The Smoke Hunter

by Jacquelyn Benson

  “Excellent craftsmanship. Unusual material, though. Not obsidian…”

  She took the bent hairpin from her pocket, held it near the medallion, and released it. The pin flew to the stone and adhered to it with a soft click.

  “Magnetic,” he said wonderingly.

  “Hematite,” Ellie said. “It can become magnetized under certain conditions. Though for a piece this large to achieve this degree of pull…”

  “I’m aware.”

  She tried not to let that gall her. “It’s Mayan, isn’t it?”

  Adam frowned down at the dark surface. “I don’t know what the hell it is.”

  “Not Mayan?” The notion made her stomach jolt. Ellie was so surprised, it took her a moment to realize that Adam had just cursed at her.

  Well, not at her, precisely. More like in her vicinity. But it wasn’t something Ellie was accustomed to. Gentlemen—there was at least something of the gentleman about Adam Bates—did not use foul language in front of ladies.

  Which either meant that the medallion had impressed him into forgetting himself, or he had decided, somewhere between the patio and the room, that Ellie wasn’t the sort of lady he had to keep up pretenses for.

  She wasn’t sure quite what to think about that.

  She shook it off, returning her attention to the greater revelation Adam had just given her.

  Not Mayan.

  Did that mean she’d come all this way for nothing? She wanted to sit down, but Adam was occupying the only chair.

  “It’s the carvings. The figural representations are off. I mean, this one here,” he said, tapping the disk, “he looks a lot like Schellhas’s God F to me. See the lines decorating his face? But this decal? The mirror? You don’t see that with God F. That’s classic God B.”

  “God B?” she echoed.

  “Not their real names,” Adam said wryly. “We don’t know what the people who worshiped these gods called them. That knowledge was lost, along with whatever else had survived of the Mayan civilization, when the priests of the Inquisition arrived in the New World and decided to have a bonfire with their books.”

  Ellie’s scholarly instincts flared.

  “There were books?”

  “Thousands of them. And at the time the Catholic missionaries were arriving here, there were still plenty of people around who knew how to read them.”

  “But I thought the written Mayan language was dead,” Ellie protested. She’d learned as much in the lectures she’d attended at the university.

  “It is,” Adam confirmed. “But not of natural causes. The missionaries couldn’t read the Mayan books they found. And what they didn’t understand, they figured was probably the work of Satan. They gathered up every Mayan text they could get their hands on and systematically burned them. They made writing in the old glyphs a criminal act. So people stopped doing it, and within a generation, maybe two, the knowledge was gone.”

  Ellie felt outrage well up in her as though Adam had just told her about a massacre. She had assumed the key to the meaning of the Mayan glyphs was simply lost, something that had faded away over time. The idea that the answers to so many compelling questions about the builders of the great ruined cities might have been at their fingertips, if not for the fear and superstition of a few small-minded men, was horrific.

  Adam traced a line of tiny, elegantly carved symbols on the medallion’s surface. “A few years ago, an amateur linguist in Germany came up with a system for classifying the depictions of gods in Mayan glyphs. The wings and the serpent you see here? Those are associated with God B. He oversees life, creation. But these strong horizontal lines marking the figure’s face? That’s God F. War and sacrifice. Life and death, creation and destruction—these aren’t symbols you’re supposed to see together on a single icon. And then there’s this.” He tapped the round circle on the chest of the grinning idol. “That’s not even Mayan. It’s the Smoking Mirror.”

  “Smoking Mirror?” she echoed involuntarily. Her thoughts went straight to the telegram in her pocket. Dawson had been ordered to acquire a Smoking Mirror. Did that mean the medallion?

  Something told her the answer wasn’t that simple.

  Adam elaborated, oblivious to her confusion, his attention still riveted by the artifact.

  “The Smoking Mirror is an Aztec deity. Tezcatlipoca. The god of prophecy. The Aztecs claimed he possessed some kind of magic glass through which he could see anything he wanted—the past, the future. The thoughts and ambitions of rival kings.” He paused, frowning. “Or maybe Tezcatlipoca was the mirror? Damned if I can remember. Aztec mythology isn’t my area.”

  “So that symbol isn’t Mayan?”

  Adam rubbed a hand through his hair distractedly. “Strictly speaking, no. But the Mayans did use mirrors for ritual purposes. Not mirrors like we know them. No glass. They used polished disks of obsidian. I’ve seen them depicted in Mayan carvings with waving lines like these around them.” He pointed to the marks on the medallion.

  “Like smoke.”

  “Maybe. But then again, we know next to nothing about their glyphs. It’s all guesswork.”

  She leaned over Adam’s shoulder, looking down at the dark, fierce figure carved into the stone.

  “So is it Mayan, or Aztec?”

  He shook his head slowly.

  “Beats me. It doesn’t look like any Mayan or Aztec artifact I’ve ever seen. But it sure as hell doesn’t look like a forgery, either. Where did you get this?”

  “Call it a family heirloom,” she said quickly, hiding her uneasiness. “And there’s more.”

  Adam raised his eyebrow, waiting.

  “There’s a map.”

  “A map,” he echoed flatly.

  “It claims to show the location of a city hidden in the mountains.”

  “Of course it does.”

  Sarcasm? That was hardly the reaction she’d been expecting. Ellie felt her temper start to flare.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He leaned back in his chair. “Look, princess—this is a hell of an intriguing trinket you’ve got here. But I’ve heard this story a hundred times. You can pretty much bet the farm the thing is either a hoax, or somebody else—probably the guy who drew your map—has had plenty of time to get to those ruins and clean out whatever treasure you think you’re going to find.”

  “I’m not looking for treasure. And they weren’t ruins.”

  “What do you mean, they weren’t ruins?”

  “The city was inhabited.”

  “Maybe by a few squatters…”

  “By a kingdom. A flourishing one. In 1632.”

  He crossed his arms. “So this is supposed to be a map to an Aztec city.”

  “The location it points to is nowhere near Aztec territory.”

  “The Aztecs were the only Central American civilization with inhabited cities in the seventeenth century.”

  She walked over to the map on the wall. It was a beautiful piece of work, showing everything from rivers and villages to the terrain itself. There were plenty of ruins marked there as well—more, she realized, than she had seen in the atlas at the British Library.

  “The location is deep in traditional Mayan territory. It’s nowhere near Aztec lands,” she said.

  “There were no Mayan kingdoms in 1632.”

  “None that anybody knew about,” she countered evenly. “But for all I know, it could be something else. The map just calls it a white city.”

  Adam went still.

  “The White City. This map of yours claims to show the location of the White City.”

  “It could just be a descriptive term,” Ellie offered, sensing the rise in Adam’s tension.

  “It’s a blasted myth, is what it is. Another El Dorado. Cortés wasted a lot of money looking for it—and a lot of lives.”

  He stood silent for a moment, and Ellie could practically hear the gears turning inside his head. She waited, afraid that anything she might say would push him the wron
g way. Finally he sighed.

  “I have a feeling I’m going to regret this, but what the hell. Show it to me.”

  She felt a flash of alarm. “Show what to you?”

  “Your diary. What do you think? The map.”

  Of course he would want to see it. But now that the moment had arrived, she found herself reluctant to hand it over. The reason came to her clearly: Give it to him, and he would hold all the cards. He was the expert, after all. The experienced surveyor with intimate knowledge of the territory, and certainly more knowledge of Central American cultures than she could claim. Where would that leave her? She’d be so much extra weight.

  No, she thought. This was her adventure. The map and its secrets had fallen into her lap, no one else’s. She wasn’t going to hand it over that easily. But she had to show him something. He was far from convinced, and whether she liked the idea or not, right now he was her only hope of getting where she so desperately wanted to go.

  The solution came to her quick and bright, like a spark. She didn’t pause to second-guess it, just pulled the map from her pocket, walked to the desk, and then stabbed the parchment with Adam’s letter opener.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he protested as she yanked the blade down through the map. It cut cleanly, and she finished the job with a tear. She handed the bottom half to Bates, tucking the rest neatly back into her pocket.

  “That should be enough to start with.”

  “To start with? What about the rest of it?”

  “The rest is my insurance policy,” she replied coolly.

  “Insurance against what? If I were out to steal it and feed you to the crocodiles, keeping it in your corset isn’t going to stop me.”

  “We can skip the references to my corset,” she said tightly, flushing. “I wouldn’t be offering to bring you in on this if I thought you were going to rob me. I trust you that far. What I don’t trust is that once you have what you need, you won’t treat me like a piece of baggage instead of a partner, or pack me back to London out of some convenient sense of chivalry. So until we’re well on our way, the rest of the route stays with me.”

  They stared at each other across the room, the tension thick. Ellie suddenly realized that she was very afraid he might refuse—that he’d hand back the map and tell her to go to hell. She forced herself to meet his gaze without showing a hint of her unease.

  “Where’s this city of yours supposed to be? Approximately,” he added as her posture quickly turned defensive.

  She hesitated only a moment, then walked over to the map and laid her finger on a place in the Cayo District, a stretch of mountains labeled, Uncharted. Adam came beside her, gazing at the spot she indicated. She risked a glance at his face, trying to read his expression. It didn’t look good. She felt her stomach sink.

  He turned to her, their closeness making him loom. She hadn’t noticed how very large he was before. She also found herself noting that he smelled—not unpleasantly—of cigar and whiskey. It was a distracting detail.

  “Let me make one thing perfectly clear. If I agree to help you with this insanity—which I haven’t yet—I’m the one who calls the shots. I tell you duck, you duck. Run, you run. And not after you’ve asked me thirty damned questions, or called me a chauvinist good-for-nothing. Where you want to go, there are a whole lot of things that could cut the both of us down. It’s dangerous, and whatever you think, until you’ve been out there you can’t pretend you know what you’re doing.”

  “If I did, I wouldn’t be offering to do this with you,” she retorted.

  “Seems to me I’m the one doing the offering, princess.”

  She jumped at the sound of voices in the hall. Adam’s eyes narrowed, and he motioned for her to duck behind the door. The knock came a moment later. Adam picked a glass half-full of amber-colored liquid up from the table, then opened the door as Ellie pressed herself into her hiding place.

  She peered through the narrow gap between the door and the wall and glimpsed Augustus Smith, looking harried and apologetic.

  “I’m terribly sorry to bother you, Mr. Bates, but we’re checking with all the guests. This is Mr. Jacobs. His room was robbed earlier this evening. We’re wondering if you’ve noticed anything amiss.”

  Jacobs.

  Smith stood in the doorway, taking up the entirety of Ellie’s narrow band of vision. Jacobs would be behind him, only a few inches from where she stood. The thought made Ellie want to shrink into the carpet. Her hiding place behind the door seemed unaccountably feeble. She felt certain he would know she was there, would step forward and catch sight of her through the gap between the hinges, or smell her out like some small prey run aground. She pressed herself back against the wall.

  “Not a thing.”

  Adam’s reply was utterly easy. The man was a decent actor. And liar. Ellie made a note to remember that.

  Smith continued, sounding as though he did so against his inclination.

  “It also seems that Miss Tyrrell has gone missing. She wasn’t at dinner and isn’t in her room. We’re obviously rather concerned. Have you seen her within the last few hours?”

  “Pretty. Brunette. Talks too much.” The boards creaked as Adam leaned against the frame of the door. “Afraid not.”

  There was an awkward silence. Jacobs’s voice broke it.

  “Mr. Smith would like me to take a look around your room.”

  “He would, would he?”

  “Mr. Jacobs has told me he has some experience with these matters,” Smith explained. Ellie watched him tug nervously on his ear.

  “I might notice something you’ve missed,” Jacobs offered smoothly.

  “I see. That’s very considerate of you.”

  The tension between Jacobs and her unexpected protector was thick enough to cut, and Ellie risked a closer peek through the crack in the door. Adam was just visible, reclining against the door frame with his whiskey glass in his hand. He reminded her of a lion, all lazy power and implied threat.

  “Smith, tell Mr. Jacobs. Does anyone come into my room?”

  “Mr. Bates keeps his things in a very particular order and expressly requests that nothing be disturbed.”

  “Which is how I’d know if anything was missing. Besides which, I’ve been inside all day. I probably would have noticed if any thieves or mouthy women decided to drop in.”

  “Of course,” Smith hurried to assure him. “We’re sorry to disturb you, Mr. Bates.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Adam drawled. “Mr. Jacobs.”

  “Mr. Bates,” Jacobs acknowledged coolly, and Ellie heard their footsteps continue down the hall.

  Adam watched them for a moment longer, then finally closed the door. Ellie tried not to slump with relief. He said nothing but raised a finger to his lips. She nodded as they listened to the footsteps move away, followed by the sound of knocking on a farther door.

  He reached out and fingered a curl of her butchered hair.

  “You really went whole hog, didn’t you?”

  She stepped back, tugging her coat more closely around her shoulders.

  “I didn’t steal all this from his room, if that’s what you were thinking.”

  “Of course not. That’s Tibbord’s jacket. I’m surprised you fit in his trousers.”

  She felt her face burn.

  “I had to belt them.”

  “I expect you did,” he drawled. “You going to tell me what the story is with Mr. Friendly?”

  Ellie struggled briefly, realizing what the truth would sound like—implausible at best, or worse, like a whole lot of extra trouble. The lie was instinctive and automatic.

  “He’s an agent of my uncle’s. When I left to come here, Uncle David sent him to bring me back.”

  “Your uncle a nice guy?”

  “Of course,” Ellie replied instinctively.

  “Then why did he hire someone like that to take care of his niece?”

  “Mr. Jacobs is very thorough,” she blurted in response.
>
  “I can see that. So why doesn’t he just tell Smith he’s looking for a wayward ward?”

  She opened her mouth to reply, closed it, and flashed what she hoped was a disarming smile. “I’m sure he’s hoping to avoid embarrassment for the family.”

  “Family like that brother of yours?”

  Ellie felt her face flush. She lifted her chin, crossing her arms over her chest. “I don’t have a brother.”

  “I figured as much.” He studied her face. “Anything else you’re leaving out?”

  She felt a brief flash of guilt. Quite a lot, actually. She shook her head. “That’s all of it. Now, are you in, or shall I take this to someone else?”

  He chuckled. “You got cojones, princess. I’ll grant you that.”

  “What exactly is a cojone?” she demanded.

  “Maybe I’ll tell you later.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  She could see him hesitate. She fought against panic. If he refused…

  Well, she would worry about that when—if—it happened. Not that she’d blame him. It wasn’t much to go on—even the parts that were true.

  “Look—this isn’t the sort of thing I usually worry about, but under the circumstances…” He ran a hand through his hair awkwardly, and Ellie felt her heart sink.

  This was it. The snag, the perfectly rational objection she wouldn’t be able to talk her way around.

  “You see, we go ahead with this, it’s just going to be the two of us. I don’t drag a team out for this kind of initial survey. There’s no funding for it, and I don’t like wasting people’s time. We won’t be bringing an expedition. Which means you’re going to be traveling alone with a strange man, possibly for weeks. Now, I’ve never been one to give much of a damn for my reputation, but I’ve also never been considered a debaucher of proper young ladies. I’m not sure that’s a distinction I’d like to earn.”

  Ellie stared at him in shock. This turn of the conversation had taken her completely by surprise—but shouldn’t have.

  That Ellie had come to British Honduras alone would have raised an eyebrow or two, but women traveled to the Caribbean for health reasons often enough, and the Imperial was a reputable hotel. As for the rest of it…