by David Wood
For once, the big Cherokee did as instructed without comment, stepping up onto the shelf and pushing past Maddock toward the opening. He stopped at the back, shining his flashlight in to get the lay of the land, then stepped off the cooking stone and into the darkness. Maddock peered into the revealed passage, but aside from Bones’ silhouette, there was nothing to see.
Miranda went next, but lingered on the shelf to help her father move forward. She winced as the heat got to her, and began hopping from one foot to the other as Bell struggled to catch up. Maddock was sorely tempted to imitate her fire dance. The heat was well past the point of merely being uncomfortable, and he knew that soon it would actually do physical injury, but he was worried that too much movement on the stone slab might inadvertently cause the secret door to slam shut.
As soon as the Bells were past, it was Angel’s turn. As she brushed by him, she gave him a quick kiss. “Hey, hot stuff.”
“Hey, yourself.” Maddock tried to smile, but with his teeth clenched against the pain, it was more of a grimace.
He was about to follow when he saw something moving in the chamber they had just vacated. For a fleeting instant, he assumed it was just a trick of the light, that the flickering of the flames under the cooking stone was making the carved statues of the Death Lords appear to move, but it was spooky enough to prompt him to shine his light into the gloom.
It wasn’t a trick of the light.
Standing in the center of the chamber was a man, at least Maddock assumed it was a man. It was hard to know for sure, since his first impression was of reptilian scales. The figure threw a hand up to shield his eyes from the intensity of the light, giving Maddock another second or two to process what he was seeing.
It was a man all right. Beneath a layer of streaky mud, his nearly naked body was painted or tattooed with a pattern of scales. His black hair was pulled up in a sort of top-knot, similar to what was portrayed in Mayan glyphs.
Maddock recalled what Bell had said about modern Maya carrying on the old traditions and wondered if this man was the local shaman who had seen them sneaking into the cave.
Busted.
Despite the heat that was starting to cook the soles of his feet, Maddock raised a hand. “Sorry. I can explain.”
By way of an answer, the main raised a long reed to his lips, pointed the other end of it at Maddock and then puffed up his chest in preparation to blow.
Maddock ducked instinctively as a tiny projectile shot toward him, missing his cheek by scant inches.
The attack galvanized Maddock into action. He turned his back on the Maya warrior and bounded into the passage where the others were waiting. Even as he did, something clicked and he realized the significance of his assailant’s appearance.
“The Serpent Brothers!” he shouted. “They found us.”
CHAPTER 26
Maddock whirled around again, hoping to see the stone door sliding back into place, but the passage back to the council chamber remained open. The snake-warrior stood at the far end, carefully sliding another dart into his blowgun. Maddock’s warning however had not gone unheeded. Bones reacted instantly, drawing his pistol and firing down the passage before the man could shoot his dart. The multiple reports were painfully loud and set Maddock’s ears ringing, but through the haze of gunsmoke, he saw the Serpent Brother go down.
“You think he was alone?” Bones shouted.
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Maddock replied. He kicked himself for having pushed the mysterious brotherhood down the list of possible enemies. Tam’s revelation about ScanoGen had distracted him from other threats. “Hopefully, that cooking stone is hot enough to keep anyone else from trying to get through, so maybe we’ve got a few minutes. In any case, I don’t think we’re leaving that way.”
He turned slowly, sweeping his light around to survey their new surroundings. After making their way through so many extravagantly painted chambers, culminating with the elaborately carved Council of the Death Lords, this new cavern felt like a bit of a letdown. It was essentially just a big natural cavern. The ceiling was studded with stalactites, and the uneven floor was a maze of stalagmites and other mineral formations, but there was nothing to indicate it had ever been used for ceremonial purposes, much less that it served as the Maya equivalent of the first level of hell.
“What did you call this place?” Maddock said, speaking to Bell. “Dark House?”
Bell nodded. “A place of total darkness. A traveler would have to feel their way through, or be lost forever.”
“Good thing we brought flashlights,” Bones said, sweeping his across the floor and revealing several shadowy voids that looked like fissures and crevasses in the floor. “I can see how it might be a bit of challenge without them.”
“They might not have had flashlights,” Angel countered, “but they could have brought torches, right?”
“There were probably priests in the Council chamber who confiscated their torches before allowing anyone to begin the ritual journey.”
Maddock however thought Angel had a valid point. “Without some kind of light source, we wouldn’t have gotten this far. That would have been just as true for the ancients. The Death Lords were all about making people suffer. There’s got to be more to this challenge than just finding our way through a dark cave.”
Bell spread his hands helplessly.
“All right,” Maddock said. “Let’s fan out. Search every corner of this place. Watch for traps and remember, just because something looks like a way out, doesn’t mean you should rush through.”
“Typical Maddock,” Bones said with a snort of laughter. “Armed snake-men out there and he wants to work a grid.”
“It’s not a grid,” Maddock said. “Or maybe it is, but you know there’s a reason why we do things that way sometimes.”
Bones raised his hands in a show of surrender, but couldn’t resist getting in a final dig. “Must be that time of the month,” he said in a stage whisper.
He paid for the comment as Angel and Miranda took turns slugging him in the biceps, each blow landing hard enough to make the big man wince. When they were done, Bones shook his head and rubbed his arm. “Forgot I was outnumbered,” he mumbled. “Next time, Maddock, let’s stick with the regular crew. Those guys at least have a sense of—ow! Ow!”
Maddock turned away, shining his light out across the cavern. “Okay, let’s work a grid.”
Carina froze, raising her hand and cocking her head sideways. “Did you hear that? That was gunfire.”
They were about halfway down on the third pitch, dangling from the ropes left by the rival party.
Not the best place to stop, Alex thought.
But he had heard the noise too, though he wasn’t as certain about the source. “It sounded more like someone beating a rug to me.” He shrugged. “I didn’t think your warriors were packing heat.”
Carina and her men had taken to the ropes like spider monkeys. Alex didn’t share their boldness, which was why they were only partway down the four hundred foot shaft. Carina had sent two men ahead to scout the bottom of the passage. Presumably, they were the cause of the noise.
“They aren’t,” Carina said through clenched teeth. “That was someone shooting at them. Maddock’s people.” She kept her head turned, listening for more reports.
“Sound can do funny things down here,” Alex said. “Are you sure it wasn’t coming from the surface? My guys do have guns. Maybe they were shooting at a monkey or something.”
On Carina’s advice, he had left his contracted security men topside—a couple to guard the helicopter, the rest watching the entrance to make sure nobody got too curious about their excursion. Carina had explained that the cave was sacred ground, and while Alex was under her protection, the Lords of Death would not look kindly on the presence of so many outsiders.
The mumbo-jumbo surprised Alex. His initial impression of Carina was of someone who had outgrown the primitive traditions of her forefathers, recognizing the o
ld myths about gods and demons as allegories, concealing a truth better explained by science, but evidently playacting as the would-be high priestess of the Serpent Brothers had triggered some kind of spiritual relapse. He really didn’t have a problem with that, provided of course she was still able to produce a cure for the Shadow, but his willingness to indulge her superstitious beliefs ended when there was a threat of getting shot.
“It wasn’t from the surface,” Carina insisted.
“Then maybe we should have brought my men instead. No, scratch that. No maybe about it. This is what I pay them for. Let’s head back up and get them.”
Carina ignored him. The noises had not repeated, but after a moment of consideration, she started down again, rappelling faster, practically at a freefall. Alex was sorely tempted to start back for the top, but climbing up was going to be a lot of work and he doubted he could convince Carina’s men to go back up the shaft in order to pull him up.
Gritting his teeth in frustration, he started down, pushing the limits of his comfort zone. The rope burned across his palm, but he pushed on to the next ledge, unclipped and started down the last pitch. A few minutes later, he splashed down in the mud pit.
“Ugh,” he groaned. “Disgusting.”
There was nobody there to hear him complain, but streaks of mud on the far wall revealed where the others had gone.
He slogged across the mud, cursing every step, and climbed up into the passage where he found Carina and the others bent over two prone figures.
One of them was clutching one shoulder, trying to stanch the flow of blood from a wound there. His tattooed skin was covered in mud and blood, and his filed teeth were bared in a rictus of pain, but he was gasping out some of that strange gibberish language he had heard them using. Carina was replying in the same dialect.
This irked Alex. He had instructed Carina to always speak English in his presence, and while he was willing to tolerate the odd exchange in Spanish—he spoke enough to get by—he was pretty sure that wasn’t the language they were using. Carina looked up to acknowledge his arrival. Her expression was fierce with anticipation. “They found the Council chamber. We must hurry.”
“Carina! Wait.”
But she paid no heed, starting down the passage at a near run, with the wounded scout and the rest of the snake warriors following close on her heels. Alex growled in irritation, but his curiosity was a stronger motivating force than his wariness.
He finally caught up to them in a room adorned with several elaborately carved images and, stranger still, a fireplace with an actual fire burning in it. The heat in the small chamber was stifling, but Carina and her warriors were crowding around the fire as if desperate for even more warmth.
“What the hell are you doing?” he growled.
Carina cast an impatient glance back at him. “We are in the Council chamber of the Lords of Xibalba. The entrance to their realm is there.” She pointed to a shadowy void behind the low fireplace.
“Well, what are we waiting for?”
Carina frowned at him. “You forget. Maddock’s people have guns. They may be waiting to ambush us as we go through.”
Alex frowned. He had not expected timidity from someone as fierce and aggressive as Carina. Maybe he had misjudged her. “Fine. I’ll go first.”
“You think they’ll spare your life?”
“My contact won’t let them kill me.” He couldn’t be 100% certain of this, but it was a risk worth taking, particularly in contrast to Carina’s hesitancy. He pushed through the group of warriors, but the heat radiating from the fireplace stopped him in his tracks. He reached out a hand, but just six inches above the flat stone surface, he thought he could feel his skin starting to blister.
“Is this the only way in?” Without waiting for an answer, he knelt down and then thrust his hand into the flames.
“Stop!” Carina shrieked, though her reaction had come a fraction of a second too late to matter. Alex’s open palm had already struck the flaming ember pile, swatting at it. The orange flames disappeared as the coals were scattered across the bottom of the fire pit. Although they continued to glow a dull red, the chamber was plunged into near total darkness.
“Don’t worry,” Alex said. “I did a hot coal walk at Lighthouse seminar. It’s possible to touch hot coals without getting burned as long as you don’t maintain contact for very long. It’s called the Leidenfrost Effect. As soon as that stone cools down a little, I’ll—”
Before he could finish the statement, a low rumbling sound vibrated through the stone beneath him, punctuated by a loud final thump.
“What the hell was that?” he asked, groping for his flashlight.
“That was the door closing,” Carina said, irritably. “You can’t fool the Lords of Death with mind games you picked up at a self-improvement seminar. The only way to reach the Underworld is by going through the fire.”
“Well, that’s a stupid idea.”
“This is why I wanted your men to stay behind. They aren’t prepared to make the journey into the Underworld.” She sighed. “We’ll need to gather some more firewood.”
“Screw that. My men have explosives. We’ll just blast our way through.” He sensed another objection coming and raised a hand. “We’re doing this my way, now.”
He stood and was about to start back down the passage when he saw a light coming toward them. He couldn’t make out any other details, but assumed it had to be one of his men. That assumption was proved correct when a male voice called out. “Mr. Scano?”
“Alex,” he growled under his breath. “Why can’t anyone get that right?” Then, loud enough to be heard by the approaching group, he said, “Right here. What took you so long?”
The guy clearly had no sense of humor. “Uh, I know you told us to stay topside,” he said as he closed the remaining distance. “But we thought you would want to know about this.”
There were four more figures making their way down the passage, but one of them was not a member of the security team. It was a woman, and she was being dragged along between two of the armed men. Alex shone his light into the woman’s face.
The woman was average height and slender, with a lean physique that suggested she spent at least part of every day exercising. She had porcelain pale skin and jet black hair pulled back in a severe ponytail that didn’t suit her at all, but was consistent with the tiger stripe pattern camouflage uniform she wore. She was beautiful, Alex thought, despite—or maybe because of—the bruises on her cheek and the blood streaming from a gash on her left temple. Like everyone else, she was liberally frosted with mud.
“Who’s this?” he asked.
“We were attacked,” the security leader said. He sounded angry. “No warning. A bunch of guys with assault weapons came out of the jungle. We kicked their asses, but we lost a couple guys in the process. It looked like she was the leader, so we let her live.”
Alex stalked forward until he was almost nose to nose with the captive. “I paid a lot of money to keep the Guatemalan government off our backs. You better believe I’ll be getting a refund.”
“She’s not Guatemalan,” Carina said from beside him, her voice low and dangerous. “I know this woman.”
Alex glanced sidelong at the redhead, one inquisitive eyebrow raised, but before he could frame a question, the prisoner straightened and spat a gobbet of blood on the floor in front of Carina. “And I know you,” she hissed. “Puta. You killed the only man who was ever kind to you.”
“She is Isabella Beltran,” Carina said, ignoring the insult.
“Beltran?” Alex knew this name. “The Queen of the Yucatan-Gulf Cartel? I’ve heard about you. You’re one tough chica. I didn’t know you were mixed up in this Maya voodoo garbage, though.”
Isabella's gaze flashed toward him. “Mixed up like you, pendejo?”
Her black eyes seemed to drip with venom for a moment, but then she recoiled from him as if he were a leper.
“She is the niece of Hector Canul
,” Carina went on. “The former high priest of the Serpent Brothers.” She stressed the word former, twisting the knife in what was clearly an open wound of grief. “She thinks she came here to avenge him.”
“Ah. The plot thickens. I guess you girls have some catching up to do.”
“Hector raised her in the traditions of our people. He meant for her to be his heir.”
Carina’s triumphant tone did not escape Alex’s notice, but the reason for it was lost on him. “And that’s important why?”
“She knows the innermost secrets of the Brotherhood. She can lead us through the Houses of the Dead.”
CHAPTER 27
After several minutes of fruitless searching, Maddock was ready to admit defeat. Despite the obvious wisdom of his preferred course of action, the cautious approach had not paid off. About the only thing he could take comfort in was the fact that none of them had fallen into one of the many seemingly bottomless pits that riddled the cavern floor like holes in a block of Swiss cheese.
Those chasms seemed to be the only way out of Dark House, especially since the passage to the Council had abruptly closed, sealing them in. He assumed that was the handiwork of the Serpent Brothers who had elected to trap them inside rather than pursuing them into Xibalba. There was no point in trying to get the door open again since the snake warriors were lying in wait on the other side, ready to turn them into blow-dart pincushions. Aside from the round stone covering that passage, there was nothing manmade in the chamber; no paintings or carvings that might have concealed a hidden door, and worse, no paw prints. No, the only way out, Maddock knew, was down.
Each of the fissures seemed like a portal to a different level of hell. Some were venting heat and reeked of sulfur, while others were blowing positively frigid air, as if they were connected to an industrial air conditioning unit. None of the holes seemed particularly welcoming, but that was probably the point.
Maddock joined Miranda and her father near the center of the cavern. “I think we’re going to have to climb down into one of these pits,” he said. “We’ve got enough rope for a single pitch, but I don’t think we’ve got the time for a trial and error approach. Any suggestions?”
