He got his feet back under him and started down the trough toward the relentlessly turning screw. A glance back revealed Bones emerging from the gap, dragging along a stunned Charles Bell. After the earlier revelations of treachery, to say nothing of the fact that Bell might be infected with a deadly and highly contagious pathogen, Maddock had no idea why Bones had elected to bring the archaeologist along, but figured his partner had his reasons and didn’t question them.
“Bones. Down here.”
The big man nodded in acknowledgment, and climbed out into the trough behind him.
Maddock stepped up onto the spiraling screw and was immediately lifted up and rotated around toward the walkway where he was able to easily step off. Bones, with Bell now thrown over his shoulder, followed suit.
“Go!” Maddock shouted, urging Bones on as he swept the area behind them with his light and the business end of the pistol. There was no sign of pursuit yet, but he knew it was only a matter of time. “I’ll cover you.”
Bones hastened into the passage, and after giving him a few seconds’ lead, Maddock headed after him. The passage became a narrow staircase, sandwiched between walls of cut stone under a flat ceiling, and rising up to what he hoped would be an exit on the balcony where the others were already waiting.
He was almost right.
As he climbed the stairs, he could see a pale blue glow silhouetting Bones. The steps ended at a T-junction, with a passage where the glow was even stronger, and as he stepped out into it, he saw that the stone floor was dotted with large patches of phosphorescent blue lichen, glowing so brightly that he could see the full length of the passage.
Something about the luminous shapes nagged at Maddock, triggering a primal avoidance instinct.
“I think we’re inside the pyramid,” Bones said. “Which way?”
Maddock wasn’t sure there was a right or wrong answer, but before he could decide, he heard an urgent voice — Angel’s voice — echoing down the tunnel.
“Dane! Bones!” She was standing at the mouth of the passage to the right. “Here.”
“Go! But watch your step.” Maddock kept watch on the opening to the staircase, his gun at the ready, until Bones was clear. Then he turned and headed after Bones, careful not to step on the glowing blue spots.
The passage opened onto the balcony overlooking the ball court, at the base of the great pyramid at the center of Xibalba. As he neared the exit, Maddock saw that the blue light was even brighter outside. The balcony was completely covered in the blue lichen, a dense carpet upon which he would have to walk if he wanted to leave the pyramid. Bones had already stomped through it to join the others. If there was some hidden danger here, they were already deep into it, but as Maddock took a tentative step onto the glowing substance, his feeling of dread deepened.
He forgot all about that when he realized that someone was missing.
Bones had laid Bell down on the balcony floor, just a few feet from the exit, and both he and Miranda were kneeling over her father. Angel was also kneeling, only she was next to Kasey, who sat with her back against the side of the lowest tier of the pyramid, holding a hand to her head.
“What happened?” Maddock said. “Where’s Isabella?”
Kasey looked up, her face twisted in a snarl of rage. “Gone. She sucker punched me and took my backpack before I knew what was happening. She’s got all my demo gear. My night vision goggles, too.”
“I guess she wanted to make sure we couldn’t destroy Xibalba,” Angel said.
“Right now, all I care about is getting out of Xibalba.”
“Dane!” Bones called out.
Maddock felt an ominous chill. Bones never called him by his first name. He turned slowly to where Bones and Miranda were tending to Bell. The archaeologist hadn’t moved.
“What’s wrong? Is he…?”
Bones shook his head and spoke in a low voice. “He’s still breathing. Barely.” He looked up, meeting Maddock’s gaze. “You think Isabella was right? If he’s got it… I mean, we’ve been with him this whole time.”
Bell gave a rattling exhalation that wasn’t quite a cough, and Maddock realized he was trying to say something. “Dar… ”
“Dart,” Bones said, sounding only slightly relieved. “He must have gotten hit by a blowgun dart. Probably tipped with curare or some kind of paralytic.”
“Mira… ” Bell said, “Don… Don’t. Go.”
Tears streamed down Miranda’s face. “I won’t leave you, Dad.”
Bell’s eyebrows came together in a frown. In the blue light, his skin had the pallor of someone already dead.
“Atropine,” Miranda said, looking up at Maddock. “That might help. Do you have atropine in your first aid kit?”
Bones’ diagnosis was probably right on the mark. Curare compounds had been used for centuries in Central and South America. The poison was a powerful paralytic, which strangely did not affect the heart. It did however paralyze the muscles of the diaphragm, and without treatment or artificial respiration, death by suffocation was almost a certainty, especially for someone like Bell, whose pulmonary system was already badly compromised. Maddock didn’t think atropine or any other treatment would reverse what was happening. He could tell that Bell knew it, too.
“Go,” Bell rasped again. “Dead… Shadow.”
“No,” Miranda said. She spoke with an urgency borne of desperation. “We’re here. The cure is here. You just have to stay with us.” She turned her gaze to Maddock again. “This lichen or whatever it is. It’s the cure, isn’t it?”
“No… Cure.” The effort seemed to take the last of Bell’s energy. His eyes rolled back and he was still.
“He’s not breathing,” Miranda cried.
“I got this,” Bones said, as he began repositioning Bell flat on the lichen-carpeted stone. He tilted the archaeologist’s head back a little, clearing his airway, pinched Bell’s nose shut with one hand, and bent over to administer a rescue breath, mouth-to-mouth.
“Stop!” Maddock shouted, so loud that his voice echoed throughout the chamber. He grabbed Bones’ shoulder, pulling him back.
“Maddock,” Bones warned, instinctively going on the defensive and fighting against the restraining grip.
“He’s infected. He’s got the Shadow. You heard what Isabella said.”
“Maybe he does,” Bones growled, a fierceness in his eyes that Maddock rarely saw directed at him. “And maybe he doesn’t. But he’s going to die for sure without CPR.”
“He’s already gone, Bones.” Angel said from behind them. She and Kasey had both moved closer, ready to interfere if the confrontation escalated.
“No,” Miranda said. “Curare is a paralytic, but it’s not fatal if we can keep him breathing.”
“Miranda, he’s infected.” Maddock softened his tone, knowing how much his words would hurt, but did not let go of Bones’ shoulder.
“And this is Xibalba. The cure is here.”
“It’s not a cure,” Maddock replied.
“You son of a bitch,” Miranda said, almost screaming at him. “Whatever he did, he doesn’t deserve to die.”
Maddock knelt beside them, drawing back Bell’s pant leg to reveal the bandage covering the wound the man had sustained in the City of Shadow. He carefully peeled the gauze pad away to reveal the scabbed-over wound. “Look.”
There were faint specks of blue light shining out of the scab, and a corresponding line of the same substance on the bandage.
“It’s not a cure,” Maddock said, again. “We have to go. Now.”
CHAPTER 34
After clobbering Kasey, Isabella Beltran had run, but not very far, only a hundred yards or so down the length of the balcony and around the corner of the base of the pyramid, just enough to be sure that none of Maddock’s group would pursue her. Once concealed there, she watched Maddock and the others arguing about what to do next. She couldn’t hear what was going on, but she could see everything through the night vision goggles she had taken from Kasey.