The Fifth Kingdom

by Caridad Piñeiro

  Deanna rushed to his side, slipping beneath his shoulder to offer support. “You can’t make it that far,” she reasserted.

  “We have no choice, mi amor.” He ran the back of his hand along her face, consoling her with that touch. Earning a raised eyebrow from Miranda with the gesture.

  “Just who are you?” Miranda finally asked.

  “CIA Agent Bill Santana,” he replied and held out his hand.

  Miranda peered down at his hand and then followed the line of it to where he stood with Deanna tucked beneath his arm. “What are you to my daughter?”

  “A little late to start playing mother, don’t you think?” Deanna replied caustically.

  While Bill wished that he could give the two women the time they needed to vent more of their pent-up emotions, now was not the time.

  “We need to go, ladies.”

  Shrugging off Deanna’s assistance in the hopes of putting an end to her concern, he went back to the now-dead 4x4. He grabbed his pack and handed Deanna hers. They had been lucky that their captors had tossed the bags into the vehicle earlier. At least they would have some basic supplies and he would have more ammunition for his pistol since he was down to his last clip of ammo for the rifle.

  Miranda was already on her way down the slight incline to the arroyo, the ground beneath her feet littered with loose rock that made her fight for balance until the earth leveled off. Then she paused to wait for them, hands on her hips.

  “You go first. I’ll follow once you’re on safer ground,” Bill said, worried about losing his footing and taking her down with him.

  “We go together or not at all,” Deanna said, standing before him with her arms akimbo, her features set in determined lines.

  Because he knew there was no arguing with her, he nodded. “Together.”

  Arm in arm they scrambled down the slippery slope, the ground beneath their feet as unstable as trying to walk on marbles, but somehow they made it without incident to where Miranda stood.

  Mother and daughter shared a glare, but then Miranda whirled and proceeded down the dry bed of the arroyo, Bill and Deanna following her.

  Bill’s head was pounding, but with the heat of the summer sun fading as afternoon approached, the pain receded and he slowly began to feel stronger. He shared a quick glance with Deanna and saw the relief on her face when she realized he was better. But they didn’t separate, walking together along the path. Their pace brisk as they pushed to maintain the distance between them and their pursuers.

  Bill hoped that someone had gotten off a message about needing more help before they had been overtaken by the terrorists and that the CIA was now tracking their GPS signals in order to send in more support. But he didn’t know how long that would take.

  They were a good mile along the path when the sound of an engine rebounded along the walls of the arroyo. Pausing, Bill looked back and noted the shadow of the 4x4 on the rim of the hillside. To his surprise PM drove it down into the arroyo, the vehicle slipping and sliding along the uncertain earth, but then gaining purchase.

  They would not be able to drive it all the way down. The arroyo narrowed drastically about a half a mile in, but they would be able to make up a great deal of distance on them.

  Miranda and Deanna must have realized it also. “We have to hurry,” Deanna said and her mother didn’t argue.

  They pushed off and in about half a mile they reached a point where the narrow gully forked in two. Along the one fork there was a break in the rock wall and Miranda pointed to the slim gap.

  “In there.” She entered the opening and Deanna was about to follow her when a bullet slammed into the earth just above her head.

  “Hurry,” Bill warned. He brought the rifle up to his shoulder and returned fire to protect her.

  Another shot came, whizzing by his head like an angry mosquito. He backpedaled into the gap, shooting as he did so until a burning sensation erupted in his midsection.

  He stumbled backward, but then Deanna’s hand on his shoulder urged him through another break in the wall. Somehow he stayed on his feet despite the pain spreading through his gut. Kept on shooting to provide them protection until he suddenly felt himself falling through the air and landing on softer earth.

  The barest hint of light seeped into the darkness as he laid there, the air knocked from his lungs from the impact with the ground. The searing pain in his gut fading. With the scrape of rock against rock, he heard Miranda say, “Push, Deanna. Push.”

  Deanna grunted with determination. Immediately the crunch of stone riding along stone foreshadowed the descent of total darkness into the space as they closed themselves in.

  Bill tried to rise, but his body refused to cooperate.

  His throat was itchy from the dust along the ground and he still couldn’t catch a breath from the fall. But then he felt the warm wetness beneath his back. As a bare glimmer of light came from a lantern that Miranda placed beside him, he tried to focus on Deanna’s face when she knelt beside him, but couldn’t.

  As her hands pressed to his midsection, he barely felt them.

  He knew then. He was dying.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Bill. Oh, God, Bill,” Deanna cried and pressed her hands against the gunshot wound in his abdomen, eerily reminiscent of the nightmare she’d had that morning. She tried to stem the flow of blood, but it just kept on seeping from between her fingers. Staining them with what looked like black oil in the light from the lantern Miranda had brought over.

  “S’okay,” he said and raised his hand, feebly covering hers.

  Even in the dim light from the lantern, his face was a ghostly white, almost as if death had already claimed him.

  She bent over him, whispered a kiss across his lips. “You can’t leave me. Not now, damn it.”

  He patted her hand and tried to speak, but all that came out was a rough breath as he struggled for air.

  This wasn’t happening, she thought and rose up again, pressed tighter against the wound. But when Miranda lit up a few sconces along the walls of the space, Deanna noted the splotch of blood on the ground beneath him. Watched as it grew into a large pool as the seconds passed by.

  He was bleeding to death before her eyes and there was nothing she could do about it.

  She bent and took him into her arms, experienced the warmth of his blood spilling onto her hands and arms from the gaping exit wound in his back. Kissing the side of his face, tears streaming down her own, she said, “I love you, Bill. I love you. Please don’t leave me.”

  His body shook as he struggled for a breath and she met his gaze, filled with love. The hint of a smile formed on his lips, making words unnecessary.

  And then he was gone.

  His eyes lost the glaze of life and his lips went slack. His body grew heavy in her arms, but she kept on holding him, rocking back and forth with him in her arms, not wanting to believe he was dead.

  A consoling touch came at her shoulder. “Deanna, I’m so sorry.”

  “Leave me alone, Miranda. You know how that’s done,” she lashed out in pain.

  Her mother’s touch didn’t waver, but only grew stronger. “I would trade places with him if I could.”

  Deanna shook her head. “He wouldn’t want that.” She hesitated for a moment, then plowed forward.

  “And neither would I,” she said, burying her head against the side of his face. It was still warm with life. Fragrant with his unique scent, but soon the metallic aroma of blood filled her nostrils.

  Once again, her mother stroked her hand along her back and urged, “He gave his life for us, Deanna. Don’t waste that sacrifice. We need to get out of here.”

  She wanted to rebel against her mother’s entreaty, but every bone in her body understood that she was right. With a last gaze into his beautiful gray eyes, free of any clouds of hurt now, she closed them and offered a final kiss. “I will love you forever.”

  A gentle pat from her mother offered additional consolation, but she s
hrugged off the empathy and gently laid Bill down on the blood-soaked dirt.

  Miranda grabbed the lantern beside him and Deanna rose slowly, logic driving her to go while emotion chained her feet to the ground.

  “Please, Deanna,” her mother pleaded, holding the lantern high at the entrance to another part of the space.

  Deanna fought back the agony, acknowledging that Bill would have wanted her to complete the mission and safeguard the lives of countless others. She forced herself to take the first step away from him and toward her mother. Took another and then another until she was slipping past the opening and into a second, larger chamber.

  In the center of the space was a large pile of half-burnt wood, ashes and the remnants of a skeleton neatly collected to one side of what was clearly a funeral pyre. All around the walls were Aztec glyphs and with only a quick perusal combined with the dim light, it was impossible to read what they said. But her mother quickly supplied the answer.

  “It’s the story of Montezuma’s death. His real death and his burial here,” she said and motioned to the remnants of the fire in the center of the space.

  Deanna peered at the ancient pyre and then looked upward, searching for signs of an air hole, but centuries of dirt had obscured the opening at the top of Montezuma’s tomb.

  Now Bill’s tomb, she thought and walked toward where her mother stood, raising the lantern high again.

  The glint of silver, gold and shiny black obsidian came as Miranda illuminated the relic on the stone wall. A copy of the famous Aztec Sun Stone hanging in the museum in Mexico City. Unlike the massive twenty-four ton original with the twelve-foot diameter, this sun stone was only a foot across.

  Deanna shook her head, unable to believe that Bill and so many others had died for this tiny piece of stone and precious metal.

  “We can’t let PM get their hands on this,” Miranda said and something snapped in Deanna.

  “This? This is worth killing over?”

  She snatched the relic from the wall, but when her bloodied hands came into contact with the stone, silver and gold, a buzz of energy filled the air around them and the stone began to vibrate in her hands.

  “What the hell?” she said and held up the stone. A glimmer erupted at its center and moved outward, enveloping both her and her mom.

  “What’s happening?” Miranda said, stepping closer to examine the stone as the glimmer grew brighter.

  “You don’t know?” she asked her mother.

  Miranda shook her head. “I was afraid they’d either sell it or use it as a symbol. Rally people to their cause.”

  When the glow continued to brighten, Miranda asked, “What is it doing?”

  Deanna couldn’t explain the almost electrical vibration emanating from where her hands were in contact with the relic. As she brought the stone up into the light from the lantern and examined it more closely, it seemed as if the gold and silver ring surrounding the center of the stone was now fluid, able to spin around the obsidian in the middle. She took hold of the outer ring firmly and moved the stone center, but suddenly the room around her spun as well.

  As she moved the obsidian heart of the sun stone, the space around her shifted, the action almost disorienting when images of her and her mother moved forward and backward. It was almost as if she was a film editor shifting from scene to scene. Replaying them with a simple twist of a knob.

  Turning the center counterclockwise, she rewound to the point where she was kneeling beside Bill, the grief in her face visible as she acknowledged that he was dying. The grief on her mother’s face plainly evident also now that Deanna had become an observer to the action.

  Deanna released her grip on the stone and the playback stopped.

  For a moment time seemed suspended, then suddenly she was falling down into the image in the scene and a second later she was back on her knees beside Bill, the stone in a tight grasp. Her mother stood beside her, much as she had just moments earlier, only confusion blossomed on her face now, chasing away the anguish, as she saw the stone in Deanna’s hands. In disbelief, she glanced at her daughter and then at the opening to the other chamber into which they had walked a few minutes before.

  Minutes before in another past. Or was it another present, Deanna wondered. One she had seen in her dream that morning?

  Beneath her fingers, the vibrations and electrical charge in the sun stone dimmed as the blood dried on her hands. She laid the sun stone on the ground beside Bill, but when she placed her hands on his wound, she realized what she had to do.

  Bending, she kissed him and whispered against his lips, “No goodbyes this time, my love.”

  With his blood fresh on her hands, she grabbed the stone again and the shock of its energy traveled through her. Marshaling control, she turned the obsidian center counterclockwise until the point in time where she and Bill were standing in the gap outside the tomb. Only this time things would be different.

  Breaking contact with the stone, she grabbed hold of Bill’s shoulder and dragged him back with her into the tomb.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “What the fuck?” Bill said when she yanked on his shoulder, making him fire up into the air a second before he hit the far wall and a bullet slammed into the rock across from him. A bullet that might have hit him if Deanna had not pulled him away. She grabbed him again before he could act, leading him through a gap in the wall and into partial darkness.

  “Help me close the door,” she said, directing him to a large slab of flat stone by the narrow entrance through which they had just entered.

  “Push,” she commanded and he didn’t argue. To his surprise, the stone moved, the sound of rock grating against rock echoing around the walls of the chamber in which they had taken shelter.

  A second later a light snapped on and Miranda approached, carrying a portable lantern that she placed at their feet. She helped them give a final push to shut the door and then roll another large boulder to secure it in place.

  “How did you know?” she asked her daughter, puzzlement in her tone.

  “Let’s get some light in this place,” Deanna replied and while Bill watched, she walked around the edges of the tomb lighting sconces, as comfortable as if she had been here before.

  “I don’t understand,” Miranda said and Bill joined her with his confusion. Deanna took a spot in the center of the chamber, clutching something to her midsection.

  Her bloodied midsection, he realized as he finally noted the stains on her tank top and vest. His gut twisted at the thought she might be injured and he rushed to her side.

  “You’re hurt,” he said, but up close he saw that the blood was already drying on her clothes and arms.

  So much blood could only mean death, he thought. He met her gaze and the trails of tears were evident along her visage.

  “What happened?” he asked, cupping her cheek and wiping away the tears.

  She launched herself against him and cradled the back of his head, making him wince from the tenderness at the back of his skull.

  “You’re alive. Thank God, you’re alive,” she said and rained kisses on his face. The stone clutched in her hands trapped between them.

  “What do you mean? What are you holding?” Miranda asked and came near.

  Deanna seemed reluctant to leave his side, but he gently urged her away and repeated, “What happened?”

  “You died, Bill,” she stated bluntly and then faced her mother. “And you know what I have here, Miranda. The sun stone from the next chamber.”

  As Deanna held out the relic to her mother, a furrow worked across Miranda’s forehead, much like the one that would appear on her daughter’s face when she was puzzled or worried.

  Miranda took the stone in her hand, but wagged her head with doubt. “I don’t understand. The stone was in the next room. It is in the next room,” she said and snatched up the lantern to race into the adjacent space.

  Bill and Deanna followed, but as Miranda approached the wall where the sun
stone had hung just minutes earlier, the spot was now empty. Only a shadow remained on the wall.

  “Impossible,” Miranda muttered and faced them. “How did this happen?”

  “Bill was shot on our way into the tomb. He died in my arms.” She glanced back up at him and tears welled up in her eyes once more before she continued.

  “Then you brought me here into this chamber with his blood on my hands. His blood activated the stone when I grabbed it.” Her voice wavered from the emotion of what she was recounting.

  Miranda glanced down at the stone and then at her daughter. While it seemed impossible on its face, there was no denying her daughter’s emotional state. Deanna truly believed what she was saying. And if that wasn’t enough, there was no way to deny the visible proof on her daughter.

  Deanna had smears of blood all along her arms. Her hands were covered in blood, both fresh and drying. The front of her vest and shirt likewise bore evidence of serious blood loss, but Deanna was clearly uninjured.

  Deanna had somehow traveled back through time and although she claimed Miranda had been beside her, only the person with the sun stone could do the shift in time and recall what had happened.

  “We cannot let this fall into the hands of the wrong people,” she said and glanced around the chamber, considering how they might get out of the tomb and away from their PM pursuers. There were two exits at the far side of the room holding the funeral pyre, but both went downward.

  “Those two tunnels go to a lower level of this tomb.”

  “If there are exits, they’ll likely be covered up with dirt and rubble,” Deanna offered, walking to one of the shafts and peering downward into the darkness.

  “You’re right. The tomb has been buried by a variety of earthquakes and the natural shifting of earth and wreckage. It took that last quake to open the crack in the wall that led me to the entrance of the site,” Miranda explained.

  “So we’re trapped in here,” Bill said with frustration and walked around the perimeter of the chamber, as if searching for any other ways of exit.