She lay curled in a fetal position for what seemed a long time, then crawled to the hole that opened onto bayonet plants and stars in a high black sky. “I’m coming out,” she warned. “I have a knife and I’ll cut you like a rabbit if you bother me.”

On her hands and knees, she exited the hole, and added new threats as she went up the incline to the ledge. “I’ll blind you with pepper juice . . . I will order the gringo to tie you with rope and feed you to sharks.” Oddly, those threats reshaped Sabina’s fear into a tentative boldness. Her imagination took over as she crept toward the house.

I’ll bite his finger off and have him arrested. If he hurts Mama or Maribel, God will strike him with lightning . . . I’ll push him down the well and bury him where pigs shit—then I’ll hide where he can’t find me.

False courage got her to the edge of the yard, where she stopped and gulped. No sign of the zombie man, and the house appeared unchanged but for a frightening oddity: the porch door was open wide and a kerosene lamp burned in the kitchen.

Someone was inside.

She began to hyperventilate again, then remembered, The machete. She had dropped it between the tamarind tree and the pump. With a weapon, even if he had entered the house, she could . . . do what? Sabina tried to think it through but went numb when a dead branch snapped behind her.

She spun around: shadows, lightning bugs, then pop—another dead branch. Her thumping heart cloaked a slow, distant rhythm . . . the sound of something big was coming up the hill, moving cautiously so as not to be heard. Then, for an instant, he appeared, a gray shape moving from tree to tree. It was a man—the zombie man—who had tricked her. Not fast but on a straight line, almost as if he could see in the dark.

Sabina lost her nerve then. She sprinted toward the house, screaming, “Mama, he’s going to kill us all!”

•   •   •

THE LOOK in the mother’s eyes when she heard the little brat scream . . . Delicious.

Vernum licked his lips while the demon retreated so he could think. On the floor next to the bed was the teenage daughter, gagged with electrical tape, arms wired behind her. He had taped Marta’s mouth, too, although sparingly—such a beautiful Indio face. He hadn’t had time to finish wiring her hands or, more importantly, to position her legs as he wanted.

“Don’t move,” he told her. “I’ll kill your daughters first.”

Marta’s horrified reaction . . . Exquisite. He had to force himself out of the room, through the kitchen where the lamp burned, to the door where he stood looking out, the machete in hand. There she was: the devil brat running hard, knees pumping beneath baggy pink-and-white pajamas while her eyes focused on the darkness behind her. It was as if she were being chased. But then turned to holler, “Mama . . . Maribel, wake up!” which is when she saw Vernum and stopped so fast, she sprawled belly-first in the sand. Then was up again, confused, in a panic, and bolted toward the banana grove.

Vernum went after her through the darkness.

Banana plants multiply at the roots; grow in dense thickets, their leaves as wide and long as a man. He used the machete to hack his way through, not because he had to, but for effect. With each swing of the blade, the girl yipped or sobbed or cried out. Easier to track her while she evaded or hid like a rabbit down a hole.

“Why are you running, little chica? You are old enough to learn to enjoy yourself. Wouldn’t you like that?”

No reply, just her steady sobbing, the crash of foliage, then silence while she attempted to hide again.

This time, Vernum saw her but pretended he didn’t. She had wedged herself between two banana stalks, a space too narrow for a snake yet wide enough to cloak all but one tiny foot. Her toes hung there in the shadows like a blossom of bananas, a tempting target for the machete . . . but not yet.

Vernum had some fun. “I give up. This girl is too damn smart. Guess I’ll go back to the house and cut off her mother’s—”

“Sabina . . . Sabina?”

Shit. It was Marta Esteban calling from the porch.

“Where’s my daughter, you bastard? Oh my god . . . answer me, Sabina.”

Vernum parted the leaves. Marta was on the steps near a kerosene lantern, biting at the wire on her hands, almost free. Behind her, the teenage daughter appeared.

“Maribel, I told you to run. Go—do what I say!”

Christ, it was all falling apart. There were three witnesses now. Well . . . if he couldn’t enjoy their bodies, it was better to kill them all and be done with it.

The devil brat’s tiny foot hung there, a ripe target, although she began to sob when Marta called her name. Vernum, done with games, pushed his way toward the girl. “You stupid chinga, you’ll never run from me again.” He grabbed her ankle and pulled. Sabina screamed and kicked at his face.

“Go away—I have a knife,” she hollered.

He yanked her from the tree and stood over her, a looming darkness as he raised the machete . . . and that’s when the girl proved her special powers. A specter materialized from within the foliage, a demon that was gorilla-sized and had one glowing green eye.

Vernum, staring, dropped the machete, reached for his Santería beads, and whispered, “Bienvenido espíritu santo . . .” but too late to stop the creature, or the crushing weight that choked him to the ground.

•   •   •

A DEMON, a beast, controlled by a child . . .

Stupid peasant nonsense.

That solitary green eye had shocked Vernum into believing for an instant, but he was conscious now. He had preached the reality of demons and devils so often that part of him accepted it as true. But there was a small, secret voice in his head that reminded him it was all a fairy tale, the same voice that guided his hunger and had for years cloaked his deceptions and kept him alive.

That little puta has the power of demons? Bullshit.

A man, not a demon, had abducted him. But who? Until he understood, it was stupid to reveal that he was awake enough to see and hear and think. Better to remain deadweight that could be lifted or rolled or, for the last several minutes, had to be dragged like a plow. Painful. His head banged off rocks. Leaves, dirt, cactus needles abraded his skin. No matter. His only hope was to play dead until an opening presented itself.

Vernum Quick was a survivor.

His abductor had bound his hands and ankles with plastic strips, material that took only a second to cinch tight. Then did the unexpected—pinched Vernum’s nose until he had to open his mouth to breathe. This allowed something flat and hard to be inserted, an object that tasted of chemicals but in fact was epoxy. The flat object had immobilized Vernum’s tongue when he closed his mouth. The epoxy on his lips had sealed almost instantly.

Super Glue—popular in the United States.

The meaning of it all was terrifying: this man had abducted people before. An expert, he went about his business methodically, no hesitation, and the most frightening thing of all: he didn’t speak. Not a word. Like a machine . . . No, like an assassin.

Kostikov. Vernum believed it was the Russian until he risked cracking one eye. Wrong. It was a big man with shoulders, but not a giant. And strong enough to drag him by the feet through the woods, down the hill to the river, where finally he stopped to rest . . . no, to roll his shoulders, then piss.

Vernum’s eyes blinked open and he watched. The Cyclops eye was some sort of night vision optic. The man wore boots and dark clothing. He zipped his pants when he was finished and retrieved a bag he’d placed on the ground. Inside were items taken from Vernum’s pockets. Each was inspected as if evaluating its worth.

The wallet and satellite phone held the man’s interest. He knew how to use the phone, punched buttons, probably checking previous calls and contact information. That was okay. No names had been entered. The man stayed busy for several minutes, long enough to dull Vernum’s interest, but then startled him by asking, “How long have you known Anatol Kostikov?”