The sacrifice, p.21
The Sacrifice, page 21
“You mean it rejected Karl Rosmussen’s heart? Karl isn’t one of the sacrifices?”
“It appears so.” And I point.
Goatee’s body is sprawled on the small stone altar. His eyes are open, though there is nothing left for him to see. There is a bloody hole in his chest, where Hemslock had carved out his heart.
“Should we…do something?” Chase asks nervously.
“The Diwata rejected the sacrifice,” I say. “That’s why He didn’t take the body away like He did the producer’s.”
“But why wouldn’t He accept?”
“Because there are others on the island that would make better offerings.”
As if on cue, roots slither out from underneath the stone altar. They wrap around Goatee’s body, spinning it into a thick cocoon of twisted branches. Speechless, we watch the roots shift from the altar, fixing the undead seedling on a spot several meters away and flowering almost immediately from the top down. Soon the plants have taken over the corpse, forever trapping Goatee’s body within the banyan, swiftly covered by the ever-moving, restless makahiya. It looks no different than the other balete outside.
“Those plane crash investigators were digging all over the island, looking for bodies,” Chase says. “But they never thought to check inside the trees. Oh, God…”
I look at the slowly forming tree that had once been Goatee, knowing that I should feel pity, although I do not. “Yes,” I say quietly. “Oh, God.”
Askal begins to growl, his haunches now raised. I look to see what he’s angry about, and freeze. “Don’t move, Chase,” I say harshly. “Don’t step on them.”
“Don’t step on what?” Then Chase yelps, once he sees what I mean.
Hemslock and his men have set up explosives among the branches.
“He’s going to blow up the island if it won’t give him what he wants?” Chase asks shakily. “What’ll happen to the god if he does that?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t want to find out.”
“I don’t see any other passageways beyond the one we just used. Did we miss something?”
I look past the dead body, into the darkness of the hollow. “No we didn’t.” I take out my machete and cut away the remains of the tree to widen the hole around it. Askal stays close to me, staring into the hole as if expecting something to attack us.
I see disturbed soil there, and something behind the corpse that is darker than the rest of the cave wall.
“What are you doing?” Chase asks worriedly when I step into the hollow, but I already see what I’ve been looking for.
“There’s another passage.” It’s wide enough, tall enough for a grown man to pass, and I have no doubt that this is where Hemslock and his men forced Leo Gries.
Chase pales a little, but squares his shoulders, resolute. “Okay. If that’s where we gotta go, that’s where we gotta go. Let’s find Dad and get out of here.”
The passageway is damp and smells faintly of mold, as if fresh air was a luxury it couldn’t afford. I forge ahead with Chase keeping close behind me, my steps sure despite the slippery stones. The tunnel is much more humid here, and it clings to our clothes.
I spot glows in a soft, subdued greenish light ahead, similar to the splay of lanterns the crew hung to illuminate the path between the cabins. But as we approach, I see that they are made of something else entirely.
The nebulous lights come from the hundreds of balete trees that surround us when we step into the new cavern. From the ends of their wizened branches hang strange cocoons wrapped in thick roots and held together by black sap, the resulting shape only barely human. The dim brightness is concentrated somewhere within those mummy-like forms; whatever they were pulses with quiet energy. Occasionally they rustle, as if there is something alive within.
We are careful to pick our way through the heavy roots, some of which are so massive they’ve broken through the cave rock. And we stare.
Before us lies the wreckage of an airplane, mangled and partly blackened by fire. Trails of smoke are still evident, rising from its remains.
Chase sinks to the ground, in disbelief. “No. How could the whole plane be—?”
There is no sign of Hemslock or his bodyguards, but Leo Gries is there. He digs frantically through the wreckage, heaving broken pieces of metal out of his way. “Elena!” He calls, grief-stricken, too caught up in his nightmare to hear us shouting for him.
Chase runs to his father. A thick trunk bursts up through the ground in front of him, blocking the path.
Leo.
A woman steps out from the shattered airplane cabin, through a gaping hole where the doors should have been. She is a small, brown-haired woman with a bright smile and dark eyes. Leo, she says again.
“Mom?” Chase whispers.
“Elena!” Gries cries out. He begins to shove shattered steel out of his way in his quest toward her. “Elena, I’m so sorry…”
“Are you, Leo?” the woman asks sharply. “Are you truly sorry for everything you’ve done? Were you sorry when that poor man killed himself? Did you feel guilty when you fired people just because you could?”
She wavers, disappearing—and then steps out of the shadows from behind Gries. “Are you sorry for all the drinking? All the cheating? The nerve of you to claim that Chase wasn’t your child? That young actress you threatened? Your other ultimatums to take full custody of our son and leave me with nothing?”
“Yes.” Leo Gries is openly weeping. “Yes. I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to leave me. I should have never used Chase against you. Forgive me. I’m sorry. Forgive me.”
You must pay, Elena Gries says. Her features warp; the black of her eyes protrude, and her mouth purses, twists, and then opens far too widely. Something long slithers out past her charred, bark-like lips. She opens her arms.
Leo Gries, oblivious, stumbles into them.
“No!” Chase shouts.
The creature that calls itself Elena Gries straightens, and she is human again, smiling, pleased. Chase, she says. I miss you, Chase. I’m sorry I couldn’t be with you. Come and hug me, love. We can be together.
She drifts closer to Chase. From underneath her dress more roots slither out.
Let me be your true parent, she says. Care for you the way I care for my Alon.
“No!” I plant myself between them. Not one to be outdone, Askal leaps in front of me, barking.
The mother hovers. He misses his mother, she coos. Let me be that for him the way I have been for you. I gave you my blessing. I know he will be happy here. With us. You want that as well.
“You frightened him. This isn’t how you should be treating people you say you care for.”
I deeply regret it. I was curious why you were interested in him. But his father is guilty. He deserves a better family. We could be a better family for him.
“Please,” Chase chokes out. “Please let Dad go. I know he screwed up, and I know he hurt so many people, including my mom…but please. If you say you care for me, please let him go. He’s all I have left.”
Then stay with me. Stay with me and Alon. The woman’s voice changes. It’s more than Elena’s now—there is an undercurrent to it, darker and harsher, as if something else is using her mouth to speak. I will be a better parent. We can be family. We are family.
“No!” I step forward and seize the woman’s wrist. Underneath her flesh-like exterior, it feels like I’m holding a tangle of worms that shift and move in my grip. Elena Gries smiles past me, at Chase. We can be family.
“’Wag!” I shout again. “’Wag mo syang pakialaman!”
The woman reels back. Prinoprotektahan kita.
“And I want to protect you, too.” I say the words in English, for Chase’s benefit. “You looked out for me. You want to be just. But this isn’t justice. And you can’t make that decision for him.”
“I just want to go home,” Chase whispers. “With Dad. Please.”
The man is worthless. Elena Gries twists against me. The boy is too young to know justice.
I tighten my grip. “That’s a part of being human,” I shout back at it. “You can’t force people, even if you’re looking out for them! You have to let them make their own decisions. You can’t have them do whatever you want just because you want it! I’ve always obeyed, but that doesn’t mean others should if you’re in the wrong!”
The woman smiles, her face crinkling when she does—only to fold in ways that a human cannot. Her skin begins to slide off, her smile and her eyes and the rest of her features slipping off with it.
I keep my hold on the woman’s wrist, even as the now-familiar tree creature inclines its faceless mouth to look at me. It ululates slowly, the teeth within that carnivorous flower-like mouth shifting and grating.
You have never gone against me before, she whispers. These humans are bad for you. I will take his father, and he will dream with us. It is for his own good.
“If you do that,” I respond angrily, “then I will leave with Chase.”
There is a snap. Elena Gries’s limb comes off. It takes a step backward, but already the roots are reforming and reshaping, the torn arm slowly being reabsorbed back into the creature.
The world will hurt you, the creature whispers. Now it is revealing its true nature; the woman’s face loses its animation as her body grows more wooden, becoming like the balete with the crudely defined faces on its bark. I protected you your whole life. ’Wag mo akong iwan.
I lean closer, unafraid. The Diwata watches me through the woman’s alien gaze. “I won’t leave you,” I say softly, “but I can’t obey you this time.”
A large baton strikes the tree creature squarely in the center of its head. I step back in surprise as it staggers, but Chase does not let up, swinging his weapon at it again and again.
“I’m not afraid!” he shouts. “I miss her but I’m not afraid of you. And I won’t let you use her against me!”
His last upswing shatters the tree creature. It crumples to the ground, and something at its core unfurls. The form dissipates, sprawls out into roots that run tangled across the ground, joining the others that lie twisted and decaying in this cave, and remains still.
Breathing hard, Chase stares at what’s left of it, as if expecting a new form to reconstitute and rise up again. But the broken roots continue to decay, splintering slowly on their own. “I didn’t kill it, did I?”
“No. But I think the Diwata got the message.”
“I guess.” Chase looks down at Askal. “You’re always up everyone’s ass, but you didn’t even bark at the tree this time, boy.” He lets out a shaky laugh. “Were you as scared as I was?”
Askal lets out a little snort, clearly taking offense, but allows Chase to pet him. The boy looks around and sucks in an abrupt breath. I follow his gaze.
The airplane is disappearing. Or rather, it is transmuting from broken steel and metal to bark and wood. The wreckage untwists itself, crumpling until it becomes a large mass of writhing roots and branches. And soon even they surrender and ungroup, sliding away into the hidden corners and small dark holes they had come from, leaving the clearing to us.
“No,” Leo Gries says hoarsely. He rushes to where the plane once stood and falls to his knees. “I’ll take whatever punishment she gives me!” he shouts, weeping openly now. “I deserve it. I deserve everything. If only I was better for her—better for you. Chase, I’m so sorry.”
Chase rushes over and yanks his father into an embrace. Hoping to give them what little privacy I can, I turn away, and make the mistake of looking up at the cavern.
“Alon?” Chase asks when I don’t say anything for a while. I respond by pointing upward. His gaze follows my finger—and he gasps.
There are easily thirty or so of the tree creatures gathered at the ceiling, hanging upside down, watching us with their lack of eyes, their Venus flytrap mouths that slowly open and close, sampling the air with their sharp root-tongues.
“Are they gonna come after us?” Chase asks slowly.
“No,” I say. “They won’t.”
“But why would they look at us like that if not to—”
“They’ve always been here. But they’re not for us. They know that they can’t get to you. They’re—waiting.”
“For more people like me,” Leo Gries says, sounding exhausted. “I’m going to be one of the sacrifices. If that will let you and Chase leave—”
“I’m not going to let them get you, Dad,” Chase interrupts fiercely. “And I know Alon feels the same. So they’re not gonna attack us?”
“No,” I say carefully. “And since they’re letting us pass without comment, let’s not antagonize them.”
“Chase,” Leo Gries says again.
“You’re not allowed to say anything else until we leave this cave, Dad,” Chase says firmly. “I don’t know what Alon said to it, but if the Diwata’s letting us go, let’s take advantage of that.”
“It might,” another voice says, “but we won’t.”
Hemslock is back, surrounded by his men. Their guns are pointed right at us. “The god might be soft about letting you go, Gries,” the actor says, “but I’ll be damned if you’re going to fuck this up for me again.”
Twenty-Three
Balete
They usher us into another tunnel, Hemslock boasting all the while. “Seems like we’ve finally gotten in the god’s good graces,” he says, grinning. “Practically no attacks on us all the way here. It hit Leo hard, though—really pulled out all the illusions for him from the way he was carrying on about his wife. Figured we’d leave him and let the god handle him how it saw fit, then collect his corpse once it was all over. But then you kids had to come along and ruin the good thing we had going.”
He shows us a breathtaking sight: a balete tree at the center of the next cavern we enter, even more immense than the one they burnt. There is no face carved into its center this time, but the massiveness of the tree dwarfs everyone within its vicinity. The ceiling it dangles from is hundreds of feet higher than the others, and a constellation of branches dips down toward us, as thick as a hedge maze.
And seeds. This is the only balete on the island that has foliage on it; I can see the thick green above us, large and wide like banana leaves. Dense nestles of rope-like plants cling to the ceiling and wrap themselves around the healthier-looking branches like strange ivy, proof something is capable of flowering and thriving in this place.
Two of Hemslock’s men are setting up explosives around this giant balete.
“Pretty, right?” Hemslock gestures at the massive tree. “We’re going to need a hell of a lot of flamethrowers to take this down. As it is, knives and bullets bounce off it like they’re nothing, but I’ve still got a lot of dynamite on hand.”
“You need to leave immediately,” I say. “If you value your life, you will abandon this attempt to kill the Diwata and go. A helicopter has arrived, and they’re taking crew members off the island. By the time you return, there’ll be more rescue teams waiting.”
Hemslock looks unconvinced. His bodyguards glance at each other, more nervous than before.
“Kid has a point,” one of them says. “Would be easier if we could call for backup, return to the island when we’ve got more support. We’re struggling, what with Kyle and Bren gone and—”
Hemslock rounds on the man, furious. “That ain’t an option.”
“But—”
“I said that ain’t a fucking option! As soon as word gets out about this place, every asshole is going to come to take whatever treasures they can find, and then we’re fucked. Don’t you get it?”
Hemslock points at Leo. “He’s what it wants. Galant was the sixth to lure. Rosmussen is the seventh to consume. He’ll be the eighth to wake. Grief made a shell of you, Gries. You ain’t been a father to your son, and you’ve been shit at work. Thought this show was your chance to pull yourself together, help you find closure with your dead wife. But that’s not working, is it? At this point, it’s an act of kindness to put you out of your misery so you can be with her.” Hemslock’s eyes gleam in the darkness. “You still don’t get it, Gries. About Cortes.”
“Cortes?” Leo asks hoarsely.
“He was set up. Aunt Elle sent me copies of the last few pages of Cortes’s journal. I can recite his last entry word for word: I have learned all from Lapulapu’s men, enticed some with strings of bead and the salvation of the one true God, instead of this demon lurking within the cave. The god of the Godseye is pledged to honor any who sacrifices to him. That was how Cilapulapu gained his powers. No longer. Tomorrow I strike, offer him up as a sacrificial lamb myself. I will take his heart and plunge it into one of the trees that grow upside down within the Godseye, and then I will claim this land for my own, triumph with what has long been denied to me by Magellan. And then everyone shall bow to me. I will be a god.”
He pauses for effect, smiles. “Cortes knew about the ritual. My aunt did. And now I do. And once I sacrifice Gries, the world’s my oyster.”
“Take their hearts and sacrifice them to the Tree,” I quote softly, “and you will find eternity within the dream.”
“My aunt died trying to discover the god’s secret. No doubt those grotesque balete had been warped in her image. So you see, kid, like you, I am very much invested in helping your god achieve his dreams—quite literally. I came to the Godseye to help him. The fuck do I need another documentary when I can gain so much more?”
