by Ann Charles
Stepping back, he bumped into the fig root. “You want me to go in the mine alone in the dark?” Her bright eyes were sort of freaking him out.
“You won’t be alone.” Marianne came closer.
He squinted in the light. “I won’t?”
Who would be in there with him? Angélica?
“I’ve got Quint,” someone said from behind him. It sounded like Gertrude’s voice.
Something touched his shoulder.
He looked down. A large hand gripped his shirt. He turned sideways to follow the arm up and see who had grabbed him. “Who—”
With one powerful tug, he was yanked into the darkness.
* * *
“You saw where Gertrude took Quint?” Angélica asked, shining her flashlight in Daisy’s face.
Shielding her eyes, Daisy nodded. “We need to hurry. Time is short.”
What did she mean? Not much time to find Quint? What did Gertrude have planned for him? “Why didn’t you say something when I asked you about Quint back at the fire?”
“I was busy.”
“Busy doing what?” Angélica’s voice sharpened as her frustration rose.
“Being summoned.”
Huh? Daisy wasn’t making any sense. Was she in shock from the commotion at the ceremony? Had she snuck some of Teodoro’s secret drink when nobody was looking?
“Enough questions.” Daisy snatched Angélica’s flashlight from her hand. “Come on.” She turned and started striding away.
Angélica frowned after her, hesitating. Following Daisy away from the rest of the group screamed “Bad idea!” The woman could be leading Angélica into a trap. After all, her ability to find artifacts at this site spoke of someone who’d been there before. Could Daisy have had something to do with her mom’s helicopter crash?
When Angélica didn’t follow, Daisy stopped and marched back to her. “Did you hear me? There is no time to delay.”
“You think I’m stupid enough to go with you alone in the dark now that you suddenly know where Gertrude took Quint? No way. I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“Gertrude led Quint to the mine,” she blurted. “If you do not come with me to stop her, she is going to sacrifice him to Yum Cimil.”
Angélica squinted. “That’s nuts.”
“Gertrude believes it’s the only way to save everyone.”
“By feeding Quint to the rogue cat?”
“It is not a cat. The lord of death has returned.”
The lord of … oh, hell! What kind of superstitious baloney had Gertrude been telling Daisy? Or was it the other way around? “Which one of you two is the ring leader here?”
“Neither. You have to trust me right now and come. I will explain later.”
Angélica stole her flashlight back, aiming it at Daisy’s face again. “Why should I trust you? I barely know you.”
A pained expression passed over Daisy’s features. “Angélica, you have known me a long time.”
She had? “Were you in one of my classes back in college?”
Daisy shook her head. “You will not believe it if I explain.”
“Try me.”
“Not now. I have to get you to Quint. He is strong but confused. Gertrude will stop at nothing to save the rest of you from Yum Cimil’s reign of terror.” Daisy grasped Angélica’s arm and tugged her several feet.
Angélica wasn’t falling for Daisy’s bullshit, though. She refused to end up like her mother, the victim of someone’s twisted game. Digging her boot heels in, she pulled free of Daisy’s grip. “Forget it. I’m not going with you.” She was going back to the fire and getting Fernando to help her find Quint. She’d deal with Daisy and Gertrude when everyone was safe and sound.
“Damn it, pik!” Daisy whirled on her, her tone sharp and all too familiar. “Quit being stubborn like your mule-headed father and do as I say.”
Angélica’s mouth fell open. The blood rushed from her head so fast she stumbled backward. “Who are you?” she whispered, her throat tight.
“Search in here.” Daisy tapped on Angélica’s chest above her heart. “You know damned well who I am.”
Angélica shook her head, taking another step back. This couldn’t be real. Was this part of Teodoro’s ceremony? Had María put something in the jamaica juice at supper?
“That’s impossible,” she said. “Both logically and physically, because you’re dead.”
“Yet here I stand.”
“But you’re not you.” While it sounded like her mother, she was very much Daisy with her pixie haircut and blue eyes.
“Daisy is an open channel. An extremely rare gem. Through her, I can reach the living. I do not understand how this can be any more than you do.”
“This is full-on straitjacket crazy. I must be dreaming.”
“You are not dreaming.” Daisy reached out and pinched Angélica’s arm.
“Ouch!” Angélica rubbed the sore spot. “How can this … oh, I know.” She snapped her fingers. “It was the incense. Teodoro must have used some kind of potent herb that causes hallucinations.”
Did that mean Quint was still sitting on the log and all of this about Gertrude was a figment of Angélica’s drug-induced trance?
Daisy latched onto her arm again, pulling Angélica into motion. “You can analyze it on the way to the mine, pik. We have to get there before Gertrude eliminates the man your father has chosen to produce my grandchild.”
Angélica allowed Daisy to tow her along, same as she had allowed her mother when Angélica was a child. Her head spun. The swirling chaos of memories drowned out the jungle’s racket.
There was no way this was real. Her mother was long gone. Yet she could smell her mom’s favorite perfume. The fresh scent of lemon and rosemary and a subtle blend of spices. She must be losing her …
That was it. She’d finally cracked.
The pressures and stresses of proving her mother’s theories, and the mad determination to find answers about her death, had finally broken Angélica’s brain. She should have listened to her father about not working so hard and getting more sleep. He’d been right about letting go of the past. Oh, man. Living with him now would be impossible. She’d never hear the end of “I told you so.”
Crap. This was going to ruin her career as soon as INAH learned of it. A nutty archaeologist hearing voices from the past would be an embarrassment to the Mexican government.
“Angélica,” her mother said, waving her hand in front of her face. “Snap out of it.”
She looked blankly at Daisy—or Marianne. They stood in front of the entrance to the mine, only something looked different.
“Who chopped off the fig root?” Angélica asked. “Dad said we needed to leave that one alone or risk the tree crashing down and blocking the entrance.”
“It was not cut,” Daisy said. “It was torn.”
What could tear off a huge fig root like that?
“You need to go inside and help Quint understand his power before it’s too late,” her mother ordered. “But please be careful. The thing that ripped that strangler fig root is not of this plane.”
She nodded, feeling like she’d stepped into a video game. This must be the part when Quint and Maverick were supposed to figure out a solution while under Teodoro’s trance-induced state.
She looked at her mom. “Can I turn into a jaguar now?”
Marianne frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“Dad usually takes on the form of some kind of animal when he drinks Teodoro’s potions. Remember that time he started flapping his wings and standing on one leg next to the fire, thinking he was a flamingo?”
Daisy’s white teeth flashed in the semi-darkness. “He burnt his tail feathers that night. I had to rub some of Teodoro’s special ointment on his backside for days.” She sighed. “I miss your father, but now is not the time for memories. You must go.”
Angélica started inside the mine, realizing she was alone. She turned back. “Aren’t you coming with
me?”
“I cannot put Daisy’s life at risk.”
But her mom wasn’t real. None of this was. “Can’t you just float along next to me?”
“It does not work like that, pik.”
“Okay.” She frowned, not wanting to leave her mom behind. “Will you be here when I come back out?”
“You won’t be alone.”
That wasn’t really an answer, was it?
“Go, Angélica. Teodoro is waiting for you.”
“Good. I have a bone to pick with him about dragging me into this mess. I wasn’t supposed to get fucked up, only Quint and Maverick.”
“You are not fucked up. And do not tell your father that I swore in front of you. He always gave me shit about cursing like a sailor while in your company.”
Angélica laughed. “Please, I’m standing here having a conversation with my mom, who died years ago. If I’m not high, then I’m crazy. Between the two, I prefer being high. At least I’ll recover from that and retain my job.”
“I have been here all along, pik.”
Did she mean here with Angélica or here at the site? It had to be the site, since this was the first time Angélica had conjured her mom up since saying good-bye to her. “Doing what? Waiting for Dad and me to show up so you could haunt us?”
“No. I …” she shook her head. “That is not important right now. Just do me a favor.”
“What?”
“Keep my locket with you wherever you go.”
“Why?”
“Because I said.” Marianne leaned forward and kissed her cheek.
Angélica’s eyes burned, understanding why her mom wanted her to carry the locket with her. “You’ve been with me every day since I lost you, Mom. A locket won’t make a difference.”
“Trust me on this. You do not have to wear it, but please take it with you wherever you travel.”
“Okay.” She sniffed, shining her flashlight into the mouth of the mine, seeing only rock walls and roots dangling from the ceiling. “I’m going to go find Teodoro and ask him how bad my hangover is going to be tomorrow.”
“Angélica, you must stop Gertrude. There may be another way to send Yum Cimil back into the Underworld. A way without so much bloodshed and sacrifice.”
“Got it.” She turned to blow her mom a kiss good-bye, but she—Daisy—was gone. “Good-bye, Mom,” she whispered, her heart panging.
Shaking off her sadness, she tiptoed into the mine. She’d almost reached the broken wall when she heard whispers echoing off the walls. She rounded the final bend and relief warmed her limbs.
Teodoro was sitting on part of the remaining wall with his eyes closed, chanting away.
“Mom said you’d be here.”
His eyes opened. “You took too long.” He spoke in his native tongue. “We must hurry.” Stepping over the wall, he waved at her to follow. “She has started the ceremony.”
“Is there going to be popcorn at this show?” she joked.
“Why do you make fun?” he asked.
“Because I’m as high as a howler monkey at the top of a ceiba tree.”
“That is not true. You are on the ground with both feet.”
“Then how do you explain my mom inhabiting Daisy’s body and you waiting here in the mine for me?”
“We were summoned.”
“By Yum Cimil?”
“No. By the scribe.” Teodoro caught her arm and pulled her past the altar stone. The little carved figurines lay scattered on the floor. “He is the one to be sacrificed in order to save us from the beast.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Der Beschwörer: German for “The Summoner.”
Gertrude stood next to Quint in the shadow-edged catacomb, surrounded by the broken bones of the long dead. The flashlight she handed him after dragging his ass back into the mine did little to offset the chilling turn his dream had taken since leaving Marianne in the jungle.
The musty smell in the chamber was the same, but an underlying odor hovered over the bones now. When he’d asked Gertrude about it, she’d avoided his gaze, mumbling, “You’ll see soon enough.”
Her pacing and constant glances in the direction of the tunnel they’d crawled through to enter the catacomb were giving Quint indigestion. Or maybe the burning in his gut was caused by Teodoro’s drink hitting rock bottom.
To add to his heart palpitations, there was something wrong with Gertrude’s eyes. Her pupils were narrow black slits surrounded by glowing amber irises. Every time Quint looked at them, all he could think about were those dozens of rattlesnakes they had hooked and bagged. Sweat coated his skin at the memory.
What was with his brain screwing with her eyes like that? Was the drink starting to wear off and now it was time for creepy clowns and funhouse mirrors?
Gertrude kicked aside a partially crushed skull. Bone fragments scattered across the rock floor. “You should not have come here,” she told him.
“That seems to be the theme of this dream.” Quint pointed at a large hole in the wall. A hole he hadn’t noticed the last time he was in the catacomb because it’d been hidden behind the big chunks of ceiling rock that Gertrude had apparently pushed aside on her own before bringing him there. His imagination had given her Amazonian strength to match her big hands and feet.
His flashlight beam showed the hole in the wall was more than a shallow cavity. “Where does that tunnel go?”
“That’s not important.”
“It will be if something with sharp claws and pointy canine teeth slinks out anytime soon.” He walked over and squatted in front of the three-foot-high opening, shining his light into it. The tunnel ran long, the light losing the battle with the shadows about twenty feet back. It appeared wide enough for a man to crawl through on his hands and knees, but Quint would rather not find out for certain.
Another skull rolled across the floor. “For the record,” Gertrude said, “I really don’t want to do this, but you’ve left me no choice. You are der Beschwörer.”
“Dear what?” That was the same garbled word he’d heard back at the fire.
“Der Beschwörer,” she repeated, enunciating as if that would help.
He stood, avoiding her snake eyes. “What is that? German?”
“Do you not know your purpose?”
“I have a purpose?”
“Of course.”
“You mean like a special purpose?”
“A life purpose.”
He cocked his head to the side, pondering what he could do that would benefit him on a life level. Photojournalism was really only a way to make money when it came down to it. “I’m pretty good with an axe.” He pretended to chop a tree. “I can split firewood with a single swing. My dad still says I should have been a logger.”
She planted her hands on her hips. “Are you intoxicated?”
“I’m certainly not sober.” Teodoro’s drink had sent him on a wild roller-coaster ride tonight full of loop-the-loops and breath-stealing drops.
“You are der Beschwörer.” When he continued to frown at her, she added, “The Summoner. That is your purpose.”
“The Summoner?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Who am I supposed to summon?”
“Those who need to be executed.”
His frown turned into a full-face grimace. “Am I supposed to execute them, too?”
“No. That’s a job for der Scharfrichter.”
“Dear shark-what?”
He nudged a skull onto its side with his toe, frowning at the fractured cranium. It had been crushed. Before or after death?
Gertrude grumbled in her native tongue, which sounded a little bit like she was gargling with marbles. “Der Scharfrichter. It means ‘The Executioner’ in your language.”
Of course. The Executioner, as in one who executes. His subconscious was having way too much fun tonight.
“Executioner, huh?” He grinned. “Sounds like a shitty career. Does that job come with any benefits
? I’d think vision coverage would be important to career longevity. I’d sure hate to have a near-sighted executioner show up for my final hurrah and squint down at me while trying to line up his blade.”
“Executioners are always female.” Gertrude’s tone was terse.
“Always?”
“Yes. They use a combination of their seven senses to hunt down and kill their targets.”
Seven senses? Where was his brain coming up with these wild ideas? He couldn’t wait to hear about what Maverick had conjured while passed out from Teodoro’s version of Maya moonshine. “And what do Summoners use to summon? Dog whistles?” He glanced up at her.
She didn’t even crack a smile. One of the broken femurs on the floor must have been her funny bone. “How can you have lived this long, Summoner, and know so little?”
He shrugged off her insult. “I majored in Anvils and Dynamite at Acme’s Cartoon College, with a minor in Wiliness.”
“You have much to learn.” She wrung her big hands. “Unfortunately, you will have to devote time to perfecting your craft in your next life, because sacrificing you is the only way to send the beast back to its regular hunting grounds.”
The German woman’s tension was becoming a real buzz-kill.
“Listen, Gertrude,” Quint said as he leaned against the wall next to the hole, crossing his ankles. “It’s been fun here tonight sharing shark-bite stories on this creaky boat in the Sea of Fiction, but I think you have the wrong guy. If you can just tell me what sort of animal I’m supposed to turn into so I can do a totem jig and then move on to experiencing a vision that will solve our cat problem, I’ll be on my way back to the fire.”
She moved closer, her snake eyes roving over his face. “You are der Beschwörer. I smelled it on you.”
Okay, now he understood why Gertrude was in his dream. He was still trying to work out her eccentric sniffing behavior. But what was the deal with her eyes? Was he supposed to change into a snake? Were her eyes a clue?
“Summoners have a smell?” he asked, wondering if his eyes were already snake-like, too, and he didn’t realize it.
“Of course. Same as a skunk and wolverine.”
Whew! That bad, huh?