KuTu stood by the skulls, watching Quint with a wary frown. He made a gesture toward him with his hand, almost salute-like, and then bowed slightly.
“Well, then,” Daisy said, smiling all around. “Are we going to climb over that wall and get this party started, or stand around all day watching the birds?”
Chapter Nineteen
“When vultures surround you, try not to die.”
“Did you just come up with that, Parker?” Angélica asked as she led the hike to the sunken ruins, keeping Quint at the front of the pack by her side.
She’d played off wanting him close by saying it was because he was her “loverboy,” as her dad had teased. The truth was she needed to hear what Daisy had told him—or rather, the message from whomever had used Daisy as their microphone.
And after hearing Quint’s recap about him being watched over by the vultures, along with a warning about something waiting in the great darkness, a ritual, and potential sacrifices, Angélica was scratching her head even more. Who in the hell was delivering these warnings if not her mom? And the part about not descending untilIxchelwas in her full glory … well,Ixchelwas the goddess of the moon, so did that mean to wait until the moon was full?
Once she knew the details about Daisy’s channeled message, Angélica then filled him in on what KuTu had prophesied when he’d caught her alone before leaving camp to join the others.
“It’s an old African proverb I once heard on a job,” Quint answered while dodging a low-hanging vine.
“Were you working in Africa?”
She had no idea of all the places he’d traveled, something she wanted to learn about after they returned to Cancun.
Ifthey returned.
No, she was not going to think that way. They would make it home safe and sound, and then she would dig in and try to immerse herself in his world as much as he’d done in the Maya civilization. If this relationship was going to make it—and she really wanted tobuild a love as strong and lasting as what her parents had shared—it needed to be a two-way street.
“Actually, I was in Everglades National Park at the time. An old park ranger said it when we saw several vultures circling overhead, and the words stuck with me ever since.”
“Wise words.” She glanced back to check on the others.
Behind them, Daisy walked alongside Angélica’s father. She’d claimed to want to keep an eye on him and his ankle, which he didn’t seem to mind at all. Never mind that he’d given Angélica nothing but trouble for “coddling” him after leaving camp, telling her she needed to find something to obsess over besides her “dear old dad.”
Angélica had been in the midst of bickering with her father about who was the more hardheaded of the two when she’d caught sight of the king vultures gathering around Quint. The scene was just as KuTu had foretold not a half hour before.
“Did KuTu know how many of the vultures would show up?” Quint asked quietly, walking so close to her they were bumping shoulders now and then. “Or was he just spit-balling his prophecy?”
“He was off by one,” she told him, double-checking that the others were far enough away not to hear.
Esteban was about twenty feet back, swatting at bugs as he walked, although not as wildly as Dr. Fernel had yesterday. Bronko followed next, his focus shifting to the left and right of the trail, lingering now and then on the shadowy jungle. Once a sicario, always a sicario, she thought, gazing beyond him to where her father and Daisy were lagging in spite of his insistence that Angélica was not to slow the pace due to his ankle. Raul was acting as a thirdamigo, playing tour guide by pointing out plants and their purposes along the way.
At the rear was KuTu, who kept peering up at the king vultures circling over their heads, his expression unreadable. But Angélica had an idea what was on his mind. It started with Quint and ended with this site not being what it seemed on the surface—which was some kind of prison or cult-like sacred site or … hell, she didn’t know. Maybe today would finally deliver some answers. If not, she would just have Quint ask his damned vulture buddies.
“It’s like I told you after we ascended the wall,” she said. “KuTu claimed that according to his dream, you’d be visited by thirteen kingvultures that were carrying a message from the Maya gods.”
Quint snorted. “Did I speak in vulture-guese and flap my wings during the conversation?”
In spite of the unease still spinning in her gut about the sight of all those vultures focused on Quint, Angélica grinned. “Probably, in between preening and showing off your tail feathers.”
“Hey, I only fluff those up for you.” He bumped her shoulder on purpose. “Especially when we’re rubbing beaks.”
“I sure like the size of your caruncle,” she flirted, bumping him back.
“Oh yeah? Wait until you see the wiggle in my wattle next time we’re alone.”
She giggled, but reality quickly returned with its wet blanket in tow.
How had KuTu really known about the gathering of the king vultures? She’d witnessed his gaze locked onto Quint several times since that first day when they’d come across the pile of skulls and the vulture on the wall. KuTu had told her then that the Lord of Death sent his messengers to travel with the “tall man.” She was having trouble buying that it was simply a dream.
“Could KuTu understand what I’d been saying to the vultures in his dream?” Quint asked, easing back a step as they weaved through a narrow section under a grove of young sapodilla trees. “Or what the birds were telling me?”
