Catarina

Rose followed Ambrosio up a steep mountain pass, past lush crocodiles sunning themselves in a waterfall, and sea cows bathing in the breeze. A variety of deer – Visayan spotted deer, Chevrotain does, and a classic Philippine buck – were feasting at fallen fruit in the pool of the waterfall.

The air around Rose misted. It smelled of a vast tree and vegetable terrace, and the air sparkled with mystery.

Rose was right: around a bend, vast parts of Aswang Mountain had been carved into terraced paddies. An aquaponics system that harvested mountain rain had been set up to feed the most exotic of fruits – bread fruits and yuzu, durian and tamarind, beetles flying between bees as lush flowers – tropical roses – bloomed forth in a rich homage to Ikapati.

Rose held her breath, the sight making her nearly weep. From the shade of the mountain, an elaborate, fantastical palace of jade and amethyst crystal, red adobe, and glass and rose wood jutted out in Gothic spirals combined with Frank Lloyd Wright angles.

The waterfall in question sprang out from underneath the palace in flying buttresses as Rose Smith quickly scrabbled across a bridge and up a rocky pass. Ambrosio called for her: "Hey, Kano, hurry it up!" he joked. "I got a fire in my belly from that good old Napa wine."

Rose grinned. She swigged a drink from the waterfall, dunking her head into the warm water and opening her mouth wide for the angels to sing. She sucked at the teat of the mountain. "Can't be as good as magic water."

Ambrosio quirked his golden eyes. "You've had magic water before, tao?" he asked, using the Tagalog word for "human."

Rose smiled secretively. "I'm a water witch."

Ambrosio snorted. "Ah, you gonna tell me some American mumbo jumbo. I don't suffer Christians lightly."

"There are more things on God's green earth than Christians… this is just superstition." She fingered her cross. "Where I come from, in the mountain hollers, one never knows when they'll meet a devil on their way to find an eagle feather," Rose jazzed, winking, then flipped her hair like a damsel far from distress.

Ambrosio laughed, undoing his long black ponytail. His golden skin, amber eyes, and tribal outfit were inviting, enticing – but Rose liked the thought of the queen better.

"We flirting, blondie?"

"Depends. Does your Queen and her retinue know the location of the Philippine Eagle?"

Ambrosio helped Rose over a thorny bramble and beneath a hornet's nest, then up a rope and wood ladder to the palm frond veranda above the lush Ikapati Peace Gardens. "I'll leave that to Queen Regent Catarina Rosales Marquez. She's the Protector of Ikapati's Peace Gardens and reincarnation of Anagoly, Ikapati's daughter. That means everything in the Domminga Mountains is Cate's to look after – humans and Philippine Eagles included."

"Ah, a feisty Queen and a wanderlust blonde. I like the sound of that," Rose winked.

Ambrosio licked his lips. He lifted the human postdoc and her big blue backpack up onto a beautiful bamboo deck. Flying foxes and tarsiers slept on the edge, replete with monkeys and lizards basking in the jungle sun. To a biologist like Rose, so many different species was pure paradise.

The crystal door opened. In Rose's line of vision was the most radiant, all-consuming woman the American had ever seen.

"Queen Catarina?" Rose blushed, bowing quickly to cover a clumsy fall at such peerless beauty.

Catarina eyed her with interest. Rose drank Catarina's features in: 5'2, violet eyes, a young, noble face, olive skin, long black hair like a siphon of aqua vitae, and curves and muscle like the best of athletes.

"Stand, stranger. You are a guest," Catarina said enticingly, her voice black chocolate.

Rose wobbled as she stood. She noticed the Philippine Eagle carved in gold on Catarina's swordstick. "It's an honor. I didn't expect to meet Aswang on my field trip, much less their Queen. So, Catarina… will you eat me?"

Catarina winked: "Indubitably. I'm a bloodsucker, aren't I?"