Beautiful Sacrifice: A Novel

“If you already know so much, why mousetrap me into helping you?” she asked sharply.

“The presence or absence of Kawa’il was central to the scandal that got your father thrown out of academia.”

“He is still a Harvard professor.”

“Technically,” Hunter agreed. “He’s on indefinite leave to ‘pursue scholarly interests.’ You have to look real hard to find Dr. Philip Taylor’s name attached to a university of any repute, including in Mexico.”

Lina didn’t say anything. It was the harsh truth, one that had driven Philip to ever greater lengths of obsession and secrecy. He was determined to regain his reputation no matter what it took.

“If my father knows of these artifacts,” she said quietly, “I’m useless to you. Philip doesn’t confide in anyone, including me.”

Hunter nodded. “It was a long chance, but one I had to eliminate.”

“You believe me?”

“Until I find a reason to do otherwise.” He smiled thinly. “That’s more slack than the academic community will cut you.”

Again, a harsh truth.

“Well, at least you don’t fancy things up,” she said.

“I’m a simple man.”

“I don’t believe it. The bunch of fabric,” she said, tapping her finger on the photo of the cloth, “could be rubbish or it could be a god bundle. Again, without tests, I can’t be more precise.”

“If it’s a god bundle?”

“It would be highly, highly rare. Pretty much unique, as far as I know. Such bundles are represented in glyphs and verbal legends, but none have survived to modern times.”

“So it’s worth a lot of money on the market,” he said.

“Without proper provenance, no reputable dealer or establishment would touch it.”

As Hunter had arrived at the same conclusion himself, he wasn’t surprised. Disappointed, but not surprised.

“That covers some of the market,” he said. “What about the rest of it?”

Lina frowned. “Frankly, I doubt anyone would pay or trade anything significant for it. So unique an object is automatically suspect. Fraud is a fact of life when you’re dealing without provenance. And a god bundle…”

He watched her face, the change in her eyes, like she was looking at something far more distant than the photos.

“A god bundle was the most sacred of artifacts,” Lina said. “It was believed to contain talismans created by the god himself. The talismans were said to literally hold the strength of that god given in promise to the village or city-state that worshipped and was guarded by the god. The bundle was carried in a carved box at the forefront of soldiers going into battle. Capturing a god bundle meant the end of a deity and the people who followed it. We have no analogue to it in modern times.”

“National flags?”

Her short nails drummed on the desk. “Not really. It’s like comparing a tennis game to World War Two. You must realize the depth of the Maya belief system. That god bundle was the god itself. It was real, like birth or death. A fact.”

She looked at him, saw that he understood what she was saying, and shifted her focus back to the photo.

“Losers in a war lost their real god,” Lina said after a moment. “The belief that the clash of armies was in fact a clash of deities is one of the things that made the Maya relatively easy to conquer. If an enemy’s god was more potent, you abandoned your losing god. You accepted the victorious god, worshipped it, and shared in its power. Because the Spanish were more powerful than the Maya, it followed that their god was more powerful. Christ rather than Kukulcan, as it were. Of course, not everyone gave up their god. Some only gave lip service.”

“Good,” Hunter said. “That’s the kind of thing I need to know. I looked at those photos and I saw a bunch of probably Late Terminal Classic artifacts. The mask was totally unfamiliar, and the fabric was a mystery blob.”

“We don’t know it’s a god bundle.”

“But we do know that unloading it for significant cash on the black market isn’t likely.”

“Yes. Too many wealthy collectors have been stung in the past. If an artifact is too good to believe, they don’t believe it without the kind of provenance that would boggle even an ancient Chinese bureaucracy.”

“What kind of provenance?”

“If the artifact came into the U.S. before the passage of various international antiquities laws, you would have to be able to prove at least three legitimate previous owners. If the artifact was in the hands of the original owner’s family, you would need proof that the object had been collected and cataloged before the antiquities laws were in place, and hadn’t passed out of the first owner’s hands without proper paperwork. That’s the minimum.”

“What if the object entered the marketplace more recently?” Hunter asked.

“Proof of proper export and import papers, signed by any involved governments and stamped with various and explicit official approvals. Again, that’s the minimum. Legitimate collectors and institutions are often more demanding.”

Hunter braced a hand on the desk, half enclosing Lina.

“Tell me about the less demanding ones,” he said.

She tried and failed not to breathe him in, realized at a primal level why many cultures felt breath was the essence of the soul. Breathing in.

Breathing him.

“Buyers and sellers alike get stung in the gray or black market,” she said in a low voice. “It’s the price of doing business on the wrong side of antiquities laws.”

Hunter rubbed the back of his neck. The motion reminded him that his hair was too long. Downright shaggy. “But some people risk it.”

“I’m not one of them. My reputation can’t take another hit, no matter that I never did anything wrong,” Lina said flatly. “I can’t even be seen with the loose type of dealer or collector, much less be associated with any. If a branch of my family didn’t own this museum, I probably wouldn’t have been let in the door, much less hired.”

“What about your mother?” Hunter asked.

Lina stiffened. “What are you implying?”

“Nothing. Just asking.”

Grimly Lina got a grip on herself. “As far as I know, Celia learned her lesson years ago. The charges of dealing with looted Maya antiquities nearly destroyed the Reyes Balam family. But you already know all of this, don’t you? It’s why you’re here.”

Hunter barely managed not to wince. Her voice had gone from the husky warmth that made him think of foot rubs and creamy desserts to the kind of ice that could cut skin. Whatever her family might or might not be into, Lina had embraced the purity of Caesar’s wife.

Professionally it was a disappointment to Hunter. Personally, it made her all the more appealing.

You’re trusting her, he warned himself.

Only until I find a reason not to, he defended himself.

Problem was, he wasn’t certain he wanted to see that kind of reason.

“I’m here because you’re an expert in Maya artifacts,” Hunter said evenly.

Lina measured his stark, angular features, his brilliant, patient eyes, and knew she was outmatched. All he had to do was whisper a few words and she wouldn’t be trusted in academic circles with a handful of twentieth- century potsherds. And her family…

She stuffed down her anger at being trapped and went back to studying photos. Yet her hands wanted to tremble. Everything she was seeing pointed to Kawa’il, to the family estates in Quintana Roo, to the illicit artifact trade.

These must have been looted, she told herself. It’s the only rational explanation. My parents might be foolish, sometimes even childish, but they aren’t stupid.

Feeling more sure of herself, Lina pointed toward the fourth picture. “This is a stone scepter. The cup on the