Page 231 of Empire of Shadows

“Cut my ropes, Mr. Bates,” Kuyoc ordered. His voice was firm with authority.

Adam glanced out at the men in the center of the cavern, and then darted to where Kuyoc was tied. Crouched behind the pillar, he severed the priest’s bonds with a quick twist of his machete.

“Does this mean you’ve got a plan?” Adam grumbled.

“Sure,” Kuyoc replied as he subtly shook himself loose. His eyes remained locked on the place where Jacobs and Dawson were arranging for the men to lift the mirror. “Now give your woman the knife.”

Adam startled. His gaze flashed from Ellie to the machete.

“What’s she supposed to do with it?” he protested as he handed the blade over with obvious reluctance.

“Use it,” Kuyoc replied with a flash of dark humor. “While you and I provide a distraction.”

“To do what?” Adam blurted with alarm.

Kuyoc ignored him, looking to Ellie instead. The weight of the machete was awkward in her grip.

“I have given you a weapon,” the priest said intently. “Find out what to do with it.”

“What—this?” Ellie demanded with a wide-eyed look at the eighteen-inch blade.

The priest gave a huff of exasperation.

“Not the knife. The dynamite!” he replied.

“What?!” Ellie squeaked in protest.

Kuyoc shook his head. “I hope that ghost knows what she is doing,” he said.

The priest plucked something from his pocket and tossed it at Ellie, who caught it with fumbling hands as she tried not to drop Adam’s enormous knife. She opened her hand and found herself staring down at a book of matches.

The sight sent a ringing note of panic through her, but before she could protest, Kuyoc stepped from the pillar. He raised his hands in the air and began to chant in a stream of mysterious-sounding Yucatec.

“He can’t possibly mean for me to use these. Can he?” Ellie demanded, waving the matches wildly at Adam as he slid into place beside her in the cover of the tumbled stones.

“I dunno, Princess,” Adam replied as he watched the priest grimly. “If he was talking about that dynamite from the shed, then there’s no way that stuff is fresh out of the factory—and I’m guessing you already know what happens to dynamite when it’s been sitting around for a while,” he finished pointedly.

Ellie did. Dynamite became notoriously unstable the older it was. If Kuyoc had managed to bring some through the bush with him, then he was lucky he hadn’t blown himself to pieces with it long before he got here.

But where could it be? The priest had only come to the cave with the clothes on his back… and that crazy breastplate.

Ellie’s gaze slid the bundle of reeds that lay by the dark opening in the cave. A horrified suspicion rose in the back of her mind.

Kuyoc continued to rattle on as he moved slowly towards the center of the cavern.

“What is he saying?” Ellie demanded urgently.

“Er… it sounds like instructions for preserving fish,” Adam said.

“Fish?” Ellie burst out in reply, bewildered.

Kuyoc walked past the mirror to where the stream turned and deepened against the far wall of the cavern. Dawson and the rest of the crew stared at him—all of them except for Jacobs.

His eyes pivoted to the pillar where the priest had been tied.

Adam yanked Ellie into a low dash behind the rock formations. They skirted the edge of the clearing and pulled to a stop behind a stone veil. The hiding place was only a few yards away from where Staines shuffled his feet tiredly as he adjusted the weight of Adam’s Winchester in his arms.

Jacobs reached the pillar. He picked up the severed ropes clustered at the base of it and studied the obviously cut ends.

---