Temple of the Jaguar

by Aiden James

  “I guess it ain’t your job today,” I told Ishi, grinning wryly. “For now, you had better leave the talking to me.”

  He scowled, but nodded in agreement. We hurried to climb into the Jeep before our irritated client laid on the horn.

  I cut Ishi a wry grin as we hurried to get into the Jeep

  “Doesn’t look like you’ll be driving,” I said to my friend.

  When normally in a rush I wouldn’t bother taking a shower. Hell, once we were in the jungle’s heat it wouldn’t matter anyway. But, for some damned reason I felt I should be as gentlemanly as four minutes would allow. It was just enough to take a cold shower and gargle away the lingering gin from the night before.

  Rather than give me any more clues as to what she knew about the disk and the road to Ciudad Blanca, Marie deftly turned the conversation to lighter subjects. That surprised me. Not the subjects themselves, but rather the fact we were soon discussing the Jeep she had rented for us the next day, and a week’s supplies. She didn’t like my joke about getting lost in an unexplored jungle and fighting over the last strip of jerky and a bottle of water before one of us turned into Alfred Packer.

  It was an out-of-sync feeling for Ishi and I, since normally its just him and me traveling together to a site. And, it’s not like we hadn’t made a trip before into the hostile jungles surrounding the remains of Ciudad Blanca. Hell, the entire area has been picked over since Cortes failed to find the legendary city and its immense caches of gold and precious gems—not to mention other artifacts that many a museum would pay a handsome fee for.

  I prepared to give Marie some well-deserved grief about wasting our time looking for something that was likely no longer there. But her intuitions beat me to the punch.

  “You’re probably thinking we’re headed for the city wall structures that have recently been uncovered. Right?” she said, wearing a smirk not all that unlike the one I had been wearing since we veered from the main highway twenty minutes earlier.

  “Ain’t that where we’re headed?” I snickered softly, and Ishi echoed that sentiment loud enough to draw an angry glance from our present employer.

  “Hmmmm. You’ll see in a moment.”

  She suddenly swung the Jeep onto a rutted dirt road that veered away from the excavated walls she mentioned. In fact, there really wasn’t much of a road at all...just a worn truck path through the thick brush and mostly undisturbed vegetation. This would really suck if she hit an unseen boulder or tire-rut that could snap the bouncing vehicle’s front axle.

  But just when the bounces threatened to catapult Ishi from his seat and out into the surrounding mangroves, Marie veered onto yet another old road. This one, however, wasn’t anywhere near as difficult to navigate through. Marie rolled down her window while slowing the vehicle down to where it crept along the road. The jungle trees and other plant life had been cleared here long ago, although the mangroves and vines had made a concerted effort to encroach upon the beaten path as it led deeper into the jungle.

  “I don’t suppose there’s a Howard Johnson’s up ahead,” I deadpanned. “According to every legend, map, or drunken Meskito I’ve dealt with since I’ve been down here, there ain’t nothin’ worth the pain in the ass it can turn into out here. In fact, most Hondurans will tell you there isn’t anything out here, period. So, you better not be lost.”

  “I’m not lost,” she said, eying me coyly. I felt like a heel for being an ass a moment ago, and the way her lovely eyes regarded me... “We’re less than a mile from where that photograph of my father was taken. We’ll need to park and walk in a moment.”

  Maybe it was the cool comfort inside the Jeep. But she seemed much more in control of herself as compared to the night before. Of course, that would likely change in a few minutes, when the oppressive heat was re-introduced to our lovely companion. Especially considering that the road had a significant incline. Soon she and we would be covered in sweat and dust...I tried not to think what that combination would look like on her if she were naked. But, it sure beat the hell out of thinking of Ishi sans his clothes.

  When Marie decided to park, it was damned near as abrupt as when she entered this God-forsaken side-road. She wasn’t in the mood for idle chit-chat, which made me think maybe she’d be all right in the humid heat that would make her clothes cling to her sumptuous curves. Good for me, and a nice distraction to look forward to. As for the destination she sought...well it wasn’t as close as she said it’d be, since she took off looking for it before Ishi and I had exited the Jeep.

  “The place will still be there in five minutes,” I chided her, to little avail, and even less of a reply. She headed up the hill to what looked like a small cave opening that was partially hidden in dense foliage.

  “Why is she so much like a zombie?” asked Ishi. In truth, he likely meant to say a different word. Then again, she was acting like something foreign had taken over her brain.

  “Just take it as the difference between an American and Honduran female,” I said, hoping he’d follow my lead to run after her.

  “I heard that!”

  She glanced over her shoulder, but didn’t stop until she had reached a flat boulder resting against another almost twice its size, a few feet away from the cave’s entrance. She waited for Ishi and me to catch up to her.

  “This is the spot where my father had his picture taken with the Jaguar disk,” she said, her tone suddenly sad as if reminiscing about that moment. “It was right after his crew drug it out from below the earth.”

  “Drug it out with what?” I moved over to the cave. It seemed much deeper than it had from when I first noticed it. Something slithered amid the vines that threatened to obscure the cave entrance someday soon. “From inside here?”

  Ishi joined me while looking around warily. Most critters guarding an entrance like this one are either venomous or aggressive, and usually both.

  “Yes, and that’s where we’ll need to go next,” she said, smiling smugly.

  There was a private joke in there somewhere...and it wouldn’t be about the fact her damp clothing hugged her curves.

  Ishi began separating the vines around the cave entrance—and nearly did a back flip when a pair of bats flew up out of the hole. He must’ve startled them awake. Marie chuckled.

  I scowled at her and came up behind Ishi. Among other things, I keep a small, high-powered flashlight at my hip. I’ll leave the torches for Indiana Jones, thank you. I snapped it on and flashed it through the opening. There was, I could see, a formidable pit just inside the entrance—a pit that had been nearly covered in a tangle of vines. And not just any pit. It seemed to span from cave wall to cave wall, with no apparent way around it. No doubt many an adventurer had met his fate at whatever lay at the bottom of the pit. Too far to jump. I aimed the light higher...nothing but darkness.

  I stepped back and turned to my friend.

  “Ishi, get the ropes—”

  “You won’t need a rope or a vine to get down there,” she chided.

  “How do you know?”

  “I’ll show you,” she said, and moved around me, and pushed through the tangle of vines...and promptly disappeared.

  Chapter Nine

  Ishi looked at me, raising his eyebrows. But I was already moving, sweeping aside the hanging vines and stepping over a particularly nasty-looking banana spider, when a voice called out from the dark depths of the cave.

  “Careful, Nick.”

  I was now standing at the edge of the pit, perhaps closer than I had intended. Indeed, rocks and debris spilled over, falling for many, many seconds before I heard muffled clattering from far below. Deep pit. I hate that.

  I flashed my light over the darkened cave walls, scattering shadows and critters alike, until I found a peculiar sight. It was Marie and, not unlike the other critters scurrying before the light, was crawling along the wall herself.

  “What in the hell?”

  Ishi came up behind me, brushing me slightly, knocking me forward just
enough where I nearly lost my lunch as I reached back and caught the tail of his shirt, stabilizing myself.

  Ishi mumbled an apology—perhaps a little too halfheartedly for my tastes—and must have spotted Marie on the wall. Not hard to miss since she was presently the focus of my single beam of light. The Tawankan mumbled something about a devil monkey, which I, in a rare burst of good taste, decided not to relay.

  “There’re...handholds...to your right,” she gasped, leaping from the wall and landing safely at the far end of the sizable pit, where just enough ambient light from the tunnels entrance illuminated her way.

  “Hand—what?”

  She turned on her own flashlight and pointed to her left, my right. I looked, following her finger, flashing my light over the walls. I didn’t see it at first—in fact, not until Ishi ran his hand over the wall and gripped something that looked remarkably like a handhold, although perfectly camouflaged within the wall.

  Ishi pointed and I spied a trail of such handholds and foot ledges that led around the pit, to the far side, where Marie presently stood, hands on hips and grinning.

  “How in the hell did you know—” And then it occurred to me. “The disc glyph,” I said, nodding.

  “But of course. Now come on. You’re wasting time!”

  Ishi was already moving, gripping the handholds and stepping up onto a barely discernible ledge. Soon the native Tawankan was moving hand over hand, stepping from ledge to ledge, like a devil monkey himself. Myself, I didn’t move as quickly or as confidently, and as I gripped each subsequent stone protrusion, I recalled her father’s notes from the night before. They had indeed spoken of the spider’s path over the well of souls. At the time, we had no clue what it referenced.

  But Marie had put it all together—and quickly. Even putting her life at risk in the process. That bespoke of her confidence in her self. Or her foolishness. And in the looting game, both could get you killed.

  Now, as I dropped to the dust-covered tunnel floor—fairly confident that the nail to my right index finger had split down the middle, I caught Ishi’s wide-eyed expression, and I knew he was equally impressed.

  “Don’t look so surprised, Mr. Caine. I am, after all, my father’s daughter. Now c’mon, according to my father’s directions we’re supposed to look for a river.”

  And with that, she turned and headed deeper into the tunnel, confidently sweeping her light before her.

  Or foolishly. Either way, Ishi and I soon followed.

  * * *

  Most subterranean tunnels tend to get warmer the deeper one goes, and this one was no different. Soon we were all sweating through our shirts. Some of us more profusely than others.

  “She sweats a lot for a woman,” said Ishi in his native tongue.

  “I noticed,” I said.

  “Not that I’m complaining,” he added.

  “Neither am I.”

  Marie looked back at us and raised an eyebrow, but I couldn’t help but detect a small smirk on her face. Or maybe it was a trick of lighting.

  The tunnel wasn’t much of a tunnel. It seemed more like a series of descending platforms that led deeper and deeper into the earth. To where, I hadn’t a clue, but I suspected a river might very well be in our immediate future. Especially since her father was considered one of the world’s foremost experts on Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican paleo-linguistics, and the map translation Marie had shown to me last night spoke an underground river.

  That, and he nailed the spider-thing around the Pit to Hell, or whatever it was called.

  Her father was a man I both trusted and respected. A man who was now dead, thanks to his own brother. I shook my head, reminding myself to stay far away from the Da Vinci family reunions.

  We reached a section of tunnel that was nearly a twenty-foot drop. I went first, despite Marie’s protests. I was going to have to keep an eye on her. Her need to prove herself was going to get her hurt. Or dead.

  A good thing, too. As I dropped down, landing lightly on a small shelf of rock, I wasn’t entirely prepared for what I came face to face with.

  Chapter Ten

  “What do you see down there?”

  “Shhh!” I scolded Ishi, as I glanced at where he crouched above me. “Unless you want me to become dinner for this thing.”

  Dinner? More like a cheap ‘bar and grill’ appetizer.

  It might’ve been a snake. Or, perhaps some sort of prehistoric eel that had managed to outwit thousands of years of evolution by hiding in the depths of this god-forsaken place. Maybe that’s why Cortes never found the gold he sought. Maybe it’s also why very few explorers—namely none not named Da Vinci—even know about this cave system that I’d never heard of before. Maybe it’s—

  “What in the hell is holding us up, Nick?”

  Count on the diva in the band to be thinking only of her pretty neck and self-imposed deadlines.

  “It might take a moment to figure this out.”

  Hopefully, anyway. It all depended on what the thing eyeballing me from less than three feet away decided to do first. It eyed me emotionlessly as it hung down from a deep-growing tree root. The flashlight’s beam might’ve eventually caught the damned thing, but I had immediately noticed the glowing lines along the sucker’s back and legs. Its cold eyes were aglow, resembling two perfect moons. In fact, the only things not glowing on this bioluminescent critter were its teeth. I might not have ever seen them if they hadn’t suddenly been revealed in the narrow halogen beam.

  “Figure what out? We haven’t got all goddamned day, Nick!”

  “Then maybe you’d like to come down here and say hello to our new friend.”

  I didn’t wait for her reply. I couldn’t. Did I mention that this lizard thing, which sort of looked like a cross between a giant eel, snake, and gila monster had suddenly dropped down onto a narrow ledge ahead of me? Probably not. I imagine I likely also forgot to mention that its bared teeth were nearly as long as my fingers, and I know for damned sure I never told anyone that these teeth had green slime dripping down them as the critter salivated. If it was preparing for a meal, then I was more likely the entrée as opposed to a dinner guest.

  “We’re coming down, Nick!” Ishi advised.

  “No!”

  “What?!” said our princess. “You obviously need our help, so here we—Oh my God, Nick, look out!”

  Too late.

  The critter uncoiled its body and leaped toward me in the dimness. I hit it with the only thing handy—my flashlight. It landed against its head with a solid ‘thunk’, and I foolishly expected the bastard to tumble down into the chasm below. But it somehow managed to use its near ten-foot long body to balance itself upon the edge of the shelf I stood upon long enough to reach over and sink its sharp talons into the chasm’s wall.

  Oh, shit!

  Meanwhile, Ishi and Marie had lowered a rope to me. I mistakenly thought they might be attempting to rescue me from my unfortunate predicament. But then Ishi landed on the ledge behind me and away from the critter that was stealthily creeping toward me. Marie landed next to him.

  Bad move on their parts. Very bad.

  “What in the hell is that thing?” she whispered worriedly.

  “I don’t know—just something that’s really hungry! Get your asses moving! NOW!”

  Luckily, I noticed that the narrow ledge seemed a slight bit wider a short distance ahead of where Marie now ran. Apparently, she knew the path to potential safety was there, which brought my blood to a rapid boil. I shoved Ishi toward her, telling him to stay with her.

  “What about you?! ...And, what in the hell is that thing?”

  I only saw his terrified look and his shaking hand for a moment while he pointed beyond me to the critter that had raised itself onto its hind legs.

  “Just go, Ishi! I’ll be along as soon as I take care of this asshole!”

  I turned back to face our menace, hoping Ishi listened and got his ass in gear for his own good. I promised myself there would be a seriou
s coming to Jesus moment between me and our debutante, whose sexiness was rapidly waning with me, once I made it out of this mess...if I made it out alive.

  The critter hissed its displeasure. I suppose it wasn’t accustomed to a potential meal fighting back. I had only a brief moment to consider what to do next. Should I turn around and run like the others? Or, should I stand my ground using a dented flashlight that now flickered on the verge of dying out? Tough decision and a bad time to be without a Ken Blanchard action plan.

  Then I suddenly remembered the pickaxe strapped to my side. I couldn’t believe I had forgotten it, swearing to the Good Lord that I would never drink my mind into such sluggishness the night before an expedition ever again.

  Just let me kill this angry mother and...

  It took a swipe at me, the wind lifting my bangs from my forehead as its claw just missed my face.

  My turn.

  Rather than spar with this thing, which I had little understanding of in the first place, I swung repeatedly with the axe, catching the tip in the critter’s belly scales several times while it hissed angrily. One of the last blows came close to pay dirt, and I just knew the next shot would puncture its heart.

  I prepared to slam the pickaxe into the critter’s chest and brought my weapon down hard. But it had better reflexes than I had anticipated. It brought its left claw up to meet my right hand, and while I marveled at its sudden dexterity, the axe flew out of my hand and fell harmlessly into the chasm below.

  Uh-oh.

  Without a serviceable weapon, I was now officially screwed. Meanwhile, Marie and Ishi called for me from somewhere nearby...maybe fifty to seventy feet away. I turned toward their voices for just an instant, and the critter pounced.

  It cost me my favorite hat. No, I didn’t throw the damned thing at it—my cherished wide-brim fedora meant far too much for me to ever do something as drastic as that. However, sharp claws attempting to harpoon my skull and coming away with my preferred head cover instead certainly qualifies as a good reason not to mourn the loss.