‘Yes. We’ll sweat everything out of them soon enough. Sabir will crack the moment we start in on Lamia. That’s what true love does to you, Vau. Makes you vulnerable. Some people admire that about it. I think it stinks.’
Abi watched Vau negotiating his way through the pampas grass and back to the warehouse via the track alongside the agave field. He shook his head. Things couldn’t have fallen any better really. They’d lucked into the perfect base. They had more weapons than the CRS and the Foreign Legion combined. And they had the aquatic equivalent of a batch incinerator to get rid of any inconvenient cadavers that turned up as a result of collateral damage.
‘Collateral damage’. How it rolled off the tongue. Abi loved American euphemisms. When he was really bored, he would make up new ones, like ‘inadvertent blood donors’ and ‘residual throw-downs’. But ‘collateral damage’ was still the best. He’d never come near matching that one.
Now all Abi needed to make his happiness complete was Madame, his mother’s, okay to go in and snatch Lamia, Calque, and Sabir and whatever else he could get his hands on, including the mestizo’s book and the crystal skull. Which, given the Countess’s recent form, would be easier said than done.
Abi called up Athame’s cell phone. He knew that her position might be compromised if she answered the phone at the wrong moment, so he let the phone ring twice only, and then hung up. She would feel the vibration through her clothes and know that he wanted to speak to her.
He sat on the lip of the cenote and stared down into the pool, waiting.
When his cell phone finally rang, it took him a moment to respond. Dusk had fallen. The forest all around him was alive with the furtive movement of animals.
‘Can you talk?’
‘It’s fine. There’s so much noise coming from over by the temple that I could bellow like a bull and they wouldn’t hear me.’
Abi smiled. The thought of the dwarf-like Athame bellowing like a bull tickled his sense of the absurd. ‘What’s happening?’
‘They’re holding some kind of ceremony.’
‘Can you make out what it’s about?’
‘I can’t get close enough. You could try Aldinach for that. She’s up in a tree, over on the other side of the site. She might have a better view. I don’t know where Dakini and Nawal are hiding. It was a brilliant idea of yours to use us girls. If we get caught, they’ll just think we’re a bunch of New Age gringas trying to cop a view of the ceremony.’
‘What do you figure is happening?’
‘You want my guess?’
‘Yes.’
‘I think they’re discussing what to do with the skull and the book. They’ve got my sister and her two boyfriends up there with them on top of the pyramid. Maybe when they’ve made up their minds they’ll cut their hearts out and offer them up to the jaguar god? Then someone could dress up in their skins and go cavorting about the sanctuary like in the good old days. That would save us all a lot of trouble.’
‘Who’s running the show?’
‘The High Priest. If we can keep tabs on him, we’ll know where to find the book and the skull.’
‘Stay where you are. I’m coming over to join you with Vau, Asson, Alastor, and Rudra. I’m leaving Oni and Berith here to watch the warehouse.’
‘What warehouse?’
‘I’ll tell you later. But we’ve got all the weapons we need. You can take your pick. Glock. Beretta. Heckler and Koch. Star. Walther. Smith amp; Wesson.’
‘I’ll take the Walther.’
‘Nice choice. It’s a P4. I’ll bring it to you personally.’
‘Then what?’
‘I’m about to find out. I’m about to call our mother.’
73
Sabir followed the Halach Uinic up the pyramid steps. He knew that every eye in the house was fixed upon him and his party. The crowd, for the most part, had fallen silent, but an underlying murmur remained, like that made by a distant swarm of bees.
Dusk was only gradually falling, but the brightness thrown out by the candles, the bonfires, and the burning bowls of incense exaggerated its effect. The higher Sabir rose on the pyramid, the easier it became to discern the endless blanket of forest stretching in every direction around him. It was like a great murky ocean, with the pyramid as a fragile island of light at its epicentre.
The wind picked at his clothes as he made his way up the endless stone steps. He turned his head briefly towards the west, relishing the cooler air. Was this why the ancient Maya had built themselves pyramids and not long houses? An understandable desire to compensate for the fearful heat of the Yucatan summers? The whole thing was probably as simple and as straightforward as that. All the rituals and the contrivances must have come later. Like the chaser to a glass of beer.
Sabir smiled to himself, pleased at his capacity for lateral thought. After all, there was not a single mountain in the whole of the peninsula, nor a single volcano, nor a single hill worthy of the name. Surely the Maya would have had a race memory of travelling through the alpine lands of the northern Americas before they settled? Maybe they wanted to recreate the details of their journey in stone? Or perhaps they simply wanted to match the gods? Or was it subtler than that? Was it flattery they were after?
Sabir had reached the halfway stage in his ascent of the steps. Some instinct made him glance to his left. He realized that he was exactly parallel with the woman whom he sensed had been telepathically communicating with the Halach Uinic. He took a step towards her.
Acan put out a hand to stay him. ‘Adam,’ he whispered. ‘That is Ixtab. My mother. I told you of her. But we will see her later. You must come with me now. You cannot wait here. The Chilans are coming up behind us. They will be very angry if you disrupt the ceremony.’
Sabir shrugged off Acan’s hand. He broke clear of the ascending line of priests and made his way to where Ixtab was standing. He was frowning, as if someone had set him an unexpected puzzle. He was half aware that the Halach Uinic and his party had stopped their progress and were watching him, but he didn’t care. All of a sudden he knew exactly what he had to do.
He held out both his hands to Ixtab.
Ixtab smiled and took them. She nodded her head a number of times, as if something she had hitherto only suspected had now been proved true. ‘Welcome, Shaman. I have been expecting you.’
A fearsome energy seemed to be transferring itself from her hands into his.
‘Shaman?’ The energy flowing between Sabir and Ixtab’s hands now seemed to be stemming directly from him.
‘Why are you surprised? You have been fighting it for many years. Were you not told?’
Sabir closed his eyes. ‘A Gypsy curandero in the south of France. He told me. Earlier this year. In a way he even saved my life.’
‘There. I knew it. He was your messenger. He sent you here to us. If you had been born here, amongst us, it would have been I who would have told you.’ She stared at him for a long moment. ‘Your mother, too. She was a shaman.’
Sabir looked up sharply. ‘What are you talking about? My mother killed herself. She was disturbed in her mind.’
Ixtab shook her head. ‘No. She went unrecognized. She lived amongst people who did not understand her true function. She consumed herself. This can happen. You must not do the same.’
Acan had fallen in behind them. He was frowning. Things weren’t going quite as planned.
Sabir shook his head, as if by so doing he could physically discourage unwanted thoughts. ‘That’s not
