The Aztec Prophecy

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Maria Kurikova watched the crazed figure of Morton Wade with horror as he emerged from the shadows of the antechamber in full make-up. His human face was gone, replaced with black and blue stripes punctuated by the two white slits that were his eyes. On his head was a turquoise feather headdress, and in his hand he held a savagely crude obsidian knife. He had put the paint on hastily, and it was smeared all over his hands.

“What the hell is this?” Mendoza said, taking a step back.

Wade stared at him for a moment, eyes bulging with madness. “I am changed, Silvio. I am a tlatoani — a priest, reflecting the image of the creator Huitzilopochtli. He commands me now. Bring the keystone! It is time to cross to the other side.”

“You are crazy,” Mendoza said, no longer able to conceal the contempt he had always felt for the Texan. This… insanity must be what his brother Jorge had seen when he said he’d witnessed Wade talking with the gods. He had ridiculed him for it — mocking his own flesh and blood, but now he saw it all. Jorge had seen no god in Wade’s secret chamber, but Wade himself, dressed up like Huitzilopochtli and parading around in front of the obsidian mirrors.

“This is over, Morton,” Mendoza said. “We take the gold and we leave.” As he spoke, the other men and women began pulling strange robes out of a bag and sliding into them. They looked like ghosts.

Wade laughed and the thugs he called his Jaguar Knights leaped up and pinned Mendoza against the tunnel wall. “You cross me, Silvio — after all I have done for you?”

Mendoza struggled against the grip of the men. “Let me go… you’re insane!”

Wade walked to him and placed the tip of the obsidian blade on his lips to silence him. “Hush, Silvio… don’t exercise yourself. You have made your choice, blasphemer. You will make the ultimate sacrifice to the gods.” He turned to one of the cultists behind him. “Bring the ECHO prisoners. They will join Silvio in making the ultimate sacrifice.”

“What are you going to do, you bastard?” Maria screamed.

“Why, cut your heart out and eat you, of course. It is the only way to appease the god of the dead, the mighty Mictlantecuhtli.”

Maria could hardly believe what she was hearing and struggled against the ropes to free herself but it was useless, and Wade ordered the surviving Sixth Sun members forward with the keystone.

She watched, terrified as the robed cultists lifted the heavy stone artefact they had looted from the British Museum and carefully inserted it into the aperture in the wall. She saw now the way the key worked, with the intricate carving slotting perfectly into corresponding recesses in the aperture.

Wade could barely conceal his delight as he ordered them to turn it, and a terrible, low grounding sound emanated from inside the wall.

“That’s as far as it goes,” one of them said.

“Push on the wall!” Wade screamed.

As they pushed against the stone the wall moved a few inches. The strain on their faces showed it was almost impossible to move, stuck in place for millennia, but after a few seconds it began to slide forward at an angle.

“It’s on hinges,” another cult member said.

“It’s a gate, not a wall,” Wade added.

When the gate was open, it revealed an empty darkness like none of them had ever known before, and a cold, damp air rushed over them. How long since this air had been trapped down here, Maria wondered as a wave of nausea overtook her. The burned-out American technology mogul snapped his fingers at a member of the cult. “Give me the map.”

The man reached around into a canvas sack slung over his shoulder and handed Wade the map from the Codex Borgia and the multispectral reflectographic images that Maria had seen Professor Pavoni use in Rome before Mendoza had murdered her.

The Texan snatched the map from the man and spun it around a few times as he tried to make sense of it. “This must be where we are now — the entrance to Mictlan.”

“La puerta del infierno,” Mendoza muttered, and made the sign of the cross over his face and chest. He took a step back and swallowed hard as the fear rose in his throat.

“Your god won’t help you in here, Silvio,” Wade said with a sneer. “This is a very different kind of kingdom… a very different kind of kingdom indeed. Bring the prisoners!”

Morton Wade took a deep breath, stepped through the gate and led the group into the darkest heart of Mictlan.