“This whole place is impossible,” Millie replied. “How much more impossible is a jaguar than a mosquito?”
They trekked in silence, sweating. Within ten minutes, they’d unzipped the sleeves off their thermal shirts. After twenty, the legs came off the thermal underwear. They packed away the stripped-off pieces, knowing they’d be sorry when they returned to the surface if they didn’t.
“Nils,” Velda said, watching the tall man as he limped along beside her. “Are you all right?”
He nodded, but it was clear that the heat was getting to him. It felt to Gabriel like the temperature was somewhere north of eighty degrees Fahrenheit, and after twenty minutes of marching, Nils was flushed and sweating profusely, his thinning blond hair plastered to his skull. Having spent the last fifteen years of his life at temperatures that rarely rose above zero, his ability to cope with the sudden shift to tropical weather was also barely above zero.
The team came to a bend in the path and Gabriel could see a deep ravine just off to one side. At the bottom of the ravine the small stream they’d been following flowed gracefully over mossy stones.
“Be careful,” Gabriel said. “Looks like a bit of a drop over here.”
“Should we refill our canteens?” Millie asked, looking down over the edge.
“I don’t know if we’d be able to make it back up to the trail,” Gabriel said. “The bank looks awfully muddy.”
“Do you think the water here is safe to drink?” Velda asked Nils.
“No way to know,” Nils replied, peeling off his shirt and using it to mop sweat from his flushed neck. “Strange bacteria, unknown contaminants…Show me a proper Antarctic setting, I can tell you anything you want to know—but I can’t vouch for anything in this place.”
Gabriel heard a rustle in the brush on the right side of the path ahead and froze, one hand out to stop the team behind him. A large, wolflike creature stepped out of the underbrush about ten feet down the trail. It was lean and oddly proportioned, with a low, hunched back and thick, tan fur striped black across its hindquarters. Its ears were small and rounded and its snout long and sharp. It had small, alert dark eyes with black Cleopatra stripes at the outer corners, and it regarded Gabriel as if sizing him up to determine whether he was a threat or a meal.
Gabriel remained stationary, breathing slowly, and the animal took a wary step sideways and back, revealing two cubs of the same species. They were smaller, but only slightly, nearly full grown. The pair weaved anxiously from side to side, staying half hidden behind what Gabriel was guessing was their mother. The she-wolf suddenly emitted a growl, hissing aggressively, and then opened her long narrow jaw alarmingly wide to display ranks of formidable teeth.
Seeing this, Gabriel suddenly recognized the animal. It was the thin, gaping jaw that did it—he remembered a piece of archival film from 1933 featuring the last known footage of a now extinct marsupial predator known as the Tasmanian tiger. Extinct—yet here was that very creature, alive and well and not very happy to see Gabriel standing in her path.
His first impulse had been to reach for his gun, which he’d strapped on before they’d descended to the jungle floor; but now that he knew what the animal was he reached instead into the bundle he’d made of his cold weather gear, checking pockets and trying to remember where he’d stashed his camera. He found it and brought it out as the mother tiger stood up on her hind legs, propped up by her stiff tail in an odd, kangaroo-like stance. She stretched her head up high on her slender neck, seemingly looking over Gabriel’s shoulder at something behind him. Before Gabriel could thumb the lens cap off his camera, the creature let out an alarmed, high-pitched cry and she and her offspring bounded away into the thick underbrush.
“What do you think she—” Gabriel began, but he didn’t get a chance to finish as a giant beaked head burst through the foliage beside them, snapping at Millie and washing the team in a blast of hot carrion breath. Millie leapt back, grunting in surprise. Gabriel swapped the camera for his Colt as the creature barreled past them in single-minded pursuit of the fleeing tigers.
It was a bird of sorts, but enormous and clearly flightless, moving across the ground with an ungainly loping stride. The towering creature had to be at least nine feet tall, with a massive head topped by a crest of long red feathers and a hooked, eagle like beak that was obviously designed for tearing flesh. Its stubby, useless wings were more than balanced out by legs as thick as tree trunks and wide, splayed feet ending in wicked talons, each easily as long as the kindjal now being studied in the Royal Museum.
The bird came to a stop as it realized its prey had eluded it—or at least that one set of prey had. It blinked and twisted its muscular neck back toward the group, lowering its head and regarding them with a pair of eyes the size of tennis balls.
For something so large, the bird was astonishingly fast. One second, it was ten feet away, and less than a heartbeat later, it was on them, homing in on the tallest target in the group. Gabriel fired a shot at its flank as it passed but he didn’t figure on its speed and the bullet went wide. The beast landed upon Nils with a flurry of battering wings and slashing talons. The lanky Swede let out a scream as he found himself caught by the neck in the grip of the razor-sharp beak. The bird shook him like a terrier with a rat and then tossed him effortlessly into the air. It was a horrifying sight. He was dead before he hit the dirt, his throat carved open in a bloody gash, his neck clearly broken. The bird landed on his body, one enormous clawed foot on his chest. As Gabriel took aim for a second shot, the bird dipped down and casually bit off Nils’s head, swallowing it whole.
Chapter 15
Gabriel pulled the trigger. This time the bullet struck home. But it seemed only to enrage the animal. It swiveled to face him, its beak dripping crimson, and then cocked its head slightly, sniffing, its interest piqued by Rue and Velda.
Gabriel fired again, the roar of the Colt drowning out the bird’s cry. This time he’d aimed for the head, but his bullet ricocheted off the creature’s thick armored skull like a BB off a brick wall. At least, Gabriel told himself, he’d gotten the bird’s attention away from the women. It was facing him directly now, screaming out a challenge. Out of the corner of one eye, Gabriel saw Rue scamper up a nearby tree, with Velda close behind her. Then he saw the bird’s powerful thighs flex. It was getting ready to charge. There might be time for one more shot, at most. Gabriel steadied his hand—but before he could pull the trigger, Millie bellowed and charged the giant bird from the side, leaping up onto its back and wrapping his thick arms around the bird’s neck.
The bird let out an earsplitting cry of alarm and staggered backward, shaking its head from side to side. Millie refused to let go, wrapping his long legs around the base of the feathered neck and throwing wild hammerfists at the softer portion at the base of the bird’s skull. It bucked like a bronco and reared back, trying to throw him off, but Millie held tight. Having failed to dislodge him through sheer force, the bird raced toward a wide-boled tree and spun, ramming Millie against the trunk. Millie held on through the first impact and the second, but his grip loosened and the third finally knocked him off.
Millie tumbled into the bush and Gabriel fired another shot at the bird to get its attention again. It reacted to the sound, leaping a foot in the air and coming down not quite close enough to reach Gabriel with a strike of its beak but not nearly far enough away for Gabriel to feel comfortable with his chances of survival. He didn’t want to go the way Nils had gone, supper for this prehistoric predator.