Chapter 17
CHAPTER 17
Nothing like having a glorious evening of pleasure end by being woken in the middle of the night to be told armed mercenaries might be coming. Rather than argue and try to offer a plausible explanation, Ruth dressed so fast she almost got whiplash. After what happened at her home, she wouldn’t take chances.
They quickly packed their bags and slung them on their backs before they slipped outside to join an agitated and pacing Santos.
As they set off, she didn’t say much, couldn’t with her tight throat and knotted belly. A tense Leo had gone from tender lover to alert warrior. Seeing him so serious, his head constantly swiveling to watch their rear, let her know he thought the situation dire.
Santos led them into the jungle, and she had to wonder at his change of heart. At dinnertime, he’d seemed rather adamant about not guiding them to the area her father had last been seen in. Then again, he and Leo hadn’t said where they were going.
The men adopted a rapid pace that left Ruth quickly tired with protesting muscles. Hiking in the woods at night on uneven terrain proved difficult, but she did her best to keep up, despite the drenching sweat and her huffing lungs and screaming thighs.
It proved easier to find fuel for her flagging energy when she heard the distant shouting. Shouting in the middle of the night in a quiet village didn’t bode well. She only hoped the folks living there didn’t get caught up in any trouble.
They finally took a short break when Leo insisted, “Ruth needs a drink of water.”
She gulped thankfully before panting, “Are we sure those folks were after us?”
Leo shrugged. “According to Santos, Maria was talking to them and they were armed. Can’t see any other reason for them to be out here.”
“Bad men,” Santos agreed as he gazed off in the distance.
“Where are you taking us?” she asked.
“Road. Safe.”
She shook her head. “I can’t leave. I need to go to the place my father went missing.
Santos glanced at her with a frown. “Bad place. No go there.”
“But I have to,” she insisted. “I need to find the door he drew. It’s very important.”
“Bad door. Bad spirits.”
Santos remained adamant, and she didn’t know how to better explain the urgency of their mission.
Leo stripped his shirt. “The spirits won’t hurt me.” He turned and presented his tattooed back to Santos.
The man’s eyes widened. “?Dios mío !” He began chattering in Spanish, and she couldn’t follow, but his tirade ended with. “I take. No stay.”
“Deal.” Leo held out his hand to shake, but Santos retreated, suddenly wary of Leo.
Something about Leo’s tattoo had obviously triggered something in him. The language barrier made it almost impossible to find out what it meant to Santos, but he obviously recognized it.
As they resumed walking, she murmured to Leo, “How did you know the tattoo would convince him?”
“He’s got a Zodiac symbol etched on the inside of his wrist.”
“Meaning he’s met a warrior before.”
“Most likely.”
They walked forever. Unlike the movies, she didn’t glow. She sweated like a pig. She didn’t get exhilarated. She got more and more tired. The bugs proved relentless, and she kept swatting, to which Leo teased, “I’m not the only one who finds you tasty.”
The blush surprisingly didn’t light their way. She didn’t know how Santos managed to guide them in the dark. She could barely see their guide walking in front of her. Leo trailed behind Ruth, still on high alert, even though it had been a while since they’d heard anything.
When dawn began lightening the sky, visibility improved, but the situation remained the same. Walk, walk, trip, walk, slap a bug, walk, stumble, lose a decade of life as something with many legs landed on her, walk.
She fell into a monotonous slog, one foot after the other, moving without thinking, until she almost ran into Santos.
Their guide stopped abruptly and pointed. “That way. Puerta estrella .”
“I don’t see it,” Leo commented, moving up to look.
“Door. There,” Santos insisted.
Ruth squinted. “I think he means it’s down in the valley.” The jungle sloped sharply into a shallow depression from which jutted treetops, the branches dense and laced together to form a seamless canopy.
“Down. Yes.” Santos bobbed his head.
“Okay, then let’s go.”
Santos shook negatively. “You go. Me no.” The fear rolling off him proved palpable. The poor man was terrified.
“The door won’t hurt you while you’re with me,” Leo tried to reassure. However, the statement didn’t soothe Santos, who muttered something in Spanish and fled at an angle from where they’d arrive.
Leo grimaced. “Guess we’re on our own.” He glanced at Ruth. “You okay, Buttercup?”
“No,” she grumbled. “Everything hurts.”
“Soon as we find the relic, I can beam us back to Tower and you can have a nice long soak in a tub.”
“With bubbles?” She practically whined.
“And a massage,” he offered with a wink.
The promise did much to revive her. “Then let’s get this over with.” She began tramping down the slope, the steepness of it almost sending her rolling.
She made it to the bottom of the bowl and paused. “It’s quiet down here,” she remarked.
“Too quiet,” he agreed.
No hum of bugs. No chirp of birds. Even the branches and foliage remained utterly still. The lack of any normal wilderness noise made their movements seem too loud. If anyone were here, they’d hear them for sure. Although, given Santos’ extreme fear, she doubted many people visited.
Ruth stepped gingerly, tense with fear and anticipation. Her father had spent his last months in this jungle. His body might still be here. The skeleton at least. Time and nature would have taken the flesh.
“Can you feel that?” Leo suddenly asked.
Until he mentioned it, Ruth hadn’t realized the air had changed. It became charged as if with electricity.
“Seems too sunny for a storm,” she remarked, trying to see the sky. The treetops filtered the sun’s rays, and the hints of blue made impending lightning unlikely.
“Not a storm. Whatever it is, it’s making my tattoo tingle,” he murmured. “Stay close.” He didn’t hold her hand. Then again, it would have required a free one. He held a revolver in one, a machete in the other. Ruth held on to her courage lest she flee after their guide. She’d never done anything so daring. So frightening.
The rockface appeared suddenly, the thick and fat boles of the trees giving way to pebbled terrain, from which thrust the vine-covered wall, just like the one in the picture. A glance overhead showed the trees that, while avoiding the clearing, had grown tall enough to reach over the area, the boughs forming a shield against any eyes in the sky. No wonder it remained hidden.
The air practically crackled, and Leo frowned. “Scorpio didn’t mention the air being charged with electricity when he found his door and artifact.”
“Are the sites supposed to be the same?”
He paused before saying, “I don’t know. I guess not. After all, if you figured out the traps in one, then what would be the point of having them in the others?”
“Traps? What traps?” she exclaimed.
He appeared sheepish as he admitted, “The cave Scorpio and Rebecca found had a few quirks.”
“What kind of quirks?” Her lips pursed, and her gaze narrowed.
“Every watch Wipeout ?”
She groaned. “Are you saying we need to run some kind of gauntlet?”
“Possibly.”
Seeing a rock high enough to act as a seat, she plopped her butt on it. “I’ve got nothing left to sprint from danger with.”
“Poor Buttercup. I’d offer to go in alone, but if this relic is like the last one, then fetching it is a two-person job. One human, one Zodiac.”
“Why?” she asked, stalling for time.
“Dunno,” said with a roll of his shoulders. “Although, when I read the report, Scorpio said the orb was released when he kissed Rebecca.”
“Rebecca being?”
“The scientist stationed in the area. She was the one to find the cave. A good thing she was smart, since Scorpio claims she solved some of the puzzles.”
“You know, this would have been good to know before you dragged me on this journey,” she grumbled.
“Would you have still come?”
She could have lied and said yes. “No.” She sighed. “But we’re here, and once we get this artifact, we can go home.” Home. The word slipped out, but it wasn’t her brownstone that came to mind. How did a single day in the tower make her feel as if she belonged there?
“There’s the spirit.” He beamed. “Shall we?”
“You first,” she groused.
“You just want to stare at my ass,” he teased as he approached the wall.
Now that he mentioned it…
The door didn’t immediately appear, the vines having spread over the entire surface. Leo appeared to know where he wanted to start yanking, though, because he grabbed hold of the thick tendrils and began to pull.
Despite herself, Ruth felt a sense of awe as he cleared enough for her to see the door, etched in stone, ringed in symbols, still perfect, as if freshly carved.
“It doesn’t look that old,” she remarked.
“Given the magic probably protecting it, not surprising.”
“Do you think anyone’s opened it?”
“Guess we’ll soon find out.”
Leo ran his hands over the surface before grumbling. “I can’t find a latch, and there’s no hole like the one Scorpio found.”
“You mean a keyhole?”
“No, an actual hole that Rebecca shoved her hand into to pull the lever.”
Her brows lifted. “Please don’t tell me you expected me to stick my hand in some jungle hole probably filled with bugs.”
His lips quirked. “Maybe.”
Ruth stared at the doorway, thinking. “In the movies, a book or lamp is the trigger.”
“Don’t think we have those here.”
She leaned closer to the wall before pointing. “Why is the rock darker in this spot?” Something had been smeared over it, obscuring the circle etched in the rock.
Leo squinted before rubbing his fingers on it. “I think it’s dried blood.”
“Are your Zodiac gods the demanding-sacrifice kind?”
“We don’t have gods,” he muttered. “That said, I guess blood could act as a key.” He didn’t hesitate to run the machete blade over his forearm.
“Leo!” she exhaled, shocked at his action.
“It’s a baby cut,” he chided as he pressed the bloody wound to the stone—to no effect.
Before he could ask, she moaned, “Let me guess, my turn to donate plasma.”
“You don’t have to.”
“But if I don’t, then we won’t know if it works. The longer this takes, the longer before I can get out of this godforsaken jungle,” she grumbled. She held out her arm and looked away. “Make it quick before I lose my nerve.”
He only made the tiniest of nicks, but she still bit her lip. This was crazy. As if her blood could?—
The moment she smeared it on the stone, the door began to grind.
Her jaw dropped. She’d not actually thought it would work.
Cold air wafted. Much cooler than seemed normal.
“Ready, Buttercup?”
Not really but she tucked close behind as Leo stepped in first, willingly entering the darkness. Every single movie she’d ever seen about dark caves and the dangers lurking within ran through her mind in that instance.
Gulp.
“Hold on a second and let’s see if this ruin behaves like the one Scorpio entered,” he muttered.
A faint glow suddenly illuminated the cave they stood in.
“How did you do that?” she exclaimed.
His fingertips brushed the wall. “This ruin is built inside a meteor, which is reacting to my presence.”
“More magic.” Funny how it didn’t seem so abnormal anymore after only a few days. Only a few days? It felt like much longer since Leo had come into her life and shaken her reality to its core—and rocked her world. She’d never been one to believe in those who claimed instant connections to a person. Surely it took time to build bonds, and yet here she found herself in lust and—if she were honest—falling in love.
“Doesn’t look like there’s anything in this chamber,” he noted.
Ruth stepped past Leo to look around. For all her father had been a grand explorer, she’d never actually been inside something of archeological importance, unless The Wyckoff House in New York counted.
The room appeared plain. Smooth walls with two openings. The door they’d entered and an arch at the rear.
Leo strode to the second exit, and as he stepped over its threshold, a grinding sound had her whirling. “The door’s closing.”
Before either of them could react—or pull a movie move and throw something in the gap to stop it—they were sealed inside.
As panic filled Ruth’s veins, her heart began to race. “How will we get out?”
“By fetching what we came for,” his ominous reply.
“Assuming we can find it.”
“Have faith, Buttercup. If Scorpio could figure out the last ruin, then I’m sure it will be a breeze for us.” His optimism eased her somewhat.
“So what’s next?”
“Looks like our first puzzle. The next room has another door, and the walls are covered in symbols.” A faint glow emanated from beyond the arch, illuminating him.
Ruth joined him in a room not much larger than the last and noticed the markings randomly carved all over.
“They’re all the same,” she remarked. Three intersecting lines, the size of her fingertip, dotting the entire space—floor, walls, ceiling. The door at the rear appeared closed and had no handle or keyhole, nothing to indicate how to open it. However, that wasn’t the most disturbing thing.
“There’s a body,” she huffed, spotting the pile of bones in the corner. Had she just found her father?
Leo showed no qualms about crouching beside it and poking it with his machete. “Been here a long time. Given the revolver is a Colt Walker, that most likely makes it more than a hundred years old.”
“How did he die?” A question asked and answered by a grinding noise that had whirling in time to see the room being sealed by a slab of stone. Despite the futility, she pounded on it. It didn’t open.
“Don’t panic,” Leo commanded as tremors invaded her body.
“Easy for you to say. I don’t usually deal in life-and-death situations.”
“We won’t die. We simply have to figure out the puzzle.”
She snorted. “Because that’s so easy. Just ask the dead guy in the corner.” In her fear, she lashed out, but Leo remained calm.
“The answer is in this room.”
“You’re assuming we’ll figure it out,” she muttered darkly as she paced the walls, looking for something out of the ordinary. No holes, no nubs sticking out, or depressions, just asterisks dotted all over. “Those carvings remind me of how a child draws stars,” she observed.
“Because they are. Duh,” Leo exclaimed. “Hold on. Let me see if I can find… Aha.” He pointed. “There’s my constellation.”
“Yay for you.”
“Yes, yay. Watch.” He strode to the wall and began to press some of the star symbols. Each one lit and remained lit. “There’s one. Now where’s Aries.” Leo went around illuminating the twelve constellations. When he’d touched the final star?—
A scraping sound brought a smile of relief, and Ruth clapped her hands. “You opened the door.”
“See? We’ve got this, Buttercup. Shall we?” He led the way into a tunnel, littered with bodies—some of them seeming fresher than the last, which explained the lingering stench of death. As to how they died? An axe blade dangled from the ceiling, short arrows littered the floor beside another body, and then there was the gaping chasm.
“Looks like some people triggered the traps already,” Leo declared as if it weren’t obvious. “We can’t be sure there aren’t more, though, so follow my footsteps. And I mean that quite seriously. Do not stray by even an inch.”
With that kind of warning, Ruth intently watched where he placed each foot, noticing he avoided spots where lines etched in the floor converged into knots. When they reached the rift—which appeared bottomless—he glanced at her. “I’ll go over first.”
With those long legs, he leaped easily.
He pivoted and held out his hands. “Now you jump.”
“Like fuck,” she swore.
“It’s not that far. You can do it.”
“Says the very tall man. Short and chubby over here,” she reminded.
“I’ll catch you.”
“You can’t guarantee that.”
“If you fall, I’ll jump after you.”
He stated it so seriously she believed him. “Guess I don’t have a choice.” Because there was no way back. Like the previous rooms, this area had also sealed itself shut.
“I am not cut out for this,” Ruth grumbled as she carefully took a step back before flinging herself forward and over.
Even as she soared, she knew she’d not make it.
But Leo kept his word. With his long reach, he grabbed hold of each hand and hauled her close, murmuring, “Told you I wouldn’t let you fall.”
Her heart pounded. “That was terrifying.”
“But you did it.”
She had, but that didn’t bring back the decade fear had shaved off her life. They avoided the partially decomposed body of a man wearing a bright Hawaiian shirt peppered by darts.
The tunnel ended in a door carved in symbols with a body curled beside it. A familiar fedora still on its head.
Her mouth went dry, and she wavered on her feet.
“What’s wrong?” Leo asked, bracing her.
She pointed and in a faint voice murmured, “That’s my father.”