Grave Phantoms
Page 79

“How many times do we have to talk about this?”
“Feel that? The yacht’s stopped. Are we at the passage? I can’t tell. Do you detect the Beyond, Sibyl?”
“I think so . . . Go upstairs and check, Nance. We need to be sure.”
“What if she dies before I get back? I want my vigor! Go ahead and do the siphoning ritual now. Hammett will bring down the Chinese man after the anchor’s dropped.”
“Just move and let me see her,” Mrs. Cushing said. “Pull her up and let me see what’s happening to her.”
Astrid was hauled to her feet and saw the crowd around her, silhouetted in her vision like cast shadows behind a flame. It’s the turquoise, she tried to tell the dark shape that looked like Mrs. Cushing, but Astrid’s mouth wasn’t opening. Not Max’s touch, but the turquoise around his finger. How did they not understand that it was contact with his idol that started all this? Astrid’s knees gave out and she sagged in her captor’s arms.
“Hold her still,” Mrs. Cushing said as she leaned over Astrid’s lolling head.
Astrid saw the silhouette of the woman’s hand moving slowly toward her. Mrs. Cushing tried to pry open Astrid’s eyelids, and when she peered closer, a bright blue shape escaped her shadowy breast.
On a chain hung the turquoise pendant Astrid had seen in the vision. It was big as a silver dollar. Big as the gold doubloon that had adorned Max’s idol.
The turquoise pendant swung toward Astrid and struck her chin.
Once again, blackness transported her out of the yacht. It was night again—and humid—but she wasn’t on a ship. This time, it was a large, round raft—a giant wooden tea saucer with a canopy of woven dried grass. It floated in the middle of a great lake surrounded by mountains and step temples. A circle of candles flickered violently around the edge of the raft, wax melting into the wood, and as the wind blew drops of warm rain beneath the canopy, the candles’ flames threatened to extinguish.
Twelve Aztec men and the old priestess stood on the raft in the same way as before: six on the inside of the circle, six on the outside. No burlap sacks and iron boots, though. This time they kneeled inside giant woven baskets weighted down by rocks. Each of the kneeling men held a turquoise idol.
Thunder rolled. The men in the baskets handed the turquoise idols to the six in the center of the circle. The priestess called out an invocation. White light flared around her. It surged from the pendant of turquoise hanging around her neck and grew tendrils that extended like tentacles toward the six in the middle. The light pierced each one of them and kept going, until each tendril pierced the men in the baskets.
The men in the baskets gasped, shuddered, and fell limp.
The raft shook as if it were being hammered by an earthquake while the tendrils of light retracted into the middle six; they gasped, shuddered, and struggled to stand—all of them clinging to the turquoise idols. And on the priestess’s command, they all left the circle to stand by the baskets.
The priestess . . .
Light from the tendrils poured into her open mouth. As if she were drinking it. Eating it. Consuming the vigor that Max had spoken about? Or consuming the souls of the men who now lay unmoving in the baskets? Whatever she was doing, it changed her dramatically. Her skin tightened. Cheeks plumped. Hair curled and turned blond . . . until she was no longer old. Until she was Mrs. Cushing.
The light sparked. She lit up like a bonfire, hair whipping around her head, and rose several inches into the air. Beneath her feet, a pool of blue light opened. It swirled and undulated, and Astrid couldn’t tell if it was water or clouds or something else entirely, but it was the same color as the idols. And the six who were holding those idols? They pushed and heaved and shoved the baskets overboard. One by one, they fell into the lake and sank.
But there was no time to dwell on that monstrous act, because several things happened in quick succession. Mrs. Cushing exploded in a ball of white light—so bright, Astrid couldn’t see her floating anymore. Where was she? Gone? Before Astrid could figure that out, lightning struck the raft, and everything was sucked inside the pool.
The six men.
The idols.
And the raft itself.
It all just . . . disappeared.
The survivors on the raft didn’t change, Astrid thought. The ritual only restored youth to the priestess. The old bodies were drowned, but they weren’t sacrificed. They were . . . discarded.
The six old men had swapped bodies with the young men.
Time unwound. The vision changed, and Astrid’s perspective shifted. She now stood on the shore of the lake as rain pelted the surface. Nearby, Mrs. Cushing stood, a loose white skirt and red feathers around her waist, watching the lake intently. The turquoise pendant hung between her breasts.
A few yards away, lightning struck the water. The raft reappeared—its canopy, candles . . . and the six men with the idols. Cushing made a triumphant noise and spoke in a language Astrid had never heard. She began stripping off her skirt, continuing to intone indecipherable words, until movement in the nearby brush caught her attention.
A conquistador in armor knelt in the brush, a crossbow propped on one shoulder. He released a bolt that shot through the air and pierced Cushing’s stomach with a fleshy ripping sound.
Cushing barely faltered. She grabbed the bolt and yanked it out of her body, tossing it aside with a dark smile. The wound began healing, even as the blood dripped down her leg. She shouted something at the man and began marching toward him as he reloaded the crossbow.