The Bloodgate Warrior

by Joely Sue Burkhart

  Técun shook his head. “Then we must go deeper.”

  Barely biting back my cry of dismay, I latched on to his arm again. These stairs were slick with moss. Bugs and worms slithered everywhere. I shrank as tight and small as I could, pressing tightly to Técun. The skittering of claws and wings made my skin crawl. So many bugs. My stomach rolled.

  “Loathsome things.” He scooped me up into his arms, and I couldn’t even protest the display of my weakness before his men. If one of those millipedes touched me, I’d run stark raving mad until I reached the United States again. Or maybe I’d keep running right on to Canada. “Whatever’s down here draws the creatures of darkness to him. Marco, Jorge, take the lead. Alert us to a possible ambush.”

  The two Rojases brushed past us, one hand loaded with a flashlight, the other with a semiautomatic gun. I hoped guns worked against a zombie.

  I pulled back to glare up at Técun. “Why don’t you have a gun?”

  “My magic is more powerful than any human-made technology. Besides, I have the spear.” He touched a leather pouch strapped across his chest. “I hope to find Alvarado quickly, but I expect he’s already gone. He shall not be so easy to kill.”

  I averted my eyes, pressing my face against his neck. I didn’t want to think about that spear. How I’d gotten it out of limbo or wherever my distant ancestor had hidden it. Let alone what the spear had done to him in the first place. “I still don’t understand why you need the weapon that killed you.”

  “My blood makes it a powerful weapon, Cassie.” He shifted me lower and ducked against me. The tunnel must have gotten even tighter. Or maybe there was something extremely nasty that even he didn’t want to touch. For a moment we were falling and I almost screamed, but then his feet thudded hard, jolting my teeth.

  He continued talking as if he hadn’t just jumped several feet. “This weapon gained some of my spirit, my magic, because it took my life. With this in my hand, I can force back all the tides of Xibalba without once calling on my magic.”

  “Why didn’t you call your magic that day in the battle? If you’re so powerful, why didn’t you just kill all the Spaniards?”

  I winced after I asked, because I sounded so accusatory.

  “When I come through the gate, I don’t have my full power. I can’t bring all my magic through the first crossing without causing destruction and chaos to follow. There are rituals that will increase my power, but at the time…”

  His words fell off and I felt a sense of…disquiet and reluctance. I leaned back again so I could see his face. “Don’t tell me you needed to sacrifice a few people on top of a pyramid or something.”

  He grinned, his teeth gleaming white and fierce in the darkness. “Something like that.”

  Oh crap. I wasn’t sure at all about that smile. He shifted me tighter against him, pulling my face against his neck. “Don’t look, Cassie. We’re almost there.”

  Of course now I had to look. I twisted my face and peeked over his shoulder behind us. José’s flashlight bounced off the walls and floor, illuminating skulls and lots of them. We cleared the tunnel, which gave the mounds of bones more room.

  They’d made pyramids from skulls.

  “We often built on top of older ruins to make use of the power infused in the buildings through ritual and sacrifice.” Técun let me slip down to stand beside him. “In this case, the Spaniards decided to do the same in order to show their power over us. They built this Christian church on top of one of our most ancient temples. The power in this place…”

  His rumbling voice thrummed down my spine. I looked up at his face and his eyes shone strangely in the darkness, wet and shiny like dark icy pools of water.

  “Did she intend to give him this power,” Técun whispered, “or use it against him to keep him imprisoned?”

  He took my hand and we weaved our way through the piles of bones toward a central circular stonework that crumbled with age. It looked like an old well, except it was several times larger in radius. Water plopped in the darkness. Holding on to Técun, I looked down inside, but I couldn’t tell how deep it went. “From everything I’ve read, she hated and feared him.”

  In the center, a platform rose up out of the water. On top, a carved stone coffin rose like a crown. Its cover was broken, ajar and partially missing. Not a good sign.

  A huge cross—that had probably once run the width and breadth of the sarcophagus lid—was cracked in half. One large piece had tumbled into the shallow water.

  The silence seemed to press down on me. My heart pounded a ponderous, painful rhythm. My breath quickened. I wasn’t scared, not exactly. How could I be scared with the world’s greatest warrior beside me? No, it was something else. My limbs felt heavy, too, like all the blood was pooling low in my body.

  “She bound him to Xibalba by using our holy place and the water.” Even Técun seemed affected by this strange place. I associated that low rumbling growl with the bedroom. He’d certainly used that growl on me several times last night, to my great enjoyment. “He lay here, bound by her magic and trapped in Xibalba, until the earthquake jarred the lid lose. I bet the earthquake happened the day you first set foot on Guatemalan soil.”

  I gasped. “You mean it’s my fault? Damn it, I never should have come here!”

  “Not your fault, but bound to happen. Your blood called to me across a gate that had been locked for hundreds of years. As soon as you came to me through the gate that first time, you were destined to bring me through to defeat Alvarado once more. None other than Xicoténcatl’s blood could call me forth.”

  He turned his head and pinned me with his glowing eyes. “You feel her magic in this place.”

  Automatically, I shook my head. Rationally, I still didn’t believe in magic. Yet I couldn’t deny the throbbing of my pulse. My heart felt like it was trying to crawl up into my throat. I certainly didn’t want to think about how hard my nipples were, or how wet I must be. Not here, in this nasty, scary tunnel. What’s wrong with me?

  “Alvarado is gone, freed of her magic. Touch what she did, here, so we may understand how she bound him. That will give me the knowledge to return him to his prison once we find him.”

  “He’s not here? You’re sure?”

  Técun pressed his mouth to my ear, his tongue tracing the curves and whorls until my knees trembled. “Do you think you I’d allow you to stand here tormenting me if any danger remained? I have no sense of evil lingering in this place, only the magic that quickens my blood and hardens my desire for you.”

  “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Close your eyes.” Whispering, he eased behind me so he could cradle me against him. All that heat and muscle made me moan. “Do you feel the pulse of her magic? It should have a sense of life to you. If you brush it with your consciousness, it’ll leap with excitement. Magic wants to be used for its purpose. You are that purpose now that Alvarado is gone.”

  I stretched out my hands, hoping they weren’t trembling too badly. Even with my eyes closed, I sensed a faint glow, a tendril of something that I couldn’t see with my naked eyes. It brushed against me, and my body tightened even more. I couldn’t help but moan again, louder. My breasts ached and my clit felt like it’d caught on fire.

  “Take it.” Sliding his big, powerful palms down my arms, he helped me make a scooping motion, drawing the magic to me. “Gather all you can find.”

  The magic didn’t stay in my hands, though. It gathered in my mouth like a decadent truffle slowly melting on my tongue. My throat heated, my skin flushed and dampened and my arousal grew even worse. Like I could shag from here to Dallas and back again and never ever get enough.

  I pulled in all I could find, until my jaws ached and sweat trickled between my breasts. My trembling knees gave out, and I leaned fully against Técun, which didn’t help at all.

  “Now give it to me. I need to taste what she did so we can send Alvarado back.”

  He cupped my chin and twisted my head around toward him,
bending down to press his mouth against mine. The molten candy on my tongue suddenly swelled until it poured like thick, sweet molasses into his mouth. He drank it down, his hands clamping tighter. He pushed harder against me, his erection like a steel rod against my buttocks, his arms locked around me.

  My breathing came quicker, my body entirely focused on the magnificent man holding me. Even with Xicoténcatl’s sexual magic pouring out of me, I managed to be surprised at how close I was to coming.

  I pushed back the feeling, running unsexy things through my mind, like this nasty damp cave, the moldering bodies, the other men surely watching avidly. But it didn’t help. Pleasure rose in me, cresting and swelling higher like the Mississippi River in full flood stage.

  So close to busting the dam…

  Técun wrenched his mouth from mine on a low curse. He dragged me up against him and ran for the surface, shouting to his men.

  I clutched his neck. “What’s wrong?”

  The man hadn’t run at the thought of zombies or his greatest enemy lying in wait in the pit of a cave, but he ran now. He didn’t stop until we stood in sunshine once more, but he didn’t put me down. His chest heaved and his arms quivered, so I tried to get down, but he wouldn’t let me go.

  “Técun, what’s wrong? What happened?”

  “Her blood,” he panted, looking about him wildly, as though he expected danger to pour out from every shadow and rock. “Her blood bound him. Your blood will set him free.”

  “But he’s already free.”

  “Free forever. Free with all the foul powers of Xibalba at his fingertips. Right now, he’s limited in strength. He rolled from the grave with as much power as the creature I killed last night. But if he manages to sacrifice you…”

  Técun shuddered, his arms holding me so tightly that I couldn’t breathe.

  “He will have your magic and mine, twisted and corrupted to his use.”

  My teeth chattered so badly I doubted he could understand me. “But you can send him back first. Right?”

  “If he hasn’t made many sacrifices, yes. But I don’t possess my full strength. If he has the time and knowledge to perform his own rituals, his strength will far outstrip mine. It’s much easier for him to slaughter his way to power than for me to increase my strength.”

  He’d mentioned rituals to increase his power before. “Do it, then. Do whatever it takes.”

  Averting his gaze, he shook his head. “You don’t know what you suggest. You don’t understand the ramifications.”

  I imagined him standing on top of pyramid with a bloody heart in his hand, and my stomach heaved.

  He laughed, but it was a harsh, wry sound that made my eyes burn. “Exactly. Although the kind of sacrifice I require would not involve pulling your still-beating heart from your chest, noyollotl.”

  Chapter Ten

  1519 Xicoténcatl Tecubalsi

  Translated into Spanish by Leonor de Alvarado y Xiotenega Tecubalsi

  Translated by Carla Guzmán Gonzales, 1970

  Sacrifice comes to the top of the pyramid.

  Though I am no conquered warrior or untouched maiden, I am the willing sacrifice. My love is strong. The great pyramid will tremble with the force of my sacrifice.

  My priest waits, but not with his obsidian blade. My heart is safe this night. My heart will always be safe with him.

  It’s my body, my soul and my love that he wants. Not my death or my pain.

  I am the sacrifice and I go willingly to save my people.

  Without reservation or fear, I give him everything I am. He lifts me up on golden fountains of power. The sun burns in my heart, shining in my eyes. I am the rising sun searing away the darkness. His touch makes my body sing and dawn breaks early with my cry.

  Oh, my lover, my mighty priest. With our power rising, you are like a god of old.

  Goodbye, my love. Remember my pleasure when you stand on this pyramid before our people and see the backs of the white men glinting in the distance as they ride to their next conquest.

  I will see your face when I’m given to the white man.

  I will smile as I use our power and dream of the great works you achieve with the magic you wrought from my passion.

  Remember my love atop the pyramid.

  Remember your sacrifice.

  And smile.

  * * *

  Even my favorite spot by the fountain in the courtyard at the Palacio de Doña Leonor couldn’t dispel the grim nightmare we faced. Técun and his men had argued and discussed their options for hours, but we were no closer to making a decision on what to do. None of us knew where Alvarado might be hiding. Short of listening to the news and waiting for reports of unexplained murders or disappearances, we had no leads.

  “If I had a drop of his blood, I could track him to the ends of the earth.” Even now in the relatively secluded privacy, Técun stood alert, head moving, eyes tracking every little movement. Both of the Rojases stood behind me, while José sat beside me on the bench. They’d all been on the phone this afternoon, likely calling trusted friends and family to come stand guard with the others around the hotel.

  It made me feel strange to have so many people hovering about, worried about me. I’d been on my own for so long, except for Natalie. I hadn’t seen her since she’d so wisely left the cathedral, and she’d refused to answer my calls this afternoon. She must really pissed at me this time. “Have you heard from your brother?”

  “No, lady.” Without my request, Marco Rojas pulled out his phone again and called Angel. Long moments went by, and he raised his gaze to Técun’s. “He doesn’t answer.”

  “Check her friend’s room. If they’re not there, we must begin a search.”

  My heart rose up into my throat, choking me. I jumped up, but Técun’s steady, dark eyes calmed me. He strode over and took my arm, and we followed the Rojases upstairs. I could only hope she’d stayed in her rooms in a fit of pique. Or maybe she’d gotten lucky with her guard. The Rojases were a handsome bunch and they were descended from kings. Or maybe she’d gone shopping. She’d been threatening to drag me to the local markets ever since we’d checked in.

  I knocked on her door, the sound reverberating through my skull. “Natalie? It’s me, hon. Open up. Or at least curse me out through the door. Come on, tell me I told you so. Curse me out with every dirty word you can think of. Nat?”

  “Go down and persuade the concierge to open this door,” Técun ordered one of his men. “We have an emergency.”

  Endless moments went by while we waited. I fought back tears. We didn’t know for sure that anything was wrong, but my instincts screamed with urgency. She wouldn’t have stayed mad at me for so long, even though she’d thought I was taking an unnecessary risk by searching the catacombs for Alvarado’s body.

  Sweat chilled my skin and I felt light-headed. If José didn’t get back with a key…

  Finally. My fingers were shaking too badly, so I let him use the key and throw open the door.

  “Nat?”

  Nothing seemed out of place. Well, for her, that is. Where I kept my things orderly, folded and neatly tucked away, neatness wasn’t exactly Nat’s style. Her clothes were piled in a heap on the floor and the bed looked like she’d had a wild romp with all of the Rojases. Her tote was gone, but she’d had it with her this morning. I called her cell again to see if she’d left her phone in the room, but I didn’t hear her ringtone.

  “We’ll check around in Antigua.” Técun assured me, drawing me into his embrace. “I’m sure she’s fine.”

  “No, she’s not.” I fisted my hands in his T-shirt. “I don’t know how or why, but she’s not okay.”

  He pressed his mouth to my hair in a gentle kiss and led me back to my room. “Your magic may be warning you. Marco is calling everyone he knows to come help search for her.”

  I felt worse outside my door. I didn’t want to go inside for some reason. My feet dragged, freezing me in place. Técun immediately went on the alert. He tucked
me back against the wall and quietly unlocked the door. Throwing it open, he darted inside.

  My heart thudded, my ears ringing with the sound of the door crashing against the wall. Was he okay? I didn’t hear any scuffles.

  “Cassie, it’s safe. There’s no one here.”

  I tried to step inside, but my stomach revolted. How could he not feel that heavy, foul air pressing against my lungs?

  “Where is the trouble, noyollotl? Point to it so I can eliminate it. Close your eyes if you need to. Remember how it felt in the crypt. Whatever’s happened here is keyed to you and your magic. I sense nothing.”

  Closing my eyes, I tried to listen and feel with whatever part of me had sensed the magic my distant ancestor had used to bind Alvarado. But I was far from aroused. Just thinking about that blood-thumping sense of melting heat made me want to heave. I lifted my hand, shaking so badly I could barely control my own muscles. I moved my hand, aimlessly feeling for whatever phantom danger might lurk inside.

  There. The foulness rolled from that place. Pointing, I opened my eyes.

  My bed looked neat compared to Nat’s but there was no way that slightly rumpled coverlet had been left by me. I’d tidied everything this morning before leaving the hotel.

  Técun slid the spear head out of his pocket, gripping it like a knife. Edging to the bed, he carefully folded the top comforter partway back. “Nothing. Are you sure?”

  “Take it all the way off. I have to see the sheet all the way to the foot of the bed.”

  He grabbed a handful of covers and threw them off toward the foot.

  A red mass lay on the sheets down at the bottom of the bed. Bloody chunks. I couldn’t even tell what it was. Then it moved.

  I screamed, shrill and high and loud. The entire hotel would be running out to the streets now. The police would come. They’d lock me up somewhere when I started babbling about Alvarado and demons and a mythical quetzal god who woke up because I called him…

  Técun whipped the sheet lose and wrapped the bloody thing into a bundle. “Grab what you absolutely must have. We have to get out of here, Cassie.”