The Sacrifice by Rin Chupeco
Author:Rin Chupeco
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2022-07-22T00:00:00+00:00
Thirteen
Behind You
Gries finally patches a call through to the helicopter rental again, only to be told that the flight had once more been canceled.
âSomeoneâs sabotaging us,â he says in disgust, as he ends the call. âSomeone keeps calling and pretending to be me. Itâs useless at this point. Thereâs a full-fledged storm in the area, and they canât send help until it passes.â
Hawaiian Shirt looks at him, and then up at the cloudless blue sky, the sun shining down. âDoesnât look like bad weather to me,â he says.
He says it again later that afternoon, staring out at the sea. The dark clouds that loomed over the horizon earlier are gone, and we have a clear sight from the islandâs shore of the mainland some miles away, without even fog to mar the view.
âMaybe itâs just me,â Hawaiian Shirt says, âbut there ainât no fucking storm out there. Itâs not only the helicopter rental playing us. Leoâs right. Someone is screwing around with us for fun.â
âNo,â Straw Hat says quietly. âWeâre getting reports from our team back in Leyte. Itâs a full-on downpour there. Theyâre waiting it out because the streets tend to flood. Theyâre not lying to us.â
âBut weâre not lying, either,â Hawaiian Shirt says desperately, looking at the bright sky and warm sun. âThey see rain, but we donât. What the hell is going on?â
Armani has been sedated; the medics found nothing wrong with his eyesâbeyond the fact that he couldnât see through themâand suggested temporary hysteria, PTSD as a cause.
Hemslock does not sit well with this diagnosis. âNobody gets PTSD from a damn tree,â he spits out angrily, cleaning his guns again. Their search that day had turned up no signs of his friend, and the frustration is clear on the survivalistâs face. He soon retreats to the mess hall, where he has set up multiple infographics detailing everything known about both the island and the curse. The riddle is scratched out in capital letters on a white board, scribbled notes linking five of the eight prophesied deaths on another.
âTell me what you think,â he says to me. âTell me if thereâs anything here that Iâm missing.â
I scrutinize the boards. The corpse tree takes up much of his theories, along with his belief that the dead body is the ill-fated Cortes. Lindsay Watsonâs mugshot stares back at us.
âThird to wear,â Hemslock says. âMy gut tells me Iâm right. Iâm thinking your godâs snagged Karl for the sixth sacrifice. Sixth to lure. Because thatâs what he is, eh? Heâs bait for the rest of us to enter the Godseye again. But why him? What makes him so special?â
I look at the photos the crew has printed of the corpse tree, and then at a painterâs illustration of Oliviero Cortes. He doesnât look as intimidating as one might think, whatever his exploits with Magellan. âCortes wanted to steal the Diwataâs power,â I say, finally. âThis is his punishment. The eight deaths arenât rewards.â
âKarl didnât steal from your god.â
âHe drinks.â
Hemslock chuckles despite himself.
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