Empire of Shadows (Raiders of the Arcana #1)

Forty-Four

Staines had been brave enough when he had scampered over to give Adam a swift kick to the ribs as he wrestled with Jacobs.

When the chaos that followed left Adam wrestling Staines for the Winchester, the rat-faced bastard must’ve figured he stood a better chance against Adam’s fists than the wrong end of a rifle.

And so he’d chucked it into the stones.

The guard wasn’t wrong, though Adam could also do a lot of damage with his fists. Still, that gun would’ve been very damned handy right about now.

Especially as a wild, familiar light threw the whole of the cavern into stark illumination, and Jacobs grabbed hold of Ellie.

The rest of the cave went out of focus.

Dawson had taken that damned bone out and was waving it over his head. The crazy priest was over by the water, rattling importantly in holy-sounding Yucatec about whatever popped into his head. Jacobs’ goons prepared to either shoot or tackle the old man. Charlie and the other guys were conspiring grimly by the crate.

Even Staines, who was gaping up at Adam with well-justified terror as Adam straddled him on the floor—all of it snapped out of Adam’s awareness like someone had snuffed out a light.

In its place, there was only Ellie.

Blood dripped slowly down her arm where she’d sliced herself. Her eyes were woozy as Jacobs hauled her off the mirror and the knife in his hand headed for her throat.

Adam was too far away. He wasn’t going to get there in time.

The thought filled him with a blind, furious fear—and then a squat, grizzled figure rose from beside the crate.

“Calice de tabarnak,” Martin Lessard cursed resignedly—then drove a practiced fist into Jacobs’ kidney.

Jacobs flinched as his teeth snapped together. He twisted instinctively into the injury and let out a grunt—even though he ought to be screaming with pain from the hit.

Adam knew well enough how it felt. Lessard had punched him in the kidney before, and that had just been for fun.

Braxton Pickett, with his eyes bulging more than usual, swung his rifle wildly toward Lessard.

Charlie casually chucked his hammer across the cave. It flew toward the Confederate. Pickett refrained from shooting as he dropped and thereby avoided taking a few pounds of iron to his skull.

It all happened in the space of a breath—but Adam had already shoved to his feet and started sprinting across the space that divided him from Ellie and Jacobs.

Dawson shouted as he waved the glowing bone over his head. Buller and Price whirled to point their rifles at Charlie and Lessard instead of at the priest by the water.

Flowers stood just behind the two guards. The big man neatly reached over and plucked the Enfield from Buller’s hands. He tossed it to Charlie.

Adam reached Jacobs and plowed into him.

The blow loosened Jacobs’ grip on Ellie. The smaller man twisted into Adam’s impact, slippery as an eel. They hit the ground side-by-side, and Adam barely managed to catch Jacobs’ knife hand. He stopped it just shy of driving into his guts.

Jacobs was smaller, but he was strong—and damnably quick. It took both of Adam’s hands to keep the knife from disemboweling him… which left him with only one other body part at his disposal.

Thankfully, it was a hard one.

Adam slammed his head into Jacobs’ face.

Something cracked. The force on the knife hand broke just long enough for Adam to shove the blade away and scramble into a crouch.

Jacobs managed to do the same, even though blood was dripping down from his cheek. Adam’s blow had taken him on the bone and split the skin.

Jacobs didn’t seem bothered by it. His eyes were on Adam with the look of a practiced fighter—one who knew how to watch for an opening.

A few steps away, Ellie crawled unsteadily to her feet, and then flinched as a bullet pinged off the stones beside her.

Jacobs darted in, quick and sharp. He was obviously not a man who won by brute force—which was Adam’s usual preferred method—and he still had that damned knife.

Adam was sadly short on knives.

He staggered back to avoid the swipe, batting at the back of Jacobs’ hand as he went by—but the guy was moving too fast. Adam hit the other man’s arm instead, and Jacobs managed to keep his grip on the blade.

There was probably a clever strategy for dealing with this sort of thing. Adam didn’t know it. He just launched himself at Jacobs instead.

Charlie and Lessard had yanked up the crate. They used it as a makeshift shield as they worked toward better cover. Pacheco crouched with them. Charlie peppered off a few rounds at the remaining guards.

Dawson fumbled with his bone as he scrambled for a place to hide. The arcanum slipped from his hands, bounced lightly off the floor of the cavern, and skidded away.

Behind him, Kuyoc had shamelessly darted behind a spill of old breakdown by the stream. The water was rushing faster now than it had been when Adam and Ellie had first entered the cavern, undoubtedly fueled by the rains dumping down on the mountains and the valley outside. The flow of it looked almost like the rapids they’d navigated on the Mary Lee.

Ellie made a dash. She bolted across the cave, keeping low as more bullets pinged off the stones.

Still wrestling Jacobs, Adam stumbled up against a low wall of stone—and tripped.

He flailed backwards and slammed onto something flat, hard, and unforgiving.

Jacobs landed on top of him—and immediately sliced the knife in, aiming for a killing blow.

Adam caught his wrists.

Jacobs leaned in, putting his full weight behind the blade as Adam’s muscles strained.

The bastard’s split cheek was still bleeding. Drops fell from it onto the surface of whatever Adam was lying on.

Where they landed beside Adam’s ear, he heard a distinct and surprising hiss.

Smoke coiled into the periphery of his vision in a few tentative wisps.

Adam sucked in a breath, drawing on his reserves to keep his shaking arms up as Jacobs bore down on them. Some of the smoke came with it. It smelled of freshly turned soil and the dew that collected on plantain leaves in the morning.

Time seemed to stretch—and then hold. Shadows gathered in the corners of his vision as Adam was consumed by the dark, skittering sense of something whispering to him from the corners of the world.

What do you want?

“How about… a way… to clock this bastard?” Adam replied through gritted teeth.

Jacobs’ eyes narrowed with surprise. For a critical moment, his focus broke… just as a light, impossible burst of knowledge popped into Adam’s brain.

It opened itself up to him like a birthday present.

His arms were shaking with the force of holding off Jacobs’ blow.

Hell with it, Adam thought numbly. Why not?

He shifted his grip to clamp Jacobs’ wrists with a single hand, gritting his teeth against the effort of it. He flailed out with the other, slapping it down to the flawlessly flat stone above him.

Something inside of him sang out with the knowledge of exactly how far he needed to reach. As more of that smoke curled up around both him and Jacobs, Adam’s fingers brushed against a hard, achingly familiar shape.

He grasped the hilt of his machete and slammed it into Jacobs’ temple.

The blow knocked the smaller man aside as he drew in a quick, sharp breath. Adam twisted free and lurched back to his feet—but more than the hit seemed to be slowing Jacobs’ reaction.

The dark-haired man wavered, wincing and unsteady.

“No…” Jacobs gasped wildly. “It couldn’t possibly be…”

Jacobs shook his head as though trying to knock something out of it. Adam wondered what the hell had thrown the man off—but not for long.

He spun the machete in his grip and faced Jacobs with the blade ready in his hand.

Jacobs’ eyes cleared. They locked onto Adam with dangerous focus—and Ellie’s voice rang through the chaos of the cave like a bell.

“I am holding a lit match,” she called out, lifting a hand where the fragile bloom of a flame flickered against the shadows. “And approximately six pounds of dynamite.”

In the other hand, she raised up the sagging form of Kuyoc’s homemade breastplate.

“I am about to light it and throw it into the chamber below us,” she continued crisply with a nod toward the ragged black opening in the wall of the cave. “If you’d like to escape the collapse of this entire cavern, I strongly suggest that you run.”

The blood drained from Adam’s face.

“Shoot her!” Dawson screamed.

Ellie touched the match to the cords of Kuyoc’s armor and tossed the hissing package of it through the hole.

Across from Adam, Jacobs stared forward with uncharacteristic shock… and then began to laugh.

A deep, earth-shattering boom throbbed through the cavern from below. The shudder of it was tangible through the soles of Adam’s boots.

There was a brief, terrible moment of silence… and a crack opened in the ground before him.

“That’s not good,” Adam concluded, staring down at it numbly.

He whirled away from Jacobs and bolted across the cavern to where Ellie wobbled as the ground shook under her feet.

Stalactites popped like firecrackers overhead, shattering to the ground like bombs.

Jacobs called out an order in ringing, authoritative tones as he waved toward the stairs leading up into the temple.

Staines sprinted for them.

“No!” Dawson screamed as he scrambled out from behind a broken fall of stone. “You can’t go! Not without the mirror!”

Adam reached Ellie. He grabbed her arm and tugged her in the direction of the door to the temple.

“No!” she shouted back, hauling him the opposite way.

“What?” Adam exclaimed.

She gripped his arms. Her eyes were clear and intent even as the stones rumbled beneath their feet once more.

Another crack opened near the mirror’s pillar and splintered across the ground.

“Trust me,” she said.

Adam did.

He let her pull him forward, racing across the cavern as more rocks cracked and plummeted from the ceiling. She yelled to Charlie and the others. With a stream of Quebecois curses, Lessard led the charge to follow.

Kuyoc darted from his hiding place and fell into step behind them with an alacrity that belied his age.

Ellie headed for the water.

At the other end of the cave, Jacobs waved the men into the passage to the pyramid. Dawson lurched back from the mirror as the crack beside it tore wider with an ear-splitting wrench.

The platform on which the stone sat tilted dangerously.

Pickett sprinted past him, and finally Dawson ran.

Something pinged off the toe of Adam’s boot and spun across the floor of the cavern ahead of him.

It was a slender little bone, and as Adam watched, it spluttered with flashes of nascent light.

Ellie cast a surprised look back at him—and then snatched it from the ground as she raced past.

She shoved the bone into her pocket as she reached the edge of the deep, churning mass of water at the end of the cavern. She stopped there.

“This is going to sound crazy!” she yelled as Adam joined her.

Adam tugged her into his arms.

“I’m with you,” he promised as he gazed down at her.

It was true. The fact of it warmed him up from the inside giddily.

Ellie’s face brightened with relief.

“Good,” she replied—and then launched herself into the current.

It plucked her up like a leaf and whisked her into a dark, jagged mouth that Adam could now see opened at the far corner of the cavern.

Adam gaped after her.

Kuyoc wheezed with laughter beside him. With a hoot of triumph, he leapt into the water as well and shot after Ellie.

“Are they cracked?” Charlie demanded as he skidded to a stop beside Adam and stared wide-eyed at the water.

A piece of the cave ceiling collapsed. It smashed to the ground a few paces away like the bang of a cannon going off.

Lessard, Flowers, and Pacheco all flinched back from it as they arrived and piled at the edge of the rushing stream.

“Probably,” Adam admitted, and then jumped.

The water was cold, fierce, and furious. The current grabbed him like a fist and shot him forward, foaming and churning into the chute that gaped at him like a maw.

Adam was upon it in a moment. The shouts and curses of the other men rang out behind him as they fell or leapt into the water.

He shot into darkness.

The tube of stone was slick. He couldn’t have caught himself against it if he had tried. The water raced him forward and shot him around an arcing turn as the tunnel narrowed.

The current quickened, and a shriek from Pacheco echoed off the stones behind him, mingling with the maniacal roar of Lessard’s laughter.

The light ahead of him changed. The pitch blackness was moderated by a growing dot of slightly less abysmal gloom—and then Adam burst into the open air of a rain-drenched night, flying out of a dragon-mouthed spout in a frothing cascade of storm-fed water.

He crashed into a deeper pool.

Adam surfaced with a gasp. Pond weeds clung to his shoulder. Ellie grabbed hold of him in the water.

Adam grabbed her back, hauling her to his chest as he made a quick and urgent assessment that all of her limbs were still there.

“It’s fine,” she gasped over the rushing roar of the water and the pummeling downpour. “I’m fine!”

She was.

So Adam kissed her.

He tugged her close, molding her to his body as he devoured her lips, tasting the warm heat of her through the cave dirt and pond water. Relief washed through him like a tide… until he realized that they were sinking.

He released her, spluttering, and loosened an arm to help keep them afloat as he tried to figure out where the hell they had landed.

It was Ellie’s reservoir, the green pond that she’d been so excited about when they had arrived at the city—except it wasn’t a pond anymore. It was a rising, frothing whirlpool, fed by the water flying out of the mouth of the feathered serpent. As Adam watched, Lessard shot out of the opening like an ugly, slippery missile. He fell into the water with an epic splash. Charlie followed, with Flowers and Pacheco a breath behind.

Kuyoc was already there. The priest laughed wildly as he splashed at the water and shouted a prayer up to the storm-clouded heavens.

Adam’s face split into a grin.

They had made it. It was crazy as hell, but they’d made it.

A thunderous crack resounded through the darkness.

“Was that thunder?” Adam demanded with a burst of alarm.

Ellie blinked at him. Her face paled slightly.

“I don’t think so,” she admitted.

“Out of the water!” Kuyoc shouted, and then echoed the order in Spanish. “?Sal, rápido!”

They swam for the wall. The water had already risen enough to bring it into reach. Adam hauled himself onto the ledge and tugged Ellie up after him.

He enjoyed the feeling of holding onto her for a heartbeat before a chorus of shouts rose up from the direction of the plaza, along with a crash of a falling stone—and then more of them, booms like a giant’s firecrackers echoing off the mountainside.

“Mada raass!” Charlie cursed as he whirled back in the direction of the sound.

“High ground!” Kuyoc called over the racket. He waved his arm wildly. “Now!”

The priest bolted.

Adam raced after him with Ellie at his side. He was vaguely aware of Lessard pulling even. The stocky Quebecois flashed a grin as he managed to outpace them. Charlie stumbled over a rock in the dark and bit out a curse as Kuyoc led them around a skidding turn into an overgrown road between the houses. The old man lost zero ground on them in his sandals.

They skirted the edge of the plaza, where the shouts grew louder. Bones came into sight. The foreman was waving the rest of the expedition on as Velegas shouted out orders from his perch on a boulder.

Aurelio Fajardo slapped a stream of mules into motion. The animals clomped and raced to join them on the road.

Nigel Reneau slid down a short flight of steps. He landed near Adam’s side and took off after the priest. Ram and his Bhojpuri companions raced after the cook. Even a pair of Jacobs’ remaining guards took about two seconds to decide to desert their posts. They hauled after the remainder of the camp as it raced through the trees and ruined stones.

The road twisted higher as it approached the looming black ridge of the mountains. The trees thinned, and another terrible, rending roar sounded from behind them.

Adam risked a glance back. The pyramid was falling.

The tiers of white stone collapsed inward as the temple sank into a fall of crumbling rubble. Adam spotted a cluster of figures stumbling to the bottom of the staircase. They raced across the plaza even as it fractured under their feet.

Dark shapes swooped overhead and screeched into the night. The monstrous bats from the cave veered from the cacophony of the collapse. Disoriented and chaotic, they fled into the west.

Adam took hold of Ellie’s arm and pushed them faster.

The roaring and crumbling noises behind them intensified. The ground trembled beneath Adam’s boots as Kuyoc veered them off the ancient road and onto a game track that wended up a sloping ledge of the mountain. He waved them onto it as he shouted, quickly swapping languages.

“Go, go! Kwika! ?Apúrate!”

The entire camp scrambled up the winding, narrow ledge. The climb was steep. Aurelio’s mules, clearly comprehending the urgency of the situation, hopped nimbly over the stones and easily passed Adam and Ellie. Aurelio shouted in the midst of them, grabbed the stragglers by their halters, and hauled them up.

Rain pounded down, making the track slippery and soaking them to the bone as they climbed. The priest picked his way with practiced assurance up the mountainside, taking them higher as more buildings collapsed below them. Trees rustled strangely as they tore from the ground.

At last, the mad caravan spilled out onto a high, broad ledge. Kuyoc stopped as the group collected itself.

Still holding Ellie’s hand, Adam made a quick inventory.

Charlie was half collapsed onto one of the stones, where he panted and grumbled more curses. Lessard hocked out a lump of spit and laughed.

Flowers helped pull the last few stragglers up the steep ground to the ledge.

Based on the satisfied look on Aurelio’s face, all of the mules had made it out intact.

Pacheco, Lopez, Ram, and the others—everyone else from the camp was there.

And Ellie, of course.

The relief of that made Adam want to fall over a bit—or maybe that was the altitude.

The rain began to slacken. To the east, the underside of the clouds was softly gilded by the rising light of dawn. The tentative glow of it illuminated what was happening below, even as great, rending rumbles continued to resound across the valley.

Adam forced himself to look out over it.

The place where the temple had stood was already gone, along with the ball court where Ellie and Adam fled earlier that night. The reservoir had cracked. The water spilled out in a quick, frothing current.

Farther away, towers crumbled. Sections of trees rustled wildly and then sank from view.

Adam took it in with gaping shock and sudden comprehension.

“The whole cave system is collapsing,” he said, voice numb. “This entire place is turning into one giant sinkhole.”

“I… Oh dear,” Ellie said as she swayed slightly beside him. “I think I might need to…”

Adam caught her and held her upright. She stared past him, eyes wide, as he gently pushed a fall of messy hair from her face.

“Hey,” he said gently, summoning her attention. “We’re okay. Everyone’s okay.”

Movement caught his eye from beyond her shoulder where the ragged slope of the mountain curved away. In the rising light, Adam picked out a small cluster of figures clinging to the face of the stone above the catastrophic destruction.

It had to be Dawson and Jacobs. Adam supposed it was too much to hope that a temple might’ve fallen on them.

He had a feeling they weren’t the sort to brush off having a prize snatched from under their fingers. There’d be consequences for all of this.

But he could worry about that later.

“Tulan,” Ellie said weakly as she looked out over the falling city. “Adam, what have I done? I…”

She was cut off by the sound of a piercing whistle from behind them. Kuyoc had hopped up onto a rock at the far end of the ledge.

“You,” he said, pointing at Bones, whose lanky form was mostly collapsed against a boulder. The foreman’s clothes were streaked with dirt. “You manage to save any of your supplies?”

Bones let out a short, harsh chuckle. “No.”

“Except the mules,” Aurelio pointed out defensively. Two of the animals nudged at him with their noses, snuffing for comfort.

“Right,” Kuyoc replied with a sigh. “You had all better come with me, then.”

He turned and trudged toward another winding path up the mountainside.

“Come on, Princess,” Adam said. He took Ellie’s hand and tugged her gently from the collapsing remnants of a lost world.