Beautiful Sacrifice

fingers that set the demitasse in its delicate saucer had the visible tremor of age.
    “Rosalina, it is time for us to go to the library,” Abuelita said in Spanish, holding out her left hand.
    A gold band set with small rubies gleamed on her ring finger. The ring, like the china, had been passed down through the generations. The thick white embroidery on her clotheswas as Maya as her heritage, but the glyphs were impossible for Hunter to make out for lack of contrast.
    As Lina came to her feet, she looked at Hunter with sad eyes and said, “Follow us.”
    It was a plea, not a demand.
    “Of course,” he said quietly.
    He watched while Lina helped Abuelita to her feet—not that she really needed it. For all her appearance of frailty, she was as tough and almost as supple as the flat leather sandals she wore. Lina’s help was a gesture of respect, not a necessity.
    When Abuelita was standing, the top of her head barely came up to the bottom of Hunter’s rib cage. Yet she had a presence that had nothing to do with height. It was in her eyes, her bearing. She might have been born in a jungle hut, but she was born of a royal line.
    Silently Hunter followed great-grandmother and great-granddaughter out of the kitchen and into the main part of the house. The furniture was antique, weighty, with richly woven brocade upholstery. Heavy, gilt-framed paintings of European ancestors were scattered throughout. The Balam side of the family was barely represented—a vase on a side table, the figurine of a Maya noble in a corner display, an ancient ceramic flute in a mahogany niche. If a rug interrupted the handmade tiles of the floor, it was ancient, Persian. Three suits of armor in varying styles—all of them dented in battle—stood at attention in the wide hallway, gleaming beneath crystal chandeliers.
    The Spanish had married into royal Maya lines, but almost all of the furnishings had come on ships. The household was like Mexico itself, an uneven and sometimes uneasy blend of Old World and New.
    Two heavily carved mahogany doors led to the wing where the library was located, the part of the house where Carloslived. Although the glyphs on the wood were ancient, the doors looked newer than the rest of the house. Hunter wondered if Abuelita had commissioned the doors from native carvers.
    Lina knocked lightly before she pushed open the library doors. Immediately she was swept up in Celia’s conversation, giving Hunter an opportunity to study the room and its occupants.
    The room claimed him. The overwhelming impression was blue on blue, the world viewed in every shade and tint and tone of blue—turquoise, royal, midnight, teal, cobalt, peacock, sapphire, lapis—the whole creating a sense of blue that had no name. Only gradually did he realize that the radiance of blues covered just two of the four walls. The furnishings were modern, with leather-upholstered chairs and low bookshelves of wood stained black as sharkskin. The occasional rugs looked modern, though they held Maya glyphs in shades that echoed the tiled walls. The unique fragrance of burning copal hung in the air.
    Celia was dressed richly, with exquisite attention to detail—crimson silk dress, makeup flawless, nails and lipstick to match, hair expensively casual around her face, stiletto heels over four inches high—but she wore it all naturally, without thought, like her skin. Her jewelry was more aristocratic than nouveau riche. Around her throat was a heavy antique necklace of gold and emeralds in a baroque design, with bracelet, brooch, and earrings to match. They glowed against the rich color of her skin.
    If they ever get down in the pocketbook, Hunter thought, they could always hock the family jewels.
    Or the artifacts, he realized, his attention drawn by their quiet, ancient presence. My God, this room could be in a museum. A world-class one.
    Masks, figurines, Chacmool figures in jade, blocks cut from limestone stelae thick with glyphs, knives, scepters, vases, faces, jewelry, and other Maya artifacts lined glass shelves and filled glass cases that covered two walls of the room. The lighting was subdued, almost reverent, as though not wanting to awaken the very gods that were being illuminated.
    Silently Hunter whistled. As a whole, the room was a staggering display of wealth and position, the abode of a modern king or CEO.
    He looked at Lina.
    She was looking at the people, not the decor. Obviously she took everything for granted with the ease