Although stories about bloodsucking bats began to circulate in Europe soon after Columbus’s third voyage, in 1498, it was Hernán Cortés and his Conquistadores who were likely the first Europeans to come into direct contact with them. The creature known to MacCready as Desmodus rotundus, the common vampire bat, was not much larger than a hamster, but Portuguese Jesuits, returning to Europe from the New World tropics, spoke of them as if they were as large and fierce as spawn of the devil. Historians dismissed the accounts. Now, with Desmodus draculae, the common vampire’s outsize cousin, evidently still very much alive, Mac wondered if the legends of shape-shifting, man-bat vampires—which had spread through Europe by 1725—might actually have been helped along by sightings of a South American version, the chupacabra. By the end of the nineteenth century, a London theater manager by the name of Abraham Stoker had taken the swift and cunning titular creature from John Polidori’s tale “The Vampyre” and transformed it into his masterpiece: Dracula.
And so, as MacCready saw it, a story begun by frightened sailors and priests had spread to Europe and come back to the New World in the early twentieth century, ably aided by Bela Lugosi on the silver screen. It seemed only natural to Mac, if also delightfully ironic, that when bone fragments from an Ice Age cave in nearby Venezuela were identified as belonging to an unusually large vampire bat of the genus Desmodus, science would come full circle—christening the species draculae.
Lost City of the Mato Grosso
JANUARY 29, 1944
* * *
On the second day of their trek, by the time the sun began climbing down the sky, Wolff’s party was already following the narrow, weathered trail that led up the cliff face. During their infrequent rest periods, MacCready tried to admire the view, especially the strange stone carvings. They were everywhere, but with his hands still bound, and a gun muzzle pressed against his back, he figured that this particular trek was no place for sightseeing. In fact, he found that climbing the steep trail was an even bigger pain in the ass than stream crossings had been.
The two Indian guides led them halfway up the plateau, finally stopping outside a vertical slash in the stone. MacCready noticed that nobody, least of all the guides, seemed very excited at the prospect of entering. And to judge by the reaction of these local “pranksters,” this was the entryway they had been searching for—a portal into the lair of the draculae.
One of the soldiers opened the backpack he had been carrying and produced a trio of odd-looking lanterns. To MacCready, they resembled a homemade version of something one might find at a campsite, except that these candle-based lamps cast their beams through translucent shells that had been dyed red.
MacCready nodded in recognition. It was similar to a lighting method used by researchers to study nocturnal mammals. They were wisely counting on the draculae’s visual system being similar to other creatures of the night—insensitive to red light. Heat was another issue altogether, and the locals who had advised the soldiers in their choice of supplies must have learned this, long ago. The interior of each lantern was cleverly insulated, in such manner that the candle’s heat was blocked from warming the lantern’s outer surfaces, letting out only the red light, and a narrow streamer of warm air that could be detected only directly overhead.
We’ll see the bats but they won’t see us. Hopefully.
He glanced over at the guides who were currently in discussion with Wolff, evidently assuring him that the lantern lights could not be seen by the blut kinder.
Now, how the hell did these guys know that?
MacCready also noticed that the powwow had gotten rather animated, and that whatever Wolff was selling, the pair apparently wanted no part of it.
He watched the German stalk away from the guides, who had definitely held their ground. Even if they do wear their hair like Moe Howard, Mac told himself, they are fucking far from stooges. In fact, they seemed to be the only ones who knew exactly what they were all up against.
The colonel spent several minutes quietly briefing his men, and in response, most of them whipped off their packs and began to hunker down along a ten-foot-wide lip of stone, cut into the cliff—an entranceway into the plateau. Although he could not see very far inside, MacCready could tell that the portal had been modified, centuries ago, into a wide antechamber that narrowed dramatically, beyond which the far walls transitioned from shadow to impenetrable black.
He sidled awkwardly up to Corporal Kessler, who was sitting with his back against the cliff. “What’s going on here?”
“The guides will go no farther,” Kessler replied. “They said that the people of the Forbidden City were exterminated by the gods; but that if we enter this place there would be no gods—only demons. Only chupacabra.”
“And?”
“And so most of us will remain outside for now.”
Now that’s a relief, MacCready thought. As dangerous as the draculae were, they were also a fascinating zoological phenomenon; as such, he did not exactly relish the idea of watching as Wolff firebombed or machine-gunned the bat roost into oblivion, before he, himself, was put to death.
Another of Wolff’s men barked out an order in their direction and Corporal Kessler responded with a halfhearted salute.
“Seems as if you, MacCready, will get to see the blut kinder again.”
“How’s that?” the American asked, and for the first time, he saw something that passed for satisfaction on Kessler’s face.