Curse of the Mummy's Uncle (13 page)

Nick stared at his mom's retreating figure. Except clearly she was no longer his mom. She'd turned into—what? Some kind of immortal being? He hurried to his father and tugged his hand. “Dad, wake up! Mom's in trouble.”

Dad's eyes fluttered, and he mumbled something that sounded like
sick
, before passing out again.

“Dad, wake up!” Nick shouted. He hesitated, then slapped his father's face. How could he be sleeping at a time like this?

“He's not asleep,” someone said behind Nick. He spun around to find Dr. Sofia Lopez, the librarian, standing behind him.

“What do you mean?” Nick shouted. “I need his help. Did you see my mom?”

Dr. Lopez nodded, her lips pressed tightly together. She searched through the crowd of people anxiously watching the glowing figure scale the pyramid of the moon. She grabbed one of the men by the shoulder and dragged him over. “Jiménez, what have you done?”

Mr. Jiménez blinked up at the librarian, who was a good six inches taller than him. He glanced nervously toward the boys. “I, um, don't know what you mean.”

Dr. Lopez snatched his bag and pulled out the metal book. “I should have known. You were trying to steal the power of the gods.”

“Not steal. Claim.” He grabbed for the book, but she held it out of his grasp. “I am a direct descendant of the king. The power of Kinich Ahau should rightfully be mine.” He stared in the direction of Nick's mom, who had nearly reached the top of the pyramid of the moon. “I don't understand what happened. Why did she get the power?”

Angelo, who had been silently watching everything, clapped a hand to his mouth. “The DNA test,” he said, jabbing Jiménez in the chest with one finger. “What did you do with the paper I gave you?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” The
archaeologist reached into his pocket and pulled out the crumpled slip of paper.

Angelo snatched it from his hands and ran a finger down the numbers. “Of course. I thought something was off. But I was so focused on the matching pairs, I missed it completely.”

“What does the DNA have to do with Nick's mom?” Carter asked.

Angelo slammed his hand against his forehead. “How could I have been so stupid? First I assumed that Dr. Canul was the one with the DNA match. Then I thought it was Jiménez. But the matching DNA sample wasn't from one of the men here in camp—it was from the control group. Your mom's DNA matches at least one of the DNA samples we found on the treasures in the underground room.”

“What are you saying?” Nick asked, feeling dizzy. “My mom is . . .”

Angelo crushed the paper in his hand. “Mayan royalty. It's the only thing that makes sense. Jiménez is related to the uncle who isn't royal. Your mom must be a descendant of the aunt.”

“Now just a minute,” Mr. Jiménez said. “Of course my blood is royal. It's not even possible that—”

Carter cut off the archaeologist's pompous speech
with a punch to the jaw that dropped him to the ground. “That's for cursing my best friend's mom.”

Jiménez wiped blood from his lip, but he didn't try to get back up. “How could
she
possibly have royal blood? She's an American.”

Dr. Lopez turned to Nick. “Is there any chance your mother could have Mayan ancestors?”

Nick remembered the conversation he'd had with his mother in the kitchen just before they'd left on this trip. “I asked her how she knew Spanish, and she said her great-grandfather was from Mexico.”

“That's it, then,” Dr. Lopez said. “Your mother must be of royal lineage. She probably left some of her blood on the altar when she hit her head. When Jiménez performed the ceremony, it worked, but not on him.”

“Glad you've got this all figured out,” Nick snapped. “But how are you going to change her back from the moon goddess to my mom?”

“It's not that simple,” Dr. Lopez said. “First, Awilix is not just the goddess of the moon. She is also the goddess of death, one of the most powerful goddesses in Mayan lore.”

“The book wasn't specific on exactly which god's power was being summoned,” Jiménez said. “I didn't really care as long as I got the power.” He flinched when
Carter glared at him. “I'm sorry. I'm just trying to help.”

Jiménez grabbed the book from Dr. Lopez and turned its metal pages until he came to a picture of a woman pulling a man out of a flaming pit. “Here. You must go to your mother, take her hand, and call her back from the dead. By now, she's already entered Xibalba. In order to get her back, you'll have to get past the lords of death.”

“He's not going anywhere,” Dr. Lopez said. “If anyone's going into Xibalba, it should be me.”

Jiménez shook his head. “She can be brought back only by a blood relative.”

Dr. Lopez shut the book. “It's too late to do anything tonight. But we'll begin searching first thing in the morning.”

“That won't work,” Jiménez said. “By morning the curse will be unbreakable. And your father won't last that long.”

Nick's teeth clamped down so hard he bit his tongue. “What are you talking about?”

Jiménez sighed. “I told you, the ceremony requires a sacrifice. The life of an innocent—an outsider free of any Mayan heritage.”

“That's why you brought us here,” Angelo said. “You were going to sacrifice Nick.”

Nick glared at the twisted little man. “You're saying my dad is the sacrifice? If we don't break the curse by morning, he'll die?”

Jiménez nodded. “I'm afraid so.”

“Fine,” Nick said. “How do I get to Xibalba?”

“Your mother went to the pyramid of the moon,” Dr. Lopez said. “I say we start there.”

Carter grabbed Mr. Jiménez's bag. “Where's that item of power you said you had?”

Angelo shook his head. “Whatever he thinks he found, it won't work. He was looking for something belonging to the king's uncle. We need an item that belonged to the king's aunt.”

Jiménez sighed. “He's right. It will be something that meant a great deal to her. And possibly the child king as well. Unfortunately it will likely be with all the other treasures the king's aunt took to the underworld with her.”

Nick closed his eyes. “So the item I need to guarantee safe passage past these demons is in a treasure room I can't get to without passing the demons.”

“Sounds like my kind of challenge,” Carter said. “When do we leave?”

“I'm going too,” Angelo said. “The Three Monsterteers always stick together.”

Dr. Lopez nodded. “Very well. I'll go with you.”

Nick shook his head. “I need someone to watch my dad.”

“I can't let you go alone,” the librarian said. “Mr. Blackham would never forgive me if anything happened to you.”

“You know Mr. Blackham?” Angelo asked.

Dr. Lopez blushed as if she wasn't supposed to give that way. “We've done business together from time to time. He knew I was in the area and asked me to keep an eye out for you.”

A thought occurred to Nick. “You were the one who left the folder for us, weren't you?”

She nodded. “
Sí
. I thought if you were going to be here you should at least know what you were getting into. Bartholomew warned me strange things might happen when you three showed up. But I was not expecting anything like this.
¡Cielos!
”

From the way she used Mr. Blackham's first name, Nick wondered if they were more than just coworkers. “Look,” he said, “Mr. Blackham would want you to watch out for us. But he would also know that I can't save my mom unless I know my dad is okay. Besides, if anything happens to us, you're the only one who knows what Mr. Jiménez is really up to.”

“Trust us,” Carter said. “We've done this kind of thing before.”

Dr. Lopez sighed. “All right. But be careful.”

Nick bent over his dad and kissed him on the cheek. “Don't worry, I'll break the curse and bring Mom back.”

By the time the boys reached the top of the pyramid, Nick's mother was gone, and the temple was empty.

“She must have gone through that dead end somehow,” Angelo said as they slid the altar to the side, revealing the stone staircase below. “Let's hope she left it open behind her.”

Walking down the stairs, Nick tried not to think about the dark stain on the side and top of the altar. Unfortunately, when they got to the end of the tunnel, it was blocked, just as it had been the first time they were here.

Angelo banged his hand on the cold stone wall. “That was a short trip.”

“There has to be some way in,” Nick said. “My mom found it. We can too.”

Carter got down on one knee and studied the wall. “There's a hole here right under the picture of the moon. If we shove a couple of sticks of dynamite in, we can blow the whole wall.”

“And probably bring the temple down on top of us,” Angelo said.

“It doesn't matter anyway,” Nick said. “We don't have any dynamite.” He squatted down to look at the hole Carter had discovered. He pushed his finger into the hole but couldn't feel anything. “Maybe it takes some kind of key.”

“Yes,” Angelo said. “A key.” He looked thoughtfully from the stair entrance to the door. “Of course!” he shouted, his face breaking into a smile. He ran to the mirror closest to the stairs. “Everybody stand back.”

Slowly Angelo adjusted the mirror until it caught the light of the moon from outside. He moved to the second mirror, adjusting it until the moonlight bounced from the first mirror reflected into it. One by one he adjusted the mirrors, creating a continuous beam of silvery moonlight.

“Cross your fingers,” he said, grabbing the last mirror. Carefully he moved the mirror until a single beam
of light bounced from it straight into the hole in the wall. For a second, nothing happened. Then the wall began to move, and with a deep, grating sound it rumbled to the side until the entire entrance was open.

“We did it!” Carter said, pumping his fist.

Nick stepped through the open doorway and noticed several polished lengths of wood in a rack on the wall. “What are these?”

Angelo sniffed the wood. “
Pino de Ocote
. It's a fatwood pine that grows all around here. I think they're supposed to be used as torches.”

“How are we supposed to light them?” Nick asked. He pulled a torch from the wall and it immediately burst into flame. “Well, that's convenient,” he said.

“Maybe the demons want to make it easy to get to them so they can eat us,” Carter said gloomily. He grabbed another length of wood and it lit as well. Soon all three of them were holding flaming torches.

“Let's take this slowly,” Angelo said. “There could be any number of traps or tests here.”

“Looks clear to me,” Carter said. He held up his torch, revealing a wide, empty tunnel.

Nick couldn't help agreeing. If there was a trap, it sure wasn't in this tunnel. He started down the passage, but something moved in the dirt by his feet. He looked down just in time to see a gleaming white dome
push up out of the ground. Another popped up from the ground in front of Carter, and two more to Angelo's left. All over the tunnel, gleaming white domes—about the size of cantaloupes—began rising from the ground.

“What are they?” Nick asked.

A second later, his question was answered, and he wished he'd never asked. Below the white domes, empty black eye sockets appeared next to champing teeth. The white things weren't cantaloupes. They were skulls—teeth opening and closing in silent chants. And the skulls were attached to skeleton bodies, covered with bits of tattered flesh and remnants of ancient Mayan clothing.

As soon as the nearest skeleton was out of the ground far enough to free its arms, it reached for Nick. Long, white bone fingers closed on the leg of his pants. “Get off me!” he screamed, waving his torch.

Dirt exploded into the air as dozens of skeletons dragged themselves out of the ground.

“Get back!” Angelo shouted, pulling Nick away from the clutching grasp of the sightless undead.

Carter turned and ran toward the stairs. “Retreat!”

Nick stood by the base of the stairs, panting. He could still feel the way the skeletal fingers had felt closing around his calf.

“I sure didn't expect that,” Carter said. “You'd think they could put up a warning sign like
Caution, Skeletons Popping Up from the Floor.
They scared the beans out of me.”

“I'm pretty sure that was on purpose,” Angelo said.

The moment they'd all retreated past the entrance, the skeletons had sunk back into the ground. But Nick had no doubt they would climb out of their graves again if someone else trespassed into their tunnel.

“
Now
can we use dynamite?” Carter asked. “Even one of those hunting rifles would work.” He held out his hands like he was gripping a rifle. “
Blam, blam. Blammety, blam.
”

“How would bullets kill skeletons?” Angelo asked.

“No clue,” Carter said. “But if I was a skeleton and someone started shooting at me, I wouldn't stick around to find out.”

Nick turned to Angelo. “How do we get past them?”

“What if we run?” Carter suggested. “It takes them a while to climb out of the ground. If we go fast, we can be past them before they can do anything but give us angry looks.”

“How do we get back?” Angelo said.

Carter threw his hands in the air. “Do you expect
me to think of everything? I'll figure that out when it's time to come back.”

It sounded chancy. But Nick didn't have any better ideas. “This is my problem. You guys wait here and I'll make a break for it. If I don't make it, maybe you can distract them or something.”

“Who do you think you are, the Lone Ranger?” Carter said. “We're a team. Brothers from another mother. A creature-crunching crew.”

“We might have a better chance if we stick together,” Angelo said.

“Okay,” Nick said. “Here's the plan. We line up at the door. I'll count to three, and then we all run. We're in this together, so if anyone gets grabbed, help them out.” He took a deep breath. “One, two, three.”

Either the skeletons were more prepared, having seen them once before, or they somehow guessed what the plan was. Nick hadn't taken more than three steps into the tunnel when undead began popping up like jack-in-the-boxes.

Two of them closed in on Nick, hands outstretched and teeth champing. Nick backed away, waving his torch in front of him. To his right, Angelo tried to kick away a skeleton that had its arms wrapped in a bear hug around his knees. He hit the creature across the
arms with his torch and it released its grip just long enough for Angelo to get away.

“Back!” Nick shouted. He and Angelo hurried out of the tunnel.

But Carter was having fun. Waving his torch like a sword, he danced around the undead and shouted insults. “Is that the best you've got, bonehead!” he yelled, whacking a skeleton in the ribs. “My mom can fight better than that,” he called, rolling across the ground and knocking one of the undead warrior's legs out from under it.

Nick turned to Angelo. “Was there anything in the
Popol Vuh
about these guys?”

Angelo flipped through his monster notebook. “Maybe there's a secret password or a special test.” He glared at Carter, who was still fighting the skeletons. “Would you cut that out so I can think?”

“Just one more.” Carter backed toward the doorway. He raised his torch in the air, yelled, “Die, you fleshless freak!” and bashed the skeleton directly on the top of its shiny white skull.

As soon as he hit it, the creature disappeared back into the ground.

“How did you do that?” Nick asked.

“I have no idea.” Another skeleton moved in. Carter leaped forward and whacked it on top of the head. That
one disappeared into the ground too. “It's like Whac-A-Mole with the undead,” Carter chirped gleefully. “If only we got prizes.”

Nick grinned at Angelo. “Anything about Whac-A-Mole in your Mayan studies?”

“Not a thing,” Angelo said. He leaped forward and whapped a skeleton of his own. As soon as he hit the creature, it sank. He hit another, and the same thing happened.

Soon all three of them were bashing the undead into the ground. After a few seconds, the skeletons started to rise again, but they were much slower once they'd been hit.

“We can't just stand here bashing skeletons,” Nick said. “We have to get my mom.” When most of the skeletons were in the ground, he and his friends ran deeper into the tunnel. A hundred feet or so after the entrance, the tunnel turned sharply left and a steep staircase led down through a cave-like entrance into the heart of the pyramid.

“You think that was the only test?” Carter asked as the boys descended single file into the darkness, their torch light forming shadows on the carvings cut into the walls.

“It would be nice,” Nick said. “But somehow I doubt it.”

The deeper they went, the lower the temperature dropped, until Nick found himself shivering from the cold. The air smelled like the smoke from the torches, and something else. Something old and dark. Once again, he began to hear voices.

Turn back while you can.

Go away.

You don't belong here.

He decided it might be best to keep what he was hearing to himself.

The staircase continued farther than seemed possible. He felt like they'd been walking for half a mile at least. “Does it feel like we should have reached the bottom of the pyramid by now?”

Angelo's breath plumed in front of his face. “I don't think we're in the pyramid anymore. I think we're entering the underworld.”

Carter shivered. “Do you really need to tell me that?”

At the bottom of the stairs, they found themselves standing in front of four doors—one to the left, one to the right, and two straight ahead. Each of the passages was a different color—red, black, white, and yellow.

Nick glanced down each of the passages. “Any suggestions?”

Angelo and Carter shook their heads.

“Okay, let's try white,” he said.

Cautiously, the three boys filed down the passage. It went twenty or thirty feet before ending at an intersection that went left or right. A wet chewing sound came from the right.

“Left,” Carter said. “Definitely left.”

The passage curved around and then split into yet another fork.

“It's a maze,” Angelo said.

Nick agreed. “Is anybody keeping track of this?”

“I'm trying.” Angelo scratched something into his monster notebook. “It's hard to draw a map without an aerial view.”

“Let's go right this time,” Carter said. “I've got a good feeling about it.” A minute later they came out back at the stairs where they'd started.

“How did we end up here?” Nick asked.

Carter shrugged. “Maybe we should have gone left the second time?”

Nick pointed to the door on the right. “Let's start with that one.”

Again, they found themselves taking lefts and rights with no idea where they were. Once, Nick was sure he heard quiet voices to their left. But when they turned that direction, they again found themselves exactly where they'd started.

“Hang on,” Angelo said. “Something about these colors seems familiar.” He flipped through his monster notebook. “Here it is. In the
Popol Vuh
, the brothers had to choose one of four roads. They were red, black, white, and yellow, just like these.”

“Which one did they choose?” Nick asked.

Angelo examined the pages. “I should have taken better notes, but I didn't think I'd need them. Black, maybe? I think that's the color that took them to the lords of death.”

“Very comforting,” Carter said.

“It's still a maze though,” Nick said. “Even after we take the black path, we have to figure out a way to leave a trail so we can tell where we've gone.”

Angelo tried burning a spot on the wall with his torch, but the fire left no mark. He tried scraping the wall with the wood. That didn't work either. “We could drop rocks.”

Carter pointed to the ground, which was as clean as the floor of a restaurant kitchen. “Have you seen any rocks in here?”

Nick hadn't. “What about your yarn? That would work great.”

“Jiménez took it when he knocked me out.” Carter sighed. “And the hat I was working on too.”

“I had lots of stuff in my backpack,” Angelo said. “But he took that too.”

The three of them looked around for something to drop. Without a way to mark their path, they could end up wandering through the labyrinth for hours.

“You know . . . ,” Angelo said.

Nick followed his gaze and realized what he was thinking. Both of the boys looked at Carter with a combination of eagerness and pity.