The Bloodgate Guardian (16 page)

She fell to her knees and leaned as close as she dared so she could hear him better. “We have to send the ones that escaped back. I’ll find a way to get you out. I swear it.”

“They’re waiting. Get out of there. Leave me!”

Ruin closed a hand on her arm, pulling her up. “He’s right. They’re here. We have to get out now.”

Desperation pounded in her veins and her ears roared with hurricane winds. “No, no, I can’t leave him! Dad!”

In an iron grip, Ruin dragged her toward the secret door to the tunnel. “Now is not the time. I will help you as I swore, but you have to trust me. We can’t save him now.”

“Okay,” she gulped, forcing the clamoring panic to recede. “What do we need to do?”

He gave her a quick, hard smile and pushed her toward the tunnel. “Run toward the cenote while I set the Gate to get us out of here. I have to put additional safeguards on the magic to ensure the demons can’t escape through with us.”

“What demons? If they’re in Xibalba—”

“Your father spoke truly. I feel at least one demon, here, now. If it gets the White Dagger, all is lost. Now go!”

The White Dagger pulsed darkly in Ruin’s hand. He knew a demon was close because of the jarring ache in his bones. Something hurt his ears, a shrill scream just beyond his hearing. He had to get Jaid out of here, immediately.

If a demon took her, the Lords of Xibalba would have a powerful, untrained priest to torture. After they stole her knowledge, they’d kill her and possess her soul with the nasty weapon in his hand. The dagger hungered for souls like a slavering rabid beast. He despised its clamor in his head. His skin crawled but he dared not let the thing out of his sight.

He stepped on Kukulkan’s Pyramid and double-checked the map. It’d been dozens of lifetimes since he’d used this Gate and he had to make absolutely sure. With the White Dagger in hand, he was powerful enough to stop his brother. Truth be told, he was powerful enough to stop every demon as well.

He knew of only one place Wrack would go to bide his time: Iximche, Butterfly Star’s home.

Ruin clicked the rings into place and raced after Jaid. He felt her waiting ahead in the outlet above the water. Magic swelled within him, the Gate shimmering in his mind. With his bloody handprints acting as safeguards in the chamber, all the Gate needed was a touch of his blood to open it only to him and those carrying his blood.

Something he would have to correct in a heartbeat, or she’d be left behind.

A demon howled, a cry of derision or glee that skittered down his spine. His sense of time told him it should be high noon, but no sunlight reached the waters. Clouds roiled in the small circle of sky, darkening the sun.

If he failed, if he allowed a demon to reclaim the White Dagger for the might of Xibalba, the sun would be destroyed along with all the worlds within the rings. Yet dread at what he needed to do twisted his gut. What he needed from her now might be the final thing that drove her to turn her face and heart from him forever.

Terrified but calm, she smiled with relief as soon as he joined her. “Where are we going?”

Solemnly, he traced the curve of her cheek with his thumb. “Do you trust me?”

She stared at him, her chin trembling slightly.

“Priest!” The demon screamed above. “Surrender the White Dagger, or I’ll slice the woman’s skin from her body in thin strips and feast on her flesh!”

She paled and her pulse thumped in her neck. Staring at him, she weighed his many sins against the night they’d spent together.

Carefully, he kept his mind closed and his face shut down. He would not accidentally use the mental connection he’d forged through healing to sway her. Steeling his heart, he prepared to make the most difficult sacrifice of his life. His heart rebelled. A knife cracked open his chest and exposed his frantically pounding heart.

How could he leave her to a fate worse than death? Did he dare force her? His heart raged in the everlasting battle he could never seem to escape. This was his true curse, this desire to throw all caution away for his heart.

For his love.

“I would die to save you,” he whispered raggedly. “I love you, Jaid.”

She trembled. “You barely know me.”

“I know your heart. I touched your soul when I healed you. I love you like no one else could. Trust me. Let me save us. I’ll pay the cost myself.”

A splash told him the demon had jumped into the cenote, willing to risk that he’d send it back to Xibalba in order to gain the greatest prize of all.

Ruin clenched his hands into fists.
Choose, choose
, he screamed silently.
Don’t make me force this choice upon you.

“I trust you.”

Relief flooded him. He wrapped his palm around the back of her head and dragged her against his chest. “Hold this,” he rasped, thrusting the White Dagger into her hand. He dared not use it for this sacrifice, and he had a better chance of surviving this journey through the Gate if the weapon of power was not in his grasp. “Whatever happens, don’t let it fall from your hand or your entire civilization will die.”

She wrapped trembling, chilled fingers around his and took the weapon. He unsheathed his personal knife. Her eyes widened and her throat worked on a swallow. Or a scream? No time. He couldn’t pause to explain or comfort her, not with the demon swimming toward them, thrashing wildly in the water.

Lifting the knife, he sliced both his shirt and chest open on a deep cut and dragged her toward his flesh.

Involuntarily, she flinched back, her mouth opening on a protest. “No—”

He hauled her mouth against his chest. Blood coated her lips and face, hot and coppery. She braced for revulsion. Gagging, retching, she’d surely throw up whatever small amount of blood he was able to force down her throat.

Her stomach clutched, but not in a spasm of sickness. His blood burned like a shot of perfectly aged whiskey, rich and dark with a powerful kick. She shuddered, her throat closing on another swallow. Another. Once she started, she couldn’t seem to stop. His scent filled her nose, jungle jaguar prowling in the night. His strength enveloped her, his magic alive and breathing like thousands of tiny fingers against her skin.

She couldn’t worry about the approaching demon, or the trap her father had warned them of, or the horrible plague, not with this man at her side. Not with this mighty jaguar prowling in the jungle night.

“Enough.” His fingers tightened on her nape, at odds with his order. In her mind, she saw his darkest desire: to be seated deeply within her while she licked blood from his throat. Her body kicked into high gear. Her veins felt full of life, swollen with energy, magic, whatever he wanted to call it. Her skin felt as though it would simply peel away from the cage of bones holding it in place and dance with joy and passion.

He murmured her name against her cheek. Rough like the jaguar’s sandpaper tongue, his tongue flicked out to lick a spot of his blood from her lip. She couldn’t help but moan out loud. His blood caught fire. Her muscles tightened with longing, and all she could think about was another night with him. Last night she’d had his tenderness and vulnerability. Tonight, she wanted his wildness. She could almost feel his teeth in the back of her neck, pinning her beneath him like a male jaguar would take its mate.

“Yes.” He growled, a threatening chest-rattling sound that tightened her scalp, sent her heart racing ever faster, and flared liquid heat through her core. “But first, we must get to safety.”

He gripped her hand so hard she winced. His eyes flared in the gathering shadows, his hair whipped by the approaching storm. “Whatever happens, don’t let go of the White Dagger. Our lives, your entire world, depend on it.”

She nodded, her breath erratic and shallow.

The demon drew close to the ledge. Spots of rotted death dotted its pallid face and it smelled like a corpse left out in the Texas sun.

Ruin bared his teeth at the demon in a snarl that curled the hair at the base of her neck. “Jump as high and hard as you can. I don’t want to risk taking him through with us in case my protective spell fails.”

He gave her no time to ask questions. They sprinted across the small cave in which they’d spent the night in each other’s arms. Muscles gathering, straining, she jumped. Her heart tried to escape up her throat, her heartbeats so loud in her skull they drowned out all noise. He leaped further, naturally, and jerked her arm so hard she bit her lip to keep from crying out.

The demon thrashed in the water, bony hands grasping frantically. She felt a sharp tug on her jeans and kicked out with her feet. Ruin hit the water and dragged her down so fast she didn’t get a good lungful of air.

Water closed over her head. An explosion rocked the cenote. Waves crashed and rolled all around them. Trapped in the epicenter of a swirling maelstrom, she clutched him in one hand and the dagger in the other, although she couldn’t feel her fingers.

Her lungs burned. Air, she needed air, and she knew she was going to breathe too soon. Panic ate at her. Coldness seeped up her arms and legs. Blackness swallowed her.

His blood blazed in that darkness, spreading warmth and life to push back her fear. She clung to that searing magical heat as fiercely as she clutched his hand. Drowning, she was drowning, but not in water.

All she tasted was blood.

Choking, Jaid thrashed in the water. Utter darkness. A weight on her right hand dragged her back under the surface and she took a lungful of water. She flailed back to the surface and coughed. Ruin stirred, taking some of his weight off her. He must have been weakened by the trip through the Gate again.

“Not the Gate,” he whispered, his voice fragile. “The White Dagger
in
the Gate. The backlash felt like lightning struck me a thousand times. If I’d carried it myself, it would have killed me again.”

No wonder it felt like her head wasn’t attached any longer. It took all her concentration to keep from sinking beneath the surface again. “Where are we?”

“A cave.” His hand closed over her arm, settling her worry. He was functioning, if not fully recovered. “The water’s not deep. Hold on a moment and let me get my bearings.”

She muttered beneath her breath, “Next time I complain about grading mid-terms, remind me that I jumped into the world’s deepest lake, got shot at, had my throat slit, and was chased by demons. I guess office hours aren’t so bad, are they?” Swallowing down the panic, she concentrated on treading water. Cold water encased her up to her chin, sloshing gently in the darkness. “Oh, and I’m never going swimming in the dark again.”

“This way.” He moved through the water confidently toward what she hoped was the edge of the pool. “This city was destroyed long ago, but the Gate is safe beneath the ruins.”

“Which city is this?”

“Iximche.”

Surprise splintered through her, followed by a tsunami of dread that nearly dragged her back down to the depths of Lake Atitlan. This is where her father had made his greatest pre-Chi’Ch’ul discovery. This is where her mother had died. “Why?”

A new voice echoed in the darkness. “Because he knew I’d come here.”

Ruin tensed and whipped his body around toward the speaker, pressing her back from the threat. Something slammed into him with the dull sound of flesh on flesh and ripped him away. Water splashed violently, but she couldn’t see what was happening. If she charged after them, she’d be killed. Yet standing here, doing nothing…

She heard a wet, heavy thunk, and he grunted. God, he must have been stabbed. Who was it? It didn’t sound like a demon.

“At last.”

Involuntarily, she backed away into the water.
That
voice did sound like a demon. Her teeth hurt and her muscles tensed so hard and fast that she shuddered. She couldn’t even call it a “voice” when it grated like metal on metal, screeching to the point of pain.

“Give me the White Dagger.”

Until then, she didn’t even remember that she held it in her hand. The thing felt slick and foul on her palm as though it were coated in rotted, feculent scum. Gritting her teeth, she forced her fingers to grip it instead of slinging it as far away as possible. It pulsed with a heavy, steady throb like a living heart.

“Jaid, don’t you dare—” Ruin’s ragged voice cut off on a strangled, bubbling sound. She didn’t need to see to know that his throat had been slit. If the first voice hadn’t been a demon, then it had to be Wrack, his brother, which made her scream in rage and betrayal for Ruin’s sake.

The demon laughed. “You surely know that the priest can’t die, so why do you mourn him? Come out of the Gate, now, and let us tend to you.”

The thought made her skin try to crawl off her bones. Stumbling deeper, she hunched in the water, straining her eyes to see anything that might help her escape. So dark, and the smell…She didn’t know which was worse, the nasty slime on the knife or the thick corpse smell in the air.

Carefully, she edged away from the demon’s voice. The bottom was littered with rocks but remained relatively level. How wide was the Gate? If she could get out, find her way to the surface…

Rock cracked into her head. Starbursts spinning in her skull, she reached up and felt the domed rock ceiling. Ruin had said the Gate was safe beneath the city. Her heart hammered, dread gnawing at the edge of her mind. She’d been underground and trapped here before, desperately afraid but also hoping to find something for her father.

Stop them. Escape. Flee. Ruin!

“Jaid.”

Oh, God. No. How could he be here? With
them?

Light flared and one by one, they lit wavering torches. Her stomach churned and she sought Ruin first. He was sprawled on the beach and his brother squatted beside him with that hateful black knife in his hand. She was too far away to tell if his chest rose.

Next, her gaze fell on the Lord of Xibalba, dead white skin and bones, red glowing eyes, and immediately, she flinched away.

But oh, the worst sight of all, was Dr. Sam Gerard standing beside the demon.

Tears filled her eyes, her throat strangling on sobs she refused to release. The man she’d known her entire life, who’d read her bedtime stories, tucked her in at night, and cheered at her graduations now wore a feathered headdress and a ragged vest. His normally neat chinos were dirty and torn. A dark bag hung at his waist. His face was lined and grayed with weariness, possibly illness.

And his eyes. Even from twenty feet away, she saw the horrors crawling in his gaze.

He’d seen hell and lived. If helping demons take over the world was living. “You. You were
there
. I saw you at the church.”

“Jaid.” His voice beseeched, even while his eyes screamed at her to run, to save herself. No, to save him. “I don’t want them to hurt you.”

She cast her gaze around the cave, searching for any other exit. She’d backed into the far arc of the pool with nothing but rock behind and above her. The beach curved before her, with several black holes leading off in different directions. Bad guys between her and the tunnels out of here, with the only person she trusted dead.

She looked at Ruin again, straining to see his chest move, a flicker in his eyes.

The demon purred, a sound like hissing steam. “You care for him.”

He jerked his head and the man crouching over Ruin nodded. Wrack didn’t look much like his brother except in the face. He was shorter, smaller in stature and lean, but according to all the legends, he was the most important twin. His head represented the twentieth day, which also represented the last day of the
baktun
. Ironic, wasn’t it, when he was so willing to destroy the world? He looked up, capturing her gaze, and his black eyes were hard and grim. This man had nothing left but one final goal: to see his own brother dead at last.

He spoke harshly, jerking his head down at his brother. “Come to the shore immediately or I will cut out your lover’s heart.”

The demon cackled. “Do you think your priest will survive his heart cut out of his chest?”

Ruin groaned and she sagged with relief. His brother bit off a barrage of words too low and vicious for her to understand and slammed the knife into his chest.

“No!” She swam and ran, arms wind-milling through the water to get to him. “Don’t do it! I’m coming. Don’t hurt him.”

She fell to her knees beside him and closed her hands over the wound pumping blood like a fountain. Crying, she closed her eyes and concentrated on him. He’d healed her. In the process, he’d given her a sense of his magic. She carried his blood.

Please
, she thought, straining to push some of her strength and life into him.
Please come back to me.

“Always.”
The jaguar prowled in her mind, sleek black fur slipping and sliding through her.
“Cooperate with them. Stay safe. I’ll find a way.”

Brushing tears away so she could see, she forced a hard tone to her voice. “What do you want?”

“Something that will benefit us both.” The demon smiled, the bare bone of his jaw flashing. His eyes were locked not on her, but on the White Dagger in her hand. His teeth gashed the thin, gray flesh serving as lips, and he lapped at his own blood like a cat with a bowl of cream. “We want you to open the Gate to Xibalba.”

“No, never.”

“Not even to save Charlie?” Sam had edged closer, taking a protective stance between her and the demon. She couldn’t bear to look at him, but if he still had some lingering sense of duty or affection toward her, then she would use it. She’d use any tool at her disposal to save Ruin and her father. “I’ve tried everything Charlie ever told me, but I can’t open the Gate. I can’t save him.”

Yeah, right.
Saving her father was surely the last reason Sam had done this horrible deed. Had he been involved in the massacre at Santiago Atitlan? The thought made her stomach twist and heave so hard she almost threw up. “What did they promise you?”

“Tell her.” The demon breathed out a waft of foulness that made her stomach churn harder. His high-pitched shriek might have been amusement.

Sam turned away, giving her his back.

“Tell her!”

He flinched as if the demon flayed him alive. Shoulders hunched, he whispered, “You. He promised me you.”

Bewildered, she stared at his back. Tears burned her eyes and her throat ached from straining not to sob like a baby. How many times had she clung to him, seeking the comfort and love she never received from her father? How many times had she called him just to hear a voice of someone who loved her? So how could he have done this
for her?

“Sam?” She despised the quavering weakness in her voice, but at least he turned around. “Why?”

His lips curled downward as though he’d tasted something vile. “The guilt is eating me alive, Jaid. I tried and tried to forget what I felt that night, but I can’t stand it any longer.”

She thought he meant what had happened in Santiago Atitlan, until she realized he was staring at her mouth. She felt her cheeks coloring, shame flooding her at the memory. She’d never thought of him as more than her father’s friend until that night, and his shocked response to her kiss had confirmed he’d felt the same way.

“Why else do you think I put up with Charlie for so long, even after he lost his position at the university? I never sought my own career because I couldn’t lose you, Jaid. Even if you never saw me as more than a stand-in for him.” Sam’s voice broke, jagged and painful to hear. “You trusted me to take care of you. All these years…Forgive me.”

“Guilt,” the demon cackled. “Such a powerful human emotion. I took away his guilt and promised to deliver you unharmed into his hands. And here you are, shimmering with the priest’s magic, ripe with knowledge that we will harvest.”

Bracing herself, she forced her gaze up to Sam’s face. “You killed those people in Santiago Atitlan.”

“Help me.” He grasped her shoulder and his fingers dug into her flesh so hard she made a low noise. Misery burned in his eyes. “I’ll do the sacrifice. All I need you to do is translate.”

“Enough.” The demon lunged closer, reaching across Sam’s shoulder toward her. “Give me the White Dagger.”

She flinched back, involuntarily dropping the knife. Sam growled like a wild animal and shoved the demon back. The demon fell to the ground and scooped up the blade, cradling it gently to his chest and crooning.

She couldn’t imagine that the creature would hold a human baby as reverently as the White Dagger. The pictures of death and dismemberment from Santiago Atitlan flickered through her mind. She lost it, then, on her hands and knees, throwing up so long and hard that she was actually grateful for Sam’s calm, steadying hands. He helped her stand, despite the thundering headache splintering her skull. Her throat burned, her back and shoulders ached from the heaves.

Tears dripped down her cheeks.
What can I do? How can we get out of this alive?

She felt Ruin in her mind, even though he still lay dead. Cooperate. That’s all she had to do. Delay. Do what she loved best, puzzle out the last remaining elements to the Gate, and pray that she didn’t solve the problem too quickly.

Sam had set up a research area in a different cave. Floodlights had been brought in, along with a table and chair. Evidently, they’d been planning this trap for quite awhile. The precious codex lay on the table, exposed to the air and elements. Furious, she noted that the delicate bark pages were dampening with humidity and beginning to curl. The codex wouldn’t last long in such conditions.

Staring at the priceless book, she thought of Ruin hundreds of years ago as he’d crafted each page by hand.

Her leather carryall lay on the table. Closing her eyes, she remembered Wrack slamming into her, his knife slicing open her throat. “He nearly killed me to take my notes.”

“I have no control over the demons or their servants.” Sam stood at her back between her and the exit. To protect her—or keep her from escaping? “The demons brought him and told me to use him. He wasn’t supposed to hurt you.”

“How long have you been working with them?” A vicious cramp in her chest made it hard to breathe. “Did Dad know?”

“I was there,” Sam whispered, his voice faint and wispy with fear. “That night they crawled out of the lake. I’d followed Charlie. He escaped, but I couldn’t, Jaid.” His hand floated up to touch the feathered headdress on his head and then dropped. The old Sam would have held his hat in his hand, twirling it slowly. He didn’t know what to do with the ridiculous feathers. “The only reason they left me alive was to make me their priest. I hated Charlie more than ever, then. If he’d told me more instead of shutting me and everyone else out, then I wouldn’t have been tempted to spy on him. I was losing him, Jaid, and I was afraid I’d lose you, too.”

“He suspected something,” she whispered. “He didn’t trust you.”

Sam nodded jerkily. “Ever since I brought in Venus Star for funding. I had no other choice, not after he lost his position at the university. How was I supposed to fund his research without a private party? Venus Star was more than eager to fund us, but Charlie suspected them from the beginning. He was right again.”

Sam’s face twisted into a feral snarl. “They own us now. They tell us when to dig and what to report and if they don’t get results, the purse strings are drawn so tightly that we can’t function. I kept as much of that away from Charlie as possible, but he knew. He always knew. He left me alone to deal with them. He abandoned me, Jaid, just as he’d abandoned you. Then they started threatening me if I didn’t get you involved. Franklin hinted he’d even stoop to kidnapping you to force the translation faster. What could I do, Jaid? I was trapped between the demons and Venus Star. I don’t know which one’s worse.”