Jessica Andersen - Dawnkeepers

“We won’t be in the water too long,” he said. “Watch your weapons.”

“Right.” She unclipped her belt and tucked it in her knapsack, which was lined and would supposedly be completely waterproof once she engaged the double seal at the top. With her possessions secured, she stepped into the pool and started wading toward the cave mouth, then wound up having to swim when the faintly squishy bottom fell away. It was only a short distance across to where her feet touched the bottom, and then she was wading again, passing under the stone archway of the cave mouth.

Nate was right behind her, unspeaking, his solid presence helping settle her. She wouldn’t have admitted it to him for anything, but part of her was glad he was there instead of Michael. She and Nate admittedly had their problems, but she was comfortable with him, knew his body language and how he moved. Whether either of them liked it or not, they worked well together, at least on the physical level.

The ATM cave was like a cathedral at first, open and echoing with the slosh and slap of water as they waded onward. Rock formations flanked the waterway, larger, stubbier, and softer-edged than the ones she’d seen in her vision. Was that because of a difference in time frame, or would the stalactites and stalagmites grow sharper and narrower, more fanglike as they worked their way into the cave system? She didn’t know.

When they reached a section where a dry-land trail opened up alongside the waterway, they climbed out and sluiced off what water they could, then pulled water-resistant flashlights out of the packs, clicking them on for light as they moved deeper into the caves.

Alexis glanced over at Nate and was surprised at the pensiveness written on his bruised face. “Not exactly your idea of fun?” she asked, keeping her voice low because of the echoes and the sense of being inside a sacred place.

“It’s not that,” he said, equally low. “It’s . . .” He hesitated, looking at her, then let out a breath. “I spent the other night in my parents’ cottage. It got me thinking.”

“You . . . oh.” She broke off. Of all the things she might’ve expected him to say, that wasn’t one of them. “Wow. Do you, you know, want to talk about it or anything?” Not the most elegant of invitations, perhaps, but even as lovers they’d shared little in the way of deep convo.

He shook his head, but said, “Maybe later.”

They kept going, and soon passed a cluster of flare-rimmed pottery jars. The size of two cupped hands joined together, the vessels had most likely held sacrificial offerings—water, perhaps, or blood, intended to petition the gods for the shaman-priests’ safe passage into the sacred caves. Nate and Alexis didn’t dare leave a bowl or carved offering for subsequent visitors to find, but they also didn’t dare enter the inner caves without a sacrifice, so they blooded their tongues and spat in the river. Then, using copies of both maps, they worked their way from one cavern to the next, passing more offerings as they went. The sacrifices grew more elaborate as they moved deeper into the cave system; farther in, the pottery jars were larger and decorated with depictions of bats and howler monkeys, both which were thought to act as messengers between the earth and the underworld.

Moving even deeper into the caves, they passed human remains, the calcified bones of adults first, then infants, each carefully laid out in chambers with high, vaulted ceilings and giant limestone pillars. The waterway wound through the scattered offerings, some of which had been placed on carved altars or grindstones, while others were set in natural niches and alcoves.

The researchers who had ventured into the ATM caves had pointed to the sacrificial victims and offerings as the efforts of Mayan priests to reverse the droughts, wars and famines that had supposedly struck the region around A.D. 950, when so many of the great cities had been abandoned en masse, seemingly overnight. But Alexis knew the sacrifices were not, as the archaeologists believed, tributes made to the rain god, Chaac, in an effort to alleviate drought. They were evidence of the terrible magic the Nightkeepers had been forced to call on in order to drive the Banol Kax back to hell, after the Xibalbans had loosed the demons on the earth, dooming the empire.

In the final chamber, where the subterranean river seemed to dead-end in a deep pool, nine skulls were stacked in a tzomplanti , a skull pile that could be used as a marker or a warning. Nine skulls to represent the nine levels of hell standing opposite the thirteen layers of the sky, with the single earthly plane between them as a buffer. A battleground.

Checking the older map, Alexis gestured to the pile. “That’s our marker. According to Painted-

Jaguar and company, the tunnel is beneath the skull pile.”

Nate nodded. “Let’s dive.”

Digging into their knapsacks, they pulled out pony bottles, which were small compressed-air tanks fitted with breathing masks that covered the nose and mouth. Sven, an expert diver, had outfitted them with the canisters and given them a quick demo. The brief writeup that went along with Painted-

Jaguar’s map indicated they could make it through the tunnel on a single breath-hold, but they weren’t taking any chances. They also donned goggles and traded their flashlights for waterproof miners’ headlamps.

Not exactly the height of fashion, Alexis thought, wincing when the elastic straps pulled at her no-

nonsense ponytail. She resealed her knapsack, but didn’t put it on, because Sven had advised them to carry the packs hugged to their chests, as that could reduce the danger of snagging on the tunnel sides.

The safety precautions had her pausing at the edge of the water.

“Problem?” Nate asked, coming up beside her.

She stared down into the dark depths, but a flush of heat and a flash of sensory memory warned her that it wasn’t the swim she was worried about. She was unsettled by the thought of what they might find at the other end of the tunnel. She was sure Nate had been part of her earlier vision, could swear they’d actually been in the chamber, not just a dream-version of it. But if that were the case, would there be any evidence that they’d been there together, that they’d made love in the temple? Would she see a boot scuff and know it was his, or see something they’d left behind? Or what if being there jolted the memory loose inside his skull? He swore he never remembered his dreams, so maybe their shared vision had gone to wherever his dreams wound up, blocked off by his stubborn insistence that there was nothing to be gained from the past, or from prophecy. If so, then what would happen if he suddenly remembered making love to her in that cave?

It doesn’t matter either way, she told herself firmly, trying very hard to believe it.

“Alexis? What’s wrong?” He touched her arm, bringing a flare of warmth to her midsection.

“Foolishness,” she said, dismissing the fears, and the small wish that fantasy could become reality.

She took a deep breath and told herself to man up and get the job done. “Let’s go.”

She combat-dropped into the water; he followed a few seconds later, their splashes echoing in the stone chamber. Alexis held her knapsack across her chest, the straps looped around the arm holding the pony bottle as she adjusted her goggles and headlamp and took a couple of experimental breaths.

With all systems go and Nate treading water beside her, she let herself sink beneath the surface.

The water was silty and brown-cast, the suspended particles dampening her light within ten feet or so and making her feel very isolated. Very alone. Unable to stop herself, she back-paddled until she could see Nate’s reassuring bulk in her peripheral vision. When he gestured, offering to go first, she nodded, grateful there was nobody else there to see her be a wienie.