by Lee, Rachel
He waited in the hallway until he heard the lock snick into place. It was a good opportunity to check out the precautions. He found the officer at the front desk, wearing the commercial firm’s uniform, sipping coffee and eating a glazed doughnut. “How’s it going?”
“A-OK,” he answered. “Everyone’s where they should be. All the systems are functioning.”
But Gil had been stung by those systems once before. “Just keep a good eye on the video. This guy is smart.”
The officer nodded. “Will do.”
“That coffee any good?”
“Made it myself a little while ago. The urn’s full.”
Gil made his way back to the break room. An officer in plainclothes was there, filling a half dozen foam cups from the urn, apparently to distribute. There was a box of two dozen doughnuts next to the urn. Gil almost grinned. Didn’t that figure?
“Everything okay?” Gil asked.
The officer nodded. “Not a peep, not a move. Nobody’s going to get in here tonight.”
Gil was hoping somebody would at least try. He filled three cups for himself and the women, and carried them back to the office on a plastic tray.
Nancy opened the door and let him in. “You know,” she said as she took one of the cups, “this is the most boring thing I’ve ever done.”
“Stakeouts usually are.”
“The guy must be onto us.”
“Maybe.” It was a possibility Gil had been turning around in his mind for a while. “We’ll deal with that if we have to.”
* * *
It was amazing, Lance thought, how easy information was to come by. The cops probably thought they’d been secretive about their plans, but he’d overheard enough from conversations to figure out what was happening. They’d set a trap for him. The idea actually thrilled him, put him on his mettle. It would make his triumph all the greater.
And it was so easy to find things out. So easy. People talked, and no one gave a second glance to a trim, youthful deputy sipping coffee and chewing a donut. He thought he’d blown it when he’d been the only one to show up in a uniform, but apparently that had worked in his favor. He’d seen the dismissive look in the cop’s eye when he assigned him to the equipment room.
The breaks were coming Lance’s way again, and he could nearly smell his victory. The jaguar hadn’t forsaken him. Anna was wrong about that.
He’d spent the day above the second floor, in the crawl space where all the service conduits and ducts ran. It had been hot and miserable, but he’d stashed enough water and granola bars before he made his first move to keep himself comfortable.
Now it was night again, and the museum was his. He’d bypassed the alarm systems last night, and no one knew it. No one had any reason to know it. They all appeared to be functioning.
He could go anywhere he wanted. Anywhere at all. And the officer making that pot of coffee… Lance almost rubbed his hands in delight. He’d dumped in the last of the rohypnol he’d bought on the street weeks ago. It would be enough to knock out everyone.
Then they’d all be at his mercy. Every last one of them. And he would get to make a double sacrifice on the altar in the exhibit. Two at once. Surely the jaguar would bless him now.
And the yoke of the curse would be off his shoulders forever.
All he had to do was wait a little longer. Just a little longer.
Anna fell asleep in her chair. She yawned and leaned back and her eyes closed. Gil watched her sleep, feeling pretty tired himself. He glanced at his watch. Another hour or so and he’d call it off for the night. And tomorrow he had to figure out another way of getting at Barro.
He ought to consider that now, but he was feeling too drowsy. He glanced toward Nancy and found she, too, had fallen asleep, curled into a tight ball on the armchair. How did she do that?
With no one to talk to, his mind seemed even more prone to drift. Strange dreamlike images began to float in his brain, and he had to jerk himself awake a couple of times.
This won’t do, he told himself. Picking up his radio, he asked the stations to report in.
But no one answered him. Not a single soul replied.
A chilling thought wafted into his consciousness. The coffee. They’d been drugged.
Adrenaline began to pound through him, easing the effects of the drug. Rising, he decided to call for help before he did anything else.
Just then the office door opened and a uniform stepped in.
“What the hell’s going on?” Gil asked him, finding it difficult to force the words out. “Nobody’s answering the radio.”
“They’re all asleep,” the deputy said.
Then, before Gil even saw it coming, a baton snapped open and cracked him in the side of the head.
It was such a strange dream, Anna thought. A deputy with Lance Barro’s face was urging her to come with him. She’d be safe, he assured her. She just had to come with him. She might not have trusted him except that Nancy was there, too, urging her to come along. But Nancy sounded funny, her words slurred.
But it must be okay, because the deputy was helping her walk, talking in an encouraging voice. Except why did he look like Lance Barro?
They entered the exhibit through the double doors. It was only dimly lit, and Anna’s mind struggled with the bizarre images that seemed to pop out of the shadows. The jungle seemed to have thickened, filling with danger, and she wondered if they were somehow in a real jungle. Had she been magically transported across time and space? Or was she just dreaming?
No, she thought dimly, as panic began to rise in her, it was the exhibit. It was. She could tell as dimly lit display cases floated by. And Nancy was still with her, beside her. Stumbling from time to time as if the floor were rough and ragged. She would have stumbled, too, except the deputy kept supporting her.
She looked up at him, smiling, wanting to thank him for his help, but in the strange lighting his face had grown strange, too, like a hardened mask. Who was he?
Then came the steps. She knew where they were now, and that eased some of her panic. The Pocal chamber. They were just in the exhibit. He must think she and Nancy would be safer hiding here.
He let go of her, and she slumped to the floor beside the sarcophagus. Dimly she was aware of the beastly pain in her arm, a hammering throb, but it seemed a long way away. Nancy slumped beside her.
“Nance?” Her sister’s name came out thickly. Nancy didn’t even look at her.
It was strange, so strange. Then she looked up at the deputy, wondering what they would do next.
When she saw the dagger, she knew.
Gil came to with a jolt. Rolling over, he groaned and stared up at the fluorescent lights on the ceiling. What had happened?
His mouth tasted bad, his head throbbed as if it were being worked over by a pile driver. It was difficult to even focus on the lights.
Where was he? Then he remembered. With a crash, it came back. He’d been drugged. Then he’d been cracked on the side of the head with a baton.
Nancy. Anna! Groaning again, he rolled over and shoved himself to his feet. Oh, God, they were gone!
Reaching for the phone, he dialed 9-1-1.
Lance Barro looked at his two lovely captives and felt a pang for what he was about to do. Even though it was a right and necessary thing that he must do, he couldn’t help but feel badly about it.
They were so lovely, the two of them. Like bright candle flames of life, youth, and beauty. But of course, that was why they would make such a perfect offering. Those who were chosen were always young and in their prime. Warriors, as Anna had said, and maidens and youths. Perfect offerings. For centuries the Maya and Aztecs had preserved their world through such offerings. Now he was going to preserve his own, and the worlds of others who had no idea they were under the curse.
He felt good about that, but he felt bad, too. He had always liked Anna, and he supposed he would have liked her sister. Part of him rebelled at what he was about to do.
But that was an important part of the sacrifice, he knew. If it was easy to do, it wouldn’t be meaningful.
The rohypnol had been a perfect touch, he thought. In the old days, sacrificial victims had been given hashish to dull their senses. He had simply gone one step further, to ensure that the sacrifice these women were about to make would be flawless. Their cooperation was ensured. As it should be.
But he hesitated still. He didn’t know if he could do it. In a moment of lucidity, he wondered if he was capable of cutting out a living human heart. He had read about it, had envisioned it countless times, but now that the moment was at hand, the enormity of his intentions seemed to strike him.
Another test, he told himself. A test of his determination. One he must pass.
He had given careful consideration to the place and manner of his gift. There was a mock-up of an altar in another room of the exhibit, but he had decided the rite would be far more meaningful here, on the replica of Pocal’s sarcophagus. It would symbolize—better than anything else he could do—his reconsecration of the desecrated tomb in Mexico.
The only thing that could have been better would have been sacrificing Anna and Nancy in the original tomb. But such was impossible. That had been one difficulty he couldn’t see any way to surmount.
But this was good enough. The intent was clear. And after all, rites were symbolic.
They were looking at him, his two lovely captives. Nancy’s gaze was vague, almost opaque. As if she were hardly aware of what she was seeing. Anna’s gaze was a little sharper, as if her drugged brain were making connections about him and the dagger in his hand. But the rohypnol worked, and she didn’t move. Didn’t even utter a mewl of protest. It was good.
Encouraged, he decided Nancy should go first. In whatever dim brain Anna had left, he wanted her to understand what was going to happen to her. She needed to understand to make the perfect sacrifice. Watching her sister go first would make her fully aware of her role.
Setting the dagger aside, on top of the case that had once protected it, he bent to help Nancy to her feet.
“Come along,” he said, keeping his voice soothing and gentle. “You need to do something for me.”
Her eyes barely focused on him, but she struggled to comply. He needed to help lift her almost as much as he needed to steady her, but at least she wasn’t an unconscious weight flopping around. She cooperated as much as she could.
“Up here,” he said, keeping his voice gentle. With a little prodding and pushing, he got her up onto the sarcophagus lid, and persuaded her to lie on her back.
“There,” he said, feeling suddenly very kind, “you’re just going to take a nice nap.”
“Nancy…” Anna’s whisper reached him, sounding eerie in the stillness of the tomb.
He glanced quickly down at her, but she hadn’t moved. Good. The drug was still working. As it should be. If he had needed it to, it would have worked for several hours. But all he needed was a few more minutes. He went to get the dagger.
Tebbins was having a fit of frustration. His wound was keeping him out of the action, away from the museum. He fumed and fussed and listened to his scanner. Nothing, nothing, and it was annoying him no end that this creep, this animal, might be outwitting him. He wouldn’t be allowed to sustain this operation much longer. No way. He might get one more night, maybe two, before they’d be all over his ass, demanding that he stop wasting resources.
Then what? A headline in a few days or weeks announcing the mutilation death of Anna Lundgren? The possibility gnawed at him.
But even as he turned these thoughts around in his mind, Tebbins knew he was reaching. There was no great criminal mastermind behind this case, no huge intellect with an army of henchmen. There was simply one deluded man.
The hardest of all to catch.
Then he heard something on the radio that caused him to sit upright. A jolt of pain shot through him, making him grit his teeth, but he ignored it. Thirty seconds later he was on the phone, demanding a cruiser to pick him up immediately.
The world was swimming, as if Gil were on a ship in storm-tossed seas. The floor seemed to cant to one side and then another, forcing him to grip the wall as he stumbled down the hallway toward the lobby.
He didn’t know if it was the drug or the blow to the head that was affecting him; he didn’t have the energy or clarity of thought to worry about it. His one thought, his one clear thought, was that he had to find Anna. Now.
The lobby was empty, but it wasn’t still. It kept heaving on him. He could see the back of the cop sitting at the security station in front of the row of monitors. He called out, but got no answer.
Clinging to the wall, he made his way there. The door was locked. Hammering on it got no response. Drugged. The guy was drugged. The adrenaline in his system surged, warring with the drug, making him suddenly so sick that he nearly doubled over.
No time for this. Absolutely no time for this. By sheer effort of will he battered down the nausea and pulled his gun. It seemed to want to stick in his belt holster, but at last it came free. To steady it, he had to put it right against the door lock.
He fired. The sound seemed to echo through the lobby, ringing in his ears. Oh, God, maybe he shouldn’t have done that. What if Barro heard it?
But it was too late now. And the security cameras were his only hope of finding Nancy and Anna in time.
Shouldering his way into the room, he pushed the snoring guard aside and leaned over the console. Images danced in front of his eyes, reluctant to resolve into anything useful.
But then his gaze flickered over the screen showing the tomb. All of a sudden everything resolved into stark clarity. Two cameras showed Nancy lying on the sarcophagus as if asleep. Another one picked up a man in a deputy’s uniform. He was carrying the dagger.
The adrenaline punch surged over the inhibiting drug. Turning, Gil ran unsteadily toward the door to the exhibit.
Anna saw the dagger. Everything around it was a blur, but she saw the knife itself sharply, clearly as it moved toward her. Her arm, still resting in a sling, twinged with remembered pain. He was going to cut out her heart.
For some reason the thought seemed distantly interesting, not at all frightening. She ought to be frightened. She knew that. But she was paralyzed by an immense indifference. A strange dissociation, as if what were about to happen were going to happen to someone else.
But the dagger moved past her, sparing her. She watched it dreamily, wondering why she had ever been afraid of it, watching as it rose in the air.
Nancy!
A cold wind suddenly froze her heart, sweeping away all the dreaminess. He was going to kill Nancy. And somehow that was far more important than what he did to her.
Turning against the sarcophagus, forcing reluctant muscles to work, she bent over, and with all her might she bit Lance Barro on the Achilles tendon. She half spat, half retched blood and tissue on the floor.
A howl of pain filled the tomb, and the dagger clattered to the floor.
She had to get it. Scrambling as if in molasses, she crawled toward it. She didn’t care anymore that it was cursed. She didn’t care that her father might have died for it.
All she cared was that it not claim her sister’s life.
The jungle closed in around Gil. In searching for the light switches on the panel outside, he somehow managed only to turn on the sound system, filling the exhibit with the roll of distant thunder and the cry of birds.
He heard another cry, far away, muffled by the labyrinthine twists and turns of the exhibit. A cry of pain? God, Anna…
Jungle paths gave way to exhibit rooms, then turned into jungles again. His mind played tricks on him, making the air seem dank and heavy, too hot and humid, filling the shadows with threats. Fake foliage seemed to reach out and try to grab him.
And no matter how fast he moved, it was not fast enough.
Lance lay curled on the floor, howling in pain. Anna, holding the dagger, leaned against the sarcoph
agus, trying to shake her sister. “Nancy! Nancy, run! You’ve got to run!”
Nancy groaned, her eyes flickered, but she didn’t wake.
Panic was beginning to break through the drug haze, but not enough to make Anna steady on her feet. Shaking her sister, she was dimly aware that tears were running down her cheeks, that Nancy wasn’t waking.
And Barrow was turning over, groaning, trying to find his feet.
The dagger. If she took the dagger away, he couldn’t hurt her sister. He wouldn’t be able to perform his obscene rite.
Turning, she staggered toward the exit stairway, aware that she might have only seconds before he caught her.
It was like a nightmare. No matter how fast she tried to move, it was like moving through mud. The stairs seemed to come no closer.
Oh, God, please help me.…
“Can’t you go faster?” Tebbins demanded of the patrolman who was driving him to the museum.
The siren was screaming, the lights were flashing, but every intersection was still an impediment, forcing the officer to slow down. Tebbins knew he had no choice. More idiots than he could believe tried to cut in front of speeding emergency vehicles.
But the officer said, “Yes, sir,” and floored it. To the next light, where he screeched the brakes and slowed down to make a reasonably safe crossing. Tebbins’s teeth ground so hard that his jaws ached.
What the hell had gone wrong up there?
Gil stumbled through yet another corridor of snatching leaves and fake trees, his head throbbing so hard it was nearly blinding him. The labyrinth, which had seemed short and simple enough when he’d been a visitor, tonight seemed to stretch for miles with unexpected twists and turns. Once he got disoriented in a group of exhibit rooms, unable to tell which way he had entered, or which way he needed to continue.
But then he remembered, vaguely, and plunged ahead, damning the drugs in his system and the blow to the head that was making it worse.
Then, at last, he saw the entrance to the tomb, a dark yawning maw leading downward. God, he hoped he was in time.