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“And so . . . you all start singing ‘Kumbaya’?” Captain Rose asked with amusement.
Suki ignored him. She lowered her head and closed her eyes. Her mom had said it was like a prayer. The Mayan word was rapinik, to fly. She felt the magic tingling inside her. She was at Ix Chel’s most sacred ground, a place where the nobility and the populace throughout the Yucatán had come to make marriage alliances and conceive children. It was the place Cortés had first come to. That thought struck her mind forcibly. It was knowledge that shouldn’t have belonged to her, because she’d never read it in any book.
“Rapinik,” she whispered, smelling the hint of salt on the air.
The magic thrummed inside her, then through her, and they were instantly in a different location. The smell was familiar. They stood in a corridor of the palace, in a shaft of moonlight coming in through a window. She released the hands of the others and glanced both ways. It was a corridor connecting Jacob’s private rooms to the throne room. A few torches were fixed in the walls, but instead of flame, they swirled with motes of kem äm.
A feeling tugged in her heart. The feeling bid her to go to Jacob’s room. Fear spiked inside her mind. He was the last person she hoped to run into.
Jordan signaled two of the soldiers to face one way, while he and the other faced back toward Jacob’s room. The soldiers looked stunned by the transition, but they promptly obeyed and raised their weapons. It was muggy. Sweat began to gather on Suki’s brow.
“Which way?” Jordan whispered to her.
She’d intended to head toward the throne room and slip down the other passage toward the dungeon. But the nagging feelings grew stronger. She’d learned not to deny them.
“This way,” she said, pointing toward Jacob’s private chamber. Her stomach twisted with worry.
Jordan motioned for the others to follow. He was in a combat stance, weapon up, leading the way. The soldiers fell in around him, Suki boxed between them. She was sweating heavily now and not just from the humidity.
They reached the beaded screen leading into Jacob’s chamber. Suki listened but she didn’t hear anything. But she felt someone . . . or something . . . was there. She swallowed, trying to calm her nerves with the mantra she’d learned.
Jordan parted the curtain with his fingers and glanced inside. He looked at her and shook his head. No one was in there.
She nodded for him to enter. Jordan barged in quickly, sweeping the chamber with his weapon. The beads clicked and rattled against one another. Suki entered, remembering when she’d come in here last, when Jacob had said she would have to kill someone she loved in order to gain her full powers.
The room was decorated with ancient artifacts—gold, silver, jade. There were chests made of wood, carved by master craftsmen. There were changing screens and a variety of clothing, some modern, some ancient. Suki glanced around the room, but the feeling wasn’t coming from the room. It was coming from another doorway. She’d never gone that way before—she hadn’t been allowed, so she didn’t know where it went.
The blackness called to her.
This is so sus, she told herself. Her mind screamed for her to go back the other way and head in the direction where she knew the prisoners were being kept. But her heart beckoned her down.
She clenched her fists and then started toward the opening.
The soldiers were looking around, scanning the room and the different antechambers connected to it. When she reached the portal, she smelled wet stone. It led to a cenote.
“Down there?” Jordan asked, joining her.
She nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak.
At any moment, Jacob could return. She didn’t even want to think about that. Best not to. Ix Chel was leading her toward something in the cenote. She didn’t know what or why. Maybe it would help them. Maybe it was a dead end, and they’d be trapped. Either way, she was following her gut on this one.
Jordan put on the night vision goggles and then started down the steps. His partner, Friedlein, went next, followed by Suki, who was followed by Killian and Mercado. The tunnel was carved into solid rock and angled sharply down. It was tall enough they didn’t need to crouch. The smell of wet stone got stronger. The sound of their boots echoed as they went down. That wasn’t good.
As they turned the final bend, the smell of the cenote grew strong, and Suki could hear the lapping of the waters. But the beckoning feeling was stronger.
Jordan froze, bringing his weapon up to aim. “There’s a dead body,” he whispered. “A woman.”
Suki peered around him and saw Angélica lying on the stone ramp. She’d been savaged by a wild animal. Blood stained the jade-colored water at the edge of the cenote.
“She’s not dead,” Suki said, feeling the truth strike her forcibly.
Angélica was still alive. And so was her baby.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CIA HEADQUARTERS
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA