Beautiful Sacrifice

like warmth from a fire, sinking into him in turn. Finally, slowly, he raised his head.
    “Either we stop now or we go for ticket sales and a limestone mattress,” he said hoarsely.
    “Ticket sales?”
    “The locals lurking out in the jungle.”
    “Oh.” She sighed. “I’m willing to try the limestone mattress, but not the tickets.”
    “You sure?”
    “Yes.”
    “Figured.” He blew out a hard breath and reminded himself of all the reasons it would be really stupid to let down his guard long enough to do what his body was demanding. “C’mon, let’s take a walk around the ruins.”
    She led him to a reasonably clear thread of path and set out toward the mound.
    “Who do you think is buried here?” Hunter asked.
    “Somebody more important than the folks who built the tomb,” she said dryly. “But on the scale of Maya monuments, this is really small change. It’s isolated, unconnected to any other sites.”
    “Could have been a secret place.”
    She gave him a startled look over her shoulder. “That’s what I think. Or rather, what I feel. This is an unusual site.”
    “Why don’t you explore it?”
    “Philip has first rights on all the ruins on Reyes Balam land. It was part of the prenuptial agreement he signed. In return, he gave up any legal claim to Celia’s name or inheritance.”
    “He gets first dig rights and walks away from the sure thing—money.”
    Lina laughed oddly. “Celia married to get out of the Yucatan. Philip married to get exclusive digging rights in the Yucatan. The old Chinese curse—may your fondest wish come true.”
    Hunter whistled softly. “Life’s a tricky bitch.”
    “Oh yeah. Even back then, Philip was drawn to hints of Kawa’il. He met Celia on a university-sponsored dig on Reyes Balam lands. When I read Moby-Dick on the way to my undergrad degree, I thought of Kawa’il. It’s Philip’s white whale, his obsession. The more it eludes him, the greater his need to pursue.”
    “I saw the movie. Didn’t end well.”
    The feeling of being watched returned. It wasn’t simply the sensation of being in a jungle that felt alive and other .
    “Are you sure we’re alone out here?” Hunter asked, switching to English.
    “As long as we aren’t testing mattresses, we’re okay,” Lina said in the same language. “The local Maya knew about this place long before anyone cared. It wasn’t disturbed then. It won’t be looted and sold on the black market now.”
    Something rustled out at the edge of the clearing, twigs whipping against what sounded like flesh. The wind blew hot, feeling too dry for the jungle.
    Hunter followed Lina around to the back of the mound and nearly ran into her when she stopped dead in the path.
    “What—” he began.
    She pointed, her finger trembling. Her voice made clear it was rage, not fear, coursing through her. “Some of the rubble has been moved.”
    Whoever had done it had been careful to disturb as little of the overgrowth as possible. It took Hunter a moment to see what Lina saw.
    “I can’t believe looters are here,” she said hoarsely.
    Hunter had drawn his gun from beneath the backpack. He held the weapon along his leg, not wanting to spook Lina unless he had to.
    “Neatest looters I ever saw,” he said.
    She closed her eyes and tried to manage the rage that had flooded her at the thought of her secret place being pillaged. After a moment she opened her eyes and saw what Hunter had.
    A casual visitor wouldn’t have noticed the subtle movement of rubble and overgrowth. There were none of the potholes and garbage and careless piles of dirt that were signatures of an illegal dig.
    The breeze shifted shadows and sunlight. Something gleaming in the disturbed area caught Hunter’s eye.
    Metal, not glass.
    He followed a very faint trail winding amid overgrown blocks of rubble. Within four steps he saw the gleam of fresh brass. He bent and picked it up with his left hand. It was slightly cooler than his skin, no warmer or colder than the ground itself. On the back of the cartridge, the head stamp read 7.62 × 39. He rolled it in his fingers and passed the open end under his nose, smelling for gunpowder but getting only the faintest trace. Probably his imagination.
    “How long since the last rain?” Hunter asked Lina as she hurried to him.
    “I don’t know,” she said. “It can rain every day, but the weather’s been weird here just like it has up in Houston.”
    He wrapped his fingers around the spent