David Gilman - Blood Sun

Max tried to picture the message in his head. Armed men near a temple where there were women and children. Though it seemed the children were separate. What did this have to do with his mum?

“Danny was trying to tell me something about my mother. But she was nowhere near Peru, where Danny was studying. She was in Central America.”

“Is this about your mother?”

“I think so. I hope so.”

“Where is she now?”

“She’s dead.”

Dr. Miller grunted. “Oh, I see.”

Max pulled out the photos taken of his mother in the rain forest. “These are the only clues I have.”

The professor settled his glasses and quickly thumbed through the pictures, then handed them back to Max. “Right, come on. I’ll show you something.”

He ushered Max back into the corridor, up the stairs that led out onto Montague Street and through the room Max had crossed to get to the library. It was dark now, except for the exhibits’ distorted shadows looming grotesquely up the walls.

The interleading doors to each of the galleries left Max’s head spinning. He was losing all sense of direction. Even though he followed Dr. Miller’s rapid footsteps, it felt as though he was being led into a labyrinth. A moment of regret tugged at him. He wished he’d picked up a museum map from the visitors’ desk. Don’t go blindly into a place of danger. Wherever possible, know your ground -Dad’s words as he once pointed out a difficult route on a map. That’s what maps are for . Max’s thoughts swirled. His dad hadn’t needed a map when he ran away and left his wife to die!

Dr. Miller stopped. Breathless, he tapped his chest. “Indigestion. Too many cakes,” he said, then fumbled a small bunch of keys. The doors to the next room were bolted by a heavy-duty chain and padlock. Max heard a movement behind him as the clanking chains rattled through the door handle. A shaft of light caught them both like animals blinded on a country road.

“Hey!” a voice commanded. “What the hell are you doing?” The torchlight barely wavered as the figure moved quickly toward them. Dr. Miller turned. Waved and rattled his keys.

“It’s Dr. Miller. I need to get into room twenty-seven for a few moments. Sorry to disturb you.”

The night security guard was right next to them but refused to take his torch from Miller’s face until he was certain of the curator’s identity. Finally he lowered the beam.

“You should tell us when you’re working late, Dr. Miller,” the man said officiously. “I’ll have to make a note of this in the log.”

“Of course you will. Quite right too. Don’t worry, we won’t be long. Good night to you.”

There was no mistaking Dr. Miller’s dismissal. The man turned away, switched off his torch and faded back into the shadows.

“They get a little jumpy at night. Imagination is what does it mostly. Things tend to take on a life of their own. I don’t blame them, of course. I’ve worked late here myself and definitely seen statues shift position.”

“You’re not serious?” Max asked.

“That depends on one’s imagination.”

There was sufficient light to see the old man’s face crinkle into a smile. He pushed open the doors and led the way into a room full of Central American artifacts.

Max gazed into the emerald-green eyes of a black beast. Misshapen, but unmistakably a big cat, it glared back as if Max had just come face to face with the black jaguar in the dense undergrowth of the rain forest.

It was an ancient carving hewn from black volcanic rock. The ragged edges gave the beast a sense of movement, as if its fur was being brushed by the breeze or a low-lying branch. The open jaws displayed white bone teeth, carved to match the shape of incisors and canines. It was powerful and ferocious. It loomed, ready to strike, ears flattened, fixing its glare on him.

The dim light in the room seemed to fade even more. Max smelled the musky cat fur and the carnivore’s stale breath, and heard the resonant growl from somewhere deep within the predator’s chest. It was frightening. Frightening and glorious. Max felt the sigh escape from his lips as he reached forward and touched the beast’s flanks.

A part of Max ran free. Claws dug into the bole of a tree, and a canopy of stars beckoned above the treetops.

“Max?”

Dr. Miller’s voice returned the statue to its role as lifeless guardian of the room’s treasures.

The showcases around three of the four walls were lit, while on the fourth, stone fresco slabs, intricately carved with figures, were frozen in a silent, macabre dance of bloodletting.

“Those are Mayan kings and queens, making sacrifices to their gods.”

He stepped farther into the room. Max faltered, his hand drawn to touch the rough stonework, as if willing the storyboard to unfold through his fingertips. A loud buzzing alarm startled him. Yanking his hand away, the sound stopped immediately.

“Electronic beams scan those lintels,” Dr. Miller said. “They’re ancient, so we can’t have every child on a school tour rubbing their hands over them, can we? But never mind those for a moment. Now, where are we … yes, here.”

In the exhibit’s half-light, he pointed out the history of the Mexican and Central American people. Different colors stained the map as Miller walked around the room, following history. He stopped. “The Maya-250 BC to AD 1000.”

Max gazed past his reflection in the glass and pressed his hand against it. It felt like a contact between him and his mother. She was there, still there, among all those marks and symbols on the ancient map.

Dr. Miller spread out the khipu on an exhibit’s plinth.

Max heard movement somewhere deep in the silence. “I heard something, back there,” he whispered.

Dr. Miller took his attention away from the knotted cords. A questioning look.

“A flat, dull sound. I don’t know what it was,” Max said, unable to identify the muffled movement he had heard.

They listened for a moment longer, but it was silent. Dr. Miller turned back to the map. “It will be one of the night security people. Now, see here,” he said, ignoring the fact that Max stayed focused on the channels of darkness reaching into the endless halls. His instincts prickled. The sounds were a whispering movement. Not the almost-silent tread of a bored man on night duty whose long hours stretched out before him. These were like rushes of air across the cold, hard surface of the museum’s floor, like rats’ whispers.

Instinct warned him to stay alert, but he knew it could also be his imagination-he hoped. He forced himself to concentrate on what Dr. Miller was looking at on the map. The narrow strip of land between South America and Mexico was pockmarked with symbols.

Dr. Miller carried on without further hesitation. “Here. This is where Danny Maguire passed through on his way to Mexico. He contacted me several months ago, said he had reached the ancient ruins of Lord Shield Jaguar, who is the king shown on that stone lintel you touched.”

“Then Danny went into Central America? He wasn’t just in Peru?”

“Absolutely. I was quite concerned at the time. That isthmus is a well-worn path for drug smugglers from Colombia into Mexico and the United States. Danny was traveling off the beaten track, deep into the mountains and rain forest.”

Max felt something squeeze the air out of his chest. It was a swell of hope. “My mother died somewhere in the rain forest. Does that khipu tell us anything else? Like where exactly Danny might have traveled in the jungle?”

Miller winced. Perhaps his own enthusiasm to help Max would exceed the boy’s expectations. He hesitated, then shrugged. “I did say this was a crude example. A khipu is an information-storage device.”