She turned, tensing. “Hello?”
Nate appeared in the doorway, his big body blocking the gap and his energy filling the small shed. He looked darker, rougher, and more dangerous than usual, the bruises on his face having gone from raw red to dark. Sensual awareness prickled across Alexis’s skin, shimmering inward to gather in her core and at the back of her brain, where the connection to Ixchel awoke at his proximity.
He’s the one,
the goddess seemed to be saying.
Well, guess what?
The goddess was wrong. He wasn’t the one. He was an ass.
Alexis couldn’t believe he and Michael had beaten each other up, couldn’t believe neither of them would tell her why, though guessing was easy: She was the only thing that’d changed between the men. She wasn’t flattered, either, though Anna and Jade seemed to think she ought to be. No, she was seriously annoyed. She figured it was safe to assume that Nate had gone after Michael, who’d fought back in self-defense. And that scenario was just asinine, because Nate was the one who kept distancing himself from their nonrelationship. He didn’t have any right to be pissed at Michael. Not that either of them would talk about it, of course; they were sticking together in some sort of Neanderthal code of ethics that just made her more annoyed.
When Nate simply stood there in the doorway, looking at her, she snapped, “What do you want?” Belatedly, she realized he was wearing black on black, with a bulletproof vest over the top, strapped down with a stocked weapons belt. “Where are you going?”
“Belize.” He moved past her and started collecting spare clips, turning his back on her.
“The hell you are.” She would’ve yanked him to face her, but knew from experience that he didn’t get yanked. So she moved around in front of him, forcing him to look at her. “Michael’s going with me.”
“Not anymore. Stone and I reached an agreement.” He turned away from her again, pretending to check one of his weapons, though they both knew he kept his guns in perfect working order. They all did—Jox, their resident gun junkie, had drummed that lesson home early on.
Confusion and irritation fought for dominance within Alexis, and confusion won. “Nate,” she said softly. “Look at me, please.”
He stalled the busywork, standing still for a heartbeat. Then he turned toward her, his expression guarded. He secured the autopistol in its holster, then hooked his thumbs in his belt as he faced her, looking ready for anything.
Anything, of course, except what she needed from him.
“This is nonnegotiable,” he said, as if a statement like that would actually end the discussion. “I’ll play the god card if I have to, though I’d really rather not.”
And he has a point, damn it,
Alexis thought on a beat of sadness, of frustration. She knew Strike would back him up if it came down to it, as would the
winikin
. So she didn’t try to fight the fight she knew she wouldn’t win. She simply said, “Why?”
He flinched, looking like he would’ve preferred that she argue, but answered, “I need time.”
Whatever she’d expected him to say, that wasn’t it. “How much time?” she asked, not sure what he expected to figure out in the coming days, when he hadn’t managed it over the past seven months.
“I don’t know.” He shifted, settling the Kevlar across his broad shoulders. “I’m working on it.” Which didn’t tell her anything, really.
She stood there and looked at him, really looked at him for the first time after having spent the past several months—and particularly the past few weeks—trying not to let herself look. He was brawny as ever, with a set of muscles she suspected he’d developed during the prison stint he refused to talk about, then maintained in the years since with workouts that seemed fueled as much by anger as a desire for fitness. His face was different than before, though, especially his eyes, which held a new determination.
When she’d first met him she’d seen a slick, powerful businessman who’d shown up in a stretch SUV. Now she saw a warrior-mage who had saved her more than once, a man who was trying to reconcile the person he’d been with the one the future needed him to become. He didn’t like being told what to do, didn’t accept anything at face value, including the attraction that’d bound them together from the very beginning. But for the first time he seemed to be accepting that the Nightkeepers needed more of him.
He was trying; she had to give him that. So, despite herself, she nodded slowly. “Okay, you can come to Belize. I’m not promising anything, though.”
“Understood.” He nodded to her belt. “You locked and loaded?”
She took a deep breath to settle the sudden flutter in her stomach, then nodded. “Yeah. I’m ready.”
“Then let’s get our backpacks and get rolling. Next stop, Belize.”
There didn’t seem to be much else to say. The place was fricking gorgeous. They stood in a small clearing near where a slow-moving river widened to a stone-strewn pool that fed into the mouth of an arching cave. Sunlight dappled through the leafy canopy high overhead, and everywhere she looked there were jewel-green leaves and growing things. The abundant fertility was a shock, after they’d come from the mostly red-brown plant and animal life in New Mexico’s canyon country. Alexis had been to the Yucatán for the cardinal days and the eclipse ceremony, of course, but those had been furtive trips, in and gone during the night, under the cover of darkness.
Now she took a moment to fill her lungs with air that was moist and fecund rather than desert dry. She smiled up at the chitters and cries of wild animals high above. She saw the flash of colorful birds and dark, long-armed shapes playing in the trees.
“Howler monkeys,” Nate said, coming up beside her. “I wouldn’t recommend trying to make friends.”
“No worries on that account.” She turned back to Strike. “Thanks for the lift. We’ll call you for a pickup.” She patted her knapsack, which held the satellite phone that would form their main link to Skywatch. Granted, a satellite glitch had forced Red-Boar to carry a wounded Anna out of the jungle the year before, and had meant that Strike had barely reached them in time . . . but without a true telepath among the Nightkeepers, they didn’t really have a better option than the sat phones.
Strike nodded. “Be careful. And good luck.” He raised a hand in farewell. Power hummed in the air, sparking royal red for a second and then coalescing inward, snapping to nothingness as he disappeared, leaving Alexis and Nate alone outside the ATM caves.
According to Jade, all the signs pointed to its having been one of the Nightkeepers’ most sacred caves. To the Maya and Nightkeepers, all caves had been sacred, as had mountains and rivers. Those three components together—a cave at high elevation, with a subterranean river running within—characterized the entrance to Xibalba itself. Most of the Mayan pyramids were built on that idea, with the sloping sides ascending up to an open platform, often with a boxlike room at the top that mimicked the mouth of a cave and led to tunnels heading back down into the body of the pyramid and even beyond, down to underground tombs, waterways, and sacred sacrificial places. In that way, the dead kings entombed within the pyramids had metaphorically acted out the journey through the nine-layered hell of Xibalba and out the other side, to join the gods in the sky.
Those pyramids were man-made, though. Places where the mountain-river-cave conjunction occurred naturally were considered even more special, and only the highest-ranking shaman-priests dared enter such caves, lest they anger the gods or
Banol Kax
. Even now, a thousand years after the main fall of the Classical Mayan Empire, when the ATM caves had ceased being a center of worship, Alexis could feel the importance of the site and the crinkle of magic on her skin. The power wasn’t the gold of the gods, the red of the Nightkeepers, or the purple-green of the
makol
and
Banol Kax
. Instead, it was a pale, colorless magic, a wellspring to be used for good or ill. It was a neutral, waiting sort of magic.
Hopefully, it was waiting for them.
“Ready?” she asked, and headed down the shallow slope to the pool before Nate could answer, trusting that he had her back on this, at least. “Please tell me Jade was right on the ‘not enough piranhas to worry about and you’ll see the poisonous water snakes and fanged reptiles coming’ thing.”
“We won’t be in the water too long,” he said. “Watch your weapons.”
“Right.” She unclipped her belt and tucked it in her knapsack, which was lined and would supposedly be completely waterproof once she engaged the double seal at the top. With her possessions secured, she stepped into the pool and started wading toward the cave mouth, then wound up having to swim when the faintly squishy bottom fell away. It was only a short distance across to where her feet touched the bottom, and then she was wading again, passing under the stone archway of the cave mouth.
Nate was right behind her, unspeaking, his solid presence helping settle her. She wouldn’t have admitted it to him for anything, but part of her was glad he was there instead of Michael. She and Nate admittedly had their problems, but she was comfortable with him, knew his body language and how he moved. Whether either of them liked it or not, they worked well together, at least on the physical level.
The ATM cave was like a cathedral at first, open and echoing with the slosh and slap of water as they waded onward. Rock formations flanked the waterway, larger, stubbier, and softer-edged than the ones she’d seen in her vision. Was that because of a difference in time frame, or would the stalactites and stalagmites grow sharper and narrower, more fanglike as they worked their way into the cave system? She didn’t know.
When they reached a section where a dry-land trail opened up alongside the waterway, they climbed out and sluiced off what water they could, then pulled water-resistant flashlights out of the packs, clicking them on for light as they moved deeper into the caves.
Alexis glanced over at Nate and was surprised at the pensiveness written on his bruised face. “Not exactly your idea of fun?” she asked, keeping her voice low because of the echoes and the sense of being inside a sacred place.
“It’s not that,” he said, equally low. “It’s . . .” He hesitated, looking at her, then let out a breath. “I spent the other night in my parents’ cottage. It got me thinking.”
“You . . . oh.” She broke off. Of all the things she might’ve expected him to say, that wasn’t one of them. “Wow. Do you, you know, want to talk about it or anything?” Not the most elegant of invitations, perhaps, but even as lovers they’d shared little in the way of deep convo.
He shook his head, but said, “Maybe later.”
They kept going, and soon passed a cluster of flare-rimmed pottery jars. The size of two cupped hands joined together, the vessels had most likely held sacrificial offerings—water, perhaps, or blood, intended to petition the gods for the shaman-priests’ safe passage into the sacred caves. Nate and Alexis didn’t dare leave a bowl or carved offering for subsequent visitors to find, but they also didn’t dare enter the inner caves without a sacrifice, so they blooded their tongues and spat in the river. Then, using copies of both maps, they worked their way from one cavern to the next, passing more offerings as they went. The sacrifices grew more elaborate as they moved deeper into the cave system; farther in, the pottery jars were larger and decorated with depictions of bats and howler monkeys, both which were thought to act as messengers between the earth and the underworld.
Moving even deeper into the caves, they passed human remains, the calcified bones of adults first, then infants, each carefully laid out in chambers with high, vaulted ceilings and giant limestone pillars. The waterway wound through the scattered offerings, some of which had been placed on carved altars or grindstones, while others were set in natural niches and alcoves.
The researchers who had ventured into the ATM caves had pointed to the sacrificial victims and offerings as the efforts of Mayan priests to reverse the droughts, wars and famines that had supposedly struck the region around A.D. 950, when so many of the great cities had been abandoned en masse, seemingly overnight. But Alexis knew the sacrifices were not, as the archaeologists believed, tributes made to the rain god, Chaac, in an effort to alleviate drought. They were evidence of the terrible magic the Nightkeepers had been forced to call on in order to drive the
Banol Kax
back to hell, after the Xibalbans had loosed the demons on the earth, dooming the empire.
In the final chamber, where the subterranean river seemed to dead-end in a deep pool, nine skulls were stacked in a
tzomplanti
, a skull pile that could be used as a marker or a warning. Nine skulls to represent the nine levels of hell standing opposite the thirteen layers of the sky, with the single earthly plane between them as a buffer. A battleground.
Checking the older map, Alexis gestured to the pile. “That’s our marker. According to Painted-Jaguar and company, the tunnel is beneath the skull pile.”
Nate nodded. “Let’s dive.”
Digging into their knapsacks, they pulled out pony bottles, which were small compressed-air tanks fitted with breathing masks that covered the nose and mouth. Sven, an expert diver, had outfitted them with the canisters and given them a quick demo. The brief writeup that went along with Painted-Jaguar’s map indicated they could make it through the tunnel on a single breath-hold, but they weren’t taking any chances. They also donned goggles and traded their flashlights for waterproof miners’ headlamps.
Not exactly the height of fashion,
Alexis thought, wincing when the elastic straps pulled at her no-nonsense ponytail. She resealed her knapsack, but didn’t put it on, because Sven had advised them to carry the packs hugged to their chests, as that could reduce the danger of snagging on the tunnel sides. The safety precautions had her pausing at the edge of the water.
“Problem?” Nate asked, coming up beside her.
She stared down into the dark depths, but a flush of heat and a flash of sensory memory warned her that it wasn’t the swim she was worried about. She was unsettled by the thought of what they might find at the other end of the tunnel. She was sure Nate had been part of her earlier vision, could swear they’d actually been in the chamber, not just a dream-version of it. But if that were the case, would there be any evidence that they’d been there together, that they’d made love in the temple? Would she see a boot scuff and know it was his, or see something they’d left behind? Or what if being there jolted the memory loose inside his skull? He swore he never remembered his dreams, so maybe their shared vision had gone to wherever his dreams wound up, blocked off by his stubborn insistence that there was nothing to be gained from the past, or from prophecy. If so, then what would happen if he suddenly remembered making love to her in that cave?
It doesn’t matter either way,
she told herself firmly, trying very hard to believe it.
“Alexis? What’s wrong?” He touched her arm, bringing a flare of warmth to her midsection.
“Foolishness,” she said, dismissing the fears, and the small wish that fantasy could become reality. She took a deep breath and told herself to man up and get the job done. “Let’s go.”
She combat-dropped into the water; he followed a few seconds later, their splashes echoing in the stone chamber. Alexis held her knapsack across her chest, the straps looped around the arm holding the pony bottle as she adjusted her goggles and headlamp and took a couple of experimental breaths. With all systems go and Nate treading water beside her, she let herself sink beneath the surface.
The water was silty and brown-cast, the suspended particles dampening her light within ten feet or so and making her feel very isolated. Very alone. Unable to stop herself, she back-paddled until she could see Nate’s reassuring bulk in her peripheral vision. When he gestured, offering to go first, she nodded, grateful there was nobody else there to see her be a wienie.
He dropped down along the rock wall to where the dark shadow of a tunnel led away. When he reached the tunnel mouth he glanced back at her. She gave him a thumbs-up, though her stomach churned. He nodded, slipped into the tunnel, and started swimming.
Alexis stayed right behind him, trying not to stir up too much silt as she swam, but feeling seriously awkward with all the stuff she was holding. At about the one-minute mark she took a hit off the pony bottle and let her exhaled bubbles trail behind her. She told herself not to use too much of the air too fast. Then, moments later, Nate’s light curved upward and disappeared as the tunnel ended.
Following, she saw him break the surface of an air pocket. In the water all around her, stalagmites thrust upward. Before she’d even surfaced, she knew they were in the right place, and the knowledge twisted her heart with lust, with regret at knowing the dream wouldn’t be repeated. Why couldn’t real-life stuff be as simple as it was in her fantasies?
Knowing there was no answer for that one, she kicked upward and broke through to take a deep breath. The air was okay, though it smelled of age and stale
copan
incense.
The long, narrow chamber was just as she’d remembered it, just as she’d described it: the crowd scenes carved on the parallel walls and the short side behind them, the flying serpent and the rainbows overhead, and the limestone pillars marching up to the carved throne at the far end. The torches were dead where they’d been lit before, but everything else was the same, even the way the water went clearer and warmer as they swam toward the throne.
“It’s beautiful,” Nate said, his voice rasping a little as he drew close to the V-shaped stalagmites where the two of them had made love in her vision. He touched one of them in passing, and she felt a phantom caress glide across her skin, as though he’d touched her, not the stone. Then he was past the spot and climbing up on the platform. Once he was up on the ledge, he turned back and reached down to help her.
Alexis stared at his hand, then up at him, and saw nothing. No memory, not even a hint of heat. He didn’t remember.
Swallowing back a ball of tears that came out of nowhere, she put her hand in his and let him pull her up. They didn’t speak as they ditched their knapsacks and pony bottles in a pile, then pulled out the flashlights, which were strong enough to illuminate the entire arcade. The artificial light seemed cold and wrong when Alexis’s memory said it should’ve been torchlight, magic, and the twining colors of love. But maybe this was better. In the harsher light she’d be less tempted to confuse the vision with reality.