The Cursed Key
The Cursed Key Trilogy Book One
Miranda Brock
Rebecca Hamilton
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
About the Authors
Copyright
The Cursed Key © 2019 Miranda Brock & Rebecca Hamilton
All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
Chapter 1
I had come to a dangerous place, eagerly and with abandon fully latched to my soul. Stepping out of the mud-splattered jeep, I mentally cursed the wretched thing for the banging and jostling I had received on my way up through the trees. After a quick check that I had my knife and packs, I walked into the treacherous mysteries of the Vale do Javari.
The Amazon rainforest was vast, many portions of it unexplored, this place least of all. The ground was sodden and soft, rain-soaked leaves licking my pants as I passed. The possibility that it could have been thousands of years since humans had lived here thrilled me to the point of such utter disbelief that I didn’t hear the person behind me, at first.
“Olivia, are you listening to the man?”
I tore my eyes unwillingly from the vine-laden trees, branches twisting toward me like they were reaching for me, beckoning me to explore their depths.
Sighing sharply, I glanced over my shoulder at Kelby. He was the newbie on the team and, in my opinion, took too much stock in precautionary measures. No doubt the Brazilian official standing near his shoulder had been touting exactly that.
My silence giving him answer enough, Kelby shook his head. “He warns us that the area is heavily populated with an unusual amount of jaguars and to be cautious.”
Grinning, I touched the knife hanging on my belt. It was a beautiful number, eight inches with a mahogany handle worn from use. “Jaguars are nothing Chaucer can’t handle.” I slid the knife out a few inches, the cold steel still gleaming like moon-kissed glass after so many years. “Besides, those cats aren’t what I’d worry about. The Brazilian wandering spiders are harder to spot.”
Kelby knew this, and I probably shouldn’t taunt him, but I was eager to continue, and I didn’t need to be lectured on local wildlife, however dangerous.
The man beside my team member began speaking in Portuguese, and I raised my eyebrows. I had known, of course, that there were a couple of other teams that had been granted the rare and one-time opportunity to traverse this vast and largely untouched wilderness. I just thought that my team would have been here first. Upon further inspection, my eyes caught the slightly trampled underbrush and a narrow path leading to the very recently discovered ruins that had brought me to the Amazon.
Thanking the man in Portuguese, I hurried down the trail, leaving the rest of my team behind to gather their equipment. I caught snippets of conversation as I neared the dig site, my steps quickening. The massive trees and dense wall of plant-life broke open, and I paused at the shaded edge to take in the reason I was here.
A wide open space was patterned with squares of grass rimmed with carefully set stones, smoothed with age. Already, another team seemed to have found a way in as a man disappeared into a gap near the edge of one of the squares.
Not as grand of a discovery as Machu Picchu or La Ciudad Perdida, but I was still itching to get into the depths of the ruins before me.
Slapping a mosquito, I stepped into the full sunlight, a rare thing this far into the rainforest, and farther into the ruins where I could get a full view of the other two competing groups.
“Late to the party, eh, Perez?”
I had never favored the man leaning on the small folding table several yards away, grinning like a boy who had set bait out for a mouse. Who favors competition, anyway?
Raising my voice so he could hear me across the expanse of grass and rock, I said, “Shouldn’t you have your head buried in the sand somewhere, Williams?”
“I left Egypt as soon as I’d caught wind of this. No more dusty bones for me.” He rubbed his thumb and fingers together.
Greedy ass. He was more ‘careless treasure hunter’ than ‘esteemed archaeologist.’
True, I couldn’t honestly deny the thrill it gave me at finding something rare and wondrous, but I also didn’t take my findings immediately to the highest bidder. For me, it was more than the shiny at the end of the finish line. Of course, I wouldn’t even be in the race if I didn’t get started.
My team arrived behind me, complaining mildly that we should have been the first here. I agreed but kept my thoughts to myself. Archeology was a more cutthroat business than most people knew, and it would get us nowhere to whine about being last in line.
“Where to, Liv?” Sarah asked. She was the only member of the team I actually enjoyed being around on occasion. She didn’t jabber on needlessly like some or pelt me with question after question.
I scanned the area and jerked my chin to a spot dappled with shade a few yards away. “Let’s set up there.”
As the others set up the table and equipment, I resumed my study of the surrounding area. The two groups who had arrived before us seemed to have claimed the only point of entry into the ruins beneath our feet, with Dave Williams’ group having first dibs. That made us third, and I hated to wait.
Continuing my study of the ruins, I pursed my lips. This had been no residence, or even a temple. If I was correct in the guess forming in my mind, these were tombs. The ancient indigenous were sun-worshipers and would have their temple, and their treasures, closer to where the golden rays would reach.
I glanced at the carpet of grass, then back at Dave still poring over what may have been a map spread across the surface of the table. If I was correct, he had left behind dusty bones across the world only to unearth more here. Sure, he may manage to nab a trinket or two clinging to the time-weathered remains, but not the goldmine he was after.
Stepping in a slow circle, I scanned the dense trees, and as I faced west, something hit me. It was a subtle sort of feeling, like a feather brush across my heart. Dehydration was easy to find, even in a place that was constantly dripping with moisture.
I shook off the uneasy feeling and reached for my canteen, but it wasn’t at the usual place on my hip. I must have left it
back in the jeep.
As I headed to the table on our claimed spot, the unusual sensation hit me again, and I peered back toward the west.
A reckless idea pulled up the corners of my lips. I managed to catch Sarah’s eye and gave her a small jerk of my head to the western wall of trees, then looked meaningfully at the other teams. She rolled her eyes but nodded. This wasn’t the first time I had decided to sneak off and hope I wasn’t noticed.
Leaving behind the other archeologists, I pushed my way into the waiting jungle, intuition carrying me forward. The massive trees stretched toward the sky like sentinels of life long forgotten by the rest of the world. My entire surroundings were deemed to keep out trespassers bent on disturbance, corruption, and thievery, so I would need to be cautious.
Though it was early morning, sweat was already trickling down my spine, wisps of loose hair clinging to my brow. Monkeys howled in the distance, letting every creature within a mile radius know about our intruding presence. A cacophony of birds warbled and trilled, the din as comforting and welcoming to me as a mother’s song. Moisture dripped from everything, and the ground gave easily under my soft and quiet steps.
I steadily made my way up to higher ground, away from the lowlands and up to where the sun would have shone brighter. It wasn’t an easy trek. A few times, I found the path so entangled with vegetation that it was impassable, and I had to stop and backtrack.
Branches broke to my left, and I jerked around, hand going to my knife. A group of spider monkeys, with long limbs and agile tails, moved swiftly across looping vines and twisting branches. I watched them for a moment before I continued on my way, still following that strange sensation that seemed to be leading me exactly to where I wanted to go.
Reaching a small runoff in the upward sloping ground, I halted. There, in the soft earth beside it, were pawprints. I crouched down for a better look and carefully ran my fingertips along the small indents the pads of a massive jaguar had left.
As I rose back up, I gazed down the way I had come. Should I go back for the team and perhaps one of the guides?
Guides meant guns, but even that would offer no concrete guarantee against the large cats. Despite my voiced confidence in Chaucer, it would take a miracle to fight off a jaguar with my trusty knife.
I puffed air past my lips. If I went back—if I requested a guide—other archeologists would be onto my path. I could lose the upper hand. Besides, what was life without a little risk?
I traversed the edge of the runoff until I reached the base of a sharply inclined hill. Peering around the trees, I tried to see how high it went, but it was impossible to tell. I tightened the straps on my pack and began the climb.
The terrain was difficult, the soil growing loose and rocky the farther I went. I braced my foot against a small tree for leverage as I moved over a small crevice carved into the earth from millennia of torrential rains, but the small tree released its grip on the hill, its spindly roots breaking free.
Gasping, I barely managed to make the leap across the scarred earth to catch a hold of a low swooping vine. I regained my footing, though my shins had suffered some abuse. After brushing soggy debris from my pants, I glanced at the place I had been standing, then followed the steep decline.
It was a long way down, and if I had fallen, more than just my ego would have been broken.
Shaking off the near miss, I continued, using vines and small trees to help pull my way up. My eyes constantly scanned my surroundings for any signs of venomous snakes, spiders, or elusive and territorial jaguars.
The noise of birds and monkeys fell away as I went, leaving me with just the evidence of the last rain sinking down through the canopy to the waiting leaves below.
Strangely, the sensation was stronger, and it pulled me upward with a sense of urgency that clashed with my need to take it slow and cautious. A part of me wondered if it was just exertion. My muscles were burning, and my shirt clung to me. Then again, I’d felt the same as soon as I had arrived at the dig site.
I’d forgotten about my canteen again. Perhaps this climb hadn’t been the most intelligent idea. But if one couldn’t bleed and sweat to find what history had hidden, what was the point?
Finally, dappled light broke through the thick canopy ahead, and after a few more yards, I caught fragments of some sort of rocky surface through the trees. I was fully climbing now, not putting too much trust in the small trees whose roots spiderwebbed across the surface of the increasingly rocky hill.
A tall rock broke free from the ground ahead of me, but as I neared it, I realized it wasn’t a rock at all.
The trees had fallen away, and I pulled myself up over a ledge sparse in vegetation.
As I climbed to my feet, my heart hammered like the ancestral drums of a long-forgotten tribe. The ruins around me reached toward the sky like the bony fingers of a skeleton, as if it could grasp the sun, which had once shone golden on the proud building's face, to pull itself back up from the clinging earth.
Most of the building was crumbling, the broken pieces of it scattered at its base. The jungle had done its best to absorb the structure into its waiting arms. Vines roped through gaping holes, and much of the ancient walls were blemished with lichen. Rain had pockmarked the stones beneath my feet.
This had to be a temple of some sort, and if it was a temple, there would be a way inside.
And this time, I would be the first one to get there.
It wasn’t until I neared the center of the structure that I realized the sensation that had been tugging at me had ceased.
Taking a deep breath, I rested my hands on my hips and glanced down. My eyes narrowed, and then I was crouching, pulling away the vegetation that had managed to find life on the rock. I tugged and wrenched the plants free, tossing them over my shoulder, and then stood to gaze at what I had revealed.
A four-pointed star was patterned into the rock at my feet in stones that were now faded but that must have once shone in golds and reds and blues. Something was etched into the center, the symbols marred by massive scratch-marks renting through the stone’s surface. I crouched back down and traced the marks as if my own hands had done the damage.
Would a jaguar have scratched through the symbols? That wouldn’t make any sense. Or if one had, it wouldn’t have been intentional.
I didn’t hear anything behind me, but the small hairs rising on the back of my neck told me I was no longer alone.
Rising slowly, I turned.
The largest jaguar I had ever seen stood no more than seven feet from me. The cat’s back would easily reach my waist. His thick neck and wide face told me he was a male, and his golden eyes locked onto mine, his long tail twitching back and forth. Even in my fear, I could admire his beauty, the dark rosette shapes patterning across his yellowish-tan fur.
That is, until a growl rumbled up his throat, and his jaws spread, a wild cry of rage rising from his chest.
The massive cat leaped forward before I had a chance to pull my knife free.
I stumbled back and gasped, arms flying outward as the ground crumbled beneath me.
The jaguar was gone. And I was…
Where was I?
I coughed and waved away the assaulting dust, adjusting the knife handle jabbing into my ribs. As I took in the chamber I had fallen into, an unease settled over every nerve in my body.
Though I couldn’t explain why, this chamber was disconcertingly familiar.
Chapter 2
My skin pebbled as I took in the small chamber, a strange sensation pulling at me. Light slanted in from above. I peered up through the swirling dust, half expecting the jaguar to leap down after me, but I heard no sign of the large cat.
I climbed to my feet, grimacing as I rubbed on my hip, which I had hit the hardest during my fall. I shifted the fallen stones of the collapsed floor with my toe and craned my neck toward the gaping hole.
It had to be close to twelve feet up.
Not wanting to make too much noise and draw
the jaguar back, I stepped over to one of the walls and ran my hand over the coarse surface, bits of the ancient stones crumbling beneath my touch.
Pursing my lips, I turned to study the rest of my surroundings. Why did this chamber seem so familiar?
I strained my mind, trying to recall any snippet of information that I may have forgotten about a place such as this, but I came up empty.
“Well, now what?” I asked the ancient walls around me.
As if in answer, that odd sensation pulled at me, beckoning me farther into the chamber.
Stepping forward, I studied the long-forgotten space, then squinted as my eyes caught something. There, carved into the brownish-gray rock wall, were some sort of symbols. Definitely not hieroglyphs, though I wasn’t sure what to call them. They were most similar to Germanic runes, and yet, a close inspection ruled them out as such. I had studied countless ancient languages, but I had never seen the rune-line symbols I traced with my finger now.
These symbols were completely foreign to me, yet I could almost read them. The way words could linger on the tip of one’s tongue, these words seemed to tingle just along the edges of my mind. There, but inaccessible.
I shook my head. The fall, and this strange place, were messing with me. Trying to climb out or call for help would be the best thing to do.
I stared down the chamber where it curved around a corner farther down. Then again, I may never have another opportunity like this one, and I was never one to shy away from a challenge.
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