Lea looked at him with contempt. “I don’t drink with murderers.”
“Suit yourself.” He turned the bottle upside down and let the lager run out into the hot sand. Tossing the bottle into the back of the truck, he finished his own drink and belched loudly. “It’s time, Venter.”
Lea watched his men hauling Julius over to the cage. He was still kicking and screaming, but some of his energy had been sucked away by the sheer terror of his situation. She knew from Kruger’s earlier bragging that this wasn’t the first time these lions had eaten human flesh and she guessed in his long life that Julius had seen them feasting on victims more than once. Knowing what was about to come must have made it ten times worse for him.
“The Zulus call them ingonyame,” Kruger said happily. “It means the ‘master of all flesh’ and I guess I don’t have to tell a couple fucking smartarses like you two why that is.”
Lea struggled against her bonds. “In the name of everything that is holy, Kruger, please.”
“You mean like the ukweshwama ceremony when the Zulus sacrifice a bull to their gods? That kind of holy?” He watched Venter give Julius a hard, backhand slap to stop his struggling. Blankov oversaw the proceedings in silence. “Wait till you see this.” He casually cracked the lid off another lager on the tailgate of the truck and sank a few more gulps. “There’s nothing like it on earth.”
Ryan shook his head. “My God, you’re sick.”
“Maybe, Mr Bale, but if I am, there’s no cure.” He walked around the cage until the sun was at his back and then clicked his fingers and pointed at Julius. His men opened the cage and pushed the Athanatoi man inside, making sure to keep their hunting rifles trained on the lion for the few seconds the door was open.
The lion eyed up the man in the cage. Julius was hurriedly untying the last of the ropes from his arms and legs and kicked himself free of them. He was hyperventilating as he picked up a thick piece of rope and tried to make it crack like a whip. Kruger and his men laughed as the rope thumped down into the ground and kicked up a cloud of red dust.
“Don’t try and run,” Ryan said calmly. “That thing can run fifty miles an hour, which is twice as fast as the fastest human. If you run you’re dead.”
Julius stared at the beast. “Great advice, my friend.”
“And stay calm,” he continued. “Right now it feels threatened.”
“How the hell do you know that?” Lea asked.
“It’s moving its tail. When it’s trying to hunt it stays totally still so not to alert its prey of its presence. If it’s moving its tail then that means it feels threatened in some way.”
“Maybe by your freakish level of general knowledge,” Lea said. “I know I am.”
Julius called out, “What about that tree?”
“Forget that too. Any lion can climb any tree twice as fast as you can and will only enjoy dragging you out of it.”
The animal roared loudly and started to charge at the man. It was ferocious. It quickly hit its maximum speed of fifty miles per hour and was on the man in seconds. Julius made the mistake of giving into his instinct and turning on his heel.
It was easy to say stand still in the face of a charging lion, but the reality of the situation was different. Even knowing he was inside the cage, he ran as fast as he could toward the truck, but the lion leaped and sank its claws into his back, bringing him down hard to the sandy floor like any other of its prey.
Lea turned away, unable to watch the slaughter. Ryan gritted his teeth and curled his hands into two tight fists as Julius desperately tried to fight the two hundred kilo beast. It was slapping him around with its paws, but not going for the kill. Not yet.
“They’re not like tigers,” Kruger said casually. “Your tiger is much more aggressive. Your average tiger is a heavier animal and goes straight for the kill, straight for the throat.” He dragged his fingernails over the soft flesh of his throat to underline the point. “Rip it straight it open, but not these beauties.” He looked at the lion with admiration and respect. “The lion has a whole pride of other animals surrounding it so when it decides to kill it can afford to play games with its prey for a while, like now.”
The King of the Jungle was now batting Julius about from side to side, but keeping him alive. Lea cringed at the sound of the man’s terrified screams, but Ryan felt nothing but rage.
“The tiger is a lone hunter so doesn’t mess about with games,” Kruger said. “Evidence from ancient Rome shows when tigers fought lions the tiger usually won.”
Blankov’s lips twisted into a smile. “This is true. I watched many of these fights at the Coliseum, but the tigers didn’t always win.”
His words made everyone but the lion freeze in disbelief. Kruger looked especially nervous. Something told Lea he was distinctly uncomfortable around his immortal masters.
Kruger winced when he saw Julius slapping at the animal’s muzzle. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Professor Cronje.”
The lion’s jaw muscles flexed as it opened its mouth and moved in for the kill, easily taking most of Julius’s head into its mouth. The jaw closed, its claws plunging into the man’s shoulder and torso. Hot blood spilled out of the gouge marks and ran over the animal’s fur. The sun flashed on the beast’s teeth as they sank deeper into the man’s neck.
Julius’s screaming was drowned out by the lion roaring loud and deep and then the thunderous sound of cheering as Kruger and his men celebrated the savagery. Thanks to the demands and perils of life in the ECHO team, Lea and Ryan had seen a lot, but never before had either witnessed this level of barbarity. They felt like they’d just witnessed a new low on the bar of human evil.
Blood pumped from his jugular and splashed up onto the lion’s gums. Its hot breath blasted over its prey’s face. They all heard a grinding, crunching noise as the beast ripped his throat open and hit some bone. Julius was slowing now, delirious with fear and losing blood pressure. Instinct and adrenaline drove him to fight back, but his slaps were weak and pathetic, mistimed and almost comical.
Kruger laughed, but Venter took a step back and found something else to look at.
Blankov offered no reaction at all as the beast jerked its head back and tore a chunk from Julius’s throat. Bloody sinew hung from the lion’s mouth and Julius finally collapsed dead, sinking back into the hot sandy dirt. With no more resistance, the lion relaxed as it started its work of tearing, ripping and shredding. Ryan heard a tinny shattering sound as more bones were broken but finally turned away when the animal started licking the horrible mess with a wet, bloody tongue.
Lea wretched. “I’m going to be sick.”
“Not as sick as that fucker,” Ryan said, gesturing at Kruger.
“You!” Ryan realized Kruger was pointing his finger at him. “You’re next.”
“This can’t be happening!” Lea said.
“Hurry up,” he snapped. “Mr Blankov here hasn’t got all fucking day.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“You can’t do this, Kruger!” Lea yelled. “You’ve already killed two innocent men today, isn’t that enough for you?”
“Nowhere near enough.”
Lea and Ryan looked at one another, both understanding that there was nothing they could do while they were trapped here by Kruger’s men. They had zero chance of getting away from their captors and for now they had little choice but to sit in the stifling heat and sweat with the stink of lions all around them.
Worse, they’d seen the Athanatoi man meet his maker in the most vile and inhumane way possible and now it looked like Ryan was the follow-up act. Kruger, after all, had a long score to settle with the young hacker and they all knew he wasn’t the sort of villain to keep dead wood hanging around.