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Tappatak ηamaη .”
    The porter appeared not to see the macabre bats with their disturbing wing crawl. His glazed eyes remained fixed on Annabel, the machete in a two-handed grip as he approached.
    “Riley,” Jubal said. “Get inside the circle of light and keep the bats off with your torch. Let me handle Raul.”
    She tried not to be relieved. It was her duty to protect her mother, but the porter’s diabolical mask, filled with some insane, fanatical zealous purpose, was truly horrifying. She slipped back into the circle of fire closer to her mother.
    Jubal Sanders lifted a gun as he raised his voice. “Pedro, Miguel, Alejandro,” he called to the three guides. “Stop him before I shoot him. And I will shoot. If you don’t want Raul to die, you’d better restrain him. He’s got about seven more seconds and then I pull the trigger.”
    There was no doubt Jubal was fully prepared to shoot the porter. His voice resonated with command, although delivered in a low, firm tone. Time slowed down. Tunneled. Riley saw everything as if in a distant dream. The inevitable turn of heads, the expressions of fear and shock. The shuffling forward of the bats. The porter one step closer. Jubal, calm, gun in hand.
    Miguel, Pedro and Alejandro, all brothers, rushed toward Raul while the others stood undecided, apparently in shock at the porter’s clear intention of murdering a woman. Dr. Patton and his two students seemed to notice for the first time that something was wrong. All three stood up quickly, staring in horror at the scene unfolding. Flames rose eerily from the main fire pit and streamed from the torches placed in the ground as if a wind had suddenly gusted, but the air was still.
    “ Hän kalma, emni hän ku köd alte. Tappatak ηamaη. Tappatak ηamaη .” Raul continued to chant the foreign phrase over and over.
    Riley could hear the words distinctly now. She recognized the strange cadence buzzing in her ear, as if that same refrain, although distant for her, was being fed into her mind—into all of their minds. There were dozens of hallucinogens in the rain forest that the guides and porters, probably the researchers and anyone in the group could know about. Anyone could be responsible for these attacks on her mother. Weston fed the superstition, although both he and Shelton appeared to be sleeping restlessly in their hammocks, unaware of the unfolding drama.
    Time ticked by in slow seconds. Raul continued doggedly forward. Jubal didn’t blink. He could have been carved from stone. The bats shuffled toward Riley, closing in on the flaming torches and the circle of light around Annabel.
    “Hän kalma, emni hän ku köd alte. Tappatak ηamaη. Tappatak ηamaη.”
    Her heart slammed hard, beat after beat, that same menacing rhythm of the porter’s diabolical chanting. She realized immediately that even the bats were dragging themselves toward Annabel at that same exact pace. Everything around her, from the bizarre swaying of the trees to the dancing of the flames in spite of the stillness of the wind, leapt to the porter’s chant. That chant was emanating from inside their heads. Someone in the camp had to be targeting Annabel, using hallucinogens and casting suspicion on her. The fact that the plants and trees responded to her only fed superstition. It made no sense at all.
    Miguel and Pedro closed in on one side of Raul. Their brother, Alejandro, came in fast from the other side. All three frowned in concentration, shaking heads to get that wicked chant out of their minds while they tried to save the porter from Jubal’s gun. He was related to them in some way, Riley remembered, but many of the villagers were related. Their affection for him thankfully overcame the terrible hallucination Raul seemed trapped in.
    As they closed around him, grabbing his hand to keep the machete out of play, the porter continued to try to walk forward, ignoring the three guides hanging on to him. He kept up his macabre chant.