"And you might also recall that we had a mere two minutes on level five before the were-creatures began to move in, and we never even stopped on level four, due to the dangers."
"You gonna take me, or what?"
The entity stared at him for a moment and let out a long hiss of disapproval, but pulled out his scythe from beneath his robe to open the ground. "If you are lost, or abducted, I will report that this was your suicide command, and will tell the council that as a messenger, I had to defer to your rank."
"Do it, then!"
The thing before Carlos sighed. "I will also inform them that this was a command coming from a disoriented master with active Neteru in his nose."
Shrieks and screams that echoed within the hellish terrain had now become so familiar to Carlos that they seemed like the mere background drone of street traffic. He allowed his line of vision to absorb the dim, jungle-like region. Interesting. Level three was a swamp, but level four was dense, humid jungle, the darkness a heavy weight. Things here slithered with serpentine agility. Even the plants moved and writhed to a sultry, seductive snake dance. Dense, yellow sulfur smoke surrounded everything, and the moisture in the air was so oppressive with fumes that Carlos covered his nose with his hand. His eyes watered and stung. Slithering, wet insects were everywhere. Eerie black slugs, slimy beetles and cockroaches, and fat, ambling grubs inched along dense foliage all around him. Too disgusting.
"We are well within the borders of the level-four territories, and should make haste."
Carlos nodded. If he didn't know better, he'd swear that the messenger's scythe was trembling. Definitely interesting. Fetid bodies that were still half alive twisted in agony, groaning and reaching for him as he stepped over them. They were bloody, skinless, half crushed, as though they'd been turned inside out, and their moaning, vile forms made Carlos glance back at the messenger.
"This is the serpentine realm of revenge," it said in a low murmur. "The Amanthra are snake-based creatures of deception, and swallow their victims hole, consume them, and then spit them back up, allowing their venom to do the rest." The messenger pointed on the ground at a nearby torso that was still alive. The arms of the victim reached out and empty eye sockets dripped with a foul, running stream of green jelly clumps. "Where these bodies lie, suggests a feeding nest. We must go."
Again, Carlos nodded, but felt no immediate sense of danger. It was odd, but he actually felt partially safe. "If we're in the middle of a nest, why aren't they attacking?"
His night vision locked on the tangled vines above them, and it became immediately apparent that the branches were huge, muscular reptile bodies. The entire terrain was a mass of teeming, deformed serpents. Some of the entities had the distorted attributes of other animals, giving their snake-based bodies weird limbs, claws, and matted fur in strange places. The more he studied the forms, the more he could begin to differentiate the various species of the Amanthra that could be made out in the darkness.
Many were dragonlike entities with huge talons and large leathery wings giving them the appearance of fierce predator birds. Some were snakelike and bore no limbs, while yet others resembled sphinxes with their marriage of feline, serpent, and dragon. The more advanced levels, Carlos noted. Those had to be the ones Fallon Nuit made an alliance with before he perished.
As soon as the thought entered his mind, multiple glowing green eyes opened and a chorus of hisses followed. He could feel the messenger at his elbow, but was mesmerized by the eerie beauty of the eyes.
"Tarry not, and do not stare into the eyes of the green-eyed monsters."
"Hmmm... wise advice," Carlos noted, feeling their hatred, envy, their pure thirst for revenge filter through him, knowing that a significant portion of his soul had resided with these creatures at one time. Maybe some of him was still there.
Oddly, upon the realization, a large serpent lowered its head from a branch, appearing out of the nothingness, its black body shimmering like a cut jewel as it dipped and swayed hypnotically before Carlos.
The head of the creature was the size of a small, compact car. The monster's low-slung coil formed a U shape that was the width of two men's bodies, and its full length was indecipherable; it just kept uncoiling. Opening its jaw slowly, Carlos stood frozen as the massive jawbones unhinged and deadly fangs were revealed, dripping a sulfuric ooze that burned away the dense foliage at Carlos's feet.
"Master, I urge you!"
But Carlos held up his hand, sensing a meeting of the minds. The serpent closed its eyes, sniffed him, and nodded. "You may paaassssss," it said, then studied the messenger with an evil half grin. "You, however..."
"He's with me, and we're out," Carlos said fast, grabbing the messenger's robe.
Without needing to be told, the funnel cloud of vampire transport descended upon Carlos and the messenger, but not before he saw how quickly the Amanthras could move if they wanted to. The thing that had been a slow, patient, seething mass of muscle suddenly struck, seizing a half-digested body from the ground so quickly that Carlos didn't have time to blink.
From the smoky ring that encircled him, Carlos watched in disgust as the nearly dead man the Amanthra consumed fought against the beast's throat, trying to push his way out, creating moving lumps beneath the creature's scales as the acidic burn of flesh filled the air. Screams of pure agony echoed above them, and in a last glance, Carlos saw the beast heave, vomit the man up, as hundreds of lightning-fast smaller serpents snapped and hissed, ripping at the now quivering soft tissue left on the ground.
He thought of his brother's death, the way Marlene's turned daughter had done Alejandro. The acid from Raven's fangs had burned away his brother's manhood. The way Fallon Nuit's Minion crudely ate with unhinged jaws, instead of two, cleanly delivered vampire puncture marks, all came together in his mind. No wonder his brother and his boys had been ripped to shreds in the feedings. Carlos tried to banish the image. That was the past. The fact that Nuit had a deadly score to settle with the council, revenge his primary motive, really brought it all together. If a vampire was mixed with these things, adding the vampire's intelligence, and predatory shape-shifting capacity, you'd have hell on your hands, indeed.
He just wanted to see this realm of revenge one more time, because if he went with the council's offer, he needed to know what feeding den his soul might be tortured in before it bottomed out on six. The thought, while revolting, was something he had to consider. Choices.
Carlos rubbed his own jaw, realizing that at times it did unhinge to make room for a powerful bite, and even though he didn't feed like the hybrids, he still carried a little of what Nuit had left from that fateful night in the woods. That was the thing about his kind, whatever bit you left a repository within you. He was just glad that the council's bite had more power and overrode Nuit's shit, but still... He wondered if that's what had given him a pass?
Insane that this was what Fallon Nuit had gone into alliance with to create a hybrid race of vampires. No wonder the Vampire Council was buggin'! The messenger just nodded.
"You are still insistent upon visiting level five, Master Rivera... after what we just narrowly escaped?"
Carlos smiled. "Where's your sense of adventure?" Curiosity had a stranglehold on him now. He had to know where he could have gone, had his soul not been rescued. And more important, if there was a topside breach, he needed to understand what he might be facing in Brazil. What had slithered up from a hellhole? He studied the messenger with a sideway glance. "I know you can't be a punk, not couriering for the Vampire Council." He strode away from the thin, skeletal entity that remained stricken, still, and quietly enraged.
"You have been deposited to level five," was all the entity would reply.
"I remember this place," Carlos said in a murmur. He narrowed his eyes to adjust for the even darker region. This was the black forest. Unlike the jungle above, it was dry, but the trees had eyes. Multiple, glowing gold eyes of the were-demons. The remnants of bones and skulls underfoot had once made him think he was standing upon rocky gravel.