in a semicircle around the stone on the ground and the metal pole planted upright beside it. They started chanting in a language Gabriel didn’t recognize. Not Bidayuh, which he simply didn’t speak—this was a language he had never heard before.
He tried to catch a glimpse of Noboru, but from where he was now it was too dark to see the spot where they’d been hidden.
The chanting grew louder, more insistent. One of the masked men stepped up to the metal pole and pulled it toward him like a lever. Gabriel heard a grinding of gears underground and the circular stone began to slide sideways, revealing a hole beneath. No, it wasn’t a well this time. The bright orange flames of a roaring fire licked up out of the darkness.
Gabriel’s eyes went from the fiery pit to the cage hanging on chains directly above it. Not good. He drew his Colt.
The men in the skull masks looked up at the cage. Gabriel noticed a change in their chanting. He may not have spoken the language, but he knew the sound of a climax approaching when he heard it.
He needed to stop this before either the cage or its contents got dropped into the flaming pit. But how? There were too many men for him to take on at once. What he needed was a diversion, something to distract them before they could start lowering the cage…
A gunshot rang out. Gabriel saw a muzzle flash in the darkness and the skull-faced man who’d pulled the lever cried out, clutching his stomach where a red stain had blossomed on the white robe. He fell—but as he fell, he caught the lever in the crook of his arm, yanking it the rest of the way.
The cage began slowly lowering, chain link by chain link, toward the fire pit.
Gabriel’s heart slammed into his throat. Not good. Not good at all.
The men in skull masks were shouting angrily, drawing their swords, pointing toward the area where the gunshot had come from. Where Noboru was hiding.
And from inside the cage came the sounds of Joyce shouting through her gag and kicking at the wall of the cage as it dropped closer to the flames.
Chapter 5
The high priest shouted orders and the men in the skull masks ran toward Noboru’s hiding place. Gabriel gripped his Colt and charged out of the woods. He was tempted to try to take down some of the men from behind, even up the sides a bit, but instead he headed straight for the lever. He had to stop Joyce’s cage from going into the fire before he could deal with this wouldbe army of the dead.
As he ran, the cage continued its descent toward the flames. On either side of the bowed tree trunks, massive stone counterweights slowly lifted into view, giant tablets carved with hideous, leering faces.
The high priest turned suddenly—Gabriel figured the man must have heard his racing footsteps or spotted him out of the corner of his eye. He frantically barked out a new order and pointed. Four of the masked men broke away from the group heading for Noboru and moved to intercept Gabriel, shouting and swinging their swords above their heads.