Beautiful Sacrifice: A Novel

The part of herself that was instinctive, bone-deep, knew that the censer in the photo had been used in just such rituals.

“I wonder what the gods told him,” she said softly.

“Him? What about women?”

“Maya weren’t, and aren’t, much for equal opportunity between sexes. A Maya queen could never ascend the throne unless she was pregnant and her husband was recently dead.”

“So women weren’t part of ritual ceremonies?” Hunter asked.

“The queen was, and perhaps the wives of the highest nobles. A female let blood through her tongue. Knotted twine was pulled through a vertical cut.”

“Ouch.”

“They were a visceral people. And are today. Only the ceremonies change. Not that the Maya lacked intellectual accomplishments,” Lina added quickly. “Their mathematical system understood the necessity of a zero. The fact that their numerical system was based on twenty rather than ten makes it difficult for us to fully understand and appreciate. Our problem, not theirs. Their astronomy was superb, the equal of any world culture.”

“You admire them.”

“Don’t you?”

“The more I know, the more there is to admire.”

Not touching that one, Lina thought. He will not suck me into a world of double meanings.

“The last photo,” she said, forcing her thoughts away from Hunter’s temptations, “is as incredible as the cloth bundle. Perhaps more so.”

“I’m ready.”

Lina barely resisted the temptation to check out the fit of his jeans.

Focus, she told herself.

It was hard.

Like him.

“This.” She cleared her throat and tried to remember all the reasons she should be angry with him. But breathing in his male scent, sensing the muscular warmth of this body, made anger as impossible as her attraction to Hunter Johnston. “This is as unique as the cloth bundle.” She let the photo of a mask draw her in and down, back into a past that was as fascinating as it was lost. “Maybe more unique. If it’s real.”

“Looks real to me.”

“Frauds are real, too,” Lina murmured.

“Are you saying that the mask is a fraud?”

“I’m saying that I can’t be sure until I’ve examined it under a microscope for machine marks.”

“Somebody killed to keep its secrets,” Hunter said. “Assume it’s real.”

“Killed?”

“The driver. Maybe others. Life is cheap.”

“Not to me.”

“Or me.” An echo of Suzanne’s death twisted through him, scraping his soul. “We’re creatures of our culture. Other cultures, other creatures.”

“Assuming this is real,” Lina said, “it’s the single most extraordinary artifact I’ve ever seen. Obsidian is rare in the Yucatan, though not in what became Mexico.”

“So the object isn’t from the Yucatan?”

“Trade was commonplace. The Maya had huge canoes that ferried merchandise along the Gulf and around the Yucatan peninsula. I’ve seen a fragment of a mask so intricately inlaid with obsidian that the artifact was a complex mosaic of black with silver-gold light turning beneath. But I don’t see any sign of inlay in this photograph of the mask, just a solid, unbroken surface.”

“Could it have been made of a single chunk of obsidian?” he asked.

“If you’re asking if obsidian comes in pieces this large, yes. I’ve seen obsidian boulders as big as a car. But…”

Hunter waited. He was good at it.

“The time and effort that would go into flaking and polishing a piece of obsidian into a mask is extreme,” she said finally. “Obsidian is friable, it shatters. It’s very difficult to make it smooth.”

Like your skin, Hunter thought, leaning close again. Smooth.

“Making this would be the same as taking a ragged hunk of glass the size of a washing machine and slowly working it into a mask the size of a human face,” Lina said, breathing him in, wanting him to understand just how astonishing the mask was. “Chipping, flaking, grinding, polishing. Starting all over with a new chunk when something came apart. Big pieces of obsidian have natural flaws that make the material fracture in surprising ways.”

He watched her with eyes the silver blue of a glacier beneath the sun, framed in the darkness of a winter past.

A woman could get lost in those eyes. Lina felt a shiver go over her at the thought. She tried to believe that it was fear, not desire, cold rather than heat. But she had been curious about Hunter for too long, and he was so close to her now.

“The Chinese worked jade,” Hunter said. “Some pieces took generations to finish. It’s not impossible that the Maya did the same.”

“No,” she said huskily, “it’s not impossible.” But you are, Hunter Johnston. You’re the most impossible thing about this whole situation.

Lina forced herself to look away, to concentrate on the obsidian mask, volcanic glass lovingly worked and polished until it shone like a gold-tinted mirror beneath the harsh flash used to take the photo. Hunter’s like that. The surface isn’t what is important.

“Lina?” he asked.

Belatedly she realized that she was looking at him again, falling into darkness and light.

“The central part of the mask is human,” she said, her voice low. “The eyes are heavy-lidded, half open. The nose is a blunt blade of nobility, the cheekbones high and broad, the mouth a grim slit of judgment. This is a god on the brink of a catastrophic temper tantrum.”

“Not a gentle god.”

“The Maya revered the jaguar, a climax predator. If tenderness was valued, we’ve seen little indication of it in their religious-civic art.”

“Sounds like the Yucatan I know and love,” Hunter said dryly, thinking of his last assignment. Being a courier in a kidnap-ransom scheme wasn’t his favorite job, but it brought a lot of money into the family business. And saved lives. Sometimes. If he was very lucky, very careful.

“Do you know the Yucatan?” Lina asked, surprised.

“Better than most, not as well as you do. What are these things along the edges?” he asked, pointing to the mask. As he touched the photo, it shifted, making it seem alive, breathing, waiting.

“Symbolic feathers or flames or even lightning. It’s difficult to tell against the flash.” As Lina spoke, she typed into her notebook. “These are very vigorous symbols, incised and brought into relief. Delicate and vivid, polished to the same hard gleam as the face itself. See the drill holes that would hold cord or leather, allowing it to be fastened to a man’s head? Amazing, incredible artisans created this.”

Hunter watched her profile, a more feminine, much more elegant echo of the mask.

“Imagine this in torchlight,” Lina said. “It would be inhuman, terrifying, awesome in the original sense of the word. It’s clearly a ceremonial piece, but who wore it? For what purpose? It must have been traded for, but why and when?”

She made an exasperated sound and smacked her palm on the desk.

Hunter waited.

“This is maddening,” she said. “Without context, my questions can’t be answered. I might get a chemical analysis and be able to match the obsidian to the original quarry site, but that’s such a tiny part of this mask’s