CHAPTER 31
Alex Scano screamed again as a glowing red spider-web pattern of fractures appeared in the blistering hot floor of the room Carina had called Hot House. He was going to die, just like the two men from his security team who had broken through the white crust and plummeted into the superheated magma below, and there wasn’t anything he could do about it.
Now he regretted having Carina and her men take the lead. The red-haired priestess and her barefoot warriors had practically floated across the fragile floor, but he knew now that they had simply been lulling Alex and his men into a false sense of safety while further weakening the thin limestone crust.
The bitch had betrayed him, just as he feared she would.
There was a loud crackling sound behind him and a short cry of terror as one of his two remaining men broke through and joined his comrades in the inferno below.
Am I next?
He gritted his teeth against the heat rising up through the floor on which he lay. Even if he didn’t fall through, he wasn’t going to last long. Maybe a quick death in the magma pit was the better option….
And then, as if things weren’t bad enough already, the air in the super-heated room was suddenly full of bats.
Great. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about.
“Alex,” Carina called out. “Don’t move.”
“Right,” he spat back at her. “You’d like that.”
But to his astonishment, she was moving toward him, crawling on her belly to distribute her weight across the crumbling floor.
“Your guns,” she shouted. “They’re too heavy. You have to get rid of them.”
He realized that she wasn’t calling out to him, but to the remaining man from Alex’s security detail a few steps behind him. The soldier-for-hire was still on his feet, but trapped on an isolated section of the floor that, seemingly in defiance of gravity, was still intact. There was a two-foot wide gap separating him from the part of the floor where Alex was slowly being cooked alive. The man stared back at her uncertainly, unwilling to part with his guns and tactical gear, even though he probably knew she was right.
“Drop your gear,” she repeated. “You’re going to have to jump when I tell you to.”
“No!” Alex shouted. “If he tries to jump, this whole place will collapse. We’ll both die.”
“I know,” she hissed, scooting closer to him, close enough to extend a hand. “Take it.”
He glared at her, wondering what sort of trick this was.
No trick. Maybe I was wrong about her.
He caught her hand, felt her firm grip.
“Now, crawl toward me.” She began scooting backward, pulling him along as she went.
Alex didn’t need convincing, but with every push forward, he heard and felt the floor giving way. More cracks appeared, shooting out ahead of him. Some of the cracks came together, opening into wider gaps as jagged chunks of limestone crumbled and fell into oblivion.
But the floor was holding together and the closer they got to the exit, the more solid it felt. After an initial flurry of activity, the bats had vanished. Evidently they didn’t like the heat any more than he did.
Ten more feet. Five. Almost there.
Two of the tattooed warriors reached out, pulling Carina up, and then another one of them reached for Alex.
He regarded the hand warily for a moment, then took it, allowing himself to be pulled to safety.
There was another scream behind him. Alex didn’t look back. He didn’t need to. The last of his hired security team was gone. Maybe the man had tried to make a desperate leap — forward or back, it was impossible to say — or maybe the floor beneath had finally given out. Either way, he was on his own and at the mercy of the Serpent Brotherhood.
“How the hell did you get here?” Bones said, addressing Kasey. “And who’s your friend?”
He grinned and thrust out a blistered hand. “These guys call me Bones, but you can just call me anytime.”
“Nice,” Kasey said, rolling her eyes.
“Seriously,” Maddock said, descending to join them. “Those are two valid questions. If you knew about a shortcut—”
“I didn’t.” Kasey glanced at her companion. “But she did. This is Isabella Beltran.”
“Isabella.” Bones said it slowly, as if savoring every syllable.
Maddock didn’t recognize the name, but Miranda evidently did. “Queen of the Yucatan Cartel?”
Isabella, who was staring intently at Charles Bell, nodded absently. “Among other things.”
“Isabella also happens to be the new High Priestess of the Serpent Brotherhood,” Kasey said.
“We ran into some of your friends earlier,” Maddock said.
Isabella now turned to look at him. “Those men are not my friends. They are rebels. They have betrayed our faith.”
“They’re working with Alex Scano,” Kasey added.
“Scano?” Maddock snapped his fingers. “That Chinook. That was him, wasn’t it?”
“Isabella showed up at the airport a little while after you guys took off. I overheard her talking about going to a cave. It seemed suspicious, so I decided to tail her. Scano got here first though, with a bunch of these renegade Serpent Brothers and a squad of mercs. The mercs stayed behind to guard the helo and when Isabella’s guys got there… Well, it was ugly. The surviving mercs grabbed her and took her into the cave. I decided to follow. Fortunately, I had an advantage over them.”
She held up a black object that looked sort of like a pair of compact binoculars “PSQ-20 enhanced night vision goggles.”
“Sweet,” Bones said. “Don’t suppose you brought enough for everyone to have one.”
“Sorry. And before you ask, no you can’t borrow them. Maddock doesn’t pay you enough to replace them if they get broken.”
“Tam won’t care.”
“Tam works for the federal government, just like me. And believe me, the bean counters will care.” She let go of the PSQ-20, allowing it to hang by a lanyard around her neck. “Anyway, I caught up to them all in… what did you call it, Bella? Dark House?”
“Yes.”
“When they turned out the lights, I took out the guys holding Bella and snuck out.” The casual way Kasey said the words “took out” reminded Maddock that despite her petite size and seeming youthfulness, she was a skilled intelligence officer and a trained killer. “Once I explained what was going on, she showed me a shortcut. We figured you’d end up here eventually. If Xibalba didn’t kill you first.”
“She’s a drug lord,” Miranda said, making no attempt at tact. “Why on earth would you help her?”
“Because I am also the High Priestess of the Serpent Brothers,” Isabella said. “After Scano and Carina killed my uncle Hector. We want the same thing.”
“Revenge?” Maddock said.
“No. Yes, I want to make Carina pay, but there is something much more important going on.”
“You’re talking about the Shadow.”
She nodded. “For more than a thousand years, the Serpent Brothers have guarded the secret of the Shadow as the gods commanded. But keeping the secret is only part of our sacred duty. You see, the Shadow is not just a disease.
“Long ago, my ancestors discovered it; a black mold growing in the jungle. Anyone who touched this mold or inhaled its spores became sick with a terrible fever in the blood, but something else happened too. In their fever, the gods spoke to them, revealing secrets hidden from mortals including, it is said, the secret of how to defeat death.”
“How do you know that isn’t just feverish delirium?” Maddock asked.
“The first sign of infection comes before the fever. You know that the Shadow has touched someone when they begin the journey.”
“Journey? To where?”