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I had to move, but it felt like my legs were stuck in concrete. The Inquisition were closing fast and in moments they would be on top of me, but I had nowhere to go. I looked at the boulder-strewn entryway to the temple. From the tortured shrieks of the Inquisition, I knew only too well what waited for me if I was to risk a blind dash through the entrance hall.
The trap-laden passage would have my number in seconds. It was suicidal but I was running out of other options.
The Inquisition had already lost a dozen men. My chance at making it through unscathed were practically zero. I thought of Ellawaya’s journal and wracked my brain for anything that might help me, but I just kept coming up blank. The killing field had been designed for a single lethal purpose: to keep the uninitiated out of the inner sanctum.
I mentally raced through the passages I had read on the plane, hunting desperately for answers. As the clamor behind me grew, a single crimson image distilled in my mind.
The death mask.
I’d spent hours studying it on the journey to Panama. Its alien designs had seemed random, but as I studied the passageway around me, a pattern was beginning to form in my mind. Reaching beneath my combat rigging, I unzipped the pouch I used to conceal the mask and drew it out.
The bloodstained crimson artifact thrummed with power. It was even more vibrant now than when I had first picked it up. The mask was home, and it knew it. I turned the mask over in my hands and studied the face. There beneath the empty eye sockets was a strange, ridged pattern where the nose ought to be.
Drawing it close, I saw it for what it was. A clue, hidden in plain sight. It was a five by ten grid where some of the squares were raised while others were depressed into the mask. Holding the mask before me I studied the entry hall and realized the ridges didn’t correspond to the colors of the tiles on the chamber’s floor.
They marked something else. They marked the safe passage through the proverbial minefield.
Another scream split the air.
“That makes no sense at all,” The Bishop growled, his voice growing impatient.
“It’s a false path,” the smooth voice replied. “There must be another path. Let’s try the tiles to the right.”
I studied the nose of the mask. A small series of raised indentations curved in an almost S like shape but led nowhere except a series of trap laden tiles. Even without laying eyes on the Inquisition, I knew where they were.
Unfortunately, the safe path ran through the square I now sat on. If the Inquisition had tried the others, the very next square they ought to try was the start of the path that would land them right in my lap. What was more, the first three safe tiles lay in a straight line toward me.
They would be on me as soon as they could find another ‘volunteer.’
I stepped forward, out of the doorway, and huddled behind the fallen stone. Glancing back toward the hidden entrance, I did a double take. The opening had disappeared. In its place was a stone wall. I reached my hand back, and it passed through the stone without resistance.
Interesting. There was a glamour hiding the presence of the hidden entrance. Even if the Inquisition passed it, there was every chance it would go undetected.
Turning back to the task at hand, I charted my course through the hall. Here and there, skeletal remains gave none too subtle indications of the presence of traps. With the mask to guide me, I knew the path I had to take, but I couldn’t just take off across the killing field.
With the Inquisition on my left, I needed cover.
Focusing my mind, I drew on my power and chanted, “Nieblas de la oscuridad.”
A broiling black mist blossomed before me. Like a storm cloud, the rolling mist expanded through the entrance hall between the Inquisition and me. I channeled power into the mist, causing it to grow until a dense wall of smog divided me from their prying eyes.
“What’s that?” the smooth voice called.
“Magic,” Torquemada’s voice spat. “The air is thick with it.”
“Get the gas masks,” the second voice replied. “Just in case.”
The mist was harmless, but they had no way of knowing that. It certainly looked sinister enough. I hoped it would buy me the room I needed. I’d have liked to take a shot at Torquemada, but there was no sense in alerting them to my presence before I had to. If I missed they would turn the annex into a killing field.
For all they knew the mist was part of the temple’s defenses. I wanted to keep it that way.
As the darkness spread, I reached for a small cylindrical object fastened to the back of my tactical rigging. The small device was a flash bang. When detonated, it would bombard anyone unfortunate enough to be nearby with a flash brighter than seven million candles, and a blast of sound that would make a shrieking banshee seem like a quiet neighbor. It was a hell of a party starter.
I armed the device and hurled it through the mist at the unsuspecting Inquisition.
The cloud muffled the sound of the flash bang as it skittered across the tiles, and out the other side. I crouched behind the stone, covered my ears, and turned away as the blast radiated through the chamber.
There was a series of confused shouting from the Inquisition, but I was already on my feet, mask in hand, racing across the chamber. The next safe tile was diagonal to the one I stood on.
I leapt onto the crimson tile, took three quick steps, and leapt for the next. Again, it lay diagonal to the tile I raced across.
Almost six tiles into the deadly maze, I was making swift progress. But here the Brujas de Sangre had set their second layer of perfidy. The path doubled back on itself back toward the Inquisition. I sprinted on to the next tile, my breath coming in short bursts. The tile was charcoal gray, and I sank down behind some crumbling masonry as I searched the chamber beyond. The roof overhead was the height of a three-story building. Pillars along each wall seemed to hold it in place. The only path through the chamber was the deadly grid set in the floor. The walls were smooth, and no purchase could be found there.
The mask warned that up ahead the path branched into three possible options. And from my vantage point on the chamber’s floor, I could see that there were in fact three arches at the end of the chamber. The central passage remained open, and a white mist continued to billow within it. To the left and right, there were identical entry archways, but they remained sealed. A stone wall prevented any passage. Only the central path was open: that was my goal. I had to make it to that tunnel before the Inquisition could put a bullet in the back of my skull.
I doubled back, leaping onto the square closest to the Inquisition’s earliest attempt across the chamber, then raced across the charcoal square before leaping onto another on the left-hand edge of the chamber. I knew from the mask there were two safe squares in a row. I raced off the charcoal square I stood, onto a crimson one before risking a look over my shoulder toward the chamber entrance. The black mist was dissipating and three figures in combat armor were emerging like ghosts from the darkness. They were clad in black armor with red crimson crosses emblazoned on the chest piece, and each of them wore gas masks to protect them from the fog.
Not that I’d worked any such malady into the illusion. I’d simply used the mist to cover my advance. It took the figures all of a second to spot me and raise their assault rifles. I dove behind a piece of fallen masonry as the first of the Inquisition’s foot soldiers loosed a burst in my direction.
Bullets ricocheted off the stone wall and floor all around me, sending chips of fragments of stone and dust spraying from the impacts. The three soldiers split in an effort to flank me. The soldier on the right got lucky. His path took him onto the block that I had entered the chamber on. It was safe.
There was a grinding whir from the tile beside it. The whir was followed by a rush of air and a gout of flame erupted from one of the holes in the tile. The flames consumed the soldier, and his screams filled the chamber.
The third companion stepped onto another tile and was greeted by dozens of razor-sharp projectiles that launched at the space from multiple angles. The man fell to the floor. Dozens of razor sharp stakes the size of a human finger stuck out of his exposed flesh. He’d been turned into a pincushion in a matter of seconds.
The soldier that remained marked the square he stood on as others appeared through the mist behind him. The numbers were spiraling out of control quickly. Fortunately, none of them had seen the path I’d taken to get where I was.
A huge silhouette came through the mist, head and shoulders above the men around him. He surveyed the chamber, his mask facing down toward the floor as he searched for something.
I caught my breath until he shouted to his men.
“Follow the water. The trail of water marks the safe passage.”
My heart sank. I looked behind me. Sure enough, my soaked slacks and boots had left a visible trail of water from where I’d entered. The soldiers moved quickly, confident in their chosen path.
I needed to buy some time and cover my tracks. I held out a hand and whispered, “Fuego.”
Wisps of flame fanned to life above my outstretched hand as a fireball bigger than a basketball coalesced before me. Satisfied, I turned and hurled it at my pursuers. The superheated ball of flames whistled past the first soldier’s shoulder, but I’d chosen my target carefully: the man barking the orders. The one whose voice I recognized as ordering his subordinates to murder a child.
The ball of flames crossed the hall and I smiled with grim satisfaction as it raced toward him. At the last moment, he grabbed the soldier beside him and thrust him into the path of the fireball.
The human shield let out a scream as the blaze caught, but his callous commander shoved him out of the way. The commander raised his assault rifle and let out a short burst, driving me back into cover.
I groaned. My spell missed its mark, but the purpose of the flames had been twofold. Naturally, I’d hoped to get lucky with their leader, but I’d also hoped the sizzling inferno would do something about the water trail I had left through the chamber. It wasn’t perfect but it would have to do.
Something bounced across the chamber floor. I stole a glance around the edge of the broken stone and spotted a grenade skittering across the floor. The grenade came to rest right behind the stone I was sheltering behind.
I had no choice. If I moved, I’d be exposing myself to the blast. If I didn’t, it could destroy my cover, leaving me in the open.
The grenade detonated before I could make up my mind, the force of the blast bracketing the stone and shifting it a good few inches as it slammed into my back. Stone shrapnel whizzed past me. Fortunately, the shattered masonry had taken the worst of the impact and sheltered me from the blast.
My luck wouldn’t hold out for a second, so I took off. Racing across the chamber, I darted right onto the next safe tile. Bullets whizzed about me as I threw myself forward, tucking into a roll and coming to a halt behind the next piece of fallen stone.
I was almost through the chamber. Up ahead, the entrance to the inner sanctum loomed. The thick white mist billowed through the tunnel. Behind me, the Inquisition scrambled after me.
I wasn’t going to make it in time. They were everywhere.
I didn’t even know what the mist was. My best guess was that it was another trap. From the carnage behind me, it seemed a distinct possibility.
With the Inquisition behind me, traps all around me, and a potentially deadly path ahead I was starting to really reconsider the choices I had made in my life.
Murdoch’s words came back to my mind and a gradual descent into madness didn’t seem so bad. It certainly compared favorably to being used for target practice in the annex of a forsaken temple in the tropics of Panama.
“That’s quitter talk,” I told myself.
I needed to move, and a shield was my only option. I couldn’t just sit here slinging spells at the Inquisition. Sooner or later, I’d run out of juice or be overwhelmed.
I could raise a shield behind me and run for the doorway. It was a gamble, but it was the best I had before me.
Such a shield would draw power proportional to the impact it absorbed. An entire magazine from an assault rifle would be taxing. Trying to hold off the combined might of the Inquisition was doomed to failure. Likely in a matter of seconds.
I needed more time than that to reach the passage, and I needed more power.
The mask in my hand thrummed in response to my unspoken plea.
The arcane relic seemed to exude raw power.
I had felt such promises before. Power always comes at a price, and while it was common for such relics to be infused with power, one had to be mindful of where it had come from. Witches and wizards would enchant jewelry or other items like staves so that they could unleash far more power in battle than they could normally manage. It gave them greater flexibility in a fight and more stamina when outnumbered by their foes.
In my hand, I held the Máscara de la Muerte. The death mask of the high priestess of the Brujas de Sangre. And here at the seat of her power, it was singing with arcane energy. I clutched the mask in my hand and a single overwhelming thought rang in my mind. It wasn’t my own voice. No, it was a woman’s voice. Ancient, powerful, and almost seductive in its promise of power.
“Put it on,” the voice commanded.
That’s not good. Hearing the voices of the dead was never a good thing. I remembered the words of my father. He spoke of a maddening voice that pushed him to the edge of his sanity. Was this what he heard every day?
“Don’t argue with me, child. Put on the mask,” the voice demanded. “There is more at stake than your petty debt.”
I turned over the mask, having memorized the last few tiles I needed to cross, and weighed my choices. It was almost certainly a terrible idea, but I needed more power than I had to make it to the door.
Gunfire filled the chamber as bullets impacted all around me.
“Even if you make it on your own, the mist will kill you. Put it on,” the voice said.
The overwhelming desire to put on the mask filled my mind. It was as if something had seized control of my being. The compulsion came from within me, but acted of its own accord.
I felt my hand raise the mask to my face and as the timber touched my flesh it took hold of me.
The ancient mask clung to my face without assistance. Power surged through my being, sending a shiver racing down my spine. I stood and faced down the Inquisition. With one hand, I swept a lance of crimson energy through the chamber. It carved straight through a cluster of the gathered soldiers, splitting them from shoulder to hip like they were made of paper.
Such a spell should have been taxing but the exertion didn’t even register. Power coursed through me and it felt great.
“Come get some,” I hollered.
I motioned at the wall beside them, as if raking it with my hands.
“Venir!“ I bellowed. Stone fountained outward as if the walls had exploded. The stone shrapnel killed two more soldiers and blasted a third onto one of the trapped tiles. He died as had his companions before him, lanced with dozens of tiny spears. The Inquisition went to ground as I stared them down, radiating power and deadly majesty.
Looking ahead, the central path lay open. My vision grew red, and I could no longer see the mist.
That’s interesting. The mask had to act like some kind of protection. That was what the voice had meant. The mask was necessary to pass safely through the mist into the temple’s inner sanctum.
The office of high priestess officiated in the rites of the temple. Without the mask, no others could access the temple or its secrets. The skeletons in the tunnel made a lot more sense now. They had never stood a chance of entering the temple unbidden.
I raised a shield behind me, a wall of crimson energy eight feet wide and seven feet tall. The Inquisition’s shots ricocheted uselessly off it. Bolstered by the mask’s power, I barely felt them register. At the entrance to the tunnel a lone skeleton stood, his morion still resting on his head. He had made it further than his companions, but he had not been permitted to enter the temple’s inner sanctum.
I stepped past him and plunged into the pitch-black tunnel. The floor rose upward as I went, and the noise of the inquisition fell away behind me.
The feminine voice spoke inside my mind.
“Welcome home, Seth.”