The Bloodgate Guardian

by Joely Sue Burkhart

  She stared at the bloody knife. Blood drained from her face, her skin tight and brittle, her ears roaring.

  I’m going to die. Geoffrey, oh, Geoffrey. So senseless.

  His eyes were glazed with pain, his mouth open, gasping for breath. Oh, God, he was still alive. Such pain. Where were the police? Surely her neighbors had heard her scream. She had screamed, hadn’t she?

  The intruder lunged toward her and wrapped his hand around her throat. “Where is it?” he roared, his eyes cold with death. “Give it to me or I’ll let the Lords of Death have you! I know you have it—I can smell its foul magic all over you!”

  “Jaid!”

  Thank God—she knew that voice. “Sam! Library! Help us!”

  Spitting curses, the intruder slung her aside like a ragdoll. Her father’s long-time colleague rushed into the room and a gunshot blasted the intruder backward.

  He crashed into a stack of books and rolled smoothly to his feet. Probing the hole in his chest with a finger, he raised his gaze to hers. A dark river of scar tissue ran from his breastbone down to the waistband of his low-riding jeans. It looked like he’d had open-heart surgery a dozen times.

  Baring his teeth in a fierce smile, he tipped his head slightly toward Sam and then whirled and ran toward the window. In a flying leap, he crashed through the glass and disappeared.

  “Jaid, are you all right?”

  She crawled to Geoffrey. “We need an ambulance. Geoffrey, can you hear me?”

  Blood pooled beneath him. His intestines glistened wetly where they had tumbled out of his stomach to coil on the floor. From the smell, she knew his bowel had been punctured. He lifted his hands toward her, and she took them, gripping him tightly. “Sorry.”

  “You’re going to be okay.”

  “I do care for you.”

  “I know, I know.” She smiled, even while tears blurred her vision and her throat ached. She smoothed the golden fall of hair off his brow and stroked his cheek. “I’ll give you whatever you want next time, okay? Whatever I have is yours if you hang on.”

  “Remember,” he gasped, his eyes flaring wide. “Sacbeob.”

  Sacbeob, white roads. Tears dripped onto their clasped hands. The Maya had a saying about entering the White Road, the journey of death through the Place of Fright.

  He wasn’t breathing. His eyes were open, but…his fingers went limp in hers. “Geoffrey! No, no, help him, please!”

  Sam knelt beside her and drew her into his arms. “I’m sorry, Jaid. He’s gone.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  An eternity passed while she answered the policemen’s questions and watched them load Geoffrey’s lifeless body onto a stretcher. Blood stained the white sheet they’d draped over him.

  Clutching the afghan around her shoulders, Jaid fought to hold on to her sanity, even while she wanted to wail and scream and pound her fists against the wall. His last words had been an apology because of a stupid translation, when she’d made hundreds, if not thousands. Why had she thrown such a big fit over something so silly?

  Now he was gone. He’d died helping her. He’d become another senseless sacrifice on the road to discovery. She wept then, silent tears that burned down her cheeks and tore at her heart.

  Dr. Sam Gerard sat down on the couch beside her. The usual wide smile that crinkled his eyes and warmed her heart each time she saw him had been replaced by tight, pale concern. Despite the same casual clothes—chinos, denim shirt, and the stained outback-style hat—he looked different. His shoulders vibrated with tension and he couldn’t sit still. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “It’s my fault,” she whispered, tears welling. “We’d fought, but he still insisted on seeing me home. He tried to protect me.”

  A soft whimper escaped before she could quell it, and he wrapped her in a hug. “Oh, Jaid, I’m sorry, honey. This isn’t your fault. If he hadn’t been here, you might have died.”

  “They didn’t believe me. I described the man down to the tattoos on his face, and they didn’t believe me. I know it sounds crazy, but the man was a Maya warrior. Where did he come from?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Something in Sam’s voice sounded off, just a subtle tightness that no one else probably would have noticed. She drew back and studied his eyes. How much did he know about whatever ritual her father had attempted? Watching his face carefully, looking for any sign of guilt or fear, she asked, “What’s Venus Star?”

  His eyes widened but he didn’t dissemble. “They’re the sole provider of our private funding.”

  Why hadn’t she ever heard of them before tonight? “Where are they based?”

  “Dallas. The CEO is an old friend of ours.” Sam grimaced and shook his head. “Well, old friend of mine. Franklin and Charlie never got along.”

  Few men did get along with her father. “I’ve never heard you speak of this friend.”

  Sam sighed and slid his hat through his hands. “Charlie never wanted Venus Star anywhere near his dig because of Franklin, but it was the only way I could secure the dig. It was either accept private funding and utilize Venus Star’s powerful contacts with the Guatemalan government, or let some other team take over.”

  So Sam was involved with Venus Star. Her fingers ached and she forced herself to ease her death grip on the blanket her mother had made. Her teeth chattered, and she felt cold, deep inside, where she could never get warm. “What’s going on? Why are you in the States?”

  “Something’s happened,” Sam sighed, rolling the brim of the hat between his fingers in a slow twirl. “We’ve managed to keep the dig mostly quiet, but this sort of thing gets out eventually. Such a discovery hasn’t been made in years. I’m afraid someone may have followed Charlie the last time he came to see you. Is whatever he brought you safe?”

  Her father had indeed made a quick visit about a month ago with no preliminary phone call or warning. He’d stayed only a few hours and left for the airport in the middle of the night. He’d told her not to tell a soul. By Sam’s own choice of words, even her father’s research partner for longer than she’d been alive didn’t know that the “whatever” her father had smuggled off site was a fragile, irreplaceable Maya book painstakingly painted on birch-bark pages.

  So how did the intruder know?

  Why hasn’t Sam mentioned the little accident in Guatemala? Is Dad still alive?

  Her heart pounded so hard she rubbed at her breastbone to relieve the ache. The urge to do something, call someone, churned like acid in her stomach, but she didn’t know who to trust. At one time, she would have told Sam everything she knew, but that was before her father’s face had loomed close and large in the screen and he’d shouted that she shouldn’t trust anyone. Before she’d learned that Sam had connections with Venus Star, the very name her father had shouted for her to avoid. Was her father simply paranoid? Or was his long-time friend involved in something nefarious?

  “Don’t tell me what it is,” Sam said. “Is it safe, or did the burglar make off with it?”

  She resisted the urge to look at the priceless codex’s hiding place. “As far as I can tell, it’s safe.”

  “Good.” His shoulders relaxed and he leaned back against the leather, but he kept playing with his hat, aimlessly slapping it against his thigh. “There have been some really…odd…things going on at the dig. I know you’re upset about your friend, and I don’t want to worry you.”

  “Tell me, Sam.” Her voice rose, slightly shrill, but she couldn’t help it. “If there’s something wrong, I need to know. I need to know everything!”

  “Charlie’s been acting very strange for weeks. At first, I thought he was merely excited about the dig. I mean, who wouldn’t be? We’re sitting on the biggest ruin since Tikal, and since it was mostly buried for centuries, the jungle rot hasn’t destroyed everything. The glyphs on the walls glow with color, Jaid. It’s incredible. I wish you’d come see it.”

  “I’ve seen the pictures,” she replied, forcing her tone lighter
. For years, he’d nagged her to join them on a dig, but he must have finally gotten the hint. Until now, he’d never asked her to come to Lake Atitlan’s dig site. Nerves made her long to wrap her hands around his neck and shake him until he told her the truth. The longer he dallied over inconsequential details, the more she doubted him.

  What does Sam know? Why doesn’t he just tell me?

  “Pictures can’t capture the incredible scope of the temple. Its view over Lake Atitlan is breathtaking, perfectly positioned to watch the constellations move across the sky. Once we clear out the rest of the rubble, walking through Chi’Ch’ul will be like stepping back a thousand years into a Mesoamerica we only dreamed of.”

  Sam took her hand, drawing her gaze to his face. “You should be there. I don’t know exactly what you’re translating for Charlie, but he wouldn’t be as far in his research without you. He’s always been obsessed, we both know that. Now, though…” He sighed, his blue eyes troubled. “He needs you, Jaid. I’ve never been more afraid for him.”

  “He doesn’t need me,” she replied automatically. Her father had made that abundantly clear over the years. All he needed was another clue to the true resting place of Seven Caves, Seven Canyons, another dot on his map to document and explore.

  “He’s obsessed with the ruins to the point that I’m afraid for his health. He refuses to talk to me. We’ve been on the outs before, but once he cut Madelyn off…”

  “Who’s Madelyn?”

  Sam’s eyes flared with surprise. “You don’t know?”

  Her stomach knotted, tangled with nerves and grief and worry. A familiar anxiety whenever her father was involved. “He never talked to me about anything but work.”

  “Madelyn St. James joined us last year at the compound. She’s his research assistant and…er…they…”

  “Ah. Got it.” The last thing she wanted to hear about was her father’s love life. She supposed his involvement with another woman was inevitable. She shouldn’t have been surprised at all. He was a distinguished, brilliant man, famous in archaeology circles, and his wife had been dead entirely too long.

  Hurt sliced through her. She—his only daughter—hadn’t even known the woman’s name. That woman saw him every single day, where Jaid was lucky to see him a dozen days all year, every single day begrudged. Another day lost that he could have been on the dig uncovering some new clue.

  A tiny flash of pride warmed her. He’d trusted her—and no one else—with the codex.

  “Last night, Charlie was doing some sort of ritual at the lake, and…he disappeared. I can’t find him anywhere.”

  She opened her mouth to say that she’d seen how he’d disappeared, but the look on Sam’s face froze her tongue. His face was pale, his breathing erratic, and a bead of sweat tracked down his face.

  “Weird things are happening, and a jaguar has been prowling around camp.”

  Fear trickled down her spine. She’d seen a jaguar on that recording. Impossibly, it’d been a man. Would Sam even believe her when she struggled to believe her own eyes? “Did you find a…goat?”

  Sam twitched, his eyes flaring wide. “How on earth do you know that?”

  Shaky, she tasted something bitter and metallic on her tongue. “What else did you find?”

  “His backpack with your notes, a digital camcorder busted all to hell, and the goat.” Sam swallowed and averted his gaze, working the hat so hard in his hands that it’d probably sit crooked on his head. “Its chest cavity had been cut open.”

  If she hadn’t been sitting down already, she would have fallen. Dizzy, she felt as though the room spun out of control, but it was her thoughts speeding crazily from one idea to the next. She’d been obsessed with the translation and hadn’t really paid attention to the details. Now, those glyphs burned into her mind like glowing brands.

  Gate. Blood. Creation. The center of the world. Worlds within worlds.

  “It has to be real.”

  “What’s real, Jaid? What the hell’s going on here? Charlie started acting all paranoid and bizarre, now he’s disappeared, and I come to the States to tell you he’s gone and I find a stranger murdering your friend right here in your house!” Sam clamped his arm around her and dragged her against his chest. His heart thudded loud and frantic against her ear. “Dear God, if I hadn’t come when I did, you might be dead.”

  She had to be extremely careful. If she started babbling about jaguar-men and Gates to other worlds, Sam would never believe her. She didn’t entirely believe herself, but she couldn’t deny that recording. Elation rose like a bubble in her chest, then popped, leaving fear rushing back to twist her into knots. Dad was right…but what happened to him? Where did he go?

  “What has Dad spent his entire life looking for?”

  “Tulan Zuyua, Seven Caves, Seven Canyons, the Place of Cattail Reeds. We’ve been to every site in Central America that even hints at creation.”

  “He found it,” she whispered. “He found the center of the world.”

  “Then where the hell is he?”

  She shivered, her heart pounding frantically against the wall of her ribcage. “What if I said I think he might have passed…through…to another place?”

  Sam jammed his crumpled hat on his head, and she almost laughed, her nerves ragged and raw like the frayed wiring in this old barn of a house. Laughing would be better than crying, or leaping up to run screaming into the night. “Through what?”

  “Lake Atitlan.”

  She couldn’t expect him to believe when she didn’t understand it herself, but Sam stunned her by jumping up and grabbing her hand to pull her up too. “You’ve got to tell Madelyn all this. Between her notes and yours, we ought to be able to piece together Charlie’s footsteps and figure out what happened to him.” When she didn’t immediately stand up at his insistent tug, he stared down at her, his face solemn. “I need you for this, Jaid. You’ve got to come with me!”

  “I’m the Un-Indiana Jones.” She forced a laugh and shook her pounding head. If something has gone wrong, then Dad needs me. The thought made her knee ache as fiercely as though she’d torn the joint all over again. Tears burned hot behind her eyes but refused to pour free. “I don’t do digs.”

  “I can’t find Charlie without you. Even your notes…” Sam shook his head. “I’ve read your notes before, and I couldn’t understand them. And that was after you translated everything! I don’t have any hope of finding him without you.”

  Her heart pounded so hard her chest hurt. Standing, she rubbed her breastbone absently and paced back and forth before the couch. Her right knee barely held her weight. “I’ll explain everything. There’s no need—”

  “It’s long past time that you face this fear you have.”

  Tripping on the edge of the afghan, she stumbled to a halt. She closed her eyes and the heavy moist heat of the jungle pressed against her. She tried to breathe, but it felt like water oozing through her mouth and nose, not air. Green, everywhere, endless and oppressive, the nights filled with the shrieking whine of millions of bugs and creatures. “I don’t do jungles. I don’t do digs.”

  “Jaid…”

  “No! Don’t ask me to do this. I’ll tell you everything, but I can’t go to Guatemala.”

  “Lake Atitlan isn’t jungle. We’re in the volcanic highlands and the weather is quite temperate. The compound is basically a rather nice hotel. Part of our agreement with the government is we’ll give our buildings to the locals eventually, for tourism of course, so it’s clean, very private and peaceful. It’ll be like you’re on vacation. Better yet, you can see the ruins yourself.”

  Her hands trembled, causing her to drop the corner of the afghan, and her knee hurt so badly that she bit her lip on a gasp. “I can’t.” Her voice sounded ragged and hoarse. “You know what happened the last time I went on a dig!”

  Sam nodded and came to wrap her in a fierce hug. She laid her head against his shoulder, trembling, fighting to calm her breathing. “You fell into a hidden p
assage and dislocated your knee. Your mother climbed down to get you, and an earthquake caused part of the wall to fall on her. Charlie said he would never force you to come on a dig again.”

  Force me? She tried to laugh but she choked, her throat too tight with unshed tears. “I thought…I thought he blamed me for killing her. If he’d asked me to go…”

  I’d do anything for him, if only he’d ask.

  “I’m asking you for him now.” Sam stroked her back, his breath a warm puff against her cheek. So many times he’d held her just like this while she cried, devastated by her father’s absence. Sam had done his best to fill that empty place, but he wasn’t her father, no matter how hard he tried. The one time she’d tried to change his adopted father role had been a complete and utter disaster they both studiously avoided. “He needs us.”

  She remembered the horrible hungry growl of the earth as it’d swallowed her mother. Her heart felt sluggish, heavy and swollen in her chest, her blood too thick to push through her leaden body. Geoffrey was dead now. Her father was missing, a jaguar had been chasing him, and something horrible had been attracted by whatever ritual he’d performed. She didn’t understand what he’d done, let alone where he might have gone if he’d been successful.

  How could she refuse to go after seeing the jaguar rip itself from that man’s body? After another Maya warrior had gutted Geoffrey before her very eyes? “Okay.”

  But she couldn’t help but wonder who else would die.

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Merritt.” Dean Keller’s voice didn’t sound like he’d been awakened in the dead of night. Maybe he took calls from distraught professors begging an unexpected sabbatical all the time. “If you take an indefinite leave of absence, I can’t guarantee your position will be open when you return.”

  “But Dr. Malcolm’s…dead.” Jaid forced the word out, wincing at the ragged tone of her voice. “He was very close to me. I can’t—”