Pedro took it. “What about you?”
“I have a handy-dandymacuahuitlnow.”
“Come on, Parker.” Angélica tugged again.
Quint followed her through the moonlight, keeping his sights locked on the dark entrance to the bat-house ruin. He really, really hoped KuTu was off his rocker and all they found inside that place was bat guano and a tarantula or two.
Angélica stopped at the top of the steps and raised her flashlight, angling the beam over the surface of a carving beside the doorway. “I knew it,” she whispered.
“Knew what?” Quint glanced back at where they’d left Pedro and Bronko, but the two must have slinked out of sight into the shadows.
“This is definitely a representation ofCamazotz.” She pointed at the carving. “He’s coming out of the mouth of a cave.”
“In other words, this is the door to his crib?”
“Yes.”
“Splendid. Wonderful. You’ve figured out something to give to INAH. How about we head back to camp now and call it a night?”
She turned, looking around, and then frowned at Quint. “Where’s KuTu?”
He pointed themacuahuitltoward the dark entrance. “He went in there.”
“Shit.” She headed after him without hesitation.
“Wait up,” Quint whispered, hurrying after her.
Inside the red-lined passageway, the whistling he’d heard earlier was louder. Was he hearing Fernel blowing that damned bone whistle? Or was this simply a matter of the earth “breathing”?
The cave where the real, normal bats holed up each day could be part of a natural blowhole that was part of an underground fault, similar to the one he’d visited in Wupatki National Monument in Arizona over a decade ago.
As they tiptoed deeper into the earth, Quint bent partway over to avoid hitting his head on several rock edges angling down from the ceiling. Once again, he focused on mental tricks to keep calm, but this time it wasn’t working as well.
The sight of KuTu up ahead in the tunnel should have been a relief, but that damned bright-green death mask made Quint’s heart beat faster. It didn’t help that KuTu had a black-bladed dagger in his hand now.
Jeez, if the guy believed this was real, did that mean at some point he was going to take his own life? Or worse, jam that blade into Quint to fulfill the sacrifice part? If so, why had he given Quint amacuahuitlto defend himself? Although in this narrow part of the tunnel, there wasn’t much room to swing the wooden sword. He’dhave to focus on slashing.
Quint shuddered at the idea of bloodshed of any sort.
As they moved along, Angélica silently pointed out the hole lower in the wall where the real bats came and went. He paused, picking up traces of ammonia wafting out.
But the whistling wasn’t coming from there, and the farther back he went, the louder it became. This must have been what Marianne was hearing earlier when she slipped inside of Daisy’s head and came here to shoo them back out to safety.
“Angélica,” he whispered, snagging the back of her shirt. When she paused and looked back, he asked, “Do you hear any whistling?”
She shook her head, her gaze narrowing. “Are you hearing it?”
He nodded.
“Mom mentioned whistling earlier,” she said.
“Yeah, but why am I? I’m not a ghost, right?”
She reached back and pinched his arm.
“Ouch!”
“No ghost, Parker.” She pointed behind him. “Is the sound coming from the hole where the bats live?”
