Aztec Gold (9 page)

Within him Rafe sensed the power growing, first as a slight warmth deep in his core. It grew stronger and more intense, filling him from deep in his groin up to his chest until he felt as if he would explode if he didn’t sever the connection.

Closing his fists, he broke the
nahual
link to the cosmos.

He was breathing heavily, the gathering of the power having taxed him somewhat, although within him the energy waited to be dispersed when he needed it.

He hoped that when the time was right, his newfound powers would not fail him.

That he would not fail Cynthia.

***

A soft nudge on her shoulder woke her.

Cynthia roused and realized from the gray-blue sky above that the sun was beginning to set. She had been asleep for a few hours. As she stretched out the kinks in her back, she shot Rafe an accusatory glare.

“You were supposed to wake me.”

“You needed to rest, but we should get moving.”

He held out his hand to help her up. He had already slung his immense backpack over his shoulders, carrying the weight as if it wasn’t any kind of burden.

She picked up her pack, struggling a bit with its bulk as her muscles protested the strain. They were already sore from her earlier use of the machete. Rafe quickly moved to help her slip it on, easing some of the pack’s weight for her. With the pack dragging at her and the straps digging into her shoulders, she readjusted the weight to try to make it more comfortable. Once she was set, she accepted the rifle he held out to her and shifted the bolt back to check the ammunition in the gun.

The noise of the bolt action seemed loud in the growing quiet of dusk.

Rafe brought a finger to his lips, reminding her of the need for stealth.

She nodded and he slipped out into the narrow grassy path along the temple wall, moving swiftly in the direction of the entrance. As the skies continued to darken with the approach of dusk, he occasionally looked up at the sky. Cynthia did also, expecting another appearance by the demon demi-goddess, but it remained peaceful as night continued to fall.

When they finally neared their objective, the last remnants of the sun were shining on a break in the temple wall ahead of them.

The entrance, Cynthia realized. Illuminated by the sun’s setting rays for anyone to see. Maybe even to signal Eztli Etalpalli that the friendly night had come and She was free to seize her blood tribute.

Rafe held his fist up in a stop signal and then quickly motioned for her to retreat back into the jungle. He did as well, careful to make his progress as silently as possible.

He squatted down amid the protective cover of the underbrush and she did the same, waiting. Anticipation making her hands sweat on the stock of the rifle. Her heart raced with both fear and anticipation as Cynthia waited for the moment when the demon might emerge.

Beside her Rafe seemed calm, but as their gazes met, his apprehension was obvious. With a tight smile, he ran his fingers down her cheek in a gesture meant to soothe.

A second later a faint scuffle snagged her attention. The sound seemed to echo against something hollow.

In the final rays of the sun, a sharp edge glinted ahead of them in the area of the temple entrance. Shiny like a knife, piercing the coming night with its brightness.

Another scuffle followed. Louder and not as hollow sounding. A second spot of brightness joined the first—talons, she realized.

Sharp. Long. Lethal.

Reflecting the fading sunlight.

With speed beyond anything she had ever seen, the talons flashed and retracted from sight. Suddenly a large wooden door swung open at the temple entrance.

An immense whoosh filled the night air and a breeze washed over her as an incredibly large body disappeared into the last rays of the sun. A screech, familiar and frightening, seemed to call out a warning to beware and was followed by the eerie clatter of bony wings.

The door immediately slammed shut and the night stilled, becoming almost alarmingly quiet as if the animals in the jungle understood the demon was on the hunt.

“It’s too much to hope that the door is still unlocked,” she said, leaning close to Rafe.

“We can hope,” he teased, forcing a smile onto his face in an attempt to ease her fears.

He removed his backpack as she did, wanting freedom of mobility in case Eztli Etalpalli returned while they were trying to breach the portal.

As they neared the door, it became clear that it had been added to the structure by the Spaniards, maybe as a way to contain the demon. The door boasted their distinctive style and wrought-iron trappings. Contrary to their hope, the door had locked behind the winged demon and the mechanism was plain old metal.

Rafe covered the lock with his hand, attempting to use the
nahual
power, but the lock defied his initial attempts to release it since there was nothing mystical about it.

A mouse scurried by at their feet as he worked on the lock and Rafe muttered a curse beneath his breath.

“What’s wrong?” she said and laid a hand on his arm.

“Shy of either shooting or blasting this door open—”

“Which is bound to bring the demon back in a flash—”

“We need another way to get in,” he finished, bent and caught the small gray field mouse against the jamb of the door.

“Rafe?”

He cupped the mouse between his large palms. A twinkle of static electricity began to encircle his hands and in low tones he said, “Step back, Cyn.”

She did and watched in amazement as the glow began around the small creature and then a dance of sparks intensified until it was nearly impossible to see the body of the mouse between Rafe’s palms. So intent was she on focusing on the mouse that she didn’t realize the sudden change in Rafe’s physical form until the hair began to sprout along the backs of his hands.

She immediately looked up but caught only the barest glimpse of the gray-brown fur covering his entire body before he seemingly disappeared before her eyes, leaving two nearly identical mice on the ground. Kneeling, she went to examine them, but one mouse scurried away into the underbrush. The second mouse—slightly larger and with Rafe’s beautiful topaz eyes—seemed to nod at her before it scampered off in the direction of the temple door.

Rafe ran back and forth along the bottom of the door, searching for a way to enter. Then he stopped and squeezed his head through a small gap at one of the corners where weather and other rodents had eroded the wood. Slowly he eased the rest of his body through the tiny opening until finally all that was left was Rafe’s mouse tail. With a little whip of that he disappeared behind the temple door.

A little more than a minute passed before the low groan of metal against metal was followed by the creak of wood as the door began to open. Cynthia didn’t waste a second in grabbing their backpacks and lugging them to the entrance where a pale-looking Rafe waited.

His clothes were drenched in sweat and his face glistened, highlighting a sickly pallor beneath his tanned skin.

“Are you okay?”

He nodded. His voice when he spoke was strained. “Just need to find a place to rest. That took more energy than I expected.”

Beyond the door loomed complete darkness and Cynthia snagged a flashlight from her pack and panned its beam into the temple to reveal what was within: a large anteroom, decorated with Aztec mosaics and drawings, and a few stone benches. Beyond the anteroom were two tunnels and as she shifted the light along the floor, a pattern of odd-looking footprints in the dirt revealed from which direction Eztli Etalpalli had likely emerged.

She kept the flashlight beam trained on the tracks in the soil. They were the shape of a human foot, but longer and with the scrape and drag of her talons in the toe region. “She came from the tunnel to the right.”

“Which means David and Dani could be there,” Rafe said. He had unpacked his handheld lantern and turned it on, illuminating the entire room with its brighter light and confirming the path of the tracks from the one tunnel to the door.

“Or she could have them in another holding area and that’s where she rests. Either way, you’re not strong enough for us to face her, so it’s door number two,” she quipped and shone the light in the direction of the other tunnel.

“You’re right. If we can find a place where I can recharge, we’ll be in better to shape to handle her when She returns.”

He headed to the hallway, holding the lantern high up and in front of him as they walked deeper into the demi-goddess’s den. The walls along the tunnel were decorated with drawings and tiles in colors undimmed by the sun. The joyful brilliance of the artwork was an odd counterpart to the stories it told—ones of deadly sacrifice to satisfy the goddess.

Cynthia paused in front of one panel of drawings and inscriptions that explained how Izpapalotl had fallen in love with a
nahual
human and taken him as a lover while posing as a normal woman. The union had resulted in a child: Eztli Etalpalli. A panel a little farther down detailed the demon demi-goddess’s birth and life up until the time of her banishment.

Unlike her full-blooded goddess mother, Eztli Etalpalli lacked the power to assume human shape, even though her father had been mortal and a
nahual.
Because of that, Izpapalotl had kept her far away from civilization, fearful of what others might do to the half-demon child.

When Eztli Etalpalli had grown enough to defend herself, coming into her own powers, Izpapalotl had demanded of her worshippers that they build this temple for her daughter. That they deliver their tributes there for safekeeping.

The rest of the story they already knew: Eztli Etalpalli’s dissatisfaction and greed had led to her exile deep in the jungle.

After examining more of the panels, they moved on and about fifteen yards into the structure, they came upon another room, smaller than the anteroom and with only one hall leading from it deeper into the temple. As before, there were some stone benches and a fire pit next to which sat a mass of upended volcanic rocks. As she looked upward, Cynthia realized there appeared to be a small opening near the top, although it had been partially obscured by the dirt and vegetation that had covered the temple over the centuries.

“A steam bath. Probably for her priests.”

Rafe outstretched one hand palm up and closed his eyes. “The energy here is still strong.”

He faced her and handed her the lantern. “Let’s rest here so I can prepare.”

She didn’t question him. The tone of authority in his voice conveyed that his decision was above challenge. Rafe had always been in control in the past. While it might have bothered her before, she acknowledged that she had become empowered in her own way now and could handle Rafe if he got too overbearing

Much as she had after his declaration last night that she was leaving the village in the morning.

As he took a position close to the remains of the fire pit, she dropped her knapsack against the opposite wall and waited to see what Rafe would do next.

Rafe was pleased that Cyn had decided not to challenge him. All his attention had to be focused on restoring his physical energy so that he could protect them and hopefully save his brother and Dani.

He almost staggered to the floor as he released his bag and it dropped to the ground. He was incredibly weak from the shape-shift to the mouse. The first couple of times he had transformed, the
nahual
had been there to assist him in channeling the animals’ energies and those of the free-floating forces around them. He assumed that was the reason he hadn’t been as debilitated as he was now. The
nahual
had likely assisted him with some of his own energy to lend a hand with those earlier transformations.

As he plopped onto the floor, he crossed his legs and held out his arms. With a deep measured breath, he closed his eyes and concentrated on his hands, beginning the process of gathering the energy. Then he turned his focus to his physical core, bringing it into alignment to accept the power swirling around him.

He started with the small bits of energy adrift in the cosmos, fragments left behind by the normal order of things. Slowly he sensed them filling his center, replacing the power he had exhausted during his shape-shifting.

As he reached out a little further, the energies of the blood sacrifices done centuries before became stronger, almost painful. The spirits of the dead who had remained behind on this plane battered at his body and mind to enter, seeking a physical place to inhabit. Some sought to become corporeal again while others wanted to exact revenge. He wondered if the darkness of these restless spirits was what was necessary to kill Eztli Etalpalli, but realized that by accepting them, he might forever lose himself to their twisted needs.

He murmured a protest against them, trying to steel his will and close off access to their demanding energies. Suddenly a calming touch entered the field of his aura.

Opening his eyes, he realized Cyn was seated before him, resting her hands on his shoulders, balancing him. Supporting him.

“There’s great sadness and pain here,” he said, trying to explain what he was experiencing.

She nodded and rubbed her hands back and forth along the width of his shoulders. “I could sense it. See it.”

“See it?”

“Your aura changed color. It became vivid red, like blood.”

He brought his hands to rest over hers, deepening his connection with her. It strengthened his resolve against the invasive spirits of the dead. “I was fighting them. Trying to keep them away, but it was difficult until you came.”

“We are stronger together than we are apart.”

He caressed her hands, then moved his down the length of her arms until he had mimicked the position of hers, resting lightly at the tops of her shoulders. His thumbs along the fragile lines of her collarbones.

Seemingly fragile yet he sensed the iron will beneath.

“We are stronger together than we are apart,” he repeated, and with her gentleness acting as a buffer against the energies of the sullen souls, he finished gathering what he needed and then broke his connection with her.

“That was weird,” she said and rubbed her arms, as if to ward off a chill. “I felt it…you. Like I had stuck my tongue on a nine-volt battery.”

He chuckled at her rather apt analogy of the sensation but then grew immediately serious. “We need to investigate the rest of the temple now, before She returns.”

With a quick dip of her head, she agreed. “Let’s grab our weapons and lights and go.”

Armed to the teeth and with the illumination of the lantern lighting the tunnel, they slowly proceeded down the hall. Their steps were measured as they held up the lantern and examined the other drawings and inscriptions on the walls, hoping for some additional clues as to how to handle the demon demi-goddess.

But in this section of the temple, the images and writings on the various walls spoke instead of a great treasure to be found. Some of the tiles depicted various jewels and gold being gathered in a large room—a room already brimming with treasures.

It was with some excitement that they kept on moving forward, but it was more about their eagerness to find their companions than the promised spoils depicted centuries earlier.

They soon found themselves running into a dead end, however, and realized the hall had likely been built as a decoy to deceive visitors seeking treasure into the cul-de-sac. The latter seemed confirmed as they heard the harsh grate of bone along stone and a heavy footstep growing ever stronger, vibrating the ground beneath their feet from the approach of the demon.

With there being no sense in trying to escape, they set the lantern several yards away from them, where it would illuminate the lone stretch of tunnel but allow them to remain in the darkness. Taking up spots close to the last turn, they hid behind the edge of the wall as they waited for Eztli Etalpalli to make her appearance.

Rafe had a secure grasp on the stock of the rifle and Cyn held her weapon tight as she stood across the way from him. There was no fear in her gaze, just determination. He admired her courage, but the time for admiration was short-lived. A louder thump and quake of the ground ahead of them was followed by an ear-splitting screech that bounced violently along the walls of the tunnel.

She had arrived.

With a nod to Cynthia to let her know of his intent, he peered around the corner and down the length of the hall.

The lantern illuminated where Eztli Etalpalli stood barely thirty feet away, as fearsome-looking as the first night he had seen her and barely escaped with his life. Her almost human head rose more than seven feet above the ground and nearly scraped the high ceiling in the tunnel. Her immense wings were made of a tough, nearly impenetrable hide and bony protrusions as sharp as knives jutted out at the end of each rib of her wings. The skeletal protrusions clattered and clacked against the narrow passage as she took a step down the tunnel.

Her thick, stout body was clearly female, although covered with scaly green-blue flesh that shimmered from the light of the lantern. The scales slowly gave way at the neck to smoother, nearly human-looking skin although it still had a verdant cast.

Her humanity, or what remained of it, was most apparent in her face, which contained the normal parts of a mortal countenance: eyes, ears, nose and mouth. That was where any resemblance to a woman ended. Her teeth were dangerously long and multi-rowed like a shark’s. A needle-sharp nose was covered in slime of some kind and the irises of her eyes were slitted and almost catlike in color and appearance. They reflected the light from the lantern eerily, seeming to glow as she looked in his direction and her ears, elongated and elfin-looking, perked up.

As the demon saw him poking around the corner, she rushed forward.

The ground shook beneath his feet from the weight of each of her footsteps. The strike of her wings against the stone sounded like a baseball card stuck in the spokes of a bicycle. Sparks flew here and there from the contact of the bony protrusions along the wall.

Rafe defended himself against her charge, dropping to one knee and opening fire with his weapon.

Cynthia reinforced him from behind, efficiently working the bolt action on her rifle as she shot time and time again at the monster.

It wasn’t enough, he realized as their bullets did little to slow Eztli Etalpalli’s advance. The shots bounced ineffectively off her skin and ricocheted against the walls of the tunnel.

He tossed aside the rifle and yanked his machete from his side. He was about to charge ahead to meet her head on when the demon suddenly leaped into the air.

Before he could react, she swept him aside with a swipe of her dangerous wings and drove past him, knocking Cyn into the wall with a forceful push of her muscled arms.

Rafe immediately righted himself and rose, machete in hand.

Cynthia had fallen to the floor and the monster was nearly on top of her, trying to stomp on Cyn with one of her taloned feet, because this part of the tunnel was too narrow for her to really move her big bulk.

Rafe raised his machete and jerked it down with all his might, slashing at the demon’s wings. The machete reverberated in his hand from the force of the blow as it encountered the hard rib of bone. He hacked at the demon again and again and one of the skeletal points finally flew off.

The demon screeched as if in pain, but that didn’t keep her from continuing to try to flatten Cyn, who was rolling from side to side in an effort to avoid Eztli Etalpalli’s dangerous clawed feet.

Rafe pressed on with his attack, continuing to hack at her wings with brutal swipes of his machete. Piece after bony piece fell away, but they were immediately replaced by others as the demon regenerated her body before his eyes.

Fear filled his gut as he realized he might be fighting a losing battle. His actions appeared to be nothing more than a nuisance, as he seemed unable to truly wound her.

Raising the machete ever higher, he put all his weight behind the stroke, bringing it down higher up on the demon’s shoulder with as much force as he could muster, praying it would be enough to pull the monster off Cyn.

Cynthia was in a world of pain. The talons on the demon’s feet had grazed her side, igniting fire along her ribs. Her forearms were a bloody mess from fighting off Eztli Etalpalli’s attempts to bite and claw her. The blood was warm against her skin. The metallic smell strong in her nostrils together with the rank smell of decay spewing from the demon.

She tried to grab for a weapon since she had lost the rifle after the initial blow, not that the rifle had been doing any good.

As she rolled to her side to avoid yet another vicious kick from the monster, Eztli Etalpalli roared with anger and whirled to face Rafe, who was viciously hacking at her with the machete.

With the distraction, Cynthia was able to grab the handgun from her holster. Pointing it upward, straight into the belly of the beast, she opened fire, but the bullets just bounced off the thick hide and ricocheted dangerously close to her.

Cursing beneath her breath, she tossed aside the pistol and reached for the handle of her knife, but the sheath on her belt was empty.

She must have lost the weapon after the first mind-numbing blow against the wall of the temple. Her hand slipped through the empty space where the knife had been and she encountered the smooth leather handle of the gold obsidian blade.

As Eztli Etalpalli swept her wing across Rafe, the sharp protrusions tore into his body and the force of the blow tossed him back a few feet. The demon’s position, however, exposed a piece of flesh between her thigh and groin where the scaly skin seemed thinner and almost translucent.

Cynthia took the risk.

She grabbed the stone blade and drove upward, her aim true and the blow hard.

The obsidian blade passed through the skin with little resistance.

The demon howled in pain and shuffled away from her. As she did so and the knife slipped out of her body, greenish blood spattered from the demon’s wound onto Cynthia’s skin. It burned her flesh, hot and caustic as acid.

Cynthia crab walked away from the demon, her movements awkward and filled with pain. A strange sound snagged her attention beneath the loud howl of the beast. A gurgling and wheezing noise. It took her a second to realize it was the sound of Rafe’s rough breathing as he lay motionless a few feet away.

Eztli Etalpalli had clearly injured him badly when she had lashed out at him with her wing.

Cynthia forced herself to breathe deeply, controlling the fear as the rattle in his chest grew louder with each second that passed. His lungs were filling with blood from his wounds, drowning him.

The pain of the burn marks on her hand and forearm faded as she realized she had to act quickly in order to save him. She couldn’t let her pain or fear deter her from what she had to do.

Knife held tightly in her hand, Cynthia lunged forward and jabbed the obsidian dagger at Eztli Etalpalli as the demon stood over Rafe, intending to inflict more damage. The dagger broke skin time and time again, magically slipping through even the demon’s dense hide with little resistance.

The demon, sensing that victory was no longer so sure, gave one final swipe of the air around her with those dangerous wings, driving Cynthia back, before she turned and retreated down the hallway.

After Eztli Etalpalli had flown away and disappeared around the corner of the tunnel, Cynthia immediately raced to Rafe’s side. The sounds of his labored breathing became even louder with the din of battle gone.

“We’ve got to get you back to the village,” she said as she pulled open what remained of his shirt to reveal the complete extent of his injuries.

Rafe looked down at his side and realized Eztli Etalpalli’s talons had not only raked deep furrows along his ribs, but one of the protrusions must have gone clear through his side, puncturing a lung.

“No…time,” Rafe said as dark circles began to dance in front of his face. Cold had settled in his gut. He would die here on the floor of the temple, suffocated by the blood filling his lung if he didn’t do something quickly.

He tried to speak to tell her what to do, but couldn’t. His body was responding to the fluid in his lungs, forcing him to cough and spit up blood.

Cyn must have understood how close he was to death. She slipped her hand behind his back, picked him up in her arms and held him tight. Rubbing her hand across his hair, she kissed his bloodstained lips and murmured, “Hold on, my love.”

He nodded weakly and, mustering his flagging strength, somehow managed to whisper against her lips, “Do you trust me?”

A strange thing to ask with his life in the balance, but Cynthia seemed to sense that it was somehow right. They both knew he was something more than he had been six months earlier. Something that probably scared her as much as she wanted to deny it.

But as the worried beat of her heart drummed against the fading throb of his, he hoped she still knew that he was her Rafe. That she did not have to fear him.