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Chapter One:Temptation,The Devil's Blessing
Dark clouds loomed overhead of the Prescott Vice University, one of the top academic institutions in the nation of America, stationed in Quantico-Virginia. The campus stretched fifty acres north, south, east, and west from the center. A red-brick wall enclosed the two century old, also red brick, building. Tall towers rose up from along the wall every twenty feet. The towers held study quarters at the very top that were never used, all but one. It bore a large telescope which extended out of the window’s ark.
Since the fire of 1901 all of the towers, except one, were shut down. Even though the towers where reassembled and remodeled; the south east, south, and, south west wings. Many assumed that the president kept the doors to them closed out of respect of the many lives lost.
The sixteenth century foundation had been made to resemble the Pueblo Bonito’s astrological temples of the western states of North America, shaped in a half circle, aligning with and dating astrological seasons and times.
Dr. George Azevedo sat at his cherry oak-long-broad desk. His office was in the top of the north tower and the inside staged the scene of a library that had been ransacked; books, papers, and maps where all over the desk, shelves, and floors. The doctor’s office was more than an office it was his living quarters. Since he had travelled the world all off his life he had no permanent storage for his belongings; therefore, he kept them in his office.
But the reason beyond his nomadic nature was that his ancestors where the forefathers of the institution. Monte Azevedo and his brother Angelo Azevedo began construction on the institution expedition west of America in the late 1700’s.
The doctor scribbled small writing in his note pad, shifting his eyes from an old manuscript back to the jaded writing, while whispering nonsensical ramblings.
Silver strings of hair wrapped the bald patch that centered the crown of the doctor’s head as his sunken eyes bounced across the pages. The lamp hung over the pages on the desk, bearing a crux of light that tapered off at the edges of the desk, seeping out to the obscure boundaries of the huge room.
Two tall windows rose from waste high to the ceiling of the twenty-foot high-domed room, each were draped with long burgundy curtains that extended to the floor. The windows sat just a few feet behind the doctor’s desk, with the width of an average size human between them. At the opposite end of the windows where shelves filled with books and assorted manuscripts as high as the windows that wrapped the room from window to window, only leaving an ark across from the doctor’s desk that served as the entrance to his chambers.
A gust of wind swept through the room from one of the windows. The curtain flapped in the spring-night winds. The doctor’s papers swept with the current, whipping and curling across the room. He scrambled to keep his papers intact but the mindless wind wouldn’t have it. “How’d that darned window get open,” the doctor said, agitatedly. “I don’t remember opening it.”
Dr. Azevedo was a sixty five year old anthropological archeologist of Portugal decent, who had traveled the world in search of precious artifacts. His hobby in the folklore drove his obsession with ancient ruins and ancient cultures and their histories. He had spent time on all seven continents searching, digging, and in quandary of the past. Of course, he had only followed the path of his father, his father’s father, and so on. The Azevedo men had scoured the earth before the dawn of anthropology in 1901 and the line of Azevedo men rested with him, he never had a son, just a daughter that died on his fiftieth birthday. His daughter bore a daughter before death.
The doctor spun his old–hard-leather chair toward the window, suspiciously squinted his eyes through the glasses that sat on the lower bridge of his nose. The soft whistle of the wind echoed through the doctor’s chambers, “who’s there, “the doctor said. “Insufferable pidgins-nesting on the ledge-leaving droppings everywhere…” The doctor wheeled the chair back around at the desk and looked at the mess that the wind had caused. “Oh,” he said, grieving in the thought of the work of cleaning the mess. “Well, it’s no more of a catastrophe than it was already.” A chuckle dragged on the end of his words.
Dr. Azevedo rose from his chair in a timely motion and walked with an old man’s pace toward the window. The doctor eased the curtain back and stuck his head out of the window. He looked out at the window ceil and down ten stories at the ground. No one was out in the court yard; moreover, the large clock that was constructed along the south wall of the campus was stead-fast in its approach to the midnight hour.
Dr. Azevedo stretched his arms and hands out, grabbing the shutters and closing them tightly together. The old man’s stride back to the desk broke with the voice of a stranger, “Old man,” the stranger’s voice said, deeply. “I have a message for you.”
“Who’s there,” the doctor asked, nervously. The fear sprung across his face. The voice drifted from a dark corner in the room. The masked man walked forward, seeming as he had never stepped from the darkness. The stranger’s garments were black and covered his body completely, except for his the dark skin around his cold-black pupils. “Who are you?”
“The message says stop following me.”
“Whatever do you mean?” the doctor, wise with age, seated somber back in the chair. “I’ve merely searched for the truth and preservation of life.”
“I have something else for you too.” The strange man reached his hand inside the chest of his ninja like clothing, “It’ll serve you good-poking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“Please,” the doctor sighed, “I’ve harmed no man in my quest.”
“No but you’ve awaken an evil that on the spirit of the righteous can detect.”
“Why kill me?”
“Kill you,” the stranger’s hand came from his clothing, holding a folded-vanilla envelope. “Here-it’s what you’re looking for.” He tossed it toward the doctor; it landed on the desk in front of him, “here’s everything you’ll need. The possibility of return is highly unlikely.”
Dr. Azevedo took the envelope from the desk and opened it. The contents held an even smaller-thick-white envelope and a map folded many times over. The doctor unfolded the map, stretching it across his desk, moving everything to the ground in his pursuit of viewing its context. “It’s a map,” the doctor said as he peered down at it, fixing the glasses on the edge of his nose. “Yes-a map…”
“A map of Brazil,” the stranger said, “specifically the Amazon-the Mata Temple.”
“Oh my god this is it, it’s…” the doctor looked up but the stranger was gone and the window shutters where once again opened and the curtain was again blowing in the wind. “Strange fellow…”
The doctor then opened the smaller of the two envelopes; it contained the sum of thirty thousand dollars in one hundred dollar bills and a note that read:
To whom this may concern,
There is thirty thousand dollars in one hundred dollar bills for the expense of the expedition that you are about to embark upon. The five hundred year old ruins of the Mata tribe have been unearthed due to a mud slide, I know you will accept. You are allowed as much help as you need, with in the budget. A team of skilled soldiers and guides are already in control of the forest’s territory, enough money should pay for your protection. You have done your research, I’m sure of it. Therefore, I’ll leave you to your task.
Sincerely, D
“The Amazon,” the doctor said, “this could be the first sign of a sophisticated civilization in South American’s indigenous architecture.” The doctor stared at the note, long and tediously. “D,” he shrugged his shoulders, “I wonder who this D can be? Well whoever he or she is I thank you. This is my life’s work.”
On the 31st of May, 1970, one month later Dr. Azevedo had had the excavation arranged and he and his chosen ones where on their way to the Amazon. Thirty in all, six professors and twenty-four graduate students. Each of the groups where broken into teams of ten and each had two professors, one from the anthropology department and the other from the archeology department. Each individual group held four anthropology graduates and four archeology graduates.
The first team was to depart that morning, which the doctor led. The three teams were scheduled to leave one day after the other because of the recent traveling conditions that the Amazon had suffered from. A major storm destroyed most of the landscape and it was a cheaper cost instead paying for a large-thirty plus-seating plane when the cost of three small flights added up to half the cost, oddly enough.
Dr. Azevedo’s group had boarded a small plane at a private air-landing strip forty-five miles west of Quantico. They were supposed to spend the next two months excavating the Mata Temple.
Chapter Two: The Arrival
Dew condensed on the plant life, filling the air with a slight mist as the sun rose. Sounds of the forest’s wild life play to the rhythm of the Amazon. The smoke from the burned out fire rose to the sky from the midst of tents that sat in the interior of the forest. The smell of coffee and smoke lingered around the campsite.