Age of Blood

51

They reached a point where there’d been a cave-in. It looked like the ceiling had reached down to hug the floor. For several long minutes they thought they might have to retreat and find a different way. But Hoover began to dig about halfway up the fall, her claws moving aside the dirt. Soon she had made a hole the size of her head.

Yank joined her and found a spot where the dirt was soft, between two metal beams about three feet apart. They managed to clear enough debris for Hoover to clamber through.

Walker dialed in the feed from Hoover’s Intruder harness. He saw a clear space on the other side of the cave-in, followed by a long hallway. Light sprung from an unknown source at the end of it. By his judgment, they were almost to their target set. Could that be it?

He explained what he was doing to Jen and Yank, then ordered Hoover forward. The feed came from the periscope on the dog’s back, so the view swayed back and forth as the dog moved. The crown of her head and her ears were visible in the bottom fourth of the feed. She padded down the hall until she was bathed in enough light to wash out the feed. Walker toggled the view to ambient light rather than IR, and the view instantly darkened.

He ordered the dog to crouch and she did.

He ordered the dog to move forward and she did.

As the dog’s head and shoulders moved around the corner, so did the feed, and it revealed a large open area sixty feet below the level of the doorway. Walker didn’t take the time to examine the area. Instead, he snapped a picture from the feed and ordered Hoover to return.

Once the dog was back on their side of the cave-in, they hastily re-covered the hole; then Walker ported the picture to Yank and to the tablet that Jen had brought from her cargo pocket.

“Jen, what is it we’re looking at?” Walker asked as he took in the image of a great cavern. On the left side, a man-sized pipe dripped brown water from a hundred feet up as if it had been broken during the excavation. On the right, a long staircase had been cut into the wall and reinforced. A rail ran its length. At the rear of the cavern was a great Aztec pyramid rising in the distance. Several dozen men in gold-and-red-brocade, floor-length robes stood on different intervals, looking toward the top, where five Los Desollados stood. Human skin hung from their bodies like lunatic fringe. Before and beside it were several smaller buildings, no greater than the mausoleums they’d seen in the New Orleans cemetery before the start of the mission. On each of these was a stone figure, reclining. Several oval areas had been bored into the basalt. Within these, snakes were captured, intertwining with each other. To the right, beneath the staircase, was the roof of a long rectangular building. The aspect of the picture didn’t allow for them to determine its purpose.

“So the temple area that makes up the Templo Mayor on the surface was the primary temple of Tenochtitlán,” Jen told them. “The pyramid that all the tourists see is the remains of the Grand Temple of Huitzilopochtli. He was the god of sun, war, and human sacrifice and was the patron god of Tenochtitlán. But his wasn’t the only temple. The Aztecs worshipped many gods, goddesses, and beings, many of whom have made it into popular culture, much like Our Lady of Guadalupe, who is also the mother goddess Tonantzin.

“The stone statues on top of these smaller buildings are chacmools. They’re actually Toltec icons, pre-Columbian, and date back to around 500 AD. They are heavily prevalent at Toltec sites such as Chichén Itzá. Their appearance here indicates the worship of some lesser god which transcended and survived as one Mesoamerican belief system imposed itself over another.”

“Do we know what or who they represent?” Walker asked.

“Could be a corn god. Could be Santa Claus. I have no idea.”

“What about the temple?” Yank asked. “Looks like some of our friends are camped out on top.”

Jen shook her head. “It’s of classic construction but not overly large. Without looking at the iconography on the sides, I don’t know. See there at the base of the pyramid?”

Walker saw a rectangular area standing about the height and width of a man, with round objects lined up next to each other and stacked atop each other.

“That’s a skull rack. Those who have been sacrificed have their heads placed there to remind everyone of their gift to the goddess.”

“Oh, joy,” Walker said, grimacing.

“You said ‘goddess,’” Yank pointed out. “Does that mean you know?”

“I don’t… maybe I do. I only just recently become an ‘expert,’” she said, laughing awkwardly. “I’m just trying to make sense of what I studied. Hold on a minute.” She dialed up some information on the tablet, read for a moment, then returned to their shared view. “With the snakes and the smallish pyramid, it could be the temple of Cihuacoatl. It would make a certain sense. The Cihuateteo are her followers. Cihuacoatl is a mother goddess. She’s a fertility goddess too. It’s believed that along with Quetzalcoatl, she ground up the bones of the previous peoples to create the current human peoples.”

“What would Los Desollados be doing on her temple?” Walker asked.

“Good question,” Yank added. “Xipe Totec, was it?”

“Right. Los Desollados are worshippers of Xipe Totec.” She checked the information on the tablet once more, then snapped her fingers. “See the shadows in front of the rectangular building on the right?”

Walker and Yank nodded.

“Xipe Totec’s temple is underground. I believe those are entrances. They called it Yopico, or the place of Yopi, the Zapotec name for the god. The Zapotecs date back to six centuries before Christ, so like many of the gods, it’s the same god with a different name.”

“You mentioned Itzpapalotl. What does that mean?” Walker asked.

“It translates to ‘obsidian butterfly,’ or maybe ‘clawed butterfly.’ Why?” she asked.

“See the reclining figures, those chacmools,” Walker said, indicating the figures on the mausoleums. “Doesn’t it look like they have protrusions coming from their backs? As if they might be folded wings?”

“Something like a butterfly’s wings?” Yank asked. “Yeah, maybe. What’s the background on Itzpapalotl?”

“She ruled over a realm which is the resting place of dead infants and the crucible for humanity.”

“Seems to fit a theme.” Walker wanted to get a better look at the area. The men arrayed around the main temple couldn’t be distinguished in the picture.

“She’s also a vampire,” Jen said.

“Seriously?” Yank asked, looking up. “Seriously? We got a werewolf and a vampire? What’s next, Creature from the Black Lagoon?”

“Be careful what you wish for,” Walker said, without a trace of humor.

“But I don’t think the temple of Itzpapalotl is here. Even if the chacmools look like them, she’d have something greater than even this pyramid.”

An idea crept into Walker’s mind. “They could be like bishops.”

“What do you mean?” Yank asked.

“In the Catholic Church, if a bishop dies, he gets buried in the cathedral’s crypt with a sarcophagus, usually with a relief of the one who was buried there. I wonder if this might be the same.”

“Like a priest or priestess of Itzpapalotl? Something like that?” Jen asked.

“Yeah, something like that.”

Yank straightened and removed the image from his QuadEye. “Somehow this whole place has the look and feel of a crypt.” He checked his watch. “Let’s get in there. I have enough background to ace a test, but not enough to get out of this alive. Let’s see if we can get some good information from a little reconnaissance.”

“We need to get set before the others arrive, anyway,” Walker said. “I need to make a hide site.”