“Pah! You are too weak!” Aja growled. “Force it out of her!”
“It’s not that simple, my Queen,” Goodwin said.
“Cut her hand off. She’ll talk,” Aja said. “If that doesn’t work, cut her other hand off. And then her feet. Sooner or later, she’ll talk. They always do.”
The suggestion stunned Goodwin. Was she insane? Cut her hands off? What good would come from that? Had torture been effective with Evelyn? God, how the old woman had screamed and begged for Aja to stop. It had been horrific. And she never did reveal where she hid the safe-deposit box keys. Aja had lost control and killed her, and as a result they’d had to search the house anyway. And after all that, she had lied about Omereau!
What was to say Little Miss Tattoo wouldn’t lie, too? He’d beaten her savagely at Cully’s home, but she’d repeatedly denied any knowledge of Malinyah’s whereabouts. Granted, his abuse had convinced her to finally reveal the safe combination, but even when he threatened to shoot her again, she’d not wavered about Malinyah.
“Did you at least get the lyktyl?” she asked, interrupting his thoughts.
As Goodwin poised to answer, Aja began to cough. He waited until the fit was over, and said, “Yes. I have it.”
“How ironic,” said Aja, her voice thick with sarcasm. “Finally, we have the lyktyl, but now no Omereau. It wasn’t in the boxes. Evelyn lied to us!”
“Yes, I know. I saw the video from the bank,” Goodwin said.
“Have you asked the girl about it, then?”
“Not yet.”
“Why not?”
“My Queen, if she wouldn’t tell me where Malinyah’s mind-keeper is, there’s no chance she would give up Omereau’s. Besides, I’m not convinced Cully has Omereau.” Aja did not reply. Only her labored breathing could be heard over the line. He asked, “You sound ill. Are you all right?”
“I will be fine after some enjyia,” she snapped back. “Now, listen to me! Evelyn must have given Omereau’s Sinethal to Devlin Wilson when she gave him Malinyah’s, which means Cully has it now.”
“Maybe, maybe not. It wasn’t in the house. I would have noticed it.”
“Don’t be stupid. He has it wherever Malinyah is stashed.”
“Look, there is nothing we can do about it now,” Goodwin said. “Right now, we need to get to safety. Then we can negotiate for both Sinethals. Has Kora picked you up yet?”
“No. I sent her on an errand.”
“What errand?”
“Nothing that concerns you.”
“Any deviation from the plan concerns me, my Queen. Improvisation has not served us well,” he said.
“Enough! We will meet you at Needles, as planned. I will text you when we are in flight,” she said. “You find out what the girl knows about Omereau’s Sinethal. Hurt her until she tells you everything.”
A click signaled the end of the call. Goodwin cursed and pounded the steering wheel. What was on her mind? Even if the girl told him everything he wanted to know, what could they do with the information at this point? Aja was coming unhinged, acting more like a bloodthirsty tyrant than the benevolent Queen she espoused to be. He would have to find a way to temper her rage, or what little was left of their plan would disintegrate.
Albany, New York
“Weakling!” Aja said, tossing the phone aside. “I should have sent Kora!”
He was incapable of acting like a warrior, she thought. He’d shown that when he threw up during Evelyn’s confessional! And he had no idea how important it was to get Malinyah now that it was clear Cully also had Omereau. Malinyah would ruin everything! Cully would tell Malinyah that “Muran” was alive and that she wanted Omereau. Malinyah would order Cully to destroy Omereau rather than risk his mind-keeper falling into Aja’s hands.
Oh, Malinyah had been clever to hide Omereau’s Sinethal separate from the lyktyl after the revolt, Aja thought. She knew Aja would try to take them again. And while Aja had quickly discovered where Malinyah re-entombed Omereau and his Tyls, the lyktyl had remained hidden for thousands of years. Yet, despite Aja’s failure to locate the medallion, she was certain Malinyah hadn’t destroyed it; otherwise, there would have been no purpose in hiding Omereau’s Sinethal. No, Malinyah had been too pure to erase the Munuorians’ link with their ancestors, Aja had often reasoned during her fruitless search.
After all, she mused, Malinyah and the other Andaers had expected to rebuild Munuoria once the aftereffects of Munirvo had waned, and after their men had returned from Mereau’s pitiful mission of mercy. And Omereau would have figured prominently in their rebuilding plans. But the haughty Andaers had completely misjudged the impact of scattering their people and Tyls at a time when self-preservation of their race should have been paramount.
Indeed, Aja had tried to warn them. There was only one way to save the devastated Munuoria: devote every surviving resource to find a new homeland and rebuild their society as quickly as possible. But they hadn’t listened. Instead, the fools sent off their best men and most of their scarce Tyls to help woebegone foreigners! Riffraff! All because of Mereau and his bleeding heart.
Aja wondered if Malinyah now rued her role in the decision. She surely had interacted with Devlin, Cully and the girl. Otherwise, they would not have found the Indio Maiz Maerlif. They would not know the name Alynioria. They would not have the lyktyl. Poor Malinyah must have been crushed to learn that the Andaers’ selfless decision had resulted in the annihilation of their own people, leaving the planet populated by lesser men and women. People who warred constantly over stupid things. Selfish mongrels who raped nature. Idiots who were totally unprepared for the next Munirvo, paying more attention to the search for little green men than they did to protecting their own planet from the inevitable assault from another star-washer.
Aja fumed. How could they look at the cratered surfaces of other worlds and not see their peril? How could they examine their own planet’s geological and biological record and not grasp the implications? It nauseated Aja to know Munuoria had sacrificed itself for these pathetic animals.
But she would change all that. With Omereau’s Sinethal, she would chart a new path for humanity. She knew the old man would be enraged to discover Malinyah, Mereau and the others had frittered away his precious gifts. She knew he would favor returning balance to nature, to reestablishing a global society built on his guiding principles. And Aja would be his instrument, his voice and his enforcer. Yes, billions of people would be sacrificed in the cleansing, but in the end, humanity would be set on a more sustainable course, with its priorities and ambitions properly aligned with nature and the stars.
But if Cully got to Omereau first…
Ludlow, California
Goodwin lowered the car windows, hoping the fresh air would help clear his head. As he weighed Aja’s command to torture the girl, competing images of Aja filled his mind. There was the Aja with whom he had fallen in love, the sweet, caring woman who sought to end humanity’s self-inflicted suffering. Then there was the fire-breathing despot who craved vengeance and power.
He was not blind. He’d read enough legends about her past personas to know she had an evil side to her personality, but in the time he’d known her — nearly eighty years — she’d never resorted to the barbaric tactics the legends ascribed to her. That is, until Malinyah’s Sinethal resurfaced, sparking the possibility of her recovering Omereau’s Sinethal.
His thoughts drifted back to the first time he laid eyes on her at Naranjo. It had been the summer of 1942, and Goodwin had gone to the ancient Mayan city as part of a university-funded excavation to learn the ropes of archaeological fieldwork. In the back of his mind, Goodwin had also hoped the excursion would help extend his student deferment a little longer.
The work had been tiresome, as the Mayan ruins there were ravaged by erosion and the creeping tentacles of the jungle, and most of the Mayan treasures hidden there had been looted long ago. He spent most of the summer doing little more than clearing debris. Yet, a
s mundane as it had been, Goodwin had constantly reminded himself that it was preferable to digging foxholes in Africa, Asia or Europe.
He remembered kneeling at the base of the central pyramid one day toward the end of summer, brushing debris from its stone blocks, when a shadow blocked his light. He looked up, expecting to see a passing cloud, but instead saw a young woman standing on the grass-covered mound at the pyramid’s peak. The sight had surprised him for two reasons. One, the expedition’s lead archaeologist had made it clear that no one was to mount the pyramid for fear of damaging the crumbling structure. And, two, it was extremely unusual to see an Anglo woman in the Guatemalan jungle in 1942. Reaching Naranjo today is still no easy task, thought Goodwin, and back then it was nearly impossible. Because of the hardships associated with the trek and remote location, women had been strongly discouraged from expeditions to the site.
He had shouted up to tell her to move, but the woman had paid no attention. Thinking back now, Goodwin wondered how different his life might have turned out had he simply ignored her shadow and continued working. Instead, he had climbed a bit farther up the ruin and shouted for her to get down from the top. When Aja turned in his direction, her eyes had blazed into him. When told she was blocking his light, she had huffed and returned to surveying the jungle-covered complex.
Goodwin had shrugged her rudeness off and moved to a section of the base unaffected by her shadow. He was busily brushing away when the shadow returned. He had looked back to find the woman hovering over him. In the sweetest of British accents, she had said, “Pardon me. I wonder if I might ask for your assistance?”
Little did Goodwin know that the “assistance” he would provide would entail helping her excavate a cache of Lifintyls buried in the jungle, halfway between Naranjo and another set of Mayan ruins at Yaxha. Tyls that Goodwin later learned Aja had stashed during her escape from the invading Tikal army.
He remembered thinking the woman was crazy when she suggested the remote dig site, but she overcame his objections by telling him tales of an enormous trove of gold hidden during the first-century battle between Tikal and Naranjo. She had been an effective manipulator, using her feminine charms to seduce him while filling his mind with dreams of treasure. Before he knew what had happened, he had fallen completely under her spell.
After several failed attempts, they finally found the buried trove, but there had been no gold. Just dozens of stones stacked inside a chest. He had been so disappointed, and equally confused by the woman’s reaction. She had been jubilant, parading around the dig, singing in a strange language with a cone-shaped stone in one hand and a hockey-puck-shaped stone in the other. As she had continued to celebrate, Goodwin recalled that she seemed to forget he was there. At one point, she halted her dance and raised her head to the sky, gripping the stones above her head. With a loud shout, she slammed them together and Goodwin’s life changed forever.
With a fire raging all around them, she had declared herself Wak Chanil Ajaw, longest reigning ruler of Mayan Naranjo. After rattling off various other titles and names she had ruled under, she finished by announcing herself the last living descendant of the great Munuorian empire. Goodwin recalled she had seemed oblivious to the fires closing in on them. In fact, she had seemed to revel at the specter. She ordered him to bow before her, to recognize her as his Queen. Frightened, Goodwin had ignored her ridiculous command, opting to search for a way through the blaze encircling them.
“Bow,” she had demanded, “and I will make the fire vanish. Stand, and I will burn you alive.”
She pointed the cone-shaped stone in his direction and readied to strike it with the other. Goodwin fell to his knees, fear in his eyes, hands raised in surrender. Aja, pleased by his submission, had dropped the two stones and reached in the chest for a bowl-shaped stone. Twirling in a circle, she had huffed against the bowl’s base and within seconds had extinguished the fire.
He still remembered her words as she approached him and stroked his hair: “Be loyal and your Queen will always protect you.”
When Pebbles heard a man’s raised voice outside the room, she hung up on Anlon and crawled to the door. Heart thumping, she reached up to verify that the chain lock and deadbolt were secured before turning around and crawling toward the bathroom. As she neared the bathroom door, she stopped and listened. Other than the rattling from the room’s climate control unit, she heard nothing.
She directed her gaze upward toward the small windows on each side of the room’s entry door. The curtains were drawn over the windows, but they were thin enough for light to filter into the semidark room. Pebbles watched for shadows, expecting her captor to approach the door at any second. When none appeared, she dropped back to the floor and crawled into the bathroom. She pushed the door until it was within a few inches from closing and continued to watch and listen for her captor.
While she waited, she patted her hands on the tile floor of the windowless bathroom, searching for her clothes. She found her sweater first and quickly pulled it on. The tag rubbing against her throat signaled the sweater was on backward, but before she could adjust it, Pebbles heard the raised voice again and she froze in place. The voice was closer this time but still too far away for Pebbles to make out what was said. She grabbed the doorknob and kept her eyes glued on the windows. Was it the police? Had they gotten there that quickly? She’d not heard any sirens.
The third time the voice called out, Pebbles was finally able to make out the man’s words. “Out of the car. Now!”
She heard a car door creak open, followed by an angry exchange of threats, and then a gunshot boomed out. She slammed the bathroom door closed and depressed the knob lock. Crawling into the tub, Pebbles whispered, “Please be the police!”
Pebbles had made a tough choice after she managed to wiggle her wrists free. Every cell in her brain had urged her to bolt from the room and run for the nearest sign of life, but she had been worried he would see her and chase her down before she could summon help, or worse, shoot her again. So, she had opted for the only other viable alternative: use the room phone to call 911.
After Pebbles had described her situation, the 911 operator cross-referenced the phone number from which Pebbles had called and dispatched the police. After he told her the police were on the way, Pebbles had asked him what she should do until the police arrived. In a calm, firm voice, the operator had told her to lock the doors and barricade herself in the bathroom. Pebbles had asked whether it was a better idea to make a run for it, and the operator unequivocally recommended staying put.
“But what if he gets in before the police get here?” Pebbles had asked.
“Look around the room, find something to defend yourself with,” the operator had suggested.
Pebbles had already done that, and the best she had been able to come up with was the bedside alarm clock. It was no bigger than a shoe and hardly heavy enough to do any serious damage, but it was better than nothing. The only problem — Pebbles had left it on the bed after hanging up on Anlon. As she rued the lack of a weapon, Pebbles heard the entry door violently rattle. Her captor hollered, “Open the f—ing door! Now!”
The command was followed by several heavy blows on the door. Shaking uncontrollably, Pebbles lifted her head above the tub ledge and yelled, “I called 911! Cops are com—”
Her retort was cut short by the sound of shattering glass. She ducked back into the tub and cursed again. There was a loud thump, accompanied by a groan, and then the crunching of glass. Oh, Jesus! thought Pebbles. He’s in the room! Come on, where are you, sirens?
With one kick of the bathroom door, it flew open and crashed against the commode. The light flicked on and Pebbles buried her head between her hands. Frantic, she began to scream for help with all the force her lungs could muster. She continued to scream as he delivered blow after blow with the butt of the gun against her arm-covered head.
“Shut the f— up!” he shouted repeatedly.
He swung wildly enough that most
of the blows glanced off her arms and hands, but then Pebbles shifted her arm to shield her face, exposing her head above the ear. When the gun stock collided against her skull, the force of the blow bounced her head against the tub floor and knocked her out cold.
Unconscious, Pebbles didn’t sense him hauling her out of the tub. Nor did she feel the shards of glass slice her legs as he dragged her through the room. As he stuffed her in the trunk again, she was unaware of the dead motel manager sprawled on the sidewalk outside the room, shotgun at his side. Pebbles did stir briefly when the car peeled out of the parking lot. In the distance, she heard the wail of sirens before she faded into unconsciousness.
Reno, Nevada
The police cruiser careened around the sharp curves of Mount Rose Highway as it sped down the mountain. In the backseat, Antonio was on the phone with his pilot, making sure all was ready to go for immediate liftoff upon their arrival at Reno International.
Anlon sat next to him with the case of Tyls on his lap, anxiously awaiting an update from Detective Emerson, who was on the phone with the California Highway Patrol. Anlon became alarmed when the detective dropped his head and began to massage his temples. Clearly, something had gone wrong. When the call was over, he turned to face Anlon. His stoic expression did little to alleviate Anlon’s uneasiness. Emerson’s expression also caught Antonio’s attention, leading him to end his own phone call.
“CHP is on-site right now,” Emerson said. “Unfortunately, Miss McCarver was gone by the time they got there. Evidently, CHP alerted the motel manager about what was going down, and the idiot tried to rescue her on his own and got himself killed. Two witnesses heard the gunshot and saw a man load a woman into the trunk of a car and take off. CHP has a description of the car. They’re searching for them now.”
“Damn it,” Anlon said.
“I know it’s not the news you wanted to hear, but CHP is pulling out all the stops to find them. Road checkpoints, helicopters, you name it,” Emerson said.
Curse of the Painted Lady (The Anlon Cully Chronicles Book 3) Page 21