CHAPTER 73

“Take him down, Yacu!” commanded Chaupi, the leader of the flooded village we’d visited.

“Yes, Father!”

Up on the ridge, the little boy Yacu, the one Beck and I had saved, held up an enormous blowgun. The thing had to be two yards long. Yacu? He was maybe three feet tall. Juan Carlos Rojas stared at the boy in disbelief.

“Who are these insolent jackals?” he bellowed. “Do they not know who I am? Why are they not bowing down before me?”

While he was distracted, Tommy rolled off the altar.

Yacu took his shot.

I heard something whizzing through the air and then the telltale fwick! of a dart hitting flesh.

“Yoooow!” shrieked Juan Carlos Rojas, dropping the knife and raising a hand to his neck to slap whatever had just bitten him.

It was a dart, of course. With fast-acting sleepy-time juice on its tip.

Rojas’s knees buckled. His shoulders drooped. His feathered crown toppled off his head. He crumpled to the ground to become a lumpy heap of priest robe.

Little Yacu had totally nailed him. The kid had some pair of lungs.

“Now!” shouted Dad.

Beck, Storm, Dad, and I charged across the clearing and rammed both Colliers in their guts as Mom and her war-cry-whooping army of locals streamed down from the ridge into the valley.

The battle was over in, like, fifteen seconds.

“Sorry we couldn’t attack sooner,” said Mom after she and Dad had kissed and we’d all hugged and junk. “Chaupi and I wanted to get video of Señor Rojas poised to strike Tommy with the knife. It’s all the evidence we need. I feel certain he will now be charged with attempted murder.”

“What about the Colliers?” I said, spitting out that crummy K sound again.

“They’re going to jail, too,” said Mom.

“On what charge?” fumed Nathan Collier, who was being restrained by six beefy residents of Chaupi’s village.

“Conspiracy to commit murder!” snarled Mom.

“Nuh-uh,” whimpered Chet, also being restrained by half a dozen musclemen. “It wasn’t murder, Mrs. Kidd. We were doing archaeological research on the ancient Incan custom of child sacrifice.”

“Tell it to the judge,” said Dad.

“Chya,” said Tommy. “Maybe he’ll let you off with a warning. Not!”

Chaupi ripped the key chain off Chet’s belt and freed us all from our shackles.

“Are you injured, Tommy?” asked Milagros, who’d come tearing down into the valley with Mom and the rest of the cavalry.

“Did these mean men hurt you?” cooed Q’orianka. Both girls were kind of rubbing Tommy’s muscles and stuff, trying to soothe and comfort him. It was gross.

“It hurt a little bit,” said Tommy. He pointed to his lips. “Right around here.”

Beck and I tried not to hurl.