It was a big call, but now he'd made it there was no backing down. Whatever had caused the earthquake and the subsequent landslide–whether an act of nature, or the supernatural whim of Pachamama, as Sonco suggested–Kane took it as a sign that one way or another he should keep the surety he felt about their proximity to Vilcabamba to himself. If confronted–if some of the party insisted they push on–he would inform them the terrain was too unstable, that it was too dangerous to proceed, and that he as expedition leader had a responsibility for their safety. If necessary, he’d remind them it was also in the contracts they’d all signed.

  Kane was sorry it was over for them–he was sorry for himself, too–but there was no other choice. He would also tell them about Pachamama, about Incan superstitions, and hope they were superstitious enough to read into it the same inauspicious warning as him; that the Earth Goddess had chosen to keep the Inca secrets a mystery.

  And though he himself didn’t buy into it, Kane knew exactly how Sonco felt.

  Anyone would be foolish to challenge Pachamama’s will.

  The Old Rectory, Suffolk, England

  April 1st, 1989

  Hiram Kane was just fifteen years old when he bunked off school with his little brother Danny, who was barely thirteen. They didn't get in trouble in class, and both got consistently good reports. It was only the second time Hiram had ever played truant. Danny’s first.

  Every day on their cycle to school they rode by the abandoned and derelict Old Rectory off Christmas Lane, with its boarded up doors and smashed upstairs windows. They'd only discussed it a couple of times, but both knew the other's thoughts; it was just a matter of time until Hiram broke inside to explore. It seemed harmless enough, and even though there had been rumours flying around at school–the usual ones, that the Old Rec’ was haunted by a long-dead vicar, or some drug addict squatters lived inside–Hiram was determined to investigate.

  Hiram inherited his adventurous traits from his family. His great grandfather, Patrick, was the closest friend and most trusted assistant of legendary American explorer, Hiram Bingham. Hence, Patrick’s son, grandson, and great-grandson were all complimented with the same name. And since anyone in the Kane family could remember, the youngest Hiram, like his forebears, was curious about everything. The mysterious Old Rectory was no exception.

  Hiram and Danny attended Benjamin Britten Secondary School, a ghastly faux-modern monstrosity in Suffolk. Its construction was so poorly executed that since it had opened in 1976, the building had literally been sinking into the ground. The local composer the authorities named the school after was probably turning in his grave. Of course, the students hoped it would hurry up and disappear.

  So they wouldn’t be missed from their classes, they met at the bike sheds during lunch break. Hiram beamed with excitement, but Danny, the younger, more timid of the Kane boys, did not share his enthusiasm. Nevertheless, Danny looked up to his brother and would follow Hiram anywhere. Anxious not to get caught skipping school and later face the wrath of the headmaster and their parents, it didn’t take them long to leave the school gates behind. They pedalled furiously for a couple of miles, first through the village of Gunton, after which they sped down the hill at Woods Loke, and then along the notorious, never-ending stretch of Sands Lane, that, despite the season and whatever direction one was heading in, always seemed to resist you with a powerful headwind. When they at last reached the quietude of Christmas Lane, from where the narrow path to the Old Rectory began, they felt exhausted.

  Shaded by a stand of brooding, ancient horse chestnut trees, they discarded their BMX bikes by the rusted cow gate, and paused. Hiram had been anticipating this moment for a long time, but now they were there it seemed somehow scarier, and away from the busy roads, everything had settled into an eerie quiet. The brothers shared a nervous glance, though soon followed up with grins. Only Danny forced his. Their hearts pounded, but they would go through with it. More than a little reluctant, Danny kept his fear to himself.

  They strode along the secluded trail, their legs powering them on in long strides that seemed confident though were anything but, as the thick silence seemed to creep along behind them. Then a noise, and their heads shot around. Nothing there–or no one–but despite the isolation, they weren’t convinced. The trees swayed, dark and ominous, their branches leaning down as if in warning. Stop, kids, they whispered, but they couldn’t. They were close, the warm, sun-bathed trail drawing them along.

  Ten more minutes, and they stopped. The boys had arrived. Hiram and Danny looked around, imaginations ripe and hearts racing, not from exertion, but from the looming forest and the unseen eyes watching from the shadows that made their breaths come fast and unbidden. But they made a choice, fear inspiring progress into the unknown, and pushed their way through the rotting, crippled fence beside the wide gates, the overgrown ivy a feeble barrier to determined kids. With a last glance back down the trail to make sure they were alone, they drifted with caution towards the infamous old building.

  Spring had blessed them with a warm day, fat beads of sweat tickling their skin after their long cycle ride. But despite the heat the air inside the Old Rec’ grounds felt cool. Goosebumps broke out on Danny’s slender arms. Little light broke through the giant conker trees above, and nothing stirred in the placid air. Hiram wouldn’t admit it to Danny, but he was on edge.

  In keeping with the massive, decaying edifice, the grounds were vast and neglected, and it was a scrambling walk to the main entrance. Dotted around and shrouded in thick layers of green moss were a defeated army of grey and lifeless statues, sinister in appearance under the circumstances. Danny could have sworn the crumbling figures watched them as they passed.

  They walked on in torpid silence. The only sounds were the soft, hypnotic crunch of disturbed gravel and a gentle spring breeze whistling in the treetops. From behind a statue of a fallen angel a pair of inky ravens took flight, startling the boys, who looked at each other and uttered nervous chuckles to conceal their shame. But a malevolent atmosphere hung all around them, and though brave, Hiram questioned if going inside was a good idea.

  But they were so close to the building now, the broad and weather-beaten stone steps up to the boarded entry just yards away. They stopped again, appraising the situation–and with discretion, appraising each other. There was no use denying their trepidation, and they hesitated. Despite their taut nerves, though, Hiram was keen to push on. And rather than being labelled a chicken, Danny swallowed down his fear.

  Looking about for the easiest access inside, they each tried peering through the cracks between the plank covered windows, Hiram to the left, Danny to the right, but the first couple of windows for both boys gave no obvious entry point. Danny turned the corner of the house, and the second window he came to along the east side of the former Rectory looked promising. With a deep breath, and determined to prove to his brother he was no coward, he pulled at the boards.

  Hiram’s first two windows offered no chance of entry, but upon his third, which had a wider gap between the boards, he peered into the darkness. Movement. Alarmed, he jerked his head back as visions of a shadowy, headless vicar flashed in his mind. Quick to accuse his heightened imagination, though, he blinked and looked inside again. This time, nothing. Weird, he thought, certain he’d seen something. Now perturbed, he turned back to Danny.

  “I’m not so sure this is a good idea, Dan—”

  Danny was nowhere to be seen. Hiram turned the corner and his heart skipped a beat as he spotted his brother halfway through a window.

  “Danny, stop! Don’t go inside,” he called.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t think we sho—”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine,” Danny replied as he disappeared into the darkness.

  Hiram registered the soft thud of Danny’s shoes hitting the ground, and a moment later, heard, “It’s fine. Come inside.”

  “No, we’re leaving. Come out now, Danny. Please?”

  “It’s okay, come on,” he called back. Then a long pause. “I dare you.”

  Hiram looked around. The entire place appeared deserted, and seemed to have been that way for eternity, despite the rumours in school. He took a deep breath. With reluctance, and against his better judgement, he stepped to the window. “Wait there. Don’t go anywhere without me.”

  “Sure thing,” came the muffled reply, but Hiram heard the fading echo of footsteps retreating from the window. His throat went dry.

  “Shit.” His brother was a lot smaller than him and had edged through the gap with ease. Unnerved, he tugged hard at the planks to make room for his wider shoulders, but they wouldn’t budge an inch. Panicking, Hiram heaved with all his might on the stubborn boards while calling out unanswered to Danny. At last, and with an almighty crash, the central plank gave way and Hiram sprawled to the mucky ground. Now, not only was he worried, but he was seriously pissed off.

  He scrambled through that window in seconds and found himself in almost absolute darkness, the only light the angled spears of sun that filtered through the boards and highlighted the twisting swirls of dust.

  Hiram paused to catch his breath and allow his eyes time to adjust. He crouched on one knee and stifled a sneeze. He noticed his pulse quickening with excitement.

  Hiram stood up tall. This is what he’d been imagining for months, thinking about in all those hated maths classes.

  Despite the disquiet he felt about his brother, Hiram Kane the Third was in his element.

  “Where are you? Wait for me.”

  Hiram’s voice echoed around the large and empty room. It still went unanswered. Climbing back into the window, he braced himself on the inner frame and smashed out the remaining planks with the sole of his foot, the heavy kicks and cracking wood fracturing the silence. The idea was to let in more light, but despite the immediate results, the rays illuminated what he didn’t want to see–footprints in the dust leading deeper into the Old Rectory.

  Though considered the sensible one, Danny was quite a character; witty, funny, and always playing practical jokes on Hiram. But dashing off by himself into a creepy old building? It was out of character.

  The trail of fresh prints at least showed Hiram Danny wasn’t just hiding in the shadowed recesses of that room, ready to pounce out and scare the shit out of him. On the flip side, it meant he must have ventured into the dark interior of that massive edifice alone, and the thought made him shudder. He paused a moment, listening for telltale sounds of movement, but heard nothing. He nodded. It meant nobody else was in the Old Rec’ with them, despite the movement he thought he saw just a few minutes ago. “Only a pigeon,” he whispered.

  Breathing a little easier, Hiram left that room and moved onto the next, each footstep resonating in the now silent interior. He walked into a large sitting room that had once been grand but now lay dilapidated, a cobweb-laden chandelier evidence of years of neglect. Kane knew whoever had last occupied the Old Rectory had abandoned it long before his birth, and it seemed he and Danny were the first people inside those decaying walls in decades. He hoped it was true.

  From out of nowhere the sound of footsteps thudded across creaky floorboards above his head, causing a surge of adrenaline to tingle his fingertips. Wait… was that two sets of footsteps or one? Hiram’s pulse rate kicked up several more notches, and he listened as the thuds faded to nothing. No, just Danny, he thought, and let out a long, slow breath. “You’re gonna get a punch on the arm for this,” he whispered. But Hiram was still on edge.

  He hustled in search of a staircase and found one sweeping upwards to the left just beyond the sitting room. Composing himself, he climbed, ears strained for the slightest sound. Other than his own echoing footfalls and heavy breathing, he heard nothing.

  “Okay, Danny, that’s enough,” he called, trying to sound bored. “Time to come out.” Hiram was tired of his kid brother’s game now, and even though it was the first of April, he was no fool. “Come on, Danny, let’s go. Dad will be home from work soon, and we need to be there first.” He tried to sound calm and keep the irritation from his voice. He knew he’d failed.

  There was still no response. In fact, there was no sound at all. Danny wasn’t known as a brave kid, so this was very unusual. Hiram himself was unsettled inside the vast and swallowing darkness of the abandoned mansion, ashamed his little brother was showing him up.

  He walked on, opening doors and looking behind curtains, each time with the same result. Nothing. He forced open a few upstairs windows, allowing more light to help locate more of Danny’s prints in the dusty surface, settled even thicker upstairs. But that was the strangest thing; Hiram couldn’t find footprints anywhere. It was as if his brother had simply disappeared. He ran back down the stairs, certain Danny couldn’t have slipped past him and back outside, his pulse galloping as he ran.

  “Where the hell are you?” he shouted as he reached the front door, and with considerable effort roused by anger and escalating fear, he forced that open too. The harsh infusion of daylight startled a dozen pigeons from their perches, which flashed by him and through the door, causing Hiram to duck. “Okay, Danny, it’s not funny anymore. If we’re late, dad will kill us. And if he doesn’t kill you, then I will.” He listened. Silence. “Where are you?” he shouted.

  But something felt very wrong.

  Hiram rushed down the stone stairs and turned in a full circle, eyes wild and frantic and searching for any movement, but the only thing that moved was the stirring treetops and fleeing pigeons.

  Total silence again, both outside and in, and he didn’t know how silence could seem so loud. It roared in his ears, and grasping his head in his hands, Hiram fell to his knees.

  Ringsfield, Suffolk, England

  January 25th, 1992

  Hiram relished the wide-open spaces of White House Farm, the Kane family estate in the English countryside. It’s where his grandparents still lived, and he looked forward to his infrequent visits. His grandfather had always been an excellent storyteller, entertainment guaranteed, and he was soon regaling Hiram with anecdotes about the pair’s first trip to Peru together. It was two years previous, and Hiram’s maiden trip to the Andes. Though he hadn’t quite grasped it yet, it would have him hooked for a lifetime.

  It was in the Andes that his great-grandfather, Patrick Kane, served as chief assistant to celebrated explorer, Hiram Bingham, and as a child young Hiram listened in rapt attention as he heard tales passed down over several generations about the most famous of all Andean expeditions, the search for the lost city of the Incas, Vilcabamba.

  It was during their mission that Bingham, with the help of Patrick and the native Quechuan Indians, rediscovered for the outside world the ruined Inca citadel known as Machu Picchu–Old Mountain–and though it turned out to be one of the greatest discoveries of the twentieth century, they’d failed to find what they set out for.

  Their search for Vilcabamba was a bitter-sweet failure. Despite giving Bingham and Kane world renown, Patrick still felt like a fraud. It was because of Patrick’s perceived failure that the youngest Hiram, and his grandfather before him, shared a passion and a desire to find what their honoured forebear could not.

  And he could not extinguish the fires of that passion until he at last located Vilcabamba.

  Hiram and his grandfather left the warmth of the blazing fireplace and approached a large bay window, looking out onto a picture-postcard winter scene as a cold, bitter wind swept swathes of snow into Janp enticing drifts.

  Today was a big day, a day the young Hiram was to become an adult, at least in a legal sense. It was his eighteenth birthday. Beneath the studious exterior and athletic, sporty frame, however, beat the heart of a child. Today the snow was just too tempting. It was a passion for the outdoors shared by all the family, and his grandfather’s eyes exuded the same youthful glow.

  With a disapproving look over her tiny spectacles, Jan turned her face to conceal a joyous smile as she waved the two kids off. That they were a combined age of almost ninety mattered little, and the elder Hiram was no more restrained than his grandson.

  After donning their wellies and wrapping up in scarves and hats, they made their way out into the vast expanse of land stretching away from the house. He’ll never grow up, Jan thought with a warm heart as they disappeared out of view. She too was excited. Today, on his eighteenth birthday, Hiram was to receive something very special, something that her husband had been waiting patiently to pass down to his grandson since the day he was born. Now was the time. He was ready.

  “It’s so nice to see you here again, laddie. Your grandmother and I miss you.”

  “I miss you both too, Grandad,” replied Hiram. “I’m glad I could make it.”

  There was a pause, a moment of reflection between the two of them. The last time they saw each other was a sad occasion for all the family. Hiram’s mother Melanie had died the year before, having succumbed to cancer after a short but agonising bout of chemotherapy that had ultimately failed. The family was distraught, Hiram’s father still undone with grief. They had all flown north to Melanie’s native Edinburgh for the funeral, but because of school commitments Hiram hadn’t seen his grandparents at all since that day.

  “It’s been almost a year since your poor mother passed. How are you coping, lad? And how’s your father doing?”

  “I’m okay. Mostly. It’s hard sometimes, and I get angry, wishing there was more I could’ve done. I have good friends on campus, which helps. I know dad is struggling. He misses her. We all do.”

  Hiram’s grandad put his thin arm around his shoulders as they walked. “I know, my boy, such a terrible loss for everyone. I feel for your father. He’s never really recovered from when your brother went missing, so it’s no wonder he is the way he is. Of course, we sympathise with our son. But I can not forgive him for blaming you the way he did. It wasn’t your fault. You do know that, don’t you?”