Touching Midnight Page 13

  A second dose of adrenaline shot through Miguel’s veins. His head bounced back in instant reflex and smacked against stone, and the flashlight slipped from his fingers, the feeble beam almost extinguished in the mud.

  He sucked in a breath, calming the rapid beat of his heart and ignoring the hot throbbing at the back of his skull. “Holy mother of God.”

  For a brief instant, with the flashlight flickering across it, the eye had appeared to move—but it must have been a trick of the light. He was getting as bad as Pedro and that crazy woman he was sleeping with. “Pass me another bucket.”

  Reluctantly, he inched backward far enough that he could pass Pedro the bucket he’d filled with dirt. It was a frustrating business, and slow, but short of bringing in mechanical equipment and exposing their presence, this was the only way they could dig.

  Pedro handed him an empty bucket. “What’s up there? What have you found?”

  “Something that’ll change that old witch Juana’s predictions.” Miguel spat more mud. There was mud everywhere—they were both coated in it—but this time it would pay off. “Gold, stupido!” He didn’t bother to keep the glee from his voice as he struggled back into the slippery hole, for the first time in his life glad that he was small and lean, instead of tall and thick and stupid, like Pedro. For once his lack of stature had paid off. He would have to share the proceeds of the gold; there was no wriggling out of that—Pedro was connected, a distant cousin of Ramirez—but even so, a half share would make him rich.

  Miguel ignored Pedro’s incessant questions as he continued to excavate, his gaze fastened on the growing expanse of smooth metal that gleamed like liquid heat in the darkness, reflecting the failing beam of light so that the dim, filthy hole seemed almost as bright as day.

  It was beautiful—beautiful. He could see the eye now, and what looked like a hand. Strange symbols, not like any of the Incan or Mayan ones he’d seen. Still, what did he know?

  He grinned as he worked, carefully scraping at the dirt so as not to scratch the metal. And what did he care what it was, so long as it fetched a good price?

  He couldn’t believe it; they were going to be rich.

  Dirt showered his face again, and his fury at Pedro’s incompetence erupted. “Stop moving around—I can hardly work.”

  “It’s not me—it’s the ground.” Pedro’s voice faded as if he’d retreated to the tunnel entrance, then grew louder as he poked his head up near Miguel’s boots. “This doesn’t feel good. I’m getting out.”

  Miguel barely registered Pedro’s whine as he worked feverishly to uncover the third symbol. The shape of a sword emerged from the damp, crusted dirt, and his hand froze. He stared at the glyph in blind fascination, struck with awe, and all the hairs at the back of his neck lifted.

  Eye of God, hand of God, sword of God.

  The words ran through his mind, a cold whisper that set up a peculiar tension in the pit of his stomach. In a reflex that had all but deserted him, he muttered a brief prayer and crossed himself.

  A cool wind blew against his legs, making his stomach clench and his bladder spasm with the urgent need to urinate.

  Vaguely, he registered that the cold breeze had been caused by the tarpaulin flap being lifted as that weasel, Pedro, scurried from the tunnel.

  A split second later, the almost imperceptible shaking turned into a sickening roll, and the two stone blocks that were wedged over Miguel began to move. With a grating noise that was lost in the roar of the earthquake as the leading edge of the shock wave hit the valley, one block ground down the face of the other, crushing Miguel’s back and chest, and completely severing the lower part of his body.

  Seventeen

  “The first body found at the entrance to the temple was severed in two by the earthquake two weeks ago. Now the ruin has claimed a second life—a member of the Peruvian archaeological team that arrived to investigate the ruins revealed by the quake has been found dead in his tent. As yet, the cause of death is unknown, but with several other members of the team suffering the symptoms of a mysterious illness that local people claim is the result of an ancient curse protecting the temple, the remaining archaeologists are spooked. Apparently a number of personnel have already walked off the dig, including a large Peruvian contingent.

  “With the second death, the Peruvian government is investigating the possibility of closing the site altogether and—”

  Quin turned off the radio as she drove her Jeep over the new steel bridge that now spanned the Agueda, her amazement that the old rope bridge had finally been replaced superceded by the tension that had driven her for the past forty-eight hours.

  The quake had been a five point two on the Richter scale—and a ten on the panic scale when she’d finally gotten the news in Honduras—twelve days after the event—and found out that the epicenter had been less than fifteen miles from the valley.

  Communications had been restored, but apart from a brief telephone conversation with Olivia assuring her that they were fine, all she’d had to go on were the sketchy news broadcasts she’d caught on various radio stations as she’d driven overland from Lima.

  Frustratingly, the news reports hadn’t concentrated on the mission or the village, only on the fact that the quake had revealed a “lost city.”

  Pulling onto the shoulder of the road, Quin killed the engine, her gaze sweeping the mission. She’d been away from the valley for nearly ten years. As finances had eased—thanks to Jay’s investment skills—the aunts had taken to visiting her when she had vacations. She’d heard plenty about the valley, but this time, even though she knew Olivia and Hannah were fine, verbal reassurance hadn’t been enough.

  Relief poured through her when she saw that the buildings appeared to have suffered minimal damage, if any at all, but her tension reasserted itself as her gaze drifted past the mission and further down the curve of the valley.

  From the information she’d gleaned from the radio while she’d driven from Lima to Vacaro, the find was slated as the most important since Machu Picchu and the most enigmatic since the Sphinx. Enigmatic because the entrance was on comparatively low land, not built high, as Cuzco and Machu Picchu were. The size of the uncovered gateway to the temple alone had excited major interest, and, in addition, there was evidence that a part of the temple, at least, had been built by a civilization that far predated the Incas.

  As singular as it was, in no way did the find please Quin. She felt fiercely protective of Olivia and Hannah—of the entire valley—and now Valle del Sol was open and exposed, not only to archaeologists and the inevitable stream of looters, but to the world. Despite the fact that she was an archaeologist and uncovering the past was her business, a stubborn part of her rejected the incursion.

  As she surveyed the ruin, at first all she could see was mud. The slip, which had been caused by the earthquake, was huge. Thousands of tons of mud and debris had moved, plunging all the way to the valley floor, tearing away the face of an entire hillside to reveal the remnants of ancient terraces and tumbled buildings.

  Automatically, Quin traced the symmetry of the terracing, gauging distances and angles, the evidence of colonnades at what must be the temple gate, the blurred lines of avenues and squares, the large sunken area where the tavern had been….

  She blinked and froze, gooseflesh rising as if someone had just walked over her grave, and for a moment she wondered if she was crazy, not different, not psychic—just plain, staring crazy.

  With slow, deliberate movements, Quin hooked her sunglasses off her nose, rubbed her eyes and looked again. She felt strange, both hot and cold, and a little shaky, as if she was coming down with a fever, and abruptly reality shimmered and dissolved beneath the burning heat of the sun as the torn bones of an ancient city laid bare were replaced by another image entirely. Pristine buildings flowed along steep contours, the harsh granite softened by sun-bleached plaster and lush plantings spilling over terraced walls. Shady squares provided cool resting places as people scurrie
d out of the sun along narrow paved streets filled with barefooted children and men bent double beneath baskets laden with colorful produce. Knots of soldiers strolled the avenues and squatted beneath shade trees, weapons glinting where they caught the sun. And over all, smoke from braziers hung in air that rippled like water in the noonday haze.

  For a disorienting moment that stretched and clung, the image remained, as sharply real as the broken spring that protruded through the cracked vinyl of the Jeep’s driver’s seat, the grainy, pockmarked texture of the steering wheel beneath her fingers.

  Blinking, she fitted her sunglasses back on the bridge of her nose and started the Jeep. “You are going crazy, Quin.”

  The vivid dream she’d experienced when she was thirteen—and almost succeeded in forgetting—had just come back and bitten her on the ass in full Technicolor.

  It had been years since she’d thought of that dream, years since she’d stopped trying to work out what was real and what was fantasy; it had been years since she’d healed. In leaving Valle del Sol, she’d left that whole part of her life behind, but the moment she’d reentered the valley, it was as if she’d driven into an invisible force field and something had gone haywire.

  Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel.

  No more running, no more pretending that what she’d experienced didn’t exist, because a part of it, at least, did. Jay was real, and the temple was real.

  Curse or not, she was going into that temple to find some answers.

  Minutes later she pulled to a halt beside a knot of vehicles grouped to the side of a small canvas town that stretched to the foot of the mission orchard.

  When she’d left ten years ago, the orchard had consisted of a scattering of scrawny, diseased trees clinging to the edge of the compound—just enough to provide the mission itself with fruit. Now, rows of well-kept trees, protected from the wind by trimmed shelterbelts, flowed over several acres, and she could see the corrugated iron roof of what looked like a packing shed in the distance.

  A lot of things had changed.

  A flurry of movement, the flash of sun off glass, drew her eye back to the canvas encampment.

  Elias Cain was posed in front of a camera, hair perfect, classic dust-colored drill shirt neatly pressed, his voice as smooth as dark honey for the sound mike.

  On the other hand, some things stayed exactly the same.

  “Sonovabitch.”

  Cain was here before her.

  Pulling the key from the ignition, she swung out of the Jeep and slammed the door.

  Elias Cain.

  She’d walked off a site in Honduras just days ago, a site that Cain had run through with all the finesse of a hurricane, milking the media that followed him like a pack of bloodhounds—then abandoning the lot for fresh pickings. The fact that the fresh pickings were in Valle del Sol—her valley—didn’t please Quin one little bit.

  As she strode between the tents, studying the layout of the encampment, she pocketed the keys, fished out the photo ID tag she’d used in Honduras and clipped it on to the lapel of her shirt. The sorting tents were easy to identify—they were little more than tarpaulins stretched overtop of trestle tables. It was the large tent with the closed flap and Keep Out sign that interested her the most.

  As she strolled, she noted patches of dead grass where tents had been, illustrating just how many personnel had already vacated the site. Evidently the illness or curse that had sent most of the Peruvian team running hadn’t been enough to scare off Cain or the media.

  A student cleaning pottery shards with a soft brush sent her a curious look, but the second his gaze settled on the ID tag, he relaxed and went back to his work. All of the other students and personnel that formed Cain’s archaeological hit team were too focused on the man himself, and his smooth delivery in front of the camera, to notice a stranger in their midst.

  Cain’s voice, pitched for an audience, was now clearly audible. “…the seal is only the first of many wonders, and it points the way to an archaeological find that could possibly rival that of Tutankhamen’s tomb. And…” he paused for dramatic effect, “if local legend is correct, we could be on the verge of finding an ancient treasure that rivals the Holy Grail—a treasure that not one, but two cultures held sacred. If the protective seals are anything to go by—”

  Jaw clamped, Quin stepped inside the tent, dismissing Cain and his sideshow, which was designed to create hype and publicity and keep his major sponsor, a multinational pharmaceutical company, happy with the number of times their logo appeared on newscasts. Evidently, this time, he’d hit gold.

  Lifting the sunglasses off her nose, she slid them into her breast pocket and allowed her eyes to adjust to the soupy green light.

  The tent was filled with wooden packing boxes and large plastic bags of packing material. Work tables were set up either side of the tent. On each table, artifacts were neatly placed in labeled boxes, ready to be shipped.

  Cain couldn’t have been here long. The temple itself had only been uncovered when the quake struck.

  Someone had found a seal….

  Restlessly, her gaze swept the tables, then caught on a shape that was wrapped in cloth and stored in a separate box. Without hesitation, she reached for the bundle, and for a split second she felt again the dizzying sense of displacement she’d experienced when she’d handled the stone artifact Olivia had found all those years ago.

  Shaking off the uncanny feeling, she lifted the object out, surprised by the weight of it.

  As the final fold of cloth fell away, for an endless moment she floundered, caught between two worlds, one ancient—obscured by mists and shadows and indecipherable puzzles—the other brash and commercial—too easy and too fast to comprehend the dissolving echoes of the past.

  The seal was gold.

  A heaviness grew in her head, accompanied by a pressurized, smothering sensation as if she’d just been rolled under a dark wave. For a disorienting moment her heart pounded and she struggled to breathe. The absurd thought hung in her mind that for the first time in her life she was actually going to faint, and it had to be on Cain’s turf.

  The heavy gold plate slid from her fingers, and the sharp clatter of the artifact hitting the table broke the eerie effect. Sucking in a breath, Quin shook off the claustrophobia that had materialized, unwanted, out of thin air.

  Cold seeped into the pit of her stomach as she studied the seal where it lay, unwilling to risk touching the artifact again. The first row of symbols were universal, a warning and a protection in one: the eye, the hand and the sword. As for the rest…The glyphs were smaller, more intricate, and completely unfamiliar, but the doorplate as a whole was easy to understand.

  Only the most important messages were delivered in gold. And this one was a keep out sign. A double whammy when taken in context with the Incan serpent Olivia had found. Two cultures didn’t want whatever was beneath the ground dug up.

  The tent flap was thrown back, letting in a cooling breeze, and the familiar sharp features of Cain’s right-hand man appeared.

  Hathaway straightened, his narrow face darkening. “What are you doing in here? Didn’t you see the sign? This is a restricted area.”

  “Hathaway. It never rains but it pours.” Deliberately, Quin picked up a shard of pottery and examined it. The fractured edges were fresh, which figured. Speed was of the essence with Cain. The bastards weren’t preserving, they were mining—dredging the ground for significant artifacts, while the real treasure, the fragile imprint of the past, was crushed beneath Cain’s expensive boot.

  Hathaway’s gaze fastened on the gold seal where it lay, glowing dully on the table. “You handled the seal.” His jaw compressed so hard a pulse ticked in his cheek. “If you damaged it—”

  She replaced the pottery shard in its box. “What, Hathaway? You’ll sue? That doorplate, along with every other artifact you’ve uncovered, belongs to the Peruvian government, not you.”

  Quin watched as he retrieved the g
old plate with a soft cotton cloth, careful not to touch it with his fingers and risk contaminating it with skin oils and salts, as he returned the seal to its box.

  His gaze darted over the table to see if she’d handled anything else. “How do you know it’s a doorplate?”

  “Anyone with half a degree in archaeology would—and besides, in my spare time I watch CNN.”

  “Bitch.”

  She lifted a brow. “Sticks and stones…You can call me any name you like, Hathaway, but it won’t change your basic problem—you’re just not that bright.”

  The low, smooth register of Cain’s voice sounded just outside the tent as he spoke to the student working at the cleaning table. A split second later he dipped his head and entered the tent. “Mallory.”

  It wasn’t a compliment. She and Cain had butted heads on more than one dig. Quin hadn’t been able to stand his shoddy methods and attention-grabbing tactics, and Cain hadn’t liked her having an opinion about anything at all. Even if they hadn’t clashed professionally, it was a sure bet they would never have gotten on. There was a basic gulf in values between them that meant she and Cain would never coexist comfortably.

  “Cain, as I live and breathe. Why didn’t I know you’d be here?”

  “I’m here with permission—you’re not. Get out.”

  Quin resisted the urge to say, “Make me.” Cain would, despite the fact that she was female. If he had ever possessed a scruple, it had long since been lost in the stampede to find fame and fortune in front of the television cameras. If she wanted to oust him from the valley, she would have to play the game on a field she could win—a professional one—and, as always, with Cain and Hathaway, the battle would be fraught with mental and political maneuvering.

  Cain straightened as if reaching for more height and jerked his thumb at the tent flap. “I want you out of this valley—now.”

  Quin lifted a brow. She was taller than both Cain and Hathaway, and neither of them liked it. Too bad. “You’ll have trouble kicking me out of my own backyard. As it happens, this is where I live. Looks like, this time, Cain, you’re just going to have to suck it up.”