The Chaos Order (Fanghunters Book Three) (40 page)

Man, this is some seriously scary shit.

“I’d take a night in a haunted castle over this any day.”

He squinted his eyes as he scrutinized everything; every step, every bit of wall. He brushed past a low hanging vine, which resembled a dangling snake, the glow of his torch guiding him.

So far, so good. But, that didn’t alleviate any stress; his heart continued to hammer in his ears, his legs still trembled. He pushed on, taking one step at a time, fear juggernauting through his veins. The whole thing was surreal, like a dream, like it wasn’t happening.
Am I really stuck in an ancient Mayan temple, hunting down a mega vampire?

It was too weird.

He edged forward a few more feet and his torch lit up some steps in the near distance.

Dom reached them and stopped. He crouched down low and shone his torch down them; he couldn’t see where they ended.

“Down we go,” he said to himself. He placed the tip of a sneaker on the first step, wary that it could be a trap. It was solid. He nodded to himself and began down the steps, taking them one at a time, still arcing his torch up and around, wanting to be safer than sorrier. The steps led down and down further. As he descended, a pressure began to work on his head. He was going underground. Like the thug had said outside, when he held his hand at an angle. The temple goes under.

Man, they actually dug all this out with primitive tools?
he thought to himself in wonderment.
How?

Aliens. Had to be. No other explanation.

The steps ended. Dom shone his torch ahead of him, scanning the area with wide eyes. There was a doorway up ahead that led into more darkness. What waited for him beyond was a mystery.

“Hopefully a cold bottle of Bud.” Wishful thinking. More like something that wanted to kill him; that’s all he seemed to be meeting in his life these days.

He took a careful step down onto the floor at the end of the steps, the scratch of his sneaker on stone reverberating louder down here.

He stared at that rectangular entrance in trepidation, his throat dry, his limbs trembling. Shit was about to get real, he just knew it. He gave the steps behind him a longing stare. They disappeared up into darkness, but he knew what the darkness was hiding. The darkness beyond this doorway was a total mystery. And that’s what scared him. He wished he could turn and run, but the truth was he had more chance of escape going forward, not back.

He gave himself a stern nod. “Let’s do this!”

He sucked in a breath of dank, stale air and took a step toward the opening, his torch held out in front of him. He came to a halt and poked the torch through the doorway. He couldn’t see far enough in, so he stepped inside.

He came to a stop, and raised his flame; he lit up a slightly raised stone ceiling. He lowered the torch and brought it around, arcing it across the air, hoping to—

His eyes bulged in horror. His breath bolted from his chest. “Oh my God!” he gasped.

Did I just see...

He gathered himself and poked his torch forward again. He lit up a skull on the floor, random bones lying next to it.

“Yeah, I did just see that.”

He gulped. He turned his head, bringing his light with him. He illuminated more old bones and skulls.

It’s a grave,
he realized in horror.
A tomb.

And then a more pertinent question hit him.
But why?

The horror of traps severed his mind. A sense of dread overcame him. This room was a deathtrap and he was standing right in it. Something hanging on the wall caught his eye. Another torch. Dom reached out his own torch; it trembled on the air as the flame touched the head of the one on the wall. It lit, bringing with it more light. Now, he could see all the bones on that side of the room. They lay there like it was the cave of a flesh-eating monster. Dom rubbed his stubbled cheek. He didn’t wanna end up like them. Something had done that and he didn’t want to go out the same way.

He rotated on the spot, scared to take another step. On the wall to his right was another torch. He reached out his flame, catching just the edge of the head; it lit. Now, the whole room was illuminated sufficiently. He took it all in, down to the bare bones. It was a small chamber the size of Vincent’s secret room at the back of his lab with no discernible exit. Some square sections of the walls were missing, but weren’t big enough to crawl through. More bones were strewn left and right; how long they’d been there was anyone’s guess.

Dom puffed his cheeks and looked around him for a way out other than the way in. He couldn’t see anything. His eyes fell on the bones and a grim thought struck him.

Did they... starve to death?

The horror of that being a reality set in. If that’s what happened to them, then it would happen to him.

He grabbed his head. “No, no, no,” he said to the tomb. “There’s gotta be a way out, gotta be a pressure plate, or a switch.”

I can’t be... stuck here.

Dread bombed in his stomach.
No, please no.

He spun in a circle, the hollow eyes of those skulls watching him.

“There’s gotta be a—”

Something caught his eye on the wall behind him. An alcove. He squinted and poked his head forward. There was something on the wall inside the alcove. Protrusions. They looked like levers. Clutching one of them was a skeletal hand. Dom ran his eyes down the hand to an arm attached to the rest of the skeleton on the floor. Something killed him while he was pulling the levers.

A spark went off in Dom’s mind. One of those paintings on the wall of the pyramid back in Mexico. His eyes widened. He fished Trixie’s phone from his pocket and switched it on. The artificial glow of the screen lit up his face, a small jingle playing out, totally out of place with his ancient surroundings.

He brought up Trixie’s snaps and began rifling through them. “Come on, come on...”

Then, he found it. His eyes lit up. The picture of the guy pulling levers, those black lines heading his way from those gnarly, twisted faces. Dom knew what those black lines were now; poison darts. He had another look around him; he couldn’t see any of the faces shooting them, only walls. Whatever, he now knew he had to pull a lever to open a door to pass through, but he had to get it right or he’d end up like all his buddies around him.

He wiped the grimy sweat from his forehead. “Okay, okay, I got this,” he said to the dead chamber.

He set off for the alcove, taking precautionary steps, not wanting to trigger anything off by accident. He moved past all the bones and old rags, nausea crawling in his belly. Any wrong move and he could easily end up like them. The musky aroma of old rot filed his sinuses as he approached that section of wall, the dank claustrophobia intensifying. This was his first real test in this temple and he was determined to get past it.

He reached the alcove, his stare fixed on those levers. He placed a foot down ahead of them. The section of floor beneath his sneaker clicked. His reactions were too slow; his foot sunk into a pressure plate. His eyes bulged. He froze, his blood running cold, his heart leaping straight up into his throat.

“Oh my God!”
he gasped with a shudder.

He snapped his eyes shut. He waited for something; a spear, a dart, a set of spikes to fly out of the darkness and impale him, poison him, kill him; for him to join the legion of bones.

But they never came. Instead there was an ominous low rumble. He flicked open his eyes and spun them left and right. His torch lit them up; the faces now coming out of the gaps in the walls, staring right at him. Ancient Mayan depictions of angry and virulent gods etched by people from a different age, a different culture altogether. They once believed in the existence of those faces, thought they were real; holy. And now their age-old sentiments were a deadly threat to this visitor from the modern world, a world the constructors of this deathtrap couldn’t even begin to imagine.

Dom glared at their hollow circles for mouths and eyes in terror. He knew instinctively what was waiting behind them, he’d watched enough Indiana Jones movies. That’s where the poison darts would come from if he made a wrong move. He glanced down at his sneakers; something inside him told him that if he stepped off the pressure plate, then it would trigger the darts. The only way out was to use the levers.

And to get the combination right.

He gulped. “
Oh God
,
” he moaned.

His eyes fell on that skeletal hand clutching one of the levers. The skull of the previous owner of that hand was staring up at him from near the ground. Thin metal darts were scattered around it like confetti. Its vacant eyes were locked forever in a longing stare at the ceiling. Dom glanced upward to where his new pal was looking; he flinched. The Mayan faces were up there too, sweating him. Their mouths were black holes of death, just waiting to put him down. Dom’s eyes descended upon the skeleton by the levers and he nodded his head.
Dude got rained on.

“Pulled the wrong one, huh, buddy?” Dom asked the skeleton. “That’s cause you didn’t take any snaps.” He waved Trixie’s smartphone from side-to-side.

That skull just continued to stare up at the ceiling, its mouth caught in a cavernous scream. Dom glanced back at the skeletal remains strewn on the ground behind him. Who were they? Adventurers? Vampire hunters? Or were they here for whatever treasure had been stored in this giant deathtrap, desperate for the riches?

Whoever they were, Dom wasn’t ready to join them. He turned his attention back to the levers.

“Okay, let’s do this.” He stared at Trixie’s smartphone, suddenly thanking God for creating cell phones. That pic she’d taken back at the pyramid had the answer to the puzzle. The three levers were in a certain sequence from left to right. All he had to do was copy it.

Okay, okay, okay.
He put the smartphone back in his pocket, then, with a shaky hand, reached out for that skeletal hand clutching the first lever. His fingertips touched bone and he juddered with nausea; it was hard, dry.
Oh, God.

He went to grab hold of it when it broke apart and clattered to the floor. He recoiled. For a horrific moment, he thought the thing had come alive. The bones of the arms collapsed with a rattle, the skull falling back and hitting the ground with a dull clang. It rolled left and right, its vacant eyes taking in everything.

Dom shoved his fist in his mouth and bit. He had to stay cool, if he made a wrong move, or took his weight off the pressure plate, Skeleton Guy would have a new pal.

Dom caught his breath. “Stay cool, Dom, stay cool,” he muttered to himself.

He got back in the groove, his attention now on that free lever. Skeleton Guy had pulled it down. Wrong move.

Dom reached a trembling hand for the lever, all the while those twisted, wild faces watching him, scrutinizing him, just waiting for him to make an error. They wanted it so badly; to claim another victim, to prevent another intruder from entering their precious domain. But, if you were worthy, if you’d done your dues, then you could pass. But, only if you’re worthy.

He grabbed hold of the lever and paused. He glanced at the faces all around him again; they were waiting, just waiting for a mistake. Their insane grins, their lolling tongues mocked him. Their hollow eyes exuded a wild malice. The spirits the faces represented had no love for him, would show no compassion. If he messed up, they’d drop him dead in an instant.

He licked his dry lips.
Come on, do it, just do it, DO IT!

“Wish me luck!” he said down to Skeleton Guy.

He sucked in a lungful of air, closed his eyes, and with a mighty roar, cranked the lever upward.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

T
rixie made her way back out of the temple, her heart heavy. She didn’t like leaving Dom in there alone. Didn’t like the idea of him taking on that temple by himself. He wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box. Much smarter minds than his constructed that place. There was no way he could do it without any help.

She raced back out to the jungle, her wide eyes scanning the area ahead. Rafa and Alicia were where they’d left them. Rafa had his crossbow aimed at the thug’s chest; he was grilling him, asking him this and that in Spanish. The thug just kept shrugging and shaking his head in response.

Trixie darted up toward them. Alicia spun her way, surprise etched into her face. “Trixie!”

Both Rafa and the thug turned her way. “That was quick!” said Rafa.

“Where’s Dom?” Alicia asked, her voice laced with concern.

“He’s trapped inside,” Trixie answered. “He stepped on something and it made this door come down. It separated us.”

“Oh no!” Alicia gasped.

“We couldn’t find a way to open it, so I told him to go ahead on his own.”

“On his own?” Alicia echoed. “Dom can’t go in there alone. He’ll die!”

Trixie gave her a grim nod. “That’s exactly what I’m thinking.”

“We have to do something.”

“We must get that door open,” Rafa said.