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hole he’d seen being cleaned out a few minutes before.
    As he watched, a triangular head topped with bulbous, iridescent green eyes emerged. A freakishly thin, black, arched body topped by a pair of crimson wings followed, the wings flickering so quickly they seemed to leave a bloody smear in the air.
    It was a wasp. An enormous wasp, maybe three inches long. Trey had never seen one like it before, of any size.
    He felt something wriggle in his stomach. There was something about the way it tilted its head to regard the fallen monkey. Something alert, intelligent, calculating.
    The wasp perched for a moment atop its mound, unmoving. Then it flew up on humming wings and swooped low over the colobus.
    The monkey twitched. Perhaps it could see through its silvery eyes, or perhaps it sensed or heard the vibrations of the wasp’s speed-blurred wings. It seemed, in an abject, helpless way, terrified.
    The wasp returned to its perch, and only then did Trey notice that it was no longer alone. Others had emerged from their tunnels while he was watching the first. Six more, each seemingly identical, bloodred wings flickering like flags, green eyes turned toward the monkey.
    The first one traced a few steps, changed the rhythm of its wing beats, and lifted three inches into the air before settling back onto its mound. When it was still, a second one took flight, streaking upward so quickly that Trey felt his stomach twist.
    A moment later the wasp reappeared, plummeting toward the colobus, landing with an impact that came to Trey’s ears as a dull, dead thud.
    The monkey’s eyes opened wide, and its mouth gaped as well. Its arms and legs flailed, as if it were trying to run, or fight back.
    Moving on spiderlike legs, the wasp ran back and forth over the monkey’s back. Then, without warning, it lifted the skinny black tube of its abdomen. Its stinger slid out, as white and sharp as a needle made of ivory, and plunged deep into the flesh of the colobus’s neck.
    The monkey cried out. Its eyes wide, its mouth hanging open, it grew still, and Trey wondered if the sting had killed it.
    But then it stirred, the wasp still perched on its neck. Stretched its legs, drew in a deep breath, and slowly got back to its feet. It seemed, if anything, less shaky. Stronger than it had been. When it turned, Trey could see that red-tinged drool was dripping from its open mouth.
    The wasp rose into the air, flew back to its mound, landed, and took a few seconds to clean its front legs with its mandibles.
    Then it turned its head to look at Trey.
    At that moment he realized that it had known he was there all along. All the wasps had. They’d just had more important business to conclude before dealing with him.
    Trey stood as still as possible, but he knew it was hopeless. Wasps’ eyesight was much keener than humans’, and, unlike some lizards and other animals, they didn’t rely on their prey moving to be able to see it.
    The wasp leaped in the air and flew arrow-straight at his face. At the same moment, the colobus snarled and, moving with startling speed, rushed across the clearing toward him.
    Even though Trey’s brain was telling him he’d get trapped in the brambles if he didn’t plan his escape carefully, his body wasn’t listening. He recoiled and felt the thorns scratch the skin of his neck and arms and grab hold of his clothes. In an instant, he was trapped.
    The wasp came on. Reared up. Hovered three inches from his face. Behind it, the monkey crouched to leap. Then it paused, silvery gaze on him, froth bubbling around its mouth, as if waiting.
    Waiting for orders.
    The wasp’s green eyes stared into Trey’s. Its thin abdomen, the sheath for that needlelike stinger, pulsed.
    Any second, Trey expected to see the stinger slide out, expected the hovering wasp to swoop forward the last three inches, expected to feel the needle puncture him, expected . . . what?
    Agony.
    For five