by Seeley James
“It take strength oppose authority. We need summon strength to fight violence with action they not expect. We make chaos for them. Why? Because they respect nothing. When we appeal their humanity, they bury our light. Their idea: safe street is empty street.”
Everyone leaned back, considering her words. Danny and his friends voiced agreement with her. Mutterings of “she’s right” and “it’s time” rippled from the edges to the center and grew in volume.
“You blessing of universe. You endow with energy of ancient light. We not do this because I say so. We do this only unanimous consent. We one council. Together we stand against oppressor. Together we turn table and beat Knight of Mithras. This time, no quarter. This time, no hesitate. This time, Claritas.”
Gu Peng pushed her fist to the sky. “What you say? You are with me?”
CHAPTER 7
I don’t know if I was burdened by or saved by my love for Jenny. Watching Mr. Baldy execute fifteen academics from my hiding place behind the wall left me sickened. It was the opposite feeling from Paris. I’d never felt so far removed from being a hero. I cursed myself for not being better prepared. If I’d brought one of Ms. Sabel’s H&K MP7s, I could’ve taken them all down.
With no options, I ran to meet Jenny and the others. After getting a couple miles between me and the scene of the crime, I called the police at Calakmul. Between my Spanish and their English, they thought I was a drunk tourist playing a prank. They finally agreed to check it out the next day. And that would take all day because of the remote terrain. Their answers didn’t fill me with confidence. I resolved to take down Mr. Baldy myself. I couldn’t let a madman like him kill again.
But I’d have to get in a better position to attack before taking on a significant force like his.
Running a zig-zag route through the rain forest to throw off any trackers, I caught up with Jenny, Cherry, and Rafael. Jenny had determined Cherry couldn’t go any farther without rest and had stopped about ten miles south of Hidalgo’s site.
I told them the horror I’d seen, of Hidalgo and his whole team being killed in cold blood. Rafael and Cherry wept and consoled each other. They had worked for weeks with these people.
When they gathered themselves, I thumped Professor Tum’s shoulder. “You knew they were coming?”
He stood up to me. “As I told you, the power of myth lies with those who believe.”
“Who are these guys?”
“The Knights of Mithras,” Rafael said. “They believe the Poison Stone destroys civilization.”
“A stone?” My doubt twisted my tone of voice. “Uranium had to be refined and harnessed to destroy civilization. What the hell could be in that box?”
“What the box contains does not matter—”
“I know. It’s what they believe that matters.” I ran my fingers through my hair, shocked to imagine what kind of supernatural bullshit these guys believed if they were willing to slaughter people to get it.
“We should give it to them,” Jenny said.
“What do they do with us after we turn it over?” I asked. “They just killed everyone who saw it.”
“Who can we give it to?” she pleaded with Rafael.
“No one,” he shrugged. “It is your responsibility.”
“What about that group you belong to?” I asked. “What was it called, the Keepers?”
“Ours is a simple cause, we quietly advocate for good. We have no military capabilities.”
“That’s convenient.” I poked Rafael. “Then we need you to arrange for the Guatemalan government to take this off our hands. It’s not ours and we don’t want it.”
“I have no connections with the government.”
“Don’t give me that. You went to English boarding school. That takes money. Which means you come from a wealthy family. In a country like Guatemala, that means your family is in tight with the government. What are they, orange exporters? They own a big coffee plantation somewhere?”
Cherry snapped a frightened look at Rafael. He ignored her.
“Telecom.” Rafael sighed and held up his hands. “You are right about my family; they are ‘tight’ with the government. They own a good number of officials. Unfortunately, I am not tight with them. My dissension over the treatment of peasants distanced me from them. When I took the wrong side in the civil war, they disowned me.”
If my recollection of history served me, Guatemala went through thirty years of civil war that didn’t end until the late ’90s. There were horrific mass murders committed by both sides, but the government won in the end. That made Professor Tum a man without a family or a country. That’s why an Oxford-Harvard man was second fiddle on Hidalgo’s dig instead of leading it himself.
“What do you recommend we do with it?” I asked.
“Find one of the factions that will take good care of it.” He paused, waiting for me to ask who that might be. When I didn’t, he said, “You might consider the Brotherhood of Claritas.”
“Brotherhood? Knights? Keepers? There can’t be that many secret societies.”
“Masons, Elks, Orange Order, Illuminati—You know they exist, yet you never question their charters.”
I had to think about that for a moment. My thinking stretched into a long awkward silence.
He sensed my distrust and turned to his camping tent. “I will rest now. You will do as you please.”
“Aren’t you going to tell me why the Brotherhood would take good care of it?” I asked.
“You never asked about the Knights of Mithras. I suspect you know more than I.”
He bent to his knees and crawled in the tent’s open flap. Cherry followed him in. Without making eye contact, he zipped it closed behind them.
I sent Jenny to bed and kept watch. There wasn’t much to watch because the Knights had no night vision gear. They wouldn’t get moving until first light. Then they would move quickly.
The Knights of Mithras turned over in my head. From what I recalled of Mercury’s many boring history lessons, Mithraism was a secret Roman religion known only to the initiates. Mithras evolved from a Zoroastrian god and dovetailed into the Roman pantheon. The cult was popular in the Roman military, but the Christians managed to wipe out any records of its existence by the fourth century. Which happened to be about the same time Stilicho put the rock out to sea. All we know about the cult today stems from iconography depicting Mithras hanging out with Sol, the Roman sun god; Mithras slaying a bull; and Mithras being born from a rock. Have they been underground since then? I wondered if Mercury considered Mithras a real god since he started out in Persia.
Not even close, homie. Mercury stood at the edge of the clearing with a bright-green frog the size of a table next to him. Persian gods ain’t no better’n Greeks.
The frog shot a ten-foot ribbon of tongue out of his mouth, plucked a fly off my earlobe, and snapped it back before I had time to react.
Dude! Mercury smacked the frog with the back of his hand. You trying to gross out the mortals? Get back in yo’ human skin.
The frog popped into a dark, muscular figure with bulging eyes and a headdress of feathers and skulls. He wore a breastplate of polished seashells, and an illustrated loincloth. A wide black streak stretched across his eyes, and his lips were painted white. He chanted something angry and loud and shook a stick that rattled.
I stuck out my fist for a bump. I said, Vucub-Camé. How’s it hanging, bro? Haven’t seen you since Tokyo.
The Mayan god, Vucub-Camé, or Seven-Death in English, smiled at being recognized and bumped my fist. The last time I’d seen the local deity, he’d had a cosmic hangover after partying with his roommate from god college.
Then a realization hit me like an ocean liner banging into an iceberg. I slapped my palm to my face and took a deep breath.
I said, Holy shit, this is bad. This is really bad.
He’s honored you remember our time in Japan, Mercury said. Whatsa matter with that, homie?
I said, My hallucinations
are compounding now. I gotta go back on my meds. Gotta go back on my meds.
Mercury said, Don’t be doing nothing rash, my brutha. We’re all cool here. Seven-Death is here to help us out.
I said, Do I want to know how? Never mind. Let’s pretend this never happened and I’ll handle things my way for once. OK?
Mercury snapped back a step, deeply offended. Oh, hell no. You could screw up a one-year-old’s birthday party. You need to hide the Poison Stone and Seven-Death is here to show you where.
I said, What good will that do me? They’ll torture Jenny and me, probably kill the other two for shock value.
Mercury put an arm around me. Don’t you trust me yet, homeboy? You have to hide it where no one will ever find it. Someplace where the only way they’ll get their hands on it is if you show them. You have to be alive for that. And once you get them into Seven-Death’s crib, you can get the drop on them.
For once, he was making sense. Which worried me. Were the doctors and psychiatrists right, this Mercury-stuff was all in my head? Would I end up hiding the artifact in plain sight while deluding myself into believing it was really hidden? That kind of thing could go horribly wrong. Get me killed. Jenny too. The whole idea sounded crazy to me, and I’m the one they say is crazy. Was it possible? Would it happen? Could I follow a mythological god into the lair of another mythological god and expect it all to work out in real life?
Sure. Why not?
I shouldered the backpack and followed the gods into the darkness.
We didn’t go far before we came to a huge hill that towered over the treetops. After we climbed it, Seven-Death pointed to a sapling growing out of a rock at the very top. I looked at the sapling. I looked at the rock. I looked at Mercury. Seven-Death pointed to the tree, shook his stick, and gestured for me to pull it sideways. I did. The roots were wrapped around the rock. When I pulled the tree, the rock came up as if the tree was a lever. Mercury and Seven-Death trotted down into a hole under the rock.
I looked up to the heavens. Rain clouds were thickening in the dark. Out loud, I said, “Jesus, if you can hear me, would you please drag me back to sanity right now? Your buddy Mercury is getting weirder by the minute.”
After waiting a long time for my Road-to-Damascus moment, I gave up and stepped into the unknown under the rock.
A narrow stairway led into absolute blackness. The stone treads were barely six inches wide, half the standard in America. The riser was easily two feet, three times the depth allowed back home. For the first fifty steps, the stairs squeezed between two stone walls. It was as if the Mayans had built a pyramid on top of another pyramid and left a small gap between.
Mercury called to me from the third turn. Your professor friends haven’t found this pyramid yet, bro. It’s completely covered in dirt and plant life. You’re the first mortal down here in twelve hundred years.
I’m honored, I said. I’m still going back on my meds when we get home.
Mercury turned to Seven-Death, Don’t listen to him, he’s always talking smack.
When we sank below what I calculated to be the base of the hill. I could no longer feel the walls on either side of me. It felt as if the staircase was suspended in a huge cavern. The echoes of my footfalls on the stone came from farther away with each step. I had the sense the space was gigantic. And dark. So dark, I turned on my phone-light.
The stairs continued down into the depths. Far below me was a shimmering lake of silver. Seven-Death waited at the bottom.
Mercury said, Don’t y’all freak on me here. That’s a lake of hydrargyrum, what you call liquid mercury, just like the one they found under the pyramid at Teotihuacan. See, building shit like that is what true believers do for their favorite gods.
I remembered reading about the discovery on the Smithsonian website. A flood accidentally exposed the entrance at the base of the Temple of the Plumed Serpent. Far below was a long tunnel to a series of secret chambers. One was filled with liquid mercury that reflected torches. The ceiling had been painted with stars and planets. I looked up. Yep, this place had them too.
Mercury put a hand to his mouth to shield his words from Seven-Death. Not that I want a lake of liquid metal, ya understand. I’d rather have you finish that temple you started in your backyard. You could put a statue of me in it—and take out that damn barbeque grill. Show a little respect, is all I’m saying.
Seven-Death motioned for me to follow him across the lake on a path of steppingstones. When we reached the other side, we ducked through a series of caves. A tightrope carved in stone formed the path. One cave had knives strewn about on the floor. The next looked like a river of blood. The next was freezing cold. Finally, we came out to a ceremonial chamber with an altar in the middle.
I pulled out my alabaster albatross and laid it on a stone altar covered in carvings of Seven-Death. I looked at him. He pointed to a small altar stone nearby that was roughly the size of my artifact. The carvings on it were of a different god. He smeared clay over the glyphs to conceal them. It looked like a large lump of modeling clay when he finished. He pointed to my backpack. I put the altar in my pack and hoisted it. It was a good deal lighter than the alabaster box. That would make the rest of my trek a heck of a lot easier.
We made our way back through the caves and back across the silver lake. When we reached the staircase, I noticed piles of skeletons at the base.
Mercury said, The unworthy have a bad habit of slipping on the steps. You good, though. You be in tight with me.
He and Seven-Death smiled big and slapped me on the back. I winced a smile back at them and made my way back up. Seven-Death grunted from the bottom and waved. I waved back. He was staying. Or my madness was clearing up. I wasn’t sure which.
I got back to the top as a light rain began. I pushed the tree upright and the stone fell back into place.
The rain started falling harder.
Half a mile from camp, I found Cherry standing in the rain playing with her satellite phone.
My approach scared the wits out of her. When she caught her breath, she said, “I, uh, I couldn’t sleep. What are you doing out here?”
“Looking for El Dorado.”
She frowned. “That’s a Columbian legend.”
“No wonder I couldn’t find it.” Looking back at her footprints in the mud, I noticed hers paralleled my path. I glanced at her phone. A GPS map glowed on the screen. “Looking for the way back?”
She nodded. “I’ll just follow you. If that’s OK.”
I nodded and jogged back with Cherry keeping pace. I went straight to my tent and climbed in with Jenny.
CHAPTER 8
With little doubt the Knights would be on our trail at daybreak, I squeaked in a couple hours of sleep. I rousted everyone at first light and started the long march to civilization.
It’s good to have goals in life. I had three: 1) get Jenny to a safe place; 2) hunt and kill Mr. Baldy; 3) catch the next flight back home. Maybe grab a shower at a hotel if there was time. The shower beckoned me. I could picture the soap clearing three days of jungle grime off my skin. I could also picture clearing three days of jungle grime off Jenny’s skin. Followed by candles and a hot oil … I had to take several deep breaths to keep focused on my satellite map.
Professor Tum pointed us toward the nearest town, Uaxactun. We made it there by mid-afternoon. It was little more than a collection of tin-roofed sheds near a few ruins.
Rafael checked in with the proprietor of a one-room museum nestled in a row of dilapidated tourist shops. The museum curator sent us to the bodega down the road to find the only vehicle in town bigger than a motorcycle. The owner of the rusty pickup agreed to take us to the Hotel Jaguar at Tikal. He thought we could rent a car or find a taxi from there. Maybe. The four of us climbed in back because he didn’t have a passenger seat anymore. We bumped and bounced and banged down the twenty-four miles of gravel road in little more than an hour.
Our driver’s cousin, owner of the hotel, had no cars an
d no taxis but offered to give us a ride to the next town south after he served the dinner crowd. He gave me a deal on a couple rooms to use for showers and changing. Despite having harbored dreams of lovemaking all day, neither of us could shake the idea that the killers were tracking our path through the rain forest, getting nearer by the minute.
Stearne’s Law came to mind. Paranoia is the result of acute situational awareness. It happens the instant you run into danger when it suddenly dawns on you that everyone really is trying to kill you.
We met up with Rafael and Cherry for dinner at the restaurant and talked in somber tones.
The hotel manager had a minivan. Exhausted, I nearly fell asleep on the ten-mile drive to El Remate. But we stopped in heavy traffic half a mile short of our destination.
“Roadblock, Señor,” our driver said.
He got out and walked through the stopped cars, heading toward two police pickup trucks. Three officers wearing dark blue uniforms with gold trim checked the occupants of cars.
Mercury appeared next to me. Say, homie, you ever get the feeling the cops around the world are setting up roadblocks just for you? Is that Stearne’s Law?
I glanced around to make sure he hadn’t brought any dinner-table-sized frogs with him. I said, Why would they be looking for me?
Mercury said, Because you don’t listen to the holy messenger when he speaks to you. I said, throw that damn thing back in the ocean. What’d you do, brutha?
I said, We’re not going there.
Jenny looked at me. “Going where?”
“El Remate,” I said. “I think the cops might have the wrong idea about who killed Hidalgo.”
All my traveling companions turned to stare at me. Then they followed my gaze out the windshield.
Our driver directed the attention of a cop toward us. The two of them began walking back our way. Behind them, the other two officers spread out and paralleled the road. A simple flanking maneuver.
“We must run,” Rafael said. He reached over the back seat to get his pack. “With utmost urgency.”
