Benedek directed the frog forward, keeping every sense alert for predators. If his internal map was correct, the ancient oak with the running sap should be straight ahead. Pitcher plants grew in abundance on the forest floor surrounding a large kapok tree. The air smelled sweet, the plants giving off the scent to attract insects and frogs to their doom. The plants covered the narrow game trail that had been the only path to the ancient oak.
Waves of evil rippled in the mist the closer he got to his destination. The little frog trembled but crept forward, drawn by the scent of food. A kapok tree rose up, the fog distorting it, giving it the look of a monster. Spines and conical thorns added to the menacing appearance. Many thick vines hung off the branches, dangling from the canopy like massive snakes. Instead of green leaves and flowers surrounding the trunk, vines of thorns and flowers, blackened and withered, climbed toward the canopy. The flowers emitted a foul smell calling to the frog, drawing in bats. A few had tasted the poisonous brew and staggered around on the forest floor or lay dead in the leaves and dirt in the cage of roots.
When Benedek looked through the eyes of the frog, he saw exactly what the vampire intended. He was in the Amazon rainforest surrounded by enemies. He was that little frog tempted to leap into the pitcher plant or find the flowers promising food but giving death. Benedek refused to be fooled. He looked with the eyes of a hunter—a predator.
He found a large-leaf elephant plant close to the tree, one he knew wasn’t poisonous. He quickly scanned for any predators that would harm his little frog before taking control and making the leap onto one of the giant leaves extending toward the kapok tree.
He went still, knowing patience often determined the winner. He didn’t allow the fact that the night was slipping away and hunted and hunter would have to go to ground to rush him. When he rose, Emil might very well escape their net. He had to be found and destroyed this night.
Wind swept through the canopy, rocking the branches and shaking leaves. Foliage swayed under the assault. A sliver of moonlight found its way through the heavy canopy and shroud of fog to illuminate the kapok tree. The illusion shimmered and faded. Benedek made out the ancient oak hidden behind the larger tree.
The oak stood as it had for hundreds of years, weathering every storm, giving refuge to birds and reptiles. Hidden within the crevices and knots had been the homes of countless creatures. Several long crevices held the golden sap that fed so many insects, including the moth. Several buzzed around the pencil-thin streams.
Ignoring the illusion that shimmered over the top of reality, Benedek kept his gaze fixed on the moths. He was forced to look with enhanced vision, as the wind carried rolling dark clouds across the moon and came and went capriciously, often obscuring light. The fog swirled around the kapok tree, distorting the vision and shadowing the oak tree.
It took close to ten minutes of patient observation before he pinpointed the one moth that didn’t behave as the others. Not once did it go near the enticing sap. It was a little larger than the other moths. Moths had scales, and this particular moth’s scales looked slightly different from the others’. Benedek had no doubt that those scales were armor. The abdomen was black and the six legs were ringed in black. The proboscis, on examination, looked as though it was stained with blood, not sap.
The moth suddenly flew straight at the oak tree, impaling a raccoon as it stuck its head out of a knot on the tree. The raccoon shrieked and tried to duck back inside the hollowed-out hole. The moth fluttered its wings, unmoved by the thrashing and flailing arms as the raccoon tried to bat the attacker off him.
Benedek used the frog to leap past the illusion of the kapok tree to land next to the oak tree. He shifted as he landed, his fist closing around the moth, ripping it from the raccoon’s head and crushing it. As he did, vines from the kapok tree whipped around his body, thick, muscular, not woody. Without looking, he knew it wasn’t natural vines wrapping him from head to toe, it was a giant green anaconda. The animal was enormous and incredibly strong. She had to be a good twenty feet or more and very heavy. She wrapped him up quickly, expertly, ripping him away from the oak tree to take him to the ground.
Benedek kept his fist tight around the moth, crushing it even though he was no longer able to see. The green anaconda was constricting his entire body, including his head. He tried shifting. It was impossible. Next, he tried changing the composition of the snake to render it harmless.
Normally, he could easily deal with a snake by changing its composition, but it seemed to have safeguards woven into or around the scales. Without warning, the snake bit down on his fist, sinking teeth into his hand. The snake had recurved teeth, sharp enough to pierce right through his palm and the back of his hand. The anaconda wasn’t venomous, but it didn’t need to be. Emil had ensured its teeth cut like a saw even though they were still backward.
Benedek forced his hand deeper into the mouth of the snake to get past the teeth. If he called down a rider for help, that would create a gap Emil might use to escape. The moth was still, but he knew the vampire was alive.
Szelem, are you able to break free?His one ally was embedded in the earth. He knew it would take time to free the dragon from the soil ifhe chose to come to his aid. It was one thing to give advice; it was another to be disturbed from a resting place you’d chosen to live out your remaining days.
Benedek wasn’t certain he had the time. He had to come up with other ways to defeat Emil. When the snake had first wrapped him up like a mummy, he had expanded his chest and arms to give himself a little wiggle room. He didn’t exhale, which would allow the snake to tighten even more. The snake weighed a good thousand pounds. It was crushing him as it lay in rings around him. It tried to roll toward the expanse of water just a few feet away in the illusion of the rainforest. The last thing he wanted was for the snake to get to the water.
I will get free.
The answer was that same booming sound that reverberated through Benedek’s body. At once the ground shivered. Trembled. Protests were heard in the wind. In the fog. The moth wiggled and stabbed with its proboscis, frantic as Emil felt the response of the earth. He had no idea why the ground rolled and heaved as if alive. He only knew he wasn’t the one controlling it.
Benedek remained perfectly still, expanding his mind. He was used to using physical strength against his opponents. What did Silke do? She went after their brains. If nothing else, he could see the memory of the moment when Emil placed the safeguards on the scales. The tail was vulnerable to pain if he could bring down the safeguards. The eyes were also vulnerable to attack. There was little else on the snake that would render the large creature defenseless.
Fortunately, he’d had centuries of pushing aside pain. It was automatic when he was in a battle with a vampire. He lowered his energy even more as he expanded his mind, reaching for the brain of the snake. Hunger was overwhelming. Emil had amped up the one thing that made the snake aggressive and dangerous. The anaconda was hunting for food, and it had caught Benedek. It wouldn’t want to give him up easily.
The safeguards were woven with a pattern Benedek recognized from the old days. Immediately, he began to bring the weave down. He was hampered by not being able to physically use his hands, but he meticulously did so in his mind. He concentrated on the tail first and then the head. He became aware of the fact that he had to speed things up. He was losing his strength, not breathing, and his hand was all but mangled. The snake couldn’t bite down on him as long as he kept his fist jammed deep in its mouth, but that didn’t stop Emil from tearing it up from the inside.
The ground heaved again, a series of quakes. Loud deep groans echoed through the forest. The booming sounded like the beat of a drum. The way the ground pitched and rolled aided the snake as it tried to get closer to the water.
Benedek instituted a two-pronged attack on his adversary. Utilizing Emil’s illusion, he called jaguars to him, instructing them to bite the tail of the anaconda savagely, to sink their teeth into the eyes. They did so as the ground shook and shivered and the snake rolled and then screamed in pain, loosening the coils around Benedek’s body.
He freed himself but lost his grip on the moth as he was forced to push off the ground to get away from the furious, pain-maddened snake. The moment he rose from the ground, Emil was there, kicking him hard in the chest, slamming one hand to his jaw, nearly breaking every bone in his face. Benedek stumbled backward, going just beyond the kapok tree into a shallow depression in the rock formation making up the gorge wall.
His back hit the rock hard just inside what could have been the opening to a cave. It was definitely shallow, narrow and dark. He took a moment to draw in air and knew it was a mistake. He smelled…death. The fog moved, and at his feet was a collection of white bones. Human bones. Jaguar bones. Emil loomed in front of him, a dark, imposing figure of pure evil. He smirked, showing his stained teeth in a bizarre smile.
“You’re so predictable, Benedek, just like the other hunters will be. So easy to become my prey. Carpathian blood is delicious, and ancient Carpathian blood is even better. You will make me stronger than ever.”
Benedek didn’t waste time talking. He rushed the vampire, using blurring speed, hit a sharp barrier, a web of razor wire. He bounced back, blood dripping from his chest, shoulders and hips and thighs. Pieces of razor wire remained in his flesh.
Emil shifted, his body bloating, morphing into a giant spider. Extremely hairy, he was dark brown and muddy gray with bands of black on his underside and front legs. He had eight eyes, the top two staring malevolently at his prey. The second row, which had four eyes, held triumph. The third row had two more eyes spaced widely apart. Those eyes looked around him.
Benedek recognized the aggressive Brazilian wandering spider immediately. It was one of the most venomous spiders on the planet. With Emil taking that shape, and it appeared as if he’d done so on numerous occasions—he was too comfortable in the form—the venom had to be even more toxic than normal.
The spider lifted its four front legs and displayed the fangs already dripping with venom. The bristles on his legs stood up as he moved back and forth in front of Benedek, displaying signs of agitation and aggression.
