The Fifth Kingdom (18 page)

“Bill. Oh, God, Bill,” Deanna cried and pressed her hands against the gunshot wound in his abdomen, eerily reminiscent of the nightmare she’d had that morning. She tried to stem the flow of blood, but it just kept on seeping from between her fingers. Staining them with what looked like black oil in the light from the lantern Miranda had brought over.

“S’okay,” he said and raised his hand, feebly covering hers.

Even in the dim light from the lantern, his face was a ghostly white, almost as if death had already claimed him.

She bent over him, whispered a kiss across his lips. “You can’t leave me. Not now, damn it.”

He patted her hand and tried to speak, but all that came out was a rough breath as he struggled for air.

This wasn’t happening, she thought and rose up again, pressed tighter against the wound. But when Miranda lit up a few sconces along the walls of the space, Deanna noted the splotch of blood on the ground beneath him. Watched as it grew into a large pool as the seconds passed by.

He was bleeding to death before her eyes and there was nothing she could do about it.

She bent and took him into her arms, experienced the warmth of his blood spilling onto her hands and arms from the gaping exit wound in his back. Kissing the side of his face, tears streaming down her own, she said, “I love you, Bill. I love you. Please don’t leave me.”

His body shook as he struggled for a breath and she met his gaze, filled with love. The hint of a smile formed on his lips, making words unnecessary.

And then he was gone.

His eyes lost the glaze of life and his lips went slack. His body grew heavy in her arms, but she kept on holding him, rocking back and forth with him in her arms, not wanting to believe he was dead.

A consoling touch came at her shoulder. “Deanna, I’m so sorry.”

“Leave me alone, Miranda. You know how that’s done,” she lashed out in pain.

Her mother’s touch didn’t waver, but only grew stronger. “I would trade places with him if I could.”

Deanna shook her head. “He wouldn’t want that.” She hesitated for a moment, then plowed forward.

“And neither would I,” she said, burying her head against the side of his face. It was still warm with life. Fragrant with his unique scent, but soon the metallic aroma of blood filled her nostrils.

Once again, her mother stroked her hand along her back and urged, “He gave his life for us, Deanna. Don’t waste that sacrifice. We need to get out of here.”

She wanted to rebel against her mother’s entreaty, but every bone in her body understood that she was right. With a last gaze into his beautiful gray eyes, free of any clouds of hurt now, she closed them and offered a final kiss. “I will love you forever.”

A gentle pat from her mother offered additional consolation, but she shrugged off the empathy and gently laid Bill down on the blood-soaked dirt.

Miranda grabbed the lantern beside him and Deanna rose slowly, logic driving her to go while emotion chained her feet to the ground.

“Please, Deanna,” her mother pleaded, holding the lantern high at the entrance to another part of the space.

Deanna fought back the agony, acknowledging that Bill would have wanted her to complete the mission and safeguard the lives of countless others. She forced herself to take the first step away from him and toward her mother. Took another and then another until she was slipping past the opening and into a second, larger chamber.

In the center of the space was a large pile of half-burnt wood, ashes and the remnants of a skeleton neatly collected to one side of what was clearly a funeral pyre. All around the walls were Aztec glyphs and with only a quick perusal combined with the dim light, it was impossible to read what they said. But her mother quickly supplied the answer.

“It’s the story of Montezuma’s death. His real death and his burial here,” she said and motioned to the remnants of the fire in the center of the space.

Deanna peered at the ancient pyre and then looked upward, searching for signs of an air hole, but centuries of dirt had obscured the opening at the top of Montezuma’s tomb.

Now Bill’s tomb,
she thought and walked toward where her mother stood, raising the lantern high again.

The glint of silver, gold and shiny black obsidian came as Miranda illuminated the relic on the stone wall. A copy of the famous Aztec Sun Stone hanging in the museum in Mexico City. Unlike the massive twenty-four ton original with the twelve-foot diameter, this sun stone was only a foot across.

Deanna shook her head, unable to believe that Bill and so many others had died for this tiny piece of stone and precious metal.

“We can’t let PM get their hands on this,” Miranda said and something snapped in Deanna.

“This? This is worth killing over?”

She snatched the relic from the wall, but when her bloodied hands came into contact with the stone, silver and gold, a buzz of energy filled the air around them and the stone began to vibrate in her hands.

“What the hell?” she said and held up the stone. A glimmer erupted at its center and moved outward, enveloping both her and her mom.

“What’s happening?” Miranda said, stepping closer to examine the stone as the glimmer grew brighter.

“You don’t know?” she asked her mother.

Miranda shook her head. “I was afraid they’d either sell it or use it as a symbol. Rally people to their cause.”

When the glow continued to brighten, Miranda asked, “What is it doing?”

Deanna couldn’t explain the almost electrical vibration emanating from where her hands were in contact with the relic. As she brought the stone up into the light from the lantern and examined it more closely, it seemed as if the gold and silver ring surrounding the center of the stone was now fluid, able to spin around the obsidian in the middle. She took hold of the outer ring firmly and moved the stone center, but suddenly the room around her spun as well.

As she moved the obsidian heart of the sun stone, the space around her shifted, the action almost disorienting when images of her and her mother moved forward and backward. It was almost as if she was a film editor shifting from scene to scene. Replaying them with a simple twist of a knob.

Turning the center counterclockwise, she rewound to the point where she was kneeling beside Bill, the grief in her face visible as she acknowledged that he was dying. The grief on her mother’s face plainly evident also now that Deanna had become an observer to the action.

Deanna released her grip on the stone and the playback stopped.

For a moment time seemed suspended, then suddenly she was falling down into the image in the scene and a second later she was back on her knees beside Bill, the stone in a tight grasp. Her mother stood beside her, much as she had just moments earlier, only confusion blossomed on her face now, chasing away the anguish, as she saw the stone in Deanna’s hands. In disbelief, she glanced at her daughter and then at the opening to the other chamber into which they had walked a few minutes before.

Minutes before in another past. Or was it another present,
Deanna wondered. One she had seen in her dream that morning?

Beneath her fingers, the vibrations and electrical charge in the sun stone dimmed as the blood dried on her hands. She laid the sun stone on the ground beside Bill, but when she placed her hands on his wound, she realized what she had to do.

Bending, she kissed him and whispered against his lips, “No goodbyes this time, my love.”

With his blood fresh on her hands, she grabbed the stone again and the shock of its energy traveled through her. Marshaling control, she turned the obsidian center counterclockwise until the point in time where she and Bill were standing in the gap outside the tomb. Only this time things would be different.

Breaking contact with the stone, she grabbed hold of Bill’s shoulder and dragged him back with her into the tomb.

“What the fuck?” Bill said when she yanked on his shoulder, making him fire up into the air a second before he hit the far wall and a bullet slammed into the rock across from him. A bullet that might have hit him if Deanna had not pulled him away. She grabbed him again before he could act, leading him through a gap in the wall and into partial darkness.

“Help me close the door,” she said, directing him to a large slab of flat stone by the narrow entrance through which they had just entered.

“Push,” she commanded and he didn’t argue. To his surprise, the stone moved, the sound of rock grating against rock echoing around the walls of the chamber in which they had taken shelter.

A second later a light snapped on and Miranda approached, carrying a portable lantern that she placed at their feet. She helped them give a final push to shut the door and then roll another large boulder to secure it in place.

“How did you know?” she asked her daughter, puzzlement in her tone.

“Let’s get some light in this place,” Deanna replied and while Bill watched, she walked around the edges of the tomb lighting sconces, as comfortable as if she had been here before.

“I don’t understand,” Miranda said and Bill joined her with his confusion. Deanna took a spot in the center of the chamber, clutching something to her midsection.

Her bloodied midsection, he realized as he finally noted the stains on her tank top and vest. His gut twisted at the thought she might be injured and he rushed to her side.

“You’re hurt,” he said, but up close he saw that the blood was already drying on her clothes and arms.

So much blood could only mean death, he thought. He met her gaze and the trails of tears were evident along her visage.

“What happened?” he asked, cupping her cheek and wiping away the tears.

She launched herself against him and cradled the back of his head, making him wince from the tenderness at the back of his skull.

“You’re alive. Thank God, you’re alive,” she said and rained kisses on his face. The stone clutched in her hands trapped between them.

“What do you mean? What are you holding?” Miranda asked and came near.

Deanna seemed reluctant to leave his side, but he gently urged her away and repeated, “What happened?”

“You died, Bill,” she stated bluntly and then faced her mother. “And you know what I have here, Miranda. The sun stone from the next chamber.”

As Deanna held out the relic to her mother, a furrow worked across Miranda’s forehead, much like the one that would appear on her daughter’s face when she was puzzled or worried.

Miranda took the stone in her hand, but wagged her head with doubt. “I don’t understand. The stone was in the next room. It
is
in the next room,” she said and snatched up the lantern to race into the adjacent space.

Bill and Deanna followed, but as Miranda approached the wall where the sun stone had hung just minutes earlier, the spot was now empty. Only a shadow remained on the wall.

“Impossible,” Miranda muttered and faced them. “How did this happen?”

“Bill was shot on our way into the tomb. He died in my arms.” She glanced back up at him and tears welled up in her eyes once more before she continued.

“Then you brought me here into this chamber with his blood on my hands. His blood activated the stone when I grabbed it.” Her voice wavered from the emotion of what she was recounting.

Miranda glanced down at the stone and then at her daughter. While it seemed impossible on its face, there was no denying her daughter’s emotional state. Deanna truly believed what she was saying. And if that wasn’t enough, there was no way to deny the visible proof on her daughter.

Deanna had smears of blood all along her arms. Her hands were covered in blood, both fresh and drying. The front of her vest and shirt likewise bore evidence of serious blood loss, but Deanna was clearly uninjured.

Deanna had somehow traveled back through time and although she claimed Miranda had been beside her, only the person with the sun stone could do the shift in time and recall what had happened.

“We cannot let this fall into the hands of the wrong people,” she said and glanced around the chamber, considering how they might get out of the tomb and away from their PM pursuers. There were two exits at the far side of the room holding the funeral pyre, but both went downward.

“Those two tunnels go to a lower level of this tomb.”

“If there are exits, they’ll likely be covered up with dirt and rubble,” Deanna offered, walking to one of the shafts and peering downward into the darkness.

“You’re right. The tomb has been buried by a variety of earthquakes and the natural shifting of earth and wreckage. It took that last quake to open the crack in the wall that led me to the entrance of the site,” Miranda explained.

“So we’re trapped in here,” Bill said with frustration and walked around the perimeter of the chamber, as if searching for any other ways of exit.

Miranda pointed to the stone which Deanna continued to hold. “There is only one way out–use the stone again.”

Her daughter stared down at the relic, clearly hesitant. Miranda could understand why. Going back again could change the outcome of where they were now—with her lover alive and well.

“If we do not do this, we may
all
die,” Miranda urged, comprehending her daughter’s reluctance.

Deanna shot an uncertain glance at Bill, the fear apparent on her face.

Bill returned to her side and slipped a hand on her waist, his touch meant to comfort. Instead, it only seemed to unnerve her daughter more. Especially as he said, “What’s important is getting the relic to a safe location. Especially now that we know what it can do.”

Almost as if to prove his point, the sounds of stone scraping against stone reached into the chamber. It wouldn’t be long before the Primera Mexica cell dislodged the boulder holding the door shut and made it into the burial site. If they did and got their hands on the sun stone….

Miranda laid a hand on her daughter’s as it rested on the relic. With a gentle stroke, she said, “Losing someone you care about is never easy.”

“Did you care? When you left me, did you care?” Deanna challenged, her emotions battered by the loss she had experienced just moments earlier in addition to her abandonment as a little girl.

“It broke my heart,” Miranda admitted, then reached up and stroked her hand along Deanna’s hair. “But I knew that it was for the best. Your father raised a remarkable woman.”

The rasp of the rock door moving intruded again.

With a sniff, Deanna pulled back her shoulders and turned into Bill’s embrace, the stone still clutched in her hands. “I love you,” he said and the words seemed to propel her into action.

“We need blood. That’s what activates the stone,” Deanna said, peering up at her lover.

Bill nodded and reached into his pants, pulled out a small pocketknife. With no hesitation, he cut an inches-long line along his forearm. When his blood flowed from the cut, he laid the open wound on the surface of the sun stone.

The relic awoke again, almost singing with energy with the fresh supply of blood. Like before, a buzz began beneath her palms and was followed by a surge of power through her hands. Then the center of the relic loosened. She twisted the obsidian counterclockwise and the room began to shift around her. Her mother and Bill vanished and then reappeared in the outer chamber, Bill hale and hearty. She paused to memorize that scene, unsure of whether changing the past would alter the happiness of that moment in time. She continued spinning the wheel, watching time turn backward and the images play before her eyes.

As she worked the relic, she realized that the blood was beginning to dry, making the wheel resist her efforts to turn it.

She had hoped to go way back in time, even possibly to that morning where they could arrange for additional manpower to meet them at the location of the fake base camp. But as the blood dried on the relic, the wheel became harder and harder to spin.

Difficult choices that had to be made immediately.

Stop before Bill was shot.

Rewind to where they entered the tomb.

Force time farther back,
she thought, fighting the center ring as it became more and more difficult to rotate and the images flying around her decelerated, almost in slow motion.

With a final hard twist, Deanna brought the wheel to the point in time that she hoped would alter what had already happened. A moment where a different decision might save all their lives and safeguard the relic.

She released the center ring. The images stilled around her, suspending her in time for a heartbeat before life resumed at its normal pace.

Deanna stood beside Miranda while Bill fiddled beneath the hood of the 4x4 as steam wafted around him.

“It’s the radiator,” he said and then slammed the hood shut. Facing her, he jerked back as he took note of her condition and the relic in her hands.

Miranda tracked his gaze and likewise seemed startled by what she was seeing. “How did you get that?”

“Down that arroyo in the tomb that you found,” Deanna explained, pointing to the path they had taken barely an hour earlier. A fateful hour that she had somehow recovered with the relic.

“I don’t understand,” Bill said, staring down at the sun stone, whose gold and silver outer ring and pure black obsidian center gleamed as the rays of the sun kissed its surface.

“I can explain, but we need to get going.”

“Into the arroyo?” Bill asked, motioning in the direction she had indicated earlier.

“No. We couldn’t find an exit out of the tomb, so we need to go in a different direction,” Deanna said and met her mother’s puzzled gaze. “You’re familiar with the area. We need to be able to contact someone for assistance.”

“There are some small buildings along the bottom of the hillside. They may have phones and it’s not more than a half an hour down the slope,” Miranda advised, shielding her eyes from the sun to likewise track the progress of her kidnappers.

In an eerie moment of déjà vu, Deanna almost lashed out to say that Bill was in no condition to go anywhere on foot. It was what she had said before when they had decided to go through the arroyo to the tomb.

“With the GPS devices still in the knapsacks, we should be able to quickly get help to one of those locations if I can contact someone,” Bill advised, leaning back against the vehicle, still clearly unsteady on his feet.

Unsteady, but alive, she thought, going to his side and slipping beneath his shoulder to offer support. “Are you sure you can make it that far?”

“We have no choice,
mi amor
.” He ran the back of his hand along her face, consoling her with that achingly familiar touch. With the words that had put them on a path that had cost him his life along another timeline.

Glancing at her mother, Deanna noted the raised eyebrow from Miranda at Bill’s gesture. Waited for what she knew would come next.

“Just who are you?” Miranda asked.

“CIA Agent Bill Santana,” he replied and held out his hand.

Miranda peered down at his hand and then followed the line of it to where he stood with Deanna tucked beneath his arm. “What are you to my daughter?”

Deanna bit back her earlier caustic reply, recalling her mother’s tenderness when she had consoled her over Bill’s dead body. Began to realize that there was more to her mother that she wanted to understand.

“Bill is my lover and if we all survive this, I’d like to think we may have a future together,” she replied.

Her mother narrowed her gaze and considered him. Nodded, but also took a moment to warn, “Don’t hurt my daughter.”

Deanna bit back another rejoinder about Miranda’s suddenly reawakened motherly instincts. While she wished that they had the time they needed to deal with the emotional baggage they were both carting around, now was not the moment to delay.

“We need to go,” she said before Bill could, but he started, almost as if sensing that something was wrong.

“Why do I feel as if that’s my line?” he asked.

“Maybe because it was.”