First You Run (22 page)

“Do you know Taliña?”

His face fell into disgust. “Not anymore.”

“But you did? You do?”

He nodded.

“Is that why all my books were here? Is she part of your movement? Does she work with you?”

“She was my queen. She was the magnet that drew in our followers. She was a healer, an interpreter.” His eyes filled as he looked at his hands, then back at her.

“Was?”

“She is gone.” He said it so softly she wasn’t sure she caught the words. But the finality of them, and the blood on his hands, made her go numb with fear.

He moved in closer, trapping her. His chest rose and fell quickly as he got closer. Too close.

She dropped her gaze and saw the loincloth tented with an erection. Drawing back, she almost gagged.

His blue eyes darkened, and the vein in his forehead jumped. “Taliña is gone,” he repeated. “Like all women, she could not be trusted. They prey on love and need. They give you life, they let you suckle at their breast, then they lie and spread their legs for anyone.”

Miranda backed against the wall, bracing her palms on the stone. Right behind him was a deep chasm. She’d kick him in and run like hell.

“Did she lie to you?”

As soon as he got emotional,
wham,
right in the nuts. Then, when he was off balance, she’d push him backward.

But he slammed his hands on either side of the stone behind her head, his breath hot on her face, beads of sweat over his lip. Just as she lifted her leg, he jammed himself in between, trapping her and ruining her kick. “You will not say no to K’inich Ahkal Mo’ Nahb.”

The ridge of his penis pressed against her. “No.” She tried to push him back, but he was surprisingly strong for how thin he was. A wrestling match could end up with her in that hole instead of him.

Her purse thudded against her hip.
Be smart, not brave
. “Okay,” she whispered.

His mouth turned down. “You’re a whore, too.”

“Just don’t hurt me.” She took a deep breath, her plan forming in her head. “Why don’t we…lie down?”

He took a step back, distaste in his expression. “Get on your knees like the animal you are.”

She closed her eyes. “Please, don’t hurt me.”

He tightened one bloody hand around her shoulder, poking his thumb painfully deep into her flesh. “On your knees.”

She visualized where the purse would go if she knelt. Right by her hand.

He pushed her to the ground hard with a grunt.

Her hands slammed on the concrete again, and her purse clunked to the ground next to her face. The zipper was still open. She could see the
toli
.

“Take your pants down,” he ordered, kicking her thigh and tearing at the loin cloth. “Now!”

She lifted her hand as if she were going to do it but instead grabbed the mirror and turned, brandishing the weapon hard and fast, slashing everything in her way.

He screamed as she swiped his thighs and stomach and the erect penis he’d exposed. He fell, slamming one knee into her chest and crushing the air out of her lungs.

Swearing and bleeding, he rolled her, and she fought to hang on to the glass and get him again. Arms everywhere, blood and paint smeared out of focus as they wrestled next to the hole. She tried to kick, to bite, but he was more powerful.

With a roar of fury, she jabbed him in the neck, making him jerk backward in shock. But he had her right next to the edge of the grave, and with one brute shove, half her body hung perilously over the edge. She stabbed again, missing the artery but leaving a gash below his collarbone.

He twisted her arm back so hard she braced for the break. Then he kicked her. Her head cracked against the cement, and the shard went flying out of her hands.

Blood dripped onto her face, into her mouth, and she spat. Blood thumped in her head and she cried out when he aimed his foot at her stomach.

No, that wasn’t blood thumping. It was a
helicopter
. Before she could open her mouth, he kicked, loosening her grip, and all she heard was the sound of her scream as she fell, weightless for one second, then hitting the ground with a solid
thwack
on her back.

At first, she felt nothing. No pain, no shock, no sensation at all. Then she opened her eyes and looked up. The light was about ten feet above her and he peered over the hole, directly over her head.

A drop of something wet hit her cheek. His blood.

“The gods have answered all my favors,” he said, his strained voice eerily echoing in the tiny tomb. “I only have one sacrifice left to make.”

She opened her mouth to cry out, but when she saw the stone slab sliding overhead, her voice evaporated. He was trapping her, and Adrien would never find her under that slab. He would never know it covered a grave…
her
grave.

In the waning light she could see the steps, and she threw herself forward as the grinding of stone against stone filled her ears.

“No!” she sobbed, just as he pushed the flat stone an inch from completely closing. All she could see was his painted face—his sneer, his eyes, flat and deadly.

“I wouldn’t go poking around in the dark. You might disturb something. Although it really shouldn’t go off until after you’re dead.”

What shouldn’t go off?

The stone slid into place with a thud. Miranda took a breath, expecting the pressure of panic. But there was no panic. No squeezing of her lungs as she fought for air.

Because there was no air. And no sound.

Except for a steady whisper of shoosh. Shoosh. Shoosh.

The soft, even breaths of someone—or something—trapped in the tomb with her.

F
LETCH SMELLED BLOOD—ONE
of the many skills he’d learned in the bush. He catapulted up the few steps of the crypt and shouldered into the slender opening, only to freeze and stare.

Blood, mixed with something peacock blue, puddled in the crevices of the stone floor.

He spun around, surveying the place, before dropping to his knees to touch the blood, determine it was very fresh, and smell the other substance. Paint. Oil-based. Also fresh, and mixed with what he’d guess was human sweat.

If this wasn’t Junior’s blood, then it was Miranda’s.

Fury and fear welled up in him as he followed the trail of blood, out of the crypt and into the jungle, headed due south. He lost the trail a few times, but every few minutes, he’d find more blood.

If Wild Eyes had captured her, he didn’t want to risk alerting them that he was following, so he fought the desire to holler Miranda’s name as he followed the trail. Without losing momentum, he called Sage Valentine to get a location.

“The locator hasn’t moved, Fletch. It’s exactly where it’s been since you last called me.”

But she was gone—or she’d left her phone behind. Could it have been on the floor of that crypt and he missed it? Someone made this trail of blood. If it didn’t lead to her, then it had to lead to the last person who saw her.

“Call me if her location changes.” He flipped the phone off and burrowed deeper into the jungle, running as fast as he could when he realized the trail was taking him directly to the place where they’d seen the smoke.

Sure enough, there was another thin trail curling into the sky. He studied the rectangular stucco building, this one painted green and decorated with more jade masks, a different carving over the door.

Slowly, stealthily, he approached the structure. He circled once, then came back to the front entrance, certain it was the only way in or out, except for the chimney on the flat-topped roof.

Underfoot, more blood and blue paint pooled in the dirt.

He placed his hand on the solid stone door and pushed. It didn’t budge. He tried to slide it from one side to the other, but it was immovable. And bullets would bounce right off.

How the bloody hell could he get in there? He ran to the back again, where a few carvings jutted out enough for him to scale the building, which couldn’t have been ten feet high. He doubted he could be heard from the inside, since the structure was solid rock.

He got to the flat roof and peered into the chimney, not six centimeters wide and long. Directly below him, a man sat crosslegged in front of a bowl, a small fire burning in it. He extended his arm, and a knife blade glinted in the firelight.

Blood oozed from his wrist and forearm. He sliced a sliver of skin that hadn’t yet been cut, and fresh blood dribbled into the bowl.

Victor Blake, Junior.

Head lolling, Victor lifted a piece of paper, dropped it into the bowl, and let out a low, long sound that was half song, half growl. Fletch backed up as a puff of smoke shot through the chimney.

If the freak killed himself in there, how would Fletch get in? How would he find Miranda? If she wasn’t dead already.

He smashed the possibility and considered calling for backup. They could storm the stone door. Blow it up. He had to do something. He had to draw the bastard out before he killed himself.

Victor wailed again. This time, Fletch could make out the words. “Show me the answer. Give me a sign.”

He wanted a sign? Fletch wedged his gun into the chimney, aimed for the bowl, and fired, shattering it and throwing his victim backward.

Fletch shot again, and in less than three seconds, he heard the scraping sound of the stone door being opened from inside. The minute he stepped out, Fletch jumped off the roof, rolling Victor to the ground and giving him a knee to his stomach that earned him a grunt in pain and eyes wide with shock.

It was him, all right, painted up like some kind of freak.

“You bloody mongrel,” Fletch spat. “Where is she?”

“Dead.”

Fletch squeezed the scrawny throat so hard blood oozed from a wound. She couldn’t be dead. She
couldn’t
be.

“Where is she?” He jammed the gun into his neck. “Tell me, or this’ll be your last breath.”

“Then let it be.” There was total surrender in his words.

Fletch shook him hard. “Tell me where she is!”

“Watch for the light in the sky.”

“Don’t give me that Maya crap. Where is she?”

“Light…in the…sky.” He closed his eyes, and died.

And a piece of Fletch went right along with him.

Fear closed in on Miranda, squashing her lungs. Instead of giving into it, she put her hands on the cold, wet earth, rose to her knees, and gingerly crawled toward the sound of breathing.

She had to be calm. To think. There had to be a way out.

Her hand hit something, and a whimper caught in her throat as it moved under her fingertips. A smooth human leg. She patted higher, touched wet cloth, heard the softest moan.

“Taliña?”

Another low groan and a gurgle. “M’randa. You…came…to…me.”

“What did he do to you?” she asked. “Where are you hurt?”

“Cut. Stabbed. He killed me.”

“Not yet,” Miranda whispered. “Where did he stab you?”

“My heart. My side. Go. Get out.”

“How? We’re trapped in here.”

She moaned, but Miranda couldn’t understand her. She blinked and tried desperately to see in the dark, but it was impossible. She could only smell earth and blood and feel the pressure of an airless, cool tomb.

For one long, defeated moment, she gave in, wrapped her arms around her legs, and squeezed, fighting tears and wishing with everything in her that she could hold Adrien just one more time before she died.

“Unn…ell.” Taliña’s sound was urgent and incomprehensible.

But Miranda’s need to connect to someone—even a criminal who’d probably masterminded all of this—was too strong to ignore it. “What are you saying, Taliña?”

She grunted, not even a word.

Miranda couldn’t just let her die. On her knees, she crawled closer, placed a hand on her chest, and cringed at the warm, thick blood that covered it. She pressed. Taliña moaned again, the sound stronger this time.

“Does that help?”

“Help.”

She added more pressure. “We need to stop the bleeding somehow.” With her other hand, she felt the material of the dress, imagined how to wrap the wound, but it would be useless. “We have to get out of here. Do you have any idea how to open that sarcophagus lid?”

Taliña groaned. “He won’t…he won’t let us.”

“Who is he, Taliña? Who is that man?”

“My…husband.”

“What?” Miranda let off the pressure in surprise.

“Victor…son.”

He was Victor Blake’s son? “Why did he try to kill you?”

Taliña took a deep breath, then grunted with the pain. “He believes in twenty…twelve. I don’t.”

“Then why are you doing this? Selling these kits? Bringing kids into a cult?”

“I am a shaman.”

“Oh, please.” She’d keep up the charade to the death? She pressed on Taliña’s bleeding chest, kneeling to get a better angle. When she did, a sharp pain stabbed her knee, and suddenly a laser light shot across the tomb, the bright round light bouncing off a stone wall.

Miranda gasped, staring at it, recognizing it from the museum. “Taliña,” she whispered. “The light.”

In the ambient glow of the light, she could see Taliña turn her head and flutter her eyes open. And almost smile. “
Kyopa
.”

Sharp pain ripped through her knee again, making Miranda lurch to the side. Instantly, darkness descended. “What the…” She patted the ground where her knee had been and touched the sharp, cold stones of the
toli
shard.

“It’s a hologram,” she said, picking it up and pressing the jewels with shaking fingers. “That’s what he used in the musuem. An optical illusion made with laser light.” She squeezed the topaz stone and the blue light shone, like a ball floating through the air at the end of a laser beam. She angled it to Taliña’s wound and bit her lip at the jagged, bloody mess at her chest. She would die. And soon.

Still shaking, she aimed the light on the walls, getting just enough brightness to make out the carved glyphs and painted images. It was a perfect replica of Pakal’s tomb.

“M’randa…find…tunnel.”

Hope punched her stomach. A tunnel? There was no tunnel in Pakal’s tomb, was there? She squeezed her eyes shut, recalling the funerary crypt she’d visited five years ago, reviewing her thesis on the hieroglyphs inside the tomb.

She spun around, directing the light to the Nine Lords representing the nine nights, carved into the wall exactly where they appeared in the real monument.

“I am…shaman,” Taliña said. “I see things.”

“I’m sure you do.” Miranda pacified her while she crawled across the dirt. At the stone wall, her fingers glided over the glyphs. “I wish you could see the tunnel.”

She lit the ancient words with the laser light, they slid her hands over the last glyph. “Is it here? Is this the opening to a tunnel?” She threw herself against the wall.

“Tunnel.”

It didn’t move at all. “Where does it lead?”

“Temple.”

“Do you know how to open it?” She shoved and scraped at the stone, reading the glyphs for clues that weren’t there.

“Shield.”

“A warrior’s shield?” Miranda forced her hands to slow, to feel the nubs and grooves. Frustrated, she used the light when the skill of her hands wasn’t enough to read. Her heart raced and blood pulsed in her head. She realized her own breathing was getting tight and labored.

Panic pressed down, and she shuddered to shake it off before it took hold.
Not now. Not now
.

Her fingers grazed a cieba tree. A quetzal. A…shield! “I found it!” She pressed hard directly in the middle, and the wall inched back. “I did it, Taliña! I’m opening it.”

Miranda pushed with every ounce of strength she had, grinding her teeth with the effort, and finally, the wall moved enough to reavel a well-constructed tunnel about six feet high and almost as wide. There was probably a whole series of these underground.

Joy and hope surged. “I’ll get help,” she promised. “I’ll be back, Taliña.”

A soft hum, then a beep from somewhere near Taliña was the only response.

She froze.
You might disturb something
.
Although it really shouldn’t go off until after you’re dead.

“He’s set a bomb,” she whispered, mostly to herself. “Just like the one in LA.”

Taliña groaned. “Go.”

“I can’t leave you here! It’s going to explode.”

“You…can’t. Go.”

It beeped again. Twice. What did that mean? Two minutes? Two seconds? “I’ll drag you,” she said, scrambling back through the hole. She couldn’t just leave her there to die.

“Here.” She found Taliña’s arm, as well as she could while still holding the mirror that gave her light. She couldn’t risk dropping it. “I’ll pull you. We’ll get out of here.”

Taliña didn’t move. “No. Go.”

“I can’t, Taliña. I can’t just leave you.” No matter what she’d done, for she didn’t deserve to explode in a hole in the ground. Miranda yanked at her arm, but Taliña resisted.

“Let me die.”

Three beeps.

“Let me die, and you…go to your mother.”

Miranda stilled, an inexplicable chill going through her. “What?”

“She needs you.”

“Please, Taliña, don’t do this. You don’t know anything about my mother. You’re not a real shaman. You don’t see things. Stop and let me take you with me.”

Four beeps.

“I am. I see. I know. Go to your…mother. She is going to die.” She squeezed Miranda’s hand, weak but insistent. “Your…mother…” She wheezed, moaned. “She will die if you don’t help her.”

Five long, extended, horrific beeps.

She dropped Taliña’s arm and lunged for the opening, slipped through, and ran as fast as she could, her thoughts racing.

What if Taliña did have true sight? What if that woman in jail really was her mother, and that’s what she meant? Or was someone going to hurt Dee Lang to get Miranda Lang to stop? Or were those the ramblings of a delirious, dying woman?

If she could just get out of this place alive, she’d get on an airplane and fly to her mother. Determined, unafraid, and at top speed, she ran smack into a concrete wall, so hard she saw a flash of white just before the world went silent and dark.

Fletch dropped Victor Blake, Jr.’s lifeless body and stood. The crypt. That’s where the locator said she was.

He ran, flipping fronds and branches out of his way, hearing the helo overhead. He pulled out his phone, called Wade, directed him toward the crypt, and barreled on through the foliage.

Look for the light in the sky
.

The chopper blades whirred overhead, whipping air through the canopy. In a clearing, he signaled to Wade, pointed in the direction of the crypt, and continued running.

What had Blake done to her? Where did he hide her? Was she dead?

Look for the
—

The explosion was so loud, bright, sudden, and hot that it threw Fletch backward. Brilliant orange flames and smoky black clouds filled the sky in front of him, right where the crypt was. Where the crypt had been.

Sickened and heartbroken, Fletch ran toward the small brush fire caused by explosion, already petering out from the wetness of the jungle. Giant chunks of rock and stone, jade and mother-of-pearl carvings, orange stucco and green paint littered the area around the exploded crypt. All that remained was a cracked and shattered slab of the floor.

He sidestepped debris and some hot spots to get closer, realizing that beneath the slab was a deep hole, a mess of dirt and concrete, and—his stomach turned as he saw the charred head of Taliña Blake. She’d been buried under there. Buried alive. Had Miranda been in that hole, too?

He ran down broken stone steps, digging through the rocks and dirt for a sign of Miranda. Anything. Anything.

And then he saw the little silver phone. He picked it up, turned it over, touched the tiny chip that located her. Throwing it in fury, he dove into the dirt and debris, digging and only finding more dirt and debris.