by Robyn Nyx
Chapter Thirty-four
Chase checked the knots on her swami belt despite feeling foolish for doing so. This leap of faith was a long shot, even for her, but then the clue to that was in the phrasing. She found it hard to believe that after going to so much trouble with the map, the trees, the artifacts, and the stones that the entrance to the cave could be found by jumping from a stone onto solid ground. Tonyck and Ginn had tied one big loop around themselves and were sat on the ground, heels dug in and hands wrapped around the rope, giving Chase around twenty feet of slack. Chase could see they were taking their role seriously because they’d both put their utility gloves on.
Chase tracked her path backward in the precise direction they’d come from. She stopped and turned after counting twenty paces. Rayne nodded slowly at her, her hands clasped together as if she were praying, and Chase could see the trepidation and excitement battling for supremacy in her eyes.
She pulled the straps of her backpack tighter over her shoulders and took a deep breath before setting off. As she ran, her mind flicked back to college days and the long jump. Her best friend beat her consistently, making Chase crazy and determined to win. So Chase trained and trained until finally, at one college event, she jumped farther than her bestie by two inches. It didn’t matter that it was only two inches. It didn’t matter that beating her best friend signified the end of their friendship. All that mattered to Chase was the win.
And that’s all that mattered right now. The win. Finding the Trinity. Her right foot hit the stone. She launched herself into the air and closed her eyes. For a brief glorious moment, she was weightless and could’ve imagined she was anywhere in the world instead of being forced to work for a maniac.
Then she hit the ground with a thud and rolled.
Nothing.
The ground didn’t shake, and it didn’t move beneath her. So much for the leap of faith. Why didn’t the map just say it was another ten feet forward? Chase closed her eyes, sighed, and lay back onto the grass, knowing that she’d disappear from view.
But instead of the soft cushion of vegetation, Chase’s head hit something hard, really hard. She flipped over onto her belly to look upon not just one but three triangular stones. All carved with the same god. The central stone featured a circular hole in the clutches of the serpent’s jaw, and it was carved with additional words. Lay map here.
Chase jumped up. “I need the map! Bring the map.”
She watched Rayne grab the original map from Nicolai’s hands and run toward her. Chase allowed herself a small smile despite the circumstances. She liked seeing Rayne run toward her, and it made her want Rayne to jump into her arms when she got there so she could spin her around like the hero does in all the great movies. She shook her head to snap out of the daydream as Rayne reached her.
“This goddamn thing is heavy,” Rayne said. “I’m glad I haven’t been the one to lug it around the jungle this whole trip…Why do you need it?”
Chase grabbed Rayne’s other hand and pulled her around to the ground to face the three stones. “Look.”
“More stones. Same god…I’m going to make an assumption that the middle stone wants you to roll up this ancient and priceless scroll and stick it inside that hole.” Rayne wiped her fingers across her forehead. “Please tell me that I’m wrong.”
“You’re wrong.”
Rayne blew out a breath and sank lower to her butt. “Oh, thank God.”
Chase grinned and shook her head. “Rayne. I’m lying. You’re absolutely right.”
Rayne sprang back to her haunches and slapped Chase hard across her shoulder. “You swine. Are you serious? We’ve got to crack this open and shove it in a grubby stone?” She shook her head and pulled the case to her chest. “No. There’s got to be another way…Put the duplicate copy in there and see what happens.”
Chase laughed. “I’m not going to insult your intelligence or waste my breath explaining why that clearly wouldn’t work.”
“What do you want us to do, Stinse?”
Tonyck’s shout reminded Chase they were still on the ground, hunkered down waiting for Chase to fall. “Stay exactly where you are…and be ready for anything. I’m going to connect Rayne to my harness so you could do with some help from anyone strong enough to hold the rope.”
“You’ve found the entrance?” Owen asked as he walked toward them.
Chase held up her hand. “Maybe. But I need you to stay right where you are. When we put the map in this stone, we don’t know what’s going to happen. The other side of the last stone is most likely the safest place to be.”
Owen tapped his gun. “You’ll still be in range from back there, you know?”
Chase clenched her jaw and waved him away. “Yeah, sure.” His long-distance accuracy didn’t seem up to much against moving targets if Chase’s camera was anything to go by. It was Tonyck and Ginn who should be most concerned. She returned her attention to Rayne, who’d relinquished the map and laid it on the ground. Chase pushed it closer to Rayne. “I can’t do it. You have to do it. You’re the one with less respect for history.”
Rayne raised her eyebrows and punched Chase square in the chest. “Wow. If that’s what you think, Mister, we’ve got a problem.”
“I never realized before how easy you are to tease. You’re like a little wind-up toy. Wind her up and watch her go.”
“And I never realized how you used humor in tremendously serious situations where some might perceive it as completely inappropriate,” Rayne said.
“So you won’t do it?” Chase gave Rayne a little push.
“No, Miss Morals and Conscience.” Rayne crossed her arms over her chest. “You do it.”
Chase sighed and pulled the case onto her knee. “Fine…do you know how sexy you are when you go all indignant like that?”
Rayne tapped her fingernails on the map. “Shut up and open the damn thing.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Chase plugged in the six-digit combination. Did she really have to do this? She supposed if the Trinity was really here, the map had been the cherry on the cake they’d no longer have. “Maybe we’ll be able to take it out and put it back in the case when it does…whatever it needs to do.”
“We can hope.”
As she opened the case slowly, Chase could almost hear the degradation of the bark begin, and it was like a tiny hammer hitting the same place over and over. The more it degraded, the more painful it became. She shook it off and took one end of the map. This had to be done quickly. They didn’t know what the map was required to do, and if it deteriorated too much too soon, perhaps it wouldn’t be able to fulfill its task. The Mayans hadn’t designed it to last this long.
Chase ignored the cracking in the bark as she rolled it into the circular shape the stone required. “Throw the case back toward them. If the ground gives, we don’t want that heavy thing falling on either of our heads.”
Rayne did as Chase asked. “Stick it in the hole then, Chase.”
Chase grinned at Rayne’s unsubtle innuendo. “Oh, I will.” She remembered Rayne wasn’t harnessed to her yet. “The ground might give. Maybe it would be safer for you to join the others, then follow on my rope.”
“No way.” Rayne removed her paracord bracelet, unfurled it, and tossed one of the ends to Chase. “Harness me up, honey.”
Chase shook her head. “How come you can be all sexual in this situation, but I can’t be humorous?”
“Oh, Chase. You’ve got so much to learn about women. When your hair is this long,” she flipped her ponytail over her shoulder, “you can get away with anything you damn well please.”
Chase’s body responded to the look Rayne gave her. Who was she to argue with Rayne’s logic when it was absolutely true. Chase fed the cord through the loops of Rayne’s cargo pants, tied it off, and attached it to her own harness with a figure eight knot. “If we drop any kind of distance, this stuff is going to hurt. You’re going to have to try to hang on to me to support your weight when we fall.”
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br /> Rayne raised her eyebrow and smirked. “You only have to ask if you want me to hold you, Chase.”
“Seriously…Are you ready?”
“I’m ever-ready, Chase. You’ll learn that.”
“Wow, you can just flip a switch, can’t you?” Chase grinned, then remembered the company they were in. This was supposed to be this much fun, but with Owen so close, something could go wrong at any moment. She wished they could be doing this under better circumstances.
Rayne caressed Chase’s check and looked at her seriously. “I know, Chase. I feel it too.”
Chase nodded before she shouted to the tank twins that they were a go. Chase retrieved the rolled-up map and began to carefully place it into the central hole of the middle stone. “There’s no resistance. Shall I just keep pushing?” Rayne nodded, but Chase wasn’t sure. “What if the map falls through the hole completely?”
“Then that’s what it was supposed to do.” Rayne wrapped her arms around Chase’s waist and pressed her face against her shoulder. “Make the earth move, baby.”
Chase would’ve shaken her head, but her focus was pulled when she felt something against the map. “Another hole?” she whispered, more as a question than a statement. She continued to gently push the map downward until it felt like pushing it farther might snap it. Only about three inches remained above the triangular stone. “Can you hear that?” Chase pressed her ear to the stone. That was whirring and grinding, for sure. It was slow, steady, but it was there. The ground beneath her feet began to vibrate. Chase turned and held Rayne just as the ground disappeared completely and she felt weightless once again. Chase heard the surprised shouts of the tank twins before the slack in the rope tautened, and she and Rayne jolted to an abrupt stop.
Rayne’s grip around Chase’s waist didn’t falter, but Chase reached around. “Come around the front so I can hold you.”
Rayne did as Chase instructed without a quip.
Chase figured the drop might have given her more of a shock than she’d anticipated. The tank twins began to let the rope down little by little. “Reach into my pocket and pull out a glow stick.”
“How am I supposed to resist responding when the setups are coming thick and fast?”
“I don’t know,” Chase said. “You’ve had them under control for most of this expedition.”
Rayne felt around in Chase’s pocket, got the glow stick, snapped it, and dropped it. They both looked down as it fell into the vast darkness. It came to rest far enough down that its light was dim.
“What can you see?”
Chase looked up to see Owen peering over the edge of the crater they’d just created, and it was then that she saw just how big it was. She glanced left and right and calculated it must be a hundred feet wide. She could hear chunks of the earth thudding to the cave floor below them. “Not a whole lot yet,” Chase said. “Tell them to keep the rope going nice and steady.”
“Pull on the rope when you’ve reached the bottom, and I’ll follow,” Owen said.
“Bring down another rope with you; we may need to go deeper.” Chase focused on Rayne. “How’s the harness holding up?”
“I’ll be glad when I can loosen it.” Rayne kissed her. “You think this is what they meant by a leap of faith?”
Chase smiled, the taste of Rayne fresh on her lips energizing her. “The Mayans or us?”
“Either.” Rayne tilted her head slightly. “Both.”
“It worked for the Mayans. I’m prepared to make the same leap with us.” Chase saw that vulnerability and shyness slip out again in her responding smile.
“That’s a bold promise, but I guess that’s okay since we don’t know if we’ll be around to make an ‘us’ after we’ve found the Trinity.”
“Hey, don’t say that,” Chase said. “We’re going to get through this.”
Rayne nodded, though Chase could see there was little belief behind her eyes. She couldn’t let her down. She wouldn’t let her down. There’d be a way they could all get out of this alive, and Chase would find it. She had to.
Chapter Thirty-five
Hitting the ground was a welcome distraction from the intensity of their conversation. For a brief moment Rayne had allowed herself to believe they could get out of this, but then she remembered the callous way Owen dispatched Turner, Rich, and Effi. Now that they were deep underground in previously uncharted territory, killing them would be even easier because he wouldn’t have to worry about hiding the bodies.
For now, she needed to push those thoughts from her mind and focus on finding the Trinity. She and Chase untied themselves from the rope, and Chase pulled on it to indicate they’d reached the bottom. Rayne wrapped the paracord and stuffed it into her pocket. They both retrieved flashlights from their packs. When they turned them on and looked around, Rayne’s breath caught. Large stone steps led them deeper into the cave, and at the bottom of those steps was a Mayan temple, a much smaller version than El Castillo for sure, but amazing nonetheless. There were four large stepped platforms shaping the body of the temple and the typical flight of steep stone steps split the platforms symmetrically. Where the stone was once bright, it was now damp-looking and dark green. Rayne focused her flashlight on the ground beneath the temple to see it was flooded.
“That doesn’t look ominous at all,” Rayne said. “Me first.” She began to jog down the steps toward the temple. She heard Chase’s footsteps behind her and upped her pace. When she got to the bottom, she paused at the water separating them from the temple by a hundred feet and no indication as to the depth.
Chase grabbed her waist and pulled her close. “We’re going to have to address your competitive streak.”
Chase kissed her, and Rayne relaxed into Chase’s strong embrace. “I just want to see it first. I want to get there before Owen catches up with us and spoils the fun.” She kissed Chase once more and pulled away. “Fancy a swim?”
Chase pointed to the slightly raised stone at the edge of the steps they’d just come down from. “The slab topping that stone, it doesn’t look like it’s attached with mortar. The Mayans used mortar for every building.”
“You’re thinking that it moves?” Rayne asked as she walked toward it.
Chase nodded. “I do. We’re in proper adventure mode now, Rayne.”
She grinned, and Rayne couldn’t help but smile. Chase was full of life any time, but she vibrated when she was on a trail. Rayne took a deep breath at the beauty of it all and tried to push away the sadness that tugged for her attention and scolded her for wasting so much time without Chase.
Chase got to her knees and pushed at the slab. It crunched loudly over the stone but began to give, exposing the stone beneath it. Rayne joined Chase and helped her push until the slab fell away and splashed into the water.
“The wood piece?” Chase gestured toward the strangely-shaped hole in the center of the stone, positioned in the jaws of the serpent leg of K’awiil as with the previous stone. She swung her backpack around, opened it, and pulled out the artifact they’d found in the first lupuna tree. “Do you want to do it?”
Rayne took the carved wood from Chase’s hand and maneuvered it a few times before she found what she thought would be the right position. She carefully placed the artifact into the hole and pressed it down when she met with resistance. There was a click as it pushed down and sprang back up slightly before the ground grumbled beneath their feet. Mechanisms they could hear but couldn’t see lumbered into action, droning and creaking as they did. The glass-like appearance of the water shattered as whatever they’d started rumbled upward.
“It’s a bridge,” Chase said as they watched and waited for it to reveal itself.
Rayne squatted down after a few minutes. “How deep is this bloody moat?”
“A temple underground!”
They turned to see Owen at the top of the stone steps, a climbing rope over his shoulder and across his chest. For the first time, he looked somewhat excited instead of just plain menacing. Ray
ne preferred the menacing version; excitement seemed all kinds of wrong on his face. He jogged down the steps and slapped Chase on the back as if they were best buddies just as a stone bridge broke the surface of the water. Rayne wondered if he could swim, then wished it could have been a moat of boiling acid instead.
Chase looked back up the steps. “Just you?”
He shook his head. “Larry’s coming down shortly, don’t worry. And don’t get any stupid ideas.”
He tapped the gun in his waistband as a warning, but Rayne was busy trying not to laugh at the name of Owen’s colleague. Whatever a Larry was supposed to look like, it wasn’t the guy holding a gun to G&T. Larry seemed like a name for a cuddly kind of guy.
Chase held up her hands. “I’m just asking. We don’t know what’s inside and may need more hands.”
“Nicolai and his gang are looking after her bodyguards right now; tying them up nice and tight to one of those big trees. They’ll come down for the treasure when I radio them. If the radio doesn’t work, I’ll just pull on the rope.” Owen motioned to the bridge. “After you.”
Chase tested the first step of the bridge then turned to Rayne. “Let me get all the way across, then you come over. Okay?”
Rayne suppressed the desire to raise her eyebrow, knowing that Chase was right to make sure the bridge was safe enough for one to cross before she tried. Still, she was used to being first, and it was a habit she wouldn’t give up for anyone.
Chase reached the other side of the bridge and before she’d turned, Rayne followed.
“Are you coming?” Rayne asked Owen.
“I’ll wait until Larry gets down here,” he said. “Keep going.”
Rayne shrugged and whispered to Chase, “Do you think he’s scared that we might overpower him?”
Chase turned her back to the bridge and began to walk toward the temple. “Maybe. And if we get the chance, that’s exactly what I have in mind.”