Location: Lima, Peru, South America

Heavy clouds emptied their burden upon the small, grassy knoll. The raindrops were large and made slapping sounds as they fell on the already-sodden soil. Beneath the veil of water, three figures stood hunched around a rectangular hole. Each was dressed in black or gray, which appeared black with the wetness of the rain. The lead figure was holding an umbrella and reading in Spanish from a small book. The other two had not sought the shelter of umbrellas, instead allowing the rain to envelop them.

Kelly peered out from under the mat of hair covering his face. The water that filled his ears and the frequent rumbling of thunder overhead meant he rarely heard what the priest was saying. There wasn’t much the holy man could say that would offer any kind of comfort anyway. The fact that only he and Minya, who had flown in all the way from Siberia, were at the service spoke volumes. Alejandro had always been a loner.

In the last twelve months, the old man had taken to writing relatively frequently to Kelly. He never wrote about anything meaningful like Izel, or Carmen, or Chris, or even about K’in and the ordeal in Siberia. No, instead, it was about the old man’s latest academic work—translations and discoveries of some sort.

Kelly had rented a post office box that only a few people knew about in a nearby village and had never expected it to be used, especially not by Alejandro. It had been two months before Kelly had bothered to check the box. There had been four letters from the old man inside. At first, Kelly had not known what to make of them. He wrote back, more out of a sense of duty than anything—duty to his dead wife and daughter and duty to his brother-in-law. But as the letters flowed, the underlying reason for Alexandro’s contact became clearer. The old man had stage four cancer and wasn’t sure how much time he had left. From the tone of the letters, Kelly got the feeling Alejandro, despite himself, saw his ex-son-in-law as his only remaining family. In a strange way, Kelly felt the same.

Through the cloak of rain, he stared across at Minya. Minya, the only friend of Alejandro whom Kelly had ever met. Even that meeting had been brief—a few hours in a remote part of Siberia more than a year ago.

The woman stood silently, her hair, now dyed auburn, dripping wet. Her almond-shaped eyes were closed in reverence. She was a difficult woman to read—emotionless. Her facial expression was flat and unmoving. Perhaps she didn’t speak Spanish and therefore couldn’t understand the prayers. Perhaps she simply required no comfort. Either way, the scene was quite uncomfortable, a flash into Kelly’s own future, reminiscent of some dark Charles Dickens novel. He imagined his own funeral. No family. No friends. No one to mourn.

The priest finished his speech, closed the book, and strolled over to Minya. He spoke quietly to her before moving toward Kelly. Placing a hand on Kelly’s shoulder, he mumbled something inaudible and then sauntered off in the direction of a little church shrouded in a curtain of rain.

Kelly sighed. Alejandro was gone—his last tie to the D’Souza family. He grunted away the fear of having to truly start again. The rain was still smacking the ground around him.

He focused on Minya, who was now walking in a tight circle. She held an umbrella in one hand, had a cell phone sandwiched between her right ear and right shoulder, and a finger wedged into her left ear to block out the ambient noise. Kelly frowned. He hadn’t heard a phone ring or noticed where she’d pulled an umbrella from. Then again, he had been lost in his own thoughts. He watched her nodding over and over.

He meandered his way back to the worn out, blue Toyota pickup, yanked open the door, climbed in, and shut it behind him. Kelly shivered and shook off the rain, his wet hair flailing about.

For more than a minute, he sat in a motionless daze. The rain slid down the windshield, obscuring the outside world from him. Inside the truck, he was safe and blocked off from the pain of life. He cursed himself for thinking about it again. He needed to go see a shaman. It had been more than a week since his last session. He needed the escape.

The engine of the truck growled into life as Kelly turned the key in the ignition. He shifted the stick and pressed the loose accelerator. The gears groaned as the wet tires struggled to gain traction on the drenched mud. Eventually, they found some grip and pushed the vehicle forward.

Minya came to stand in the deep, wet tracks Kelly’s truck had dug just seconds earlier, watching it speed off into the distance. She frantically waved the cell phone aloft in her right hand. Yebat. He didn’t see her. She put the phone back to her ear. “He left. Ya ne znayu. Da, da, Charasho. I will try and follow him.”

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Location: Hong Kong, China

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The Shan Chu walked to the window and stared at his reflection. The darkness of the night sky transformed the tall glass of the high-rise office window into a full-length mirror, though the colored lights of the Hong Kong skyline obscured his image. He stared into his own cold, black, narrow eyes, formulating his next move.

He turned on his heel to face the two men who stood on the other side of the large oak desk. Their nervous demeanor, shuffling awkwardly on the spot, belied the confidence their crisp designer suits would otherwise convey. Neither one raised his head, each instead choosing to keep his gaze fixed on the floor.

The man by the window stepped around the desk, stopping when he was within arm’s length of the closer of the two men. In one smooth motion, he pulled a meat cleaver from a concealed holster at the back of his suit jacket and sliced twice. The first cut separated the man’s left ear from his head. Blood poured from the open wound. The second slice, anticipating the man’s reflexive response of clutching at the gory orifice, severed his left hand at the wrist. The man screamed and dropped to the floor. Blood pooled around him. His companion shook and shivered violently but didn’t move from his position.

“It seems to me,” began the Shan Chu, “you do not understand my instruction in our mother tongue. Perhaps if I speak in the ugly, basic American language, you will comprehend. Maybe with one ear, you will learn to concentrate on my instructions better.” His voice was deep and menacing. His accent, while of an East Asian persuasion, was not easily associated with any one country.

He cleaned the customized blade with a silk cloth he had drawn from his jacket pocket. The thick blood smeared across the smooth metal and pooled within the ornate dragon etched along its length. He focused his concentration on meticulously mopping up any remaining fluid from the engraving while talking to the sniveling men. “You failed to obtain the creature at Paradise Ranch. Then, when you did capture it, somehow the American amateurs were able to reclaim it from you—from within one of our own submarines.” He kept his voice level, never looking back at them. “Even when I organized the release of the virus in California, tying up their resources and politicians, you were unable to find this band of misfits or the creature. Only when I learned of their arrival in Siberia did we have another chance to take it from them. But again, my gift was squandered. Your buffoons managed not only to get themselves killed but also to kill the creature and destroy the orb.” He fixed an icy stare on the men. “I needed them both. We have no choice now. Our control of the People’s Army has been lost. I will travel to America and make contact with the 14K there. Wan Kuok-Lóng is the Dragon Head in Chicago.”

The unscathed subordinate dared to raise his eyes. “But,” he began nervously, “the 14K in particular is difficult to control.” He stuttered and then stopped talking, regretting his outburst.

The Shan Chu stepped over the bloodied man lying on the floor and pressed the cold sharp steel of his machete under the other’s sweaty chin. “Are you questioning me, Ping?”

“No, no, of course not, Shan Chu.” Fear danced on the glassy surface of the man’s eyes.

“Good.” He lowered the blade, leaving a shallow gash in Ping’s chin. “Speak with Wan Kuok-Lóng’s Straw Sandal. Tell him I will come soon. We must regain what is rightfully ours. Now go. And take Bao-Zhi with you.”

Ping, frightened and sweating profusely, nodded and grabbed his crying friend and heaved him across the carpet. As he exited through the large double doors, he didn’t turn his back to his superior.

Left alone in his office, the Shan Chu placed his machete on the table, straightened his dark, one-buttoned suit and slicked back his long, black hair. Elegantly, he strode across the room and opened the intricately-carved double doors of a large rosewood cabinet. Inside was a small black screen. He pressed his right thumb against it. The glass flickered into life, displaying nine electric blue Chinese symbols. He tapped several of them and stood back. From within the cabinet, there was a faint click followed by a hiss as the false back slid downward. An iridescent blue light lit the Shan Chu’s face, casting strange and unearthly shadows across it.

This time, we will be successful.

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Location: Lima, Peru, South America

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Swirling patterns of color penetrated the darkness. The smoky trails were bright and comforting at first but became intense and dark all too soon. Crimsons, burnt oranges, and deep purples replaced the yellows, blues, and greens. A deep-seated feeling of menace spread through him as the vision shifted.

The swirls became geometric shapes that moved in unison with malevolent intelligence and definite direction toward him. They twisted from two-dimensional to three-dimensional structures that seemed to fall away into a darkness that sucked him in, yanking on his insides as if he were riding a rollercoaster. He swallowed his fear and fought back the nausea. I will not be afraid.

In an instant, the shapes melded together, the color draining from them until only a white mass sat in the darkness. The shape rose and fell like the chest of a sleeping child. As he focused harder on the gelatinous form, he observed the beginnings of limbs and a head. Slowly, the shape dribbled into its final morphology.

K’in, the man-sized salamander-like creature padded in slow motion toward him, his red fan of gills bobbing with his gait. Bright blue eyes shone from the middle of his face. The sight of the animal pushed any last remnants of fear from his heart.

Other forms, humans and K’in-like creatures, emerged from the darkness. Walking slowly and calmly toward him, their hands were outstretched, wanting—needing—to make contact with him. He held out one arm in reciprocation. A feeling of complete release washed over him.

Kelly’s stomach convulsed, forcing the vision from his mind and a watery liquid from his insides. He leaned over and vomited all over the wet patch of mud on which he sat. He folded his arms across his midriff and nursed his aching gut while swirling saliva around his mouth to extinguish the acrid taste. He fell on his side and rested his head in the warm dirt. The rain, now more of a light speckle, wet his face.

“Hello, Mr. Graham.” The strong Russian accent, with its epiglottal h sound, was familiar.

Kelly pried his eyes open and looked up. Against the painfully bright, white sky was the dark silhouette of Minya. Her sodden red hair stuck to her head, and her hazel eyes threw a cold, judgmental stare. He couldn’t quite figure her out. She cared enough about her appearance to dye her hair and wear some makeup, but that was where her femininity seemed to end.

“Ayahuasca tea?” she asked.

Kelly nodded. “Yes, Ayahuasca tea.”

The visionary brew comprised the vine of Banisteriopsis caapi and the leaves of shrubs from the genus Psychotria. It was a foul-tasting concoction that had been used for millennia by the people of Peru for its divinatory and healing purposes. It also always made Kelly throw up.

“The shaman seems to have a better constitution than you.” Minya waved a hand at the old man who sat opposite Kelly, cross-legged on the ground.

Kelly groaned. “He’s had a lot more practice.”

The shaman, dressed in a brightly-colored poncho and equally gaudy wool cap with earflaps, squinted quizzically at Kelly.

Grunting, Kelly lifted his face from the muck and translated Minya’s comments into his best Quechua. He then flopped head-first back into the mud.

The old man laughed out loud, his leathery brown skin creasing into a thousand folds with a huge smile, before clambering to his feet. He shuffled across to Kelly and patted him on the head. “He has not found his Huaca,” the old man said.

“His what?” Minya asked.

But the man did not reply and simply meandered off into the forest.

Kelly closed his eyes and groaned again, rubbing his aching stomach. It brought Minya’s attention back to the grousing man at her feet.

“Man, you are like big child. You realize the tea contains high dose of DMT?”

Kelly nodded. He was well aware of this fact. Every batch of tea was different and contained different concentrations of DMT. Each time he drank it, the visions were more or less intense. But each time, it was like an escape—like he had been lifted as he had when he had been connected to K’in.

Despite Kelly’s efforts to become engrossed in various community projects in the little village—building schools and helping the residents fish—he had never felt settled, never felt truly calm. Since his separation from K’in, there had been a chasm in his chest—bigger than after the loss of Izel, Carmen, and even his best friend, Chris. It was something beyond love and beyond friendship. All he knew was the Ayahuasca tea was the only way he escaped the emptiness. And his relationship with it was beginning to border on dependence.

“I have never consumed the tea myself. You are okay?”

“Sure, I’m fine,” Kelly lied. “I throw up every time. You get used to it.”

“You do not seem to get used to it, Mr. Graham.”

He opened one eye to view her. That calculating stare hadn’t diminished. She was analyzing him. “Perhaps you’re right. By the way, thanks for coming to the funeral.”

“Alejandro was a friend. You know, he wrote to me many times in last year.”

“Yeah, to me, too.”

“He mentioned you.”

“Oh, really? What’d he say?” Kelly forced a chuckle. “Actually, scratch that. I don’t think I wanna know.”

Minya smiled weakly. “Not all bad.”

“So, back to Russia for you?”

“Siberia. But no. I need to go to U.S.A.”

“Oh?”

“Da. And so do you.”

“Hey, look, I like you and all but hitting on me at a funeral? You Russians are quick off the mark.”

Minya stared at him, her face deadpan. “Siberian. And I do not hit on you, Mr. Graham.” This time she purposefully emphasized the h. “I had phone call. It was for you.”

“What?”

“It was the U.S. Secretary of State.”

“The Secretary of State? What’d he want?”

“She said she needs your help and perhaps even mine. She said it was quite urgent. Something to do with Ms. Nilsson.”

Kelly sank into his thoughts. It had been a year since he’d seen Freya. Was she alright? “Sure, right. Did she say what happened? Is Freya okay?”

“I do not know. I am not Secretary, Mr. Graham.” Again, Minya’s response was unemotional and matter-of-fact. “There is truck waiting for us in town. It will take us to airport.”

His stomach fluttered at the thought of seeing Freya again, a feeling that turned to nausea at the thought of her possible demise. He nodded and hauled himself off the ground with an overly loud groan. “Okay, let’s go.”

“Da, Charasho.”

“Christ,” he said, flicking the hair from his face yet again. “You got any scissors on you?”