Lea handed him her phone and Ryan nodded in recognition. “Looks like the artefact Wade got in the jungle is the other half of this one here, which is a worry. Up till now the missing half was lost to history, so something’s up. The deity in the center is Huitzilopochtli, the god of the sun, among other things.”
“Which makes sense,” Maria said. “They are a sun-worshipping cult, after all.”
“Not if Barton is to be believed,” Hawke said. “He was of the opinion that they were taking a different direction, and the cult seemed pretty serious about killing him for jumping ship.”
“Plus the cult is fairly well-established, so why does he want that thing now?” Lea said. “He could have swiped it weeks ago.”
The goons manhandled the heavy stone into a canvas back pack. Its smooth, carved basalt surface reflected the soft lights of the museum.
“And then there was Barton’s reference to the god of the dead,” Hawke said.
Without warning, Mendoza pulled a revolver from inside his jacket and aimed it at the official. A mask of fear spread on the old man’s face but before half a second passed the Mexican fired twice into his chest. The man flew back and crashed into a case of Aztec idols before sliding to the floor in a dead heap, his shirt now colored a dark crimson by the blood seeping from the wounds.
In reaction to the shooting, Ryan gasped involuntarily, causing Mendoza and his men to spin around and see them for the first time.
“Mátalos!” Mendoza screamed, pointing at them. His scarred face was red with rage.
“Fantastic, Ryan,” Lea said.
The men pulled their guns and released a fierce volley of fire at the four of them, but Hawke reacted in a heartbeat. He dived to the floor, pulling Lea down as he went and the two of them crashed arm in arm behind a large cabinet of obsidian sacrifice knives. Maria and Ryan scrambled behind a large case of arrowheads.
“I’m touched, Joe,” Lea said, glancing at his arms around her waist. “But now’s hardly the time.”
He gave her a look of despair before rolling off of her and searching for a way out. It didn’t take a sixth sense to work out what was coming next, and Hawke and the others dodged the hail of bullets as they punched dozens of holes into the floor and walls surrounding them.
“They’re out of ammo,” Hawke yelled at last, and leaped to his feet to confront the men.
One of the goons loomed forward with his fists raised. Hawke wrenched a fire extinguisher from the wall and fired off the cylinder in the goon’s face. The man let out a cry and staggered backwards, but Hawke gave no quarter. Using the smoke for cover he lifted the fire extinguisher to shoulder height and rammed it into the man’s head with all his might. The curved base smashed into his face and dropped him like a dead dog.
“Looks like Joe has a new favorite weapon,” Ryan said sarcastically.
Hawke stormed toward Mendoza and the other man. On his way he saw a small cabinet filled with Aztec weapons. He kicked it over, and it triggered a loud alarm which sounded throughout their floor of the museum. With the ear-piercing racket shrieking all around them he snatched up a strange-looking weapon.
The leader, Silvio Mendoza saw him approach and grinned as he wrenched another of the strange weapons from the smashed case. He threw it at the surviving goon who caught it with one hand.
“Jesus,” Ryan said in disbelief. “That’s a sodding macuahuitl!”
“A what now?” Lea said.
“It’s an ancient Aztec weapon, half-sword, half-club. Those black blades sticking out of it are razor-sharp shards of obsidian. They’re lethal. Legend had it the Aztecs could decapitate a horse in one blow with them.”
They watched as the goon effortlessly tossed the weapon from one hand to the other and then slashed the blade through the air in a vicious x-pattern.
“How’s Joe with a sword, then?” Ryan asked. “Cause that other guy looks like he might know a few moves.”
Lea swallowed hard and frowned. “We’re about to find out.”
As her words trailed off, Mendoza screamed at his man to kill Hawke. He obeyed, and lunged forward without warning, slashing the blade at the Englishman as hard as he could.
CHAPTER NINE
Hawke leaped back from the arc of the weapon and it ripped through the air an inch from his stomach. Up close the weapon looked even more lethal, and he could see for the first time that the sides of the macuahuitl were covered in savage little fragments of the volcanic obsidian. One mistake and they would rip through his flesh like a hot knife through butter.
Mendoza’s goon snatched up a tepoztli in his other hand — a bronze axe similar to a tomahawk — and charged at Hawke with both weapons raised.
“By the way, Joe!” Lea shouted. “Those things you’re screwing with can cut a horse’s head off in one blow.”
He stared over his shoulder at her for a second. “Yeah… thanks for that.”
The goon thrust the macuahuitl at Hawke’s chest. The lethal weapon whistled as its savage blades cut through the dehumidified air of the exhibition room, missing the Englishman’s throat by an inch. But it gave Hawke the chance he was looking for.
Before the goon could retract the blade Hawke brought his weapon up and blocked the advance with a hard beat parry, forcing the other man’s macuahuitl downward and giving him just enough time to launch a counter-attack. He brought his weapon up hard with a view to slashing open the man’s stomach but his opponent was too quick and executed a perfect forward recovery, pulling his back leg up into the en garde position. A second later and he was now making a renewed attack on Hawke, but the former SBS man was ready.
Hawke stepped aside, dodging the new attack and responded with a devastating patinando lunge, striking the macuahuitl hard at his chest. The Mexican tried to dodge the attack but was too slow and Hawke’s macuahuitl ripped across his face and tore a deep gouge across his cheek and over the bridge of his nose.
The goon dropped the tepoztli and screamed out in agony as the blood pumped from his face, but Hawke showed no mercy, padding forward and swinging the macuahuitl a second time, tearing a shallow groove across his stomach and opening the flesh along the slash mark. More blood poured from the man’s stomach and he screamed again in renewed pain as he staggered backwards, trying to beat back the searing spasms of pain and keep a grip on his weapon.
The man took a breath and after realizing the wound on his stomach wasn’t lethal, he took a fresh grip on his macuahuitl and returned to the fight, padding toward Hawke, his eyes full of bitter hatred and blood.
Hawke slashed his macuahuitl at him, but the Mexican was so full of adrenalin and hate that he was faster than ever and he responded with a brutal downward cut which tore through Hawke’s jacket and gouged a chunk of flesh from the front of his shoulder.
Hawke recoiled as the pain of the attack coursed through him. He felt the wild throbbing in his shoulder as blood seeped from the wound and ran down his forearm.
The man saw he had wounded his prey and gave a grim smile as he tossed the macuahuitl from one hand to the other. Hawke saw he was enjoying the fight and had used the wounds he had inflicted on him to power himself up for more.
Mendoza watched his man with merciless contempt as Hawke swung his weapon over his head and ran toward him. “Fight him, you coward!” he screamed as the goon tried to defend himself with trembling hands.
But it was too late for him.
Hawke swung the savage, close-contact weapon at the man and struck him across the flank of his torso, slashing through his flesh with the razor-sharp obsidian blades embedded in the hardwood edge of the macuahuitl.
The man screamed in agony as the volcanic glass ripped into his epidermis and shredded through the deeper subcutaneous tissue. The notorious weapon had gouged a terrific slash-mark through the muscle wall of his body. He fell to his knees and blood gushed out over his hands as he tried to stop the pain.