Middleworld

by J; P Voelkel

  “But, sadly, not for the better. Listen to yourself. Evil spirits, human sacrifices, demon warriors … I’m too frustrated to talk to you anymore. You should have stayed in your room that night, Max. You gave me your word and you broke it.”

  “But my word wasn’t good enough for you, was it? I was going to stay in my room until I realized you’d locked the door. Why couldn’t you have trusted me? You locked me away like a prisoner.”

  Uncle Ted sounded close to tears. “No, I locked you away like something precious. I just wanted to keep you safe, Max.” The pain in Uncle Ted’s eyes hardened into resolve. “But now I can see the error of my ways. I’ll give you a little time to think about things, and then I’m handing you over to Landa.”

  With that, Uncle Ted swept out of the stateroom.

  The two guards, who’d evidently been waiting outside the door, barged in and grabbed Max again. They looked disappointed to find him in one piece and did their best to injure him themselves as they pushed and pulled him through hatches and down ladders to the bottom of the ship.

  At the end of a long metal gangway, a door was unlocked and Max was pushed in. He found himself in a small cabin with no porthole and no furniture except for a sink and a metal bunk bolted to the wall.

  Now what? Max checked every inch of the cabin for a way out. He pressed his ear against the door, but he could hear nothing. He tried kicking the door for a while, but no one came. He paced up and down. He lay on the bunk. As the hours went by, he grew more and more wretched. This waiting and not knowing was as bad as any torture the creepy count could have devised.

  What was happening? Where was Lola? How would Hermanjilio and two talking monkeys be able to outwit Landa and all his men? The more he thought about it, the more his heart sank. Whichever way you looked at it, they were in big trouble. And there was nothing he could do to help.

  As he lay on the bunk in that airless cabin, he gradually dozed off. He awoke with a start to the blaring of an alarm. There were men shouting and the sounds of running feet all over the boat. Someone ran past his door and up the stairs. He heard motorboats starting up, revving their engines, and roaring off.

  Then all was quiet again.

  What was going on? Had something happened onshore?

  Had Hermanjilio made his move?

  Max banged on the door. He kicked the walls. He shouted. After a while, he thought he heard a noise in the corridor. He held his breath and listened as closely as he could.

  Yes, there it was again. There was something or someone out there.

  “Let me out! Let me out!” he shouted.

  He heard the lock slowly turning.

  Suddenly, the door flew open and a familiar figure half stepped and half fell into the cabin.

  “Uncle Ted! What’s happening?”

  “Some kind of emergency … all gone ashore … good time to escape …”

  Max took in his uncle’s slurred speech, his unsteady gait, and the whiskey fumes that wafted from his pores. “Are you all right, Uncle Ted?”

  “Had a drink or two with the captain … to get him out of the way. … He’s sleeping it off … on the bridge. … You must go now.”

  Before Max could ask any more questions, Uncle Ted lurched back down the gangway toward the stairs. When Max caught up with him on the deck, he was leaning perilously over the guardrail and pointing at something off to stern.

  “That’ll get you to shore. … Think you can handle it?”

  Max peered over the side. A little boat with an outboard motor bobbed below, straining at its rope.

  “I don’t understand,” said Max.

  “Zodiac inflatable … jus’ pull the cord and slam it into gear. …”

  “No, I mean, why are you helping me escape?”

  Uncle Ted looked like he might cry. “Turns out I do owe you an apology, Max. … The way they dragged that poor girl off … I think you were right about Landa. … I should have listened—”

  “Lola?” interrupted Max. “Where did they take her?”

  “To shore …”

  “I have to go; I have to save her.”

  “Save your own skin, Max. … Get as far away from here as possible.”

  “I’m going to find Lola. Are you coming?” said Max coldly.

  His uncle shook his head. “What we should do”—he staggered slightly—“what we should do is call the police.”

  “There’s no time! Don’t you understand? Landa’s going to sacrifice Lola. We need to stop him!”

  Max was pulling his uncle toward the ladder down to the Zodiac, but Uncle Ted clumsily disengaged himself.

  “Uncle Ted, come on. Lola needs us!”

  “Sorry, Max … I’m not the hero type. …”

  “Are you scared of Landa?” sneered Max.

  “Yes,” said Uncle Ted.

  “So you’d let Lola die rather than face up to him?”

  “We Murphys look after number one.”

  “Well, this Murphy has learned that you can’t live your life that way.”

  “I tried to be a hero once. … It went wrong. … She died. … I should have just called the police—”

  Max impatiently interrupted, gripping his uncle’s arms to call him back from his drunken ramblings. “Where’s Lucky Jim? He could help me.”

  “Lucky? I think you’ve upset him, Max. He’s locked himself in his cabin and he won’t come out. I can hear him chanting, and it smells like he’s burning incense. If I didn’t know him better, I’d think he was doing some sort of Maya ritual. I don’t know what’s come over him.” Uncle Ted hiccuped loudly.

  “With Lucky on our side, we might have stood a chance.”

  “Do you want me to try and talk to him?”

  “There’s no time,” said Max, climbing over the side of the yacht. “Wish me luck.”

  “Max … wait!”

  “Are you coming with me?”

  “No, I just want to give you this.”

  Uncle Ted passed down a diver’s knife on a belt.

  “Good luck, Max.”

  When Max was safely aboard, Uncle Ted untied the rope and shouted down instructions. Max pulled the cord with all his might, and the engine roared to life. After a few false starts when he butted the yacht like an angry ram, he got the hang of steering and the Zodiac sped away.

  Soon Max could make out the shore and the sinister outline of the Black Pyramid. He headed straight for it, with the motor flat-out. His heart surged, happy to be free again. His stomach, which apparently knew something his heart did not, shrank into a tight ball of fear.

  What grisly sight would be waiting for him at the temple?

  After a while, he heard the motor of the yacht behind him. The captain must have woken up and discovered him missing.

  He willed his little boat on across the waves. But, as fast as his inflatable was, the yacht quickly gained on him. The bow got closer and closer until he could feel it looming over him. The captain was clearly trying to run him down.

  Max turned sharply. The yacht turned as sharply as it could, but it was no match for the agility of a Zodiac. He was confident that he could outmaneuver it. His only worry was that the captain might radio ahead and tell Landa’s men to meet him in their high-speed motor launches.

  In fact, Max should have been worrying about something else entirely.

  Like the fact that, at that very moment, the captain was out on the flying bridge, aiming a rifle at him.

  As the yacht closed the gap and loomed over him again, Max started to make his next turn when—crack! A bullet tore into the outboard motor. The engine sputtered. Max turned sharply and started zigzagging to make himself a more difficult target. He was losing speed.

  Crack! Crack! Crack!

  Spouts of water shot up around his boat where the bullets had missed. Max silently thanked Uncle Ted for plying the captain with whiskey. He was horribly aware that it would take only one good shot to deflate the Zodiac and scupper his escape.

 
; But the damage was done. The outboard motor coughed and shuddered to a halt. He was dead in the water. As he pulled on the cord, praying for the engine to start, he saw the captain taking aim. Even drunk, he couldn’t miss now. Max steeled himself.

  Suddenly, the captain pitched over the railing and into the ocean. In his place was Uncle Ted, with a big grin on his face. He threw a life ring to the flailing captain and took the wheel of the ship.

  “Pull out the choke,” Uncle Ted called down through cupped hands.

  With the choke fully out and a few more tugs on the cord, the outboard motor roared shakily back to life.

  As the yacht veered sharply away, it gave a loud blast of its horn.

  Max turned and waved, then once again headed for the shore.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  THE SHOWDOWN

  It wasn’t quite the James Bond moment that Max could have hoped for.

  When he’d first sped away in the Zodiac, he’d planned to make straight for land and take cover in the jungle before anyone noticed him.

  Unfortunately, it hadn’t worked out that way.

  Now he was puttering along in his bullet-ridden craft, stalling continually and leaving a trail of greasy black engine fluid. He suspected he had a slow leak, as the boat seemed to be getting lower and lower in the water. Eventually the engine gave up altogether, and he had to reach for the oars.

  If one of Landa’s guards spotted him now, he was a goner. But why hadn’t they spotted him already? Or maybe they had? Maybe they were planning a reception at this very moment?

  Max felt distinctly uneasy as he paddled the last few hundred yards to shore.

  It was getting dark. He could make out the shapes of Landa’s motorboats pulled up on the sand, about half a mile down the beach. But there was no sign of any crew. There was also, he realized, no sign of any way up to the Temple of Ah Pukuh. A line of cliffs, hidden from the water by a grove of palm trees, formed an impenetrable barrier between the beach and the jungle.

  How had Landa’s men got up there? There had to be a trail near their boat landing. He crept along through the palm trees, as fast as he dared. His only thought was to get to the pyramid and find Lola before it was too late. In a few hours, Venus would rise and Landa would initiate the rituals.

  By the motorboats, a thug in black lay facedown in the sand, with a blowgun dart sticking out of his neck.

  Yay, Hermanjilio! One down, nineteen to go.

  Then he saw the way up. A zigzag stairway had been carved into the cliff face. It was steep and narrow and completely exposed. Max knew that once he started climbing, he would be at the mercy of anyone above or below.

  Trying not to look down, not to think about snipers, not to think about anything but getting to Lola, he slowly made his way up. The steps were weatherworn and cracked. As he got higher and his head started to spin, he turned his back to the water and climbed up sideways, his fingers clinging painfully to the crumbling rock.

  When he got to the top, he sat down for a moment to recover. The moon was rising over the sea. No sign of Uncle Ted and the yacht. A bright star hung low in the sky. Could that be Venus?

  He jumped up and headed inland. A path plunged into the forest. Mindful of Hermanjilio’s disparaging remarks about his clumsiness, he moved as quickly and as silently as he could.

  He didn’t notice the body until he nearly fell over it.

  The guard was sprawled across the path, with a blowgun dart in his neck. The Invisible Jaguar of the Night had struck again! A hundred yards farther on, Max found two more bodies, then another, and another. All felled by blowgun darts.

  Maybe they could beat these guys after all. Max was just starting to feel hopeful when he heard the crack of gunfire ahead. The fight was still going on.

  When he got close to Landa’s camp, he left the path and crept on his belly, inching forward until he could spy on the camp from under a bush. Everywhere looked deserted. The rising moon cast a ghostly light over the scene.

  Where was everyone?

  Max lay still, his every nerve on high alert. He tried to filter out the cacophony of the rainforest and listen for voices or gunfire.

  He had the unnerving sensation that someone was behind him.

  He thought of the bodies on the path. Had those guards had the same sensation just before they’d been hit?

  Slowly, very slowly, he turned his head and looked over his shoulder. There was someone in the bushes, he was sure of it.

  Crouching now, Max pulled out his diver’s knife. He scanned the undergrowth, but all he could see was the trembling of a fern frond that had recently been disturbed. His heart was beating fast. He listened hard, his ears straining for a clue.

  Out of the bushes came a loud fart, followed by peals of laughter.

  “Lady Coco?” whispered Max.

  “I am in top form tonight,” she said with a giggle, emerging from her hiding place.

  There was a rustling in the trees and Max looked up to see a small figure in a Red Sox cap climbing to the ground.

  “Lord 6-Dog! I am so pleased to see you!”

  “I can only apologize, young lord, for the unseemly behavior of my mother,” said Lord 6-Dog. “She has been making an exhibition of herself all day.”

  Lady Coco emitted another barrage.

  “Ignore her, I beseech thee,” said Lord 6-Dog.

  “But what’s happening? Where are Landa’s men?” asked Max.

  “They sleep like newborn babes.”

  “All of them? But how?”

  “Last night, as we had planned, Lord Hermanjilio slipped into the camp. To our most glorious luck, the cook is a local man named Eligio, whom Lord Hermanjilio knows well. When he heard about Landa’s evil plans, Eligio agreed to pour a bottle of my sleeping draft into the lunchtime stew. An hour later, all who had partaken of the stew were out cold.”

  “It worked!” cheered Max. “Then what?”

  “Eligio hid in the jungle to wait for Landa, while we pursued the stray guards who did not eat the stew.”

  “Who’s ‘we’?”

  “Lord Hermanjilio and myself.”

  There was a squawk of protest from Lady Coco.

  “Mother helped, too,” sighed Lord 6-Dog. “Her duty was to create a loud and malodorous diversion of the kind you just witnessed. While the guards were transfixed in horror, Lord Hermanjilio and I took aim with our blowpipes.”

  “Way to go, Lord 6-Dog!” said Max admiringly.

  “Excuse me,” interrupted Lady Coco, poking a hairy finger into Max’s chest. “Perhaps the young lord would like to compliment me on my diversionary skills. It’s not easy maintaining such a high quality of flatulence, you know.”

  Max nodded politely. “Way to go, Lady Coco!”

  “Thank you,” she said with a regal air. Then she gave a few little toots of acknowledgment and jumped back into the trees to groom herself.

  Max turned back to Lord 6-Dog.

  “Did you get all the guards?” he asked.

  “Unfortunately not. One of them was able to escape and make contact with the Spanish vessel.”

  “So that’s why they all left the yacht in a hurry,” reflected Max.

  “We were ready for them,” said Lord 6-Dog. “When Landa arrived with reinforcements, we ambushed them on the path.”

  “I fell over some of your victims! Did you get Landa?”

  Lord 6-Dog shook his head. “Instead of leading from the front like a Maya warlord, he hid at the rear like a coward. While we battled his men, he scuttled into the forest with Lady Lola and two of his bodyguards.”

  “Poor Lola! Where are they now?” asked Max.

  “They’re heading toward the Black Pyramid,” said Lady Coco. “Eligio the cook has been taking potshots at them to slow them down. We’re hoping Lord Hermanjilio will get there first.”

  “I thought I heard gunfire. I hope the cook doesn’t hit Lola by mistake.”

  “As I understand it, Eligio is not trying to hit a
nyone,” said Lord 6-Dog. “He is merely taunting them, like a buzzing mosquito. Meanwhile, Mother and I are taking up position to attack Landa’s flank, if thou wouldst care to join us.”

  He made it sound like an invitation to tea and scones.

  A shot rang out somewhere in the distance.

  “Come,” said Lord 6-Dog, “we must hurry.”

  They worked their way around the edge of the camp to the side of the pyramid. When they had taken cover behind a fallen tree trunk, Lord 6-Dog handed Max his blowgun and his last pouch of darts.

  “Here, young lord,” he said regretfully. “Thy lungs are bigger than mine. There are but three darts left. Use them wisely.”

  “What will you do?” asked Max.

  “Mother and I will collect some tactical ammunition.”

  Before Max could ask what that meant, the two monkeys had vanished into the trees.

  He surveyed the scene in the moonlight. Looking up at the Black Pyramid, he thought he could make out Hermanjilio on the top step, blowgun at the ready. Max gave a little wave. Hermanjilio nodded, held his finger to his lips, and pointed across the clearing. Evidently, that was where Landa was expected to emerge.

  Max waited nervously. He loaded one of the darts into the blowgun and carefully placed the other two in front of him.

  All was quiet.

  Suddenly, a flock of parrots exploded from the trees, shrieking and squawking, and three men burst out of the rainforest. One of them pushed Lola in front of him. The other two shot at anything and everything as they ran across the clearing toward the steps of the pyramid.

  The noise was terrifying—guns shooting, men shouting, birds screeching—but Max tried to stay calm, waiting for the right moment. He knew he would only get one chance. And, armed with only a blowgun, he also knew the odds were against him.

  In the end, it happened so quickly that he hardly had time to think.

  Just as Landa reached the bottom step, the two monkeys let loose with a volley of nuts and fruits from high above Max’s head. The bodyguards paused to blitz the treetops with bullets. Max crouched behind the log, not daring to breathe, as leaves and twigs exploded and rained down onto the forest floor. An animal shrieked and fell through the branches, landing with a thud somewhere behind him.