The Bloodgate Warrior (11 page)

“What else is down there?” In my attempt to sound brave, I spoke louder than I’d intended and my words echoed in the ruins.

“Something with enough power to raise a corpse from its grave,” Técun replied. “How many more we may find or how they’ve risen, I have no idea. Yet.”

“Could it be Alvarado?”

“I am called back through the gate by a distant descendant of the very man who killed me. I have his spear with my blood on it and Tecubalsi magic pulses in your blood, the same that bound me to fulfill Xicoténcatl’s revenge against him. I think it likely he’s at the center of this, don’t you?”

My heart pounded violently, like he’d cracked open my rib cage so he could yank it out. “You’re going to fight him again, even if he’s some kind of zombie?”
When he killed you last time?

“You confirmed he’s buried here. I must ensure that his resting place is undisturbed. The creature that attacked last night could be one of his minions.”

“You’re saying that Alvarado is going to be a fucking zombie just like that thing last night?” Natalie retorted. “You’re insane. Cass, don’t go down there. Once was bad enough, but this time there might be zombies! It’s like a bad B-movie and you’re the heroine venturing into the basement armed only with a flashlight because you thought you heard a noise. You know how that cheesy movie’s going to end!”

I tried to delay making a decision by asking questions. “How could Alvarado have that kind of power? He’s dead! It doesn’t make any sense.” Unfortunately, that line of reasoning could be answered only by me. “Wait, the journal. When Leonor had him moved here forty years after his death in Mexico, she did something to lock him in…in…” I had no idea how to pronounce the strange word. “What’s the name of your underworld again?”

Although José’s hand trembled as he crossed himself, he moved closer to the hole. “Xibalba.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Natalie said. “Why would a Spanish conquistador be in the Mayan hell?”

“Don’t you think he deserved eternity in hell for the suffering he brought upon our people?” One of the Rojases butted in, civil but determined to make us understand. “He didn’t just conquer. He took great delight in torturing and slaughtering as many as possible. Even if his Christian god didn’t see fit to torment him for all eternity, ours certainly did.”

Técun shined a light down into the hole. “If Leonor used her mother’s magic to bind him to his grave, the same way Xicoténcatl bound me to her bloodline as I lay dying…” He turned his head, pinning me with the intensity of his gleaming eyes. “Then you’re the key to all of this, Cassie. You’re the only one who will be able to see what she did to bind him, and how he escaped that trap.”

“So there’s a gaping pit of hell down there?” My voice was more squeak than anything else. “And you want me to go with you?”

He did, I realized incredulously. If Luisa’s magic was involved in some way, he’d need me down there to feel it.

“Remember how you retrieved the spear when I could not.”

“Look, if you want to risk your life like a complete fucking moron, then you go right ahead.” Natalie whirled around and headed for the edge of the ruins. “I’m out of here.”

Panic tightened my throat. I didn’t want to go down there at all, especially without my best friend. “But you wanted to see the cathedral!”

“I’ve seen it. It wasn’t so great thanks to that earthquake. Now I’d really like to see the Arco de Santa Catalina. I’ll meet you back at the hotel for dinner. If you survive.”

“Wait! You can’t go alone, Nat. What if more of those zombie things are around?”

“It’ll be safer than going down into that hole with you!”

Técun gave a jerk of his head in her direction and one of the Rojases followed her. “Better?”

I nodded miserably. Better for her, but not for me.

Natalie hesitated a moment, as if she’d never expected me to call her bluff. If she left, she’d thought I’d go with her too. But how could I leave Técun if my ancestor’s magic really was the only key to defeating his enemy? If it were Alvarado waiting for him down there again… I couldn’t bear it if he died and I could have helped him. With a weary look on her face uncomfortably like betrayal, she turned her back and headed across the street with her Rojas guard in tow.

“Why don’t you wait here until I assess the situation?” Técun drew my attention back to him. “If the need for your magic arises, I’ll call you.”

Oh, sure, I’d just wait here in the dangerously crumbled ruins while he went down there and maybe died. He’d leave a man or two with me, and then he’d be even more at risk. Or maybe he’d get caught in some magical snare set by Leonor and then what would I do? Go down there alone and try to get him out, when I could have just gone along with him in the first place?

With all the bravado I could muster, I walked over to his side and stared down into the darkness. Hand-hewn steps disappeared into the ground. “Let’s do this.”

He took my hand in his and kissed the back of my knuckles. “With you at my side, not even Alvarado will dare lift his head from his unnatural slumber.”

I wasn’t so sure of that. Even if I had magic like Técun claimed, I sure didn’t know how to use it. In the midst of battle, I wouldn’t have time to whip out a
Magic for Dummies
book. Maybe Natalie was right and I was a moron. A fucking moron. Because—

He cupped my cheek in his free hand a moment, stilling my frantic mind.
“Relax,
noyollotl
. All will be well. I’ll die to keep you safe from all harm.”

Somehow that didn’t make me feel any better at all.

Chapter Nine

I gripped Técun’s arm so tightly I probably left claw marks in his skin. Again. He certainly had plenty of scratches from last night, and I guaranteed we weren’t enjoying this as much. The tunnel was wide enough for me to walk beside him if I scrunched against his side. I could only hope he didn’t need room to fight.

Damp rot filled my nose—the stench of crumbling coffins, rotting cloth and flesh and moldered rats’ nests. As we entered the main chamber, I saw all that and more. Skeletons tumbled out, broken and mixed beyond recognition. It looked like the coffins had just exploded. Or perhaps something had torn them apart. Dark earth was scattered about, mixed in with the bodies.

Fresh
dark earth.

I clamped my jaws together to keep my chattering teeth from clanking together.

“Something tore this place apart,” José said. His hands shook as badly as mine.

“The creature from last night must have passed through here.” Técun scanned the flashlight about the cavern, noting the different patches of fresh earth. Holes of light gleamed down from above. “Several others, I’m afraid. Although where they’ve gone we can only guess.”

“But you can kill them easily, right?” I sounded like a squeaky toy again. “You just ripped the thing’s head off last night. No big deal.”

“Because it was fresh from the grave. It hadn’t yet gained enough strength to truly cause harm.”

I probably didn’t want to know, but I had to ask. “So how does a fresh zombie gain strength? Braaaiiiins?”

He must not have gotten my joke, because he answered very seriously. “Preferably more blood than brains, although it’ll feast on any tissue—human or not, although it definitely prefers human—it can get its claws on. As soon as we return to the surface, we must inquire about any murders or disappearances last night. In this journal, did Leonor say where she’d buried Alvarado?”

“She said there was a Mayan temple beneath the cathedral. She said something about an altar and a hole or cave that they used to communicate with their ancestors.”

Técun shook his head. “Then we must go deeper.”

Barely biting back my cry of dismay, I latched on to his arm again. These stairs were slick with moss. Bugs and worms slithered everywhere. I shrank as tight and small as I could, pressing tightly to Técun. The skittering of claws and wings made my skin crawl. So many bugs. My stomach rolled.

“Loathsome things.” He scooped me up into his arms, and I couldn’t even protest the display of my weakness before his men. If one of those millipedes touched me, I’d run stark raving mad until I reached the United States again. Or maybe I’d keep running right on to Canada. “Whatever’s down here draws the creatures of darkness to him. Marco, Jorge, take the lead. Alert us to a possible ambush.”

The two Rojases brushed past us, one hand loaded with a flashlight, the other with a semiautomatic gun. I hoped guns worked against a zombie.

I pulled back to glare up at Técun. “Why don’t you have a gun?”

“My magic is more powerful than any human-made technology. Besides, I have the spear.” He touched a leather pouch strapped across his chest. “I hope to find Alvarado quickly, but I expect he’s already gone. He shall not be so easy to kill.”

I averted my eyes, pressing my face against his neck. I didn’t want to think about that spear. How I’d gotten it out of limbo or wherever my distant ancestor had hidden it. Let alone what the spear had done to him in the first place. “I still don’t understand why you need the weapon that killed you.”

“My blood makes it a powerful weapon, Cassie.” He shifted me lower and ducked against me. The tunnel must have gotten even tighter. Or maybe there was something extremely nasty that even he didn’t want to touch. For a moment we were falling and I almost screamed, but then his feet thudded hard, jolting my teeth.

He continued talking as if he hadn’t just jumped several feet. “This weapon gained some of my spirit, my magic, because it took my life. With this in my hand, I can force back all the tides of Xibalba without once calling on my magic.”

“Why didn’t you call your magic that day in the battle? If you’re so powerful, why didn’t you just kill all the Spaniards?”

I winced after I asked, because I sounded so accusatory.

“When I come through the gate, I don’t have my full power. I can’t bring all my magic through the first crossing without causing destruction and chaos to follow. There are rituals that will increase my power, but at the time…”

His words fell off and I felt a sense of…disquiet and reluctance. I leaned back again so I could see his face. “Don’t tell me you needed to sacrifice a few people on top of a pyramid or something.”

He grinned, his teeth gleaming white and fierce in the darkness. “Something like that.”

Oh crap. I wasn’t sure at all about that smile. He shifted me tighter against him, pulling my face against his neck. “Don’t look, Cassie. We’re almost there.”

Of course now I had to look. I twisted my face and peeked over his shoulder behind us. José’s flashlight bounced off the walls and floor, illuminating skulls and lots of them. We cleared the tunnel, which gave the mounds of bones more room.

They’d made pyramids from skulls.

“We often built on top of older ruins to make use of the power infused in the buildings through ritual and sacrifice.” Técun let me slip down to stand beside him. “In this case, the Spaniards decided to do the same in order to show their power over us. They built this Christian church on top of one of our most ancient temples. The power in this place…”

His rumbling voice thrummed down my spine. I looked up at his face and his eyes shone strangely in the darkness, wet and shiny like dark icy pools of water.

“Did she intend to give him this power,” Técun whispered, “or use it against him to keep him imprisoned?”

He took my hand and we weaved our way through the piles of bones toward a central circular stonework that crumbled with age. It looked like an old well, except it was several times larger in radius. Water plopped in the darkness. Holding on to Técun, I looked down inside, but I couldn’t tell how deep it went. “From everything I’ve read, she hated and feared him.”

In the center, a platform rose up out of the water. On top, a carved stone coffin rose like a crown. Its cover was broken, ajar and partially missing. Not a good sign.

A huge cross—that had probably once run the width and breadth of the sarcophagus lid—was cracked in half. One large piece had tumbled into the shallow water.

The silence seemed to press down on me. My heart pounded a ponderous, painful rhythm. My breath quickened. I wasn’t scared, not exactly. How could I be scared with the world’s greatest warrior beside me? No, it was something else. My limbs felt heavy, too, like all the blood was pooling low in my body.

“She bound him to Xibalba by using our holy place and the water.” Even Técun seemed affected by this strange place. I associated that low rumbling growl with the bedroom. He’d certainly used that growl on me several times last night, to my great enjoyment. “He lay here, bound by her magic and trapped in Xibalba, until the earthquake jarred the lid lose. I bet the earthquake happened the day you first set foot on Guatemalan soil.”

I gasped. “You mean it’s my fault? Damn it, I never should have come here!”

“Not your fault, but bound to happen. Your blood called to me across a gate that had been locked for hundreds of years. As soon as you came to me through the gate that first time, you were destined to bring me through to defeat Alvarado once more. None other than Xicoténcatl’s blood could call me forth.”

He turned his head and pinned me with his glowing eyes. “You feel her magic in this place.”

Automatically, I shook my head. Rationally, I still didn’t believe in magic. Yet I couldn’t deny the throbbing of my pulse. My heart felt like it was trying to crawl up into my throat. I certainly didn’t want to think about how hard my nipples were, or how wet I must be. Not here, in this nasty, scary tunnel.
What’s wrong with me?

“Alvarado is gone, freed of her magic. Touch what she did, here, so we may understand how she bound him. That will give me the knowledge to return him to his prison once we find him.”

“He’s not here? You’re sure?”

Técun pressed his mouth to my ear, his tongue tracing the curves and whorls until my knees trembled. “Do you think you I’d allow you to stand here tormenting me if any danger remained? I have no sense of evil lingering in this place, only the magic that quickens my blood and hardens my desire for you.”