Jessica Andersen - Spellfire

Dez had pulled the magi off the virus and made a few calls, tipping off the CDC to the disease and what little the humans could do to manage it—which amounted to quarantining the hot zones and restraining the infected people so they couldn’t pass the soul-stealing disease, rabieslike, by biting others.

Since then, the Nightkeepers’ info on the virus had been limited to news crawls, blogs of varying degrees of hysteria, and the occasional stealth drop-in, and Anna had heard the king muttering just the other day about needing some on-the-ground intel. But something about this guy warned that she didn’t dare try pretending to be part of the volunteer force and risk getting caught in the lie. Better to go with the truth.

Or part of it, anyway.

“I snuck in,” she admitted. “I’m a Mayan studies—”

“Well, shit. You’re one of them.” His eyes hardened and he raked her head to toe with a withering look. “Those big blues aren’t going to get you anywhere with the militia, lady. You should get the hell out of here while you still can.”

Australian, she thought. A pissed-off Aussie, and one who wasn’t making much sense. “Wait. What?”

“They’re shooting looters on sight, you know.”

“I’m not—”

“Seriously, what the hell? These people are being slammed with a disease that wipes their minds and turns them into vicious, greedy shells that can’t live off anything other than human flesh. So we restrain them, tie them, gag them, whatever it takes to keep them from chewing on us, each other, even themselves while we try everything we can think of to cure them. Only it doesn’t work, so they starve to death . . . and in those last few seconds before they die, you can see their souls come back into their eyes. And they die screaming, not because of the fear or the pain, but because they suddenly realize what they’ve become.”

Stomach knotting—she had seen that exact look, time and again, right after she struck the fatal blow—she held up a hand. “Look, I—”

He took a step toward her, seeming to loom, though they weren’t far off in height. “And you people sneak in as slick as you please, figuring this is your chance to do some digging without bothering with permits, or maybe pop the locks on some of the tunnels and pull down a carving or two.” He made a disgusted noise. “You’re just as bad as the docs who come down here just to get data for some paper they’re planning on jamming through the review process, not giving a shit about the actual patients they’re supposed to be treating.”

She agreed wholeheartedly. Or at least she would if she could get a word in edgewise. “If you’d—”

“Maybe you’re not even here to steal. Maybe you’re doing legit research and think that because you’ve got a grant application or a paper or whatever due, it shouldn’t matter that the site is on lockdown, the whole region quarantined. Hell, if you can bribe your way in, you’ll have the whole place to yourself—no paperwork, no bullshit. What could be better than . . . shit. This is ridiculous.” He finally ground to a halt, glaring at her while one hand drifted to his belt, making her wonder if he had a pistol tucked behind him, if he was pissed enough to use it on her.

Hopefully not. She could shield herself, yes, or ’port away. Or even drop him where he stood with a sleep spell. She didn’t want to, though.

So she stayed put, heart drumming lightly against her ribs, though she kept her voice steady as she said, “Is it my turn yet?” At his grudging nod, she continued, “Look, I swear on the deity or family member of your choice that I’m not a looter. Hell, I’ve turned in a dozen or more tomb robbers who’ve tried to sell me antiquities over the years. Hate ’em.”

He narrowed his eyes. “For real?”

“I collect really bad fakes, but not the legit stuff. Never, ever.” She paused, exhaling when she saw that he might not have softened, but at least he was listening. “The only thing I’m guilty of is sneaking through the quarantine to get some one-on-one time with the carvings. And I get why that probably seems really, really tacky to you, but it’s not like that.” She started to hold out her hands in a gesture of innocence, then remembered there was probably blood on them. She clasped them together instead, and said, “We’re on the same team here, Doc. I’m just trying to help.”

“How so?” He didn’t look convinced, but he was staying put, even easing back a little, putting distance between them and decreasing the loom factor.

“When I was here a few years ago doing fieldwork, I noticed a badly degraded stone panel inside one of the temples. I thought I saw something on it about a strange disease, a plague that swept through the kingdoms and turned brother against brother and father against son. At the time I thought it was a metaphor for a civil war or something, but when the outbreak started”—she shrugged—“I figured it was worth checking out.”

One eyebrow went up and his accent thickened slightly with disbelief. “So you got across the border somehow even though they’ve closed it to tourists, made it through the quarantine and onto the site here, to . . . what, see if this carving mentioned a cure?”

“Is that any dumber than electroshock therapy or partial drowning, trying to get the infected people to ‘snap out of it’?” Which, hadn’t been part of the official international response, but rumors said that both of those things—and worse—had been tried in the highland villages.

Granted, the near-drowning thing hadn’t been the worst idea, as it came straight from the ancient Nightkeepers’ practices. She didn’t mention that part, though, because she wanted to come off as a dedicated, potentially foolhardy Mayanist, not a doomsday-nut wack-job.

He tilted his head, considering. “You can really read the hieroglyphs?”

“I’ve spent my whole life studying them.” Which was true. She had bolted for college without looking back, swearing she was going to make herself into something far more normal than she’d ever had a chance to be—because normal was safe, normal didn’t wake up in the middle of the night hearing screams and seeing flames and blood. But no matter how hard she had tried to get away from the Mayan stuff she had been raised on, it was no use. That was where her talents and interest lay, what her soul kept bringing her back to. So she had studied the culture and the glyphs, and made herself as normal as she could. For a while, anyway.

“Prove it.” He waved around them. “Translate something. And no bullshit, because I’ll know if you’re lying.”

That had to be a bluff, of course, but she nodded anyway, because if she wanted to get information out of him, he was going to have to trust her, at least a little.

They were standing in an open courtyard enclosed by lines of rubble where walls had once been. There, generations of ancient Mayan kings had erected row after row of stelae—stone pillars carved with hieroglyphs that recorded major events. Births, deaths, marriages, wars, all the news that had been fit to chisel was there.

Nearest them were three stelae; two were crumbled and fallen, but one still stood, tall and pale, its white limestone worn from wind and blackened with acid rain. The glyphs seemed legible enough, though, so she headed for it, aware of him trailing too close, like he thought she might make a break for it.

She wouldn’t, of course, not unless things turned hairy. But as she got up close and personal, she hesitated, recognizing the stelae too late and wondering if this was the gods at work or just a coincidence.

“Oh,” she breathed, tracing her fingertips along a glyph panel that wasn’t like any of the others. For one, it was in better shape, preserved by the remnants of a spell that sent shimmering tingles up her arm. And for another, it told a story . . . and gave a warning. One that her father had ignored.