by Ann Charles
“What the hell?” Quint whispered, pulling Angélica toward the tunnel, back to the mine.
The beast let out a pain-filled, gargled yowl, its chest arching toward the ceiling. A flame shot out from its mouth, making them both flinch. More flames spread across its fur like wildfire. The room filled with intense heat and acrid smoke.
They both coughed, escaping into the tunnel. Neither spoke as they watched the thing burn from a distance.
When the smoke settled up near the ceiling, all that was left of the were-jaguar was an outline of black ashes. The snakes were mostly gone. The few that remained crowded the foot-wide hole in their haste to escape.
Quint stepped back into the room, offering his good hand to Angélica.
“I don’t understand,” she said, walking over to the ashes. “What made it combust like that?”
Quint joined her next to its ashes. “If I’ve learned anything about visions tonight, it’s that there is no rational explanation for many of the events that occur while under the influence of Teodoro’s Maya moonshine.”
She shook her head. “Maybe when I shot it in the eye. No, it was fine until …” She looked at him. “Your arm.”
Quint looked down at his forearm.
Angélica lifted his arm, her touch gentle as she inspected the bite marks. “It’s healing already. How can that be?”
While the skin looked raw, the pain had dulled when the wounds had closed. Gertrude’s words about a Summoner’s ability to heal fast replayed in his thoughts.
Quint blew out a breath, pulling out of Angélica’s grip. “This has been one hell of a fucked-up vision.”
“I don’t understand …” she trailed off, looking from his arm to the black ashes. She pinched herself.
“You don’t need to understand,” he told her. “It’s my vision. You’re just a visitor.” Scooping up her machete from the ashes, Quint wiped the blade on his pants and handed it to her. “Next time I tell you to run, dream or not, you need to listen to me.”
She guffawed. “It’s my dig site, Parker. You don’t get to give me orders, not even in your dreams. And especially not when it comes to keeping your ass alive.”
“Bullshit. When you are in my head, I get to be in charge.”
“I don’t give a crap whose dream or vision this is. You shouldn’t have left me back there in that catacomb.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“We work as a team, damn it. There is no ‘us’ if you’re dead.” She walked over and picked up Pedro’s Glock, pocketing it. “A team,” she reiterated. “Even when we’re both high from Teodoro’s magic brew or happy weed.”
When we’re both high?
Quint cocked his head to the side, his mind grinding on her words. If Angélica thought she was high, and he thought he was having a vision, yet both of them were here together, did that mean …
“Hello?” Maverick’s voice echoed through the room. A rope with a thick knot tied at the tail end slid down through the hole in the wall. “Anyone down there?”
Angélica weaved through the last three snakes left in the room, flicking them aside with her machete to clear a wider path. She tugged on the rope. “We’re here, but Parker has a bum arm,” she hollered up. “We’re going to exit through the mine.”
“No, you’re not. The mine opening caved in from the weight of that huge strangler fig while you two were inside. This hole is the only exit unless you can wiggle your nose and blink your way out.”
Quint scoffed. “Of course my only hope for escape is through yet another damned tunnel.”
Angélica pushed the rope toward him. “You lead, Parker.”
He shook his head. “Boss ladies first.”
“But your arm.”
He held it up and made a fist. “I’m fine, it’s just a little tender yet.” No lie there. The quickness with which his injuries healed was proof enough that this had to be a dream. “But hurry up before those damned snakes come back.” Dream or not, he was done messing around with toothy bastards.
“Quint,” she started to argue.
He grabbed her by the shirt and yanked her against him, kissing her hard on the mouth. “My dream. My rules.” He took the machete from her. “Besides, it’s going to take at least two of you to pull my sorry ass up through that damned hole.”
She wrapped her legs around the rope, standing on the bottom knot. Quint reached above her head and tugged on the rope. “She’s ready, Maverick.”
“I’ll be quick,” she said, sliding up the wall.
“Good, because I’m getting the munchies. This is like college all over again.” Well, except for the were-jaguar. And the rattlesnakes. And the ghost and the snake-eyed girl. Thinking of Gertrude made him grimace.
“If you don’t follow me immediately,” Angélica said as she scrambled into the hole, “I’m coming back down here and finishing what that were-jaguar started.”
“I’ll be right behind you, trust me.” He’d scale that wall without a rope if those snakes came back.
He watched her crawl up through the hole until her boots disappeared, and then he turned back toward the pile of ashes. A rattlesnake slithered around them, its forked tongue sliding in and out.
What did it all mean tonight? Was this how Juan had felt during one of his demented head trips? Constantly questioning what was real and what wasn’t? Or did he just go with the flow and enjoy Mr. Teodoro’s Wild Ride?
Quint absently rubbed his arm, leaning against the wall as he waited for the rope to drop from the hole. He wiped away a trickle of sweat with his shoulder. Tomorrow, would he even remember everything that had happened since he’d swallowed that bitter-tasting concoction?
“The Summoner,” he whispered in the shadowed room. He chuckled at his wild imagination.
What in the hell had Teodoro put in that damned drink?
Chapter Twenty-Five
Xtaabay (with two a’s): Mayan word for “Demon.”
Der Beschwörer!
Quint sprang from his hammock, bathed in sweat. Gertrude’s words ping-ponged through his pounding skull.
Blinking the sleep from his eyes, he looked around at the empty tent. Angélica’s cot was covered with books and wadded-up clothes. Nothing unusual there. Juan’s sheet was folded neatly on top of his pillow, his red socks placed on his footlocker. Outside, the sun was busy baking the tent. The birds were chattering. The monkeys were howling. Normality had been returned to his world.
He’d made it. He was still alive and kicking after following the sun on a wild and freak-filled trek through the dark Underworld. He’d slipped through the fingers of Yum Cimil and his motley crew and returned topside. Thank the Maya gods for that.
Damn. Quint scrubbed his hands down his face.
The beige bandage taped on his left forearm made him pause. He carefully peeled back the sticky edge. Thick orange goop coated his skin, the cut underneath it barely visible. It smelled of herbs, probably one of Teodoro’s homemade salves.
A fleeting memory of slicing his own arm with Angélica’s blade flickered through his thoughts. Right. In his nightmare, he’d been trying to lure a were-jaguar away from Angélica and Gertrude. Shit, he must have really cut himself. Hadn’t Angélica and Pedro told stories about Juan jumping into cenotes while intoxicated from Teodoro’s brews? What else had Quint done while he was under? He hoped like hell he’d kept his pants on in front of the crew.
Smoothing the bandage back in place, he grabbed his shaving kit and some clean clothes. First, a shower and shave. He needed to wash off the dirt and sweat from last night’s temporary insanity. Second, food. Just one of María’s breakfast burritos might not be enough this morning. He’d worked up a hell of an appetite during his head trip through the Underworld.
He pulled on a T-shirt and shorts. Unzipping the mesh flap, he stepped outside. The sunshine made him squint.
“Buenos días, sleeping beauty,” Pedro said, striding toward him. “I was just coming to wake you
with a big wet kiss.”
“Save your spit swapping for the ladies, Prince Charming.”
“Your loss.” Pedro stopped in front of him, eyeing Quint up and down. “You look like the cat that swallowed the rooster.”
“Canary,” Quint corrected with a grin. “It’s the cat that swallowed the canary.”
Pedro shook his head. “There isn’t anything cute and yellow about you in this light. I’m sticking with rooster.”
Chuckling, Quint zipped the flap closed. “Where is everyone?” There was no din of conversation coming from the mess tent. Was the crew out in the field already?
“Here and there.”
“How long was I out of it?”
Pedro fell into step beside Quint. “Long enough to miss out on most of the fun.”
“What sort of fun? You and Juan didn’t do anything to me last night, did you?”
“Besides point and laugh at you, we are innocent. Your novia, on the other hand, tucked you into your hammock. Only she knows her wicked deeds after she undressed you.”
“Well, I hope she at least had her way with me.”
Pedro laughed. “She has a few questions for you when you’re done getting pretty.”
They walked in silence for several seconds along the trail while the troupe of spider monkeys made a shrilling racket in the nearby trees.
“Did the rogue jaguar return?” Quint asked, his memory clouded with morning haze.
Pedro glanced over at him, his brow drawn. “You don’t remember?”
“What I remember from last night is too knotted up to untangle. Teodoro’s concoction packed a killer punch.” They were almost to the showers. “Did we come up with a solution for the cat problem?”
Pedro chewed on his lower lip. “Sí.”
“What was decided?”
Puffing his cheeks, Pedro stared toward the tree line. “Angélica should be the one to explain. When you’re finished here, come to the mess tent. She’s waiting for you.”
Pedro headed back up the trail, leaving Quint trying to recall what had happened last night after he left the Chakmo’ol Temple. They’d returned to the fire, but it was only smoldering embers. The rest of the crew was absent. Then Angélica led him to their tent, helped him strip off his clothes, and pushed him into his hammock. He closed his eyes and that was all she wrote.
Shaking off the unease that Pedro’s odd behavior had spurred, Quint stepped into the shower. He shaved and then stripped down, letting the warm water stream over his chest. When he reached for the soap, a faint scar on the underside of his forearm caught his eye. He turned his arm over slowly, rubbing his fingertips over the dark sprinkling of hair on his skin. Another scar lay hidden underneath. There was another scar further up, closer to his elbow. His heart skipped several beats.
He set the soap down and opened his palm, inspecting his skin. There it was. The mark was so faint it was almost indistinguishable from the intersecting lines that had been there since birth.
Blood rushed from his head. He gripped the shower partition. Leaning his forehead against the wall, he took several deep breaths, trying to block out the twister of flashbacks spinning through his mind, blowing around snippets of events from the mine and feeding tank.
What was real? He couldn’t tell.
The scars were real.
Maybe they were self-inflicted like the cut on his arm.
But they were healed and the cut wasn’t.
It didn’t make any sense. How could …
Injuries from non-humans heal quickly, Gertrude had said. It’s one of your key defenses.
It had been a vision, though. Not real. A side effect from the drink. There was no way …
“Quint.”
Angélica’s voice snapped him out of the spiral of confusion in which he’d been circling lower and lower.
“I’m almost done.” He avoided her gaze as he wrestled with uncertainty. He turned away, rinsing off the last of the shaving gel, and shut off the water. “I thought you were going to wait for me at the mess tent.”
“And miss seeing you in your birthday suit?”
When he glanced her way, she wiggled her eyebrows at him over the shower door. “Where’s the fun in that?”
His hand trembled as he reached for the towel she held out for him. He grabbed it, hoping she wouldn’t notice, but her quick frown told him the jig was up.
“Where is everyone?” he asked while drying off, trying to remember more details from last night. Everything was so warped. Trying to figure out what was real and what wasn’t made his head pound harder.
She stepped back, looking up toward the mess tent. “Well, Pedro flew Bernard, Jane, Esteban, and Lorenzo to Chetumal last night. I gave them some time off after the excitement around the fire.”
What excitement? What had he done? Quint dressed quickly, feeling naked in more ways than one this morning.
“Fernando?” he asked.
“He’s over at the Baatz’ Temple with Dad.”
He packed away his razor and gel. “Teodoro and María?”
“Teodoro is resting and María is cleaning up after breakfast.”
“Maverick?” Had the other so-called scribe undergone his own grand thoughts and transformation, including ending up with unexplainable scars, too?
She waited for him to step outside. “He’s waiting in the mess tent for us.”
What did that mean? Was he suffering from the same mental seasick sensation as Quint?
He sat down on the wooden bench seat next to the shower and took off his flip-flops, pulling on a sock and then a hiking boot.
“Daisy?” he asked, tying the laces.
“She’s in the mess tent, too. Pedro is keeping them company until you’re finished here.”
He slid on the other sock and boot, tying quickly. “What about Gertrude?” He’d saved her for last, afraid of Angélica’s answer. His flimsy grasp of sanity at the moment hinged on her whereabouts.
When Angélica didn’t answer, he looked up at her. She was watching him, her face filled with too many lines for the news to be good.
“You might as well tell me the truth,” he said.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know if you should tell me the truth?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know where she is.”
Elbows on his thighs, he covered the upper half of his face with his hands. “She’s in the catacomb.”
“Quint,” she started.
“Her body is, anyway,” he muttered, his head spinning more than ever.
“We don’t know that for certain.”
He lowered his hands, peering up at her. “You were there.”
She stared into the trees, the same way Pedro had earlier.
“You saw it all, too, didn’t you?” he pressed.
“I don’t know what I saw.”
“Bullshit.”
“Events happened last night that make no sense. Everything sort of blew up in our faces right after Maverick and you drank from the gourds.”
He sighed. “I thought it was all part of the vision I was supposed to be experiencing.”
“Maybe it was. Maybe Gertrude is just lost in the jungle somewhere.”
“Have you sent out a search team for her?”
“Pedro and Fernando went out at dawn for a couple of hours. They couldn’t find any signs of her.”
Because she was in the mine. He grimaced, remembering the way her body had shriveled and turned brown.
“It’s a big jungle. She could be anywhere out there.”
Quint snorted. Of course Angélica’s logical side didn’t want to accept what had happened. “Did you send anyone down to look in the mine?”
“The entrance is caved in.”
Oh, yeah. Quint remembered that detail now. Maverick had mentioned it after he’d sent the rope down to them in the feeding tank. “What about that tunnel leading to the catacomb from the Chakmo’ol Temple?”
“Th
e snakes are back tenfold.”
How would she know that, unless … “You went down again?”
“Someone had to, and I have the gear.” When Quint sputtered, she held out her hand. “Calm down. I waited until Pedro got back and took him to the temple with me. He made sure I was in and out of the chamber without a scratch.”
“Did you tell him what you were looking for?”
“No. I told him I needed to see if the snakes had returned.”
“Was the tunnel still open?”
She nodded.
“What about the ashes?”
“I couldn’t see the floor through all of the snakes.”
Quint cursed. “How did Maverick know we were in there?”
“He said that when he woke up, Daisy told him they needed to go to the temple with a rope.”
“Daisy?”
“And,” Angélica started, her voice husky. She cleared her throat. “And Daisy knew exactly where he needed to go, even though she hadn’t been in that little burial chamber before.”
How did Daisy know they’d be down in the feeding tank?
“When Dad tried to stop them from leaving the fire, she told him that Maverick had to go rescue us because the mine entrance was blocked.”
“Daisy said all of this?” he asked again, scratching his jaw.
“Yep.” She crossed her arms. “After you crashed in your hammock last night, Pedro pulled me aside. He badgered me until I told him I thought my mom had spoken to me through Daisy. He wasn’t surprised.”
“Why’s that?”
“He believes she’s carrying my mom’s spirit.”
“Does Pedro know about what we saw down in the mine last night? What we faced in the feeding tank?”
“No. I told him as little as I could for now. Just that the rogue jaguar had followed us in the mine and we had to put it down.”
“You didn’t tell him about Gertrude?”
“No.” Her eyes held his. “I needed to talk to you first and find out what was real.”
He scoffed. “I don’t think I have any answers for you.” He held out his arm, opening his palm with the faint scar for her to see. “But I do have battle scars that might.”
She took his arm, inspecting it and his palm. Then she pointed at his other arm. “Why didn’t that cut heal like these?”
