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The darkness enveloped me. Water lapped against stone somewhere far beneath me. With the strange acoustics of the well, it was impossible to tell if the water was five or fifty feet away. The damp, earthy scent of mildew choked the confined space. There wasn’t much in the way of circulation, so I breathed through my mouth and tried to keep my mind focused on the task at hand, though the darkness seemed to make it easier to see Lara’s face in my mind’s eye. Her emerald eyes glittered and for a few moments my heart was a world away, in New York City.
“Stupid curse,” I muttered as I descended, hand over hand, wishing there was an easier way. My left hand chafed against the rope as it stopped me from plummeting to my death, or perhaps a broken neck which would mean about the same in the water at the well’s base. The task, difficult on a good day, was made all the more so by being loaded down with my tactical rig.
“It’s okay, your hands aren’t burning,” I tried to reassure myself, wishing I’d thought to pack a good set of gloves. Mind over matter.
I had to have gone a good forty-five feet into the darkness. My hands were going numb, and I was sweating like a pig. The water lapping beneath me was growing louder.
I couldn’t be far off now. Ellawaya had made this trip in the dead of night, while running for her life. My respect for my ancestor grew by the moment.
Perspective.
The well itself was fed by an underground stream. The water level would be at its lowest point just after dawn. According to Ellawaya’s journal, that would reveal a passage leading into the temple. I needed some light, but I wasn’t game to take a hand off the rope, so I cheated.
Focusing my mind, I channeled a wisp of power into an illuminating orb before me. A tiny shimmering blue orb flickered into existence about a foot in front of my face. It hovered there, giving off an eerie blue light that struck the walls of the well. The stone was tinged green with algae.
Glancing down, I could barely make out the murky depths of the water about twenty feet beneath me. I searched the well wall. Solid stone. There was meant to be a tunnel, but all I could see was solid stone.
Had I picked the wrong village? Was I wasting precious time floundering about in a random well, or had I just gone too far? I looked up and willed the orb up, searching for any sign of the tunnel.
The blue orb rose, but I found only solid stone as far as the eye could see. I didn’t have time for this. The Inquisition was breaching the temple. Unpalatable as a frontal assault would be, I couldn’t keep roaming the jungles of Chagres hoping to find the hidden entrance.
Adjusting my grip on the rope, I began the unpleasant task of trying to drag myself back up to the surface. The rope bit into the skin of my palm. I winced, clutching at the rope with my other as the brim of my fedora clipped the climbing line. I felt the hat teeter and fall.
“No!” I shouted as I clutched for the hat, catching it in the fingertips of my right hand, even as my left burned against the rope.
Without both hands to hold my weight, my grip faltered and I began to fall.
My heart leapt into my throat as I plunged toward the water. Jamming the hat back on my head I clutched the rope with both hands. The pain brought tears to my eyes, but my descent slowed as the rope took a layer of skin off my right palm.
I came to a halt, skimming the surface of the water. I could feel it soaking through my slacks as I lay there panting above it, my body laid out flat like a board. Overhead, my werelight flickered in the distance.
I willed it towards me, so that I could take stock of my rapidly deteriorating situation.
A deep groan escaped my lips as the light sank towards me.
The illumination played over the well’s walls, catching on a lip of stone jutting out from the wall almost three feet above my head. Arching my back, I followed its progress and realized my mistake.
The stone protrusion had prevented my werelight from casting light on what was hidden beneath it: an inky black portal that had been concealed from view. Behind me, stretching into the distance, was a sloping path hewn into the earth.
I’d found it. The priestess’ way.
I panted a sigh of relief. My body ached, but my heart flipped in my chest in giddy delight. Gripping the rope with both hands, I sat up and wiggled back and forth, using my body weight to swing like a pendulum from side to side. The water sucked at me as I skimmed its surface but with each swing, I grew closer.
My feet reached the inner wall of the well and I kicked off with both boots. Sailing back toward the portal, I let go of the rope and landed heavily on the stone floor of the path.
I tumbled and came to a gasping halt. Resting my head against the cool stone, I lay there panting as I tried to catch my breath. The stone floor was damp, likely a result of the receding tide. I had expected a muddy trail, but the floor was solid. Willing my light closer, I studied the path. It was as if the entire tunnel had been hewn from a single piece of stone. It was seamless. No mortal workmanship was that good; it was magic. Geomancy.
Earth magic, and a lot of it. The witch cult had carefully shaped the path that ran from the village to the temple annex. Perhaps it was meant to function as some sort of escape route in the event of a siege.
Such paths were not uncommon. Witches and wizards are well-known for their paranoia. It was what came from their long lives and a first-hand study of human nature. Perhaps the Brujas de Sangre had been afraid that the locals might one day turn against them and their bloody rituals. The path would give them a ready escape.
I scrambled to my feet and stood up, water running down my legs and into my boots. I adjusted my kit, dusted myself off as best I could, and anxiously studied the tunnel before me.
It was a surreal experience to think that I was walking where Ellawaya had once walked. The sloping path ran beneath the plateau in a straight shot toward the temple. I had no doubt that at high tide the entire tunnel would be submerged. It would flood and be lethal for anyone caught within. I reached for my scuba rebreather and reassuringly felt its presence on my back. If things got too hot in the temple, I might well need it to escape.
The deeper I went, the warmer the air grew. The tunnel was dank and moist, a function of the humidity and moisture in the cavern. I tried to prepare myself for what lay in the temple, but Ellawaya’s journal had been remarkably sparse on that front. Perhaps she had hoped her posterity would never return to this place.
From what I had observed of the temple during our flyover, the Inquisition had unearthed the temple. Were they already inside? Was I walking into an ambush? What did the zealots even want with the Brujas de Sangre?
So many unanswered questions.
The Spanish had been the dominant presence in the Caribbean in the 15th and 16th centuries, with outposts and mining concerns throughout Panama and South America. The New world had been the cornerstone of their colonization and treasure raising endeavors, funding their wars with England and refilling their depleted coffers. It had eventually given rise to the pirate plague that had swept the Caribbean.
The promise of easy gold had drawn nations to the New World. For the first time, I wondered how much of that gold had been sourced from the Brujas de Sangre and appreciated the irony of Ellawaya’s escape. Her return to England with Drake, and the subsequent rise of the Caldwell Dynasty, had changed the course of history. Her bloodline had financed England’s ascendancy.
It had all begun, right here, far from the prying eyes of historians. So much of what had transpired here remained a mystery.
What had truly happened to the Brujas de Sangre? Had the Spanish turned on their former allies? Had the High Priestess gone in search of her daughter, abandoning the temple and her obligations? For the temple to be buried, it seemed impossible that the witches had remained. Scattering the remnants of such a powerful bloodline would have been a bloodbath, particularly here at the seat of their power.
I could feel it even now, the steady hum of the temple’s power. The arcane structure focused the arcane energies of the ley line it had been built upon. It would have allowed for powerful rituals, far beyond the realm of ordinary wizards. Many ancient and significant archaeological sites had been built upon the ley lines: Stonehenge, the temple of Apollos at Delphi, and the Pyramids themselves.
All of them had been built by ancient practitioners of magic, seeking to augment their power with the earth’s supernatural abundance. The Brujas de Sangre had tapped into that power to secure their prosperity. The Spanish had taken advantage of that wealth, and somewhere within the temple I hoped to find answers. Answers to my family’s past, and the bloodline curse enacted here that had claimed generations of my family. The ley line would have provided all the juice the High Priestess Aleida would have needed for such a potent curse. Hopefully, here at its genesis, I could break free from its death grip.
Blood magic. The thought sent a shiver down my spine as I pressed on through the tunnel. A great many secrets lay buried within the temple of the Brujas de Sangre. Some were likely best left there.
Unfortunately, all of it was currently under threat of being destroyed by the Inquisition. I shook my head and picked up the pace, hoping that I wasn’t too late.
The Inquisition, led by Bishop Torquemada, were ruthless opponents of the World of Magic. My father’s warning had been clear. They sought to put an end to the presence of magic and those who practiced it. Narrow minded inflexible zealots who couldn’t come to grips with the complexity of the world around them. Unfortunately, they couldn’t fathom the peril of their current course of action.
I mopped the sheen of sweat forming at my brow and lifted my canteen to my lips, taking a long draught and hoping to combat the rising warmth but even the water in my canteen felt warm. Blech.
Killing practitioners of magic was as unlikely to take magic out of the world as killing fish was to purge the oceans of the world. You would poison the ecosystem, but it would remain. The magical community were the beneficiaries of magic, not its source.
Magic was the power by which the world was formed. Our reality was only part of a greater whole. Beyond our realm lay the World of Spirit, a place where dangerous creatures of myth and legend roamed free. It was full of the kinds of beings that bards and peddlers whispered of, parents threatened their children with, and ordinary mortals saw only in their darkest nightmares. The land of the Fey lay in the world of Spirits. Beyond their courts, gods, old and new, supreme in their respective domains, dabbled in games the mortal mind could not comprehend. All of it remained separated from our reality by the Veil, a barrier that kept things where they ought to be, most of the time.
Killing wizards wouldn’t do a damn thing to purge the world of magic, but it would attract the attention of beings that were best left undisturbed. Wizards were a balancing influence in the Supernatural community. Should we vanish or be sufficiently culled, the energy flowing through the earth, channeled from ley line to ley line, might overflow with devastating consequence. It might very well destroy the Veil that guarded our reality. Only then would humanity, in their foolishness, discover creatures far more terrible and dangerous than a little wizard.
The unfettered ignorance of the Inquisition was hardly a new dilemma but it was a dangerous one. It meant my discovery here would likely end very poorly for me.
The tunnel tapered sharply downward and opened into a cavern ending in a murky dark pool of shadows. I waded into the edge of the water, willing my light overhead so that I could see into its depths. About six inches beneath the surface of the water I could make out an iron grill, three feet wide and two feet high. Its bars were spaced wide enough that I could fit my fist through them. Beyond the grill everything was submerged.
The path beyond was flooded, and from the look of the grill, it had been fixed to the inside. I reached my hand through, searching for a lock or latch.
I reached deeper, my chin bobbing just above the surface of the water as I buried my arm up the elbow but found nothing. Beyond the grill, something moved. Its shape cut lazily through the murky depths. I pushed off the wall, yanking my hand through the grate and falling ass first into the water, right as a reptilian maw slammed against the grate, its white teeth visible, before it disappeared back into the shadows.
“What the hell was that?” I gasped as I pulled myself out of the water. I stood over the grate and pounded the wall in frustration. Something was alive within the temple, and I had no idea what it was. It was larger than any reptile I had ever seen. Venturing into the murky depths with such a creature was asking to be eaten, and I much preferred all my limbs attached to my body.
A shrill scream echoed toward me. I paused, still waist deep in the water, listening for the source. A softer cry followed, and I realized it was floating down from somewhere up above me. I climbed out of the water and worked my way back along the path, this time paying much closer attention to the wall of the cavern, my werelight bobbing along beside me.
Carved into the wall of the cavern were a number of horizontal trenches spaced several inches apart. They rose from the floor into the darkness above like the rungs of a ladder.
I willed the orb upward, grabbed the stone rungs, and began to climb hand over hand. With no idea of the Inquisition’s position, I tried to move as quietly as possible. They were somewhere overhead. I reached a ledge and pulled myself over it onto a stone platform, built into the wall of the cavern.
A second tunnel rose sharply from the platform heading toward the surface. In the distance I could see flickering lights.
I willed my light out. It wouldn’t do me any favors to draw attention to my presence. I made my way carefully along the passage. It rose until it came to a narrow doorway that was a few inches wider than me, but only as tall as my shoulders. Through the doorway there was a vast open chamber.
Stone walls stretched before my eyes. Not the smooth geomancy I’d just encountered in the tunnel. No, this was ancient and tedious workmanship. Each carefully hewn stone laid atop one another and set in place without mortar. Torches flickered in brackets along the wall and from where I stood, I could feel the arcane energy fueling them.
I stared in wonder at the great entrance of the lost temple of the Brujas de Sangre.
Another scream split the tunnel, followed by furious cursing in what sounded like Portuguese. I leaned against the doorway and listened. The Inquisition were somewhere to the left of the opening. By the sound of it, things were going poorly for them.
The hall itself was like an enormous rectangular shaped checkerboard. The floor had been divided into squares of charcoal black and crimson. Each was a dozen paces across and laid out in a five by ten grid that stretched from left to right across the hall. There were clusters of dusty skeletons scattered throughout the hall. Their weapons and the rusted morion gave the distinct impression they had belonged to the conquistadors.
Whatever relationship the Brujas de Sangre had entertained with the Spanish, it had ended poorly. If the Temple had repelled the assault, it explained why the Spanish might have resorted to burying it in the first place. Now they were back to finish what they started.
Over my dead body.
Which, given the circumstances, seemed increasingly likely.
If the Inquisition were on my left, it meant the temples’ annex lay that way. That meant the inner sanctum lay to my right.
I was ahead of the Inquisition, albeit barely.
Scattered throughout the hall were a series of shattered stones as big as an SUV. It seemed like they had collapsed from the walls or roof, cratering the tiles they had impacted. One such stone blocked my view of the Inquisition’s progress and I dared not stick my head around it for a better look.
To my right, in the distance, stood an open doorway that led deeper into the temple. An opalescent mist filled the passageway and obscured its contents from view.
Another bloodcurdling scream split the air of the entrance hall. A gunshot rang out and the screams died.
“Mark that one as trapped also,” an authoritative voice said. His Spanish accent was both commanding and unmistakable. “And fetch another scout. Hopefully this one will have more luck.”
Bishop Diego Torquemada, the High Inquisitor, in the flesh.
“Your Eminence, we’ve already lost a dozen,” another voice replied. This one was smooth and velvety. It took a moment for me to place where I’d heard it before. It had been the voice issuing commands to the patrol I’d ambushed outside the village. “We can’t just keep throwing men at her. At this rate we’ll have no one left.”
“Their sacrifice advances our cause,” Torquemada said. “No price is too great. They will be remembered as the heroes that made our success possible.”
“Yes, Bishop.” There was the unmistakable sound of a body being dragged out of the way.
“Be quick about it. We’re less than a third of the way and we don’t have forever. Sooner or later, the government is going to realize we are here. We must complete the ritual before they arrive,” Torquemada said.
“Not without clearing the temple,” the smooth voice replied. “The wealth of these witches will fuel our cause.”
I pressed my head flat to the wall, trying to get as close as I could without giving away my presence.
“An irony I’m sure they would not appreciate were they still alive to see it,” Torquemada said. “Earthly wealth will mean little if we succeed. It is a secondary consideration. The greatest treasure to be had here is the power of this place. The Blood Witches did us a great service.”
“Thank your maker that the Conquistadors saw to them, or our blood would fill this hall.”
The Bishop scoffed. “A shame they didn’t have greater foresight. They could have spared us the need to return to this dank sweltering nightmare.”
“At least they left us the archives,” the velvet voice said. “Without it, we’d never have found it.”
That was how they had found the temple so readily. Somehow, they had found the records from the original Spanish conquistadors.
“They were certainly thorough,” the Bishop replied. “A rare degree of foresight on their part.”
There was a shuffle of steps, and the velvet voice began. “It’s just like the Wizard of Oz. Follow the yellow brick road. When you get to the end, choose carefully.”
A series of quick steps approached, punctured by a grinding whir and a rush as a dozen projectiles cut through the air. A shrill scream split the air, followed by the distinct thump of a body hitting the ground. The noise was far too close for comfort and was followed by something akin to a spray can being used.
“Hmm, two. That’s better than our average, I guess,” the Bishop said, now less than twenty feet away. “We’ll be inside before breakfast.”
The smooth voice sounded almost giddy with delight as he barked, “Bring us another!”
I was out of time.