The Demon Crown Read online

  Ana Luiz stood up. “We should collect and secure your two specimens and head back to the mainland before we lose the light.” Their Zodiac pontoon boat was beached in a neighboring sandy cove. “You don’t want to be here after dark.”

  “We’ll be quick,” Ken promised. “It shouldn’t take long considering the sheer number of lanceheads roaming this island.”

  He slipped out a long-poled hook and turned to Oscar, giving the student some final instructions. “There’s about one snake for every square yard of this island. So stay back, and let me take the lead. And keep in mind that at any time you’re only a step or two away from death hiding in a rock or lounging in a tree.”

  Oscar glanced to the body on the beach. That was likely reminder enough to be extra cautious. “Why . . . why would someone risk coming here alone?”

  Ana Luiz answered, “A single lancehead fetches upwards of twenty thousand dollars on the black market. Sometimes more.”

  “Wildlife smuggling is big business,” Ken explained. “I’ve run across a few such biopirates in different corners of the world.”

  And this body is certainly not the first I’ve seen as a consequence of such greed.

  Though only a decade older than his postgraduate student, Ken had spent most of his time in the field, traveling to various corners of the world. He had dual PhDs in entomology and toxicology, blending the two degrees into the field of venomics, the study of compounds found in poisonous animals.

  The combination of disciplines was especially fitting considering his own mixed background. His father was first-generation Japanese and had spent time as a child in an internment camp in California, while Ken’s German mother had emigrated as a young girl after the war. A common joke while growing up was that their family had created its own mini-Axis stronghold in the middle of suburbia.

  Then, two years ago, the pair had passed away, dying within a month of one another, leaving behind their blended heritage in Ken’s pale complexion, dense dark hair, and slight squint to his eyes.

  Likewise, his mixed-race background—what the Japanese called hafu—had undoubtedly helped him acquire his current grant. The research trip to Queimada Grande was partially funded by Tanaka Pharmaceuticals, out of Japan. The goal was to discover the next wonder drug hidden in the cocktail of toxins found in the venom of this island’s inhabitants.

  “Let’s get going,” Ken said.

  Oscar swallowed hard and nodded. He fumbled with an extendable set of snake tongs. While such a tool could securely grab a serpent, Ken preferred a simple hook. It caused less stress to an animal. If the tongs were used too aggressively, a snake could react to the threat and lash out.

  As the group set off from the beach, they stepped carefully with their calf-high leather boots. Sand quickly turned into a rocky stretch, studded with low bushes. Fifty yards upslope, a dark fringe of rain forest beckoned.

  Let’s hope we don’t have to go in there to find our specimens.

  “Search under the bushes.” Ken demonstrated by reaching out with the hooked tip of his pole and lifting the lowermost branches. “But don’t try to secure them there. Let them slither into the open before attempting to grab them.”

  Oscar’s tongs shook as he tried to follow Ken’s example on a nearby bush.

  “Take a deep breath,” Ken encouraged. “You know how to do this. Just like we practiced at the zoo back home.”

  Oscar grimaced and probed his first bush. “All . . . all clear.”

  “Good. Just one step at a time.”

  They continued with Ken in the lead. He attempted to ease his student’s tension by keeping his voice light. “It was once believed that the lanceheads were brought to the island by pirates looking to protect their buried treasure.”

  Ana Luiz chuckled, while Dias merely scowled at the thought.

  “So not pirates, I guess,” Oscar said.

  “No. This particular set of vipers got stranded on this island some eleven thousand years ago, when sea levels rose and flooded the land bridge that once connected the island to the coast. Isolated, they had no true predators and reproduced rapidly. But the only food source was up in the trees.”

  “Birds.”

  “The island is on a major migratory path, so the snake’s bounty is refilled every year. But unlike land-bound prey, birds proved to be trickier. Even after climbing trees, the snakes couldn’t exactly run down a bird that took flight after being bitten. So they evolved a more toxic venom, five times stronger than their cousins on the mainland.”

  “In order to kill the birds more quickly.”

  “Exactly. Lancehead venom is truly unique, bearing a cornucopia of toxins. Poisons that not only melt flesh but also cause kidney collapse, heart failure, brain hemorrhages, and intestinal bleeding. In fact, it’s those very hemotoxic components in their venom that show high promise for developing drugs to combat heart disease.”

  “And that’s why we’re here,” Oscar said. “Hoping to find the next captopril.”

  He smiled. “At least, that’s what the fine folks at Tanaka Pharmaceuticals are counting on.”

  In fact, it was not a foolhardy gamble on their part. Captopril—Bristol-Myers Squibb’s bestselling hypertension drug—was isolated from a close cousin to the golden lancehead: Bothrops jararaca, another Brazilian pit viper.

  “And who knows what else we might discover buried amid all the poison found here?” Ken added. “Prialt is a powerful pain reliever that just came on the market from Elan Pharmaceuticals. It was derived from a toxin found in poisonous cone snails. Then there’s a protein discovered in the venom of Gila monsters that is being investigated as a miracle drug for Alzheimer’s. More and more, companies around the globe are investing significant resources into venom-based drug discovery programs.”

  “Sounds like it’s a good time to be a toxicologist specializing in poisonous animals.” Oscar grinned over at him. “Maybe we should go into business ourselves. Venoms ‘R’ Us.”

  Ken playfully poked at his student with his snake hook. “Concentrate on catching your first specimen, then we’ll talk about a partnership.”

  Still smiling, Oscar moved over to another thorn-encrusted bush. He bent down and eased its lower branches. Something shot out from under the fringes and skated across the rocks. Oscar yelped and stumbled back. He bumped into Ana Luiz and knocked them both to the ground.

  The two-foot-long snake aimed straight for their warm bodies.

  Ken jabbed out and scooped the serpent by its midsection. He lifted it high, careful not to overcompensate and send it flying. The snake’s body went immediately slack within the loop, its tiny head swiveling, tongue lashing.

  Oscar tried to crawl back farther.

  “Don’t worry. It’s just another of Queimada Grande’s inhabitants. Dipsis indica. Also known as Sauvage’s Snail Eater.” He shifted the snake away. “Totally harmless.”

  “I . . . I thought it was trying to attack me,” Oscar said, his face flushing with embarrassment.

  “Normally this little Snail Eater is docile. Admittedly it’s strange it came after you.” Ken glanced along its intended trajectory. “Unless it was merely trying to get to the beach.”

  Like the poacher . . .

  Frowning at this thought, he glanced in the opposite direction, toward a ridge of rock ahead and the forest beyond. He returned the snake to the rock and let it dash away, continuing its flight toward the sand.

  “C’mon,” Ken urged and climbed up the slope.

  Beyond the top of the ridge, a sand-strewn bowl opened. Shocked, Ken stopped at the edge, surveying the impossible sight before him.

  A tangle of yellow-golden bodies covered most of the rocks and open stretches of sand. There were hundreds of them. All golden lanceheads, the island’s kings.

  “My god . . .” Oscar gasped, visibly shuddering.

  Ana Luiz crossed herself, while Dias lifted his shotgun and pointed it down into the sandy hollow. It was an unnecessary precaution.


  “It looks like they’re all dead,” Ken said.

  But what killed them?

  None of the meter-long golden lengths appeared to be moving. And it was not just the vipers. Another body lay at the bottom, facedown and motionless.

  Dias spoke to Ana Luiz in Portuguese. She nodded. Ken understood enough of the Brazilian language to surmise that this must be the partner to the poacher on the beach. Or at least the two men were similarly dressed.

  Still, despite the lack of immediate danger, everyone remained rooted by the sheer horror of the sight.

  Oscar was the first to speak. “Is that guy still breathing?”

  Ken squinted. Surely not. But his student’s eyes proved to be sharper than anyone else’s. The man’s chest indeed rose and fell, though shallowly, haltingly.

  Ana Luiz swore under her breath and started down into the bowl, already freeing her medical pack from her shoulder.

  “Wait,” Ken urged. “Let me go first. Some of the lanceheads might still be half-alive. And even dead snakes can bite.”

  Ana Luiz glanced back at him, her brow crinkling in disbelief.

  “There are countless stories of people decapitating a rattlesnake or cobra, only to get bitten when they picked up its head. Even hours later. Many ectothermic—cold-blooded animals—share these same postmortem reflexes.”

  He shifted ahead of her, lifting and moving each snake’s body out of their path with his hook. He worked slowly down the slope. All of the lanceheads appeared to be truly dead. They showed no response to his passage or presence, which was significant considering the aggressive nature of the species.

  As he continued down, a strange stench grew around him. There was the expected reek of meat left too long in the sun, but it was undercut by a sickly sweetness, like a flower growing in rot.

  For some reason, the scent immediately set his heart to pounding harder, as if triggering some innate sense of danger.

  With his senses heightened, he finally noted that the neighboring rain forest was disturbingly quiet. No birdsong, no chirp of insects, only the rustle of leaves. He stopped and lifted an arm.

  “What is it?” Ana Luiz asked.

  “Get back.”

  “But . . .”

  He retreated a step, then another, herding her behind him. He focused on the body on the ground. He now had a good angle on the man’s face. His eyes were gone. Black blood thickly caked his nose, clotted over his nostrils.

  This was a corpse.

  Still, the torso moved—but it was clearly not driven by any last breaths.

  Something’s inside him, something alive.

  He hurried faster. Still, he feared taking his eyes off the body. Behind him, he heard Ana Luiz reach the others atop the ridge. From the rain forest before him, a new noise intruded. A low hum wafted out from the shadows, setting his hairs on end. It was accompanied by a strange hollow knocking. He wanted to blame it on branches bumping one another, but there was no wind.

  Instead, he pictured bones rattling.

  He swung away and bounded the last few yards up the slope.

  As he neared the top, he gasped breathlessly. “We have to get off this isl—”

  An explosion cut him off. A fireball rolled into the sky to his right, rising from the cove where their Zodiac was beached. A small black helicopter sped through the trail of smoke. Gunfire chattered from its undercarriage. Rounds sparked across the rocks, ripping through the sand.

  Oscar fell first, his throat gone in a bloody ruin.

  Diaz attempted to return fire, but his body went flying backward.

  Ana Luiz turned to run, only to get struck in the back.

  Ken flung himself back into the bowl. He was a moment too slow. His shoulder erupted with fire. The impact sent him spinning through the air. As he struck the ground, he rolled down the slope, tangling himself with the cold bodies of the dead lanceheads.

  Once he came to a stop, he remained where he was, half-buried in snakes, keeping still. He heard the attack helicopter rush overhead, then come sweeping back in a low arc.

  He held his breath.

  Finally, it retreated to the beach, likely double-checking that the Zodiac was destroyed. He listened as the thumping of its rotors faded farther away.

  Was it leaving?

  Ken feared to move, even as the nagging hum rose again from the rain forest, louder now. He shifted his chin enough to view the nearest fringe of trees. A mist—darker than the shadows—sifted through the branches, rising through the canopy. That weird clacking grew louder, more furious.

  Something’s coming . . .

  Then the world became fire.

  Great blasts rose from the forest, casting up spiraling gouts of fire. The cannonade of explosions spread in succession across the forested highlands of the island. Fiery pieces of shattered tree trunks and branches rained down around him. Black smoke rolled across the rock, choking and bitter, consuming the remainder of the island.

  Ken crawled, coughing and gagging.

  He tasted a bitter chemical tang on the back of his tongue.

  Napalm . . . or maybe some other fiery defoliant.

  Lungs burning, he crabbed out of the bowl and rolled down toward the beach. He aimed for the water, for the small skiff camouflaged among the rocks by the poachers. He prayed the smoke hid his escape. Though half-blind, he felt his hands reach cool water. He slid into the sea and worked his way toward the lone boat.

  Behind him, fire continued to spread and consume the island, slowly burning it to the bedrock.

  He reached the skiff, clambered over the side, and collapsed on his back. He would wait until sunset before risking the open water. By then the pall of smoke across the waves and the cover of darkness should help hide his flight from any eyes still in the sky.

  Or at least, so he hoped.

  In the meantime, he used the pain in his shoulder to keep him focused, to stoke a desire that burned with as much heat as the firestorm beyond the boat.

  He hugged his thick bag to his chest.

  It held one of the dead lanceheads, collected before he fled.

  I will know what happened here.

  2

  May 4, 8:38 A.M. JST

  Tokyo, Japan

  The old man knelt in the temple garden. He sat formally, in the traditional seiza manner, with his back straight, his legs folded under him on the stone path. He ignored the deep ache in ninety-year-old knees. Behind him, the ancient pagoda of Kan’ei-ji was dusted in the last of the spring’s cherry blossoms. The height of the celebrated season had passed three weeks ago, when tourists flocked to Tokyo’s parklands to ogle and photograph the beautiful harmony of the peak blossoming.

  Takashi Ito preferred these last days of each season. There was a melancholy to the air that echoed the sadness in his own heart. He used a small fan to waft away the dried, brittle petals from the waist-high stone before his knees.

  His efforts disturbed the tendrils of smoke rising from a small incense burner at the base of the stone. The fragrance rose from a mix of kyara, a type of fragrant agarwood, and koboku, an extract from magnolia bark. He fanned the tendrils of smoke toward himself, seeking the blessing and mystery to be found there.

  As often in this moment, a snatch of poetry from Otagaki Rengetsu, a nineteenth-century Buddhist nun, sifted through his thoughts.

  A single line of

  Fragrant smoke

  From incense stick

  Trails off without a trace:

  Where does it go?

  His gaze followed a lone black streak of smoke into the air until it vanished, leaving only its sweet fragrance behind.

  He sighed.

  Like you did so many years ago, my dearest Miu.

  He closed his eyes in prayer. Each year, he came here on the anniversary of his marriage, when Miu tied her heart to his in secret. They had been only eighteen at the time, so full of hope for their life together, bound as much by love as purpose. For ten years, the two had trained togeth
er, honing skills that would be needed. During that brutal time, they had celebrated their successes and nursed the bruises from punishments inflicted upon them by their hard masters. They were paired because of their complementary talents. He was unyielding stone; she was flowing water. He was thunder and force; she was silence and shadow.

  They thought themselves invincible, especially when together.

  His lips scowled at such youthful foolishness.

  He opened his eyes and inhaled one last breath of smoke rising from the burner. The kyara chips had turned to ash by now. Kyara was more expensive by weight than pure gold. Even its name in ancient Japanese meant “precious.”

  Each year, he burned kyara in memory of Miu.

  But this anniversary was special.

  He stared down at the smoldering sticks of koboku on the mica plate. They were new to this ritual. The burning of koboku was a centuries-old tradition of Samurai warriors, to cleanse mind and body prior to battle. In this manner, he imbued his love of Miu with an old promise.

  To avenge her death.

  He stared at the stone before him, inscribed in lines of ancient script. It was not his wife’s gravestone. Her body was forever lost to him ages ago. Instead, Takashi chose this block of granite to serve as her makeshift headstone, because of the words found here, written in 1821, by her great-grandfather, Sessai Matsuyama.

  Her ancestor had placed this marker in these Buddhist gardens to console the spirits of those he had killed. Sessai had been a great benefactor to the sciences and commissioned many volumes and texts, including the Chuchi-jo, an anatomical study of insects that was now considered a national treasure for its artistically rendered drawings of butterflies, crickets, grasshoppers, even flies, proving beauty could be found in the smallest creatures. To achieve this great accomplishment, many insects had been caught, pinned, and died for the sake of this science. Out of guilt, Sessai Matsuyama had erected this memorial to their memory, honoring their contribution and perhaps seeking to lighten his karmic burden for their deaths.

  Miu had dragged Takashi here many times, her face shining with pride. She had hoped to eventually follow in her great-grandfather’s footsteps, inspired by his passion. But even such a simple dream became nothing more than smoke, destroyed in a moment of gunfire.