I elbowed her. “Maybe we should get Ethan to teach you some slang.”
She pushed me. “Shaddup. Let’s go before he decides not to pork Sophie after all.”
~*~
“Dude,” Remy complained for the third time in the last fifteen minutes. “These ladders are fricking ridiculous.”
I paused at the top of the one I stood on, wiping my brow. “You can rest at the top, Remy. Just remember we’re in a time crunch here.”
“Oh, sure, time crunch,” she panted. “I don’t know if you noticed, but we’re practically scaling a friggin’ cliff here?”
Oh, I had noticed. I hauled my shaking legs over the ladder and knelt on the narrow, slanted path, wiping my sweaty brow.
After we’d found Noah’s human assistants gathering near the base of the closest cliff as they’d waited for their leader, I’d quickly introduced myself to the first one, sticking out my hand for him to shake. After that, it was too easy. We put them all to sleep and left them under the closest shade tree. One of them had information on the Luminary House, and I picked through his memories, getting the information I needed. There was a locked gate and he had the lock code. Perfect.
We’d raced back to the cliffs only to find that getting to the actual Luminary House involved ladders. Lots of very tall ladders, and then narrow, rocky paths so steep that even a mountain goat would pause. But we climbed, because I lived in fear of turning around and seeing Phryne’s shining head two steps behind us.
Ethan followed, bringing up the rear, his bo strapped to his back. He wore a baseball cap to blot out the bright sunlight and didn’t seem to be sweating the arduous climb at all. Figured. When Remy got to the top, I took her hand and helped her haul herself onto the rocky ledge. She panted, glaring up at me as if this was somehow my fault.
“Let’s keep going,” I said with a nod to the gate that I could now see at the top of the path. It cordoned off an immense rocky overhang, and I knew that our little Luminary House would be found there.
“Come, Remiza,” Ethan said gently. “I shall carry you.”
“I thought you’d never ask,” she said.
The big Enforcer knelt and Remy piggybacked on him, pressing her chin against his hat and grinning at me. “I feel a second wind suddenly.”
I shook my head, hanging on to the railing as we moved forward. The little gate was shut with a numerical padlock and I quickly began to enter the combination that I’d stolen. The gate swung open and we stepped forward, going down the rough steps hewn into the side of the cliff.
The Luminary House was gorgeous. Thick adobe walls lay nestled under the rocky overhang, dotted with circular windows, so unlike the rest of the ruins here, which boasted square windows. The adobe walls seemed to make up one large building, and as I stepped toward it, I could see that the building started smaller at the edges of the cliff and increased in size toward the middle, where there was the most room. Each of the round windows was bisected with a smooth wooden rod. Odd.
“It looks like a crown,” Remy observed.
My breath caught in my throat. It did look like a crown. Like the one mentioned in the writing? The page was tucked carefully away into my pocket, along with Ethan’s phone, but I could pull them out and reference the drawings—or the notes I’d scribbled on the page—if I needed to. As we walked closer, I noticed the cliff had given way abruptly. Some enterprising person had rebuilt a crude wooden bridge to cross the ten-foot gap.
We made our way over it and hopped to the other side. As I stepped forward, I noticed the round windows were surrounded by swirling designs. Each window was like a little sun, except the center was dark instead of full of light.
I touched one window in surprise, thinking hard.
“Why’s this called the Luminary House?” Remy asked behind me, wrinkling her nose. “It’s so dark.”
“I don’t know,” I told her, moving forward into the ruins. I touched the solid wall, made of adobe. It felt cool under my fingertips, and I glanced around. “Let’s find a way inside. Maybe it’ll become obvious there.”
We searched several empty rooms before approaching the biggest one. Someone had laid a woven blanket over the doorway of the room, as if to keep out the wind. I flipped it up, and sucked in a breath.
The largest room of the Luminary House was lit in sunlight, despite being buried into the side of the cliff. I stepped inside in wonder, staring up at the ceiling. A star-shaped hole had been cut through the cliff and sunlight streamed in from above. I squinted as the edges of the morning sun showed up in the corner of the hole and then blinked at my surroundings.
“Hey, this is pretty cool,” Remy said, staring up at the ceiling. “You think they carved that?”
“I don’t know,” I said, putting my hands on my hips and frowning up at it. I didn’t know of anyone who could carve rock like that, but the sunroof was definitely in the shape of another sun, just like the windows outside. It had to be connected.
“I don’t see a halo anywhere,” Remy pointed out.
“It won’t be out in the open. It’ll be hidden somewhere.” I glanced around, but I didn’t see anything that screamed “hidden room.” “The halo doesn’t feel any closer now than it did before, though. Where’s Ethan?”
“Guarding the ladder. He’s going to make sure no one comes to disturb us.” Remy closed her eyes and tilted her face back, as if concentrating. She took a step forward, then backward, then to each side. Then she opened her eyes again and looked around. “The pull of the halo is strongest to the north.”
North was the rocky cliff wall. I frowned and closed my eyes, following Remy’s example. In the dark, I concentrated on the vibration of the internal tuning fork that alerted me when something big and powerful was nearby. I turned in a circle and stopped when I felt the tug even stronger.
Sure enough, it was to the north. I moved to the wall, running my hands along it. The cliff was solid rock here, “Well shit,” I said. “How are we supposed to get to it if it’s inside the cliff?”
“Maybe there’s a secret door,” Remy said, running her hand along the wall. “We just need to find a way to open sesame.”
I drummed my fingers on my lips, thinking hard. Luminary House. The sun symbols were the only thing that set this place apart from the other ruins scattered throughout Mesa Verde. But what did they mean? I tugged out the paper and stepped into the sunlight streaming down through the portal above. I stared at the drawing, wishing I had the other piece of the puzzle. Somewhere out there, Phryne had the other half of the answers. Damn her. I’d just have to do this on my own, with nothing but the smarts of my team.
I glanced over at Remy. She had her hand raised up, making shadow puppets on the wall.
We were doomed.
As I studied the paper, Remy moved to my side. “Huh. Look at that.”
My heart tripped and I looked over at her. “What?”
She gestured at the ceiling. “There are seven sun symbols there.”
“What? Where?” I stepped out of the blinding circle of sunlight and moved into the shadows, shielding my eyes from the sun and staring up at the ceiling.
Sure enough, seven Egyptian sun symbols had been carved into the ceiling. They surrounded the center sun where the light streamed in and looked to be reflective mirrors. I’d almost missed them because of the contrast with the blinding light in the circle.
“Holy crap, those must mean something,” I murmured.
“Duh,” Remy said. “Jeez, I thought you’d be the Velma of this Scooby Doo group. I’m the Daphne here. I just stand around and look pretty.”
I smacked her arm. “Har de har. Now be quiet while I try to figure out how these mirrors play into things.”
She shrugged. “Well, in my movie
Panty Raiders of the Lost Ark,
we had to angle mirrors to make them open a secret door. You had to flip a switch that looked like a dildo,” she said helpfully. “By rubbing up against it.”
I stared at her.
“What?” She said defensively. “It was a good plot line.”
“That’s the answer,” I said, tucking the paper back into my shirt. We had to activate something. Of course.
She wrinkled her nose. “You wanna rub up against a dildo?”
I pushed back out of the Luminary Room. “Just stay in there,” I called to her. “I’m going to try something.”
“Okey doke,” Remy called cheerfully.
I paced back to the front of the ruins, my gaze going to the circle windows. Not all of them had sun symbols around them. I passed each crumbling house and counted the windows with the sun design around them.
Seven.
My heart thudded with excitement. This meant something. I knew it meant something… except, what? The sunroom had no windows of its own. What did these windows mean? I approached the first one and studied it closely, running my fingers over the lines of the sun symbol. There was a slashing character at the tip of one that I recognized, but it looked upside down.
I thought for a moment, then grasped the wooden rod in the center of the window, and pushed on it, hard, trying to move it.
It didn’t budge.
“Hey!” Remy called. “The sun’s getting brighter in the hole here! What do you want to bet there’s some sort of timing mechanism?”
That’s what I thought too, and if that was the case, we didn’t have much time. I tugged on the wooden bar, hard, pushing to the left, trying desperately to get the window to turn. It wouldn’t budge.
A large brown hand clasped the wood next to mine, and Ethan’s shadow fell over me. “Allow me to do this for you, Jackie Brighton.”
“Thank you, Ethan,” I said, panting, and stepped to the side. “I thought you were guarding the ladders?”
His eyes flashed silver and he braced both of his hands on the wooden bar. “I saw your puny attempt and realized I must intercede. Please step back.”
Gee, thanks. I stepped backward and waited.
He heaved, bracing his enormous body against the wall, and I saw the corded muscles in his arm strain. I winced, waiting for the rod to splinter into a thousand pieces.
It didn’t. I heard the sound of rock grating on rock, and then the entire thing turned. I gasped in shock as he continued to turn the entire thing, slowly. The sun symbol rotated in the wall itself.
I tapped my finger to the faint Ra symbol at the base of the sun. “Stop here. We’ll know when this reads properly.”
A shout came from within the ruins. “Holy fuck, you gotta see this, Jackie!”
Remy shouted.
“It’s
so
cool!”
“Be there in a second,” I called, and turned to Ethan. “Quick! Help me turn the other ones!”
We raced to the next window, and then the next. Each one turned, though the symbol marked on each one was slightly different. They matched up with my drawings, though, and I consulted it as Ethan turned, his big arms straining to move the rock. Each successful turn resulted in another delighted squeal from Remy.
When Ethan was on the seventh window, I raced back into the room with the sunroof, and gasped in shock.
Remy stood in rainbow streams of light. The entire room was lit up with sunbeams of different colors. I glanced down. In the center of the room the floor had become an enormous mirror. Each of the suns above was reflecting the light it beamed back up, shooting it down with different beams of color. It was like standing in a kaleidoscope.
“How did they do this?” Remy asked in wonder, raising her hands into the air as if to touch the brilliant beams of light.
“I don’t know,” I said, staring at my surroundings. “It doesn’t make sense. The mirror in the floor—that’s not Anasazi. And these lights—”
“They’re not Anasazi,” Remy said with an exasperated sigh. “We’re hunting an immortal, Jackie. The rules don’t apply.”
Well, she had me there.
Something cranked and the final sun flicked into light—a brilliant blue. The light seemed to refract and fix upon one spot on the cliff wall, and to my shock, the beams of light lined up and made the outline of a door.
“No fucking way,” Remy breathed, grabbing my arm with excitement. “This is like some Lord of the Rings shit! We’re about to enter Mordor!”
Cautiously, I moved forward. Sure enough, the lights had formed a pattern that looked like a door. Sucking in a breath, I pushed on it.
Runes lit up at my touch, and the wall slid away in a crunch of rock.
The door opened.
“If you push hard enough, there’s
always
a way in. Trufax.”—
Fuck Like a Porn Star: The Basics,
by Remy Summore
~*~
Remy clutched my arm as I stared into the deep shadows on the other side of the opened door. The room we stood in was all brilliant lights and splendor, but through those doors, it was inky darkness.
And somewhere within, power pulsed, making me jittery and nervous. It felt like when I’d touched Joachim’s halo, except ten times stronger.
“They must both be here,” I told Remy, stepping forward. “It feels so strong.”
“Wait,” she yelped, grabbing my arm. “Are you sure you want to go down there?”
“We don’t have a choice,” I told her. “I’m not about to let Phryne get that halo and destroy Zane or Noah, or both. I can’t let it get into her hands. They could be following us even now.” I thought of Nefer, who’d shown up at our hotel room to take us down. They knew what we were after, and I was positive she was not more than a few steps behind us. But Remy looked rather stricken at the sight of the gaping black tunnel. “You don’t have to go.”
She chewed on her lip, thinking. “But who will be your fashionable sidekick if I don’t? And besides, I have the gun.”
“You do,” I admitted, feeling relieved. I wasn’t looking forward to going in there alone myself. “This won’t take too long. We’ll zip in, grab the haloes, and then zip back out again. How deep can this cave thing be?”
“Dunno,” Remy said. “But I’m thinking we need flashlights.”
She was right. I hadn’t brought one in with me. I hadn’t thought this would turn into a cave journey. I glanced anxiously around the kaleidoscope room. “I don’t suppose that
Panty Raiders of the Lost Ark
offered any helpful tips for this?”