Cult of the Black Jaguar (2 page)

Amos frowned in confusion. “Twenty-three? That would have made you, what, thirteen?”

“What? No. I meant I was twenty-three when it happened. Thirty-three was the year.” Ethan slid his Colt back into the worn leather holster under his left arm, cursing himself for his slip of the tongue. Sometimes keeping secrets was harder than the most grueling hike.

“C'mon, let's get everyone into their tents for the night.”

Ethan had the team up and the camp broken before the first hint of dawn lightened the sky.

“How much farther to Ah Puch?” he asked Veracruz, as everyone shouldered their packs.

The wiry native, who'd been sullen and uncommunicative since the jaguar attack, squinted in concentration. “We are very close. Before nightfall for sure.”

“Hear that, folks? Tonight we dine in the lost city.”

“After what happened last night I thought you would want to go back.”

“Go back? Not a chance. Get your men ready. I want to be on the trail in ten.”

Veracruz gave him a curt nod and pulled Popi and Luz aside. He spoke to them sternly in their native tongue, a rapid mixture of Spanish and Mayan of which Ethan only caught a few words. The two porters grabbed rifles and machetes and made their way swiftly into the jungle.

“Where are they going?”

“I have sent them ahead to clear the path for us and look for signs of jaguars,” Veracruz said. “They will meet us at Ah Puch.”

“Sounds like an excellent idea.” Harrison let his pack slide from his narrow shoulders and lit up a cigarette. “Let's give them a chance to cut some of the bloody plant life away. We'll make much better time.”

Ethan started to object, until he noticed the way Heathcliff Pascal's face was already turning an alarming shade of red just from lifting his backpack.

“All right, we'll wait an hour before bugging out.” He set his own pack down and pulled a cheroot from his breast pocket. Trailing ghostly streams of odiferous smoke behind him, he casually made his way over to Heathcliff's side.

“How are you feeling, old man?” Ethan gave him a smile to take the sting out of his comment.

“I've been better.” Pascal mopped at his face with a handkerchief already soaking wet with perspiration and stained the same black as the jungle soil.

The professor's statement caught Ethan by surprise.

“I've never heard you admit to not feeling well. Not even that time you came down with malaria in the Congo.”

Pascal sighed. “It's the heat,” he said, shifting the handkerchief to his neck.

Ethan shook his head. “Don't give me that. You've spent more than half your life in jungles and deserts. Trekked for days in conditions a lot worse than this.”

Heathcliff looked across camp, where Jenny was busy writing in her field notebook, her eyes squinted comically as she concentrated on her work, oblivious to the cloud of bloodsucking insects surrounding her.

“Don't say anything to her, Ethan. But it's my heart. The medicine's not working as well as it used to. I'm afraid this is my final journey. When we get home, I'll be relegated to a teaching position.”

“What?” The professor's words stabbed Ethan's heart. “Why didn't you tell me this before?”

Heathcliff grinned at him, and for a moment he looked like a jolly caricature of Saint Nick, with his red face and white beard. All he needed to complete the image were the round glasses, which Ethan knew were tucked into one of his many pockets.

“And have you talk me out of my last big adventure? Not a chance.”

“There are alternatives to the medicine.”

Ethan's words, and the unspoken request behind them, drew the same response they always did, a shake of the professor's head and a rueful smile.

“No, my old friend. I won't be taking that road. One life is enough. But I thank you for the offer.”

Ethan forced a smile in return, even though his heart felt gripped by steel-cold grief.

“Stubborn to the end. Okay, I'll keep my mouth shut. On one condition,” he added, holding up a finger. “You let me carry some of you gear in my pack.”

“Agreed.”

Ethan watched as the old man got up and joined his daughter. Jenny's face beamed with happiness, the way it always did whenever she and her father got to work together.

Ethan let out a slow breath. He wondered if she brought the same fervor to the bedroom as she did to her work.

Stop dreaming,
he told himself.
To her you'll always just be an uncle, or a friend. And that's the way it should be.

He stubbed out his cigar, grinding it into the ground with his boot until only shreds remained.

Much like his heart felt.

Heathcliff Pascal stumbled again on the rough trail. He barely managed to keep his balance by grabbing Ethan's shoulder with a shaky, liver-spotted hand.

“Thank you,” he gasped, as Ethan steadied him. His face was red and blotchy. Rivulets of sweat gouged deep tracks as they carved their way through the accumulation of dirt and dead insects on his neck.

With the revelation of the professor's health condition still fresh in his mind, Ethan decided to call a rest stop, even though they'd only been walking for two hours since lunch.

“Okay, everyone, ten-minute break before we finish the last leg to the city.”

Even with a trail cut for them by Popi and Luz, the expedition team had found the going tough. Hidden roots waited to trip the unwary foot, and hanging vegetation clutched at faces and arms. Thorns and razor-sharp leaves nicked and cut, drawing drops of blood that in turn attracted even more flies and mosquitoes than usual. Veracruz fared a little better than the others thanks to his smaller stature, and Ethan's years of experience helped him avoid the majority of botanical obstacles. But Heathcliff, Harrison and Jenny were gasping for air as they slid out of their packs and sat down.

“Christ, how much further is this lost city?” Rory Amos took a long drink from his canteen and then splashed some water on his handkerchief and placed it over his head to cool himself. He'd been chaperoning Elton Harrison, who'd kept up a running litany of complaints about the hike, the country and the Mayans in general for not living closer to civilization.

“The Mayans typically maintained large territories,” Jenny said, wiping her face and neck with a blue bandana. Sweat soaked her tan shirt, molding it to her body in a manner that left nothing to the imagination. Her flushed cheeks, together with the damp locks of flaming copper hair that hung down across her forehead, provided Ethan with a vivid picture of how she would look under more pleasant—but no less exhausting—circumstances.

He forced himself to glance away as his lust rose again. Even then, the image stayed with him. He remembered the feel of her chest against him the previous night, with only two thin layers of cotton separating their flesh.

A hacking cough brought his attention back from his unwanted carnal thoughts.

“Are you all right, Father?” Jenny patted Heathcliff's back.

“Just tired and hot. I'll be better once we reach Ah Puch.”

“Well, then, let's not sit here on our bums wasting time. The sooner we reach this fabled city of yours the sooner we can set up a proper camp and rest our feet.” Harrison's legs bowed a little as he shouldered his pack, but he managed to stay upright.

“It is not much farther,” Veracruz said. He pointed down the trail and started walking, not bothering to see if anyone followed. His surly, brooding mood had not improved during the long trek, and Ethan found himself wondering why the man would work as a guide if he hated the jungle so much.

With a shrug, Ethan slid his pack onto his shoulders before helping the Jenny and Heathcliff don theirs.

“Onward, ho.”

The smile Jenny flashed at him kept him from thinking about the oppressive tropical heat for a good ten minutes.

Half an hour later, Veracruz pushed back a final curtain of hanging branches and stepped aside.

“Ah Puch.”

“Good Lord,” whispered Heathcliff.

The City of the Dead lived up to its name.

Two stone pillars, carved with intricate reliefs of animal figures, human skulls and demonic faces, marked the entrance to Ah Puch. A snarling jaguar head, fashioned from solid obsidian, sat atop each pillar. Red-jeweled eyes sparkled ferociously in the rising sun.

A broad road, its ancient stone paving blocks overgrown with grasses and vines, stretched forward in front of the expedition team, extending the entire length of the long-lost city. Temples and other buildings rose into the air on both sides of the primitive avenue, some of the massive structures surprisingly intact, others nothing but mossy remains.

Centuries of weather and abandonment had taken their toll on the miracles of prehistoric construction. Crumbling walls spilled stones into the semi-clear areas between the buildings, and the jungle vegetation had re-assumed control of the city, encroaching from all sides and overgrowing what had once been grassy campuses and open fields. Creeping vines and roots crawled across everything, doing their best to obscure the ornate pictographs of birds, serpents, humans and jaguars that decorated all the walls and pillars.

Smaller buildings, little more than rectangular mounds of green after centuries of abandonment, were visible to the left and right, set back from the myriad narrow pathways and side streets.

At the far end of a wide central plaza, a massive pyramid towered over the ancient city. Easily a hundred feet high, it dwarfed the other structures, which in their eroded, broken state appeared to be bowing in worship. Each side of the triangular-shaped edifice was a tall, narrow staircase. Three hundred sixty-five steps per side, one for each day of the year. The encroaching vines and undergrowth only reached halfway up the sides, giving the edifice the look of a snow-capped mountain. Unlike the ruins around it, the pyramid showed no signs of deterioration.

“Unbelievable,” Jenny Pascal said in an awed voice, as they passed between the pillars and entered the long-lost, mythical city. “That pyramid has to be the Temple de Sangre. Father, you've found it!”

“
We've
found it, my dear. I couldn't have done this without you. Without any of you,” he added, extending his arms to acknowledge the entire party.

“Congratulations, Heathcliff. Once again you've proved the world wrong. Ah Puch really does exist.” Ethan clapped a hand on his old friend's shoulder.

“How come nobody's ever found this place before?” Rory Amos asked as the two anthropologists began photographing the carvings on a nearby wall. He and Ethan helped them by clearing away some of the clinging vegetation. “I mean, a city this size ought to be visible from the air.”

“Not many planes fly over this part of the world,” Ethan replied. “Besides, it would just blend in with the rest of the jungle. You'd have to be flying low and looking hard in order to make out the buildings.”

“Still, that temple sticks out like a sore thumb.”

Ethan shrugged. “Maybe no one else had the courage or determination to try to find it.”

“Or perhaps those foolish enough to venture into the jungles of the Ah Puch before you ended their lives as sacrifices for the Gods,” Veracruz said from nearby. He stood next to a square, single-story building that Jenny theorized was the Ossuary. Detailed reliefs of human skulls covered the outside walls.

“It's where the Mayans housed the bones of their dead.”

“Bloody morbid thinking,” Harrison commented, taking off his glasses and polishing them with his shirt. “Let's hope the local gods don't like to eat foreigners.”

“Oh, but they do, Señor Harrison.”

Before anyone could comment on his remark, Veracruz pulled out a large pistol and aimed it at them. “Drop your weapons, please.”

Ethan took two quick steps forward, but stopped when the muzzle of the gun swung towards him.

“Mr. Veracruz! What is the meaning of this?” Heathcliff Pascal stood up and glared at the native guide. If the sight of the gun frightened him, he didn't show it.

“My people are the last guardians of Ah Puch. Your blood will feed our Priestess and bring our city back to life.”

He fired a shot into the ground near Ethan's feet. The report echoed from building to building before the jungle swallowed it. “Now, drop your weapons or I will be forced to kill one of you.”

Ethan clenched his teeth until his jaw ached but he did as the man asked, tossing his custom Colt and military knife to the ground. Rory Amos, eyes flashing with the same anger Ethan was feeling, complied as well. He placed his short-barreled shotgun on the ground and kicked it towards Veracruz. His blade went next to Ethan's.

Veracruz smiled, his narrow eyes and thin mustache turning the gesture into a sardonic grimace.

“Into the Ossuary, please. You will remain there until it is time to feed your bodies to the Jaguar gods.”

“I don't think so!” Ethan dove forward and seized Veracruz's wrist, aiming the gun up in the air at the same time. He brought his free hand around in hard haymaker, his fist connecting hard with the point of the traitor's chin.

Veracruz stumbled backwards, dragging the larger man with him. Ethan had a moment to curse his bad luck to be fighting in the daylight, and then the two of them were rolling on the hard, dusty ground, fighting for control of the pistol.

Ethan landed another punch, this time to the midsection. Hector's breath sailed out in a large gasp and Ethan was able to wrest the gun away. He placed the barrel against Veracruz's head.

“I don't know what your game is, Hector, but it's over.”

Veracruz coughed as he attempted to fill his lungs with air. “Yes, it is, Señor Foster. You and your people will not leave here alive, no matter what you do to me. Your blood will give the Priestess the strength to bring the Gente de Jaguar back to life.”