Jubal smiled at him, a flash of white teeth in his ash-blackened face. "Welcome to our world. You'd be crazy if you weren't a little afraid."
Riley pushed herself up and scooted to the far wall facing the three men. She drew her knees up and rested her chin on them. "I'm definitely scared, Ben. I've come to this mountain several times and nothing like this has ever happened before."
Ben sent her a strained smile. "Thanks for the cave, however you managed it. Melting in hot lava isn't the way I want to go out."
She tried to find a smile and hoped she pulled it off. "Pyroclastic clouds aren't exactly my idea of fun, either."
Jubal cleared his throat. "Are you certain whatever was locked in the volcano was able to get free?"
Riley nodded reluctantly. "He's free. I couldn't hold him." She tasted the bitter flavor of failure. "You know what he is, don't you?" When neither Jubal nor Gary answered, she sighed. "Look, we're in this together now. He's out. I felt him. I know he's real. You have to tell me what we're dealing with."
"I'd like to know, too," Ben agreed. "No matter what it is, it can't be much crazier than what I've already witnessed."
Jubal rubbed the bridge of his nose, his eyes meeting Gary's. He sighed. "No matter how we say this, you're going to think we're insane."
Ben shrugged. "I already think maybe I'm insane, so just come out with it. None of this seems real."
Still, both men hesitated. Riley didn't like the way they looked at one another. She felt her pulse jump. She couldn't get any more scared, could she? Fear of the unknown was worse than the knowing. At least then she could try to prepare.
"I need to know what this evil thing is, Jubal. I heard it speak. Its voice was in my head for a minute, and it felt foul." She shuddered. "I think it's going to come after me."
"What did it say?" Gary asked.
"He spoke in that same language the porter used just before he killed my mother." She closed her eyes, drawing on the same phonographic memory that let her reproduce bird and animal calls perfectly and made her so adept at linguistics. "He said, 'Arabejila. Emni han ku kod alte. Tõdak a ho aδasz engemko, kutenken aδasz engemko a jalleen. Andak a irgalomet terad it.'"
She didn't know what the individual words were or what they meant, but she reproduced the sounds, inflection and pitch precisely and the sickening foulness of the tone made everyone flinch.
"The only word I recognized was Arabejila. It's a family name and it's very unusual. My great-great-grandmother was named Arabejila and she was named after another great-grandmother."
Gary and Jubal exchanged another long look.
Riley sighed. "Just tell me what it means. At this point, like Ben, I don't think I'm going to be surprised by anything."
"He must have thought you were someone he knew," Gary ventured. "If you have an ancestor who was called Arabejila, when he sensed your presence, you must have felt familiar to him, which means her genes and gifts are strong in you. He probably believes you are this Arabejila."
"No relative of mine with that name has been alive for ..." She trailed off, glancing at Ben. Whatever had lived in the volcano had to be a very ancient evil. How long had the women in her family been coming to such a remote part of the Andes and performing the ritual?
She pressed her lips together tightly and rubbed her cheek along her knees. If that ancient being had been sealed in the volcano by one of her ancestors, it stood to reason he might be a little angry and looking for revenge.
"Never mind. Can you translate what he said?"
"Repeat the phrase for me," he said. "I'll do my best."
She did so, speaking as slowly as she could without affecting the rhythm and inflection of the words.
Gary rubbed his jaw, stared for a moment at his blackened hand, rubbed the ash onto his jeans and then shrugged when his hands remained dirty. "Emni han ku kod alte. I know that means 'cursed woman.'"
"I thought that phrase was familiar," Riley said. "The porter chanted it over and over. He was calling my mother a cursed woman."
"And now you," Jubal said.
Riley instinctively buried her fingers in the soil, needing comfort. She already knew that evil entity was going to be coming after her. She didn't need Gary to tell her that; she'd heard the hatred and rage in the thing's voice. But she'd also heard fear. She wasn't Arabejila, but if evil feared her, Riley was more than happy to claim kinship with the woman.
"Tõdak a ho aδasz engemko, kutenken aδasz engemko a jalleen, I believe is, I don't know how you ..." He frowned at Jubal. "'Escaped'? 'How you escaped me'?"
Jubal nodded. "That's what I got. And something about 'not again.'"
Gary nodded. "'I do not know how you escaped me, but you will not again.' That's as close as I can get. Clearly he thinks he knows you."
"And the last part?" Riley insisted. "Andak a irgalomet terad it."
"That means, 'I will have no mercy for you this time.'" Gary said the words in a rush, as if he wanted to get it over.
"So who is he? What is he?" Riley demanded.
Gary wiped at the ash on his jeans, not looking at her. "I'm afraid you're dealing with a vampire. A very powerful vampire. The real deal. He'll tear out your throat and drain you dry. He feeds off the suffering and terror of people. There's no doubt in my mind that's what was locked in that mountain."
Riley stared at him, openmouthed. She hadn't expected him to say vampire. Vampires were mythical demons in horror movies or novels. She didn't have a clue what she thought he'd say, but certainly not vampire. He was serious, too. She snuck a look at Jubal. He was just as serious.
"All those weapons you have, you were expecting this. Clearly, from the beginning, you knew."
Gary shook his head. "No, that's not true. We actually came here to research a particular plant we thought long extinct. A small group of adventurers had come here last year and one had a picture of the plant on his blog on the Internet. A friend of ours just happened to stumble across the photograph and sent it to me knowing my interest in rare plants. Jubal and I were both excited about it. I got in touch with the miner who described the plant and I became certain it was what we were looking for. We contacted a guide and came."
"But our guide was ill," Jubal said. "Just like yours and Dr. Patton's guide."
"And ours," Ben added.
Gary nodded. "So we threw in with everyone and figured since we were all going to the same general area, we could travel together and then go our own way when we got to the mountain. At that point we didn't have a clue anything was wrong."