Sharing a meal with Gus and De Mendoza chilled off any thoughts of real sleep as I slept as light as a ballerina. We all met for what the natives called desyano, pretty good although I don’t want to be downwind of Silas after those beans. Mr. Jackson said he had a contact at the university by the name of Professor Sanchez. Silas and I kept tabs to see if we were being followed. Sanchez, Artie and Jesse were peaching over theories about Mendoza being a Peruvian vampire, one that was over 400 years old to boot!
Sanchez expected his aide and asked us to look in on her. To ensure their safety we asked them to lock the doors while we looked in on his aide. His aide was pooped! The artifact room was in disarray with her being buried in a rack of old shit. Silas was the first to unearth her, finding her withered corpse with a hole in chest. Her corpse put the screws on Silas' gut and he wretched out his desyano. In the rubble we found a golden artifact with a hand print burned into it, fairly fresh. I think we collectively all stopped breathing when we found some bloody prints leading outside. Following the tracks back outside and back into the building he attacked passers-by to perhaps cover his tracks. Returning back to the professor’s office with the doors caved in, Jesse knocked out cold and De Mendoza looming over Sanchez with rows of razor sharp teeth I stepped forward with a shot into its chest. Nothing. The wound closed up; I could hear the “tink” of the bullet hit the floor. It leapt at me, and as we struggled its saliva was like acid burning me like a cup of hot joe. Stepping up to bat with the golden artifact Silas brained him with it. Everybody's attention turned to Jesse and Professor and in doing so De Mendoza had vanished. We gave statements to the law who encouraged us to leave.
We decided to leave a day early and head south by boat so as not to be tailed. Jesse knew of a wise woman closer to our destination who would know more about the pyramid and the folklore. We looked like buncha sore thumbs towering over these little colorful people. Jesses contact was nowhere to be found and so after inquiring around we found out she was hiding on a small island afraid for her life. While trying to arrange passage out to the islands we spotted by an older woman and younger boy both with extended bellies. Worms, in your lawn commonly used as bait for fishing, no problem. I had seen plenty of maggots to include leeches across the pond during the war. This was different. I ain’t gonna touch on it too much, De Mendoza who had killed the prof had put a worm in his belly. Sally extracted it, flung it aside and it crawled as if it was trying to escape. These two mooks fit the description if the professor hadn’t been killed.
We think we made it Nara’s undetected. Our visit confirms De Mendoza was old as methuselah. We got alpacas, goods and sundries for the trip and headed out. Our first night we lost an alpaca to the bloated Peruvians, they sucked the innards dry leaving an emaciated mess behind. Reorganizing the load on the animals, I didn’t mind carrying a little extra weight, I felt important as I wasn't able to contribute as much as Arty and Jesse. Into our trek the next day we came across an injured boy who had recently been attacked by our tail. This was brought to our attention by the gunshot of the father of the boy chasing off our tail. We offered aid to his boy and he offered us refuge on his farm. Julio, of course, was distrusting but he could see the concern in Sally’s face as she tended to the boy.
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