Gods and Men- The Hank Boyd Omnibus, page 24
part #1 of Gods and Men Series
A weapon was said to reside inside a tomb dedicated to the Maya’s death god. It was supposed to bring upon an unstoppable plague to the enemies of whoever wielded it.
That was a risk Meztli couldn’t afford to take. He would not be responsible for something going wrong within the walls of Teotihuacan. He would not cause the people he protected any harm.
“Father, I—” Xiuhcoatl started but was interrupted.
The king merely raised his hand for him to stop, shook his head in disappointment, and turned, ascending the stairs once again.
Roaring in anger, Xiuhcoatl stomped towards the pyramid but was cut off by twelve highly skilled royal guards. He looked to each man, knowing how capable they really were. He had trained them after all. They were the best. Even better than any of the warriors standing at attention behind him.
Meztli turned, now twenty steps up, “You have dishonored your king and your people by bringing that…” He paused finding the right word to describe the contents of the sack his son carried. “That…abomination here.”
“Go,” the king shouted, pointing back towards the plaza entrance. “Leave here and do not return until you have rid us of this evil—this darkness.”
Enraged, the prince spun and stomped towards the central altar, seething. The embarrassment he just suffered will not be overlooked or go unnoticed. He will have his revenge.
Then, not thinking rationally, Xiuhcoatl called his lieutenant over, thrusting the sack into his arms. He aggressively threw back the top flap containing his prize.
Before anyone could shout for him to stop, Xiuhcoatl, the prince of Teotihuacan, thrust his hand into the opening of the skin and felt…dust. Or was it ash?
Even as he came to realize what he felt, it was too late. He violently yanked his arm free of the satchel and screamed.
The fingers on his left hand were gone, replaced with ashen nubs. The shadow-like substance continued higher up his hand until it too was gone.
His second in command, the one who was holding the animal skin that contained the now open pot, grabbed for his leader, touching some of the retreating death. He too screamed, but unlike Xiuhcoatl who was trained to stay calm under duress, fled. The frightened man ran, pushing through the crowd of spectators.
Screams of fright and pain echoed throughout the plaza, filling the night sky with chaos. As a person contracted this disease they reacted like any normal person would, they cried out for help, grabbing and clawing at their neighbor, unknowingly spreading the darkness like wildfire.
Before Xiuhcoatl lost consciousness, he looked back towards the Pyramid of the Moon and asked the goddess and his father for forgiveness.
“What have I done?” He asked aloud, looking to the heavens, before throwing himself into the burning flames of the altar.
ASHES TO ASHES
1
Isla de Jaina, Campeche, Mexico
Present Day
“We’ve found something! Get Dr. Weaver over here now! He needs to see this!” The crowd of diggers that huddled around the small tomb entrance split down the middle, letting one of them dash off to find the site’s project leader.
The tenderfoot anthropologist stood, wiping the sweat from his brow, silently cursing the early morning heat this part of the world was famous for. At twenty-five-years-old, Dr. Jason Keen was one of the youngest in the field. He was also one of the most disliked.
Damn summer humidity, why the hell am I here helping this crazy old coot? Being the new guy—or noob as his American associates called him—he was sent anywhere and everywhere on a whim, whether he liked it or not. Plus, he also knew that no one wanted him around, even calling him a backstabber or an ass-kissing brownnoser, even to his face on a few occasions. The young Aussie didn’t care what they thought, though. He did what he needed to do to get ahead and screw anyone who got in his way.
A commotion arose from behind him as his superior, the great Dr. Weaver, wobbled over from the excavation’s research tent. “The wanker could probably lose a good fifty pounds and still be classified a fat shit,” Keen said under his breath. He disliked the man wholeheartedly.
Keen then stood and rushed to meet the older balding man halfway, urging him forward. “Dr. Weaver, you must see this, I think we may have found—”
“Calm down, Jason,” Weaver calmly interrupted. “Whatever you’ve found can wait. This particular gravesite has been here for over a thousand years, my young and eager friend. I’m sure it can wait a few minutes longer.”
The ever-patient Dr. Weaver continued his stroll at his usual, excessively-leisure tempo. Keen was forced to abide by his supervisor’s will and continue with him at the snail’s pace for the rest of the one-hundred-yard trek.
The Aussie hated that the man called him by his first name. “He calls you Jason because he respects you,” a female colleague had said earlier in the trip. “He doesn’t call Sean by his first name, you know. He calls him Ellis.” But, Keen didn’t believe her. He knew the real reason Dr. Weaver did it. It was because he knew it bugged the shit out of him.
The old man had favored the woman over him from the get-go, and it really chafed his undies. No way was some flirty French tart going to get in his way too.
When they finally reached the newly uncovered entrance, Dr. Weaver awkwardly kneeled, flashlight in hand, and examined the find. Grunting with discomfort, the senior archaeologist ducked down, peered inside the three-by-three hole, and saw what looked like another tomb.
That wouldn’t come to anyone’s surprise here, though. The island was filled with burials—about 20,000 of them—but only around ten percent of them had been excavated thus far. Some of these graves even dated back to the third and fourth centuries.
God, the old man, can barely bend over. Keen thought, watching the old man. Hopefully, the rumors of his retirement are true. He remembered his interview with the Smithsonian’s head curator and a legend of sorts, a man named Dr. William Boyd.
“Production is more important than favoritism. I’m not here to make friends,” Keen had said in his conference last year. “I’ll get the job done and get it done quickly. It’ll save us both time and the institute money.”
“Getting the job done right is more important than the cost of it, or the length of time it takes,” countered the salt-and-pepper-haired man. “In some instances, you only have one shot at getting it done. There is no need to rush it to save a few days’ time. One day you will learn this. We are looking for an eventual replacement for Dr. Weaver after the excavation in the Yucatan is complete. You and Ms. Dubois are very high on our short list of candidates.”
Keen disliked Dr. Boyd as much as he did Dr. Weaver. Damned codgers. Production is key. Maybe in time, I’ll take Dr. Boyd’s comfortable job at the Smithsonian too. He looked down and saw Dr. Weaver slip into the hole and stop at his waist.
One thing at a time, Jason. Keen knew he’d have to bide his time and wait for an opportunity to come about. And when it did…he’d throw Dr. Weaver under the proverbial bus, quickening his own ascent. Then, once Weaver was officially out of the picture and gone, he’d formally ask for his position as one of the project leaders and never look back.
Keen smiled slightly at the thought of being in charge. He could feel it coming soon and would do anything to speed up the process. But, he also knew that before any of his plans came to fruition, he needed to succeed here and show the people back home that he belonged. They knew he had the smarts—finishing at the top of his class—but they hadn’t seen him in action yet.
“Jason, you must see this!” Yelled the muffled voice of Dr. Weaver.
That’s when Keen noticed that Dr. Weaver had vanished. He dropped to his hands and knees and peeked inside, seeing the man another five feet farther in. Keen then crawled in, also carrying a flashlight, and stopped when he was within six inches of the other man’s rear.
Oh, God. Please don’t…
Keen remembered the chili-combo they had for dinner last night oh-to-well. Just about everyone in the expedition, including himself, had some “bowel discomfort” that night. If this wombat lets one go in my face, I’ll kill him.
After a long and agonizing minute of being that close to another man’s butt, Dr. Weaver finally continued forward, shuffling on all fours. The tunnel started to open a little, almost enough to sit up. There were rows of bodies on both sides of them as they scooched through the access tunnel.
To either side of the men’s heads were multiple pairs of feet and Keen did his best not to look. Seeing that many dead bodies was slightly unnerving—even for someone as cold and calculating as him. He was a shark for sure, but a mass burial chamber still gave him the willies. He could feel the goosebumps already forming on his skin.
He wasn’t a violent man and always wondered if he could take another person’s life if the situation called for it. He quickly shook off the thought, continuing behind Dr. Weaver through the passage for another twenty feet, until they reached a chamber roughly the size of a small barn.
The two men stood, barely clearing what must have been six-foot ceilings, and stopped. What they saw was astonishing.
There was gold…lots of gold…and gems too. It was in piles all over the room. There were thousands—maybe tens of thousands—of pieces, ranging in all different shapes and sizes. Some of the mounds even reached the ceiling. There wasn’t anywhere for them to walk either. It’s like it was just poured in here, bucket by precious bucket, Keen thought.
He had always dreamed of discovering a find like this when he was a boy. He specifically remembered a scene from the 1985 American movie, The Goonies, when the ragtag group of teenagers found One-Eyed Willy’s fortune on his decaying pirate ship. The utter joy on their faces had always stuck with him.
“What’s that, in the back?” Dr. Weaver asked wide-eyed with his flashlight splayed against the rear wall, dancing back-and-forth. Keen looked down and noticed the man’s hands were trembling. Is he scared?
Keen joined the other man’s light at the back of the room and saw a large lump sticking out of the floor, underneath a layer of gold. He then stepped onto a section of the gleaming hoard, careful not to cause a mini-avalanche. Being buried alive and suffocating under such a mass fortune would be the ultimate slap to the noggin,’ he thought.
Keen tripped and stopped, looking down at what almost made him fall. A golden sword, or maybe a type of ceremonial dagger, stuck out of the heap like a beacon. He bent over and plucked the ornate piece from the mound and instantly felt a strange and unnerving feeling roll up and down his body. It’s nothing, Keen deduced. Just my nerves.
“Jason! Please do not remove any items before they are cataloged! You should know this by—”
But Keen wasn’t listening. He just stared at the blade, lustfully. He imagined what he could procure with such a priceless artifact. A yacht? No, a Mansion! Hell, I could probably buy my own damn island with this thing. He looked around the room again, never blinking, barely breathing. This is MY Goonies—MY shipwreck treasure. If he had investigated the sword just a few moments longer instead of imagining his future wealth, Keen would have noticed a set of strange and foreign markings engraved into its blade near the hilt, but his thoughts were elsewhere.
“Jason?”
Keen slipped from his stupor and took in the old man. Dr. Weaver unwillingly ventured onto the gold pile, careful with each step. The dipstick is probably going to write me up for this, Keen thought. He turned to face the other man, but Dr. Weaver’s eyes weren’t on him, they were looking at something behind him.
Jason quickly turned, drawing the sword up, ready to attack. Except it was nothing, he only saw a small, unsightly skull sitting on the lump in the floor at the rear of the room.
“What is it?” Keen whispered.
“It’s Ah Puch, or Yum Cimil as they call him now,” Dr. Weaver answered. “He was the Mayan death god, often depicted by a skull with decomposing flesh. He was associated with war and was said to bring about disease. Only…” He breathed in heavily, calming his shaking voice. “I’ve never heard of a tomb being dedicated to him. Au Puch, like a lot of the ancient gods, is supposed to be pure myth—folklore.”
Dr. Weaver backed away, the color draining from his sunbaked, weathered face with every step. “This can’t be a good sign, Jason. We must leave. Now!”
The older man turned to leave, but Keen had a different idea.
2
Hotel Dolores Alba Chichen
Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico
I awake to the sound of music—and not the Julie Andrews-type either. The opening drums from Werewolves of London, by Warren Zevon, plays as my iPhone vibrates across my hotel room’s nightstand.
I blink awake, a little started and look around, noticing that I’m alone. Where’s Nicole? I think, turning my attention back to the annoying little device. It makes its way to the very edge of the table, just out of reach, teeters a little, then plummets to its hopeful death. As it clunks to the floor and continues to play, it signifies its survival and my unwilling awakening.
Groaning, I roll to the edge of the bed, clawing at the floorboards of our plainly decorated room, trying to silence the damn thing. Half asleep and not finding it, I swing my feet out and over the side, and begrudgingly get up. “I really hate you,” I say with a moan, cursing phone’s existence… I think. Maybe not the phone per say, but definitely the alarm. It can go straight to hell.
I, like most people around the world, have unknowingly become a slave to my pint-sized dictator. Unfortunately, I also understand that I can’t live without it. Finally, I bend over and pick it up, hitting the ever blissful silence button.
On a positive note…I really like that song and know the ringtone’s lyrics by heart.
I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand. Walking through the streets of Soho in the rain. He was looking for the place called Lee Ho Fook's. Gonna get a big dish of beef chow mein.
I start howling to myself, like the song dictates, and head for the quaint little kitchen area…if you want to call it that. I grab for the pot of coffee that Nicole must have made while I slept.
She knows me oh-to-well, I think, smiling to myself. Smelling the loving aroma, I breathe a sigh of relief and close my eyes, thanking her one more time.
If you hear him howling around your kitchen door. Better not let him in. Little old lady got mutilated late last night. Werewolves of London again.
I pour myself a mug full of go-go juice and scour the counter for some sugar, but don’t find any, forgetting where we are staying. There isn’t a fridge in any of the not-so-hoity-toity rooms either, so cream is also out of the question. Black it is. We probably could have found a nicer hotel—no offense Mr. and Mrs. Dolores—but chose this place due to its proximity to the park.
Ah-wooo.
I howl the most famous part of the chorus and plop down at the “kitchen” table. I choke down the dark black jet fuel, grimacing at the sharpness of the potent tasting mouthful.
He's the hairy-handed gent, who ran amuck in Kent. Lately, he's been overheard in Mayfair.
Sitting in the uncomfortable wooden chair, I sip the steaming hot drink, trying not to burn the roof of my mouth, but fail…miserably. Inwardly berating myself for not waiting until the coffee cooled down, I rush and set the near-boiling cup of liquid down too fast, spilling some on my hand.
“Dammit!” I silently curse. “Ugh…what a way to start the day.”
Better stay away from him. He'll rip your lungs out, Jim. Huh! I'd like to meet his tailor.
I howl the chorus one more time—when the door to my room swings open and is followed by a woman’s laughter and of course…a loud, obnoxious man’s voice.
“No way! You’re shittin’ me?” Shouts the familiar deep voice.
“I swear to you it really happened! You should have seen the look on his face when he told me!” The feminine voice laughs with amusement. I’d probably be giggling too, except this hilarious story is about me…and it’s a doozy.
Jeremy Kane and Nicole Andersson walk in bearing the gift of breakfast—bagels mostly—but I see some fruit too. My eyes light up when I see some cantaloupe and my stomach follows with a little tap-dance of its own. I like me some cantaloupe! I sing to myself, standing and grabbing the bowl of fruit. I pop one of the pre-cut cubes of pale-orange goodness into my mouth, enjoying every single chew.
That’s when the conversation turns towards me.
“Really, Hank? South Park boxers?” The big man asks, stuffing half a bagel in his huge, about-to-get-punched mouth.
I look at Nicole and see a slight smile on her perfect face. She’s trying to hold in a laugh, so I come clean. “Yes, it was high school—freshman year—and I had an adverse reaction to some prescription acne meds and shat myself, okay!”
After a moment of silence, they both burst out laughing. I think back to the absurdness of my TRUE story, and I join in…eventually.
What can I say, I’m not that easy to embarrass. I don’t have a problem making an idiot out of myself to make someone laugh. It’s been a mantra I’ve lived by since those uncomfortable, awkward high school days—before I became a pretty badass ballplayer and thus a school hero and chick magnet.
If you make them laugh, they’ll leave you alone, I used to say to myself. And if you can make them laugh, they’ll like you.
I stop laughing a little quicker than they do and sit back down. I gulp down my now temperature appropriate coffee and close my eyes, willing the caffeine to move faster through my system. I don’t speak. I just will the effects of the high-octane beverage into my bloodstream faster, listening to the two of them continue.
“Do you think we’ll find anything on the temple grounds?” Kane asks.
