“It’s Kayla. Is Daniel there?”
“He’s asleep, poor dear. Exhausted himself.”
“He’ll want to wake up for this. Tell him I know where the third stone is.” She kept her eye on the house. Moonbeam was in the kitchen, washing the garden dirt from her hands. She was watching Kayla.
The phone fell silent, and Kayla heard shuffling and the voodoo queen’s murmured voice. “He’s coming,” Marguerite said into the phone. “And you must go at once. But be careful. Wherever the stone is, your father will be there. The bones say he is close to having all three.” Click.
Using her phone, Kayla searched for and found a photo of the church, Iglesias de Santa Maria. A half second later, Daniel appeared just outside the red gate.
Moonbeam would see. But with luck, this would be it. She’d tell Moonbeam everything once it was over, and her mother would understand.
Kayla strode toward the gate as Daniel came into the garden. Reaching him, she showed him the photo, and then she looked back at the house in time to see Moonbeam charge outside. “I’ll be back,” Kayla called to her. “I’ll fix everything. You’ll see!”
The garden vanished in a flash of green, then white.
Chapter 21
The air in Seville smelled like oranges.
Kayla looked around—they were on a cobblestone street. Sunlight streamed down on cute storefronts and restaurants. Trees in pots framed the entrances with fat oranges on skinny branches. A lemon tree boasted an oversize lemon that caused the trunk to arch nearly to the ground. Restaurant tables were set askew on the uneven stones, and tourists sipped wine and wrangled toddlers. Along the sidewalk, chalkboards were propped on easels with the day’s specials written in multicolored chalk. Bicycles were parked in a rack outside a hostel. Several food vendors were lined up with carts along the street. Each had a line of a few people in suits and a few in flower-print summer dresses. She didn’t see anyone who looked like her father. But then, the odds of his being right here at this exact moment had to be low.
“You think the stone is here?” Daniel asked.
“Selena thinks so.” She explained about the message that came via Sam.
“You know your mother saw us leave.”
“This is it. We’re going to end this. The stone has to be here.” She faced the church. It was directly across the street, framed by more orange trees, as picturesque as a postcard. It had a tower with bells inside mustard-yellow arches. The front was crumbling white plaster, and the door was so ornately carved it looked like lace. The iron handles were elaborate swirls. A bronze statue of the Virgin Mary was by the front door. One foot of the statue gleamed like new from the loving touch of a million visitors, while the rest was tarnished. The entire church looked old, quaint, and totally like tourist bait. She couldn’t imagine how a stone of immense power could lie undetected for centuries in a place that was probably featured on thousands of postcards.
Still, this was her idea—or Selena’s, technically—and she didn’t have a better one. Marching up the steps, she tried the handle. It opened easily, and she and Daniel slid inside.
In the vestibule, it took a second for her eyes to adjust to the dim light. Voices echoed around them, and she saw the other tourists as shapes at first. She forced her eyes to focus on them: an older couple speaking French, plus a family of five that included two little boys and a baby in a stroller. Not her father.
A man in a priest’s cassock sat at a desk with a lamp. He had a guest book in front of him and a pile of brochures. Kayla picked up a brochure, and Daniel plucked it out of her hands and opened it. She reached for a second one, and the priest shook his finger at her and said, “Uno, señorita.”
“But he took mine.”
He held up one finger. “One per family.”
When the elderly couple came up to the desk to ask him a question, she reached with her mind and slipped a brochure off the pile. Joining Daniel at the back of the pews, she studied her brochure as he studied his. She wished she’d stolen an English version. As near as she could tell, it described every stained-glass window in the church but said nothing about any tombs. Useless.
“He’s here,” Daniel said.
Kayla lifted her head so fast her neck hurt. “Where?”
“It doesn’t say. But he has to be here. Look, the church was built in 1464 on the site of a mosque.” He pointed to the back of the brochure. “At least, I think that’s what it says.”
“Oh. I thought you meant my father. Queen Marguerite said he’d be here.”
Startled, he looked up. “How does she know that?”
She scanned the church. There were names and dates on stones in the walls, like in the church in Mexico. But these dates ranged from the 1700s to 1800s. Not old enough. “She mentioned the bones. She must have done a reading. Or else she brought him here herself.” She meant it as a joke, but once she said it, she started to wonder. She tried to remember exactly what she’d told the voodoo queen.
“Queen Marguerite saved your life on the condition that you’d keep helping me, not him. She’s on our side.”
Kayla nodded and pushed the worry away. It was a stupid thought.
“Most likely, your father figured it out through research like Selena did, then took a plane here and found the stone hours ago, while we were busy moping.”
“You have such a bad attitude. A little optimism wouldn’t kill you. My father might, but not optimism. Come with me.” Stuffing the brochure into her back pocket, Kayla started forward across the nave. Inside the church, the air was stale and tinged with the smells of mildew and mold. Light filtered in through the stained-glass windows.
To the left of the pulpit was a wrought-iron door with an impressive padlock on it. Kayla beelined for it. She peered through the door. On the opposite side, there were stairs heading down—like in the temple in Tikal. “A thousand dollars says Juan de la Thingie is down there.”
Daniel consulted the brochure again. “No idea where this goes.”
“I vote it’s a tomb entrance.” Glancing back, Kayla saw that the priest at the desk was watching them. She’d have to distract him, as well as the tourists. The heavy door looked like it would scream as loud as a pissed-off cat. She scanned the area, considering her options. “Look casual,” she ordered. She strolled under the pulpit, as if examining the woodwork.
The French man in the vestibule had coffee in a Styrofoam cup. He placed it down on a table in order to show his friend a map. His back was to the pews—and to his coffee.
Kayla pulled her razor blade out of her pocket, unwrapped it from the bit of tinfoil, and sent it across the floor, under the pews, and then up to the coffee cup. She sliced around the bottom, not deep enough to break through but enough to weaken it.
The man turned and picked up his coffee—and the weakened bottom fell off. Jumping back as the coffee spattered on his polished shoes, the man dropped the cup. Coffee splashed across all the tiles. The man swore, and the priest scurried over to him. His wife bent to help, and Kayla pushed the edge of her glasses. They tumbled off her face and landed in the spilled coffee.
Quickly, Kayla reached out with her mind toward the baby, who was being pushed by his mother. A pacifier rested loosely on his bottom lip, as if he’d been sucking but lost interest. She popped it out of his mouth, and the baby began to shriek. The mother knelt next to the stroller. Simultaneously, Kayla flew her brochure across the church and smacked it into the face of one of the boys. He clawed it off and threw it at his brother. The two began to argue, loudly, in German, and the father tried to intercede.
In two strides, Kayla was back at the door. She focused on the padlock. Dots of pain sparked inside her head. The lock was old, and the cams moved reluctantly. She kept fiddling, forcing it to move. At last, it snapped open, and Daniel lifted it off the door. The door shrieked as it opened, but the baby’s screams were delightfully loud and shrill and the two boys had begun a full-out shouting match, which the father was trying to
quiet. Glancing at the vestibule—the French man was still gesturing wildly, the woman was on her knees searching for her glasses, and the priest was frantically running for paper towels as he shot murderous glares at the loud family—Kayla slipped inside with Daniel. They closed the door behind them. Sticking her fingers through the grate, Kayla tried to relock the padlock. Her fingertips brushed the iron, but she couldn’t reach far enough through to move it into position.
“Forget it,” Daniel whispered. “So long as the door’s shut, they won’t notice.”
Kayla called the razor blade back to her pocket before retreating down the stairs into the darkness. It was blissfully quiet in the stairwell.
“Now what?” Daniel whispered. The dust seemed to soak in his words.
“Now we be very, very quiet.” Pulling out her lighter, she flicked it on and, with her mind, sent the flame ahead of them to light their way. Side by side, they followed the flame down the stairs. When it died, she sent a second flame after it.
The stairwell walls were coated with cobwebs and smelled like damp rock and dust, which added to the ambience. Not that this place needed more ambience. It was already creepy as hell. She half expected to see some sort of ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE sign.
They reached the bottom of the stairs. Kayla pushed the flame ahead of them. Beside her, Daniel let out a low whistle. Kayla totally agreed. She’d expected a tomb, possibly a barren basement. But this … It was more like an underground cathedral, easily as large as the church above.
Kayla let her little flame fly up and around. Pillars supported a vaulted stone ceiling. Shelves lined either side, all filled with bundles of gray rags. Between them, lashed to the pillars, were bodies wrapped in more rags. Their dust-coated skulls stared out. The flame flickered over them, making shadows move, making them look alive.
Beside her, Daniel whispered, “So how do we know which one is him?”
She walked forward. Her footsteps sounded like muffled echoes in the vast chamber. “He was important, right? So his burial should be distinctive. Certainly labeled.”
The silent skulls watched them pass. Kayla wished she had a better light. The single flame seemed so very lonely in the vastness of the crypt.
Several archways led off the main burial room. The flame dancing ahead of them, Kayla and Daniel explored the first passageway. The walls were gray, dusty stone, carved directly out of the earth, and Kayla wondered how old this place was. Certainly seemed old enough for their conquistador. They followed the tunnel to a chamber with an altar and shelves. The shelves held skulls displayed on stacks of bones. A rat skittered behind one of the skulls and then peered out at them with glittering black eyes. They didn’t see anything that indicated the conquistador was here. Backing up, they tried the next passageway.
The second archway led to a chamber with a few shrouded bodies but also a boiler and an electrical box, presumably for the church above. They left quickly and tried the third. It led to a wall display composed only of skulls, hundreds of them, laid one on top of the other as if they were macabre bathroom tiles.
In a hushed voice, Daniel asked, “Who are they all?”
“The new denizens of my future nightmares,” Kayla said. Her lighter flame swept across the eye sockets and then hovered beside a bit of wall. There was writing on it.
Daniel crossed to it and moved to wipe the dust. Faster, Kayla scooted the dust away from the letters with her mind. It had a date, 1630–1699, and then the rest was in Spanish. “I think they’re monks,” Daniel reported. “A hundred years after our conquistador.”
Behind them, Kayla thought she heard a whispered rustle. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
Kayla sent her mind back behind them, trying to sense the shape of anyone following them, but there were too many corpses and too many statues. She cringed inside at the “feel” of dust and decay and death. She couldn’t tell if they were alone or if an entire army was creeping up behind them—at least not without touching each body.
She heard a steady dripping, perhaps from a pipe. Maybe she’d confused that with footsteps. Of course, the last time she’d been in a tomb and thought she’d heard footsteps, she’d ended up getting trapped. “Never mind.”
Following the flame from the lighter, they returned to the main chamber and continued on. At the far end, the crypt narrowed and became a corridor with an arched roof and unlit sconces on the walls. Here, instead of the wrapped skeletons, there were stone coffins. Words were carved into their sides—names and dates. Kayla and Daniel slowed to read them. The little flame from the lighter danced across the words and shed a golden glow around them. The tunnel ahead of them and behind them was wreathed in blackness. Kayla felt prickles on the back of her neck. She tried to send her mind back again; and again, she felt only skeletons and statues. She listened for other sounds and heard nothing. If anyone else were here with them, he or she was quieter than the rats.
Trying to keep her tone light, Kayla said, “If this ends in bugs, snakes, or a cascade of rats, we are going to have serious words. Very bad words.”
The passageway ended in a chamber with three stone coffins, as well as shelves full of bodies wrapped in rags and ropes. A few arm bones stuck out of the wrappings. “Look at the inscription. That’s him,” Daniel said as he pointed to one of the coffins.
Kayla sent the flame toward it. There was a poem or quote in Spanish on the side, plus the name Juan Rodriguez de la Cosa, born 1489 and died 1543. Sculptures of Spanish knights were carved onto the four corners.
Opposite the coffin was an altar with a cobweb-coated goblet and several candles, as well as a warped and wrinkled old Bible. An oversize crucifix hung on the wall. Beneath the dust, it looked gold. Kayla transferred the flame to one of the candles and then lit the second one. Warm amber light spread over the stone walls and ceilings, and the whiff of burning dust drifted through the crypt. Skulls leered from new shadows, and a rat ducked between two filthy vases on a shelf. Kayla and Daniel searched the chamber. There were candlesticks, pitchers, and plates, all tarnished and covered in dust and cobwebs, as well as a shield hung on the wall and a moth-eaten tapestry that was dull brown and full of holes. Wrapped bodies were stored on two shelves. Ornate boxes filled a third. Daniel climbed up to the boxes and opened them one after another. “Dust. Bones. Bones. Dust. Necklace, maybe gold. Surprised they’d leave this stuff down here where it could be stolen.”
“You don’t think it’s in there, do you?” Kayla pointed to the coffin.
Daniel hopped down from the shelves. “Let’s find out.” He shoved at the top of the coffin. It didn’t budge. Kayla joined him. Stone scraped against stone, echoing loudly through the catacombs. Pushing as hard as they could, they shifted the top about four inches.
“I’ll try to feel it.” Kayla took a deep breath and sent her mind into the coffin.
The dead conquistador was definitely in there. Her mind touched old bones. Retreating, she shuddered and then forced herself to focus again. His clothes had rotted away long ago, but he still wore a helmet and his sword, as well as a heavy belt that had fallen through his desiccated body and lay on his spine. She felt other trinkets: a necklace with a heavy amulet, a dagger, several coins … and then she felt a familiar triangle. It lay near his hand, or what was left of his hand. “Got it,” she whispered.
Leaning over the side of the stone coffin, Kayla reached in, trying hard not to touch the skeleton, and her fingertips brushed the stone triangle. She grabbed it and pulled it out.
Beside her, Daniel sucked in air.
The stone looked very much like the first stone. It had two serrated edges, and if she looked at it out of the corner of her eye, she could see words that floated, blurred, on its surface. It was deep black with flecks of many colors within it, like a black opal, that glistened in the candlelight. She held it out to Daniel—and felt it yanked out of her hand.
The stone sailed across the tomb and landed in the outstretched
hand of a young woman with blond hair and a wide-brimmed summer hat.
Daniel didn’t hesitate. He dropped his hand on Kayla’s shoulder, and the world flickered. They reappeared next to the woman, and Daniel grabbed for the stone before Kayla could even orient herself. The woman held the stone out of reach.
As if shoved by wind, Kayla and Daniel sailed backward. Ropes that had been tying together bundles of bones flew off the rags and wrapped themselves tightly around Kayla and Daniel, coiling around their legs as if they were flies caught by a spider, cocooned together.
The woman smiled.
Chapter 22
It was the woman from Mexico. Kayla was sure of it.
The woman was tall and thin with shockingly blond hair and a model-beautiful face. She wore a sundress with a cheerful yellow flower print, and she carried a pink purse. She tossed the stone from hand to hand as she smiled at them. “Thank you so much. I really didn’t want to stick my hand in that coffin. Honestly, why can’t they put these things someplace nicer? Like a museum. Or even a closet. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.” She had a light Southern accent.
Staring at her, Kayla eased the fishhooks out of her pocket. Holding them ready with her mind, she glanced at Daniel and nodded. He vanished, and the ropes around them fell limp. As Kayla kicked the loose ropes off, she sent the hooks flying at the woman’s ankles.
Daniel reappeared behind the woman. The woman only had a mere instant to turn her head and see him, but it was enough. She kicked backward. Her high heel caught him in the stomach. He collapsed against a shelf of skulls, and the hooks embedded in one of the bundled corpses. Regaining his footing, Daniel charged at her.
She flicked her hand, and one of the skulls flew out of its shelf and smashed against Daniel’s head. He staggered as the skull shattered. Quickly, Kayla stirred a tiny cyclone of dirt, intending to spray it in the woman’s eyes.