Power: Arca Book 3

by Karen Diem

  In unison, they both glanced down at Zita’s dirty bare toes, then swiveled to check their friend. Sweat glistened on Wyn’s pallid face, and her lips moved constantly. Her only other motion was the occasional tilt of her head as if studying something on the walls. Plants twined around her legs, and she was now ankle-deep in the soil, though her arms still only disappeared into the rock up to the elbows.

  Zita marched over, took a breath, and plunged her hand into Wyn’s bag. Her fingers scrabbled around and found nothing. Withdrawing it, she shrugged at Andy and stepped away from Wyn.

  Jerome and Trixie hovered nearby, watching Andy and Zita curiously. The bear—Kodiak—was inspecting something on the ground, and Freelance stood alone, though his goggles appeared to follow Zita and Andy.

  Shoving aside an errant lock of hair, Zita paced a few steps and back. “So. Limited food and water to split between all of us, and no shoes for me. I have no idea what Muse is doing, but she can’t keep it up forever. She said if the Heart goes where it belongs, everything should stabilize. If nothing else, taking one of their team means they can tell me where the gem came from. Muse said the source of the spell was in an undercroft we didn’t have time to explore.”

  Andy rubbed his eyes. “Fine, but I can’t fly you there.”

  Feeling herself burn under the mercenary’s goggles, Zita turned most of her back and face away. Oye, I bet he can read lips or something. “Dude, that’s our only option. They won’t let me go alone, and you’re the best choice to protect Muse for a longer period of time.”

  “Won’t they?” he said.

  “We totally won’t,” Trixie said, striding up and putting her arms around Zita and Andy’s shoulders. “How did you fool Halja into thinking she still had the Heart, anyway?”

  Zita wrinkled her nose at the gum scent and shrugged out from under Trixie’s arm. “Rock candy in her bag.” She turned away. “Chevalier, I need to borrow a canteen.”

  Andy pulled away, retreating until he almost stepped off the ridge again.

  Her eyes wide, Trixie stared at her, then howled with laughter.

  Going over to where he had stashed his pack, Jerome dug a bottle out of the cooler. “Will this do?”

  Trixie brushed tears from her cheeks as she finished laughing. “Rock candy. Not a bad move for an amateur.”

  Accepting the water, Zita rolled her eyes. “You guys keep calling us amateurs, but it’s not like there are training classes on being vigilantes who don’t kill. I mean, what would that even be called?”

  Another rumble from the bear. “The military, but the not killing part might be an issue?”

  Her pitch horribly off-key, Trixie sang something about the Navy and clapped her hands. When she started to dance, her larger companion seized her shoulder before she could high-kick herself off the ridge. “What?” she said, “If you’re going to do it, you need to go all in.” She mimicked twirling her mustache.

  With an exaggerated shake of his head, Kodiak released her.

  “Teen Titans or Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters?” Jerome suggested.

  Soberly, Andy said, “Hogwarts. Of course, Arca’s a terrible Muggle or maybe a Squib.”

  As he stroked his goatee, Jerome snickered. “Pretty much any heroic sidekick position would count as training.” His dark eyes twinkled as he paused, then said, “Would you like to be my sidekick? I have studied many ancient video games and cartoons and am a master of the subject.”

  “Shut it, Chevalier. You can all be my chingado sidekicks someday.” Zita shook her head at the silliness. “Freelance, you’re with me. Why don’t we just go? These guys can giggle it out while we’re gone.”

  The masked man inclined his head.

  As she, Andy, and Freelance walked away to allow her friend the space to transform into his bird form, Jerome had to have the last word. “Luchador training!”

  Zita flicked her middle finger at him and kept walking. “At least luchadores are awesome and real,” she muttered.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Andy’s bird form circled above the temple, just under the perpetual layer of fluffy white clouds. After motioning Freelance to stay where he was with his backpack, Zita scurried along a massive wing until she felt the warm, misty wind and the slight yield of the feathered limb beneath her bare feet. Jerome’s water bottle was lukewarm as she rolled it back and forth in her hands and scanned the area.

  Below them, the canopy of conifers crowded so close together that from above they seemed a single lumpy expanse of emerald with a few holes. The largest gap held a splash of red, the Spanish-style temple roof, as well as a lighter green patch dotted with specks of white and gray beside it. In the distance, the pterosaurs hunted, though they kept far from the gigantic golden eagle with the glowing eyes and lightning chasing over it.

  I would stay away too if I were them, Zita thought, distracted by the flying creatures for a moment. If Freelance were more trusting, I could’ve done this and been back within a half hour. How hard can it be to slap a gem into a statue or a hole or something?

  As she padded to her silent companion, she said, “Good news! He’s gotten right above the temple, though he can’t hover more than a few seconds, so he’s circling. On his next loop, we need to be ready to descend. How do you want to handle it?” Even if she knew he’d make her friends uncomfortable at the cave entrance, she attempted to ditch him one last time. “I can fly down, but what will you do? Wingspan can take you with him, and I’ll meet up with you all later once the Heart’s in place again.”

  Black goggles considered her for a moment, then the man walked along the wing where she had been a few minutes ago and peered below. Setting down his large backpacking frame, he removed half of it and strapped it to his back. The remaining part, complete with stiff metal poles, he attached to his front. His head tilted toward Zita in what she assumed was a disdainful glance though his mask hid his expression.

  “What?” she said.

  When Andy was at the point of his loop farthest from the clearing, Freelance leapt.

  She swore and raced to the edge, preparing herself to teleport if necessary to save his life.

  A parasail unfolded from his pack and Freelance glided to a controlled landing in front of the temple door, using only two steps to bleed off speed.

  Zita blinked and shut her mouth, licking her lips. “No, don’t answer my question. Just go on with your sweet toys and bad self. Why are the unavailable ones always so hot?”

  The massive bird chirped, a sound that’s volume belied its resemblance to the cry of a newly hatched chick.

  “Are you laughing at me?” Clearing her throat, she said, “Once I’m off, go watch over Wyn, okay? She can contact me later to figure out if you’ll pick us up or what.”

  Andy did not reply.

  Taking that as his agreement, she shifted to a gavião-real, grabbed the water bottle in her talons, and dove over the side. She winged to a stop next to Freelance and returned to her Arca shape. Zita patted her pocket to ensure the gem remained inside, grateful to feel the rough, uneven edges through the fabric.

  The clearing brightened as Andy sailed away and his avian body no longer blocked the sunlight.

  In the time it had taken her to land and reclaim a human form, Freelance had folded and stowed his parasail in its backpack again.

  She squinted at him. “Right. You could have mentioned you had that. I don’t suppose you’d let me—”

  “No.” His voice still held the mechanical overtones she remembered from their last meeting. He connected the halves of his pack to the frame and shouldered the entire thing.

  After pushing errant hair from her face, Zita rolled her eyes, not hiding it from him. “Oye, no fun. Okay, Mister Professional, let’s go get this done.”

  He was already disappearing through the door.

  She sidled past the creepy statue that might’ve been a man a long time ago and into the temple again. Other than improved smell, as if someone had cleane
d up the one soiled corner, it seemed unchanged.

  At the big stone altar, Freelance pressed a section of the ornate stonework, and the back of the platform slid away to the side. The still form of the mummy, draped with Wyn’s red cloth, remained above.

  Zita hurried over to see. Rough-hewn sandstone stairs led down into darkness, and she broke out in a sweat as a wave of humid air poured heat and a strong, earthy sulfuric scent over her. She wrinkled her nose and began mentally running through her catalog of shapes for one that would not mind the stench or the darkness. Water trickled and bubbled somewhere below.

  He held up a hand and shone a tiny flashlight down the hole. The beam illuminated another dirt floor, one with the uneven dips of a natural tunnel. Above that, a concave rock, like a natural birdbath, bore faint brown stains.

  With a deep breath, Zita shifted partially to an owl, hoping the changes would be useful. Her vision sharpened, as did her hearing, and she caught the sound of a soft rustle. The weight of her long hair disappeared. Touching her ears, she found feathery tufts. Reaching back farther, feathers cascaded where her hair should have been. She smoothed her hands over her clothes, running one over the pocket with the Heart, reassured by the slippery feel of the fabric and the comforting irregular lump.

  As she descended the ancient steps, marks on the wall attracted her attention, and she rolled her eyes after deciphering the pictures. Etched above a cave opening, the giant symbol of the farmer king glared down at her. “Whee, more warnings of gruesome death to those approaching the trials. What trials?”

  “Traps,” Freelance said, striding a few feet ahead of her and stopping. His goggles whirred when he tapped the side of them.

  As Zita walked through, she got only a few steps before halting. A forty-foot wide gorge separated the halves of the cavern. Two long, rounded logs, secured with vines, formed a narrow bridge over the chasm. At irregular intervals, a sap-like substance oozed from short black spines the length of her smallest finger and only a tone or two darker than the rest of the wood. A handful of stone spires held up the contraption.

  Peeking over the edge, she discovered the source of the odor and heat. Water seethed below, bubbles roiling and popping on the surface of the red-brown waters. Sweat dripped down her face, and a burst of steam left her skin painfully tender. She withdrew. “Pues, no hot tub today.”

  Her companion crossed over the bridge and waited on the other side. Another dark hole yawned behind him, and he kept his body turned sideways, as if to minimize his outline to anything farther ahead.

  She hurried across, watching her feet to avoid the suspect spikes, absently noting the vines grew wrapped around the logs, rather than being tied there. “Are we there yet or is something waiting to pounce on us?”

  Freelance pulled two handguns from holsters and checked to see if they were loaded. He flexed his wrists and shoulders and strode toward another opening, this one emblazoned with the symbol of the teacher-shapeshifter.

  “Oh, joy. This place gets better and better.” Zita sniffed the air again. The sulfur overwhelmed most other scents, including her companion’s subtle masculine one, but an unpleasant undercurrent of decay, death, and burnt meat penetrated. “Did someone die? Can you give me an idea of what’s inside?” As they exited the cave with the hot springs, the temperature dropped in the tunnel that followed, and she shivered. The cool, gritty dirt between her toes was almost a welcome relief.

  His robotic voice finally answered. “Small dinosaurs.”

  Zita repositioned herself at his back as they entered, the lumpy feel of his backpack poking her with each step. She readied herself to switch to another form, but their caution was wasted.

  The corpses of spotted dinosaurs lay scattered in bloody heaps around the cavern. They seemed to come in two varieties: a winged creature, turkey-sized but with vicious teeth, and variants of the group that had attacked her friends earlier. All of them had feathers and their bodies demonstrated the many ways to die. Claw marks spilled entrails from some, others sported neat bullet holes, and a few had half their bodies burnt away. A winged one appeared to be pinned to the ceiling by a purple bubblegum cigar.

  Zita tried not to stare at it as she passed, though the artificial grape rose chemical and sweet among the more charnel odors. “Why are all these things in one cave, anyway? Wouldn’t they just eat each other and eventually starve? Why would anyone have a random room of prehistoric attack chickens? This makes no sense at all. Besides, I thought magic had rules or at least guidelines.” She felt offended on Wyn’s behalf.

  As they left the grisly scene and entered another sloping tunnel, she exhaled in relief and filled her lungs with fresher air. “So, are we there yet?”

  Freelance shook his head and returned the guns to their holsters.

  Swearing internally, she followed.

  When they passed through the next opening to the last cavern, she was rewarded with the sight of another altar… no, a wooden bier upon a stone cairn. A wizened, mummified body lay on its side as if sleeping curled, one arm thrown out and the fingers tipped open. Two ancient digits barely remained attached, but the position was otherwise a mirror image of the mummy above. A hole gaped in the middle of his chest. Zita assumed he had been the king, since he’d died first, and a lump in her throat had her swallowing hard. I don’t want to touch him. The walls displayed more painted pictograms, but she ignored them.

  Other than the tense, defensive posture he always exhibited, Freelance seemed unmoved by the scene. He stopped inside the doorway. “The gem was in his hand.”

  She frowned, Wyn and the professor’s half-remembered conversation rising in her mind. “Not one but two mummies? This place is just wrong. Muse and the professor were gabbing about that earlier.”

  Like all of his other thoughts, he kept any on unlikely mummifications to himself.

  Zita’s fingers slid over the uneven surface of the Heart. Either she was sweating more than she thought or had cut herself without noticing. She carefully advanced and set the rock into the mummy’s hand, leaping back in one fluid motion.

  The rock teetered, then fell off onto the floor with a thud.

  “Does that look like a reactivated spell to you? Because it seems like a dud to me.”

  Freelance’s silence practically shouted an accusation.

  “Don’t even start with me about switching gems again. It’s been in my pocket since the camp, and this outfit makes it pretty obvious I’m not hiding another rock or any candy on me.” She gestured to the Spandex-like material covering her.

  Despite his goggles, his gaze was intense enough to feel like a thorough pat-down.

  Zita whipped the multitool out of her pocket and set that and water bottle on the ground. “Fine, you examine my stuff. I’ll try to put the stone back again, but if it falls out, you can be the one to touch the dead guy next time.” She scooped up the gem and tried to place it into the mummy’s hand, even gingerly trying to wrap the desiccated fingers around it as much as possible without damaging them.

  It fell again with a clunk and a phalange.

  She turned to her companion, who replaced her belongings on the floor. Pretending she didn’t care if he trusted her, she pocketed the multitool and said, “No luck. We have to figure this out.”

  Another tremor shook the room, and her eyes flicked upward. I can’t teleport home from here, even if I were willing to abandon everyone else. Wyn? If you can hear me, I need a hint. Zita swore inwardly when she got no response, not that she had expected one.

  His steps nearly soundless, Freelance’s warmth and scent brushed her as he stepped around her. Stiff cloth gave a faint creak as he moved.

  A thud, identical to the two times she had tried to put the stone back, sounded.

  She turned and frowned. “Maybe we’re doing this wrong. It’s called the Heart of Canaiwari right? We’ve been putting it in his hand.”

  He nodded.

  “I don’t suppose you want to?” Zita gestured toward t
he fallen gem. When he made no move to pick it up, she sighed. “Fine.” After retrieving it, she approached the mummy and hesitated. Finally, she thrust it into the cavernous hole in the mummy’s chest, squinching her eyes shut.

  It clicked against something else as if it had hit another rock.

  She stepped away, brushing off her hands. “Does hand sanitizer work on mummy cooties?”

  Nothing happened, though the gem did not fall out this time.

  Her companion also did not offer any cleanser.

  Zita had half-hoped he would, if only to find out if his smelled like guns or money. Battling down the urge to giggle, she smothered the irrelevant thoughts and focused. She took a deep breath and peered inside the mummy’s chest cavity.

  The Heart sat beside a smaller trapiche emerald. “Did you know there were two of them? Do you think that worked? My friends haven’t contacted me yet…”

  “What if his heart isn’t the gem?” Freelance said.

  “What?” She gawked at him like an idiot. “But that’s the name of it… in English.” Zita whirled, her eyes scanning the pictographs on the walls. “It says the spell will last eternally when the king’s heart returns. Riddles. I hate riddles. They should just say what to do and not expect people to figure out cutesy word problems.”

  The mercenary took out a gun and checked the ammo inside, then returned it to the holster. “The words predated Pretorius’ theft of the stone.”

  Her eyes wide, Zita stared at him, her mind churning. “Two rocks. His physical heart is probably one of the withered organ things in his chest I had to push aside. Do you think they could mean his wife? He died first, how would he even know where she was?”