Выбрать главу

“What about the earth tremors?”

“We’re just south of a huge meteorite impact site, the Chicxulub crater, which underlies much of the north Yucatan.”

“The one that wiped out the dinosaurs?” Costas said, looking around him with mock alarm. “Anything bad that didn’t happen here?”

Jeremy grinned. “The dinosaur disaster’s true. The rim is marked by a ring of cenotes, many of them collapsed into sinkholes. Nobody really knows why, but the crater underneath has some kind of de-stabilising effect on the limestone.”

“A cave-diver’s paradise.”

“It’s incredible,” Jeremy enthused. “Divers have explored systems fifty, a hundred kilometres long. Some of them are underwater rivers that run out into the sea. Below the slime it’s crystal clear, like swimming in an aquarium filled with spectacular calcite formations. But it’s also lethal. It put me off learning to dive when I was here as a student. More divers have died here than almost anywhere else in the world.”

“The Toltecs would have approved,” Jack said.

“Let me guess,” Costas said. “They sacrificed humans here as well.”

“The Well of Sacrifice was first dredged for artefacts in the 1930s, but then in the 1950s it was one of the first archaeological sites to be explored using scuba equipment,” Jack replied. “There have been other expeditions. Cousteau came here. The deepest deposits are still unexplored, but masses of artefacts have come up-pottery vessels, gold, jade. Almost all of it was thrown into the well intact, ritually deposited. And they found human skeletons. Hundreds of them.”

“It’s the same story all over the Yucatan,” Jeremy added. “Cenotes were the source of fresh water for the Maya, but also entrances to the underworld. They sacrificed warriors, maidens, children. That little building over there is the temazcal, a kind of sauna where victims were ritually purified. The stone ledges we’ve just come down were spectator seating, where the Toltec elite could sit and watch.”

“I guess variety is the spice of life,” Costas murmured distastefully. “Once you’ve seen a few thousand hearts ripped out back there at the temple, you might want a change of scene.”

An official appeared sweating and panting behind them on the processional way, waving a cellphone and beckoning for Jeremy to take it. Jeremy hesitated, knowing that he had been mistaken for the leader. He looked towards Jack, who smiled and gestured for him to go. As Jeremy clambered up with the official to find higher ground for better reception, Jack turned back and peered over the edge of the platform. The pool looked strangely benign, but for a moment his breath tightened as he felt the terror of the victims a thousand years ago poised at the edge of the underworld.

“You say there’s still stuff down there.” Costas wiped the sheen of sweat from his face, then looked questioningly at Jack.

“Most of the artefacts and bones higher up have been lifted, but there are still deeply buried deposits where you might find heavier objects.”

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Your sub-bottom borer,” Jack replied with a grin. “Maybe if things work out in the Golden Horn, we could approach the Mexican authorities and suggest a shift to operations here.”

“Do you think there’s a chance?”

Jack rubbed his chin and squinted against the glare off the rock. “From what Jeremy’s been telling us, this is the place where trophies of war might have been presented to the gods. Let’s imagine Harald and his crew made it ashore somewhere north of here, then were captured.”

“God, I hope not,” Costas said. “That would have been a major letdown after all they’d been through.”

“For the Vikings who weren’t lucky enough to die in battle, there was only one fate. The warriors would have their hearts ripped out back there at the temple. Any retainers who survived might have been enslaved. Maybe your friend who somehow made the trek back to the cairn.”

“The scars on his wrists and ankles,” Costas said. “Shackles.”

Jack nodded. “Others might have been brought here to this very spot for sacrifice. A spectacular procession from the temple to the cenote, the climax of the ritual of victory. Just like a Roman emperor’s triumph. Crushing the Vikings would have been a big deal for the Toltecs, victory over blond, bearded giants with their fearsome weapons of iron. They’d come here like foreign gods, and the Toltecs had vanquished them. The spoils of war would have been presented to the gods.”

“The menorah would have been a pretty spectacular sacrifice.”

“How much did you reckon it weighed? Three hundred, maybe three hundred and fifty pounds?”

“That’s an awful lot of gold to throw away.”

“It is an awful lot.” Jack looked at the shimmer of green on the pool below them, then back at Costas. “And the Toltecs did like their gold.”

Jeremy reappeared over the limestone ridge and began to make his way down towards them. He was tottering slightly, and he sat down heavily on a rock. They could see he was ashen-faced.

“The heat’s getting to you.” Costas looked at him with concern, and passed over his water bottle. “Drink this and let’s get into the shade.”

“It’s not that.” Jeremy’s voice was hoarse, barely audible, and he let the bottle slip from his fingers. “I just spoke to Ben. I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.” He looked up at Jack, his face stricken. “The worst.”

Jack felt a cold dread grip his stomach. He had tried to prepare himself. He had hoped they would beat the odds.

“It’s from Iona.” Jeremy looked bewildered, blinking the sweat out of his eyes. His voice was barely a whisper. “It’s Father O’Connor. He’s been murdered. And Maria’s missing.”

17

Later,how much later she could not tell, Maria surfaced from a terrifying pit of darkness, her mind clawing its way out of some unremembered horror. She seemed exhausted beyond belief, spent by her struggle against the faceless demon of her dreams, yet she felt weighed down by the heaviness that follows deep sleep. For what seemed an eternity she lay motionless, drifting in and out of consciousness, waiting for her body to respond. She sensed her breathing, felt the hardness of the surface beneath her, a crick in her neck. She was lying in a foetal position on her right side, her hands tucked between her legs. Slowly she opened her eyes. It was dark, but not as dark as her dreams. From the corner of one eye she saw a flickering, a candle. The wall in front of her was covered with shapes, colours. She saw splashes of red.

Her breathing stopped. She went rigid. O’Connor’s study. She shut her eyes tightly, yearning for that darkness again, anything to blot out a reality she scarcely believed, a horror she tried desperately to push back into her dreams.

She felt a burning pain in her left cheek. A light touch seemed to play across it, a hint of a breeze. Suddenly she shrieked and sat bolt upright, her heart pounding and the blood rushing in her ears, frantically slapping at her face as she scrabbled backwards. She hit a wall, her breath coming in ragged gulps, then heard the flutter of wings swoop over her and disappear.

She raised her hand and felt a sticky wetness on her cheek, then looked up. The candle revealed a pointed ceiling, high-sided, made of small stone blocks covered with patches of plaster. It looked old, decayed. At the apex she could make out a line of darker shapes, hanging in a row.

They had been feeding on her.

She began to retch, folding her arms tight against her stomach and leaning to one side. She smelled the metallic breath again. She tried to throw up, retching over and over, desperate for something to expiate the revulsion she felt, the stain of death and violation that overwhelmed all her thoughts, that was all she could remember of what had gone before.