Immortal Combat: Disharmony Book 3: Disharmony Book 3

By Leah Giarratano

A war that will end the world or save it . . .
The prophesied war is raging.  Luke's destiny is unstoppable, Sam's losses and powers are unravelling her mind, and Jake's family secrets put the whole world in peril.  And that's before the darkest warlock of all time makes his first move on the chessboard.  A move he's planned for centuries . . .
A gripping new series about a collision of worlds, the power of destiny, and the darkness in us all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia
• Release date: Aug 28, 2013
• ISBN: 9781742538211

Book preview

Penguin Brand LogoImmortal Combat: Harmony

Contents

About the Author

New Orleans, Louisiana, 1803

September Institute, Rhodope Mountains, Bulgaria Present day

September Institute, Rhodope Mountains, Bulgaria

September Institute, Rhodope Mountains, Bulgaria

September Institute, Rhodope Mountains, Bulgaria

Rhodope Mountains, Bulgaria

Rhodope Mountains, Bulgaria

Rhodope Mountains, Bulgaria

Rhodope Mountains, Bulgaria

Rhodope Mountains, Bulgaria

Clarens, Lake Geneva, Switzerland

Rhodope Mountains, Bulgaria

Rhodope Mountains, Bulgaria

Safe House: Sierra Madre Oriental Mountains, Mexico

Railcar crossing, Bulgaria

Sierra Madre Oriental Mountains, Mexico

Sierra Madre Oriental Mountains, Mexico

Clarens, Lake Geneva, Switzerland

Sierra Madre Oriental Mountains, Mexico

Clarens, Lake Geneva, Switzerland

Sierra Madre Oriental Mountains, Mexico

Camp on the outskirts of Pantelimon, Romania

Sierra Madre Oriental Mountains, Mexico

Camp on the outskirts of Pantelimon, Romania

Lake Pontchartrain, New Orleans

Tokyo, Japan

Lake Pontchartrain, New Orleans

Mirror world, on the way to the goblin realm

Lake Pontchartrain, New Orleans

Mirror world, on the way to the goblin realm

Safe House, Sierra Madre Oriental Mountains, Mexico

Kagami Goblin Realm, Tokyo

Safe House, Sierra Madre Oriental Mountains, Mexico

Shinjuku, Tokyo

Kabukichõ, Tokyo

Safe House, Sierra Madre Oriental Mountains, Mexico

New Orleans, Louisiana

Kagami Goblin Realm

New Orleans, Louisiana

Clarens, Lake Geneva, Switzerland

New Orleans, Louisiana

Shinjuku, Tokyo

Clarens, Lake Geneva, Switzerland

Shinjuku, Tokyo

Clarens, Lake Geneva, Switzerland

Shinjuku, Tokyo

Clarens, Lake Geneva, Switzerland

Kabukichõ, Tokyo

Clarens, Lake Geneva, Switzerland

Reynosa, Mexico

Laeduin City, Switzerland

Kabukichõ, Tokyo

New Orleans, Louisiana

Laeduin City, Switzerland

Clarens, Lake Geneva, Switzerland

Laeduin City, Switzerland

Laeduin City, Switzerland

Hyde Park, Sydney, Australia

Laeduin City, Switzerland

Hyde Park, Sydney, Australia

Hyde Park, Sydney, Australia

Hyde Park, Sydney, Australia

Hyde Park, Sydney, Australia

Hyde Park, Sydney, Australia

Hyde Park, Sydney, Australia

Hyde Park, Sydney, Australia

Hyde Park, Sydney, Australia

Hyde Park, Sydney, Australia

Hyde Park, Sydney, Australia

Hyde Park, Sydney, Australia

Laeduin City, Switzerland

Clarens, Lake Geneva, Switzerland

Clarens, Lake Geneva, Switzerland

Clarens, Lake Geneva, Switzerland

Clarens, Lake Geneva, Switzerland

Clarens, Lake Geneva, Switzerland

Clarens, Lake Geneva, Switzerland

Clarens, Lake Geneva, Switzerland

Clarens, Lake Geneva, Switzerland

Clarens, Lake Geneva, Switzerland

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Dr Leah Giarratano is a clinical psychologist and bestselling author of four crime-fiction novels. She has worked in psychiatric hospitals, with the defence force, and in the corrections system with offenders who suffer severe personality disorders. She has assessed and treated survivors of just about every imaginable psychological trauma – from hostages to accident victims and war veterans. Leah was also the host of the prime-time television documentary series Beyond the Darklands, in which she delved into the psyches of some of Australia’s most feared criminals. This is the third book in the Disharmony series.

Immortal Combat: Harmonychap1

No matter how desperately she dug her heels into the sun-baked clay of the Voodoo Queen’s backyard, Betsy Washington could not prevent the kitchen doorway drawing closer and closer. Fat Gerald Beauvoir had a lockdown grip on Betsy’s forearm and he pulled her forward relentlessly, his thirteen-year-old shoulders already as broad as a grown man’s. Two years younger than Gerald, and only a tad heavier than his well-fed baby brother, Betsy didn’t stand a chance, even with one of her auntie’s Fast Luck charm bags in her pocket. For Betsy Washington was a slave and could no more hex her owner’s son than she could run for mayor of New Orleans.

White-eyed and lock-jawed, Betsy suddenly caught a glimpse of something serpent-like slinking through the weeds in the corner of the yard. Her already thundering heart rocketed into her throat and she abandoned all attempts to slow down. Instead, she made the last five steps to the back door in two, dragging her lifelong tormentor behind her.

After all, there were things in this world far worse than Gerald. Although Betsy suspected that Gerald didn’t know that yet. If Gerald had known that the Voodoo Queen consorted with alligators and a twenty-foot python, both rumoured to live in this very backyard, he’d be back at home right now with as much of his arse hiding under his bed as he could manage. And she’d bet that an alligator would choose his soft white backside over hers any day.

Through the crack in the almost-closed back door, Betsy heard drums beating and a low moaning sound. Her nostrils flared with the caustic sizzle of black magic. She began to wonder whether she might actually prefer to face the alligator rather than the Voodoo Queen – Marie Laveau. Every black child in New Orleans knew to run if they heard Marie Laveau was coming. Run too slowly and you’d never run again – lots of missing children had last been seen around this house.

Gerald saw the sudden terror bolting helter-skelter across Betsy’s eyes and, understanding nothing about the danger they were in, he smiled slowly. As she bucked and strained against him, he dug the fingers of one hand into her forearm, and with the other he pushed the door inward.

A sweetly rotten waft of wet warm air buffeted out as the door swung in. The drums beat louder. Then there was the scratchy, clattering sound of maracas scraped out across the drumbeat, like a rattlesnake, like knucklebones scattered over rock. Betsy felt the sinuous, seductive vines of dark magic reaching for her, searching, starving, insatiable.

She ripped her arm from Gerald’s grip, shredding her skin under his nails as she bolted from the back step, low and fast, her bare feet stabbed at by shards of broken rock lying in wait amongst the weeds. Eyes on the back gate and vaguely aware of Gerald lumbering along behind her, Betsy sprinted for the safety of the road.

Behind her, Gerald suddenly squealed like a live crayfish dropped into a boiling pot. Betsy shuddered to a stop and closed her eyes. He’d either been caught by something or he’d hurt his soft feet on the rocks. Either way, the Voodoo Queen would find him. And that would mean that Gerald wouldn’t be home for supper tonight. And if the master’s son did not come home when he’d last been seen with her, Betsy Washington and the rest of her family would end up in the jailhouse. Or worse.

She spun around and opened her eyes. And snapped them closed immediately.

A snake with a tree-trunk body and shovel-sized head reared five feet high, swaying, its golden eyes fixed on Gerald’s. Gerald was crying quietly, frozen, piss running down his leg, puddling at his feet.

Knowing she could do nothing to help him, Betsy tried to make her feet move, to leave this cursed place while she still could. She took one careful step backward and stopped at the whisper of movement behind her. She whipped around to face the noise.

The monster of Marie Laveau.

The ancient alligator sprawled across the path, immobile, like a demonic concrete statue, large enough to halve a horse in one bite. Suddenly, Betsy’s legs took control of her paralysed body and she bolted back towards Gerald. Startled by the movement, the giant snake reared towards her and Betsy flung herself out of its path, ploughing straight into Gerald, barrelling him into movement. They sprinted back towards the kitchen doorway.

The drums were louder now, galloping in time with the thunder of her heart. Betsy reached the porch door ahead of Gerald, but, whinnying in fear, he reached out and dragged her backward, cramming himself in ahead of her. Right behind him, gasping, she stopped and blinked a moment inside the gloomy kitchen, and then instinctively scuttled for the shadows, dropping to a crouch in a nook between a table and a wardrobe.

Desperately trying to suck in air without making a sound, she watched Gerald continue towards a closed door at the back of the kitchen. She realised he thought that Marie Laveau would help him. Voodoo Queen or not, she was only a mulatto after all: not black, not white, and to a white boy that rated only a little higher than a slave.

Betsy watched him push the door inward and stuffed her fist into her mouth to smother her yelp.

Marie Laveau was mid-ceremony. The Voodoo Queen stood on her altar – a low, cloth-covered table – thighs bare and hands flung upwards towards the ceiling. To her right, a black cat watched its mistress dancing, shaking and jerking, with sweat and something darker dripping down her brown arms. To the left of the altar, cross-legged on the ground, Betsy recognised Doctor Yah Yah. The Witch Doctor. He wore a tall black hat, white paint around his black mouth and eyes, and he beat a drum with a pair of turkey leg bones. When the door opened he raised his head and Betsy shuddered, seeing only the whites of his eyeballs.

But Gerald didn’t skip a beat. He just walked straight in as though he’d entered a church, and Betsy realised he’d been hoodooed. He seemed to hover across the ground towards the black wooden doll standing at the very front of the altar as Marie Laveau began to chant. The doll wore a necklace of tiny skulls and a dress painted in rough symbols and shapes; it stood almost as tall as Gerald. Grinning wildly, the Voodoo Queen squatted on the altar, reached a hand into the back of the doll, and stood. Shrieking, she raised her hands again above her head, brandishing a snake as thick as her arm. Doctor Yah Yah beat the drums in crashing waves of sound – a powerful, deafening throb. The Voodoo Queen’s neck seemed to loll about on her shoulders as though broken, and she shook and writhed until, finally, with a scream that almost brought Betsy to sobs, she threw the snake through the air at Gerald.

Betsy watched the snake land where Gerald should have been. Except now there stood only a white chicken, screeching, its feathers puffed in terror.

The drumming ceased and Doctor Yah Yah sat still. He watched intently, his eyes now black as night, as Marie Laveau leapt down from her altar in a single bound, laughing loudly.

Betsy wriggled further into the shadows.

‘Not for you, my pet,’ the Voodoo Queen said to the snake, scooping it up as it menaced the chicken. ‘This one is for my sweeties in the yard. I’ll give you a rat before bed.’ She kissed the snake on the mouth and it slithered back into the doll.

‘Now you!’ Marie Laveau turned back to the chicken. ‘Out! Scoot!’

She waved a hand at the bird, which flapped and squawked, struggling to remain where it was, but moving inexorably towards the kitchen, the back door, the backyard. The Voodoo Queen capered about on the spot, giggling and mimicking its desperate struggle to stay indoors. When the bird was finally out of sight, she wiped her eyes, planted her hands on her hips and turned, staring at the spot where Betsy crouched, shivering.

‘You can come out now, Betsy Washington,’ the Voodoo Queen called. ‘And after that you should run on home. And you can tell your Auntie Caroline that Morgan Moreau said she sure does make some powerful Fast Luck gris gris. Without that pretty good-luck pouch in your pocket you’d sure have had a different day today, girl. Come on, up and out now, little rabbit.’

Despite feeling that her legs would never hold her, Betsy found herself rising from her hiding spot when the Voodoo Queen raised her hand in the air.

‘You –’ Betsy said. ‘You are Marie Laveau. What name did you call yourself?’ Even as she spoke, Betsy was astonished that she would dare to question the Voodoo Queen, and even more amazed that she could speak at all.

‘Hmm, who am I today?’ said the Voodoo Queen. ‘What did I say? Marie Laveau, Morgan Moreau? I have lots of names, child. Some names that would strike you down dead just to speak them. But that’s neither here nor there. Now, off you run. And you really should use the front door next time.’

Doctor Yah Yah’s laughter rattled along with Betsy Washington as she skidded out into the dusty street, and then it chased her, snapping at her heels until she slid, half-mad and sobbing, around the corner and out of sight of the house of the Voodoo Queen.

chap2

Samantha White risked moving her foot just the tiniest amount. Through the gloom, she could barely make out Birthday’s glare over his shoulder. What? she wanted to say. How am I supposed to be able to climb if my muscles are so cramped I can’t even move? Still, she was thankful that the three guards patrolling the wall at the top of the hill hadn’t seemed to notice anything. They continued their pacing, automatic weapons in hand, scanning the dark ravine below them.

None of the others seemed to be as freaked as she was. Zac and Seraphina squatted behind the rock with her. Part of the night, they hadn’t moved a muscle; she would swear they weren’t even breathing. Birthday Jones crouched next to Jake and Luke, a few feet up the muddy incline.

She could maybe imagine Birthday springing soundlessly up the sharp hillside, flanked by Zac and Seraphina. It was not a ridiculously impossible idea that two elves and a career thief could make it unseen through the bright lights that lit up the base of the wall. Maybe they could miraculously scale the five-metre barricade, remaining undetected. And Sam would never bet against Zac and Seraphina in hand-to-hand combat against anyone, even if their opponents were armed with machine guns.

But then what? Jake’s plan was utter insanity. Which was pretty ironic, given the building they were trying to break into.

He wanted them all to go up the hill, and Sam specifically had to be there to use her telecoercion to get them inside. They were definitely gonna get shot. Some genius!

She sensed it a split second before it happened. The guards on the gate suddenly stopped and stared through the blackness, directly at them. And then the gunfire started. Flipping onto her back, she flattened herself against the rock, trying to make herself the smallest target possible. Heart hammering, she wanted to curl into a ball and close her eyes, but she had to see what was happening. And what was happening was exactly what she didn’t want to see.

Zac and Sera were blurred blasts of energy, kicking and striking at impossible speed, but they were outnumbered by black-suited soldiers ten to one. Where the hell had they come from? More dark militia rappelled down the shadowy hillside just as Birthday was bludgeoned across the face with a baton, the sound cracking out into the night. The sky lit up – Jake lay spread-eagled on the ground, a boot on his chest, a gun to his head. Luke was lost in a swarm of uniforms, shouting obscenities. Sam tried desperately to summon the light inside her as the black figures sprinted for her position, but it wasn’t going to be fast enough. The last thing she saw was a boot aimed directly at her head.

_______________

Sam fought the urge to wake. In her dream, she and Tamas cantered bareback across an emerald field into a marmalade sunset. But a storm was building and lightning speared from the sky ahead of them. The thunderclap boomed through her head so loudly that she moaned. Her fingers gripped tighter across Tamas’s bare, brown stomach as the wind whipped his ponytail across her face and tried to drag her from the back of the mare.

‘Don’t let go, Sam,’ she heard Tamas call.

‘Sam, Sam. Wake up!’

‘No!’ she cried and sat up.

Which was definitely a mistake.

‘Owwww,’ she whimpered. She tried to raise a hand to the pulsing pain in her head, but she couldn’t move her arms. What the hell?

‘Your hands are tied.’ Her twin brother, Luke, sat opposite her, his hands also wrapped in the plastic cables she could feel cutting into her wrists. He reclined against a grimy, grey wall, knees up in front of him.

‘Sam, is your head okay?’

She tried to turn to the sound of Jake’s voice, but moving sent the thunder crashing through her brain again. She closed her eyes; tried looking for her dream. If only she could find Tamas and the spotted mare. She thought she could see them up ahead . . .

‘Sam?’ called Jake.

Shut up, she told her younger brother in her head. ‘Where are we?’ she said instead.

‘We’re in the asylum,’ said Jake. ‘We made it.’

‘Ask him about his plan, Sam,’ said Luke. ‘You’re gonna love it.’

‘What was with that stupid plan anyway, Jake?’ she said, eyes still closed. ‘How did you ever think we’d get in here?’

‘The way we did,’ said Jake.

‘That was the plan,’ said Luke.

‘What was the plan? Being ambushed by head-kicking paratroopers?’ she asked through gritted teeth. ‘That wasn’t quite the way you sold the adventure, Jake.’

‘Samantha, this is the most secure psychiatric hospital in the world,’ said Jake. ‘I knew we were never going to be able to just stroll in through the doors. We had to get captured. I couldn’t tell you what was going to happen – statistically, you were likely to flip out; Zac would have done something stupid; and Luke . . . well, Luke is problematic for the algorithms.’

Samantha tried to wriggle into a position that didn’t make her feel quite so much like screaming. ‘This is a stupid plan, Jake,’ she said.

‘Told you you’d love it,’ said Luke.

‘Look,’ said Jake. ‘There was an eighty-seven per cent probability that the facility would try to quietly detain anyone trying to break in. The stats were on our side. It’s not as though they’d want to draw attention to a facility for the supernaturally insane.’

‘Ask him what the remaining thirteen per cent probability was,’ said Luke.

Samantha sighed. Luke sounded delighted, so she didn’t want to know. ‘Where are the others?’ she said.

She took a quick look around the room. It looked as though they’d been locked in a huge laundry. She couldn’t sense Zac, Sera and Birthday Jones, but that wasn’t unusual. It seemed that elves and her best friend often didn’t register in her spidey-sense.

‘Well, we’re not sure,’ said Jake.

‘They might have copped the thirteen-per-cent part of the plan,’ said Luke.

‘Goddess Gaia,’ she sighed. I hope they’re alive, she thought. Seraphina had warned them that the Council were quick to eliminate any threat to the security of this building, inside or out. They couldn’t exactly afford to have the occupants of this compound outside its walls.

Sam tried to stand but found her ankles had also been bound. She struggled to quash the panic building in her chest. She hated being indoors at the best of times, but being trussed up like a chicken, unable to move, was almost unbearable.

‘What do we do now?’ she managed, longing to yell or smash something.

‘We need you to do your thing,’ said Jake.

They didn’t have to wait long. The door at the front of the room slammed back and two black-suited soldiers wearing face shields and body armour stalked in. They stood at attention inside the doorway as a heavy-set woman in a serious skirt suit followed them through. All seriousness ended with her clothing, though; her bouffant hairdo was multicoloured, and her lips glowed orange.

‘Oh, my,’ said the woman, moving towards them, flanked by the guards. ‘You really are only children, then. Why have you been trying to break into my hospital, you tiny, nasty things?’

‘We were hiking,’ said Luke. ‘What’s your problem?’

‘Try again,’ said the woman, folding her arms across her heavy bosom.

‘We’re filming a documentary,’ Luke said. ‘Nasty nuthouses and the women who love them. You can be the star.’

‘And where are your cameras? How did you disable the electronic surveillance system? And why do you travel with elves?’ The woman’s fluorescent lips curled into a sneer as she leaned in close to Luke. ‘Oh, don’t trouble yourself with more lies, you dreadful, dirty, terrible. I sense there is far more to you than meets the eye. And times are strange right now, so I’ve sent your images about to see whether anyone has any reliable information on you. How do you like that, little brat boy?’

Luke yawned in her face. ‘Over to you, sis,’ he said. ‘That’s all I’ve got.’

As soon as the door had opened, Samantha had begun carefully gathering particles of energy inside her. She’d spent hours practising the lightening over the past six weeks, determined to be able to direct the power whenever and wherever she needed to. She curled her fingers into a fist and pointed at the woman. A bubbling thread of brightness spun from her fingertip.

The colourful hairdo spun in her direction.

‘Hello,’ said Samantha, smiling at their captor. ‘I think you’ll find that you’ve made a terrible mistake and you’ll need to have your monkeys here release us now.’

As the administrator nodded profusely, Samantha flicked light at the stiffening soldiers. Immediately, one stood at ease. The other saluted her. Luke grinned.

The magic felt wonderful coursing through her body. Her headache was wiped away.

‘What’s your name?’ she asked the woman.

‘Mrs Hattie Bainbridge, your worship, your honour, Lady . . .’

‘You may call me Sam. Are the people we came here with safe?’

‘Yes, yes, the nasty elves, the grubby boy.’

‘They’re our friends, Hattie.’

‘They’re beautiful creatures, ice-cream and cakes, each one of them.’

Samantha cocked her head, bemused by the woman’s descriptions. ‘Are you in charge here, Hattie?’ Maybe this woman was one of the patients.

‘Yes, I’m the chief administrator of the September Institute.’ Mrs Bainbridge straightened her back proudly.

‘That was the wrong answer, Hattie,’ said Samantha, a tiny frown between her brows.

‘Oh, I’m dreadfully, awfully sorry, Lady Sam,’ said Hattie, bowing, her orange smile now decidedly upside down. ‘Please tell me the right answer.’

‘Why, I’m in charge of the September Institute, Hattie. And you’re going to help me and my agents here to release a very special patient.’

‘Certainly, certainly I am,’ said Hattie, bobbing her bright curls energetically. ‘And the Grand High Council has approved all of this, of course?’ The question held a hysterical edge.

Sam spun another golden thread of magic through the air.

‘I ask the questions, Hattie,’ she said. ‘And I am the Council. Now, have your men release us, and then you’ll escort us to our friends. After that, we’ll be going to your operations centre.’

While the attack dogs were releasing their cable ties, Sam couldn’t help but notice that the former boss of the September Institute had something to say. Hattie Bainbridge wrung her hands, her face burned red, and every few moments she stomped on her own foot or gave her forearm a wrenching pinch. More happy juice didn’t stop her misery.

Sam threw a frown at Luke who was watching the woman, beaming.

‘Hattie,’ she said. ‘Do you want to say something?’

‘It’s just that I know not to ask questions, Lady Sam, but I terribly, horribly want to know . . . who are you planning to release tonight?’ Hattie blurted out the words so quickly they all ran together.

Sam glared at Jake. Hattie had asked the question she worried about the most. The main aim of Jake’s crazy plan – the reason they were all in this souped-up lunatic asylum. She just had to believe that her brother had read the Archangel’s prophecy correctly.

Jake answered for her. ‘We’re taking the failed psychopath,’ he said. ‘Arabella Scarlett Moreau.’

Hattie Bainbridge gave a strangled scream and began violently slapping her cheeks.

‘Of course, of course, of course you are,’ she choked out. ‘What a lovely, charming boy you must be. Arabella Moreau, no less! The worst of the worst, the enchanted abomination, the witch’s cursed spawn. Come along, come along. Off we all go to die . . . I mean to try . . . to do our best! Tralala!’

_______________

‘This isn’t going to be easy,’ Samantha whispered to Jake as they traversed the shadowy corridors of the September Institute. They seemed to be marching through a service area. ‘I still haven’t been able to lighten an immortal. It hasn’t worked once in training with Zac and Sera, and you know how hard I’ve been trying. You’d better hope they don’t have immortal guards here.’

‘You’re not alone in this, Sam,’ said Jake quietly. ‘Luke will find out where they’re holding her and pop the gates for us.’

‘No problemo, sis,’ said Luke. ‘But why do I get the boring job? I wanna play with the lunatics.’

‘Keep your voice down, Luke! We don’t need those paratroopers back.’

‘We’ve got our own,’ said Luke, gesturing ahead of them. ‘We’ll be alright.’

The soldiers led the way, followed by a quietly humming Hattie Bainbridge tugging at tufts of her hair.

Sam concentrated on sending out waves of calming energy, buttery particles of luminosity that she sent around and ahead of them as they walked, hoping to keep any waiting staff or guards tranquil and relaxed. It seemed to be working – they had a clear run of the grey hallways until a double set of steel gates and two guards blocked their way.

Firearms across their chests, the guards didn’t move.

‘You’re relieved of duty, I’m afraid,’ said Hattie, standing before them.

Her rainbow hair now resembled a mad clown’s wig and the soldiers tilted their visored heads in a questioning gesture. They stayed where they were.

‘You heard her,’ Sam said. She flicked a finger. ‘Stand down.’

‘Not bad, Sam,’ said Luke, pushing past the soldiers, their guns now by their side. ‘You’re getting good at this.’

She smiled at her twin.

‘Hey, Hoodlum,’ said Birthday when Sam entered the room.

‘Your face!’ she said.

His bottom lip was split and swelling.

‘That’s gonna scar, man,’ said Luke.

‘We need to move,’ said Seraphina, shouldering through the guards the moment they released her ties. ‘Let’s go.’

Seraphina had given them detailed intel on the building and its purpose, trying to urge them to find another way to follow the angel’s ancient directives. But Jake was insistent. Arabella Moreau had an important role to play in the Telling, and they had to get her out.

The September Institute was hidden in Golyam Perelik, the highest peak of the Rhodope mountain range in Bulgaria. Nineteen kilometres west of Smolyan, it was perched in a spot inaccessible to any but the most intrepid climber. Human hikers who’d been to the area would speak of breaking through a lush