Her groan as she sat upright next to her father was no match for the roaring ruckus coming from inside the tomb. Before she could ask if he was okay, a black cloud exploded out from the entrance. And kept exploding, and swirling, and darkening the sky. The sound of flapping wings and high-pitched squeaking filled her ears.
Her dad turned to her, his eyes wide with excitement as he yelled one word. “Bats!”
Chapter Eighteen
Bats!
Thousands of them, she says.
Yikes.
I know that bats are good little bug eaters and beneficial for the environment, helping to pollinate plants and spreading seeds here, there, and everywhere, keeping the jungle healthy and all that.
But thousands of them?
All hanging upside down somewhere inside that dark tomb, or jail, or guard shack—whatever the damned ruin is?
That’s a shitload of guano!
“ ‘A shitload of guano,’ ” Daisy read aloud from over Quint’s shoulder. She chuckled and parked next to him on the rock he was currently helping gravity keep in place.
Structure I in all its rubble-littered glory sat behind him, half-shaded under the jungle canopy. Across the old Maya road in front of him and up a short ways, the pile of skulls were being warmed by a ray of sunshine. The empty eye sockets and missing jaws left them unable to see or speak any evil as they waited for Mother Nature to knock them asunder or Father Time to crush them under the weight of centuries.
There were still no clues to their origin. No explanation for their present placement. No evidence to help form educated guesses about their owners’ lives or deaths.
Were they the remains of sacrificial victims?
Trophies taken from losers of a battle? Multiple battles?
The leftovers of plundered graves?
Who in the hell had stacked them there? A vindictive enemy? A macabre zealot? A weary survivor of a catastrophic plague?
Or had the stack been built later by looters who were just being assholes? Maybe the thieves wanted to scare off any others who might come looking for jade artifacts. To keep them from finding a hoard tucked away behind the wall. Had they missed the weapons caches and the conch-shell trumpets in their haste? The dagger KuTu claimed had been used for reincarnation?
“I’m so glad you’re here to help,” Daisy said, bringing him back to the moment at hand—a hot rock, biting flies and buzzy gnats, and barking spider monkeys in the nearby trees.
“That makes one of us,” he joked with a wink. “Should we take a vote from the loudmouths overhead to see if they feel the same?”
Her laughter was mostly drowned out by the shrill call of a bird somewhere close by.
“You’re a good egg, Quint, and you carry smiles in your pocket to share all around.” She pointed up at the dark clouds that seemed to be waiting for the right moment to rain down havoc. “Even when it looks like the sky might fall on our heads.”
He closed his notebook and set it aside. “Well, Chicken Little, they were out of lollipops at the store and smiles were half off, so I bought the whole kit and cock-a-doodle.”
Her grin widened. “I say, I say, boy,” she said with a Southern drawl, imitating the old blustery cartoon rooster, Foghorn Leghorn. “That is certainly something worth crowing about.”
He grinned back. “I sort of feel like you’re egging me on here, my fowl friend.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “Oh? Am I ruffling your tail feathers?”
“Not this morning. I’m way too hot and sweaty to be cock of the walk, especially since there’s nobody here but us chickens.”
Daisy snorted and then squawked with laughter, covering her mouth, making Quint chuckle along with her.
“Knock off the laughing, you two!” Pedro called from where he and Fernando were clearing the vegetation on the other side of Structure I, in between sorting through the rubble remains. He tossed a handful of branches on the growing pile of scrub brush,saplings, and other forest detritus that Raul said the local rangers would burn during the rainy season—or smolder would be more like it. “Stop having fun while I’m sweating over here, watching Fernando work so hard.”
Quint waved at him. “How about you flap your wings back to Cancun and bring us some coldcervezasfor supper, flyboy?”
