Their Peruvian ranch was situated on the edge of the rain forest, a few miles away from where the rivers formed a Y and dumped into the Amazon. Even that region was slowly changing over the years. His family had appeared to come into the area with the Spaniards. They had made up names, uncaring how they sounded, as it mattered little to Carpathians what they were called by others, unknowing they would spend centuries in the area—that it would become more familiar to them than their homeland.

Zacarias looked down at the canopy of the rain forest as he flew. It, too, was disappearing, a slow, steady encroachment he didn’t understand. There were so many things about modern times he didn’t understand—and really, what did it matter? It was no longer his world or his problem. The compulsion driving him puzzled him more than the answers for the vanishing environments. Little aroused his curiosity, yet this overwhelming need to return to a place he’d been few times was disturbing on some level. Because the drive was a need, and he didn’t have needs. It was overwhelming, and nothing overwhelmed him.

Small droplets of blood fell into the misty clouds surrounding the emergents, the scattered trees rising above the canopy itself. Beneath him, he could feel the fear of the animals as he passed. He saw a band of douroucoulis, very small night monkeys, as they leapt and performed amazing acrobatics in the middle layers of branches. Some fed on fruit and insects, while others watched for predators. Normally they would screech an alarm as soon as the harpy eagle was spotted, yet as he passed over the family of monkeys they went completely and eerily silent.

He knew it wasn’t the threat of the large bird flying overhead that caused the forest to go so still. The harpy eagle sat still in the branches, often for long hours at a time, and waited for the right meal. He would rocket down with shocking speed and snatch a sloth or monkey right out of the trees, but he didn’t, as a rule, hunt in flight. The mammals hid, but snakes lifted their heads at his passing. Hundreds of dinner-plate-sized spiders crawled along branches, migrating in the direction he flew. Insects rose by the thousands at his passing.

Zacarias was used to the signs marking the darkness in him. Even as a young Carpathian, he had been different. His fighting ability was natural, bred into him, almost imprinted before birth, his reflexes fast, his brain working quickly. He had the ability to assess a situation with lightning speed and come up with a battle plan instantly. He killed without hesitation, even in his early days, and his illusions were nearly impossible to detect.