floor dominated by seven raised stone slabs, each the size of a large man and each occupied by a mummified corpse. The slabs were arranged head to head in a circular shape like the petals of a flower. In the center of the circle was a carved stone grille. Beneath that grille, all was dark.
Weyland touched a cold stone slab. “These are…?”
“Sacrificial slabs,” said Sebastian.
“Just like the Aztecs and the ancient Egyptians. Whoever built this pyramid believed in ritual sacrifice,” Thomas explained.
Lex directed her flashlight beam toward the far wall, at a mound of human skulls six feet high. “You can say that again.”
“My God,” Max Stafford whispered softly.
Miller leaned over a cadaver. “It’s almost perfectly preserved.”
Like the others, this corpse had been freeze-dried by the harsh environment. Flesh and tendons still clung to the bones. The dead man wore a ritual headpiece and a jeweled necklace, its stones and precious metal gleaming dully under the dust of millennia. Though there were no injuries beyond a hole below the rib cage, the face on each mummy was contorted, jaws gaping as if frozen in agony.
“This is where they offered the chosen ones to the gods,” said Thomas.
Miller gingerly touched the remains. The flesh was leathery, the bones calcified to roughly the texture of stone.
Meanwhile, Sebastian played his flashlight across one of the slabs. Darkened spots stained the surface—mute testament to the ritual slaughter this chamber had witnessed.
“Those that were chosen would lie here,” he told the others. “They weren’t bound or tied in any way. They went to their deaths willingly… men and women. It was considered an honor.”
“Lucky them,” said Lex. She ran her fingers around a circular, bowl-like indentation at the base of the slab. “What’s this bowl for?”
Sebastian shrugged. “Opinions vary. Some archaeologists think it’s where the heart was placed after it was torn from the body… the living body.”
Weyland shone his flashlight through the stone grate in the center of the floor. “Look at this!”
Max struck a flare and dropped it through the grate. Crouching over the hole, he watched while it fell. Everyone heard it strike something.
“How far down does it go?” Weyland asked.
“Can’t really see,” said Stafford. He was on his knees, face pressed against the grate. “Maybe a hundred feet. Looks like another room.”
Weyland upped the intensity of his flashlight and played it along the walls. The beam illuminated more stacks of human bones. Many of the skeletons were still intact.
Weyland caught his breath. “There must be hundreds of them.”
“At least,” Max replied.
As Weyland moved away from the main group, Adele Rousseau remained at his side, one hand on the pistol in her belt. Like the others, she gazed in horrified fascination at the mountain of bleached bones.
Rousseau examined the rib cage on one of the intact skeletons. Like the mummies on the slab, there was a hole punched through the ribs.
“What happened here?” she asked, tucking a finger into the cavity.
Thomas moved to her side. “It was common in ritual sacrifice to take the heart of the victim.”
But the woman shook her head. “That’s not where your heart is. Besides, it looks like the bones were bent straight out. Something broke
Thomas found something in the stack of human remains. He stood up and displayed his grisly discovery.
“Incredible,” said Miller. “The entire skull and spinal column removed in one piece.”
With Miller’s help, Thomas turned the skeleton in his hand so they all could see the severed rib bones.
“The cleanness of the cut… remarkable,” Miller said, scratching his head through his wool cap. “Straight through the bone. No abrasions. You’d be hard-pressed to do this with modern knives, maybe even lasers—”
Miller’s speculations were interrupted by a long, echoing howl, like an animal in torment. The sound continued for another moment before fading.
“Did you hear that?” asked Lex, sure now that what she’d heard earlier had not been her imagination.
“Air?” said Miller. “Moving through the tunnels.”
“I don’t know,” Sebastian said, looking around. “Maybe…”
Searching for the origin of the sound, Sebastian spied a low corridor hidden between two ornate wall columns. Shining his light into the gloom, he still couldn’t make out any details beyond the entrance. Stepping around a skeleton, he cautiously edged his way toward what he thought was the source of the sound.
“Do you see anything?” Miller whispered.
Sebastian
Suddenly something dropped on Sebastian’s back. He stumbled backwards and fell on his spine. With a dry clatter, the thing—heavy and pale white, with multiple crablike legs—landed on the tiles next to his head. He felt a cold, clammy tail lash against his face.
With a yell, Sebastian rolled away from the object just as Lex caught it in her flashlight.
“What is that thing!” Sebastian cried, his calm demeanor shattered.
The creature was approximately the size of a bowling ball and looked like a crab without front claws, though it did have a long, snakelike tail. It was milky white and nearly two feet long stretched out on its back. Miller stooped low, prodding the creature with his flashlight.
“Be careful,” Stafford warned.
“Whatever it is, it’s been dead a while,” said Miller. “The bones have calcified.”
Lex looked at Sebastian, still not quite recovered from his scare. “You must have dislodged it from a crack in the ceiling.”
“No idea how long it’s been there, but the temperature has kept it preserved,” said Sebastian. “Looks like a kind of scorpion.”
“No. This climate’s too hostile for a scorpion,” said Lex.
“Ever seen anything like it?”
Lex shook her head.
“Maybe it’s a species that’s never been discovered.”
“Maybe,” Lex replied, but her tone was doubtful.
From the belly of the creature dangled a hard, petrified tentacle that looked to Lex, more than anything else, like a shriveled umbilical cord.
CHAPTER 17
Quinn was making his rounds, checking on the comfort and safety of his crew. His men were scattered throughout a rambling, drafty structure that had housed whalers a century before. A few of the roughnecks were clustered around a blaze sputtering in the stone hearth, and as Quinn went by, he tossed more splintered pieces of antiquated furniture into the fire.
Outside, the storm still raged off the mountain, bringing with it an impenetrable curtain of snow. So violent were the katabatic winds that gusts of frigid air penetrated through the joints of the century-and-a-half-year-old structure, and mounds of drifting snow accumulated around doors and under windows.
There was little for the roughnecks to do other than keep warm and ignore the continual howl of the wind’s angry blasts. Since they hadn’t had much sleep in the past twenty hours, most chose to bundle up tight in their sleeping bags and try to catch some shut-eye.
Which was why Quinn was surprised to come upon five of Weyland’s “security detail” busily unpacking long
