“Rory!” Chase shouts. “Shut up for like a sec and listen! You need to get someone to send a helicopter to us as soon as you can! We’ve got injured people here!”

“Oh! Wait! Hold on!” Faint noises, then Rory yelling indistinctly.

“Yo, wait, wait, wait. Slow down,” Jordan says. “Injured people? Are you serious? The hell’s happening over there? Is it that damn curse again?”

“We think so! Our phones aren’t working. I don’t know how you got through, because my phone’s had no reception since this morning. We don’t have a way to contact the local authorities to tell them we’re stuck on Kisapmata!”

Rory returns. “I told Dad. He’s calling people right now. He plays golf with Paradigm’s CEO. They should have people on it already.”

“Tell him to call one of the producers. Stanley Brosnick, or Don Huessman or—”

“Wait, Don Huessman? Not gonna happen. Didn’t you hear? Oh, wait—if you don’t have working phones there then you wouldn’t have. He’s gone missing.”

Askal whines quietly, looking at the nearby trees.

“What?”

Jordan clears his throat. “Yeah, no one knows where he is. Went into his home office and then never came out, his housekeeper said. It’s all over the news. The police aren’t sure if it’s foul play yet. They think he fled the country or something. I could ask Dad to call Stanley Brosnick, but dude must be fielding a ton of calls. Everyone knows he and Heussman are best buds.”

Don Heussman. Producer Two, who stared at us from the monitor, chuckling about how the Kisapmata curse sounded like the rapture.

“I don’t think he’s left the country,” I say slowly.

“Well he was seen dining out in LA earlier today, so he should still be in California. The police checked the flight records. He hasn’t flown out.”

“No. I think you’ll find his body soon.”

Chase stares at me. “Your god can do that?” His voice shakes. “Can he reach all the way around the world and just—kill—someone?”

I take a deep breath. “He sees your thoughts. He can find you that way—even through a computer, I think, as long as a connection has been established from the island. If the Diwata did that, then it means that he’s getting…stronger.”

“Because Karl was sacrificed? Are you saying Karl’s dead?”

“Who’s dead?” Jordan gasps.

“Hold up, hold up,” Rory shouts. “What is—”

The call cuts off abruptly. Chase taps at his phone but receives nothing but an automated voice telling him that Rory’s number can no longer be reached.

“At least we’re sure about the rescue this time,” he grunts. “And I just realized—you could go home. You said you live nearby. Isn’t your dad or the rest of your family worried that you’ve been gone for so long?”

“They know what this job requires.”

“Your family never told you to stay away from this place?”

“Kisapmata isn’t dangerous to us.”

“The cultists disappeared the same way Heussman did. But why would the Diwata kill Karl?”