Beautiful Sacrifice (13 page)

“It’s the shape that matters,” Hunter retorted.

Lina felt some of the tightness flow out of her, and only then realized that both men had been humming like high-tension wires when they walked in. She wondered what had happened. Maybe Hunter would tell her later…if she could get him alone.

Or maybe they’d do more interesting things.

He’s almost a blackmailer,
she told herself.

So what?
herself snapped back.

“Do you think your mother’s competition has the artifacts?” Jase asked.

“If they did,” Lina said, “Celia wouldn’t have come to me asking about them.”

“Not even to throw you off the scent?”

Lina paused, considering. “Celia can be manipulative as the devil, but she doesn’t treat her family that way. Whatever she’s feeling about family, she’s in-your-face about it. Certainly with Philip and me. Carlos, too.”

“Who’s Carlos?” Jase asked.

“Mi primo,”
Lina said. “Americans would say second cousin.”

“Also royalty, huh?” Jase asked with a smile.

“Carlos Porfirio Chel Balam,” she said. “And proud of it. He’s an international businessman of Mexican citizenship, but he never forgets his royal Maya heritage.”

“Powerful family you come from,” Jase said, meaning it.

Lina shrugged. “On paper. These days, ‘nobility’ puts tortillas and beans on the table by working just like real people.”

Jase grinned, liking her. “I’ve met some who don’t look at it that way.”

“So have I. That’s why I’m in America and they aren’t.”

“Can you tell us about this Kawa’il cult?” Jase asked, thinking of the basement he and Hunter had seen that morning. But it seemed a little more distant now. Bearable.

“As you would expect of a transitional religion—” Lina began.

“Transitional?” Jase interrupted.

“End of Maya rule, beginning of Spanish,” Hunter said without looking up from whatever he was sketching.

“Gotcha,” Jase said. He smiled at Lina. “Sorry for the interruption. I’m a cop, not a scholar.”

Lina smiled back. “Ask whatever and whenever you want. It’s how we both learn.”

“That’s why you’re a good teacher,” Hunter said. “You know that learning flows both ways.”

She enjoyed the warmth going through her at Hunter’s offhand compliment entirely too much. She shifted against the desk, trying to fit into skin that felt a little too tight.

“The end of any culture through war is a violent time,” Lina said, her voice husky, her eyes on Hunter, not Jase. “The cult of Kawa’il reflected that. He was a god of blood sacrifice and death. If my interpretations of the glyphs associated with him are correct, Kawa’il communicated exclusively through blood and sacred smoke.”

“Didn’t all the Maya?” Jase asked.

“It’s a matter of degree,” Lina said, looking at him. “Some gods are appeased with corn pollen, flowers, liquor, jade objects, food, that sort of thing. Kawa’il demanded more blood and sacrifice than other gods. Apparently a great deal more. I suspect that nobles who survived the ongoing war with the Spanish and the anger of their own people were in high demand as, er, conduits to Kawa’il.”

Hunter’s pencil paused.

Lina saw his bleak expression, and Jase’s, and hurried to explain. “Keep in mind that it was a horrible time for the Maya. War, subjugation, disease, their already declining civilization in pieces around them. They must have been desperate to know the minds of their gods, to understand why such calamities had come.”

Jase nodded. “So this Kawa’il ruled?”

“Only after the Spanish conquest, that we know of, and only in a very small part of Maya territory. On Reyes Balam land in Quintana Roo and government land in Belize. The presence of a god Kawa’il isn’t accepted by most of the academic community. My father has spent his life trying to prove it.”

“What do you think of the artifacts you saw in the photos?” Jase said.

“My gut says Kawa’il. My mind needs proof.”

“How about this?” Hunter asked, handing her the sketch pad.

Lina looked at the surprisingly good rendition of a jaguar altar, but it was the second sketch that drew a quick breath from her.

Hunter waited, savoring the scent of her and the warmth of her breasts swaying so close to him that if he moved his hand just a few inches…

“How big was the first artifact you sketched?” Lina asked.

Hunter forced himself to focus on the drawing rather than her tempting breasts. “The table was big enough to hold a man. From where and in what condition we found it, the table was associated with…rituals.”

“An altar, then. Was there a channel to allow blood to run off into a Chacmool?”

“The light wasn’t good enough to tell,” Hunter said.

“Where did you see this?” Lina asked.

“The other side of town,” Jase said. “One of the barrios.”

His voice caressed the Spanish word in a way that told her he was fluent in the language, perhaps had been raised speaking it. Not unusual along the Mexican-American border.

“Is it Kawa’il?” Jase asked, touching the edge of the drawing.

“It could be. It certainly is patterned after sacrificial altars of the time just before the Spanish came.” She frowned. “You said a basement. Is the altar in private hands?”

“Not anymore,” Jase said. “We arrested the gangbangers on murder and drug charges. The table will be entered as evidence and stored in someone’s evidence warehouse.”

“Could I see it?”

“If necessary,” Jase said.

“You don’t want to,” Hunter said at the same time.

“Why?” Lina asked, looking at Hunter.

“Let’s just say it seemed to be a bloody active altar.”

Lina’s eyes narrowed. “Sacrifice?”

“Oh yeah,” Jase said.

“Lots,” Hunter said.

“Human,” Lina said. It wasn’t a question.

“We’ll know for sure when the tests come back,” Jase said. “But judging from the shape of the body I saw and what I’ve heard since…yeah, human. Past tense.”

“You believe the altar was used at least once,” she said to Jase.

“Every time I get a text message, the count goes up.”

Hunter said something bleak under his breath and changed the subject, wanting to spare Lina the nightmare of that basement.

“One of the men arrested had tats like a brightly scaled snake winding up his arms. No head in sight,” Hunter added.

“Is that usual?” Lina asked.

“Never seen it before,” Hunter said.

“Me neither,” Jase said. “Snake seemed to be the chief badass in charge. The rest of them had the usual jailhouse-gangbanger tats.”

“The Maya had a scaled serpent associated with the gods, but not specifically with Kawa’il,” Lina said slowly. “Except, once again, in a very small territory.”

“Reyes Balam lands?” Hunter asked.

She nodded, hugging herself as though chilled. With an effort she forced her mind toward academic knowledge rather than the kind that shadowed Jase’s and Hunter’s eyes. It was one thing to study texts on ancient blood sacrifice. It was horrifying to hear about it happening in her own time and place.

Hunter gave Jase the sketchbook and pencils. Gently Hunter’s big hands closed over Lina’s arms, rubbing up and down, sharing warmth as though he understood the chill of violence sliding over her skin.

“Sorry.” She gave him an unsettled smile. “I don’t think of myself as being in an ivory tower, but to sacrifice people without the context of societal and religious approval is just…sick. Seriously sick. No meaning except depravity.”

“Don’t apologize for your reaction,” Jase said. “Cops exist to keep the criminally sick from the average healthy citizen. So ignore the whack jobs and tell me about Maya and snakes.”

Lina drew a deep breath. “Normally my sensitivity to cultural nuance is very useful in my studies. This time, not so much.” She took another deep breath. “So, snakes and Maya. Usually the serpent was a generalized sacred symbol connecting the underworld with the overworld. The snake was often drawn as smoke or having wings, perhaps both. Why a modern gangbanger would choose the sacred snake over a more recognized Western symbol—such as skull and bones—is a question for a psychiatrist to answer. I can’t.”

Carefully Hunter eased his hands away from Lina. The temptation to pull her onto his lap for some serious cuddling was simply too great.

“I can tell you that the jaguar was the exclusive province of Maya royalty,” she added. “Your altar was modeled after ancient Maya royal practices.”

Jase’s thick eyebrows rose. “Huh. Snake dude didn’t seem real royal to me.”

“You’re assuming he was the one using the table,” Hunter said. “I’d bet he was more palace guard than king.”

“If we get lucky, his snaky fingerprints are all over that altar,” Jase said.

“Oh, I think Snakeman is more than capable of murdering people just because he can,” Hunter said. “But he didn’t strike me as the religious type, old or new.” He took back the sketchbook and pointed to the second drawing. “What about this?”

Lina hadn’t been looking forward to that question. The jaguar altar could have come from a relatively large number of sites. But the mask…

“It depends on your interpretation of the symbols around the mask,” she said.

“It’s stone,” Hunter said. “Couldn’t tell what kind. Too dark. It could even have been cement. Bigger than life by about twice.”

“If the artifact is only a tenth as well done as the sketch, I doubt that it’s made of cement,” Lina said.

“Was that a compliment?” Jase asked, looking at Hunter with a sly smile.

“Truth,” Lina said to Hunter. “You should be an artist.”

He looked bemused. “Pay sucks.”

“If you could take the Yucatan jungle, you’d be real useful on a dig,” she said.

Jase laughed. “Ma’am, Hunter spends half his time in Mexico, on back roads or worse.”

She looked at Hunter as though seeing him for the first time. “Really.”

He tapped the second drawing. “Let’s stay on topic.”

Visibly, Lina thought over whether to accept the change of subject. When she did, Hunter suspected he’d be hearing more about art later. That was okay. He’d be glad to get naked and talk about whatever she wanted.

At length.

Depth, too.

“This looks like an elaborate stone mask,” she said. “The crown or whatever is unusual, more like stylized sun rays or something shining from or through the mask. It reminds me of…”

“What?” Hunter asked.

“Come with me. I have a piece of wood I want you to look at.”

Jase made a choking sound and looked sideways at Hunter’s lap.

Hunter flipped him off.

But he was grateful for the walk through the museum’s maze, because his pants fit better at the end of the stroll than at the beginning.

Gotta get my mind off sex,
Hunter told himself, watching Lina’s prim and proper body striding ahead of him.
Yeah, like that’s going to happen. The lady has an outstanding ass. Perfect for my hands, perfect for my—

Stop thinking about it.

Quickly Lina walked toward a room that held special, temporary cases—locked, controlled for temperature and humidity. Every step of the way she told herself that she was imagining the waves of sexual heat coming off Hunter. Her outfit was a simple dark pantsuit, nothing clingy, nothing feminine, no peekaboo tease, nothing to make her feel like Hunter’s glance was caressing her hips.

What is it about that man? He makes me feel…odd. Fizzy.

Sexy.

Try stupid,
she advised herself.
He’s the one who’s sexy, not me. And he’s the next thing to a blackmailer, remember?

She remembered, she just didn’t care. Maybe her previously unsuspected bad-girl self was coming out to play.

Automatically Lina punched in her code, held the door for the men to enter the room, and made sure the door locked again.

The door opened into a room flooded with cool, blue-white light. The illumination was indirect, bounced from hidden lights, with no obvious source. Inside a transparent, humidity-controlled case, a sheet of very dark red wood rested on a stark white sheet. The wood was perhaps twenty inches long, two-thirds as wide, and appeared to be the top of a sacred box that had once held a god bundle.

Each time Lina saw the artifact, it took her breath and set her mind on fire. There was something richly organic and alive about the wood, as if it might flow right out of the case into a Maya priest’s smoke dreams. A crack ran across the lower third of the artifact, a new break that told of a missing wedge of wood.

Hunter looked from the dark wood to Lina’s face. The distance between this room and the bloody evil of the basement was so great he had a hard time holding it in his mind. Belatedly he realized Lina was talking.

“Then we’ll verify the age by several kinds of analysis,” Lina said. She looked at him. “Hunter?”

“Sorry. The contrast between this museum room and that barrio basement…” He shook his head

She put her hand on his arm. “The job you and Jase do must be nearly impossible.”

“One of the reasons I’m no longer with ICE,” Hunter agreed, putting his hand over hers.

Jase looked from one to the other and felt invisible. He had always accepted Hunter’s differences—especially his intense awareness of things most other people didn’t notice—but every so often Jase was reminded all over again. Like now. He had a sense of what Lina and Hunter were talking about, yet he didn’t quite understand it.

But they certainly did. Even Jase could feel the sexual energy between them. It made him think about going home and nibbling on his wife. All over.

Lina cleared her throat and turned to the artifact case and the oddly radiant wood, taking refuge in professionalism. It was either that or start undressing Hunter with more than her mind.

“After I saw your photos,” she said, “I reviewed every bit of private and published research on the Kawa’il cult. When I found nothing to explain most of your artifacts, I looked for reasons why someone might create counterfeits. Only a few people in the world care enough to go to those lengths. My father does, but he couldn’t. It’s not a matter of professional standards so much as creating those artifacts would take an act of imagination that he simply isn’t capable of.”