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?”
“Someone pushed Galant into the sinkhole,” Gries said. “He said so before he lost consciousness.”
“Don’t tell me you’re sorry for him. Steve was a rich ass who had too much of Daddy’s money to play with, and if anyone deserved death it was him. Who did you think leaked that shit about him in the first place?” Hemslock’s grin is vicious. “No one’s going to cry over an old rich pedosadist who’s had an accident in some far-off island whose name no one can spell. But his death will ensure that everyone knows about this show. About me. You’re going to get a huge bump in visitors, kid. The sixth to lure. I was rather pleased with myself when I figured that out. Your god’s all for the ratings.”
“And then Karl,” Gries says with growing understanding, and horror. “He was your friend.”
“Karl was a blessing in disguise. If the god was willing to grab him, then that’s one less problem off my plate. You saw him staggering around, drunk as hell. He’s a lost cause. He ran over some chick he’d been sleeping with when she wouldn’t let him go. Don’t know how he was still able to function. His own demons have been eating at him for so long. Get it? Seventh to consume?” Hemslock chortles, but of the group only he finds this funny. “I couldn’t exactly leave him to his fate when the cameras were trained on us, so I made my contribution more compelling—by killing him first chance I got. A shame, though. First time I’d ever seen him that sober, even if he was spouting all that preachy nonsense.”
“And you mean to make Dad the last sacrifice,” Chase says angrily.
“Eight to wake. Kind of a poetic justice. Your dad’s been asleep ever since your mom died. He lost all his edge. The last few shows have been utter flops. No one thinks he’s got the touch anymore. He used to be so—unapologetic. Vicious.”
“You mean he shirked people out of money for profit,” Chase says flatly. “He cost people jobs while giving himself and others like him bonuses for laying them off. He ruined his marriage out of selfishness.”
“I didn’t see you complaining when you were enjoying his wealth, boy.”
“He changed after Mom died.”
“And look where that’s gotten him. Poor ratings and bad decisions. You’re his son. Of course you’d defend him. But no one likes weakness in Hollywood. No one will miss your father.”
“I’ve done things I’m not proud of,” Gries says quietly, “and things that I regret. If the god of this island wants to punish me for that, then I’ll gladly pay. But don’t take this out on them, Hemslock. They have nothing to do with this. My son has nothing to do with this.”
“But not Alon? So you believe me when I say he’s got deeper ties to the Godseye than he lets on?”
Gries looks at me, then glances away.
“He was rejected,” I say.
“Still defending Leo because you have a thing for his son?”
Chase quietly simmers, but I ignore the insult. “No. I meant your other friend. The Diwata rejected him as an offering.”
“And how the fuck would you know that?”
“Because when you sacrificed him, it attacked you instead. The roots didn’t drag his body underground like Steve Galant.”
Hemslock’s smile wavers. “You’re wrong. I know more about the legends, about what the riddle requires, more than you ever could.”
“Yes,” Chase says, vibrating with extreme sarcasm despite everything. “You know so much better than a boy who’s been living here all his life, the only one the island had ever welcomed.”
I am no longer watching Hemslock and Gries. I am watching the ceiling above us, where the roots and tiny hair-like twigs have slowly begun reforming into a wide eye staring down at us.
Hemslock sees the movement, his eyes flicking upward. “You accepted my offering!” he shouts. “You took Galant and Rosmussen! You rewarded some fucking brown monkey when he killed Cortes for your sake! I brought the last of the three sacrifices you need! You were ready enough to take them until they intervened! I gave you what you demanded—now pay me what you fucking owe!”
The soldiers have spread apart, their guns trained upward at the writhing mass of branches.
Hemslock’s gun is pointed right at me.
“If your little pet guide makes any move to harm us,” he says, “I’m going to kill you.”
“It’s not going to matter that you offered the Diwata those sacrifices,” I say quietly. I take a deliberate step toward him. “It doesn’t matter because you’re part of what it wants. It knows the demons that plagued Karl are nothing compared to the demons that haunt you.”
A muscle ticks in the actor’s jaw. “You’re pushing it, kid.”
I risk another step. “The cultists were punished not because they were mistaken. They were punished because the god saw that Lindsay Watson was the better choice for sacrifice than the woman they were offering.”
Hemslock doesn’t move.
“The Diwata knows what you did to Carol, and Lee.”
His face hardens.
“There were more of them than the news reported. That’s why you were so paranoid. You think that the people in your studio knew about the others, and that they’re all against you. That this is a setup to earn more profit from your confession than a ghost investigation documentary. That’s the only reason you can come up with, after you started seeing her everywhere.”
“I see her everywhere because she’s in this goddamn cave!” he roars. “I shot her!”
“No, you didn’t. This isn’t a setup. You’re blaming other people for your own guilty conscience. You must leave. All of you. There’s still time to save yourselves. He won’t give you what you want. But he won’t take your lives.”
Hemslock smiles, and this time I am close enough to see how unhinged he is. The reality waiting for him outside these caves is worse than anything he can imagine happening within them.
“Kid,” he says, “if he won’t give me what I ask for, then I’m going to make it impossible for the Diwata to say no.”
And then everything else ceases to matter because he shoots me.