Nick didn’t either. “Careful,” he whispered, stepping into the dark building.
“Right behind you,” Carter said.
Squinting to try to make out anyone who might be lurking in the shadows, Nick walked as quietly as he could from room to room. Twice he thought he heard something—a shuffling of feet or heavy breathing. Both times, when he stopped, the noise disappeared.
“Why are you stopping?” Carter asked the second time.
“I don’t know. I thought I heard something.”
“Let’s go outside,” Carter said, his voice high and tense. “I keep feeling like someone’s sneaking up on me.”
Nick felt the exact same way. It was too dark. Too closed in. Even with most of the plants cleared away, it felt like there were hiding places everywhere. Besides, by now Angelo and Mr. Jiménez were no doubt looking for them outside.
Trying to breathe silently, Nick hurried through the rest of the temple rooms. When he got to the main entrance, he gave a sigh of relief. “I guess they’re not up here.” He turned back to Carter, but there was no one behind him.
“Carter?” he called, stepping back into the entrance. There was no answer. “Carter!” he shouted.
Something scraped across the stone floor behind him, and he turned just as an arm looped around his neck. Nick struggled to get away, but the arm pulled him up and backward until his toes barely touched the ground. Something sharp poked his left shoulder. He opened his mouth to scream but couldn’t inhale enough air. His head began to swim and all at once his legs would no longer hold him up.
“Run!” he tried to shout, but the words never made it past his lips. His eyelids began to droop closed. A figure stepped in front of him. He recognized the face grinning down at him. It was Mr. Jiménez.
Nick woke with a pounding headache. He tried to roll over but couldn’t move. Slowly he managed to crack open his eyelids. It took him a minute or two to focus. When he did, he discovered that he was lying on his back facing the starry night sky. He began to sit up before realizing his arms and legs were tied with thick yellow rope.
“Where am I?” he tried to ask. But a cloth was jammed between his teeth. With a start, he remembered everything. The pyramid, his parents, Carter and Angelo. Yanking at the ropes, he began to cough. The coughing turned into choking and he couldn’t breathe.
A hand removed the gag from his mouth, and he gasped for air. Mr. Jiménez stared down at him.
“Help!” he screamed. Jiménez slapped a hand over his mouth.
“I can leave the gag in place,” the man said. “Maybe you choke. Maybe you don’t. It matters little to me.” He peered cheerfully down at Nick as though the two of them were discussing whether to have hot dogs or hamburgers for dinner. “Or I can take the gag off and you agree to no more shouting. What do you say?”
Nick wanted to tell the archaeologist to eat rocks, but he knew the chance of suffocating with the gag in his mouth was real. “Okay,” he said. With the man’s palm pressed against his mouth, it came out as rrmm-kaw, so he nodded vigorously to make sure Jiménez understood him.
Slowly Jiménez removed his hand. Nick gulped in the night air. “Much better,” the man said. He looked left. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
Nick turned his head to see Angelo and Carter bound and gagged on the ground a few feet away. At the same time, he realized he was several feet above the ground. Oh, no. He was tied to the top of the stone altar outside the temple of the sun.
“What about you two?” Jiménez said to Carter and Angelo. “Can you follow this fine boy’s example?”
Both of them nodded, and the archaeologist removed their gags as well. “Don’t make me put these back in or I might forget to leave you room to breathe.”
“It was you,” Carter spat as soon as his mouth was free. “You’re the one who set this all up.”
Jiménez chuckled. “It’s funny. People see a tall man, piercing eyes, the doctor before his name, and they naturally assume Dr. Canul is the one in charge of things here. Let that be a lesson to you boys—never judge a man by his title.”
“What did you do to my parents?” Nick asked.
“Why, nothing.” Jiménez walked around the altar and rested against its base so he could watch all three of them at the same time. “Right about now they’re on top of the pyramid with Dr. Canul, finishing an exceptional dinner.”
Nick craned his neck to look around, but the archaeologist held up a dusty finger. “Not on this pyramid. That would never do. I’m afraid I told a teensy lie when I left the note in your tent. You see, I suggested that Dr. Canul take your parents to dinner on top of the pyramid of the moon, now that you’ve gone to so much trouble cleaning it off. I made sure to explain that when the moon hit just the right point it would shine through the temple and into the mirrors below the entrance.”
Nick tried to roll over, but he was tied so well he could barely squirm. “Why?”
Mr. Jiménez smiled pleasantly, but Nick thought it was the smile of a serial killer. “I’m glad you asked.” He checked his watch and glanced up at the sky. “We’ve got a few minutes.”
“Until you kill us?” Nick growled.
The archaeologist gasped, appearing shocked, although Nick was sure it was nothing but an act. “I promise not to lay a hand on your heads.” He opened his bag and took out Angelo’s monster notebook with the black folder inside.
“Be careful with that,” Angelo said. “I’ve been working on it for years.”
Jiménez took out the folder and dropped the notebook on the ground. “I don’t think you’ll be needing it.” He flipped through the pages in the folder. “This is actually much more information than I would have preferred you have. It could have made things . . . uncomfortable if you’d put the pieces together much earlier. But now that we’re all together, it makes the explanation quite a bit quicker.”
He flipped through the pages. “Where did you say you got this?”
“We don’t know,” Angelo said. “Someone left it for us at the hotel. I sort of thought it might have been you.”
Jiménez gave him a narrowed-eyed glare. “It doesn’t matter.” He let the folder fall, and several of the pages fluttered off in the breeze—a breeze that was picking up with each passing moment.
“Aren’t you afraid someone will find that?” Nick asked.
“Not at all.” The archaeologist laughed. He checked his watch again. “Very soon, it won’t matter who knows what.”
Angelo twisted around and managed to sit up. “You’re delusional if you think you can get the power of the sun god.”
“Not delusional at all. As I told you, I’m from a small village less than twenty miles away. Even though this site was officially closed, I came here often. I wondered what had happened to the first group of explorers who disappeared so mysteriously. But it wasn’t until I was ready to leave for college that my father told me the truth.”
Nick tested the ropes binding his hands, but they were tied solidly. “How would your father know what happened?”
“Didn’t I tell you? The two people who left the first expedition before that fateful night fifty-two years ago? One of them was my grandfather. He’d been added to the party late as a simple laborer. No one had a clue that he knew more about Mayan history than all the rest of those so-called experts combined. The other man was my father. He was just a boy at the time. They didn’t know nearly as much as I do. But they knew enough to understand a calamity was about to happen.”
“They knew the archaeologists were going to try to open the portal,” Angelo said.
“They didn’t try.” Jiménez grinned a sly and knowing smile. “They succeeded. Dr. Canul’s father, Samuel Canul, was considered a bit of a nutcase by both his colleagues and his family. He had some strange ideas about demons, dark magic, that sort of thing. He had just enough real knowledge to come here, where he found this book.” He held up a thick book made of metal plates.
“Is that the purple vie
w?” Nick asked.
Jiménez laughed out loud. “The Popol Vuh? Nothing so simple as that.”
“It’s instructions on how to open the portal to the underworld,” Angelo said. “You plan to open the doorway at the exact moment of the winter solstice and get past the demons to become a god. Let me guess, you found the king’s item of power to let you defeat the demons.”
Mr. Jiménez clapped his hands slowly. “Very good. I could see a very successful career in your future. If you had a future.”
“What do you mean?” Carter asked. “You said you wouldn’t hurt us.”
“Oh, I won’t.” The archaeologist pretended to wipe a tear from his eye. “Unfortunately bad things tend to befall those who are still around when the portal to Xibalba is opened. That’s what happened to Samuel Canul and everyone in his party. They knew enough to open the portal, but Canul didn’t understand he had zero chance of obtaining the power of the gods. Now they’re somewhere in the depths below us. The same place where Dr. Canul and all his loyal archaeologists will end up.”
“What if the item of power doesn’t work?” Carter asked desperately.
Jiménez steepled his fingers in front of his chest and nodded. “Oh, it will work. You see, to become a god, you need more than just the item. You must be a direct descendant of royalty. Despite his claims to the contrary, Samuel Canul was as much a descendant of the king as I am of Santa Claus.”
Angelo shook his head. “But my test said . . .” He sucked in his breath. “It was your DNA I found. Not Dr. Canul’s. You touched the hard hats when you got them for him out of the supply tent.”
Jiménez laughed again. It was like listening to a poisonous snake rattling before it attacked. “I knew you boys were smart. Poor Dr. Canul may well be of Mayan descent. But he is certainly no royalty. I, on the other hand, can trace my lineage directly back to—”
“The king?” Carter said.
“No.” Jiménez dropped his head. “Sadly, the king never had any children. He died as a child. And with his mother and father both dead—some say at the hands of assassins, others suspect someone a little closer—the line of royalty went to the only living relative, the child’s uncle, his father’s brother. And as it turns out, I am a direct descendant of his.”
“But—” Angelo started, then snapped his jaws shut.
A flash of light lit the sky not far away and Jiménez looked sharply up. “Time is short and I’m afraid my story must be too. Suffice it to say, my grandfather discovered what Canul planned to do. He also knew the good doctor was not a descendant of royalty. He and my father escaped, then came back to gather all the party’s papers, and this book I now hold.” Overhead, the sky was growing dark as wind began to blow in earnest.
“The newspapers said there was no evidence of the camp found,” Angelo said.
“There wasn’t once my father and grandfather took what they wanted and destroyed the rest to keep anyone from coming back and doing the same thing. Of course, once my father told me what had happened—along with our lineage—I was obsessed with the subject. I’m the one who figured out that the opportunity to become a god didn’t happen every winter solstice at all. Only every fifty-two years—a cycle the Mayans called xiuhmolpilli. I’m the one who realized that if I was here—and prepared—I could use that portal to become a god. From that point on, it was only a matter of pulling the right strings, paying a few bribes, letting Dr. Canul think the expedition was his idea, and here we are.”
He looked up to where dark clouds now covered the sky in a menacing black blanket. A drop of rain hit Nick on the nose, but he couldn’t reach up to wipe it away. “Fine. You’re an egotistical psycho who thinks he can become a god. But why bring a family all the way here from California?”
“That was the tricky part.” The archaeologist held up his hand, like a professor teaching a class. “You see, at first I thought opening the entryway to the underworld required a simple sacrifice. I’d have felt bad killing someone to get what I wanted. But . . .” He flapped his hands. “I’d get over it. Then I did more research—in the kinds of books archaeology professors don’t teach from. That’s when I discovered there was one more piece to the ceremony. The life of someone with no Mayan blood was the price that had to be paid.”
Lightning struck again. At least Nick thought it was lightning. But he’d never seen green lightning bolts before. “Sorry,” Jiménez said. “Story time is over. Let the show begin.” He reached into a leather bag on the ground and pulled out a long, sharp knife.
Nick tried to pull away as the archaeologist approached the altar. “You promised you weren’t going to touch me.”
“I’m not.” Jiménez raised the knife and cut the palm of his hand. As soon as blood began to flow from the shallow wound, he pressed his hand to the top of the stone altar. “The blood of royalty,” he whispered in a flat, almost mechanical, voice.
He reached into the bag again, took out four stone vases, and set them on the ground on each side of the altar. Around the pyramid, the wind began to blow even harder as the man placed sticks of incense into each vase and lit them. “North, south, east, and west,” he said in the same voice. Lightning split the sky again, and the animal sounds from the rain forest rose to an earsplitting pitch.
Nick tried to pull free of his ropes, but the knots were too tight. “If you don’t want my blood, what do you want?” he hollered over the sound of the wind and the jungle.
“It’s not your blood I need,” Jiménez yelled back, clasping the book to his chest. “It’s your life energy. Your drive, your will to live, your brains.”
Although the tropical wind was still hot, the rain was cold and quickly turned to hail. Bits of ice pounded Nick’s face, and he turned his head. Carter and Angelo were staring at him with open terror.
Angelo struggled in his ropes. “Take me!” he screamed. “Take my life force, not Nick’s. I’m the one who got us into this.”
“What are you talking about?” Nick yelled.
“If I hadn’t been so focused on aliens for my own selfish reasons, we would have figured this out long before now. I was busy reading books about heroes and demons when the truth was right in front of me.” He turned to Jiménez. “You said you needed brains. No offense, but I’m the smartest kid I know.”
Jiménez looked from Angelo to the sky. “You make a good point. We might just have time.”
“No!” Nick screamed. But with his hands and feet tied, there was nothing he could do to stop Jiménez as the archaeologist shoved him off the altar and dragged an unresisting Angelo onto it.
Holding the metal book open in front of him, the archaeologist began chanting words Nick couldn’t understand. He assumed it was Mayan or something even older. As the archaeologist finished reading the last of the words, he held the book above his head, shouted something, and looked to the sky. The wind blew so hard it took Nick’s breath away. Hail covered the ground. And then . . . everything stopped.
All at once the wind quit blowing, the rain ceased, and the sky cleared.
Nick looked at Jiménez, waiting for some kind of miraculous change. The archaeologist stood, chest out, hands holding the book above his head, face toward the sky.
The rain forest returned to its normal cheeps, chatters, and howls.
“Well,” Carter said, leaning forward. “Are you a god?”
Slowly Jiménez lowered the book. He looked at himself, then down at the altar. Watching his face crumple was like watching a kid learning he wasn’t getting any presents for his birthday. He seemed so lost, Nick almost felt sorry for him.
The archaeologist stumbled backward, fell against the altar, and muttered, “It didn’t work.”
Mr. Jiménez studied the book before letting it slowly fall to the ground. He stared at his hands as if he’d never seen them before. “I don’t understand. I did everything right. It should have worked. I did the research.”
Carter wormed himself into a sitting position. “So, um, did you ever
consider the possibility that you’re, you know, completely crazy, and people don’t actually get superpowers unless they’re bitten by radioactive spiders?”
“What?” Jiménez looked around, seeming to realize for the first time that Nick and his friends were still there. He grabbed the book and knife, and Nick was afraid the archaeologist was going to kill them after all.
Instead, he shoved the items quickly into his bag and looked around as though wondering who else might have seen him. “Now listen,” he said with a nervous laugh. “I know what you all must be thinking.”
“That you’re a complete psychopath?” Carter suggested.
“You’ve got the wrong idea.” Jiménez shot a considering glance at each of the boys, and appeared to make up his mind. He hurried around the altar, picking up the incense holders. “Weren’t you boys telling me just this morning how bored you were? How you wanted some adventure?”
Nick didn’t recall anything like that, but he wanted to see what the man had in mind—especially if it didn’t involve killing him and his friends. He nodded as best he could while still being tied up. “Sure. I remember that.”
The archaeologist licked his lips. “You wanted excitement. I provided it. I was thinking just this afternoon that we hadn’t really shown you a good time. Dr. Canul is such a stick-in-the-mud. But this is your vacation. So, I thought, hey, why not give you something to remember? A little playacting.”
“You’re saying you drugged and kidnapped us because we were bored?” Angelo asked, clearly not believing a word of it.
Mr. Jiménez forced out a laugh. “A mild sedative. To make the whole thing more believable. Did it work? Did you believe I was actually trying to trade your life force for the power of the sun god?”
“I tell you what I believe,” Carter said. “I believe you’re a total—”
“Totally great actor,” Nick interrupted. “That was amazing, with the chanting and the incense. I absolutely thought it was real.” He gave his friends a meaningful look. “Didn’t you guys?”
Angelo was the first to catch on. He winked at Nick. “I might have believed it for the first few minutes. When I woke up gagged and tied up, I thought it was real. But then when you started making up all that obvious fake Mayan stuff, I realized it was only an act. It was exciting though.”
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