Page 28

Chapter Twenty-Seven

I t was eight in the morning, and the air was humid and quaked with a racket of daytime creatures. There wasn’t a single muscle in my body that wasn’t sore. After Andrew redressed my wound—thankfully, the redness hadn’t passed the blue-inked border—we snuffed out the fire and combatted overgrown vines. Well, he was battling with nature. I was supervising while wearing Andrew’s hat and holding his gun, his backpack at my feet. My lustful eyes devoured Andrew’s broad back and flexing shoulders, every muscle visible under the sweat-drenched fabric as he swung his strong arm, his pleasure-eliciting hands gripping the machete, slicing and severing and tearing through the web of vines and roots.

After Andrew finally carved us a portal into the palace, we turned on our flashlights and climbed over the collapsed archway, its cracked and faceless keystone in the center. Passing through a moss-covered passageway, we entered the inner sanctum that was as much jungle as outside. The structure had no roof, and nature’s canopy above shielded us from the sun and blanketed us with a damp coolness. Giant trees grew out of the floor, their roots crawling across vast blocks of leftover marble slabs. Vines wound over walls and columns, and ferns covered the ground. Dark shadows slithered over every surface, playing tricks with my mind. Snakes, lizards, spiders, and maybe larger animals were clearly long-time tenants of this unfinished alcazar.

My neck hair raised, and I shivered. The damn treasure better be here somewhere.

“Over there is the beginning of the grand staircase.” Andrew pointed at the crumbling stone stairs that twisted and rose across the ascending arch. Twigs and dead layers of leaves crunched under our weight as our feet gingerly tread on the spongy ground. We meandered between rocks, navigated past the stairs, and didn’t stop until we reached an overgrown gateway.

“Do you know where you’re going?” I asked, looking over my shoulder to ensure nothing followed and was about to pounce on us.

“I’m hunting for a way to the basement.” Andrew shone the flashlight into the network of plants. “And this might just be it. Step back.” He swung the machete and severed the hanging roots.

Andrew and I edged around vegetation and trailed through a vaulted passageway with pastiche Romanesque arches. A net of ancient spiderwebs clung to the metal but Andrew waved it away with the machete.

Soon, we approached an opening with narrow stairs leading down. My pulse pounded painfully against my skin, and my brain screamed that climbing above a long-dead skeleton was one thing—it was dead and couldn’t hurt me—but going into a dark basement potentially filled with very much alive killer animals was something else entirely.

“Maybe it’s not there.” I pulled on Andrew’s arm, silently pleading for him to stop. “We should go back.”

The side of Andrew’s mouth curled up. “You slept in a jungle, and now you’re afraid?”

“It would be tough for anybody to carry a chest full of gold down this way.” My fingers dug into Andrew’s skin.

“We’re already here; we can’t leave without checking it out.” He offered the rifle to me. “If you want, stay here. I’ll go and call you if I need you.”

I scoffed. Nope.

He pushed aside a dangling vine, and we descended a circular staircase, inhaling earthy wet soil tang.

We came to a tapered room the size of a sixteen-foot storage container enclosed with granite walls. The floor was strewn with leaves and twigs and as I cast my flashlight over the walls, my heart lurched to my throat. A human skeleton reclined on the ground in the corner next to us, its skull angled, jaw slack.

“Fuck!” I yelped and jumped aside, yanking Andrew with me.

“Christ, Adriana,” Andrew breathed out. “You scared me.”

I clutched my injured hand to my chest. “I scared you? That scared me.” I pointed my flashlight at the sad remains still dressed in blue breeches and a brown vest.

“It’s just a skeleton.” Andrew squatted near the poor fellow and picked up the remains of a black hat with a red band.

“How old is it?”

“Based on what’s left of his uniform, I believe he was a soldados de cuera. A leather-jacket soldier who served in the northern Viceroyalty of New Spain.” Andrew leaned over to examine a musket the skeleton still held. “And this soldier has been here over two centuries. I’m unsure if he was lost or had a reason to come here but…” Andrew placed the hat on the soldier’s lap and stood up. He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me into the heat of his chest. “He isn’t harmful,” he said into my hair, before kissing the top of my head.

I didn’t understand how he could be so collected and calm. Maybe it was years of digging where skeletons were buried, or perhaps it was just him. I let out a shuddering breath and slumped into him.

After several minutes, Andrew withdrew and looked at me with a coy smile. “Are you good now?”

Not in the least.

I nodded.

Andrew took off his backpack, rummaged in it, and then pulled out a handful of glow sticks and his notebook. He cracked them and dropped them around the perimeter on the floor. The room lit up with a neon white glow that cast a ghostly light around us, revealing carvings like those under the Iglesia San Antonio.

To the left, the wall revealed a tale of rural life. The opposite one exhibited a world atlas with ships crossing the ocean and sea monsters lurking beneath them. The wall behind us, which our new friend was leaning against, showed a jungle crowded with animals, snakes, and hunters. The wall in front of us replicated the same structure we saw in the church, only no angels floated above it. Instead, two figures rested side by side in the dead center, their eyes closed, hands folded over their chest.

But most startling was the distinct outline of a hidden door with a hollow round slot to its right side. Excitement rushed from my toes to the top of my head like bubbles in a glass of freshly poured champagne. We finally found it. At the realization, relief flooded my limbs. We’d discovered it first. We’d won the race and beaten the Russian oligarch’s minions.

“Augustine’s final resting place must be on the other side.” Andrew stepped forward and ran his palm over the stone, studying it. He hummed at first as if he wasn’t sure what he was looking at, and then he made one positive scoff. He dug the dirt out of the opening and shone his flashlight inside. Then he crouched and opened his journal.

I dropped my own backpack on the ground and moved away, pulling my phone out of my pocket.

“Moments like this make me thankful I picked this job because sharing history with the world is one of the greatest feelings.” Andrew flipped the pages. “You might finally meet the Royal Family at the opening night.” He looked at me. “Just don’t swap me for an eligible monarch.”

“No promises.” I grinned and snapped a picture of him. The light of his flashlight illuminated his handsome face and it looked like a still from a new Indiana Jones movie. I chuckled. This would be my favorite picture: Andrew knelt at the wall, wearing a Fedora and a dazzling smile, holding his journal in his left hand.

“Okay,” Andrew said, rising to his full height. “If I’m correct in solving Augustine's encrypted notations, you need to place your arm with the bracelet inside here. You’ll feel a bar that you’ll need to turn.”

This was it. This moment was the reason I had agreed to go on this mad caper. I examined the bracelet. After so many days of wearing it, it felt like a part of my body.

Pulling my sleeve to my elbow, I looked at the dingy hole. Righty tighty, lefty loosey, right? Augustine was famous for hiding valuables in places with elaborate locking systems. He could have made unlocking this door extra tricky. Barbed wire fear swirled and burned in my gut, and my heart hammered hard in my chest.

“Clockwise?” I swallowed. “Or counterclockwise?”

The crease between Andrew’s eyebrows deepened as he chewed on this answer. “Well…”

That word.

I grunted, dropping fists on my hip. “Seriously?”

“Sorry.” He shook his head. “Clockwise. Turn it clockwise.”

“Are you sure?” I said dryly.

“Yes.”

I shone my flashlight into the hole, and I went rigid. An army of bugs kept running in and out of the light, some small and some sort of big. They didn’t look like scary bugs, but…

I glanced at Andrew. “What if there’s a bloodsucking spider that bites me?”

“Here… I’ll do it first.” Andrew’s chest pressed to my back, the warmth of his body instantly seeping into me, and I wanted to relax into him. He pushed his hand into the orifice, and moved it side to side, up and down as far as space allowed, then he pulled his arm out with a few spiders and other bugs taking a free ride on his sleeve. “See, nothing besides these little guys.”

I closed my eyes and rolled my shoulders. Keeping my back straight, I took deep breaths in and out, feeling the air passing through my windpipe. I could do this. I could insert my hand inside the insect-infested opening. I had often crawled under our old trailer dominated by disgusting spider crickets to fix a busted water pipe or drag out a rotting rodent. This was not so bad.

Just bugs. Little, yucky creepy-crawlies.

A quiver shot down my spine.

I so didn’t want to do this.

“Okay.” I cringed, turned away, and guided my right wrist inside, palm facing down. My skin prickled as creatures started using my arm as their unfamiliar territory to explore. A cold sweat broke over me. “Oh, my Lord. This is disgusting.” My left hand curled into a fist, nails digging into my palm.

I was shoulder-deep when my fingers grazed the outline of a rock or metal bar in the dead center of this hellhole. “I found it,” I said through my clenched teeth. A bug ran up my neck. “Now what?” I said, impatiently.

“Now imagine a split bearing. There are two halves—one at the bottom and the second at the top—with a diameter big enough to fit the bracelet. Try to move your hand from side to side until you feel the bracelet setting into the bottom one.”

I did what Andrew said until the bracelet caught on something, and I lowered my wrist into it. “I think I got it.”

“Good. Can you reach the handle?” Sweat glistened on Andrew’s face and neck. I wasn’t sure if he was nervous, worried, or both.

I nodded, my fingers wrapping around the cold bar.

“Ready?” he asked, our gazes locking.

Not really.

My thoughts raced. The dildo of consequences rarely arrived lubed, and if I had wronged someone badly in the past, this was surely where I’d get my payback. What if Andrew was mistaken and it was booby-trapped? My hand was inside. Could I lose it? Beats of sweat covered my face, too. And bugs now ran down my sides, and under my shirt.

Fuckity fuck.

“Wait.” My mouth was dry. “What if it crushes my hand? What if it’s not how to open it?”

“I’m certain this is the correct way to unlock the door.”

I raised one eyebrow. “You were also certain Dr. Garcia was a decent man.”

“Yes, and I was wrong about that.” Andrew hung his head and took a deep breath, then looked up at me. “But I’m not wrong about how to open this door. In a letter, Augustine encoded a series of specific instructions. I have no doubt it’s for this room, and I’m sure I interpreted them precisely.”

“If this situation goes south, Dr. Andrew Oliver Jones, you’ll owe me for the rest of your life.”

He smiled. “Even if nothing happens to you, I’ll owe you for the rest of my life.”

My fingers tightened, and I struggled to rotate the handle clockwise. I gritted my teeth and tried harder. Again.

Nope.

It didn’t budge.

“It doesn’t want to turn,” I hissed.

“Try the other way.”

WTF.

I shot Andrew a what-the-hell look. “I thought you knew how to open this!”

“I don’t have the exact step-by-step instructions. There was a fifty-fifty chance which way to turn.”

I took a deep breath and tried to twist it counterclockwise. It still didn’t budge. Perhaps the locking mechanism had rusted after so many years. “It’s stuck. Or it’s broken.” I relaxed my grip.

“Let me think.”

Andrew took off his hat and wiped the sweat off his forehead. Then he replaced it and closed his eyes. I didn’t want to be an asshole and break his concentration, but there was a highway of bugs going over, in and out of my bra, and quickly migrating south on my stomach.

Hurry up, Andrew. Hurry the fuck up.

Andrew opened his eyes. “Pull on the bar, then turn it clockwise.”

I wrapped my fingers again around the bar, squishing bugs by accident. Yuck. I tugged. Then tugged harder.

A movement.

Stone grinding on stone.

My eyes met Andrew’s, and we both gasped.

“It’s working,” I squalled, my heart lurching, hard.

I twisted the bar clockwise. The enclosure around my wrist shifted, and light pressure surrounded my hand, pressing on the bracelet. I envisioned huge pliers or crab cracker clamping my wrist. “Oh, my god.”

“What?” Andrew stepped closer to me. “If you feel something isn’t right, pull your hand out.”

Now he tells me that.

A gear-shifting sound reverberated through the chamber and my bones. A loud clack sent my pulse and mind into total panic. If the floors started shaking, I was out of there. With or without Andrew.

The compression around my wrist lessened, and I yanked my arm out. The bracelet loosely dangled, no longer locked. I was free at last. I viciously shook my body, hitting my clothes everywhere, trying to get rid of the nasty bugs.

More mechanical racket erupted, the clink clank of gears moving like a phantom behind the walls. My eyes darted around the dim space, trying to follow it. Blood rushed to my ears and I had to swallow a lump of fear to clear my hearing. I inched back until I was flattened against Andrew. His hand gripped mine, and he veered me to stand behind him.

The air changed, and the stone door moved, rupturing the interconnecting fine vines.

We staggered back, Andrew’s body blocking mine, our boots crushing the skeleton’s bones.

The door opened more, then stopped, leaving enough space for one body to pass at a time. Everything became deadly silent. Andrew’s heavy breathing and my drumming heart were the only sounds.

And just for shits and giggles, my brain had to hurl in the image of Hodor blocking the door with crazed white walkers on the other side. The same shudder that had swept through my body at the realization of the root of his name hold the door now washed over me again.

What if we were not supposed to open this door?