Beautiful Sacrifice

part of her fear, part of her hope.
    Promising herself a panic attack when she could afford one, Lina walked at the same speed as the men beside her, wanting to appear willing or cowed, anything so that they wouldn’t watch her so closely. The men walked slowly, more slowly than Carlos, who soon disappeared into the open mouth of the temple.
    By the time Lina reached the short hallway inside the temple, Carlos was out of sight. The candles that lined the narrow passage were the color of fresh, pale cream, and smelled like vanilla and cinnamon. The thought of Abuelita making each one of them with loving hands for this night sickened Lina.
    She could understand the madness of her cousin wanting to be priest-king; she couldn’t understand the madness of her great-grandmother wanting to worship him.
    The inner temple room was both cool and ablaze with clumps of blue candles, every shade of blue from light to dark.
    Carlos was naked.
    It was the last thing Lina had expected. It was too much. Throat straining around screams she refused to voice, she closed her eyes and tried not to break down completely. As she fought for self-control, she heard rustling sounds, footsteps leaving, returning, echoing her wild heartbeat.
    You can’t get away if your eyes are closed, she told herself. Stop acting like a child. You’ve seen a naked man before.
    An image of Hunter suddenly consumed her mind—male, hard, reaching for her as she reached for him and they joined bodies in a lush tangle of pleasure. Hot. Alive. Everything she had ever wanted.
    I love you, Hunter. I never let myself know, never told you how I felt. I was afraid it was too soon.
    But it was too late, and that was something else I didn’t know.
    Lina set her teeth and opened her eyes. Somehow she would free herself, find Hunter, and tell him.
    Then the memory of him falling bonelessly to the floor flashed through her mind like icy lightning.
    No!
    He’s alive. I’d know if he were dead.
    Wouldn’t I?
    Don’t think about it, she told herself fiercely. Think about getting away from Carlos. It’s the only thing you can do right now that matters.
    Hunter ran like blood through Lina’s body, her bones, strengthening her. She forced herself into the moment, the crazed modern man in the ancient temple, and her own eyes alert for any opportunity to escape.
    Carlos was now wrapped in a long loincloth of fine, midnight-blue cotton. On his head he wore the cured skin and skull of a jaguar. The cat’s eyes were gleaming obsidian, eerily alive. The rest of the jaguar’s spotted skin swirled down Carlos’s back, the back paws nudging against his legs, the front paws clasped around his shoulders in a horrifying embrace. Beneath the long, curving claws, two necklaces held a jade pectoral representing an openmouthed jaguar surrounded by lightning.
    The jade was spectacular, fully twice the size of the one Lina had found. One of the heavy necklaces was made of carved, thumb-size obsidian beads. The other was of jade. Both felt as ancient as the temple to her.
    One of the men stepped forward, using his fingers to paint Carlos in all the colors of ritual—black, red, yellow, white. When he was finished, another man stepped forward with a headdress of feathers that rippled like blue-green lightning. Their jobs complete, both men left the room. Carlos opened the small bag he had been given. His movement and the candlelight made the feathers of his headdress, the paintings overhead, and the jaguar skin writhe with terrifying life.
    Stubbornly Lina refused the awful allure of the scales and the endless serpents, the supple cat skin mocking life.
    “Who do you think you’re fooling?” she asked Carlos in English, afraid if she spoke the native Mayan dialect she would be sucked deeper into the nightmare. “You hear the echoes in your own head, not the voices of the gods.”
    Carlos ignored her. Slowly Two Shark approached him. Like everyone in the room except Lina, he had switched to ancient Maya dress—loincloth and bare feet, paint and decorations topped by feathers. Their drapes were of cotton rather than jaguar fur, their costumes less noble than their leader’s. As the men moved, jade and obsidian objects sewed onto their clothes caught light. The cloth Two Shark wore was the color of Kan, the east, the yellow blaze of sunrise. He held a small, carved box in his hands.
    Water Bat was dressed as Chak, the red of the south, the color of fresh blood. His burden was the