The Bloodgate Guardian (19 page)

Twisting her head slightly, she had to see. Shapes undulated, slowly filling the tunnel ahead. In the darkness, it took her a moment to make out distinct arms, heads, and torsos. Flailing arms rose from the floor, tugging and clutching at her jeans. Something grabbed at her hair, tangling like a briar branch. Her breath a loud pant, she reached up and tugged, trying to free herself.

A face rose out of the stone directly at eye level, its mouth wide open on a silent scream of agony. The eyes were wide and white with panic, still wet and alive.

They’re alive
.

She jerked her gaze away from those horror-filled eyes. A naked torso gaped, ribs white and cracked, flesh still dripping dark blood. The heart was missing.

She was caught in a screaming whirlwind, tossed, shaken, the noise so deafening…

Her cheek stung. Again. Blinking, she realized her father had pressed his forehead against hers. He shook her, his voice sharp. “Stop it, Jaid.”

She shut her mouth and the shrill, whistling hurricane wind silenced. Crying so hard she choked, she fisted her hands in his shirt. Her mind felt shattered, broken like a thousand-year-old vase discovered at the bottom of a jungle ravine. “I’m the Un-Indiana Jones! I don’t muck around in jungles or battle demons. I can’t do this. I have to get out.”

“We will,” he promised, smoothing his hand through her hair. “We’re going to get out. Hang on just awhile longer. You’ve been so strong. I’m so proud of you, Jaid.”

His unfamiliar words of praise did more to shake her out of the mindless terror than his calming manner. “You are?”

He stared down at her and for the first time in her life, she saw the unmitigated guilt and grief in his eyes. “Always.”

“Come,” the demon crooned. “We have a special spot reserved for our dearest, most prized sacrifices. If you’re not too afraid to see it…”

She longed for a good long cry and an equally long heart-to-heart talk with this stranger who’d once been her distant, reserved father. Instead, she took a shallow breath—her stomach twisting at the rank, rotting stench—squared her shoulders, and said, “Lead the way.”

Her father’s eyes gleamed with what looked suspiciously like tears.

Hand in hand, they turned and ran after the demon. Her boots squelched and sank into the living rock, sucking and clinging so hard her thighs ached from the strain of tugging her feet free. Her skin crawled, but she pushed the horror away. She couldn’t think about walking on tortured, living people. It was all a horrible vision, a trick to scare the weak-willed away from the demons’ greatest secrets.

A lighter area beckoned ahead. Shaking with exhaustion, she threw herself toward that clearing from the tunnel of horrors. The grasping, writhing bodies disappeared. She bent over, bracing her hands on her knees, and concentrated on breathing…and not throwing up.

“Few humans have ever seen this chamber,” One Death said. “You’re very lucky. Most have been sacrificed long before they enter the tunnel. Then it’s just a matter of deciding where to place our latest ornament.”

“Your ornaments are rather old and decayed.” Dr. Merritt’s once proud, arrogantly confident voice quivered. That small weakness made her feel a little better about her breakdown. “How long has it been since you were able to add a new trophy?”

One Death howled. “Since the priest stole the White Dagger!”

Forcing herself to focus, Jaid tried to play along with her father. If they could keep the demons squabbling against each other, they had a small hope that the Lords of Death might eliminate each other. “Blood Gatherer has it now.”

The demon raged louder. “It’s mine! Mine!”

The rock quivered and shook beneath Jaid’s feet. She glanced about the large chamber, searching for another exit, but none materialized.

In the center, black stone rose up from the floor, sticky and wet. A living, beating heart still oozing blood sat on top. Waves of wispy blue light swept across the chamber.

Moving across the chamber to stroke and pet the still-beating organ, One Death’s rage slowly died. “Behold the Caged Heart, some of our greatest magic. Only the heart of a king can last so long, except possibly…” His head turned slowly, his glowing red eyes latching on to her. “A cursed priest’s who cannot die.”

She shuddered at the thought of Ruin’s heart ripped from his chest, magicked into beating for the Xibalban Lords’ pleasure. They must gain a great deal of power from the constant flow of fresh blood.

“The greatest wonder is that we need do nothing to keep it beating. Only the king’s great emotion keeps his heart caged and alive, his love, hatred, and fierce desire for revenge. Ah, such sweet, delicious emotions. I’d forgotten what human emotion felt like until he came into our hands. He’s given us much to savor.”

Jaid fought to keep her face smooth despite the burning acid churning up her throat. “If you get so much power from it, why are you willing to give the Caged Heart to us?”

“What is one small heart balanced against a whole world of human sheep?”

Dread crawled down her spine. How could they risk letting such evil loose on the world? But how could she remain here in hell, while Blood Gatherer forced Sam to murder innocents and Ruin suffered in their hands?

Dr. Charles Merritt pointed to the ceiling and whispered, “The rings.”

In her revolted study of the heart, she’d missed the stone rounds. As in the ruins, the map stretched across the stone. It made her dizzy to stare up through swirling blue tendrils of fog at the ceiling with its distracting encryption.

“Why seven…” Yet as soon as she started to voice the question, she knew the answer. There were seven rings above, not two as in the earthly temples. Seven Caves, Seven Canyons, of course, another name for the underworld. She kept a wary eye on the demon, who hovered by the bloody heart with a sly, knowing smile on his sluglike lips.

Keeping his voice low, her father asked, “Do you know the key?”

She shook her head slightly. “If the wrong key is used, the Gate opens only to Xibalba. They have a built-in protection that typically keeps it open only on our earthly side, locking anything that might try to get out inside Xibalba. Whatever you did at Lake Atitlan unlocked the Gate’s protection.”

He stroked his chin. “So where do we end up if we use the wrong key on this side?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Staring up at the seven rings, she felt sick. Dully, she answered, “We can’t turn the rings to align the glyphs. They’re too high.”

“So they are. How very interesting.”

She felt like crying, or better yet, running stark raving mad. What would One Death do to them as soon as he realized it was impossible for them to open the Gate?

“Open the Gate to Xibalba.”

Ruin nodded curtly to the demon. “I need a blade. The woman took mine.”

With a nasty white-bone grin, Blood Gatherer offered the White Dagger.

Arching a brow, Ruin stared at the fabled knife. “Are you sure you trust me with that?”

“Imagine how much power you’ll release if you use it to open the Gate.” Blood Gatherer made a greedy, hungry sound and his eyes burned brighter. “My Lord and greatest enemy will be coming through. I don’t plan to bow to him ever again. So give me power, priest, and open the Gate at my bidding, else I will use your brother’s lovely woman to ensure I’m stronger than One Death when he comes.”

Centering himself, Ruin reached out and wrapped his palm around the White Dagger. A buzzing shock jolted his palm and numbed his whole arm. Such power. Such agony.

A legion of souls filled the knife, their life energies shaking with terror, providing a churning, vibrant sea of energy for the demons. So many were trapped inside, more souls than he could ever safely release. Freeing his brother’s freshly entrapped soul had caused the trio of volcanoes surrounding Lake Atitlan to erupt and his city had been buried in rubble.

He returned to the Temple of Days and adjusted the rings. An unnecessary step, but he was curious to see how Jaid had set them. To go to Xibalba, she didn’t need a key; the safeguards would ensure that’s the only place she could go, unless she correctly set the rings for another world according to the map. Staring at the dried blood and scuffs she’d left in the dust, he felt his throat tighten.

The message she’d left for him was simple and subtle: Chi’Ch’ul and “heart.”

My heart is yours
, he whispered softly in his mind, even though he doubted she could hear or feel their bond. More than distance separated them now, an entire watery underworld.
Please be safe, whole, and waiting for me to open the Gate for your return.

Crusted and crumbled with disuse, the circular stone shrieked as if the earth knew what was coming and wailed at him to stop. What choice did he have? In one act of desperation, he could save Jaid and her father—if she’d found him—and free his brother’s soul. At last, his beloved brother would be free to journey to First Five Sky with Butterfly Star. Yet his very soul trembled with dread and horror.

He could not stop Blood Gatherer, let alone the other two demons already loosed on this world. How much worse would they rage and pillage with their leader and commander freed from Xibalba?

“Do it.” Blood Gatherer snarled, his teeth clashing like swords. “Do it or your brother is mine forever!”

Ruin walked with heavy feet back to the pool. Had he given her enough time to find her father? How would they even know the Gate was opening? He couldn’t remember much of his own trip to Xibalba except endless water and horrors he’d deliberately wiped from his memory. Even if he could bring her back, would Jaid even be sane?

Forcing his doubts aside, he sliced his palm. “Great Feathered Serpent, forgive me.” Then he cast out his hand and slung blood onto the water.

An oppressive silence weighted the air in the cave, broken only by his thundering heartbeat and blood rushing in his veins. Blood Gatherer paced eagerly to his left; the broken human priest wept and shivered in the corner of the cave; and Wrack held his woman tightly in his arms; but everyone’s eyes were locked on the dark waters.

This time, there were no gales or hurricanes to announce the opening of the Gate to Xibalba. The water merely darkened, thickening into a viscous sludge. Black water bulged outward, stretching. With an audible pop, a hand broke the surface.

White, ghastly, and spotted, the hand clutched a frantically beating heart.

Wrack inhaled sharply and groaned. Reflexively, he touched his chest. Weeping softly, Butterfly Star buried her face against him.

“There is the one who took your heart,” Ruin said in a cold, hard voice. “There is the one who tortured your beloved.”

Hissing out his breath, Wrack unsheathed his obsidian blade. He set his woman aside and came to stand beside his brother. “He’s mine.”

Ruin couldn’t answer; instead, he concentrated all his will on Jaid. With his eyes closed, he stretched out his senses, seeking the warm spirit he’d come to associate with her, her scent of rain-fresh magic and ancient tomes.

She’s alive. I know it!

With each beat of his heart, the White Dagger pulsed, glowing with a pale, cold light. It throbbed against his palm as hard as the heart in the demon’s hand. Like a sinkhole, the White Dagger sucked all life energy toward it. His fingers numbed. His brother made a low sound of pain and moved several steps away. Even Blood Gatherer could not take his eyes off the coveted blade.

So much power sparked within. His enemies would use it to obliterate this world…

Unless I use it first.

His skin zinged and his scalp crawled. The White Dagger blazed so brightly its image was burned into his retinas. He drew that power into his body and cast it down the faint, shimmering spirit bond that tied him to Jaid.

Find her. Bring her through.

Magic sparked in the cavern, the air so thick and heavy that it became a strain to breathe. His heart thrashed against his ribs as though Blood Gatherer had begun working his unique gift to draw forth his heart. Fireballs blazed in his mind.

The first Lord of Xibalba crawled onto the shore.

Blood Gatherer inclined his head but edged closer to Ruin, his enslaved pawn. “Welcome, Great Lord. I have prepared the way. If you—”

“Silence!” One Death wheezed on hands and knees, struggling to gain his bearings. “Surrender the White Dagger to your supreme Lord of Xibalba!”

Wrack didn’t give him a chance. Prowling as silently as a jaguar on the hunt, he seized a hank of the demon’s lank hair and jerked his head back. Wrack’s breath rushed out on a groan of pain and he hesitated, staring down at his hand with horror. His fingers had turned into emaciated flesh, leathered skin stretched tight over dry bones. The decay crept up his forearm, cracking his skin to reveal brittle sinew and stringy muscle.

Wide-eyed, he met his brother’s gaze, and Ruin watched the emotion flicker from fear to resignation. Gritting his teeth, Wrack sawed at the demon’s throat with a vicious snarl twisting his mouth. Decay reached his elbow, his biceps, so he hacked faster, deeper, determined to finish before he lost control of his body that had died a thousand years ago.

Great Feathered Serpent, is that all I will become in the end? A desiccated bundle of rotten bones?

One Death clawed at the blade and the arm wielding it, and everywhere the demon touched, death and rot spread. Clumps of flesh fell away, but Wrack refused to stop until he decapitated the Lord of Xibalba.

The demon’s body crumpled into a writhing sack, skin filled with beetles, roaches, maggots, all of which made quick work of the foul flesh. Wrack fell to his knees. Half his face had rotted away, leaving a gaping hole where his eye, nose and mouth should have been.

Every instinct Ruin possessed shrilled at him to leave his work and assist his brother, but he couldn’t abandon the Gate, not until Jaid came through. Helpless, he forced himself to watch, uncaring of the tears that fell from his eyes.

Wrack dragged himself across the crumbling pile of bones. His fingers closed around his frantically beating heart and his body shuddered. Twitching, he screamed until his voice broke and only ragged sobs escaped his throat. The woman threw herself on his body, keening, and only then did his agony subside.

Rising power hammered at Ruin’s skull and the Gate swelled. Staring at the blazing weapon in his hand, he knew the greatest temptation. With this blade, he was powerful enough to raise his brother’s body once more. He could cut down the demons one by one. He could power the Gates and conquer the very gods who had cursed him. He could spill out the bowels of Xibalba, crack the very foundations of the world, and climb to the highest branches of the Great Ceiba unaided.

Power sizzled through his veins. His bones ached as though they were dissolving in acid. A ring of fire whirled in the water, growing higher and hotter by the moment. Pain built, squeezing his lungs until he couldn’t breathe.

I can’t release the Gate—not until Jaid comes through.

He felt the Gate in Lake Atitlan blaze to life. It poured more fire into him, wide open and unwarded. Chich’en Itza’s Gate in the Great Cenote burned into life, another ring of fire searing him. One by one, each Gate he’d sworn to protect blazed to life, wide open, allowing countless denizens of Xibalba to escape.

And he couldn’t stop.

“I shall be the First Lord of Xibalba now.” Blood Gatherer cackled. “My greatest enemy is gone, and I have my Gatekeeper. What more should I want with the middle world stretched out like a goat for the slaughter?”

“If you want my world,” a human male yelled, “you’ll have to go through us to take it.”

Waves of golden and ruby fire filled the cavern and the air hummed with rainbow sparks. Ruin forced his eyes to focus on the water and the shapes—people—standing in the pool.

Jaid. Not only had she made the crossing, but she’d also managed to retrieve her father too. Joy filled him and relief momentarily eased his straining shoulders, until he thought about the Gates. If he kept them all open much longer, they might never lock again. He had to slam them all shut at once before the Underworld emptied upon the earth.

Closing his eyes, he smiled at Jaid, even though she might be too far away to see the love shining on his face.
“My heart is yours.”

“Ruin—”

Without hesitating, he plunged the White Dagger into his heart.

Jaid felt the knife slide into his chest as though he’d stabbed her instead. Banded in iron, her lungs tightened with pain. Her heart refused to beat. Her blood felt like concrete in her veins, filling and swelling to the point of bursting.

Her mind shrilled.
Ruin!

A detonation rocked the cave, throwing her to the ground. Pebbles and rocks rained down.

Sagging, he fell to his knees. She struggled to her feet and staggered, stumbling, determined to reach him. Demon howls punished her ears, but her only thought was Ruin. He’d been cursed by his own heart and love for his brother. He’d taught her enough to use the Gates so she could save her father. Then he’d broken his vow to the gods yet again and opened the Gate.
For me.

His bloody hands still gripped the blade in his chest. Through the magical bond he’d forged, she felt his heart stutter. His life energy slipped away.

Gritting her teeth, she held on to that shimmering black-spotted jaguar trying to dissolve. “I’m not letting you go, do you hear me? You’re immortal. You’ve died before.”

“Not…with…White Dagger…heart.” He stretched out a trembling hand but he didn’t have the strength. She lifted his palm to her cheek. “Goodbye.”

“No!”

He fell back, his body flopping like a rag doll. “Final…death.”

His mouth opened, closed, but no more words, no breath, passed his lips.

Crying, she leaned down and felt for a pulse. He was gone. Truly gone. The air felt less alive, empty and cold without his spirit. His magic faded and died. A gaping pit spread inside her. Did she feel his death more completely because of the bond? Or because this death was his last?

Her heart wailed in denial. Another death stacked on her conscience, but that old pyramid of guilt tumbled apart like a deserted ruin. This time, she’d made no mistake. In fact, she’d finally gotten everything right. She even understood why he’d done it. Ruin would always pay the cost himself, and this time, he paid it gladly, because he loved her.

As I love him.

Blood Gatherer’s metallic laughter made her teeth ache. “The priest is of no consequence, woman. His knowledge and power are mine—because
you
are mine.” The demon turned toward the Gate and spread his arms wide open. “Come forth, brethren, and reap the harvest of this world!”

In answer to the demon’s call, the waters thickened into a lumpy, viscous fluid like quicksand.

The Gate’s still open.

She jumped to her feet, but the demon stood between her and the Temple of Days. Wildly, she looked around the cave. Sam rocked back and forth against the wall, gripping his head and tearing at his hair. Wrack must have died in the fight; his woman clutched his shoulders, holding his lifeless body to her breast. Deeper in the adjoining cavern, her father bent over the altar that held the smaller replica of rings. His mouth moved and his brow was furrowed, but she couldn’t hear what he said.

“Turn the rings!” she screamed. Blood Gatherer lunged at her, and she threw her weight to the side so hard she fell over Ruin’s body. “Turn it to anything! It’ll break the magic!”

Her father must have been successful because Blood Gatherer screeched so loudly she had to cover her ears. A swirling maelstrom of water erupted like a category five hurricane crashing to shore. Winds tore at her clothing and tugged on her hair. Grit and sand scoured her face and exposed flesh.

Scrambling upright, she wrapped her fingers around the White Dagger still buried in Ruin’s chest and yanked it free. The knife looked like it was made from crystal, but it pulsed in her hand like a slimy mockery of a living heart. She’d never touched anything more loathsome in her entire life.

Darkness hammered at her, demanding that she offer sacrifice. She could kill Sam, the one who’d betrayed them. He’d slaughtered innocent people in cold blood. He’d conspired with demons. He deserved punishment, eternal damnation, all the agonies of hell.

Blood. Blood. Blood.

A legion of voices screamed in her head. Trapped inside the White Dagger, thousands of souls wailed in agony. They’d been sacrificed by the Lords of Xibalba over a thousand years ago, but they were still trapped inside the knife, and now Ruin was one of them.

She hadn’t heard all those bedtime tales from the
Popol Vuh
for nothing; she knew exactly how to kill a Lord of Xibalba. “Come and get me, you son of a bitch!”