Thankfully, working the stick came back like riding a bicycle, aided tremendously by the amount of play in the clutch. By the time Gaspar crashed through Teotihuacan’s gated entrance, he was jamming the gears like a pro. The noise of the collision had been tremendous with gates flying off their hinges and landing in a heap of twisted wire, but he didn’t have time to slow down. A headlight went out despite the grill guard, but he still had cash on hand to amend that easy enough. It was the cargo on the seat nearby that concerned him, so when he parked inconspicuously at the far end of the ruins, he was relieved to find that the crate had survived unscathed.
Now, with the pickup having fulfilled its purpose, Gaspar slipped from the dark shadows shedding from the plaza walls near the Pyramid of the Moon. The pyramid’s bright namesake orb hung clear and white in the darkness above. The stars had never been so bright; the flying serpent rarely so sharp. It seemed the night sky was positioned in his favor. Perhaps it had predestined him to be there tonight, completing an ancient quest that began exactly one thousand and twenty-five years ago.
Two miles stood between him and his final destination. The Avenue of the Dead paved a perfectly straight course, but he didn’t dare take it. Out there, he would be too exposed, too visible to watching eyes.
And he could feel them watching.
He was being followed. He didn’t know that for a fact, he just sensed it. Something inside had been warning him all day. Perhaps it was his own paranoia urging him to be cautious. He’d made it too far to have his mission spoiled now.
The cool night air seeped into his aching bones. He shouldn’t have waited so long. Just after dark, after the last park employee had gone home, would have been sufficient. He could have even taken the road to the parking lot near the Pyramid of Quetzalcoatl, but that would have been too obvious for anyone checking the immediate area for the vehicle that had busted through the entrance gate. Gaspar would rather err on the side of caution, and so he parked behind the Pyramid of the Moon instead, prepared for the long walk ahead of him.
The silence expanded eerily around him as he kept to the shadows of one ruin wall, and then another. His pace was painstakingly slow, but at least he was moving. The artifact knotted within a large hotel towel threatened to slip, but Gaspar held tight.
Not yet, One Reed. Not yet.
He focused on placing one foot in front of the other. His labored breath hung in the still night air. The muscles in his legs were already aching, but he dared not stop for fear he’d never get going again. He shouldn’t have waited so long.
A flash up ahead caught his attention, a brief glimmer of blue moonlight, and then it was gone. Or was it even there? That feeling of being watched loomed again. He shook his head. His eyesight wasn’t what it used to be. His night vision was even worse. Regardless, nobody would be out at this time of night. He was being paranoid again.
The ruins played out briefly along the avenue. He could faintly see the dark mounds of crumbling temples on the other side. He’d reached the depression of a dry canal running across the avenue and carefully scrambled down to the bottom. There, he’d be less noticeable as he crossed the Avenue of the Dead to the haven of shadows on the other side.
His weary arm wrestled with the towel to hold it in place as he continued along the ruin walls. His feet were heavy and shuffling. This Herculean effort was taking its toll on his energy.
He shouldn’t have waited so long.
Another flicker of light caught him by surprise. This time he was convinced it wasn’t his imagination. This apparition was much closer, like the spirit of a ghost flashing past his face. He’d been so shocked by it that he stopped in his tracks, blinking the light out of his eyes.
The darkness was heavy this time. The shadows of the ruins ahead had folded into the night. He was temporarily blinded, disoriented. Gaspar searched the darkness for anything that would help him regain his bearings. His legs were cramping. He dared not stand still much longer.
There ahead he could see the outline of the ruins again, but just as he was about to step forward, the shadows evaporated. The darkness shimmered like a black pool of oil. Gaspar blinked but his eyes were dry.
The shimmering darkness lightened to charcoal, then a steel blue. There was nothing to see but the gray light. It grew hypnotically into a dull round glow. He couldn’t look away as it grew rounder; grew brighter. Suddenly, from the center of the glow, as though centered within the night itself, Gaspar recognized the reflection of his own face!
There was but a moment to ponder this strange phenomenon before something fluttered in the air like the whisper of bat wings. And then a sharp pain pierced his left side just below his ribs. As if in slow motion, he watched his own horrified expression gasp for breath. His gaping mouth resembled that of Quetzalcoatl’s—dark and oppressive—but nowhere near as menacing. His eyes were wide, taking in nothing but themselves.
Shaman Gaspar was dying but he couldn’t turn away from his own twisted reflection until the mirror flicked away. Groaning in pain, he searched the starry darkness, suddenly realizing he’d fallen flat on his back to the cold hard ground.
Another face appeared above him. It didn’t have the shimmering effect of a mirrored reflection. This one was gravely dark. Two piercing eyes stared down at him from a mask of black paint. Another black band was painted across his lips, darkening his assailant’s chin into the shadows of his neck. And then the smile. Pearly white teeth slowly emerged, mocking the sudden powerlessness washing over Gaspar.
The shaman felt his meager strength seeping from his body. His legs were numb, his muscles were relaxing; his task no longer burdensome. Yet, he couldn’t pull his terrified gaze from the black and white face smiling down at him.
A low gurgle began deep within his chest. There was a pull at his left shoulder as his lung filled with blood. He was slipping away. Slipping through the darkness, toward the stars.
From out of nowhere, a pair of hands tugged his coat away from his chest. He faintly heard his shirt rip open. The cold night air found the sticky, wet wound as Gaspar noticed the flick of a dark, irregular knife blade.
“I’ve been waiting for you, old man.”
The words floated eerily above the shaman and then settled deep within his heart. He knew that voice!
The knife plunged into his bare skin again, scraping across a lower rib. The pain seared through him as the knife continued to carve, but Shaman Juan Joaquin Gaspar had no strength left to fight.
As the knife threatened to steal the last breath from his body, the painted face and the voice came together like a vision. The shock was too much to bear. With the last ounce of breath he had to pull over his thick, metallic tongue, he released a single penitent gasp into the night.
“Mateo!”
PART III
Friday, May 18, 2012
These four year signs…as many times as they came to appear, they came to be the beginning year signs.
Fray Bernardino De Sahagún,
Florentine Codex
Mexico City
Eva Gaspar vaguely remembered Acatzalan’s face, but that smart-ass voice of his on the phone clarified memories of the cocky punk who’d visited her father last month. She’d had a strong dislike for him then but that was several weeks and a thousand miles ago. Her distrustful nature was to blame for many hasty first impressions but now she suspected Acatzalan might just win her over. Bringing her to
Mexico
was a good start.
They’d met within the hour of her phone call just outside of the terminal at Salt Lake City International. He wasn’t hard to find. There just weren’t many departing travelers at that hour. Unfortunately, there weren’t many customer service agents working the airline counters either.
They waited two hours before they were helped by a red-eyed agent who’d completely sucked down his twenty-ounce latte in the short time it took to book them in the last two seats on the first available flight to
Mexico City
.
Mexico
, as Acatzalan had explained, was her father’s all-encompassing term for
Mexico City
. The tickets weren’t cheap, but without hesitation, Acatzalan put the charges on his credit card. That one act alone expressed devotion which could only benefit Eva Gaspar.
She couldn’t remember much of the flight. She’d fallen asleep shortly after take off and didn’t wake up until the flight attendant asked her to return her seat to its upright position. Once back on the ground, she found herself in a foreign world of marble-floored, glass terminals and quake-cracked street shops with entrance facades brandishing dried strings of chilies.
For the most part,
Mexico City
wasn’t much different from any other city she’d been to. Arteries of traffic swept through a vast sea of concrete. Glimmering commercial high rises stifled antique cathedral bell towers and smothered views of the mountainous volcanoes they’d just flown over. Parks and gardens drew attention away from aging suburbs and alleyways in disrepair. English was tagged like a footnote to the native language in a fashion not unlike that of southern
California
. However, laced within the mask of a flourishing economy were signs of an opposite extreme dramatically highlighted by swarms of street vendors peddling their meager wares to each passing car; scenes as abstract as modern architecture was to baroque.
However, the city was no more familiar than it was unfamiliar, and Eva was aware of her dependence upon Acatzalan to lead her through it. Despite her Yaqui heritage, which supposedly held Native American roots in the northern regions of
Mexico
, Eva was far from being Mexican. She didn’t even know the language beyond the count of ten. Her father spoke fluent Spanish but Eva never learned—refused to learn. Being a Yaqui, with her black hair and dark complexion, it was hard enough distinguishing herself from Mexican stereotypes. The last thing she wanted was the language to further confuse the issue. She was American, and damn proud of it. If only her father thought that way too.
“Where do you suppose we find him?” she asked as Acatzalan wove their rental car in and out of traffic.
“I guess we’ll try the Agave Azul.”
“The what?”
“It means blue agave. You know, the plant they make tequila out of.” He glanced at her with a crooked little grin, but Eva wasn’t amused, and she made it obviously so. He got the hint and turned back to his driving.
“The Agave Azul is a little hotel nearby. It used to be a hacienda back in the day, or so I’ve been told. Shaman Gaspar gets a room there whenever he comes down for the equinox meetings.”
Eva digested the information, though it did her little good. She was well aware of her father’s peculiar life, a life that she’d long lost touch with. She’d just as soon kept it that way, but now she was forced to confront this alter ego of his, and she hated it. She hated the whole New Age nonsense. She’d had the sense to step away from that cliché years ago, but unfortunately, that was after it drove her son into exile.
That had been over ten years ago and she still hadn’t received word of his whereabouts. The boy most likely escaped to
New York
, maybe even Europe—anywhere that would keep him far from
Mexico
and his grandfather’s madness. At least that’s what Eva liked to believe. It was far better than fearing he’d lost his life in some back alley somewhere.