"Am I going to have to separate you two?" she asked when they were alone on the deck.
"No' if he watches his step," Garreth said in all seriousness.
Once he'd ushered her to the railing, he closed in behind her, making her tense against him. He knew she would consider this crowding, but he couldn't help himself. "See it there?" Over her shoulder, he pointed out a four-foot-long caiman lying atop a water lily. "It's a juvenile." Sporting a bony ridge over ruddy eyes and a black body, the creature lay with its mouth wide open, jagged teeth exposed. "They're like a sharper alligator. Physically. Don't know about mentally. Though they do seem to be wilier."
Deftly slipping to Garreth's side, she asked, "How big do they get?"
"The largest one on record was twenty-five feet. But Schecter's right - there are bigger ones way upriver. Much bigger."
"You brought me out to see the caiman, and I'm almost more amazed by the water lily underneath it. It's huge, like a table."
"Victoria amazonica. They get larger and grow thicker farther upriver as well."
She gazed around. "How far did we travel over the night?"
"I believe we're on a patch of the river where the map was missing, so who can tell?" They hadn't passed a boat all morning. "But far enough out that we're going to start seeing more and more river creatures. Pink dolphins and giant otters."
"It sounds like make-believe," Lucia said, leaning back against the rail. She'd plaited her caramel-colored hair over her ears, but glossy curls tumbled free across her shoulders and around her elven face. He imagined those curls spread over his pillow as he mounted her lush, wee body, imagined them wrapped around his fist as he took her from behind -
"So what was Travis up in arms about?"
"Huh?" Inward shake. "Uh, apparently the captain has a standing order that no improvements are to be made to the ship, which - by the look of this wreck - is rarely countermanded. Charlie can fix things, but he'll get his knuckles rapped if he does more."
"That's strange."
"Oh, aye." There was a lot of strangeness about Travis. But the human responded to cash.
Garreth had already bribed him to head in the direction of Rio Labyrinto.
Yet though Travis was an odd bird, there definitely was something up with Charlie. While his sister Izabel seemed confident and open, he had a quiet, awkward demeanor. Today, he'd looked pale, sickly even. Garreth couldn't put his finger on what was off, just knew something was.
"Where are the others?" Lucia asked.
"Rossiter is pacing in his cabin. Izabel just finished up with a gourmet breakfast. Schecter was slinking around the stern scouting for a place to 'deploy' his 'sonic lure.' I asked him if that's what the kids were calling it these days, but he dinna get it," Garreth said, and her lips quirked. Rubbing the back of his neck, he added, "But we're being watched."
"I know. Can you scent anything?"
He shook his head. "Sensory overload." The last time he was here, the same had happened to him; it took him weeks to familiarize himself with all the new scents. "Guess we'll just need to be ready for anything." He gazed out over the churning water. "I bluidy hate this place."
"Tell me what you know about the river," she said. "Tell me some more dangers."
"Dangers, then? In the jungles all around us, there are indigenous tribes. They stay hidden - you'll never see a hint of them on this trip. And they're peaceable unless provoked - such as when some git like Damiãno goes hunting for them with a Polaroid. Then they'll rise up with a fury. No' to mention the fact that the poisons they concoct make the feys' look mild," he said. "Did Nïx give you any indication what the dieumort would be? Maybe it's a poison."
"No indication. But I suspect it's an arrow. Otherwise, why would she dispatch me, an archer, down into the jungle to retrieve a weapon I don't know how to wield?"
"True."
"Are there natives on the Rio Labyrinto?" she asked, her demeanor so guileless, as if she hadn't just slyly segued to what she really wanted to know about - the location of the labyrinth.
"No. But there were long ago. I stumbled upon the ruins of a necropolis."
"A city of the dead?"
"Aye, with temples and crypts surrounding a huge tomb," he said. "Everything you read says there are no ruins directly in the basin. The river fluctuations supposedly made building there impossible because any site would be under forty feet of water half of the year. But this necropolis was constructed in a bowl, with mammoth stonework levees all around it - really advanced stuff."
"If the inhabitants are gone, then why is it rumored that no one returns?"
"Probably because it's infested with giant caimans," MacRieve answered. "That and matora."
Lucia frowned. "A bull eater?"
"Aye. Sucuriju Gigante. The giant anaconda. Rio Labyrinto is teeming with them."
She raised a brow. "You're saying they exist outside of J. Lo movies?"
"I saw several of them that stretched more than eighty feet, their bodies as thick as an oil drum. They're everywhere. Well, almost. They liked to sun themselves atop the levee walls but never descended into the city."
"I can't believe they're real. And that Schecter's... right."
"Aye, primordial sizes. You never get the sight of an eight-ton mating ball out of your head, that's for certain." He gave a mock shudder. "The snakes can strike with a speed that would boggle your mind. Even an immortal could no' fight one off if it wrapped around the arms."
"So anyone unlucky enough to find Rio Labyrinto - which you said is possibly the gateway to El Dorado - would be eaten by various reptiles?"
Shoulders back, he said, "Except for me." He looked as if he'd just stopped himself from thumping his own chest.
"Did you see the lost city of gold?"
"Nay, but in the necropolis, most of the hieroglyphs depicted shining treasure in some manner."
"And?" She waved him on. "More details, please."
"After you, Lousha. I ken you're no' telling me everything you know about the god killer."
Seeing no harm in sharing her theory, Lucia said, "I told you I suspect it's an arrow, but I think it's a golden one. Hence my interest in El Dorado."
"Why gold?"
"The goddess Skathi uses golden arrows. And all through history, they've been wielded by great archers. It seems... fitting that an arrow with so much power would be incomparable," she said. "Now tell me more about El Dorado."