Force of Fire

by Ali Vali

  “I wish I had an answer,” Kendal said as they all gathered and she tried to bring the guy to. “Not even Convel has any reference to it, but I’m sure Alejandro Garza and his people have kept that and themselves away from any kind of public notice. We need to know now if anything else like that is waiting for us.”

  She slapped the guy again, and he finally moaned and opened his eyes. Morgaine had really clocked him, and his collar was caked in blood from the cut on the back of his head. He moaned before startling totally awake. To not waste time, she put a dagger under his chin hard enough to draw blood.

  “Who do you work for?” she asked in Spanish, and he closed his eyes and turned his head. She applied more pressure and ignored the blood now trickling down her blade. “Your pet is dead, so pay attention and answer the questions.”

  His head whipped around, and he glared at her when she finished. “There’s no way you killed Sasha.”

  “If you mean snake girl with four little legs, then she’s dead along with her little snake friend. What was she?”

  “Kill me, because I’m not telling you anything,” he said and started crying.

  “I’m not really into torture, but I always make an exception to everything,” Morgaine said, hitting him so hard he spat out a large amount of blood. “What was that?” Morgaine pressed the prod quickly to his leg.

  “She wasn’t an it. Sasha was my daughter, a gift from the gods.” He covered his face with his hands and started to cry.

  “She wasn’t born like that?” Kendal asked, surprised that anyone would allow that to happen to their child.

  “Senor Garza personally oversaw her transformation, and she was growing stronger,” he said. They were having a hard time understanding him through his tears. “Sasha was a soldier of the order, and her sacrifice would be rewarded once the gods return.”

  Before they could ask him anything else, he grabbed Kendal’s wrist and drove the blade into his chest. It was a quick, efficient killing blow that kept him from answering any more questions. “Son of a bitch,” she said, pulling him off. When he dropped to the pavement, Convel went through his pockets.

  “I wonder if this Alejandro guy conjured her from their writings, or if she was born like Lowe,” Convel said when she didn’t find anything. “And we also need to know what kind of snake Sasha and the others like her are.”

  “From the shape of the head, it’s a type of viper,” Morgaine said.

  “Can it kill us?” Lowe moved close to Convel.

  “Not us, and not them, but it can slow us down enough to cause problems,” Convel said, and Kendal had to agree. “The body color and markings look like those of a python to me, but while they’re dangerous, they’re not poisonous, so this is something not found in nature. Because your skin tingled, though, it’s poisonous.”

  “Does it make a difference?” Piper asked, her eyes on the dead man.

  “My nature is wild, but I’m not an animal,” Convel said. “My animal spirit still retains the essence of who I am. That’s how it is for all of us. If his daughter made a choice to change, she gave up who she was to become something Garza is using for his own reasons. I doubt Sasha’s father would’ve needed a cattle prod to make her obey if she was like me and Lowe.”

  “And you don’t think this is the one you saw, Aishe?” Kendal asked.

  “I didn’t want to get any closer, but it was bigger, and its name was Naga. The man called it a few times, and the prod made it finally leave the tree where it had cornered a pack of monkeys.”

  “If you want to talk inside, we can take care of this,” one of the guards said, and she nodded.

  They listened to Aishe’s story and knew the watchers were a liability going forward. They had accepted their money to keep the dig site safe, but their loyalties now were with Garza and the Order, yet so far Franco Rodriguez hadn’t given up on them completely.

  “Luckily he really can’t tell Garza much even if he wanted to,” Lenore said. “It’s surprising that he even knows it’s the Clan he’s working for. Rolla doesn’t give out that kind of information no matter what you’re doing for us.”

  “I’m sure that information came from whoever gave Leonardo part of my history. Once we figure this out, we have to find where our leak is,” she said, wanting to leave for the dig site before the sun came up. “If we have to head into every situation from a compromised position, we’re going to have a problem.”

  “Gran found something while you were gone,” Piper said, handing over a small leather-bound book. A coiled snake was stamped into the cover, and the book seemed to be written in Italian.

  “The Order of Fuego and other organizations like it have spent time and money to break all the spells people like Rawney’s mother have left throughout time,” Molly said, flipping to the pages that showed something like what they’d seen. “Most of the spells have been supposed to save us all from things that shouldn’t exist, but Garza and his like have a need for whatever you saw out there.”

  “So he started turning some of the followers into monsters?” She flipped through the pages, trying to find something close to what Sasha had turned into.

  “Everything has a purpose, I guess, but from what we read, the change is irreversible,” Molly said, and she finally found something like what they’d seen.

  “This is it, only bigger.”

  “How do you even go about changing into something like that?” Piper asked, shivering.

  “For us, it comes from a bite that isn’t fatal, but the transformation feels like it should kill you,” Convel said, and Lowe nodded. “For me and my family, it’s just who we are.”

  “But Lowe is like you, even if she had to suffer the change?” Piper asked, and Lowe nodded again.

  “When I shift, I still know right from wrong, and I know who I love,” Lowe said.

  “Well, it’s better to find out now that these things are out there, so we have to be extra careful tomorrow. Everyone who’s joining us tomorrow has to either arm themselves or travel with a slayer.” She glanced at her watch. “We’ll meet here at five in the morning.”

  Everyone left the kitchen and headed to the bedrooms they’d been assigned.

  “Why do you think he changed those people?” Piper asked once they were alone.

  “Because he needed something to lord over until he gets what he really wants.”

  “Which is?”

  “Control of Aphrodite’s children without the cattle prod, but I could be wrong.”

  “Maybe when I’m actually there I’ll get something else,” Piper said as she moved to sit in her lap.

  “I got to sit and talk to Aphrodite one more time,” she said and told Piper about the meeting. “She loves them, and they’re like you said, so I wish I could wake them if they’d be safe, but I doubt that’s going to happen. I can’t think of any place in the world they could live without someone trying to destroy them.”

  “Then we’ll do our best to keep from disturbing them.”

  “We will, but I won’t be surprised if the complete opposite happens. No matter how dedicated people should be to good, evil seems to hold a more powerful sway.”

  “Don’t be a pessimist, baby.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m the poster kid for high hopes.”

  “Good, because Garza and his followers probably aren’t going to find you as cute as I do.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Pauline sat on the first step of the largest pyramid and glanced at the pits she and Oscar had found. The workers had set out torches so they could see as they continued to cut away the vegetation from the other three carved slabs they’d discovered. She hadn’t ordered them removed for further investigation because she didn’t want to lose anyone else unnecessarily. And she wasn’t about to head back underground without Oscar unless she was sure some curse or something as horrific as the snakes wouldn’t kill her.

  She’d walked the length of the avenue of pyramids and figured at least ten more slabs exis
ted, but she didn’t have a clue as to what the hell they were supposed to either hide or hold. It was a waste of time to remove them and then have to burn the bodies of the unlucky workers on the altars. “Señora Pauline,” one of the men said, staring at his feet as he talked to her. “Your father called and said to start taking the slabs off.”

  “We’re not doing that until we know how to release the triggers before we send someone down.”

  The man took a satellite phone and, after dialing, handed it to her. “What are you waiting for?” Alejandro said in a voice that chilled her. “I sent you there to get this done.”

  “If you’re so brave, then come down here, and we’ll start popping them open for you. Then you can go down and show us how it’s done,” she said, tired of being her father’s punching bag. “But you aren’t going to do that, are you?”

  “Listen,” Alejandro said in a lower, more controlled tone. “We’re running out of time. If the answer is there, find it before you lose the opportunity.”

  “Each one of the pits is rigged to kill, and we don’t have enough men to open them all if we lose as many as we did before.”

  “I’ll send as many as you need, so go ahead and start.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “They know what’s at stake. I thought you realized that as well, but perhaps I’m wrong.”

  “We’ll start, so send more men.” She hung up and threw the man his phone back, knocking him to the ground with a kick to his chest when he caught it. “Since you feel the need to make points with my father, I’ll send you in the pit first.” Some of the men shouted as the next stone was removed, so she grabbed him by the collar. “You can use your nice phone to call him and tell him what you see.”

  She dragged him to the hole and threw him in. It took only a few seconds for him to start screaming, and the rest of the men backed up as if not wanting to go in next. The screaming stopped, replaced by whimpering, and curiosity made her shine her flashlight into the hole. The man was lying on his back covered in blood, his face completely blistered as if someone had sprayed him with acid.

  He raised his hand toward her, but she figured he couldn’t see anything since his facial features were slowly starting to melt away. Pauline ignored that sight and concentrated on his fist. He was clutching something, and it stayed in his fist as his hand dropped back down. He stopped moving when his mouth fell open.

  “Go down and see what’s in his hand, even if you need to sever it from his body,” she told the man closest to her. He was smart enough to lower a rope and loop it around the man’s wrist. Whatever he had gotten into made his hand come off easily once they started pulling.

  When she opened the rigid fingers she found a ruby the size of an apricot that appeared flawless. Considering everything had been empty so far, it shocked her to find anything of value. When she held it up and aimed her flashlight at it, it looked like the eye of something, since a pupil-appearing hologram was cut into the center of the stone. It resembled the pupil of a serpent, and when she moved the stone, the pupil seemed to glow.

  “What is it?” the man next to her asked.

  “I’m not sure, but send someone else down and see if there’s another one.” He nodded enthusiastically. A few moments later the next man was in as much agony as the first guy, but from the look of it, he hadn’t found anything else.

  “Open the next slab and keep going until you’ve searched all of them.” She glanced down at the two dead men, had the closest crew lower a ladder, and pointed inside. The next two men went in with no problems, so she followed them down. Like the other chambers, this one was simply a stone room with no writing on any surface. Whatever their purpose, maybe they’d find it eventually in one of the remaining chambers.

  “Do you want us to use the radar on the walls and floor?” the man who’d carried out her orders asked.

  “Did you find anything in any of the first ones we searched?”

  “Not yet. There was nothing under the floor like Oscar thought, but we’ll look if you want to be sure.”

  “Let’s open the rest of them first,” she said, gripping the stone they’d found. “If there’s nothing else, then we’ll go back to see if we missed anything.”

  She pressed the stone into her palm and let out a surprised breath when it cut her. Nothing on it appeared sharp enough to do harm, but when she opened her hand she saw a fairly deep gash at the center of her hand. The blood that had covered the ruby seemed to heat it more than it should’ve, and as the blood pooled, it grew so hot she almost put it down.

  “We found something,” she said to Alejandro on her phone as the men placed crowbars under the next slab. The second it moved slightly, another group of large snakes slithered from under the stone and attacked the workers.

  “What?” he asked, not bothering to question the screams coming from her end.

  “A large ruby with a serpent eye cut into it.”

  “Bring it to me,” Alejandro said, sounding almost giddy.

  “Are you sure you want me to leave now?” One of the snakes moved toward her with its mouth open, the fangs easy to see. A bite wouldn’t be fatal, she thought, unless those sharp points were able to sink into something like her throat.

  “The workers know better than to steal from us.”

  One of the men stepped in front of her as the snake moved closer, and she put her hand on the man’s back. She didn’t know much about snakes, but these pythons seemed abnormally large, so she tried to keep the man between her and the one stalking her. It didn’t shock her when the man went down and disappeared into the coils of the powerful body after the snake grabbed him by the throat and subdued him.

  “I’m coming,” she said, realizing the man had given his life to save her. Perhaps her father loved her more than she’d given him credit for, because it was devotion to Alejandro that kept these men working despite the dangers. “And I won’t be coming back here.”

  “I know, but I think we’ve found everything worthwhile there.”

  “Do you want them to stop digging?”

  Alejandro laughed, and the sound made her close her eyes. “It won’t hurt to lose a few more lives in order to make sure. Tell them to keep going.”

  She nodded and thought it would take years for the screams to disappear from her memories. They’d opened the next chamber, and the yells of agony had started again. The ruby seemed to be the only thing of beauty this place held. The rest was simply pain.

  * * *

  The morning started with rain and lightning dotting the mountains around them, but everyone mounted the horses Kendal had provided and rode into the jungle without complaint. Piper hung on to her arm since she rode in front of her as they made their way through the path the men Rueben sent had cut. Oscar had pointed out another, better way in, but the men working for Alejandro had cleared it, so she wanted to avoid any contact with them if possible.

  She slightly clicked her heels against the horse’s side as the incline grew steeper, but because the animal’s footing was good he made short work of the climb. The thick greenery around them made her wonder what this area had looked like all those years ago when the site was built, but she doubted it had been much different then than it was now. It had taken a lot of perseverance to haul all that stone up these inclines if the weather was always mostly bad.

  “All this dripping is getting damn annoying,” Piper said as she wiped her face yet again.

  “Thank God I gave up armor a long time ago. If not I’d be rusting by now,” she said, then quickly put her hand up. She could hear shouting in the distance, so they weren’t that far away from the site.

  Oscar moved up in the line until he was next to her and pointed to the top of the ridge in front of them. “It’s over that, but we have to head down into the valley to actually get to where the pyramids are. We’d stopped working after everything that happened, but Alejandro must have made them start again. That bastard doesn’t care who dies for what he wants.”


  “Did he ever place guards around the place when you were here?” Morgaine asked from behind them. Lenore had decided to come with them as well, and she appeared as pleased as Piper with the weather as she sat behind Morgaine on the large horse.

  “Not while we were working here, but I can’t say he wouldn’t. After he killed my father and I got away from him, I wouldn’t doubt that he’d think about it.” Oscar removed his hat and wiped his brow. “I’m sure he doesn’t want anyone finding something before he does.”

  “Okay,” she said, moving a little ahead of him and dismounting before helping Piper down. Charlie came up and led the riderless horse to the front of the pack. Quite a few things were strapped to its back, and she untied the top pack and started unwrapping. “Wait here for a little while.”

  “Where are you going?” Piper asked.

  “Hunting.” She strapped a bow to her back, tied the quiver to her waist, and disappeared into the brush with Charlie closely behind her. Morgaine stayed with them, arming herself with the same set of primitive weapons, but in this case, if they went the easy route with guns, they’d just be inviting more trouble.

  Kendal pointed to the left, and Charlie nodded as he carefully made his way, staying in sight. The area seemed clear, but the vegetation was so thick it would be hard to spot anyone until you were right on top of them, and if that was true, they would lose the element of surprise.

  A few more yards and she put her fist up, making Charlie stop. The cigarette smoke gave the guy away, and luckily he was staring down at whatever was happening rather than at his surroundings. The gun hanging from his shoulder was a fully automatic weapon not easily found in Costa Rica, so she doubted the guards would have any problem using them since they were already breaking the law.

  Charlie stared at her and waited, so she pointed at him and made a fishing-reel motion with her hands, hoping he knew what she meant. It wasn’t her style to simply kill someone for doing a job they were hired to do, but if the guy started to shoot first without engaging, that was a different scenario.