He turned slowly, sweeping his light around to survey their new surroundings. After making their way through so many extravagantly painted chambers, culminating with the elaborately carved Council of the Death Lords, this new cavern felt like a bit of a letdown. It was essentially just a big natural cavern. The ceiling was studded with stalactites, and the uneven floor was a maze of stalagmites and other mineral formations, but there was nothing to indicate it had ever been used for ceremonial purposes, much less that it served as the Maya equivalent of the first level of hell.
“What did you call this place?” Maddock said, speaking to Bell. “Dark House?”
Bell nodded. “A place of total darkness. A traveler would have to feel their way through, or be lost forever.”
“Good thing we brought flashlights,” Bones said, sweeping his across the floor and revealing several shadowy voids that looked like fissures and crevasses in the floor. “I can see how it might be a bit of challenge without them.”
“They might not have had flashlights,” Angel countered, “but they could have brought torches, right?”
“There were probably priests in the Council chamber who confiscated their torches before allowing anyone to begin the ritual journey.”
Maddock however thought Angel had a valid point. “Without some kind of light source, we wouldn’t have gotten this far. That would have been just as true for the ancients. The Death Lords were all about making people suffer. There’s got to be more to this challenge than just finding our way through a dark cave.”
Bell spread his hands helplessly.
“All right,” Maddock said. “Let’s fan out. Search every corner of this place. Watch for traps and remember, just because something looks like a way out, doesn’t mean you should rush through.”
“Typical Maddock,” Bones said with a snort of laughter. “Armed snake-men out there and he wants to work a grid.”
“It’s not a grid,” Maddock said. “Or maybe it is, but you know there’s a reason why we do things that way sometimes.”
Bones raised his hands in a show of surrender, but couldn’t resist getting in a final dig. “Must be that time of the month,” he said in a stage whisper.
He paid for the comment as Angel and Miranda took turns slugging him in the biceps, each blow landing hard enough to make the big man wince. When they were done, Bones shook his head and rubbed his arm. “Forgot I was outnumbered,” he mumbled. “Next time, Maddock, let’s stick with the regular crew. Those guys at least have a sense of — ow! Ow!”
Maddock turned away, shining his light out across the cavern. “Okay, let’s work a grid.”
Carina froze, raising her hand and cocking her head sideways. “Did you hear that? That was gunfire.”
They were about halfway down on the third pitch, dangling from the ropes left by the rival party.
Not the best place to stop, Alex thought.
But he had heard the noise too, though he wasn’t as certain about the source. “It sounded more like someone beating a rug to me.” He shrugged. “I didn’t think your warriors were packing heat.”
Carina and her men had taken to the ropes like spider monkeys. Alex didn’t share their boldness, which was why they were only partway down the four hundred foot shaft. Carina had sent two men ahead to scout the bottom of the passage. Presumably, they were the cause of the noise.
“They aren’t,” Carina said through clenched teeth. “That was someone shooting at them. Maddock’s people.” She kept her head turned, listening for more reports.
“Sound can do funny things down here,” Alex said. “Are you sure it wasn’t coming from the surface? My guys do have guns. Maybe they were shooting at a monkey or something.”
On Carina’s advice, he had left his contracted security men topside — a couple to guard the helicopter, the rest watching the entrance to make sure nobody got too curious about their excursion. Carina had explained that the cave was sacred ground, and while Alex was under her protection, the Lords of Death would not look kindly on the presence of so many outsiders.
The mumbo-jumbo surprised Alex. His initial impression of Carina was of someone who had outgrown the primitive traditions of her forefathers, recognizing the old myths about gods and demons as allegories, concealing a truth better explained by science, but evidently playacting as the would-be high priestess of the Serpent Brothers had triggered some kind of spiritual relapse. He really didn’t have a problem with that, provided of course she was still able to produce a cure for the Shadow, but his willingness to indulge her superstitious beliefs ended when there was a threat of getting shot.
“It wasn’t from the surface,” Carina insisted.
“Then maybe we should have brought my men instead. No, scratch that. No maybe about it. This is what I pay them for. Let’s head back up and get them.”
Carina ignored him. The noises had not repeated, but after a moment of consideration, she started down again, rappelling faster, practically at a freefall. Alex was sorely tempted to start back for the top, but climbing up was going to be a lot of work and he doubted he could convince Carina’s men to go back up the shaft in order to pull him up.
Gritting his teeth in frustration, he started down, pushing the limits of his comfort zone. The rope burned across his palm, but he pushed on to the next ledge, unclipped and started down the last pitch. A few minutes later, he splashed down in the mud pit.
“Ugh,” he groaned. “Disgusting.”
There was nobody there to hear him complain, but streaks of mud on the far wall revealed where the others had gone.
He slogged across the mud, cursing every step, and climbed up into the passage where he found Carina and the others bent over two prone figures.
One of them was clutching one shoulder, trying to stanch the flow of blood from a wound there. His tattooed skin was covered in mud and blood, and his filed teeth were bared in a rictus of pain, but he was gasping out some of that strange gibberish language he had heard them using. Carina was replying in the same dialect.
This irked Alex. He had instructed Carina to always speak English in his presence, and while he was willing to tolerate the odd exchange in Spanish — he spoke enough to get by — he was pretty sure that wasn’t the language they were using. Carina looked up to acknowledge his arrival. Her expression was fierce with anticipation. “They found the Council chamber. We must hurry.”
“Carina! Wait.”
But she paid no heed, starting down the passage at a near run, with the wounded scout and the rest of the snake warriors following close on her heels. Alex growled in irritation, but his curiosity was a stronger motivating force than his wariness.
He finally caught up to them in a room adorned with several elaborately carved images and, stranger still, a fireplace with an actual fire burning in it. The heat in the small chamber was stifling, but Carina and her warriors were crowding around the fire as if desperate for even more warmth.
“What the hell are you doing?” he growled.
Carina cast an impatient glance back at him. “We are in the Council chamber of the Lords of Xibalba. The entrance to their realm is there.” She pointed to a shadowy void behind the low fireplace.
“Well, what are we waiting for?”
Carina frowned at him. “You forget. Maddock’s people have guns. They may be waiting to ambush us as we go through.”
Alex frowned. He had not expected timidity from someone as fierce and aggressive as Carina. Maybe he had misjudged her. “Fine. I’ll go first.”