Alex Archer - Serpent's Kiss

Working quickly, Annja tied the rope off and made it secure. She had to work one-handed while she held on to the tree with the other. Then, as black spots danced in her vision from lack of oxygen, she kicked and swam up next to the tree.

The flashlight beams from the other dig site members barely reached the fallen tree. In the dim light, Annja saw that all three people still held on to the branches less than thirty feet away from her.

Annja abandoned her hold and let the current take her. The current wasn’t as strong as it had been earlier. Swimming in it was difficult but it was only a short distance.

When she reached the tree, she hung on for a moment to gather her strength. Instead, the constant battle with the current only leeched energy from her. She forced her body out of the water and onto the tree.

“Is everyone all right?” Annja shouted above the noise of the storm and the rushing water.

All three college students, two female and one male, nodded. All of them looked pale and frightened in the flashlight beams and the lightning.

Tethered at the end of the rope, the tree danced and jerked like a fish on a line. Annja spotted the white scars left in the bark by the grappling hook’s prongs. She could see the branch the hook had caught had started to tear away.

Annja made her way across the slippery tree trunk and grabbed the branches from another nearby tree. She held tight and saw blood from the cuts on her hands. She ignored the pain and kept gripping.

“Get into the tree,” Annja ordered the others.

At first none of the three college students wanted to move. All of them were from Lochata’s university, and they all spoke English.

“Now!” Annja commanded in a more forceful tone. “That branch is going to tear free. I don’t have another rope and I don’t think we’ll get this lucky twice.”

One of the women spoke to the others in her native language. She got them up and moving. Awkwardly and fearfully, they made their way into the other tree.

Annja helped them, then pulled herself into the branches. She felt the cold from the storm splintering through her body.

Postadrenal surge, she told herself as she hunkered down and rubbed her arms. You’ll sleep well tonight. If you find a place to sleep.

The storm continued unabated. A few minutes later, the broken tree tore free from the rope and floated away. It collided with several other trees before disappearing into the darkness.

Annja settled in and got as comfortable as she could. It promised to be a long night.

A NNJA WOKE with the dawn. The sun painted the eastern horizon pink and purple with hints of gold and ruby. Blinking against the brightness, Annja relished the increasing warmth. When she pushed herself up from the crook of the tree’s branches where she’d slept, the pain in her hands reminded her of the damage she’d done.

She looked down at them and found several tears and scrapes across her palms. They weren’t as bad as they’d felt last night, but they were still painful when she flexed them.

“Professor Creed, I can’t believe you slept like that.”

Annja glanced up and shaded her eyes against the sun. One of the Indian college students sat on a limb above her. She was young and thin with long black hair. Annja tried to remember her name and finally got it.

“Indira, right?” Annja asked.

The young woman nodded. “I couldn’t sleep a wink.”

“I probably shouldn’t have.” Annja looked down. The water level had dropped considerably, but it still looked several feet deep. There was no sign of the campsite or the vehicles.

“I left my computer down there,” Indira said. “All my stuff.” She bit her lower lip. “It’s probably ruined, isn’t it?”

Annja hated giving the young woman the bad news. “I’m afraid so.”

Tears filled Indira’s eyes.

A guilty feeling stole through Annja even though she’d had nothing to do with the tsunami. She looked back at the tree she’d originally climbed. Her backpack still hung safely from the limb. She sighed in relief. Replacing the equipment would have been a pain, but financially she could have done it. However, getting replacements could have been difficult.

She grabbed the limb over her head and pulled up. Her hand burned as the cuts pulled. A quick inspection revealed that none of them had broken open. Infection could be a problem, she told herself. And the first things you take care of when you’re out in the tropics are your hands and feet.

She discovered she was sore from sleeping in the tree. All the diving, jumping and swimming had probably contributed to it, she thought.

“Professor Creed?”

Still not used to the formality, Annja thought. She wasn’t actually a professor but Lochata Rai had told all of her charges they were to address Annja that way.

The speaker was the male college student. Annja felt bad that she couldn’t remember his name at all.

“Yes?”

“I just wanted to thank you for saving us,” he said. “That was the coolest thing I think I’ve ever seen done.”

“W E WERE VERY LUCKY ,” Lochata said. “Everyone survived the experience.”

“I know. But the flood destroyed the dig site.” Annja waded through the hip-deep water and felt the pull of the flood’s withdrawal. The sea continued to return to its proper boundaries.

Annja and the professor had organized the dig members into teams responsible for searching for supplies that might have survived the flooding. Prizes turned up with hopeful regularity, though many of them were farther inland. A lot of the food and water was in waterproof containers. Unfortunately, many of those containers were buoyant. The deluge had ripped the tents free of their stakes and allowed them to be carried inland or back out to sea.

“What was buried under the earth will still be there when we are ready to begin again,” Lochata said. She reached forward and plucked a snake from the water, examined it for a moment, then hung it on a tree limb.

“Think it’ll find its way home again?” Annja asked.

“Or make a new home, perhaps.” Lochata watched the snake slither along the branch until it found a place in the sun. It coiled up and sat there.

One of the male students sang out joyously fifteen yards away. He hoisted a bottled sports drink into the air as if he’d just won an Olympic event. He spoke in his own language.

“He says he’s found a whole box of the sports drink,” Lochata translated with a smile. “At least forty-eight bottles.”

The find drew the others to the area and they fanned out to search the underbrush for more food and drink.

Annja knew they weren’t going to starve. Her satellite phone had allowed Lochata to get in touch with rescue centers in Kanyakumari and request assistance.

According to the dispatch officer Lochata had conversed with, the city hadn’t been hit by the tsunami. The disaster seemed to be fairly localized, but several small villages had been hard-hit, as well.

“Are you going to continue the dig?” Annja asked.

“If I’m able. I still have to contact the university.”

“It seems a shame to walk away from it now. We’ve just gotten started,” Annja said.

“I agree.”

“And it’s not likely there’ll be another tsunami.”

“I don’t think so, either.”

Annja watched the university students splash around in the water. “Do you think many of your interns will stay on?”

“I can only ask.” Lochata raised her thin shoulders and dropped them. “For many of them, this will be a grand adventure by tomorrow. Something they’ll be able to brag about to their classmates when we return to university. However, they have to return in two weeks no matter what. That’s all I could arrange for them to be away from their studies. I was not able to schedule this for the summer due to the monsoon season.”