Beautiful Sacrifice

chunks, or pale salmon-colored flakes.
    “Could be the candles that stink,” Hunter said.
    The stalks of wax were black, as thick around as a strong man’s arm. Near them was an eerie snake-man statue. Maya in style, it looked like smoke made solid as it escaped a snake’s mouth. Glyphs marched down the length of the piece.
    “Not antique,” Hunter said before Jase could ask. “Mass-produced, on sale in any tourist trap in the Yucatan, Belize, or Guatemala.”
    “Huh. The dudes out in the weeds aren’t Latin Kings or any of the other gangbangers around here. I didn’t recognize their tats. Neither did the agents I talked to. Which just makes the strange even stranger. The tip on this house came from the cellmate of the gangbanger that shanked the artifact driver.”
    “Nice to know somebody still wants reduced time,” Hunter said.
    “I just overheard an agent say the dude that ordered the hit on the driver of the load was at this address.”
    “Señor Snake has my money.”
    “Yeah. He’s the lion in this bunch of jackals.”
    An agent stormed up the basement steps and shoved by Jase, hand over mouth, throat working, face pale and sweating. He made it out the back door before he threw up everything but his toenails.
    “Oh, this will be fun,” Jase said, turning toward the basement.
    Hunter followed.
    On the way down the stairs, they passed a female agent headed up. She was pale but otherwise fine.
    “How is Chuy?” she asked.
    “He made it outside,” Jase said.
    “If you can give the basement a pass, you’ll sleep better,” she said through pale lips.
    “Wish we could,” Jase said, “but thanks.”
    She nodded and went to check on her partner.
    Halfway down the stairs, Hunter knew why someone was out in the back puking. The smell of death was thick enough to cut and serve at a demon brunch. Hunter started to breathe through his mouth. So did Jase. It didn’t help much, but it was all they had to fight the smell.
    While Jase went to talk to the lone agent protecting the scene, Hunter made himself invisible in the shadows near the stairs.
    A fluorescent lantern held by the agent revealed the basement in slightly swaying arcs that matched the man’s careful breaths. There were racks of unlit candles and stands for larger torches. The floor was concrete, worn smooth in places, cracked in others, gleaming dully. There were patches of what looked like oil, so dark that they sucked up and swallowed any light. The splotches were mute testimony to something so revolting that the only thing left to do was bolt for fresh air and throw up.
    Hunter’s hackles rose. He’d seen death sites before, but not like this. This basement told him why people believed in evil.
    The radio feeding information into the agent’s ear crackled and the lantern jerked. Then it steadied at a different angle, revealing something in the far corner of the room. A pale stone table glistened in the light. The legs were carved to look like a large cat’s paws, ending in sharp claws that dug into the concrete floor itself. Given the context, Hunter assumed that the paws were meant to represent a jaguar, the sacred animal of Maya royalty. Blood had dripped down, wrapping around the legs like snakes. It had happened so often that the legs looked black. But for all the evidence of past bloodletting, only a small amount had ended up on the basement floor near the altar.
    Jase mentioned another bloody crime scene, but the table was missing, Hunter though grimly, remembering the killing house his friend had described. Don’t really want to know how many people died on that stone altar, here or there.
    The smeared darkness on the floor made sense, now. Bleeding bodies had been dragged off the table, across the cement, and ignored until it was time to dispose of them.
    Jase swore, his ugly words fitting the basement like the smell. Then his voice dropped again as he and the agent holding the lantern continued their conversation in the low tones of people who don’t want the devil to overhear.
    As the lantern swayed, Hunter memorized every bit of the room that he could see. The stone face mounted on the wall over the altar was as carefully made as the jaguar table itself. Savage and grim, the face was that of a god who would never be appeased, no matter the quantity or quality of blood sacrifices that came to its hungry table. The face proudly displayed the features of Maya nobility, topped off by a crown of lightning or claws or