“Is it a friendly deal?”
She cringed.
“Figures.”
“In the deal,” she explained, “men promised to offer their armpits and waists in exchange for fire.”
“How does one give an armpit?”
“Well, it’s believed by some that this is how the ritual of slicing open a human’s breast down through the torso during a sacrifice was started.”
“That’s it.” Quint stood. “I’m revoking your right to tell stories.”
“Dr. García!” Esteban shouted, racing down the steps toward her, his face pale.
“What?” she asked, standing next to Quint.
“I hear something,” he said in Spanish.
Had he been listening to her story?
“Did he say he heard something?” Quint asked.
“Sí, I did!” Esteban answered breathlessly. “Un silbido.”
“A whistle,” Angélica translated in case Quint didn’t know that word.
“From where?” Quint pressed.
Esteban turned and pointed toward the dark entrance. “Inside.”
Chapter Twenty
More freaky-ass bat shit in my immediate future.
If the Maya are right and reincarnation is legit, I must’ve been a real dickhead in my past life.
“What are you doing?” Angélica whispered, turning her flashlight on him.
“Just writing some additional notes,” Quint said quietly, stuffing his field notebook in his pants pocket.
He was utilizing the ol’ pen-on-paper therapy to keep his worries about the grim reaper at bay.
And the death-bat god.
Actually, all the bats in this creepy place, including whatever the hell it was that had made the whistling sound Esteban claimed to have heard coming from inside the ruin.
Now there was nothing but the sound of their breathing and their footfalls on the gritty, stone floor.
“More notes about the dimensions I gave?” Juan asked.
Angélica’s father had been rattling off heights and widths, along with possible structural issues while Quint wrote it all down. He and Daisy had returned from their temple inspection in time to hear Esteban’s claim that someone was inside whistling tunes. Juan had pulled out his flashlight and led the charge inside, not listening to his daughter’s concerns about his physical condition one iota.
“Yep, just double-checking everything.” Quint raised his camera. “Ready for some photos? I’ll probably have to use flash, which might scare the bats.”
“Not yet, Junior Mint,” Juan said, tapping the ceiling with hiscane.Clack clack clack.He grunted about whatever those sounds meant to him.
To Quint, it sounded like a wooden cane hitting rock, plain and simple, an act he wasn’t in favor of continuing due to the numerous cracks in the stone ceiling.
