The Day of the Dead (4 page)

‘
This it?’ Sarah asked
briskly, breaking the mood.

‘
Yes,’ he said, and for
some reason it hurt to talk, like he was scraping the words out of
his throat.

They ducked under deeply sculpted
reliefs and entered the main hallway, leading to a chamber with a
stone altar. Like his own ancestors, and unlike the Aztec, the Maya
had rarely practiced human sacrifice. It was far more common for
their priests and kings to use their own blood as the sacrifices
their gods required, letting it flow when crises occurred or when
the auguries deemed it necessary. Tomas had always been proud that
he came from a people who understood the real nature of sacrifice –
and it wasn’t having someone else bleed for you.

The altar sat in front of a
raised dais, behind which was a small room where he supposed the
priests might have once readied themselves for ceremonies. It was
empty now, except for a set of rock-cut stairs leading down into
darkness. Below were a series of
chultuns
, old underground storage
chambers for water and food, and beneath them the reason Alejandro
had chosen this site in the first place: naturally occurring
limestone caverns that even Tomas had never explored in full. It
was like an underground city, part of which the Mayans had used as
a refuse dump, part of which had some type of mystical
significance, with carvings on the walls showing ancient ceremonies
and still partially covered in molding paint.

‘
This is one of the lesser
used entrances,’ he told them, as Sarah drew out a flashlight. ‘But
we shouldn’t risk the light. Alejandro’s men don’t need it, and if
they see it, it will only draw them to us that much
faster.’

She nodded, but she didn’t
look happy. Tomas wasn’t surprised. Descending into an unknown
labyrinth that probably looked pitch dark even with her
goggles would have upset most people. But there wasn’t much to
see, unless she liked the look of striated stone and deep, dark
holes branching off here and there. That was all until they reached
the populated areas. And then, she was probably better off if she
couldn’t make out what lay ahead.

The four of them entered the tunnels,
and almost immediately Tomas found himself struggling to breathe
against a thick, smothering pressure, voices rising like a tide in
his head. He’d killed before he came to Alejandro, fighting against
the men who had come across the sea to steal his homeland. But
those deaths had never bothered him, he’d never lost one night of
sleep over them, because those men had deserved everything he did
to them. The ones he’d taken in these halls were
different.

Taken. It was a good word,
he thought bleakly, seeing with perfect clarity the bodies, pale
and brown, young and old, faces spattered with blood, bodies
cracked and split open. They had bled out onto the thirsty earth
because the ones who hunted them had been so sated that they could
afford to spill blood like water. And none of it had been due to
the hand of God, through some natural, comprehensible tragedy. No,
they had died because someone with god-like conceit had stretched
out his hand and said,
I will have
these
, and by that act ended lives full of
hope and promise.

More often than not, Tomas had been
that hand, the instrument through which his master’s gory commands
were carried out. He hadn’t had a choice, bound by the blood bond
they shared to do as he was bid, but that had somehow never done
much to soothe his conscience. He had known it would be hard to
return, but he hadn’t expected it to be quite this overpowering.
Four hundred years of memory seemed to permeate the very air, the
taste of it thick and heavy, like ashes in his mouth.

He glanced at his companions. Forkface
had an utterly blank stare, cold as ice, while the fanatic kept
muttering silently to himself and fingering a necklace of what
looked like withered fingers around his neck. Sarah was looking a
little green, as if something about the atmosphere was getting to
her, too. He swallowed, throat working, and said roughly, ‘Are you
all right?’

She nodded, but didn’t try to reply.
He decided not to press it, struggling too much with the weight of
his own memory. They silently moved forwards.

It was deeply strange to walk through
the familiar halls, the bumps and jagged edges of the lintels
stretching out claws of shadow that even his eyes couldn’t
penetrate. He’d done so much to try to forget this place, but he’d
been branded by Alejandro’s mark too long for that. The feeling of
familiarity grew with every step, like each one took him further
into the past. He kept expecting to meet himself coming around a
corner, as if part of him had never left at all.

Tomas wondered what he might have been
like, if he’d never been taken. Or if his first master hadn’t
decided to show off his new acquisition at court, where Alejandro
had chosen to claim him. Once, he’d yearned for freedom with
everything in him, hungered for it as he never had food, lusted for
it as he never had any woman. But it didn’t seem to matter how long
he waited or how much power he gained, the story was always the
same.

He’d had three masters in his life,
but had never been master himself. The idea of being free was like
an old photograph now, faded and dog-eared, and Tomas didn’t think
he could even see his face in it anymore. All he wanted now was to
end this.

Sarah stopped suddenly, breathing
heavy, her hand gripping the wall hard enough to cause bits of
limestone to imbed themselves under her nails. She saw him notice
and tried to smile. It wasn’t a great attempt. ‘God, it’s hot.’ She
ripped off her jacket, tying it in a knot around her waist, and
gathered her hair into a riotous ponytail to get it off her
neck.

Tomas hadn’t noticed much of a
fluctuation in temperature. Usually, the caves were cooler than
aboveground, not the reverse, although this time of year the
transition was less noticeable. But patches of sweat had already
soaked through her shirt and glistened on her skin, and her hand
left a wet print on the wall where it had rested.

‘
This way,’ he said,
leading them into one of the outermost rooms branching off the main
hallway before stopping dead.

‘
What is it?’ Sarah had
noticed him tense, instantly aware of a change in the
atmosphere.

‘
Something’s wrong,’ he
said softly.

‘
Like what?’ The three
mercenaries had drawn up in a defensive wedge and were scanning the
room, their weapons in hand. The two mages seemed to see fine in
the dark, courtesy of a spell, Tomas assumed. But there was
nothing
to
see
except a few rat bones and a scrap of ancient material.

‘
There are supposed to be
mummified bodies here.’

‘
Great,’ Sarah muttered.
‘For the extra creepy this place was missing.’

‘
This was where Alejandro
kept the remains of ancient Incan kings,’ he explained. Alejandro
had acquired them as trophies shortly after following Pizarro to
the New World, and had brought them along when he finally decided
on a permanent residence. Once they were settled in, however,
they’d largely been forgotten, left to mildew in dank, underground
cells.

Tomas had been one of the few to ever
visit them. They had been venerated by his people even after death,
remaining in their palaces, supported by their lands, just as they
had when alive. Each new Incan monarch had to wage his own wars of
conquest to fund his rule, because what had been his ancestor’s
remained theirs and beyond his control. Legions of servants had
daily draped their withered corpses in the finest of garments and
prepared lavish meals for them. On important occasions, they had
been brought out to sit again in court, giving council to the
living and presiding over the festivities.

There had always been something
uncanny about them – brown, almost translucent skin stretched over
old bones, empty eyes and hollow mouths, with shadows inside like
parodies of human organs. Tomas had come this way knowing it was
usually avoided by the court. That still seemed to be the case, but
for some reason it worried him that the kings weren’t there. It
made something cold go running along his spine.

‘
I’m more concerned about
the living,’ Sarah said, eyes on his face. ‘Are we
close?’

Tomas swallowed. He was imagining
things. The kings had just been moved, that was all; or perhaps
Alejandro had finally decided to rid himself of his macabre
trophies.

‘
Yes. The old cells are
down there.’ He pointed out a small hole in the wall, about two
feet square.

‘
Down there?’ Sarah peered
into the darkness, her hand tightening convulsively on her gun.
‘You’re kidding, right?’ she sounded hopeful.

‘
No. There is another way
in, but it involves going through much more populated areas. This
is safer.’

‘
Safer.’ She didn’t look
convinced. She peered inside the small, dank, black hole for
another moment, then muttered something that sounded fairly
obscene. ‘Stay here – keep watch,’ she ordered her men. Then she
stowed her gun in its holster and went in head first, on hands and
knees. Tomas followed close behind.

The tunnel slanted sharply
downwards, leaving behind the mildewed plaster of the
chultuns
for true caverns.
Tomas could sense the room’s emptiness almost as soon as they
entered the small tunnel – there were no whimpers, no cries for
help, no rapidly racing heartbeats. But before he could tell Sarah,
she was already out the other side.

He emerged in a dark cave half- filled
with ancient garbage, with deer bones and pottery shards crunching
under his weight. His foot slipped on an old turtle shell, causing
him to almost lose his balance, and then there was a rumbling that
set half the room’s contents jittering.

‘
There’s no one here!’
Sarah whirled on him, her face livid.

‘
They must have moved
them.’

‘
A convenient excuse! I
swear, vampire, if you’ve lied to me – ’

‘
To what end?’

‘
To get me down here alone
– ’

‘
I had you alone in the
cemetery,’ Tomas pointed out, with barely concealed impatience. The
rumbling just got louder, with rocks and small pieces of pottery
stirring uneasily. ‘If I meant you harm, I would have acted
then.’

‘
You said they would be
here! That you knew where they were!’

‘
If Alejandro had followed
the usual practice, the prisoners would be here,’ he replied,
trying for calm. ‘But the contents of the room above were moved,
and if they changed one long-standing practice, they may have
changed another. I haven’t been back in a century – ’

‘
Something you might have
mentioned before now!’ she was sweating harder, with a few drops
glistening along her hairline before falling to stain her
shirt.

‘
We will find your
brother,’ he told her. ‘I swear it.’

‘
Why should I believe you?’
she sounded frantic.

‘
Why shouldn’t you?’ Tomas
asked, bewildered. ‘What reason do I have to lie?’ A crack formed
in the ceiling overhead, raining dirt and gravel down on them. ‘I
thought you said you could control this!’ The caverns weren’t
entirely stable, as multiple cave-ins had demonstrated through the
years. If she didn’t cut it out, she was going to bury them
both.

Sarah looked around, as if she
honestly hadn’t noticed that the entire room was now shaking. ‘I
can! Usually.’

‘
Usually?’

‘
I’m a jinx. My magic isn’t
always ... predictable. I’ve learned some control through the
years, but it’s harder when I’m angry.’ She paused, her breath
coming hard. ‘And I really don’t like being
underground.’

‘
You’re
claustrophobic?’

‘
I have a small problem
with enclosed spaces.’ There was a badly-concealed edge of panic in
her voice.

‘
But you’re a mercenary!
Surely – ’

‘
I’m a mercenary who
prefers to fight in the open!’ she snapped, her face scrunching up
with effort. The shaking didn’t noticeably diminish.

‘
Something you might have
mentioned before now!’

‘
Very funny.’

The crack widened, dirt and rock
exploding inwards, peppering them with pieces of rock as sharp as
knives. ‘Do something!’

‘
I’m trying!’

She was almost doubled over in effort,
pain written on her face, but whatever she was doing wasn’t
working. A huge crack reverberated around the small space, knocking
them both to the ground, hands pressed against their temples. A
moment later, a chunk of the ceiling the size of a sofa broke away
and came crashing down, missing them by inches.

Tomas stared at it for a split second
through a haze of dust before grabbing her around the waist and
dragging her back to the entrance. ‘Hurry! Back up the
tunnel!’

‘
It won’t help.’ She’d
braced herself against the wall. Her face was pinched and white and
her eyes wide and panicky as they met his. ‘Hit me.’

‘
What?’