The Ruby HummingBird
an excerpt

Before Our Story Begins:
Summer 1854
Somewhere in the Uncharted Regions of the Amazon Rainforest

Remington B. Madison stopped to catch his breath. He looked behind him. There was no time to stop, he must keep going, and he must get out of this God forsaken place. They were coming. He could hear them coming. They were getting closer, closer. They'd be upon him at any moment. He had to think. He had to get out of here. He had to get back to the states. Must think fast. Why had he sent the artifacts to the museum already? He should have waited. He should have found out more about the natives first. Their traditions. Their gods. The birds.

The birds! He stopped thinking and started listening. A strange whirring sound was coming from the forest behind him. The sound of hundreds of tiny wings beating at lightening speeds. They were coming. They were coming for him. Thousands of tiny hummingbirds, with gleaming ruby wings, and shining beaks. He started running. Running faster and faster, farther and farther. His mind was racing. Must get away. Must escape. The birds. They had killed his porters. They had killed the rest of the dig team. They had killed the local native guides. There was no one left. Just him. He was the only one left. He must escape. He must get back home. He had to tell the world what he had found. He must warn them. Warn the world. No one must ever enter these woods again.

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Chapter # ??? :

The Coat:

There was no one in the room. Carl looked around, confused. Could it be this was the wrong room? Maybe he had gotten the time wrong. That must be it. He had the time wrong. Carl looked at his watch to see what time it was. He tried to remember what time _______ had told him to be here; than he remembered that the natives had no time. No clocks.

"At least no clocks as we know them," he muttered angrily. "Stupid savages. This place is so boring. I don't even know why I came."

He did know why he came, in fact. He had come with the Professor, not for adventure, not for history or science, but for greed, glory, and money. Oh, he admired the Professor all right, and yes, he had enjoyed taking his classes back at the University, but secretly Carl dreamed of the money he would get if he could find the fable Ruby Hummingbird. He could sell it to the highest bidder. He wandered around the room, wondering who the highest bidder might be. The Portland Art Museum? The Boston Museum of Arts? The Metropolitan? The Smithsonian Institute? Maybe even the Louve? The more he thought about it, the bigger the museums got and the higher the bids went. He could see it in his mind; museum curators vying for the highest bid: One million do I hear two? Two million do I hear four? Higher and higher the prices went in his head. He looked around the room. There were plenty of ancient artifacts just scattered all about, any one of them was worth a fortune. Jade were-jaguars, sting ray spine knives, obsidian frogs with turquoise inlays, feather headdresses, gold collars, coats and capes of local exotic furs, delicate weavings, intricate pottery... even if he didn't find the Ruby Hummingbird, that didn't mean he had to go away empty handed.

Carl went to the window and looked out. The Avenue below was busy with vendors selling pottery and cloth. No one was paying any attention to this house. The house was empty. This was going to be easy. Quickly Carl scanned the room again. There was no telling when someone would come, so he would have to work fast. There was a low table, like and alter against one wall. It had several small but valuable looking carvings on it. He'd take a couple of those. "No one well notice it I just take one or two of them," he told himself as he slipped a jade frog into his pocket.

Carl picked up one of the feathered headdresses. "These are worth a small fortune!" He turned it over in his hands. It was huge. The feathers spread out from one side to the other, at least four feet. Clearly it was too big to sneak out in his pockets. He put it back and looked for something else. On the far wall lay a stack of fur cloaks. Surely he could fit at least one in his duffle. The one on the top of the stack was amazing. It was made from the skin of a black jaguar. You could see the fine mottling of the steel grey spots against the slick black fur. The head, tail, and paws were are still attacked. The black eyes sparkled like real eyes. The white teeth gleamed as though still wet with saliva. The hematite black claws were each a good three inches long. "I wonder how you would wear one of these?" he said, wrapping the skin over his shoulders. "Fit for a king, I might keep this one for myself." He tied the great paws around his neck, to hold the fur in place, as he pulled out other furs of ocelots, anteaters, howlers, and jaguars. There were no other black ones. Black jaguars were very rare. It was a hope against hope that this noble would own more than one.

Carl stood up and shoved an ocelot skin into his duffle bag. He headed over to window and looked out again. No one was coming. The fur cloak seemed much heavier now than it did a moment ago. As he turned to head back to the examine the pottery, the cloak shifted falling back so that the sharp claws began digging into his throat. He grasped at the paws to adjust the cloak, when he heard a low growl and felt the paws gripping his throat even tighter. Carl struggled to breath, but he could not. The cloak was chocking him, tighter and tighter, strangling him. Franticly pulling at the cloak, Carl pulled it over his head and threw it at the wall. It landed in a heap, but did not stay on the floor. Instantly the great beast rose up, and Carl found himself face to face with a huge thirteen foot long male panther, hissing, baring it's teeth, and poised to pounce and kill.

"Damn, bloody hell!" was all Carl could think of to scream out, as the beast leapt forward aiming once again at his throat. Carl jumped away, falling to the floor, as he did, he beast landed a few feet away, turning to leap again, but what landed before him was not a giant panther, but a fearsome creature like nothing he had ever seen before. The creature looked like a man, but at the same time looked almost like a wild savage animal. It seemed to be neither man nor animal, but rather some alien beast. In it's humanoid form it had exotic and highly attractive Mongolian features. It had very long shaggy black hair that appeared to have never seen a brush. Its unearthly eyes were black, deeply slanted, and almond shaped, but were lacking in both whites and pupils. The eyes began to glow like blazing hot white coals. His hands are long and thin, but muscular and Carl could tell from having had the beasts' claws round his neck, this hands were abnormally strong. Carl felt certain that this creature was able to crush human bones with its bare hands. On its fingertips were fingernails should have been it had sharp gleaming black eagle talons. It was dressed from head to toe in long flowing black robes, trimmed with black feathers. He was certain the beast wanted to eat him...