As much as he wanted to make love to her again, he could not with the men sleeping barely ten feet away.
“Try to rest. Morning will come sooner than you think.”
She latched on to his arm and twined her legs with his, murmuring as she did so, “Don’t even think of leaving without me.”
***
Early the next morning they held a short memorial service for Rafe’s team member. Jones was laid to rest beside the other dead expedition members in a small cemetery that the villagers had created some distance away from their homes. As Rafe tossed the last shovel of dirt over Jones’s grave, he tried not to lose hope of finding his brother and Dani alive. When Cyn’s gaze met his, he knew she was fighting the same battle as she thought about them.
Hernandez was in worse shape than the night before, his eyes glassy and skin flushed with fever as he sat near the graveside on a small stool they had saved from what remained of their camp. Rogers and Booth stood nearby, eyes averted from Rafe and Cynthia. Their shame hanging over them as Rafe and Cynthia concluded the memorial and then left to head to the temple.
They had salvaged what they could from the supplies Cyn’s team had brought to pack for their trip. Besides the communications gear in case they needed to call the team members who were staying at the village, they were armed to the teeth. Both he and Cynthia had rifles and handguns. A lot of extra ammo. Two large knives, a machete and the gold obsidian dagger with which Cyn had been gifted by the women in the other settlement.
He wondered about the utility of the latter. The blade wasn’t cutting sharp and to thrust through anything of consequence might require a great deal of force. Force and close personal contact.
Getting that near to Eztli Etalpalli would be impossible.
Nor did he want to get that close, he thought as they traipsed through the jungle, each of them silent as they were lost in their thoughts about what was to come.
It was late afternoon by the time they reached the multistory mound of earth beneath which the temple was located. His gut clenched as he recollected the last time he had been here. How when he had dared to confront the demon up close and personal, it had nearly cost him his life.
He paused at the edge of the jungle just before the temple mound, sweat dripping from every pore of his body. His muscles aching from the many swipes of the machete that had been necessary to clear the way here. The trip had taken them several hours even though he calculated that the actual distance from the village was no more than a few miles. The underbrush in the jungle along the way had been thick and difficult to traverse since few dared to venture this close to the demon goddess’s home.
Cyn kneeled beside him while he scanned the area around the temple. Her face was ruddy and sweat stained, as were her clothes. With a deep breath, she slipped off her heavy pack and silently eased it to the ground, painfully aware that stealth was of the utmost necessity.
He admired her perseverance and strength. Not once had she faltered during the trek, keeping up a grueling pace, taking her turns to cut away the tangle before them, but it was clear she needed rest, and truthfully so did he.
He eased off his pack and placed it next to hers. Then he sat down and pulled out his copy of the map to the temple. After reviewing it, he said in a soft whisper, “The entrance isn’t far. Just another thirty yards or so to the east.”
Cyn examined the map and nodded in agreement. “Not far at all, but do we risk going in during daylight?”
Last time Rafe and his team had approached the temple in full light with disastrous results, but Eztli Etalpalli was normally a nocturnal creature. “She’s more active at night, so we might be able to get inside once She leaves.”
“You didn’t enter before?” She wiped at a line of sweat trailing down her face with her forearm. The muscles on her arm were trembling from her earlier exertions.
He shook his head. “The entrance was barred from within. As we attempted to open it, Eztli Etalpalli surged out of the entrance and attacked us.”
Rafe pulled his canteen off his belt and offered it to her. Cyn took it from his grasp, drank down a healthy amount before returning it and asking, “So how do we get in?”
“I’m hoping that the nahual powers may help us. If the lock on the door is mystical, I may be able to tap into the supernatural energy and—”
“Use your own power as a key. What if it’s just a plain old rusty lock?”
With a shrug, he replied, “We’ll deal with it then. Why don’t you lean back on your pack and take a short nap? You need the rest and it’ll be a few hours until dusk. I’ll take watch.”
“Wake me in an hour so you can get take a break as well,” she said and did as he had suggested, pillowing her head on the bulk of her backpack, a tangle of low ferns along the jungle floor providing a relatively soft resting place.
He leaned against his own pack, the rifle draped across his thighs. For good measure, he pulled his handgun from the holster at his waist and placed it within easy reach while Cyn napped beside him. As she shifted in her sleep, her soft derriere pressed against his thigh and he laid his hand on her waist, needing the connection with her.
An hour passed too quickly as his mind ran through the many scenarios of what might happen. Cyn didn’t stir the entire time, exhausted as she was from the difficult trip to the temple. He let her sleep on despite her earlier request that he wake her. She had gotten little rest last night and would need her strength for what was to come that evening.
In the interim, it was time to prepare for something he had only done a few times before and only with the assistance of the village calpulli who was also the nahual who had saved him.
Raising his hands to the sky, he focused on them and the bright sun above. He visualized how the bits of energy floating in the cosmos were being pulled toward him, as if he were some kind of magnet. Little by little, the image in his head became reality. A tiny glimmer began in his palms and then grew to a stronger glow. Suddenly that glow coalesced into balls of energy in each of his palms and a tendril of power snaked out, encircling his wrist.
Within him Rafe sensed the power growing, first as a slight warmth deep in his core. It grew stronger and more intense, filling him from deep in his groin up to his chest until he felt as if he would explode if he didn’t sever the connection.
Closing his fists, he broke the nahual link to the cosmos.
He was breathing heavily, the gathering of the power having taxed him somewhat, although within him the energy waited to be dispersed when he needed it.
He hoped that when the time was right, his newfound powers would not fail him.
That he would not fail Cynthia.
***
A soft nudge on her shoulder woke her.
Cynthia roused and realized from the gray-blue sky above that the sun was beginning to set. She had been asleep for a few hours. As she stretched out the kinks in her back, she shot Rafe an accusatory glare.
“You were supposed to wake me.”
“You needed to rest, but we should get moving.”
He held out his hand to help her up. He had already slung his immense backpack over his shoulders, carrying the weight as if it wasn’t any kind of burden.
She picked up her pack, struggling a bit with its bulk as her muscles protested the strain. They were already sore from her earlier use of the machete. Rafe quickly moved to help her slip it on, easing some of the pack’s weight for her. With the pack dragging at her and the straps digging into her shoulders, she readjusted the weight to try to make it more comfortable. Once she was set, she accepted the rifle he held out to her and shifted the bolt back to check the ammunition in the gun.
The noise of the bolt action seemed loud in the growing quiet of dusk.
Rafe brought a finger to his lips, reminding her of the need for stealth.
She nodded and he slipped out into the narrow grassy path along the temple wall, moving swiftly in the direction of the entrance. As the skies continued
to darken with the approach of dusk, he occasionally looked up at the sky. Cynthia did also, expecting another appearance by the demon demi-goddess, but it remained peaceful as night continued to fall.
When they finally neared their objective, the last remnants of the sun were shining on a break in the temple wall ahead of them.
The entrance, Cynthia realized. Illuminated by the sun’s setting rays for anyone to see. Maybe even to signal Eztli Etalpalli that the friendly night had come and She was free to seize her blood tribute.
Rafe held his fist up in a stop signal and then quickly motioned for her to retreat back into the jungle. He did as well, careful to make his progress as silently as possible.
He squatted down amid the protective cover of the underbrush and she did the same, waiting. Anticipation making her hands sweat on the stock of the rifle. Her heart raced with both fear and anticipation as Cynthia waited for the moment when the demon might emerge.
Beside her Rafe seemed calm, but as their gazes met, his apprehension was obvious. With a tight smile, he ran his fingers down her cheek in a gesture meant to soothe.
A second later a faint scuffle snagged her attention. The sound seemed to echo against something hollow.
In the final rays of the sun, a sharp edge glinted ahead of them in the area of the temple entrance. Shiny like a knife, piercing the coming night with its brightness.
Another scuffle followed. Louder and not as hollow sounding. A second spot of brightness joined the first—talons, she realized.
Sharp. Long. Lethal.
Reflecting the fading sunlight.
With speed beyond anything she had ever seen, the talons flashed and retracted from sight. Suddenly a large wooden door swung open at the temple entrance.
An immense whoosh filled the night air and a breeze washed over her as an incredibly large body disappeared into the last rays of the sun. A screech, familiar and frightening, seemed to call out a warning to beware and was followed by the eerie clatter of bony wings.
The door immediately slammed shut and the night stilled, becoming almost alarmingly quiet as if the animals in the jungle understood the demon was on the hunt.
“It’s too much to hope that the door is still unlocked,” she said, leaning close to Rafe.
“We can hope,” he teased, forcing a smile onto his face in an attempt to ease her fears.
He removed his backpack as she did, wanting freedom of mobility in case Eztli Etalpalli returned while they were trying to breach the portal.
As they neared the door, it became clear that it had been added to the structure by the Spaniards, maybe as a way to contain the demon. The door boasted their distinctive style and wrought-iron trappings. Contrary to their hope, the door had locked behind the winged demon and the mechanism was plain old metal.
Rafe covered the lock with his hand, attempting to use the nahual power, but the lock defied his initial attempts to release it since there was nothing mystical about it.
A mouse scurried by at their feet as he worked on the lock and Rafe muttered a curse beneath his breath.
“What’s wrong?” she said and laid a hand on his arm.
“Shy of either shooting or blasting this door open—”
“Which is bound to bring the demon back in a flash—”
“We need another way to get in,” he finished, bent and caught the small gray field mouse against the jamb of the door.
“Rafe?”
He cupped the mouse between his large palms. A twinkle of static electricity began to encircle his hands and in low tones he said, “Step back, Cyn.”
She did and watched in amazement as the glow began around the small creature and then a dance of sparks intensified until it was nearly impossible to see the body of the mouse between Rafe’s palms. So intent was she on focusing on the mouse that she didn’t realize the sudden change in Rafe’s physical form until the hair began to sprout along the backs of his hands.
She immediately looked up but caught only the barest glimpse of the gray-brown fur covering his entire body before he seemingly disappeared before her eyes, leaving two nearly identical mice on the ground. Kneeling, she went to examine them, but one mouse scurried away into the underbrush. The second mouse—slightly larger and with Rafe’s beautiful topaz eyes—seemed to nod at her before it scampered off in the direction of the temple door.
Rafe ran back and forth along the bottom of the door, searching for a way to enter. Then he stopped and squeezed his head through a small gap at one of the corners where weather and other rodents had eroded the wood. Slowly he eased the rest of his body through the tiny opening until finally all that was left was Rafe’s mouse tail. With a little whip of that he disappeared behind the temple door.
A little more than a minute passed before the low groan of metal against metal was followed by the creak of wood as the door began to open. Cynthia didn’t waste a second in grabbing their backpacks and lugging them to the entrance where a pale-looking Rafe waited.
His clothes were drenched in sweat and his face glistened, highlighting a sickly pallor beneath his tanned skin.
“Are you okay?”
He nodded. His voice when he spoke was strained. “Just need to find a place to rest. That took more energy than I expected.”
Beyond the door loomed complete darkness and Cynthia snagged a flashlight from her pack and panned its beam into the temple to reveal what was within: a large anteroom, decorated with Aztec mosaics and drawings, and a few stone benches. Beyond the anteroom were two tunnels and as she shifted the light along the floor, a pattern of odd-looking footprints in the dirt revealed from which direction Eztli Etalpalli had likely emerged.
She kept the flashlight beam trained on the tracks in the soil. They were the shape of a human foot, but longer and with the scrape and drag of her talons in the toe region. “She came from the tunnel to the right.”
“Which means David and Dani could be there,” Rafe said. He had unpacked his handheld lantern and turned it on, illuminating the entire room with its brighter light and confirming the path of the tracks from the one tunnel to the door.
“Or she could have them in another holding area and that’s where she rests. Either way, you’re not strong enough for us to face her, so it’s door number two,” she quipped and shone the light in the direction of the other tunnel.
“You’re right. If we can find a place where I can recharge, we’ll be in better to shape to handle her when She returns.”
He headed to the hallway, holding the lantern high up and in front of him as they walked deeper into the demi-goddess’s den. The walls along the tunnel were decorated with drawings and tiles in colors undimmed by the sun. The joyful brilliance of the artwork was an odd counterpart to the stories it told—ones of deadly sacrifice to satisfy the goddess.
Cynthia paused in front of one panel of drawings and inscriptions that explained how Izpapalotl had fallen in love with a nahual human and taken him as a lover while posing as a normal woman. The union had resulted in a child: Eztli Etalpalli. A panel a little farther down detailed the demon demi-goddess’s birth and life up until the time of her banishment.
Unlike her full-blooded goddess mother, Eztli Etalpalli lacked the power to assume human shape, even though her father had been mortal and a nahual. Because of that, Izpapalotl had kept her far away from civilization, fearful of what others might do to the half-demon child.
When Eztli Etalpalli had grown enough to defend herself, coming into her own powers, Izpapalotl had demanded of her worshippers that they build this temple for her daughter. That they deliver their tributes there for safekeeping.
The rest of the story they already knew: Eztli Etalpalli’s dissatisfaction and greed had led to her exile deep in the jungle.
After examining more of the panels, they moved on and about fifteen yards into the structure, they came upon another room, smaller than the anteroom and with only one hall leading from it deeper into the temple. As before, there were some stone ben
ches and a fire pit next to which sat a mass of upended volcanic rocks. As she looked upward, Cynthia realized there appeared to be a small opening near the top, although it had been partially obscured by the dirt and vegetation that had covered the temple over the centuries.
“A steam bath. Probably for her priests.”
Rafe outstretched one hand palm up and closed his eyes. “The energy here is still strong.”
He faced her and handed her the lantern. “Let’s rest here so I can prepare.”
She didn’t question him. The tone of authority in his voice conveyed that his decision was above challenge. Rafe had always been in control in the past. While it might have bothered her before, she acknowledged that she had become empowered in her own way now and could handle Rafe if he got too overbearing
Much as she had after his declaration last night that she was leaving the village in the morning.
As he took a position close to the remains of the fire pit, she dropped her knapsack against the opposite wall and waited to see what Rafe would do next.
Chapter Eight
Rafe was pleased that Cyn had decided not to challenge him. All his attention had to be focused on restoring his physical energy so that he could protect them and hopefully save his brother and Dani.
He almost staggered to the floor as he released his bag and it dropped to the ground. He was incredibly weak from the shape-shift to the mouse. The first couple of times he had transformed, the nahual had been there to assist him in channeling the animals’ energies and those of the free-floating forces around them. He assumed that was the reason he hadn’t been as debilitated as he was now. The nahual had likely assisted him with some of his own energy to lend a hand with those earlier transformations.
As he plopped onto the floor, he crossed his legs and held out his arms. With a deep measured breath, he closed his eyes and concentrated on his hands, beginning the process of gathering the energy. Then he turned his focus to his physical core, bringing it into alignment to accept the power swirling around him.
Aztec Gold Page 8
