Jake Ransom and the Skull King's Shadow

by James Rollins

  Drummond leaned back in his seat and dissolved back into the shadows. “Who do you think financed your parents’ Mayan dig? Who do you think sent them in the first place?”

  Jake frowned. Mr. Bledsworth? Could it be true? Had the mysterious head of Bledsworth Sundries and Industries paid to have his mother and father explore the Mayan peak known as the Mountain of Bones?

  Why?

  The chauffeur called from the front as the limousine slowed.

  “We’ve reached the museum, sir.”

  Flashes and camera lights blinded as Jake and Kady exited the dark interior of the stretch limo. Jake took a step back in shock, but he had nowhere to retreat. Behind him, Morgan Drummond unfolded his large bulk and rose up like a wall.

  “Just keep moving,” he muttered under his breath.

  Drummond herded them forward through a crush of reporters on the sidewalk in front of the museum. The news crews and onlookers were held back behind two black velvet ropes that framed a red carpet. Ahead, the British Museum towered behind marble pillars, looking like a massive bank vault. A giant banner hung across the pillars and boldly announced the exhibit.

  Mayan Treasures of the New World

  Jake noticed many people wore special goggles to view the coming eclipse.

  He looked up to the sky. Of course, he should’ve known better. The moon was already beginning to cross the sun’s face. The blinding corona stung his eyes. He glanced away before it could damage his sight. To the south, a spate of lightning flashed, followed by a rumble of thunder. The storm was still blowing up along the Thames River and threatened to wipe out the rare sight.

  “Aren’t they darlings?” a matronly woman called out.

  “Spittin’ images of their mum and da.”

  “And look at those cute outfits.”

  “Regular little explorers, they are,” another chuckled.

  Jake became conscious of his clothes. Courtesy of the Bledsworth corporation, the pair had been tailor-fitted at an expensive shop on Savile Row, famous for its custom clothiers. Jake wore safari pants and a long-sleeved shirt, both khaki in color, along with a vest (with pockets everywhere, some zippered, some buttoned, some pockets inside other pockets). He also had a pair of hiking boots made of waterproof GORE-TEX and a matching backpack. They’d wanted him to wear a safari hat, too, but he refused.

  Kady loved the hat. It sat jauntily on her head. More cameras flashed. She tilted on a hip and coyly twined a finger in one of her hat’s ties.

  Jake rolled his eyes and continued toward the museum.

  The shouts and calls became a wordless blur. He just wanted to get inside, away from all the commotion. Bledsworth Sundries and Industries, along with the museum, had organized a media blitz: newspapers, television, even posters on the sides of buses and subways. All to promote the exhibit. The story of the disappearance of Jake’s parents had been big news when it had first occurred, a story of gold and bandits and murdered archaeologists. The papers pumped it up again. Everyone had soon learned of the orphaned Ransoms. And now to have the kids here, for the opening of the exhibit, had brought out everyone with a camera.

  Morgan Drummond kept close to Jake’s shoulders and encouraged Kady to keep moving with the flat of his hand at her back. His voice boomed to the crowd. “We’re running late! There’ll be time for more photos after the event!”

  Murmurs of disappointment dogged their steps.

  But Jake noted how Drummond glanced to one member of the audience, fixing him with a stare. At the ropes stood a toad of a man, squat and dressed all in green, munching on a doughnut. His eyes were buried under bushy eyebrows. His lips were puffy and dusted with powdered sugar. He also had a camera around his neck, but it just hung loose. He didn’t bother raising it as they passed.

  He only gave the smallest nod toward Drummond, who hurried them faster.

  At long last, Jake and Kady crossed under the banner and into the museum’s interior. Apart from the guards in blue uniforms, the lobby was deliciously empty. Kady glanced outside with a longing look.

  “There’s a ribbon-cutting ceremony in the Queen Elizabeth Court,” Morgan Drummond said as he led them past a gift shop and across the polished marble floor.

  “Will there be more cameras?” Kady asked, flipping open her compact mirror with the skill of a knife thrower.

  “Just the television news and the London Times,” Drummond said. “The museum is hosting an exclusive event, limited to the largest contributors. And even they had to pay a hefty fee to attend the ribbon cutting.”

  “Does your company get a cut from that extra fee?”

  Drummond frowned down at Jake as if he had asked a rudely stupid question. “Of course we do. We’ll have to collect a small fortune just to break even on this exhibit.” A certain huffiness entered his voice. “Why do you think you two were invited here? It’s not dusty artifacts that draw a good crowd. Stories get people in the door. Like your…well, the tragedy surrounding…” The large man suddenly seemed to realize to whom he was talking. He became a tad tongue-tied. He had the decency to blush around his collar and rub at his neck.

  Jake’s own face heated up, but not with embarrassment. One hand balled up into a fist as the full realization struck him. The invitation to come here wasn’t to publicize and celebrate their parents’ achievements, but to take advantage of their tragedy: to turn their loss into cold, hard cash for Bledsworth Sundries and Industries. Jake suddenly felt both foolish and angry. He and his sister had been flown all the way to London to dance like puppets for the crowd, to sell more tickets.

  Kady seemed unfazed by the revelation. She pranced onward, eager for the next dazzle of flashbulbs and attention.

  “Through here,” Drummond said, and held a door for them.

  As Jake stepped through, an amazing sight opened. A giant inner atrium stretched a full two acres, all paved in marble.

  “The Great Court,” Drummond declared. He reached into a pocket and handed out glasses with black lenses. “Eclipse goggles. You’d better wear these.”

  As Jake put on the goggles, he continued across the floor. The wings of the museum surrounded the vast courtyard on all four sides. Sweeping staircases led up to other levels. But what truly captured Jake’s attention was the roof that enclosed the courtyard itself. It was composed of triangular sections of clear glass that seemed to float above their heads, weightless and bright with sunlight.

  Jake craned his neck and stared up through the glass roof.

  The tinted goggles allowed him to stare into the full face of the eclipse without fear of being blinded. Already the moon half covered the sun. The total eclipse was not far off.

  Thunder rumbled. Jake turned and looked to the south. The front edge of the storm rolled into view.

  Would it hold off long enough?

  4

  THE BLACK SUN

  In a hidden corner of the museum courtyard, Jake leaned against a giant stone head from Easter Island. The statue’s heavy brow and sharp nose had been carved from black basalt. Jake matched its stern expression as he spied on the audience.

  Dressed in tuxedos and party dresses, the guests carried glasses of champagne. A waiter with a silver tray passed among them with caviar on toast points. One woman sported a diamond tiara on a tall pile of white hair. Was she royalty?

  Off to one side, Kady basked within a television camera’s spotlight. A reporter held a furry microphone toward her nose.

  “So tell the viewers of BBC One,” the reporter asked, “are you excited to visit the exhibit?”

  “Oh, certainly,” Kady answered, and turned slightly. Jake knew she was trying to highlight her best side, or at least that was the side she’d decided this morning was her best for television.

  His sister continued her interview with much waving of her hands. She made sure she bounced on her toes a bit to get just the right flounce from her well-groomed curls.

  Jake crossed his arms. Morgan Drummond’s revelation about the true pur
pose of their attendance here still irked him. Just to sell more tickets. He unfolded his arms and tugged at the safari vest. He was tempted to rip it off and storm out of here. But then what? And he still had to consider his sister. Kady clearly wasn’t going anywhere.

  Jake turned in the opposite direction. Beyond the crowd, he spotted a thick red ribbon across the top of a stairway that led to the second level. A man in a top hat held an oversized set of scissors that looked like garden shears.

  “The museum curator,” Morgan Drummond said at Jake’s elbow, startling him. The large man had crept up behind him. “It won’t be much longer. It’ll be over before you know it.”

  Though the words were whispered, they sounded vaguely like a threat. Maybe because they were accompanied by another rumble of thunder.

  Jake shrugged and moved out of Drummond’s shadow. He stared up toward the sky again. The moon was almost completely in front of the sun. Even with his goggles, the sun’s corona around the edge of the moon blazed and made his eyes ache.

  Jake blinked and turned as a bell chimed, starting the official event. Finally! He felt his heart thump harder. All eyes were drawn forward as the museum curator held up an arm to silence the murmur in the crowd.

  The camera lights, shining on Kady, were suddenly extinguished. She sagged as if she were a plant shut out from the sun.

  “Here we go,” Drummond said.

  The curator lifted his scissors. “If we could have the Ransom children up here with me!” he called out. “It is only appropriate that they be here for this auspicious occasion. In honor of their parents, Drs. Richard and Penelope Ransom.”

  Morgan Drummond pulled Jake out of hiding and into the limelight. They collected Kady on the way to the stairs.

  A smattering of applause encouraged them up the steps.

  The curator continued, “I’m sure everyone knows the story of the Ransoms, how they discovered the Mountain of Bones, one of the most remote and inhospitable Mayan archaeological sites. Surmounting all manner of obstacles—from man-eating jaguars to malaria-bearing mosquitoes—they explored a magnificent tomb full of relics priceless to history and to our understanding of the ancient Maya. The British Museum, along with the generous and philanthropic support of Bledsworth Sundries and Industries”—the curator nodded to Drummond as he climbed the stairs with Jake and Kady—“are proud to present in public for the first time the MAYAN TREASURES OF THE NEW WORLD!”

  Another burst of thunder followed his pronouncement.

  As Jake and Kady reached the top of the stairs, the curator pointed to the skies and yelled, “Behold!”

  All the lights were turned off in the courtyard.

  Jake gaped upward. It was happening!

  The moon moved an imperceptible amount and fully covered the sun. The eclipse had gone total. The sun’s corona shot dazzling rays around the darkened moon, as if a black sun blazed in the heavens.

  Jake held his breath in wonder.

  Under the glow of the eclipse, the room dimmed to an eerie twilight. The courtyard’s marble surfaces took on a silvery sheen, as if the floors and walls glowed with an inner light.

  The curator spoke into the darkness. “The Maya themselves predicted this eclipse through their ancient astronomical studies and calculations. We chose this celestial moment to open the exhibit.” He turned with his giant shears. “Mr. Ransom, would you like to help me?”

  A spotlight flared and flooded the top of the steps.

  Jake tore his gaze from the skies and down to the red ribbon. He knew the hallway to his parents’ treasures lay beyond this thin ribbon. He nodded, anxious to move on. “Let’s do it.”

  The curator grinned and held up a hand, signaling Jake to wait stiffly as cameras flashed below. Kady stood with her arms crossed tightly across her chest. Jake knew he would pay later for stealing her attention now.

  Like he had any choice.

  Jake grasped one half of the scissors and together with the curator cut the ribbon with one swift snap.

  As the shears closed and the ribbon fell away, a blinding crackle of lightning shattered across the sky. Thunder immediately boomed. The roof overhead rattled with the close impact. The audience was struck into a frightened silence—then patters of soft laughter followed.

  The curator winked at Jake. “Well, we couldn’t have timed that any better, could we, lad?” He took the shears and straightened.

  Jake turned to stare up at the sky. Storm clouds rolled over the view of the eclipse and blotted it out. A deeper twilight swallowed the courtyard.

  The curator lifted an arm toward the audience. “Everyone stay where you are. We’ll get the lights back up in the courtyard in a moment. While we wait, maybe it’s best we let the Ransom children enter the exhibit first, to have a private moment among the treasures that their parents discovered.”

  Murmured Ahs and How touchings flowed up from the audience, along with some soft clapping.

  One voice, though, rose above the others, full of scorn. “The treasures their parents discovered? Bah! More like stole!” The last word cracked across the courtyard like a rifle shot.

  Stunned silence followed.

  The man continued, “What about the rumors that the Ransoms are still alive in South America! That they staged their vanishing so they could abscond with the most valuable of the treasures!”

  Jake’s heart climbed to his throat. His cheeks burned with anger.

  “Hear, hear,” said the curator. “We’ll have none of these foul aspersions—”

  He was cut off with a bellow. “Richard and Penelope Ransom are nothing more than right common thieves, I tell you!”

  Lights flickered back on in the courtyard.

  Jake took off his eclipse goggles and picked out the man in the crowd. It was the toadish reporter from outside, the one who had been eating a doughnut.

  Jake took a step forward, ready to leap down and make the man take back his words—but a large palm stopped him and pushed him up onto the second-floor landing.

  Morgan Drummond gently shoved Kady after him. “No need for you to hear this ugliness. Go on into the exhibit.”

  Behind him, the curator called for security. The exhibit’s guards ran past Jake and Kady and pounded down the stairs.

  Still, he raved on. “Thieves! Charlatans! Blood is on the Ransoms’ hands!”

  Each utterance was a knife to Jake’s heart.

  Drummond gave him a push. “Go. I’ll join you in a bit.”

  Kady glanced at him. Her eyes were wide, stunned, scared. “Jake…”

  He had to get her away. “Let’s get going.”

  They hurried into the room across the landing. Jake stumbled along, half blind with anger. He was well into the exhibit before his brain finally registered the wonders around him.

  He stopped. Kady did, too.

  “It’s Mom and Dad,” Kady said.

  They had both halted in front of a giant poster. It was the same as the picture Jake had in his notebook. Their parents smiled goofily into the camera, dressed in muddy khakis and bearing aloft a block with Mayan carvings on it.

  Behind him, shouts still echoed from the courtyard.

  More lies about his folks.

  Jake stared up into the faces, blown up to life size. It was too much. He turned away. A particularly loud bellow reached him.

  “Murderers and thieves!”

  At that moment, Jake remembered something: how the toadish man had nodded to Morgan Drummond as they had entered the museum.

  It was as if the two had known each other.

  The nod.

  Like it had been some planned signal.

  Jake remembered Drummond’s earlier revelation. Could this outburst be just another way to whip up more publicity for the show, to create some controversy around the exhibit, to sell more tickets?

  Or was it something more sinister?

  For another three minutes, Jake wandered through the exhibit, lost in his thoughts. Kady also circled the room.
She kept her arms hugged tightly around her chest, as if fearful of touching anything. They moved through the room in separate orbits, like two planets that dared not cross paths.

  As Jake walked in the room, his worries began to fade. Wonder cooled the heated pounding of his heart. All around he spotted artifacts and relics as sketched or described in his parents’ books, like the double-headed snake from the brochure. In person, the strange serpent was even more dazzling, brightly lit under halogen lights. The snake’s eyes were rubies. The scales were carved with great detail into the gold. The fangs were made of slivers of ivory or perhaps bone.

  Jake reached into his vest and pulled out his father’s field logbook and his mother’s leather-bound sketchbook. He had wanted both books with him when he visited the museum. He opened his father’s log and read the entry for the double-headed snake.

  Clearly from the intricate curling of the serpent into a figure eight, the relic must represent the Mayan belief in the eternal nature of the cosmos. From the craftsmanship, the work must represent the high Classic period. I can only imagine…

  Jake read onward, hearing his father’s voice in his head as he continued through the exhibit, stopping in front of each object. As he wandered, each piece brought him closer to his parents. Had his mother polished the silver jaguar over there? Had his father counted the number of circles, like tree rings, that made up the Mayan calendar wheel?

  Jake remembered lessons taught to him as a young boy…by his mother, by his father. And not just about archaeology. He remembered his mother teaching him how to tie his shoelaces.

  The rabbit dives into the lace hole and pops back out….

  He found his feet slowing. Though he was thousands of miles away from Ravensgate Manor, Jake felt a closeness, an intimacy here, like he had discovered a long-lost room in his home.

  “How long do you think we have to stay in here?” Kady finally asked with her usual ring of exaggerated impatience.