Force of Fire

by Ali Vali

  “Let me go down into one you’ve cleared, and we’ll take it from there,” Kendal said, walking with Piper to the first one Oscar said they’d opened. She placed the bow and quiver next to the hatch and climbed down the ladder. The trigger was something she’d seen placed in the tombs of the pharaohs and was rather sophisticated for the time period during which it was placed. “Did any of the men who died show any outward sign of injury aside from falling off the ladder on the way in?”

  “None, and we looked for anything that might’ve led us to what happened to them. They went in, screamed, then fell before dying what sounded like a painful death,” Oscar said.

  “It was something they inhaled,” she said, pointing to the very small hole in the dirt. “I’m not sure exactly how it works, but it’s a type of motion-sensored thing, and there might be more than one in each chamber. It’s a type of deterrent to anyone trying to enter a tomb, for example to steal the treasures inside.” She found four more holes and wracked her memory for any information on how they were set.

  “How did you know that? We looked for weeks before I decided to send anyone else down, with the same kind of result,” Oscar said, moving to the next one and finding the same thing. “Are you an archeologist?”

  “I’m more of a student of history, and I’ve seen the same kind of thing in Egypt. They set them to scare off grave robbers, but after the final trap was sprung, they emptied those tombs fast and without fear.”

  “So how do we get in without inhaling ancient poisonous gas?” Piper asked.

  “Let’s get the top off, and I’ll think of something.” They moved to where the next set of small flags was stuck in the ground after Oscar had said that was how they’d marked the next slab of hieroglyphs that covered each chamber.

  “Why not walk the length and see if that’s the one you want to go into?” Kendal suggested to her, and she nodded, holding out her hand again. “Take your time. I’ve got people looking out for any of Alejandro’s men in case they come back.”

  Piper started slowly making her way along and thought of the first time she’d seen this place and of walking this in the opposite direction with Lumas. They’d made their way slowly to the large pyramid, and only now did she realize they’d paused toward the back of the avenue. Lumas hadn’t said anything, but her having stopped to greet her was her only clue, so Piper stopped at the same place.

  “This one,” she said, and Morgaine and Kendal started cleaning the dirt and grass that grew over the slab so Rawney could look at it. It took all of them and the help of the horses to move the stone enough to reach the hatch, and she had everyone stand back until she was sure no more snakes or other surprises were coming out of the hole.

  Kendal walked back to where the dead men lay, picked one up, and slung him over her shoulder. They lowered a ladder into the hole, and she slowly slid the man down before pulling him up and then lowering him again. Whatever set the trigger off made a small puff of air, then another when she picked him up and lowered him again.

  “It should be fine now,” Kendal said, glancing at Oscar and laughing when he took a step back. “And I volunteer to go first, so you can relax.” She went in and turned the flame up on the lantern she’d brought with her so Piper could see when she made it down. “I don’t think anything’s down here,” she said when Piper stood next to her.

  “Would you sit with me for a little while?” she asked, and Kendal moved to the corner as if wanting the best view of the room. “My mind wanders better when you’re next to me.”

  “Let’s hope that doesn’t happen all the time,” Kendal said, kissing the side of her neck when she made room for her on her lap. “Sometimes I want your total attention.”

  “I don’t think you have to worry about that, but be quiet for now.”

  She rested her head on Kendal’s shoulder and closed her eyes, thinking only of how her life had so dramatically changed in such a short period. For so long she’d worried about nothing but the next contract and getting the job done at Marmande Shipyard, and now she was sitting in an ancient room built to house things neither she nor anyone else would believe ever existed.

  “Breathe, my love,” Kendal said, and she seemed to float very gently into a past that was as real as Kendal.

  Costa Rican Rain Forest, 6130 BC

  “Do you want us to carve the walls as well, Lumas?” the old man asked as they stood in the center of the chamber Lumas had told them was as important as the large structures outside.

  The workmen had done an excellent job of stacking stones for the walls and finding capstones for the roof with the hole cut out for the hatches. They would all be topped with stones covered in writing that none of the tribe knew the meaning of, but that wasn’t important right now. The messages carved in stone weren’t for these people. They were for the ones who’d come years from now.

  “Yes.” She took the animal skin from her bag and gave it to him. “Tell the stone workers to make sure they follow each symbol precisely, and let me know when you’re done.”

  “Why all these rooms?” The old man asked the question with his head bowed, as if almost afraid of either the asking or the answer.

  Lumas peered over his head and seemed to meet Piper’s eye. “The rooms will seem like a waste if they’re ever found, but they hold everything important to the gods that will rest here. Not everyone who will search will find the answers, but they’ll wait for the worthy one to reveal themselves.”

  “It will be done,” the old man said and climbed the ladder to carry out her wishes.

  “If you found the book and our remains, then you need to find the answer to these rooms,” Lumas said, coming to sit next to her. “Once you succeed, you need to leave here and find the truth of what the goddess wanted all along.”

  “So the truth isn’t here?” she said, thinking of all the men who’d died.

  “The truth isn’t what the Order of Fuego thinks it is, but you need to find it before it’s twisted into something that won’t be able to be undone.”

  “Can’t you tell me more than that? If I knew more, we could stop whatever these people want to do,” she said, taking Lumas’s hand.

  “The telling isn’t for me to give you, Piper, but you have everything you need now. Anything found here won’t overcome what and who you have with you. The last page will bring the light into this darkness.”

  * * *

  Piper woke to Kendal holding her and shook her head. She stared at the spot where Lumas had sat, and she had seemed so real, Piper expected to see her. “You’re right about some of these things we have to do. They’re damn aggravating.”

  “What exactly did she say?” Kendal asked and listened as if she’d have to take a test when she was done. “I think I know why she sent us to the tomb first.”

  Kendal called Rawney down and asked her to bring her book. “What do you want me to do? I’ve been skimming the book and can’t understand most of it. This was my mother’s, but it’s not the family book.”

  “Try the last page,” Piper said, understanding what Kendal meant.

  Rawney started speaking in what sounded like a meshing of different known languages, but she didn’t understand any of it, yet Kendal seemed to be following along. Kendal turned and stared at the blank walls until the veil that seemed to cover them fell away. Whatever the symbols meant was yet another mystery because she didn’t recognize even one.

  “Do you know what it says?” she asked Rawney and groaned when she shook her head.

  “It’s the first hieroglyphics used in Egypt,” Kendal said, running her fingers along the carvings. “My father taught them to me so I could use them in the field when I needed to send him a message for his eyes only.”

  “What do they say?” Rawney asked, sounding sad. “It’s like she wanted everyone but me to understand her and why she did this.”

  “Maybe not.” Kendal moved back so she could see every line. “To my child,” Kendal read, and Rawney took her free hand.
“My grave holds more than ash and knowledge, so take everything to where we answered the goddess’s call. First, though, go to the golden palace that holds the dragon’s heart.”

  “She didn’t happen to put any GPS coordinates, did she?” Piper asked, and Rawney laughed.

  “She couldn’t take the chance that someone would decipher how to uncover the message before we got here. All we need to figure out is where that is,” Kendal said, smiling at her. “You might have to go down into each chamber before we head back to the house,” she said to Rawney.

  Piper climbed out and waited for Kendal as Rawney entered each chamber already opened, and they worked to unearth the others. Oscar took pictures of every capstone and the writings on the wall Rawney had unearthed. He reluctantly handed his camera to Charlie when he finished but seemed to understand why they mistrusted him.

  She followed Kendal to the top of the pyramid, where the pack leader was buried, and they watched the team uncover the last chamber that was marked. Like the first one they’d witnessed, snakes came out and started toward the pyramid they were standing on. Only this time they stopped and clustered together, raising their heads in unison, their bodies twisted together.

  “There’s nothing else here,” Kendal said, taking her hand for the way down.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because if anything was here, it’s not here any longer. We’ll have to travel again, but we have to do some more things before we leave.”

  “No wonder all these things are a big riddle. You’re talking, but I don’t understand what in the world you’re saying, so you’re cut from the same cloth,” she joked.

  “The next place we have to look is a world away, but we need to find everything Lumas left us before we go.” The snakes slithered into the jungle before they made it down, and she was just as glad since they weren’t her favorite creatures in the world.

  “Maybe next time, Lumas could send her messages through cute bunnies.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Pauline gazed out the helicopter window. Had the ruby they’d found been mentioned in any of the archives Alejandro kept in a large vault in the middle of the house? She stepped out and immediately got back in and had the crew close the door when she saw some of her father’s experiments headed toward the chopper.

  “What the hell are they doing out of their cage?” she asked the pilot.

  “I’m not sure, but let me call the house.” He spoke to someone, and a few minutes later Alejandro stepped out and the pilot exited and opened the door for her, even though the creatures were still close by. “He said to meet him out back on the platform.”

  She took a deep breath and stepped out, trying not to show fear when one ran toward her and stopped to hiss. The creatures weren’t new, but she couldn’t believe some of the villagers from the settlement less than five miles away had agreed to subject their family members to this hellish existence for the promise of power and money once the gods were set free.

  Her insides felt like they were vibrating from fear, but she tried to show no outward sign as she walked past the creature still hissing and now snapping at her while its handler backed it up with a smile, as if pleased with her discomfort. If the decision was hers she’d kill every one of these things her father had created and return to their mission and nothing else.

  “Give it to me,” Alejandro said, extending his hand to her and opening and closing it as if impatient to see the first tangible thing they’d actually found at the dig.

  She reached into her pocket and fisted the ruby before handing it over. The stone seemed flawless and radiated some sort of warmth that wasn’t from her own body heat. “It was on a small platform with a perfectly carved indentation to house it.”

  “That chamber held no markings either?” he asked, holding the stone up to the sun.

  “The walls were blank, just like the others. I was surprised this was in there, but we lost another two men opening the chamber. If we can’t figure out what’s killing them, I doubt even the most devout will continue to work on this project.” She stood away from him, not chancing that he’d take his usually bad mood out on her by throwing her down the mountain.

  “There’s nothing else to find,” he said, placing the stone in his pocket and pointing toward the house. “Whoever this Genesis Clan is, they’re at the site now, and Franco Rodriguez is dead. I’m sure their next stop is to visit his family, so I sent someone to take care of that before they mention my name.”

  “How do you know all that?”

  “I had men watching over you, and one high up in the trees to make sure nothing went wrong.” He sat at his desk and placed the stone in front of him. “They found something away from the site, and my man couldn’t see exactly what it was, but they walked right up to it as if they knew it was there.”

  “You didn’t find anything about that in the archives?” She watched him take a box from a drawer that fit the stone perfectly. Oscar was right that her father knew more than he was saying, since he obviously was sure the stone would eventually be found.

  “No. If I had, I’d have told you or that idiot Oscar to dig it up. The site is a dead end now, so we have to concentrate on the next phase of our mission.” He stood and motioned her to follow him to the large vault, where he placed the stone on a shelf next to a stack of books. Putting it away with no explanation meant he wouldn’t share with her what it might mean to their plans. The table at the center of the room had a few books opened on it, but he poured two drinks and pointed to the chair opposite him. “Let’s talk about what comes next.”

  She glanced down at the books and saw the sketches of dragons in one, and a man standing in the flames in the other. Her guess was, Alejandro saw himself as the man who’d defy death in the dragon fire once the time came. “What happened to Franco?”

  “My man told me the people that are here to stop us killed him for information about me.” He drank some of the liquor he’d poured with a smile, and she wondered what he was thinking about. “He didn’t give up much before they dropped him into one of the chambers, effectively killing him, but the one interesting thing was the woman we shot and threw over the mountain side was one of the people questioning him.”

  “How is that possible?” she asked, and it seemed her life had veered off into some strange place where she didn’t know much about her surroundings. It hit her how much she missed her mother and the sense of peace she’d brought to her heart. “Maybe it was someone who looked like her.”

  “He said he was fairly sure it was her, so it makes me want to know more about this Genesis Clan and what they’re about.” He held up his glass and gazed at her with an expression that resembled pride, so she tapped her glass to his and took a drink. “Right now, though, I want to celebrate your find and the dedication you’ve put into this. Of all my children, you’ve come the farthest in this journey with me.”

  “Thank you,” she said, but the room started to spin a little so she placed her glass on the table, not wanting to spill the rest. “I’m sorry,” she said, holding her head and blinking rapidly, trying to make herself focus, but his face was starting to dim around the edges. The last thing she remembered was glancing at the glass and cursing her need for his approval.

  Alejandro watched as Pauline slumped forward, her face landing on the table as slack as if she were sleeping, and waited for his second high priest, Javier Valentino. Javier knew as much about the site and the archives as he did, but he seldom allowed anyone to meet him in case the outside world discovered how important his second in command was to him and what he wanted. Since they were raised together from almost birth, Javier knew all his secrets and would take them all to the grave, but he didn’t plan to take any chances.

  “Are you sure?” Javier said, combing Pauline’s hair from her face.

  “You’ve read the passage as many times as I have,” he said, throwing Pauline’s glass away. “Up to now our plans have gone flawlessly, and she found the stone li
ke you predicted she would after we sent Oscar running.”

  “Fear’s always a great motivator, so we’ll wait Oscar out and get him back when he’s found something. Right now, though, it’s time.” Alejandro took his jacket off, picked Pauline up, and carried her to the building next to the main house.

  The building had only one huge room with a replica of the large pyramid where the two demons had killed the gods years before, and it still served as their altar. So much time and so many secrets had been lost since that night their forefathers had made the witches pay for their act of betrayal, but that was getting ready to end. They were so close he could almost touch the beasts that would bend to his will.

  A stainless-steel table sat at the center of the altar, and he placed Pauline on it. Javier immediately started to bind her in case the drug wore off before they could start. When his daughter had first told him about the snakes that had come from the ground after they removed the second stone, he couldn’t believe what he was hearing, having read it years before. The spirit of the gods had to go somewhere, and they’d been lying dormant until someone released them from their prisons.

  The men had run from the abnormally large serpents, but he’d trusted Javier’s followers to capture as many as they could find for the ceremony they were about to perform. It’d worked up to now, but not like the accounts the archives had listed, so he figured they needed someone with a true believer’s blood.

  Javier opened the box next to the table, and one of the large snakes came out and coiled on top of Pauline, as if it knew what was expected of it. Alejandro smiled when he noted the size of it and leaned down and kissed Pauline on the lips to wake her up. Her lips reacted under his, and she opened her eyes and started screaming until he squeezed her face so hard all she could do was whimper, but he could see the wildness in her expression as she looked from him to the snake.