“Spill it, Mac,” Bob said.
“What’s all this about you talking to these things? Singing to them.”
Yanni stood silently.
“Your people chased you out, exiled you because of it . . . didn’t they?”
Yanni shot her husband a dirty look and he responded with a shrug of his shoulders.
“There was another like me . . . exiled,” Yanni said, finally. “She went toward the cliffs, like you will do. Her mother followed. I don’t think you’ll find them.”
“I see,” Mac said. “But do the chupacabra put words in your head? Thoughts?”
Yanni nodded. “They can make the people we lost talk to us again. By listenin’ to their voices I learned to speak to the chupacabra. What you call singing.”
Mac’s face brightened. “Yanni, that might be the best news I’ve heard in years.
“Why’s that?” Bob asked, noting the puzzled look on his wife’s face.
“Because I just might not be losing my mind after all.”
“Well, I suppose that’s good news. But why do you figure these vampire bats are doin’ all this croonin’?”
“It’s an adaptation, Bob. It’s how they get you to do things. ‘Relax’ and become their prey. Or ‘go’ and leave them the fuck alone.”
“But how do they—?”
“Bats echolocate, right? Well, I think this species can do something more, much more. These creatures were scanning me, and I’m betting those scans can trigger the release of specific—”
“—neurotransmitters.” Thorne finished the thought for him.
“Bingo.”
“And what are those?” Yanni asked.
“Chemicals in your brain, Yanni,” her husband answered. “Some of them cause emotions.”
“Like fear or a sense of calm,” Mac added. “In this case, I think the bats have found a way to use these emotions, as a tool—a hunting technique.”
“The chupacabra . . .” Yanni turned to her husband. “They e-volved this, right?”
“You got it, Yanni!” Thorne replied. Then, flashing his proudest shit-eating grin, he addressed his friend. “So last night in that Brazil nut tree, is this what they did to you?”
“Yeah,” MacCready replied, shifting his stance to suppress a shudder. “They tried to set me up by making me remember things.”
“Like the people you lost?” Yanni asked, quietly.
Mac let out a sigh. “Like the people I lost.”
Twenty minutes later, having shown the Thornes how to operate the Russian weapon, MacCready stood with them on the outskirts of Chapada. Although the sun had been up for nearly an hour, there was little activity in the village. The pigs and poultry were nowhere to be seen, and even the dogs were quiet.
“And speaking of careful,” Thorne said, “having to speak at your funeral would cause me no little embarrassment. So let’s avoid that scene—if you catch my drift.”
“I catch it,” Mac said, as the friends embraced. “Just remember, Bob. Two things. One, tell Hendry about the rocket and the coordinates. And two, get the hell away from here, at least until this shit blows over.”
“Of course, Redundzel, although I also heard you the first sixteen times.”
Mac laughed at the reference to his old nickname. He did have a tendency to repeat what he considered to be important concepts.
“And don’t make me and Yanni have to come in there to rescue your skinny ass.”
“Gotcha,” Mac said, throwing his pal a salute.
Mac never used the word goodbye. In his family, and at this kind of time, goodbye was considered bad luck.
“See you soon, Yanni,” he said. “Maybe at Ebbets Field.”
As the woman approached him, Mac thought he was about to be kissed on the cheek. Instead, Yanni produced a strange-looking necklace and placed it over his head.
“Wear this, Mac,” she said.
The thin band of leather was attached to a tiny, stoppered bottle, sealed with something rubbery. More local juju, MacCready supposed.
Yanni spoke two or three sentences in her native tongue and Thorne translated: “She says, if you go into the swamp, be sure to rub this stuff on yourself first. It will keep you from getting bitten.”
Mac gave her a slight bow. “You got it, sister!” he said.
Then the friends exchanged nods and Mac turned away, setting off at a brisk pace for the tree line. He knew there was a canyon somewhere beyond those distant trees, a canyon they called Hell’s Gate.
CHAPTER 10
Predator
We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.
—AESOP, GREEK SLAVE AND AUTHOR
Chapada dos Guimar?es
10 A.M. the next day, January 24, 1944