He took a deep breath that did zilch to quell his urge to have Cheech pull over so he could barf in the undergrowth. “Yeah. Thanks.”
Cheech had been following the exchange but staying discreetly silent. Rabbit knew it was intentional because he’d kept a light link with the kid, so he could pick up big thoughts and emotions but not details, and hopefully get some warning if their driver—or his friends—were planning to roll the gringos for their wallets. So far, so good, though. There was no hint of duplicity as Cheech said, “We will reach the village soon, in five or ten minutes.” His English was schoolroom-perfect and a little stilted, but it was still way better than Rabbit could do in anything other than English. He knew a few dozen spell words by heart, and that was about it.
“Thanks.” Rabbit glanced at Myrinne, and took a deep breath. “Well, here goes nothing.”
“I’ve got your back.”
“That’s one of the few things I’ve never doubted.” The backup was way more than figurative too; her shoulder bag held a pair of lightweight nine-millimeter ACPs loaded with jade-tipped bullets, along with spare clips. One of the many benefits of ’porting over the border rather than flying was the ease of getting arms down south. Granted, it meant they would have to ’port back, because customs tended to get pissy when U.S. citizens tried to reenter the country without there being any evidence of them having ever left. But he and Myrinne both had their satellite phones and panic buttons, so they were covered there too.
He’d done his best to think things through and be smart about this. Now, like she said, they would just have to let things play out.
A few minutes later, Cheech eased up on the gas as they came to a bend in the narrow dirt track, then braked to coast into a wide, tree-flanked circle of packed dirt where the road dead-ended. Two seventies-era F-150s and a VW Bug—the old kind—were parked in a neat row. Cheech added the Rover onto the end.
When he cut the engine, the world seemed to go preternaturally silent for a few seconds. Then there was a series of birdcalls—not the parrot screeches typical of the lowland rain forests, but rather the high, challenging cries of raptors: hawks, maybe, or even eagles.
The sound shivered along Rabbit’s skin, kindling his blood and touching his warrior’s talent. His surroundings snapped into clearer focus as his senses expanded.
He could feel Myrinne’s nervous optimism on his behalf, Cheech’s idle musing on whether he could soak his passengers for a second fee to drive them back down to the market village . . . and in the near distance, a few dozen people he perceived as pinpoint glows of consciousness.
To his surprise, he didn’t feel the hum of energy that would indicate the proximity of a power sink, whether natural or man-made. Both dark and light magi tended to live near power sinks; Skywatch itself was built near the remains of a Chacoan pueblo, and Iago’s hideouts had gravitated to well-
hidden ruins and modern sacred sites. Oc Ajal, though, didn’t seem to follow the pattern.
Which meant . . . hell, he didn’t know what it meant. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.
“I take it we’re hiking in from here?” he asked Cheech.
“Yes. These people are very traditional, very spiritual. They don’t want cars disturbing their earth connection.” The driver hopped out, then paused and turned back. “No cameras either.”
Myrinne slung her bag over her shoulder and held up both hands. “No problem. We’re not here to take pictures.”
Rabbit was ready to step in with a mind-bend if the convo turned to weapons, but Cheech’s thought process didn’t go there. He just gave a “come on, then” wave and started heading up one of three trails that led away from the parking area. Myrinne glanced at Rabbit, who nodded to indicate that their guide was on the level. As they fell into step on the pathway, she whispered, “You getting any buzz?”
“Not really.”
She took his hand, threading their fingers together and squeezing, so he could feel the hard bump of the ring he’d given her.
They hiked uphill through the trees for five minutes or so, picking their way over rocks and roots.
Although the mountain trees were much lower growing than their giant rain forest cousins, their leafy branches wove together overhead, and the under- and middle growth was thick, giving the hikers little hint as to what was up ahead . . . until they reached two high stone columns that were topped by a crude archway held in place by a lintel stone.
The construction wasn’t up to the ancients’ standards and didn’t resonate with power on the dark or light level, but it definitely marked a boundary.
Cheech paused to let Rabbit and Myrinne catch up. Then he waved them through the archway. “Oc Ajal.”
Rabbit took a deep breath. Then, tightening his grip on Myrinne’s hand, he stepped through.
He was braced for almost anything. What he got was a village that looked pretty much like the others they had driven through on the way up, with the exception that the pole buildings were made entirely of natural materials, with no tin or fiberglass. The villagers weren’t total purists, though: Two denim-wearing kids and a couple of skinny mutts wrestled over possession of a dingy volleyball off on one side, and although the four women clustered near a central fire pit were hand-grinding maize on traditional millstones, they were dumping the resulting cornmeal into brightly colored plastic bowls.
As he and Myrinne stepped through the archway with Cheech right behind them, the women looked up, their eyes bright and interested.
All too young to be her, Rabbit found himself thinking, even though he’d tried to talk himself out of expecting too much. He just wanted some info on the other side of his bloodlines . . . and to check out Myrinne’s theory that the only way his old man would’ve slept with a Xibalban and schlepped along the resulting bastard child was if that Xibalban had been part of a sect separate from Iago’s red-robed sociopaths.
But although he’d told himself not to have any expectations, he went a little hollow when their only reaction was for one of the women to call what he assumed was the equivalent of “Got company!” to someone inside a nearby building. Then the women went back to grinding, while the kids and the dogs —which were barking now, belatedly warning of the intrusion—headed around the back of the hut circle and disappeared.
So much for the return of the prodigal whatever.
Fuck it. Forcing himself to focus on the here and now, he leaned closer to Myrinne. “Why didn’t they hear us?” he said in an undertone, though what he really meant was, Why didn’t they sense me?
He could’ve sent the thought straight into her mind through the touch link of their handclasp, but she didn’t like him inside her head. As she put it, there had to be some boundaries between them. So he whispered, and kept it general, trusting her to translate his real meaning.
“Can you ‘hear’ them?”
He shook his head. No. He hadn’t sensed any magic—light or dark—on the way up the path, and he didn’t sense any now. “Maybe Jox remembered wrong, or my old man lied to him about the name of the village.”
But that didn’t totally play either, given the rumors about dark magic in the village, and the way Cheech and the other guy down in the market had connected the trading language with Oc Ajal, even before Rabbit asked about the village by name.
What was more, he realized with a click of connection, the whole place was arranged around powerful numbers and symbols.
There were two rows of thirteen huts each, arranged in a three-quarters circle around a central fire pit, with the archway centered in the gap. Seven flattened millstones surrounded the fire pit. And he’d bet a minor body part that the spiral designs incised, row after row, into the poles that made up each building would, if he counted them, add up to plays on 13, 20, 52, 260, and various other numbers that had been central to the ancient calendars.