by K. T. Tomb
“The wedding has been moved to El Castillo. Kukulkan asked me to take you there. We’re running late.”
It was the best I had and it seemed to satisfy her.
Chapter Sixteen
My explanation had served the purpose and from that point on, Eva came along willingly.
I took note that there were a large number of the small, curtained dressing rooms on both sides of the corridor, as well as torches in holders along the wall. I had considered searching for Eva’s clothing and our fanny packs, whatever became of them, remembering that Eva had her cell phone in hers, but decided that it would only be a matter of time before there would be a pursuit. Enrique and his bunch surely couldn’t hold them off forever, though I really had no idea how many of them there were.
I did notice a pair of small flip flops inside of one of the curtained rooms and, worried for Eva’s bare feet, I snatched them up and presented them to her.
“Those don’t look like princess shoes,” she said, turning up her nose and squeezing her lips together in a look of disgust.
I wasn’t sure how I was going to spin this one. In truth, they weren’t very attractive, no more attractive than the pair of leather sandals that I had been given to wear, but they were all we had and I was concerned for her feet, not only on the stone floor, but for when we were able to escape the tunnel, if we ever did. They might be much better than her bare feet in the jungle beyond. Then, I realized that she was hallucinating and that I could likely suggest anything and she would believe it.
“They don’t look like much now,” I agreed. “But once you put them on the feet of a princess, they turn into glass slippers like Cinderella’s.”
“Seriously?” She smiled.
“Sure. You want to try them out?”
“Yes.” She nodded eagerly. I have to admit, her innocent state was the most adorable I’d ever seen her in my life. It was all that I could do to keep from wrapping my arms around her and spending a good, long hour kissing her.
“You have to remember,” I said, kneeling in front of her. “They will still look ordinary to you, but because you are a princess, everyone around you will see glass slippers.” I slipped them on her feet.
“Oh look,” she squealed with delight. “They are glass slippers and I can see them too.”
Whatever drug she had been given was extremely powerful and I was in awe of how easy it was to bring her to believe any suggestion that I made. I wish I had thought of that initially; it might have saved me some struggles back in the temple and given us time to get to the center tunnel. As it was, we were starting down the wrong tunnel and I was totally unsure if we would be able to find a way out of it or if we were still trapped and only biding time until we were recaptured and put to death. For the moment, however, we were alive, I was with the woman I loved and she was wearing a golden crown that had to be worth a fortune. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
As we went further into the tunnel, the small dressing rooms and dim light came to an end and there was nothing but darkness ahead of us. Taking a torch down from the wall, I continued onward toward whatever was beyond. We were out of one sort of danger and into another. I wondered if this tunnel also led into a pit like the one we had been in the day before; a pit with no way out. Would we be trapped there until we were found or could we hide there and wait for an opportunity to return to the temple and escape through the center tunnel as we had been directed to do?
“Do you really think that my glass slippers are pretty?” Eva asked after we had been creeping along in the tunnel for some time. The question had broken a long silence and startled me for a moment.
“They are gorgeous,” I replied. “You’re gorgeous.”
It was in that moment that I realized that I was a great deal bolder with her than I’d ever been before. I smiled as I recalled our conversation on the plane. It had been less than a week ago, but it seemed like a lifetime in the past. “In fact, you are the most beautiful princess in the history of all princesses.”
“Really?” She stopped and looked at me in the dim light. Her eyes were broad and she was excited by the compliment. “You mean more beautiful than Briar Rose?”
“More beautiful than… Cinderella, Snow White, Arial…” I faltered for a moment, trying to remember the Disney princesses. The one from Aladdin escaped me, but I suddenly remembered one more and threw her in too. “And Sleeping Beauty.”
“Sleeping Beauty is Briar Rose, silly,” she giggled. Satisfied that I found her to be the most stunning princess in princess history, she was content to continue on again. “I can’t believe that Kukulkan moved our wedding to El Castillo. It’s a much larger and more beautiful place with the entire blue sky above us and the wind and the thousands of people that would be able to watch us from all around the world. I’m only sorry for one thing though.”
“Really? What’s that?” I asked in an offhanded manner. My mind was on much more pressing things than whatever strange delusions were going through Eva’s drug addled mind.
“I really wanted to marry you, Adam.”
The sudden announcement stopped me dead in my tracks and I turned to look at her. “You wanted to marry me?”
“Yes,” she replied.
“Why?” It seemed too far out there for me to even try to get a handle on it.
“Because, I love you.” It was a simple statement, but it packed one hell of a punch.
I didn’t know how to respond. I was back to the point where I could only come up with one and two word answers. “I see.”
“I’m sorry. You’re not mad, are you?”
“No.” I had to keep in mind that she was in a drug induced state and really had no idea what she was talking about; still, something in her confession struck a deep chord. In spite of the fact that all sorts of really strange ideas had been planted into her head, no doubt through hypnosis, I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a bit of truth to what she said. “I’m okay.”
“So, you understand that I have to do my duty for the Mayan people?”
“I understand.”
“Oh, Adam, you’re the best. That’s why I love you so much.” She wrapped her arms around me in a tight grip and hugged me like I’d only felt my little nieces and nephews do when they were two and three years old.
“Sure,” I replied. After our embrace, I turned back to start our journey; my mind working in overdrive as I wondered how we were going to manage to get out of the mess we were in.
We continued along the tunnel in the dim light of the torch and I was beginning to worry that we would run out of torch before we ran out of darkness. Just as the concern came to me, however, I saw a dim light up ahead and felt a rush of hope run through me. Were we coming to the end of the tunnel? We would still have to get off of the island, but at least we would have a better chance outside of the tunnels where we were trapped.
My hopes were slightly dashed when we arrived at the source of the light. It was a place where a small portion of the roof had caved in, allowing light to come into the tunnel and creating a small pile of rocks, but it was still a very long way to the surface and the walls on either side of the tunnel were much too sheer to climb. I looked at Eva, hoping to find some indication that she was coming down from her trip. I could tell that she was, but it wasn’t in a way that was going to help me, she seemed to be in a dark stupor.
“Can we rest a minute,” she mumbled. At the same moment that she spoke, she collapsed into a heap on the stone floor.
“Eva!” I called to her as I reached out in an attempt to catch her. I was successful in breaking a part of her fall, but she still collapsed. I patted her hands like I’d seen nurses do when someone passed out. “Eva, are you okay? Wake up. You can’t pass out on me now.”
I stopped patting her hand and felt for a pulse. Her pulse was fine. She had simply fainted. I hovered over her and continued patting her hands and calling out to her. She responded with an incoherent mumbling, but her eyes did not come o
pen. I was considering carrying her once more when I heard a very familiar, sinister voice behind me.
“Problems?”
Chapter Seventeen
I knew the voice before I even turned around.
It held that same formal tone and accented English that I had gotten used to hearing in the house on the lagoon. As I turned, I also saw the evil twinkle in his eyes that did not match the brilliant smile. Seeing him holding the long dagger, still in his priestly garb, minus the headdress, I knew that I was in for the final fight of my life; of our lives. I started looking for a weapon.
“Well, you almost made it. It was a valiant effort, thanks to my traitorous son, but all good things do come to an end.” He lunged toward me as he pronounced the last word.
I dodged out of the way and noticed the burned out torch lying on the floor. I had forgotten about it and tossed it aside when I saw Eva fall. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. I snatched it up and swung it at my attacker just in time to deflect his blade as he swung it at me.
The torch was merely a defensive weapon, but for several minutes it served me well. Though my thrusts had little effect, I was able to use it to parry the swinging blows and thrusts of the dagger and keep Andres from stabbing or slicing into my flesh. I was surprised that the old man could move as well as he did and it wasn’t long before I began to have doubts that I would be able to defeat him.
Had I been alone, I might have tried to escape him, but with Eva lying helpless and I her only hope for survival, I had to continue fighting and, I also realized, I had to win. With nothing more than a torch, I wasn’t sure how I was going to accomplish anything more than delaying the inevitable when his blade would finally make it through and finish me off. The moment I was dreading came much sooner than I thought. During one of my thrusts, I lost my grip and the torch slipped out of my hand.
Without a weapon, I crouched low and circled him, trying to catch my breath and wait for his charge. Having spent a great deal more time in the library than in the gym, I wasn’t very confident in my ability to overpower him, especially since he still held the knife and was leering at me, already beginning to taste his victory.
“You are a spirited boy, I’ll give you that. In any other circumstances, I think I’d like you. However, it’s time for you to die now.”
When he came at me, I wasn’t sure exactly what I was going to do, but I knew that I wasn’t going to give up just yet. I turned, lowered a shoulder and went for his knees, hoping that I might avoid the blade and send him sprawling at the same time. I was partly right, as I made contact with his legs, he did collapse to the floor, but in the process, I felt the dagger slice into my shoulder. No doubt, the stroke would have been much worse if I hadn’t knocked him off balance, but the pain that shot through me told me that the blade had gone deep and I fell to the cold, stone floor.
The nimble old man recovered quickly and turned in time to gain position on top of me with the dagger raised. I put my hands up and held his wrists as I watched the tip of the dagger inching down toward me. The pain in my shoulder made one of my arms weak and nearly useless, but I put every ounce of my strength and determination into the other. The problem, however, was that he was able to bring both of his hands to bear on the hilt of the dagger and I was beginning to see my life passing before my eyes as the dagger made another surge toward my exposed throat.
I was certain that my last moment had come and I cried out and I pushed back against him with all of my might, partly as the last effort to hold onto my life before it slipped away and partly because of the pain in my shoulder. At the very last instant before the dagger plunged into my throat, his strength suddenly disappeared and he collapsed upon me. I rolled his limp body off of me and saw Eva on her knees above us, holding a heavy boulder between her hands.
The effort had been as much as she was able to produce in her state, but it had been enough to save my life. She dropped the boulder and her head sagged to her chest. I scrambled to her and called out. “Eva!”
Wrapping my arms around her, I held her tighter than I had ever done before. She’d saved my life at the last possible moment and I felt elation replacing the hopeless despair that I had had only moments before. “God, you’re incredible, I love you so much.”
“I love you too,” she muttered. I could barely hear her voice and knew that she was still very much in a stupor from the lingering effects of the drug, but it was enough.
As much as I wanted to just sit there on the stone floor of the tunnel, I knew that we still weren’t out of danger. I had a horrible gash in my shoulder, rendering one arm useless. Without medical attention, it might be a life threatening wound. I also knew, in spite of my own cloudy mind, that if Andres had gotten to us so quickly, there would likely be others coming along shortly. Had Enrique been killed and his friends defeated? I had no way of knowing, but I certainly could not rely on them to come to our rescue.
With strength coming only from the will to live, I struggled to my feet, pulling Eva to her feet along with me. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
“I can’t, Adam,” she replied. “I’m too weak.”
“We have to try. If we can just get over that pile of stones so that we can hide.” It was only a half-truth. We needed to go beyond the pile of stones, but I thought it best to set small goals. It was about all that I was sure that I could handle, though, in my weak state, I wasn’t entirely confident in that.
After some encouragement, we turned together, supporting each other’s weight between us. When I looked up to focus on the goal that I had set for us, the silhouette of a large figure appeared atop the pile of stones, holding that large knife in his hand. It was the same one we’d seen rise up out of the jungle when we were returning from the pyramid two nights before. I froze in my tracks, still not certain if the man was a friend or foe.
“I see that you didn’t take my advice.”
“I’m wishing we had.”
“I can see…” His words were cut off in mid-sentence and the knife flashed quickly in his hand, hurtling toward a target just off to our right and slightly behind us.
I heard the blade find flesh, heard a short grunt and then a body collapsing. I turned to look at the same instant. Eva had only stunned Andres and he had tried to make one last lunge at us. The dark figure’s blade had struck him full in the chest.
He came down from the pile of stones, went directly to Andres, pushed him onto his back with his toe and then stooped over him to pull out his knife. “Andres. I never cared for that old bastard anyway. Hey, that’s a hell of a gash you got in your shoulder. We better get you out of here. What’s wrong with her?”
“She’s been drugged. She’s just coming down from it.”
“Equinox sacrifice?” he asked.
“Yeah. How’d you know?”
“I didn’t until now, but I had my suspicions. Anyway, we can talk later. I’m assuming we could have company pretty soon.”
“How do we get out?”
“Same way I came in.” He pointed to the rope dangling above the stone pile.
“I don’t think either of us can climb it.”
“You let me worry about that.” He moved toward the rope and quickly climbed hand over hand until he disappeared through the hole in the roof of the tunnel.
I managed to get us moved from where we had been standing to the top of the stone pile. Eva was a little bit better, but was still weak. I wasn’t sure whether our rescuer was truly going to be able to help us.
It had been a good while since our rescuer had disappeared through the hole above and I was beginning to wonder if we’d been abandoned when the rope with a crude harness made of rope dropped down to us from above.
“Put her legs through that and tighten it. She’s going to have to keep a pretty good grip on the rope to keep herself upright while I’m pulling her up.”
I hesitated a moment, wondering if I wanted to be sending Eva up through the hole in the roof to a total s
tranger while she was in such a vulnerable state; however, I could see few alternatives. In spite of the fact that I had recently been betrayed by two people, who I had trusted, I had little choice but to trust once more. I secured Eva in the harness and watched as she was slowly being raised out of the tunnel and into the light of freedom above, still wearing my golden robe, but not the crown. She must have lost that earlier.
Remembering the crown and its value, not only as an archeological artifact, but because of the massive gemstones that were in it, not to mention the gold, I looked around for a moment as I waited for the harness to be lowered for me. I found it, not far away, next to the pile of stones where it must have fallen while she was getting the boulder. I grasped it and slid it up my arm as I climbed back to the top of the stone pile in time to catch the harness being lowered for me. In spite of the throbbing pain and weakness in my one arm, I was able to hold fast to the rope and soon found myself scrambling to freedom and into the thick brush of the jungle above. We were free and we were still alive.
Chapter Eighteen
Every fantasy that I had ever had of Eva paled in comparison to the moment that she allowed the hotel robe to fall from her shoulders and moved across the bed toward me on hands and knees. The bright smile on her face and the twinkle in her eyes spoke volumes when it came to the feelings that she had for me and had expressed numerous times since she’d come out of her drug induced stupor.
Our rescuer, a man we knew only as Rand, had gotten us off of the island and to medical attention at an outpatient clinic in Cancún on the same Friday afternoon that we had been rescued. By that evening, we had been checked back into a hotel room on Rand’s dime, though we were both still very much out of it. Asked if we wanted separate rooms like we had before, Eva had told the clerk that we only needed one, and that she needed to tend to my wound.