“So, this represents the god’s mouth?” he asked, pointing to the shallow bowl that was the reason for the Chacmool’s existence.
“Are you sure you need me?”
“Very sure.”
Lina told herself there was no double meaning in his words. She couldn’t quite believe it. But then, she’d never been flirted with in such a bold yet indirect way.
“If you already know the purpose of the Chacmool…” she began.
“Your course work covered it—a reclining man-god figure with knees bent and head raised, providing a rest for a shallow bowl.”
“You missed half the classes.”
“The syllabus was excellent.”
Lina gave up and concentrated on the photo. “The glyphs I can see are what I would expect on a ceremonial object. The date. The royal hierarchy. Man’s reverence. The gods’ awful power.”
“Is Kawa’il a part of the Chacmool and its ritual?”
“Without seeing the entire rim, I can’t answer that.”
“Is it possible?”
“I’m told anything is possible, including the Maya millennium,” she said dryly. “Ask Melodee.”
“Pass. I prefer women who haven’t been cut-and-pasted.”
Lina shook her head, smiling. Hunter Johnston was very much to her taste. Too bad he was little better than a blackmailer.
“You still mad that I twisted your arm to help me?” he asked.
“Are you a mind reader?”
“No. You were smiling, then you looked like someone had asked you to eat a bug. Since I’m the only insect-eating SOB here, it was a logical connection.”
Hunter was entirely too quick, or she was too easy to read. Or both.
“The fifth photo fits with the time frame and ceremonial theme,” Lina said, sticking to what she knew rather than what she feared or desired. “The censer appears to be clay, beautifully crafted so that the incense smoke would seem to be pouring from the mouths of gods.”
“Looks like snakes to me.”
“The feathered serpent was a common Maya theme. If the censer was originally found with the other objects—”
“Unknown.”
“—the assumption would be that you have the trove of a high priest or a king.”
“You keep saying priest or king,” Hunter said.
“The English language makes the distinction. There is no proof that the Mayan language did. From all we have learned, it appears that nobility supplied the priest-kings. The duties, if they were separate at all, overlapped so heavily as to make a distinction meaningless.”
“I love it when you go all academic on me. Such a contrast to your—” Abruptly Hunter closed his runaway mouth.
Lina raised one dark, wing-shaped eyebrow.
“Off the subject,” he said. “I’m a man. My thoughts sometimes wander.”
She didn’t ask where they went. She knew. And she liked it, which confused her. He had strong-armed her into helping him, but she wasn’t as mad as she should be. He was flirting with her, and she liked it way too much. She’d slapped down less aggressive males without a thought.
Hunter took thought.
“The Maya believed that a god’s words could be seen in smoke, in dreams,” she said.
“Drug-induced?”
“Perhaps. Peyote enemas are a documented archaeological reality, as are mushroom and other psychotropic substances. But there are other ways to induce visions.”
“Such as?”
“Pain. Enough pain, enough self-bloodletting, can cause what Western people label hallucinations and Maya called communication with the gods.”
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.”