A voice crackled from Carson’s transceiver. He made a curt reply and holstered his communication device.
The savage crunching and tearing sounds from the other side of the wall abruptly ceased and the creature turned toward the window. It dropped the squirming carcass to the ground and slowly approached the glass, its facial features clearly delineated by the sheer quantity of warm blood on its face.
“The director’s on his way down,” Carson said.
“What does he want?” Tess asked.
“You’ll have to ask him yourself.”
He’d barely uttered the words when the sound of footsteps materialized from the darkness behind her.
The creature crossed the cavern and pressed its bloody palms against the window, almost like it knew.
“Give us the room,” Barnett said before he even entered what Tess liked to think of as her office.
“Yes, sir,” Carson said, and headed back into the dark corridor.
“I know it’s taken longer than any of us thought,” Tess said, “but not five minutes ago I was finally able to get it to speak—”
“I need to talk to it,” Barnett interrupted.
The creature appeared to smile on the thermal monitor. They couldn’t even see its outline through the reinforced glass. The expression was the only thing even remotely human about it. The physical transformation had continued unabated, each passing day distorting more and more of the characteristics of Dr. Dale Rubley and forming something new, something entirely alien.
Tess climbed from her chair and gestured for Barnett to take a seat. He slid behind her console and studied first the monitors and then the window, which offered little more than an uninterrupted view of darkness.
“Jesus,” he said. “You can’t even see it standing less than two feet away.”
The dying pig kicked at the ground with the clacking of hooves, which did little more than push it in a half-circle through its own blood.
“Just push the button there,” Tess said, “and speak into the microphone. I have to warn you, though . . . don’t talk for any length of time or it will be able to isolate the speakers and tear them out. Like everything else.”
“Duly noted,” Barnett said and pressed the button. A clicking sound echoed throughout the inner cavern. “Can you hear me?”
“You have to release the button if you want to hear the microphones inside,” Tess said.
She reached for it, but he swatted her hand away. She’d never seen Barnett like this before. He was ordinarily so collected and almost charming, albeit in a rigid kind of way. Right now he was wound so tightly she could see the vein throbbing in his temple, even in the dim red glare.
“Tell me what else is down here,” he said, and released the button.
The creature looked almost contemplative for a moment before the blood on its face cooled to such a degree that its expression once more faded into a vague mass of colors. For the briefest of moments, she almost thought she’d seen a spark of recognition.
“I need to know what else could have survived down here, frozen inside these infernal tunnels.”
He released the button and Tess heard a sound from inside that could have been heavy breathing or perhaps throaty laughter as the creature retreated from the window and returned to its meal.
“You know, don’t you?”
The creature crouched, gripped the struggling pig in both hands, and buried its face in the poor animal’s neck. A sharp crack and a spurt of gold highlighted its elongated skull. The pig stopped moving.
“Two of my men are dead, and we don’t have the slightest idea what we’re up against.”
Tess opened her mouth to say something, but Barnett silenced her with a glare that made his face appear positively demonic in the red light.
“If we die down here, you die down here, too. You understand that, don’t you? You’ll be trapped in this cage until you starve to death. Or maybe until whatever’s out there finds a way to get in there with you.”
The creature rose from its meal, its features once more glistening with the fresh application of blood, and approached the window. It wiped the blood from its gaunt cheeks and bony chest and smeared it onto the glass.
Tess thought it was trying to paint over the window so they couldn’t see it until a pattern started to form. It traced over the lines until an intricate design took shape.
She glanced at Barnett in time to see comprehension dawn on his face. As quickly as the expression appeared, it was gone.
He stood so fast he nearly knocked over her chair.
“Not a word of this to anyone,” he said. “Do you hear me?”
He hurried down the corridor before she could respond, leaving her alone with the echo of his footsteps, the sound of chewing from inside the cavern, and the knowledge that something so terrifying it could scare even Barnett was lurking in the darkness with her.
7
ANYA
Teotihuacan
Anya had been initially disappointed when the concealed remains proved to be ordinary Homo sapiens. The way the subterranean tunnels had essentially revealed themselves when they activated the pyramid under the Antarctic ice cap had seemed like a perfect stroke of serendipity. That was the whole reason she’d volunteered to join Evans on this dig in the first place. She’d expected to find coneheaded skeletons everywhere she looked, bodies from which she’d be able to construct an evolutionary timeline so she could finally make some sense of what she’d seen at the bottom of the world. Instead, she’d stumbled upon another mystery, although one of a more mundane variety, but maybe that was what she needed for her own piece of mind, a distraction from the memories that still awakened her screaming at night.
They’d photographed the tomb from every conceivable angle and run a 3D LiDar scan—which preserved the scene as a precise digital model that could be rotated 360 degrees on any axis for increased scrutiny— before commencing with the arduous task of removing the bones. Earlier archeologists had discovered other mass graves throughout the primitive complex, and while this one was similar, there were enough distinct differences that it qualified as unique.
The other victims had been similarly bound and buried alive, although they’d been surrounded by all kinds of grave goods, from obsidian and greenstone figurines to blades, mirrors, and shells. They’d been highly decorated warriors, judging by the number of human jaws they wore on lanyards around their necks, wrenched from the fallen bodies of their enemies. For men so powerful to be sacrificed in such a manner, they had to have done so willingly, offering their services to the gods in the afterlife.
Unlike the other burial sites, however, there were no grave goods with these sacrifices, or the remains of any revered animals like hawks or jaguars. These victims hadn’t been buried; they’d been entombed, which in many ways was reminiscent of how the alien remains had been discovered in Egypt and Antarctica. While they’d been immobilized with their ankles tied and their hands bound behind their backs, there had been no earth packed around them to limit their movements or deplete the finite quantity of air in their lungs. They could have sat back-to-back and untied each other’s wrists, then freed their own ankles and made their escape. So why hadn’t they? Why had these people acquiesced to their fates when freedom had been within their grasp?
Those were the riddles she contemplated as Villarreal’s graduate students in Mesoamerican Archeology—Alexandra, a petite Latina with tattoos covering her arms, and Emil, a hulking local in a Hawaiian shirt whose thick glasses were always opaque with dust—painstakingly removed the bones and placed them in boxes labeled SW-1 through SW-12, corresponding to their relative position, from left to right, within what they were calling the Sacrificial Well. Their final resting places would be on shelves with the rest of the disinterred remains at the cultural center, where future researchers could check them out like books from some macabre library.
There was something about this burial, though . . . something she couldn’t quite
put her finger on.
“What can you tell me about these victims?” Villarreal asked.
“Hmm?” Anya said. She’d been so lost in thought that she hadn’t at first realized he was talking to her.
“The victims. What can you tell me about their physical condition?”
“They weren’t warriors like the others. Their skeletal structure doesn’t reflect the same advanced musculature. In fact, judging by the pelvic outlet, the width of the sciatic notch, and the angle of the pubic arch, four of them are undeniably female.”
“The Teotihuacano did not sacrifice women.”
“All evidence to the contrary aside,” Evans said from where he waded in a circle around the pool, studying each of the feathered serpent heads as he passed.
“Many of their gods were female, including the Great Goddess,” Villarreal said. “You must also remember that this society was built upon commerce. Women wove textiles and carved figurines. Their value to the economy of the state went beyond their role as breeding stock.”
“I can only tell you what I see,” Anya said. “I leave the interpretation to you guys.”
“The fact that there are twelve heads out here and twelve victims in there can’t be coincidental,” Evans said. “And if you look at each of these feathered serpents closely, you’ll see that no two of them are exactly the same.”
“They were carved by hand,” Villarreal said. “Of course they are not identical.”
“What I mean is look at their relative size compared to that of the bodies. I think they were carved after the victims were chosen, not before.”
“You are suggesting that this well was under construction while these people were dying mere feet away?”
“That’s one interpretation.”
“And they just sat there, waiting to die? I do not believe that.”
“They didn’t just sit there,” Anya said and scooted past Alexandra so she could get a better look at the next skeleton in line for removal. She shined her flashlight first onto its chin, then its neck, before looking straight up at the earthen ceiling. “Somebody get me a ladder.”
“Where do you propose we get a—?” Emil started.
“That crate will work,” Anya interrupted, and dragged over the crate labeled SW-9.
“What are you doing?” Evans asked. There was barely enough room for him to crawl inside with them.
“Look at how the body is lying. Specifically, look at its chin. See how it’s broken on the very tip? A comminuted fracture of that nature is extraordinarily uncommon. It results from direct impact to the mentum.”
“What is the significance?” Villarreal asked.
“The mandible’s designed in such a way that it distributes the force of any blunt trauma. That’s why most of the time it breaks on both sides at once, even when the force impacts only one side, like with a punch to the face. In this case, the impact was squarely to the tip of the chin and the force was distributed through the thicker body and rami, causing the head to be driven so far backward that it broke the neck at the second cervical vertebra.”
“A hangman’s fracture?” Evans said.
“Exactly, but in this case internal decapitation would be a better description.” She swept her beam across the smooth limestone roof, and then onto the partially articulated cervical spine. “And if you look really closely, you’ll see there’s a small amount of callus formation along the fracture lines, which means the injury occurred some amount of time before death.”
“I might not be the smartest person in any room,” Alexandra said, “but even I know you don’t survive decapitation.”
“The fracture of the odontoid process of the axis essentially caused what’s known as an atlanto-occipital dislocation. The spine separates from the skull, which in turn compresses the spinal cord. It’s only fatal seventy percent of the time, which is why a lot of people who are hanged survive long enough to asphyxiate. Without the noose, the victim can potentially survive, although the damage to the spinal cord causes some measure of—if not complete—paralysis.”
“So you think someone hit this guy in the face hard enough to break his neck and just left him to suffer?” Emil said.
“No,” Anya said. “I think—”
“The injury was caused by a fall from some height,” Evans finished for her.
“Bingo.”
“So you think these victims were bound and suspended above the ground while they were still alive,” Villarreal said.
Anya shined her light across the roof one last time before hopping down from the crate and crouching over the remains.
“But only one of them fell while he was still alive. The others demonstrate fractures consistent with falling, but there’s no sign of remodeling or healing.”
“So how were they suspended?”
“I don’t know.”
“There are no hooks or rings. The ceiling is as smooth as the floor.”
“Smoother, actually,” Anya said, and passed her flashlight to Emil. “Hold this for me, would you?”
She scrutinized the limestone under the sacrificial victim’s right hand for several seconds before using a chisel to scrape away the crust of adipocere.
“What did you find?” Evans asked.
“I’m not sure.” Anya wiped away the debris, pulled her sleeve over her hand, and used the cloth to clear the limestone. She took her flashlight from Emil and shined it at the disarticulated phalanges. The tip of the index finger had been filed down past the inguinal tuft. The pain must have been excruciating, yet still the man used it to carve a message into the bare stone, while he lay on his side, neck broken and arms bound behind his back. “Can you read this?”
“The symbol is not very clear,” Villarreal said.
“Use your imagination,” Evans said.
“What he means to say is that if anyone can read it,” Anya said, “it’s you.”
She glared at Evans, while Villarreal noticeably swelled with the compliment.
“It appears to be a combination of two different glyphs,” he said. “Or maybe an attempt to carve one on top of the other.”
“It’s not like he would have been able to see it very clearly,” Evans said. “You know, him being in the dark and all.”
“It looks like a sea anemone with an eye in the middle of its stalk,” Anya said.
“I do not think that is an eye,” Villarreal said. “If you turn the glyph upside down—”
“It’s a feathered serpent,” Evans said. “But what are all of those squiggly lines?”
“Roots,” Villarreal said. He became suddenly animated. “It is the tree of life.”
“So what does it mean?” Evans asked.
Anya tried to imagine what message could have been of such great importance to a man who knew he was going to die that he was willing to spend his final hours in unendurable agony in order to deliver it.
She wasn’t sure she wanted to find out.
8
BARNETT
The Pyramid of Transformation, FOB Atlantis
Barnett ascended the ladder from the subterranean warrens and climbed out of the well into the lowest level of the pyramid, where he was surrounded by the machinations that made it run. The ancient gears had been carefully extracted, cleaned to the bare lodestone, and replaced around the base of the iron column. The copper windings had been scoured of oxidation and polished to the color of burnished brass. His chief engineer estimated that the machine could now produce roughly thirty percent more energy, which undoubtedly would have been enough to instantly kill Dale Rubley, although in conjunction with the genetic alterations caused by the alien microbes, there was no way of accurately predicting what might happen if they attempted the experiment again.
He couldn’t help but wonder if it hadn’t been the diminished power of a machine designed to produce significantly more that had caused the creature’s slowed transformation and frightening levels of aggression, or if giving it more power would have only mad
e it exponentially worse.
He crouched and scurried up the ascending corridor. The walls had been purged of algae and the concealed hieroglyphics renovated to what could have passed for new, at least in a historical perspective. Their staff lexicologist believed they were a combination of Egyptian and Sumerian styles, only undeniably distinct from either. While the pictures conveyed snippets of stories, the actual writing that tied them together was far more complex than any cuneiform tablet or cartouche she’d ever seen. Barnett understood that cracking such complex codes wasn’t easy, but with every so-called specialist demanding more and more time, he was nearly out of patience.
The main corridor was considerably larger and brighter and always crowded with people coming and going from the upper levels. In addition to the Grand Gallery with its elaborate statuary of animal-faced gods, they’d discovered more than a dozen different passages that had been clogged with debris for millennia. They ranged in size from large enough for a man on all fours to explore to so small they had to custom-build a camera drone the size of his hand.
Morgan met him at the entrance and together they descended the switchbacking stairs to the boardwalk they’d built to connect the various buildings. Far too many people had sprained ankles on the loose stones of what for eons had been a lake bed.
Barnett didn’t speak a word on the way to the base. He didn’t have to. He’d been working with Morgan for so long now that his second-in-command had become adept at anticipating not only his needs, but his moods, which Barnett had to admit were more erratic than he would have liked. A consequence of going months on end without seeing the sun, he figured, but he also wasn’t handling the strain nearly as well as he had in the past. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the speed with which they were making these strange discoveries wasn’t coincidental. Something big was coming, and it was up to him to make sure they were ready for it. After all, very few people knew about his unit and what it did, and ever fewer believed in the credibility of the threat he could positively feel building against the horizon.
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