The abusive humidity hung to her strong frame, drenching her clothing in sweat. If she didn’t know any better, she would have thought she had just emerged from a body of rank pond water. It had become increasingly harder to catch her breath due to the hard-to-breathe air, and the distance she had covered.

She stopped at the peak of a modest incline and peeled a loose strand of dark hair away from her forehead. Slipping out of her backpack, she knelt and focused on the surrounding area and not what her hands were doing. Before her, in a remote slice of the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, was a narrow waterfall. At its base was a perfectly round plunge pool. No outlet was visible. The water didn’t drain in a conventional manner. There was no river. The never-ending flow of water had to have emptied by some other means. The primal demonstration of power forced a steady spray into the air, coating every square inch of the terrain in additional moisture. It was a serene sight, one that relaxed her rising anxiety. The only time she took her eyes off the picturesque wonder was to check her position on her palm-sized GPS unit.

Zahra Kane read off her position, ticking off the latitude and longitude as she did. “Eleven degrees, forty-three minutes South. Check. And fifty-four degrees, thirty-five minutes West. Check, again.” Looking up, she took in the scene with new eyes. She had finally arrived. Zahra produced a camera from her pack, looked through its powerful zoom lens, and snapped a half-dozen pictures. Pulling the camera away from her face, she sighed. “So, this is the real Dead Horse Camp, huh?”

The area was treacherous from what she had heard. The stories were old and sounded quite outlandish. Still, Zahra understood that there were always nuggets of truth within the most absurd tales.

Few had stepped foot here in the last hundred years. Locals — people like her guide, Joe — were terrified of this place. It was said to consume anyone who entered. That intrigued a woman of Zahra’s background. She needed to know why it was so heavily avoided. Why had the locals made a pact to steer explorers clear of this particular section of the rainforest? The only reason Joe had agreed to bring her here in the first place was that Zahra had offered him more money than he could refuse. Plus, she had a sneaking suspicion that Joe owed a large sum of cash to some disreputable people and was in dire need of the funds.

Zahra could see why a man like Percy Fawcett had set up camp here in the past. It was the perfect spot to do so. It contained a never-ending freshwater source that would also yield food in the forms of fish and whatever thirsty terrestrial animal sauntered by. She was hungry, but it could wait. Zahra needed to use what little light she had left to her advantage before calling it a night and setting up camp in the egg-shaped depression.

“Camping at ‘Dead Horse Camp,’” she said. “How charming.”

The sound of crunching earth picked up behind her as Joe joined her at the crest. He knelt next to her and squinted, wiping the sweat from his brow with a yellowed handkerchief. He grumbled under his breath, not liking what he saw.

“Is something the matter?” Zahra asked, speaking fluent Spanish. It was one of many languages the American-born adventurer had mastered over the years while serving as a British Army Intelligence Linguist for nearly a decade.

Joe nodded. “Yes. Death surrounds this place.”

“Well,” she said, standing, “it is called ‘Dead Horse Camp’ for a reason.”

Zahra’s history was a complicated one. Her New Yorker father had moved Zahra and her brother to England after accepting a teaching job at Oxford following the death of Zahra’s mother. Professor George Kane had been behind the wheel that night. While Zahra understood that it wasn’t her father’s fault, her brother, Baahir, still, to this day, held their dad responsible. Baahir had even gone as far as legally changing his last name to their mom’s maiden name, Hassan, at eighteen and moving to Egypt. The Kane men had not spoken to one another since then.

That broke Zahra’s heart.

She didn’t bother wiping the muck from her slim, black 5.11 tactical pants. It’d be a waste of time. More filth was bound to follow. Before readorning her pack, Zahra grabbed the bottom of her, likewise, black thermal long-sleeve shirt and pulled upward, revealing the form-fitting tank top of the same color beneath it. Typically, she wouldn’t have removed the garment. The insects in the area were awful. She was just too damn hot and needed a break. The plunge pool was calling her name. A refreshing dip would be nice right about now.

Without looking at her guide, Zahra sighed and said, “Eyes on the prize, Joe, not me.”

She heard the man’s position shift, mentally picturing him snap his attention off her fit form and back on the landscape. Zahra reached down and adjusted her war belt. Her Glock 19 stayed in place, securely fastened to her right thigh thanks to a heavy-duty strap. Attached to her belt was Zahra’s other gear — her tools of the trade. They consisted of a spare fifteen-round magazine, a powerful SureFire flashlight, a SOG Seal Pup knife, and a four-bladed, foldable grappling hook with a seventy-foot-long nylon cord. And like her clothing, all of her equipment was black.

Zahra looked every bit the part of a global explorer. And she wasn’t the only person armed either. Joe carried a Baretta M92 pistol from the 1970s and an AK-47 built around the same time. Dangers lurked around every corner in places like this, and not just of the human variant.

She slipped back into her backpack and leaned out over the ledge. It wasn’t a far drop, but one that would likely break her legs and back if she jumped. She needed a way down without circumnavigating the entire area, which would add time to her trek. As a result, it would eliminate the rest of her light. Zahra could simply continue her search in the dark with her powerful LED flashlight, but she wasn’t stupid enough to explore a South American jungle after the last light. It would be a death sentence.

She reached around to her hip and unclipped her grappling hook. It contained plenty of cord for the descent. She leaned over the drop again and calculated it.

“What do think, Joe, twenty-five-feet?”

Her guide joined her and cautiously took a look. He swallowed hard, and his face fell.

Zahra sighed. She knew the look. “You’re afraid of heights, aren’t you?”

Joe nodded. “Yes, I—”

Zahra held up her hand. She didn’t need an explanation as to why the man feared heights. Her eyes found a thick tree limb growing out over the plunge pool, and she grinned. Joe noticed her change in expression.

“What is it?”

She tipped her chin to the tree limb. “I think I found us a way down.”

Joe looked back and forth between Zahra and the tree. It took him a second to understand what she was planning. Instead of putting on a mask of bravery, Joe shrank away from Zahra and the ledge. She rolled her eyes and flicked her wrist. The piercing sound of the steel foldable grappling hook opening and locking into place made the already nervous local flinch.

She chuckled softly. “Time to man up, Joe.” She winked and let up a few feet of nylon cord. Then, as if he was about to lasso a horse, Zahra began to spin the hook in her right hand, increasing speed with every rotation.

After eight rotations, Zahra released the grappling hook with a grunt, heaving it toward her target. A heartbeat later, the four-bladed hook buzzed over the tree limb with little room to spare. Gravity did the rest, and the hook dipped behind the limb. Zahra yanked on the cord, pausing its trek across the drop. It settled into place, and its sharp blades dug in.

Zahra smiled and looked back at her guide. Joe still looked terrified of doing what he was about to do. The man’s demeanor tore the joy out of Zahra. In a matter of minutes, she became a grown man's babysitter. She couldn’t worry about him, however. The next part of her plan wasn’t an easy one.

“I can’t. I–I will find another way around.”

Zahra paused and turned, eyeing him. He appeared to be sweating even more than before. It was obvious that this was where the pair would part ways.

With nothing else to say to the man, Zahra shrugged. “See you below.”

She let out what she figured was enough cord and took a deep breath. Then she jumped, staying as close to the cliff face as possible. Usually, she’d want to avoid the jagged rocks, but not now. Zahra needed as much distance between the tree limb and herself. As it had done with the grappling hook, gravity took hold of her weight, and she fell like a bomb. She gripped tightly and allowed the cord to swing her forward as the slack was replaced with tension. The entire event only took seconds to execute.

Zahra reached the bottom, skidding the heels of her hiking boots on the rocky terrain. Ten feet later, she stopped in an upright, seated position and popped to her feet. Glancing up, she spotted Joe just barely peeking over the edge. He waved and then disappeared. Zahra didn’t have time to return the gesture.

She grunted and stood. “And who said chivalry was dead?” Her guide in the Amazon Rainforest had just ditched Zahra. “Just swell.”

With practiced expertise, she drew in the nylon cord tight and depressed a small red button on her belt that was attached just to the left of her pants’ quick-release buckle. Without making a noise, a radio signal was sent to a receiver inside the shaft of the folding hook, triggering its release feature. As a result, the claws disengaged from the tree limb, and it fell back to earth. Zahra zeroed in on it and caught it before it could hit the stone ground. If it had been a softer landing, she would have simply allowed it to land independently.

Zahra’s grappling hook was truly a one-of-a-kind piece of ingenuity built by a friend back in the United States. She had interesting relationships with even more interesting people all over the world. One of them was a spectacle-wearing man with long white hair named Tom Colombo. In his younger years, “Tommy” had been a key member of the American military’s research and development wing, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). His department had been tasked with innovating high-tech gear for the military’s various Special Forces divisions. One of his last official projects for the government was the grappling hook Zahra now used.

The story of Tommy’s termination still made her laugh.

One afternoon, he just snapped. The caffeine addict was already on edge — like, all the time. He had come to work, same as any other day. Moments after sitting down at his computer, something inside him just broke. He heaved his laptop at the wall, remove all his clothing, and run up and down the halls of his very public government office, shaking his milky white ass, singing, “My milkshake brings all the girls to the yard!”

A handful of his colleagues commented that they were surprised that it had taken this long for the bald, spectacled, mustachioed man to crack. Others had said that it was all a ploy to get fired so he could go out into the world and continue his work without rigorous regulations and red tape. Once Zahra had finally met Tommy, it was plain to see that the explanation leaned toward the former. His was an “odd duck,” for sure.

The area surrounding the plunge pool was deathly silent except for the powerful waterfall. Zahra didn’t like it. She secured her hook and cord to her belt and knelt, right hand on the grip of her Glock. There, she listened carefully and waited for something to emerge.

But nothing did. She was alone.

Zahra got to her feet but kept her hand on her pistol. Slowly, methodically, she turned in a circle and scanned her direct surroundings, clearing the grounds. Besides the circuitous cliff walls, plunge pool, and waterfall, there really wasn’t much to look at.

Why bring me here? Zahra thought.

There had to be more. She was missing something.

“Come on, Zahra — think! What are you missing?”

A breeze and layer of mist buffeted her. The cool water was a godsend. She closed her eyes and faced the waterfall, allowing the spray to coat her exposed skin. Once she was refreshed, her eyes snapped open, and she took off at a jog. She knew exactly why she was brought here. It was so simple, she had nearly missed it.

She and her goal — the waterfall — were on opposite sides of the plunge pool. Zahra slowed as she neared. Waterways in the jungle always needed to be given a proper berth. There was no telling what lurked beneath its surface.

Something nasty, I bet, Zahra thought, hugging the left-hand wall. She was thirty feet from the water’s edge, which, in her book, still wasn’t enough distance. As much as Zahra enjoyed her romps through the natural world, she also respected it, and in doing so, proceeded with care. Mammoth snakes, venomous frogs, insects of every variety, and of course, the ever-treacherous shadow of the jungle: the jaguar.

The big cats were the real hunter here, not people. One of the animals could easily take down a person of Zahra’s height and weight. She kept her head on a swivel just for that reason. She looked right and left, but also periodically glanced straight up. If an attack occurred, it would probably come from above. It was her guess, anyway.

The closer she got to the waterfall, the more she realized that her hypothesis was incorrect. There was no secret cave entrance behind the wall of water. It was just a wall. Deflated, Zahra moved out toward the pool and contemplated her next move. She removed her pack from her back again and procured her long-sleeve thermal. The bugs were getting bad, and she desperately needed its protection despite the horrid humidity and temperature.

She pictured her guide’s face in her mind’s eye and asked the question again.

“Why in the hell did you bring me here?”

Movement back up on the rise drew her attention. All around the plunge pool, some twenty-five-feet above her head, six men stepped into view. And they were all aiming identical AK-47s at her.

She recognized one of the gunmen.

Zahra had been betrayed.

“Hey, Joe,” Zahra said with a phony grin. “I see you’ve brought some friends to help us out, huh?”

She kept her hands down near her hips — down near her holstered gun. Zahra was a quick draw, but she doubted she’d be able to get a shot off without taking three rounds in the chest or back first.

“Drop your weapon, Ms. Kane!” Joe shouted. “As you can see, we—”

“Have the higher ground,” Zahra finished, pulling out the best Obi-Wan she had. She grinned ear to ear, except the interruption earned her nothing more than a look of confusion.

Zahra threw her hands up in frustration and let them flop back to her sides. “Oh, come on! You don’t know that?” She sighed. “Never mind… Continue.”

“I was about to say that we have you surrounded.” Joe’s eyes hardened. “And I think you should start to take your situation more seriously.”

Zahra was taking the situation seriously, though; keeping her opponent off-center couldn’t hurt. She didn’t budge an inch. She stood as still as a statue and waited. Before she gave herself up, she wanted to know why he had done what he did.

“Drop your—”

“No,” Zahra said, interrupting him.

“No?” Joe asked. “I don’t think you’re in a position to argue.”

Zahra shrugged. “That depends on what you need. And since you haven’t killed me yet, I figure you’re here for something other than my death.”

Please don’t say, “me,” Zahra thought. She’d rather die than be these assclowns’ pet.

“See,” Joe said, speaking to his men, “I told you this one was smart.” He turned his attention back to his trapped quarry. “You are correct, Ms. Kane. We are here for a sizeable increase in payment.”

Zahra reckoned as much. It was easy to see that Joe wasn’t just a guide. He was also a mercenary.

And this is his crew.

“And if I refuse your offer?”

She knew what would happen, but Zahra needed to keep the man talking while she thought of a way out. Her eyes found the pool. It was only ten feet in front of her and looked fairly deep. If she could make it beneath its surface, she’d be safe from gunfire.

And drown, she thought.

Zahra was up Shit’s Creek right now.

She didn’t listen to Joe’s reply. She was too locked on to not dying. The only other option was the river heading out into the unknown, though she would still run into the problem of oxygen. And once she surfaced, she’d be turned to Swiss cheese.

“Is this why you brought me here?” she asked. “Is this even the real Dead Horse Camp?”

Joe didn’t answer right away, but when he did, she was honestly shocked by what he said. “Yes, it is, but you would never have survived its entry point.”

Zahra stood still, using her eyes to survey her surroundings once again. She didn’t understand what he meant. Why wouldn’t she have survived entering Fawcett’s camp? Also, entrances led to places. There was no doorway here.

Once more, her eyes found the plunge pool.

“Hmmm… It can’t be,” she said, staring.

“What?” Joe shouted.

Zahra didn’t return her attention to her former guide. She decided on a course of action and acted on it. “Sorry, Joe, but you can stick your offer up your ass.”

She took off at a dead sprint, leaving the backpack containing most of her supplies. Her target was the plunge pool. Zahra leaped into the air, feeling a painful heat radiate from her left arm. Zahra pushed the discomfort aside and ducked her head, piercing the water’s surface like an aerodynamic dolphin, all while realizing what had happened.

Zahra had been shot.

The water was cooler than she thought it would be, which was great! But it was also shocking. Her body reacted by letting out a portion of her valuable held air. As soon as she entered, Zahra kicked for the bottom. Each time she reached forward and stroked for the bottom, she felt an agonizing pinch in her arm.

The submerged world was deafening. The waterfall’s torrent was intense, threatening to pull her closer to the rear, directly under the falls. If that happened, Zahra would be trapped in an undertow-like current and never escape. But as hard as she tried to avoid its liquid tractor beam, the more it latched onto her, and before she knew it, Zahra was yanked back.

Interestingly, she didn’t find the rocky bottom. Zahra was slurped into an opening in the plunge pool floor. The tunnel reminded her of a more violent tube slide at a water park. Zahra collided multiple times with the sides, feeling a jagged rock jab her in between the ribs in her back. She nearly lost the rest of her air in the process. A strong swimmer, Zahra had zero control of her direction. At this moment, Mother Nature was at the wheel.

Zahra’s lungs were about to explode. She couldn’t hold her breath any longer. A burst of bubbles exploded from her mouth, and her body instinctively tried to breathe in. It worked, but instead of taking in a lungful of oxygen, she took in water.

And that’s how you drown, Zahra.

She panicked and retched as her head broke the surface. The combination of her brain and body needing air and the water exiting her chest cavity was nearly enough to cause her to black out. Luckily for Zahra, the fluid cleared just before it happened. With each inhalation, her vision cleared. Not that she could tell. An inky darkness had swallowed the world around her.

Zahra was in a cave, though she couldn’t tell its breadth.

She continued to tread water until she felt somewhat back to normal. Her arm was killing her, but her thoughts were racing. The split focus kept the pain from vaulting to the forefront of her mind. Also, Zahra’s adrenaline spiked, acting as a natural painkiller. The cooler water helped soothe the wound too.

With her lungs satisfied and her breathing under control, Zahra reached down to her gun belt and fished for her SureFire G2X LED flashlight. It was positioned on her hip at the four o’clock position in a custom Kydex holster. Pulling it free, Zahra cringed from the blow she had taken to her back and almost dropped the light. If she had, she would have been royally screwed. Happily, she had brought along her palm-sized light, and it was easy to readjust her grip. Paddling with her right arm and legs, Zahra carefully lifted her injured left arm, clicked on the light, and played the intense 600-lumen beam around the space. The brilliance stung her eyes, and she was quickly forced to click the switch on the tail cap again, cutting down the output significantly.

Zahra blinked away the spots and shook her head.

Ouch…

There wasn’t much to see in the immediate vicinity. The cavern had been naturally formed thousands of years ago. Hellish stalactites hung from the domed ceiling — some of them nearly reaching the water’s surface. This hollow was ancient based on the formation’s size. It typically took one thousand years for a stalactite to grow ten centimeters.

Zahra slowly paddled in a circle, stopping 180 degrees later. The pool of water met with a rocky shoreline off in the distance of her powerful light. Zahra moved toward it, awkwardly kicking like a three-legged dog. The only auditory sounds in the cavern were the splashing of swimming and the huffs of her heavy breaths. Reaching the shoreline, Zahra pulled herself and rolled onto her back. Before she went any further, she took stock of her arm.

She drew her SOG knife and cut away her left shirt sleeve at the shoulder. The gunshot wound wasn’t all that bad, but it still caused her great pain. Using her right hand and teeth, Zahra wrapped the cut sleeve high on her upper arm, tying it off tightly. She growled through her clenched jaw, concentrating on controlling her breathing. Standing, Zahra kept her injured arm tucked against her stomach for the time being. She’d need to limit its use until she received proper medical attention.

“Fat chance of that happening,” she snorted, sighing. Zahra would, undoubtedly, be forced to use the appendage shortly.

There was only one way out of the hollow — forward. Zahra pointed her light toward a large, perfectly cut archway. Her eyes opened wide. It was an engineered corridor and not naturally formed like the stalactites. Maybe it had been natural at one point, but it had been altered into something magnificent. The entire archway was decorated with an ancient Amazonian script. It represented a language that Zahra had never seen before.

She thought back to why Percy Fawcett had last come to the region. He had been in search of a legendary ancient Amazonian civilization.

“The Lost City of Z,” Zahra mumbled. Percy Fawcett believed the old city to be somewhere deep within the Mato Grosso state of Brazil and that the indigenous peoples there had constructed an elaborate, architecturally modern city complex.

She craned her neck, following the semi-circular path of the archway with the beam of her flashlight, hoping she’d at least recognize something — anything. But it was all an enigma to her.

Zahra walked through the archway, taking each step with care. This was uncharted, possibly treacherous, territory. Only the people that built this place would know what to expect. Fifty yards later, Zahra came to an impasse. The twenty-foot gap in the rock used to contain a rope bridge, but it had long ago rotted away. Only the support posts still existed. Each pair had been fitted into the stone ground on either side of the expanse.

“And now I have to use my arm…”

Zahra sighed and unbuckled her grappling hook. Eyeing one of the two posts, she flicked her wrist to open the blades, but it didn’t open all the way. Zahra held up the device and inspected it. One of the blade arms was slightly bent. She recalled bouncing off the walls of the underwater tube and deduced that it had been damaged then.

“Great...”

She tried again, using more force this time to open it. With an ear-piercing shriek, all four blades popped into place. She gazed out over the gap and began to spin it like she had aboveground. Half a dozen rotations later, she released it, allowing the cord to unravel. It bypassed the post and clanged to the ground on the other side. Using both arms, Zahra pulled the hook to her left and worked behind the support. She put all her weight behind it and dug the blades in as deep as she could. Zahra relaxed and slowly rotated her bad arm, feeling injured muscles throb.

In the aura of her light, Zahra noticed that the wound was now bleeding worse. The more she exerted herself, the worse it was going to get.

And it was about to get much worse.

She stepped up to the edge of the gap and pointed her light straight down. The bottom was nowhere in sight. Zahra nervously swallowed and glanced up and down between the support post and the drop. She didn’t want to go through with it, but she didn’t have a choice. There was nothing behind her besides the pool. This was the only way.

She sat and gripped the cord tight. Slipping the palm-sized light into her mouth, she held it in place with her teeth. Zahra slowly lowered herself off the edge and dropped, trying her hardest to keep the swing to the other side slow and easy. It worked. Zahra gently swung across the opening in the earth, bracing the impact with her legs, using them as a natural suspension system.

The swing to the other side was a success, except now she was twenty-five feet beneath the ledge and only had one-and-a-half arms to use. The pain was excruciating… but dying would be worse. Zahra put every ounce of her strength into the sheer vertical ascent. The stone beneath her feet was impeccably smooth and would be no help. This would be an old-fashioned rope climb — like back in gym class.

Halfway up, Zahra’s labored breaths became bestial snarls. With five feet to go, Zahra’s inhuman growls transformed into tear-filled, muffled sobs. She openly wept with the flashlight pinned between her teeth, praying for the agony to subside. Blood freely ran down her arm, draining off her elbow into the void below. She pictured some demonic entity standing beneath her with its mouth open, relishing in her flavor.

She chuckled; glad she could retain her sense of humor even under duress.

Finally, she made it to the top, but she needed to make a choice. Reach the top with her good arm and use her injured appendage to support her weight or do the opposite. Either way, she’d have to put a lot of weight on her left arm.

“Come on, Zahra,” she said, mumbling through the flashlight, “you can do this.”

She came up with a third option — and just in time too!

Her grappling hook suddenly disengaged as a shrill beep rang out around her. The button release on her belt had obviously been damaged too. She caught herself with just her right hand and watched her beloved piece of gear disappear into the darkness. There, Zahra just dangled, unable to pull herself with just her one arm. The last leg of this excruciating ascent would require both arms. So, she bit down harder on her flashlight and slowly lifted the damaged limb. It wasn’t until she got as high as her shoulder that the movement made her cringe and flinch. But still, she continued, feeling her grip on the ledge wane.

Zahra kept her arm in tight to her body, climbing the wall with her fingers inch by inch. The higher it got, the worse the pain became. With one final push, the fingers of her left hand summited the wall. She wrapped her fingertips atop the ledge, feeling the muscles in her arms flex and shudder.

Taking a portion of her weight in her left arm, she slid her right hand forward and gripped the edge with her wrist. Then she lifted her head and slipped her chin atop the precipice. She flexed her chin downward and inched her right arm higher until she got the edge into the crook of her armpit. With renewed vigor, she brought her left arm up, happy that the particular motion didn’t cause her any additional pain. Now, she had both arms entirely atop the edge, as well as her head.

Now what? she asked herself, relaxing her arms. Zahra flexed her shoulders and back to pin herself in place. The tension caused the injury to flare up and she scrambled for another handhold. In one motion, she threw her right leg up and shoved into the ground with her right arm. She snagged the support post with the heel of her boot.

Zahra glanced up and saw that the other post was just inches from her head. She slid her right elbow across the ground and felt herself slip back into the void. Zahra lashed out and gripped the other post with her hand. She flexed her quadriceps and glutes, locking her right leg in place. With half of her body atop the ledge, she gave herself a moment and dangled her arm over the edge. The discomfort immediately began to subside with the lack of use.

Like an overextended worm, Zahra inched and flopped to the side, slowly completing the climb in the oddest way possible. When she was safely across the gap, Zahra breathed easy and nearly passed out. There, she laid on her stomach too exhausted to move. With no one following her, Zahra took her time. She wasn’t going to move until she was confident that she could without falling over.

Note to self, she thought, have Tommy figure something else out. Her grappling hook had almost gotten her killed. She needed something less techy and more reliable. Something with less brittle, moving parts that could still be used in the same manner.

Minutes passed before she moved a muscle. When she did, it was her neck. She lifted her head and looked away from the gap, spitting out her light as she did. It rolled for a few feet before coming to a stop against the far wall. Its beam illuminated a portion of the next archway’s base. As soon as it did, Zahra climbed to her feet, taking care of her left arm. But she barely noticed the ache in her badly damaged limb. Instead, her attention was focused on what lay inside the passage.

Bodies. Dozens and dozens of bodies.

Before heading off, Zahra adjusted the tourniquet on her arm, but it wasn’t enough. With great care, she once again slid out of what was left of her black thermal. Zahra unsheathed her knife and sliced through the fabric, separating the right sleeve from the rest of the garment, and dropping the remains to the floor. As she had done before, Zahra tied the sleeve around her arm, this time, focusing on the gunshot wound itself. She needed to stem the flow of blood before she became lightheaded. Even though she had successfully evaded Joe and his men, Zahra was still in a lot of danger.

She picked up her felled flashlight and pointed in down the dark passageway. Looking up, she saw something that filled her with dread. This archway wasn’t adorned with the architect’s ancient dialect. Starting on the floor, she traced her light from left to right, following the arch until her beam met stone, once more.

Long ago, human skulls had been embedded into the rock, and each of their mouths were wide open, frozen mid-scream. Zahra had a feeling that she was about to see firsthand the aftermath of the Amazonian people’s brutal practices of human sacrifice.

Zahra swallowed down her fear and stepped through the damned archway, groping her holstered pistol as she moved. But modern-day weapons would do next to nothing down here. Generally, bullets did very little against the ghosts of the past.

Zahra couldn’t make heads or tails about what she was seeing. The bodies — and there were many — were quite old. All of them were dressed similarly, adorned head to toe in furs and leathery skins. Some of the corpses wore necklaces laced with animal teeth. She stopped and showed her light back the way she had come. Each person was positioned with their head pointed away from Zahra’s objective.

“You were running away, weren’t you?” she deduced, pointing her beam forward again. It landed on an opening up ahead. “But from what?”

Zahra had no way of knowing whether the people responsible were still around, though, from the looks of it, they had probably been gone for some time. Nearing the opening, Zahra heard movement somewhere off in the distance. She quick-drew her Glock and stopped, aiming it and her flashlight forward.

Nothing.

Taking a deep breath, Zahra moved off. She exited the corridor and nearly fell over at what she saw. The space beyond was a naturally formed cavern — like the one behind the waterfall. But that’s where the similarities ended. This one was infinitely bigger.

“A cenote?”

Yes, at one point, the hollow had contained an underground body of water, but no longer. From what Zahra could tell, it had been drained years ago — maybe even centuries ago. She was currently standing on what used to be the cenote’s bank. Pointing her light up, Zahra noticed that the entire roof was solid.

No way out that way, she thought. But even if there were an exit, Zahra doubted she’d be able to make the climb in her current condition. So, she focused her attention on the rest of the chamber, scanning the bank for another way out.

But there was none.

“Just great,” she said, glancing back over her shoulder. Not only was she trapped, but she had also lost one of her most important pieces of gear — and she had done so for nothing. She still hadn’t even found Fawcett’s lost campsite.

Zahra pulled her head down. When her chin hit her chest, she stopped and stared at the empty cenote. There was a settlement built into the walls and floor of the drained cenote. It was enormous, built into layers, and expertly pieced together — eons ahead of what the natives of the area should have been able to do. In the beam of her light, Zahra spotted dozens of ladders and sets of steps around the cenote. It was how its architects navigated a miasma of raised platforms. But in the end, each and every one of the levels led down to the ground floor and the buildings around it. This wasn’t just another settlement — or even Fawcett’s Dead Horse Camp.

Her eyes widened. “It’s the Lost City of Z.”

But what about the bodies behind her?

Zahra headed right, toward the first of four ladders leading below. She stopped and raised her pistol once she reached it. The condition of the ladder sent a chill down her spine.

It was new.

Built of thick branches and vines, the ladder had been recently rebuilt by the looks of it. Zahra expected to find it worn and rotten. Someone was maintaining the entry points. She swung her light down toward the nearest building. Oddly, it contained no roof. But Zahra quickly realized why.

“No rain.” Being underground, the dwellings didn’t require a covering of any kind.

A simple whoomp and a rumble caused Zahra to snap her light and pistol skyward. She aimed them both at the center of the doomed ceiling. The noise had come from there, but she had yet to spot exactly what had caused it. A minute later, a second explosion and rumble were followed closely by cascading stone and earth. High above, a single beam of light appeared. It reached all the way down, illuminating the grounds in a soft aura. Zahra knelt and waited, leveling her Glock at the newly made opening. A half-dozen rappelling lines dropped into the hole, touching down with length to spare.

“Joe,” Zahra said, gripping her gun harder. Her finger tensed on the trigger and held it at its wall.

Knowing it would take a miracle to hit any of the mercenaries from this distance, Zahra holstered her gun and light and descended the ladder. She’d take her chances below. They had the numbers, but she had the know-how. Zahra trusted that her training would keep her alive, even in a situation as hopeless as this. The work she had put in while a member of British Army Intelligence had turned her into more than just a linguist. She had always been an adrenaline junkie, and she had willingly and unofficially trained on the side with the elite Special Air Service (SAS).

Zahra could take care of herself.

The climb wasn’t as easy as it should have been. Her arm was killing her, as was the rest of her body. Still, she pushed on, glancing at the ceiling every few rungs. Six blurry blobs appeared and slowly slid down their ropes.

Zahra picked up her pace and made it to the first platform. As she had done before, her attention returned to the six armed men while she moved. A second ladder greeted her, and she leaped onto it and quickly descended. The next platform was twice as big as the first one, easily twenty feet by thirty feet. She knelt in the shadows beneath the ladder and caught her breath. Joe and his men were rappelling impossibly slow, sweeping their flashlights back and forth in long strokes.

What are you looking for? Zahra asked herself. She knew they were here for her, but this felt like more than that. These guys looked skittish. Their undiscernible voices sounded concerned — maybe even frightened.

Zahra’s theory was confirmed as they got closer.

“Keep your eyes open!” one man yelled.

“How many of them are there?” another man asked.

“I’m not sure!” a third one shouted.

So, she thought, looking around, it’s not just me you’re looking for.

Zahra redrew her pistol but kept her light holstered on her hip. She stepped lightly, impressed at how solid the platform was. It had been constructed of logs that had been tied together with hand-woven ropes. The entire cenote was lined with similar platforms. They led the way down to the bottom, where most of the buildings had been built.

Snaking left, Zahra found steps instead of a ladder. She quickly descended them and stepped onto another landing. This one was only ten feet wide, but it went on forever before ending at another stairway. Unfortunately, these steps weren’t in the best of condition. Zahra looked over the edge and estimated that she was still, at least fifty feet above the floor. A fall would kill her.

“Really wish I had my hook right about now.”

If she did have it, Zahra would have simply rappelled down to the bottom and skipped the stairs altogether. She groaned and took a careful step. The wooden plank groaned back. It was the only noise in the entire cavern. Even the incoming force had quieted. The next three steps were solid enough, barely creaking at all. But the fifth step cracked and fell apart beneath her foot. It started a chain reaction of events.

Zahra took off at a chaotic sprint as the stairs, and the wall next to her, were torn apart by automatic gunfire. Luckily, the shooters were still airborne. There was no way they could get their sights set on her long enough to get off an accurate shot — not unless they got their shit together and put their rounds in front of her and not on her. It was plain to see that these guys didn’t have any formal instruction. If Zahra could make it to the city, she knew she would survive, though she still needed to find a way out. The forced entry couldn’t have been the only way in.

The stairs began to collapse with only ten feet to go. Zahra dove forward, rolling right onto her good shoulder. She took the hard landing in stride and rolled to her feet and darted into the closest cover she could find. The dwelling was well-built and concealed her exact position from view. She didn’t stay in one spot, either. Zahra kept moving, zigging and zagging around the structures, paying them no attention until she felt that she was safe.

Thirty seconds after her intense arrival, Zahra paused, settling her racing heart. She kept her Glock holstered and, instead, unsheathed her SOG knife. The lighting was low, reminding her of the dusk that preceded a full sunset. She could see just enough to navigate the city, but the range was low. She lost the next dwelling to the low light. If a fight came to her, it would be fought close up and in the dark. Zahra’s black clothes would aid in her ghost-like movements.

She kept her footfalls steady and came to a road. Zahra guessed it was the main pathway at the center of Z. She peeked around the corner and looked up. Joe’s landing zone was at the heart of the city. The entire complex had been built around that one spot. It’s where Zahra was headed now.

She ducked around the log cabin-like building and knelt as a light swept over her head. Scurrying around the front of the hut, she, again, paused and waited.

“Fan out! Find her — but be careful!”

Moving like molasses, Zahra leaned around the next structure and watched as all six men headed down separate paths. One of them stepped toward her. Every time the mercenary pointed his flashlight down one of the crossroads, Zahra moved up and closed in. After five such moves, she slunk behind the next building and flattened herself against its outer wall. Zahra was halfway to the center of the city now. She let out her ponytail and tossed it over her bare right shoulder. Her black hair would help conceal her contrasting, lighter skin. Zahra really could have used her black thermal long-sleeve at the moment.

She tucked her arms up high into her chest and turned away just when a light swept across her form. As soon as it passed her, Zahra faced her pursuer. It wasn’t Joe, but that didn’t mean she would just let him go.

I’m not going to kill you either, she decided.

Zahra wasn’t heartless. She would disable these men without ending their lives unless she were forced to do otherwise. This guy wasn’t all that big. He was around her height but outweighed her by about forty pounds. But no matter. It didn’t matter how big they were, especially when their prey didn’t mind fighting dirty.

Sheathing her knife, Zahra drew her Glock. She refrained from shooting him in the back and, instead, she used the firearm as a hammer. Zahra was mindful of the trigger, keeping her index finger off it. She leaped forward and bashed the gunman over the head with the steel slide. He crumpled in on himself but hadn’t been knocked unconscious. Zahra didn’t give him a chance to recover. She treated his skull like a soccer ball and kicked him in the temple as hard as possible.

That did it. Ouch.

Zahra grabbed his boots. Using mostly her right arm, she dragged him off the main road and into the darkness behind the hut. The effort of moving his body caused her head to swim. Zahra was losing blood fast. She needed to rest, but the voices shouting at one another across the city backseated that idea. She’d need to escape this place first.

Right, she thought, looking around. So, where’s the exit?

There had to be one. The builders would have needed another access point besides the one Zahra had used. She glanced up, but quickly deduced that the residents would have used an entrance that was less… spelunky. Plus, there was no way Zahra could climb the ropes Joe’s team had used in her current condition.

Listening for movement, Zahra heard nothing and moved on.

Staying low, she continued toward the middle of Z, stopping at one of the structures that ringed what looked like a ceremonial altar. The light coming down from the ceiling illuminated the city center nicely. The sight caused Zahra’s stomach to lurch.

There were more bodies here. Hundreds of them.

“Oh, god,” she mouthed silently. What struck her the most about the grisly sight wasn’t the numbers. It was the smell. Some of the dead were recent kills — fresh enough to reek of decomposition. Zahra focused on the ground around the bodies, and her eyes opened wide. It was wet. Some of the blood that had been spilled was only a couple of days old.

Looking past the mayhem, Zahra could barely see something else. The other side of the cenote was lost in the dusky haze, but she thought she saw a tunnel. That would be her target.

She kept to the outskirts of the city center and hugged the front of the ring of buildings. It would have been quicker to go straight through, but she would have left herself open for attack from all directions. There was nowhere to hide, either. She made it to the three o’clock position before something caught her eye. Two bodies had been laid on raised altars out in the middle of the carnage. For whatever reason, they had been placed in more prominent places than the rest.

Interesting…

Zahra stopped and checked the eastern road. It was clear. Then she looked back toward the duo of altars. She growled as her adventurous side took over. Slinking away from the relative safety of the darkness, Zahra skirted across the open expanse. She made her way to the altars, tiptoeing through the revolting, carnal exhibition. Zahra took one more look around the immediate area before mounting the short staircase beneath the ceremonial stone slabs.

The men were long dead. Based on their clothing, Zahra estimated that these two had been here for nearly one hundred years. Interestingly enough, the particular styles looked British. The pants and the boots were a dead giveaway. Both men’s shirts had been ripped open… as had their chest cavities. Zahra sneered in disgust and entered the space between both altars. She tripped on a rectangular object that had been veiled by the shadows created by the overhead light.

Glancing down, Zahra knelt and picked up the object.

“A book?” she whispered, looking it over.

It was leather-bound and well-used despite it being here for nearly a century. Zahra carefully opened the cover with an artist's touch and examined the script adorning the first page. It wasn’t a book, per se. It was a journal.

“Jack Fawcett.”

This was the first time any of Joe or his team had entered the lost city. To his knowledge, no outsider had stepped foot inside the hellish place in decades — and for good reason. The stories did not end well for those curious and foolish enough to explore it. Even now, Joe could feel the icy chill of Death just over his shoulder. Soon, he and his team would be beckoned to the underworld by the evil that inhabited Z.

“Where are you?” Joe muttered.

The question wasn’t just meant for Zahra. He was also looking for this tribe of Amazonians. He had never seen one of the fabled tribesmen before, but those that had encountered them said that they moved like ‘ghosts in the night.’ Another man called them ‘spectral hunters.’ As the years went by, the people of Z had become something of a supernatural legend.

There were other uncontacted tribes in the Amazon — a river basin covering more than six million square miles. Over thirty million people called the region their home, though it was impossible to get an accurate count. Every year, it seemed a new never-before-seen tribe of Amazonians was discovered.

After making it to the rear wall of the city, Joe sighed and placed his hands against the cool stone and closed his eyes. He let out a long breath, feeling defeated. Their time below was nearly up. He and his team were to meet back at the rooftop opening in twenty minutes. It had taken Joe ten minutes to search his section of the settlement. He glanced down at his watch and confirmed as much.

We need to leave, he thought, gritting his teeth. Their prize had successfully eluded them. Zahra Kane had proven herself to be more than only a beautiful archaeologist.

Joe turned and faced toward the center of Z and smiled. He could see the two sacred altars from here, and the sight gave him hope. A woman like Zahra wouldn’t be able to resist the discovery; she would want to poke around and marvel at the implications and history. Joe also felt it — the pull of the undiscovered; the feeling of being on the cusp of finding something incredible. He would have given anything to spend more time in Z.

“No,” he mumbled.

Joe didn’t have a death wish, at least, not at the hands of the savages of Z.

Two of the genre’s best writers team up!

ERNEST DEMPSEY, USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF WHERE HORIZONS END

Hi, my name is Matt. I’m the international bestselling author of the electrifying JACK REILLY ADVENTURES, as well as two dozen other titles, including DARK ISLAND, and the intense UNSEEN action-horror novels. Moreover, I’ve been fortunate enough to partner with USA Today bestselling author Nick Thacker to create the wildly popular ZAHRA KANE archaeological thriller series. I’m also the Managing Editor for Conundrum Publishing, and I host REAL–LIFE FICTION on YouTube, a video podcast that features the book industry’s finest talents.

My work is heavily influenced by the likes of Indiana Jones, Uncharted, Tomb Raider, The Mummy (1999), National Treasure, and The Goonies. As you can see, I’m a little obsessed with tales of daring adventure. When I was growing up, other kids went nuts for Star Wars or Star Trek. But not me. I fell in love with the globetrotting antics of Dr. Henry Jones, Jr., and the rest, as they say, was history. From that moment on, I was hooked. Though I dabble in other genres from time to time, my heart will always belong to ADVENTURE.

I live twenty minutes from the beach in sunny South Florida with my amazing wife, our two beautiful daughters, a lovable pitty, and an overly dramatic black cat.

YOU CAN VISIT MATT AT:

Website: MattJamesAuthor.com

Podcast: Real-Life Fiction

ConundrumPub.com

Nick Thacker is a thriller author from Texas who lives in Hawaii and Colorado. In his free time, he enjoys reading in a hammock on the beach, skiing, drinking whiskey, and hanging out with his beautiful wife, two dogs, and two daughters.

For more information and a list of Nick’s other work, visit Nick online:

www.nickthacker.com