by Karen Chance
They finally reached an old temple on the edge of Alejandro’s lands. The place was beautiful, silvered with moonbeams, the stones seeming to glow with a delicate light just bright enough to pick out shapes. Weeds and vines had half obscured the entrance and small trees were growing out of the tumbled stones over the lintel.
A crop of wild orchids had moved in, settling among the ruins like nesting birds, their white and orange petals spotted with brown like freckles. Tomas reached out to touch one and found it softly furred beneath the pad of his finger – like skin. A sudden shiver flashed up and down his spine, before twisting like a snake in his gut. For a moment, it felt like the last century had never happened, like he was returning from a mission for his master with blood on his hands, and all the rest was merely a dream.
‘This it?’ Sarah asked briskly, breaking the mood.
‘Yes,’ he said, and for some reason it hurt to talk, like he was scraping the words out of his throat.
They ducked under deeply sculpted reliefs and entered the main hallway, leading to a chamber with a stone altar. Like his own ancestors, and unlike the Aztec, the Maya had rarely practiced human sacrifice. It was far more common for their priests and kings to use their own blood as the sacrifices their gods required, letting it flow when crises occurred or when the auguries deemed it necessary. Tomas had always been proud that he came from a people who understood the real nature of sacrifice – and it wasn’t having someone else bleed for you.
The altar sat in front of a raised dais, behind which was a small room where he supposed the priests might have once readied themselves for ceremonies. It was empty now, except for a set of rock-cut stairs leading down into darkness. Below were a series of chultuns, old underground storage chambers for water and food, and beneath them the reason Alejandro had chosen this site in the first place: naturally occurring limestone caverns that even Tomas had never explored in full. It was like an underground city, part of which the Mayans had used as a refuse dump, part of which had some type of mystical significance, with carvings on the walls showing ancient ceremonies and still partially covered in molding paint.
‘This is one of the lesser used entrances,’ he told them, as Sarah drew out a flashlight. ‘But we shouldn’t risk the light. Alejandro’s men don’t need it, and if they see it, it will only draw them to us that much faster.’
She nodded, but she didn’t look happy. Tomas wasn’t surprised. Descending into an unknown labyrinth that probably looked pitch dark even with her goggles would have upset most people. But there wasn’t much to see, unless she liked the look of striated stone and deep, dark holes branching off here and there. That was all until they reached the populated areas. And then, she was probably better off if she couldn’t make out what lay ahead.
The four of them entered the tunnels, and almost immediately Tomas found himself struggling to breathe against a thick, smothering pressure, voices rising like a tide in his head. He’d killed before he came to Alejandro, fighting against the men who had come across the sea to steal his homeland. But those deaths had never bothered him, he’d never lost one night of sleep over them, because those men had deserved everything he did to them. The ones he’d taken in these halls were different.
Taken. It was a good word, he thought bleakly, seeing with perfect clarity the bodies, pale and brown, young and old, faces spattered with blood, bodies cracked and split open. They had bled out onto the thirsty earth because the ones who hunted them had been so sated that they could afford to spill blood like water. And none of it had been due to the hand of God, through some natural, comprehensible tragedy. No, they had died because someone with god-like conceit had stretched out his hand and said, I will have these, and by that act ended lives full of hope and promise.
More often than not, Tomas had been that hand, the instrument through which his master’s gory commands were carried out. He hadn’t had a choice, bound by the blood bond they shared to do as he was bid, but that had somehow never done much to soothe his conscience. He had known it would be hard to return, but he hadn’t expected it to be quite this overpowering. Four hundred years of memory seemed to permeate the very air, the taste of it thick and heavy, like ashes in his mouth.
He glanced at his companions. Forkface had an utterly blank stare, cold as ice, while the fanatic kept muttering silently to himself and fingering a necklace of what looked like withered fingers around his neck. Sarah was looking a little green, as if something about the atmosphere was getting to her, too. He swallowed, throat working, and said roughly, ‘Are you all right?’
She nodded, but didn’t try to reply. He decided not to press it, struggling too much with the weight of his own memory. They silently moved forwards.
It was deeply strange to walk through the familiar halls, the bumps and jagged edges of the lintels stretching out claws of shadow that even his eyes couldn’t penetrate. He’d done so much to try to forget this place, but he’d been branded by Alejandro’s mark too long for that. The feeling of familiarity grew with every step, like each one took him further into the past. He kept expecting to meet himself coming around a corner, as if part of him had never left at all.
Tomas wondered what he might have been like, if he’d never been taken. Or if his first master hadn’t decided to show off his new acquisition at court, where Alejandro had chosen to claim him. Once, he’d yearned for freedom with everything in him, hungered for it as he never had food, lusted for it as he never had any woman. But it didn’t seem to matter how long he waited or how much power he gained, the story was always the same.
He’d had three masters in his life, but had never been master himself. The idea of being free was like an old photograph now, faded and dog-eared, and Tomas didn’t think he could even see his face in it anymore. All he wanted now was to end this.
Sarah stopped suddenly, breathing heavy, her hand gripping the wall hard enough to cause bits of limestone to imbed themselves under her nails. She saw him notice and tried to smile. It wasn’t a great attempt. ‘God, it’s hot.’ She ripped off her jacket, tying it in a knot around her waist, and gathered her hair into a riotous ponytail to get it off her neck.
Tomas hadn’t noticed much of a fluctuation in temperature. Usually, the caves were cooler than aboveground, not the reverse, although this time of year the transition was less noticeable. But patches of sweat had already soaked through her shirt and glistened on her skin, and her hand left a wet print on the wall where it had rested.
‘This way,’ he said, leading them into one of the outermost rooms branching off the main hallway before stopping dead.
‘What is it?’ Sarah had noticed him tense, instantly aware of a change in the atmosphere.
‘Something’s wrong,’ he said softly.
‘Like what?’ The three mercenaries had drawn up in a defensive wedge and were scanning the room, their weapons in hand. The two mages seemed to see fine in the dark, courtesy of a spell, Tomas assumed. But there was nothing tosee except a few rat bones and a scrap of ancient material.
‘There are supposed to be mummified bodies here.’
‘Great,’ Sarah muttered. ‘For the extra creepy this place was missing.’
‘This was where Alejandro kept the remains of ancient Incan kings,’ he explained. Alejandro had acquired them as trophies shortly after following Pizarro to the New World, and had brought them along when he finally decided on a permanent residence. Once they were settled in, however, they’d largely been forgotten, left to mildew in dank, underground cells.
Tomas had been one of the few to ever visit them. They had been venerated by his people even after death, remaining in their palaces, supported by their lands, just as they had when alive. Each new Incan monarch had to wage his own wars of conquest to fund his rule, because what had been his ancestor’s remained theirs and beyond his control. Legions of servants had daily draped their withered corpses in the finest of garments and prepared lavish meals for them. On important occasions, they had been brought
out to sit again in court, giving council to the living and presiding over the festivities.
There had always been something uncanny about them – brown, almost translucent skin stretched over old bones, empty eyes and hollow mouths, with shadows inside like parodies of human organs. Tomas had come this way knowing it was usually avoided by the court. That still seemed to be the case, but for some reason it worried him that the kings weren’t there. It made something cold go running along his spine.
‘I’m more concerned about the living,’ Sarah said, eyes on his face. ‘Are we close?’
Tomas swallowed. He was imagining things. The kings had just been moved, that was all; or perhaps Alejandro had finally decided to rid himself of his macabre trophies.
‘Yes. The old cells are down there.’ He pointed out a small hole in the wall, about two feet square.
‘Down there?’ Sarah peered into the darkness, her hand tightening convulsively on her gun. ‘You’re kidding, right?’ she sounded hopeful.
‘No. There is another way in, but it involves going through much more populated areas. This is safer.’
‘Safer.’ She didn’t look convinced. She peered inside the small, dank, black hole for another moment, then muttered something that sounded fairly obscene. ‘Stay here – keep watch,’ she ordered her men. Then she stowed her gun in its holster and went in head first, on hands and knees. Tomas followed close behind.
The tunnel slanted sharply downwards, leaving behind the mildewed plaster of the chultunsfor true caverns. Tomas could sense the room’s emptiness almost as soon as they entered the small tunnel – there were no whimpers, no cries for help, no rapidly racing heartbeats. But before he could tell Sarah, she was already out the other side.
He emerged in a dark cave half- filled with ancient garbage, with deer bones and pottery shards crunching under his weight. His foot slipped on an old turtle shell, causing him to almost lose his balance, and then there was a rumbling that set half the room’s contents jittering.
‘There’s no one here!’ Sarah whirled on him, her face livid.
‘They must have moved them.’
‘A convenient excuse! I swear, vampire, if you’ve lied to me – ’
‘To what end?’
‘To get me down here alone – ’
‘I had you alone in the cemetery,’ Tomas pointed out, with barely concealed impatience. The rumbling just got louder, with rocks and small pieces of pottery stirring uneasily. ‘If I meant you harm, I would have acted then.’
‘You said they would be here! That you knew where they were!’
‘If Alejandro had followed the usual practice, the prisoners would be here,’ he replied, trying for calm. ‘But the contents of the room above were moved, and if they changed one long-standing practice, they may have changed another. I haven’t been back in a century – ’
‘Something you might have mentioned before now!’ she was sweating harder, with a few drops glistening along her hairline before falling to stain her shirt.
‘We will find your brother,’ he told her. ‘I swear it.’
‘Why should I believe you?’ she sounded frantic.
‘Why shouldn’t you?’ Tomas asked, bewildered. ‘What reason do I have to lie?’ A crack formed in the ceiling overhead, raining dirt and gravel down on them. ‘I thought you said you could control this!’ The caverns weren’t entirely stable, as multiple cave-ins had demonstrated through the years. If she didn’t cut it out, she was going to bury them both.
Sarah looked around, as if she honestly hadn’t noticed that the entire room was now shaking. ‘I can! Usually.’
‘Usually?’
‘I’m a jinx. My magic isn’t always ... predictable. I’ve learned some control through the years, but it’s harder when I’m angry.’ She paused, her breath coming hard. ‘And I really don’t like being underground.’
‘You’re claustrophobic?’
‘I have a small problem with enclosed spaces.’ There was a badly-concealed edge of panic in her voice.
‘But you’re a mercenary! Surely – ’
‘I’m a mercenary who prefers to fight in the open!’ she snapped, her face scrunching up with effort. The shaking didn’t noticeably diminish.
‘Something you might have mentioned before now!’
‘Very funny.’
The crack widened, dirt and rock exploding inwards, peppering them with pieces of rock as sharp as knives. ‘Do something!’
‘I’m trying!’
She was almost doubled over in effort, pain written on her face, but whatever she was doing wasn’t working. A huge crack reverberated around the small space, knocking them both to the ground, hands pressed against their temples. A moment later, a chunk of the ceiling the size of a sofa broke away and came crashing down, missing them by inches.
Tomas stared at it for a split second through a haze of dust before grabbing her around the waist and dragging her back to the entrance. ‘Hurry! Back up the tunnel!’
‘It won’t help.’ She’d braced herself against the wall. Her face was pinched and white and her eyes wide and panicky as they met his. ‘Hit me.’
‘What?’
‘I need a distraction! Something else to think about. Pain sometimes works.’
Tomas could feel the pressure building in the room, like a storm in the distance, about to break. ‘Sometimes isn’t good enough! I can put you under a suggestion – ’
‘No, you can’t.’
‘I assure you – ’
‘I’m a jinx!’ she repeated furiously. ‘My magic doesn’t work like most people’s! I’m not susceptible to suggestions, vampiric or otherwise. Now hit me, goddammit!’
‘No,’ he said, and kissed her. It was an instinctive reaction, something unexpected that might shock her enough to stop this without actually hurting her. But then she shuddered slightly and her mouth opened under his and her hands clenched on his shoulders and somehow he was kissing her savagely, this woman he barely knew who might be the last person he ever touched, the last warmth he ever felt.
Sarah’s heartbeat was hard against his hand, the urgent thump resonating through his body. They stumbled back into the cavern wall, Tomas cradling the back of her head to save her from a concussion, trying to remember to be careful when his hands were so hungry that he couldn’t hold them still. Sarah was shaking almost as hard as the room. And, for a moment, it was the most natural thing in the world to be kissing her desperately, both hands locked around her head, the long hair coming loose under his fingers, while the mountain threatened to fall in around them and death lay waiting, sure and inevitable, only moments away.
Tomas hadn’t realized fully until that moment how certain he’d become that he wouldn’t survive the night. He felt the knowledge settle into him now along with her breath, and instead of sadness or regret, he found himself just overwhelmingly grateful that, if this was the end, at least he wasn’t facing it alone. It was, all things considered, more than he deserved.
And then Sarah pulled away, her eyes wide open, shocked and angry, and struck him hard across the mouth. It was enough to rock his head back, to make him taste the rich, metallic tang of his own blood. He wiped a smear off his lip with a thumb as she pushed at him, hard.
‘I said hit me! Are you deaf?’ She didn’t wait for an answer, but launched herself towards him, fist clenching.
Tomas caught her hands, effortlessly holding her away from him. ‘Vampires don’t get in fights with humans unless we intend to kill. You’re too vulnerable, too easily broken.’
Another rock hit the floor, hard enough to send bones and debris flying. Sara looked around wildly. ‘If you don’t, we’ll both be broken! Nothing else works!’
He grabbed her by the hips, swinging her against the wall, slamming her backwards into it. Startled out of fighting for a moment, she just stood there, panting and staring up at him as he pressed against her. ‘If I misjudge, there will be no one to stop this hillside from erupting just as the ce
metery did. You’ll be unconscious or worse, and we’ll both die – as will your brother.’
His hands were busy as he spoke, and with a sharp tug on the hem of her blouse, he sent the buttons flying. By the time he’d pushed the cloth out of the way, getting his fingers on the living warmth beneath, her nipples had gone tight and pebbly and she was gasping, her hands fisting in his shirt. But she wasn’t pushing him off. She was kissing him brutally, lips and teeth savage, pressing hard against his body while her hands clawed at his back.
‘Are you distracted yet?’ he breathed, as she ripped open his shirt, pushing his undershirt up to his neck and biting at a nipple.
‘I’ll let you know,’ she said roughly, dragging their lips together again.
Her mouth tasted of the sharp sweet tang of mescal, or maybe that was him. Her lips were sweet, but her body was shaking and her eyes were darting everywhere as if certain this wasn’t going to work. And it wasn’t, if he couldn’t get her mind off the room and onto him – and keep it there. The room was coming down in chunks around them and the only thing that kept running through his mind was that it would be truly typical to come a thousand miles to die in some deserted anteroom.
He was breathing hard, adrenaline pumping through him, as he managed to get a hand between them. He dipped his head for another kiss, hands slipping away from hot, damp skin to tug impatiently at the button on her jeans, to work at the zipper. He pushed the maddeningly tight material down her thighs, his hand clenching on the soft flesh of her hip, rounded and warm for his palm. He pulled her closer, fixed the angle between them, and pushed into her.
Her legs wrapped around his thighs, clenching, as he began moving. He’d been careful because he hadn’t prepared her, but she gasped out, ‘I won’t break,’ her voice low and rough, and he began thrusting hard and fast, the way his body craved. His only concession to her comfort were his fingers working between her thighs roughly.
