Beautiful Sacrifice

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THE SEA TURNED TURQUOISE IN THE AFTERNOON LIGHT, slapping lazily against the shore. Tourists were thick on Cozumel’s ground. Expensive hotels gleamed like high-rise wedding cakes, absorbing light and spreading a shimmering kind of brilliance. Backpackers and students swarmed over the other end of the tourist rainbow, sprawling on peripheral beaches or gearing up for jungle hikes. High or low, liquor flowed, oiling the machinery of commerce and culture.

Lina breathed in deep and bloomed like an orchid. Part of her was very much at home with the heat and humidity. A whole childhood of memories poured through her—prowling the jungle, diving and swimming in the cool cenotes that pocked the land, and eating exquisitely spiced food.

“Do we have time to eat?” she asked Hunter as they walked to a cheap rental-car place. “I’d kill for a good pibil.” She laughed. “Even a bad one.”

“I’m supposed to meet Rodrigo at a place called La Ali Azúl on Avenue Escobar. I’m sure they serve a mean pibil. But you’ll be eating alone.”

“Why?”

“My contact isn’t a nice man,” Hunter said. “That’s why he’s useful.”

“Is meet-and-greet with unsavory people another aspect of your job, like being an occasional bodyguard?”

“Information is our most important resource,” Hunter said. “Nothing quite like knowing the weather on the ground to help an operation go smoothly.”

“In other words, yes,” she said.

“Savory people aren’t much help when your business comes down to stopping crooks.”

Hunter rented a Bronco with Quintana Roo plates. Back-road dust had been ground into the floor mats. They drove off the rental lot and followed the Cancun-Chetumal highway south to the meeting place. The countryside was wild with greenery spilling across the limestone plateau and punctuated with even more shrines than Hunter recalled. But then, he hadn’t spent a lot of time in the nicer areas of the Yucatan.

“You remember this many shrines?” he asked.

“Not really,” Lina said, frowning. “Even at this time of year, it seems like an excess of religious fever, more than I’ve ever seen. A lot of Maya crosses.”

“Maya?”

“The cross was a significant symbol to the Maya before the Spanish ever came. Some texts are interpreted as meaning that the native cross represents the plane of the ecliptic, the time when the Long Count calendar ends.”

“Twenty-twelve again.”

She shrugged. “The division of time was a Maya preoccupation. Rather like modern civilization, with our obsession for minutes and hours and nanoseconds. The Maya measured bigger chunks of time, but the intent was the same. What can be measured can be controlled.”

“Culture rules,” Hunter said. “Like us.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve been speaking Spanish since we landed.”

She looked startled, then amused. “You’re right. I didn’t even notice the transition. Maybe Abuelita will forgive you for being a gringo after all. You’re very fluent.”

“Your great-grandmother sounds like a pistol.”

“Oh, she is. I swear she’ll outlive us all.”

Hunter smiled at the affection in Lina’s voice.

The vegetation thinned and low buildings sprawled to either side of the divided road. Most of them were made of stucco over cinder blocks and other masonry, fenced off with wrought iron, and walled in by a succession of low billboards and electrical lines like blood vessels nourishing every building.

The mirrors were clear. Nobody had followed them from the airport. Nobody on the highway seemed interested in them.

“You feel watched?” Hunter asked Lina.

“No.”

“Let me know if that changes.”

“I’m impressed,” she said.

He checked the mirrors automatically. “By what?”

“You not only don’t laugh at feelings, you actually listen to them.”

He smiled thinly. “Anyone who doesn’t won’t last long in the jungle—or on the wrong side of city streets.”

Hunter parked as close as he could to the address Rodrigo had given him. Not that Rodrigo had been willing, especially when Hunter had awakened him in the middle of the night. But it was smart not to give Rodrigo too much warning.

The population around them was almost one hundred percent native, which meant that Hunter stood out. Too tall. Eyes too light. Skin not dark enough. Lina’s coloring mixed better with the locals, but she was taller than the men.

Rodrigo would have to choose a native backdrop, Hunter thought unhappily. Probably to punish me for insisting on the meet.

The smell of the ocean and cooking grills filled the tropical air. A little early for lunch, but not too early for a cerveza. Outdoor seating was casual—scattered plastic chairs, a bench, or just squatting on your heels. The morning open-air market had already closed. Other places were doing a slow, steady business. Bikinis and backpacks had been replaced by straw hats and loose guayaberas—shirts—in pale shades of tan and cream and blue. If Hunter had had one, he would be wearing it.

Nobody paid particular attention to him—gringos weren’t that rare—but Lina drew some quiet regard. It wasn’t her sweet figure people noticed, but her face. Men who swaggered elsewhere stepped out of her way. Children stared, only to be softly scolded by their mothers.

“They’re treating you like royalty,” Hunter said very quietly in English.

“I have Reyes Balam bone structure,” Lina said, shrugging. “They see it in the ruins every day.”

“Huh. Thought it was your height and beauty.”

“Height, yes. The rest is in the eye of the beholder and all that.”

“So your family is well known,” he said.

“Think of the American Kennedy family, but with five hundred years or more of royalty.”

“You don’t act royal.”

“When I look in the mirror, I see Dr. Lina Taylor, American. That’s who I am. The rest is, quite literally, history. Something for Abuelita and Celia to care about.”

“But not you,” Hunter murmured.

“Like I said, I’m American by choice.”

Hunter kept watching, but other than the subtle deference Lina took for granted, he saw nothing out of place. Nothing to make his neck tingle.

Maybe we left that behind in the U.S., he thought.

But he wasn’t going to bet Lina’s life on it.

“See the café two buildings down and across the street?” Hunter asked.

“Yes. They have good pibil. At least they did the last time I was here.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed it was your kind of place.”

Lina tucked a stray bit of hair behind her ear. She had twisted the heavy mass on top of her head and held it with a worn silver clip from her purse. “I was feeling adventurous, but not enough to actually eat inside. I got my pibil to go.”

“Get a table toward the center. That way I’ll be able to keep an eye on you.”

“Where will you be?”

“Wherever Rodrigo is, usually near the back exit.”

Lina chewed on that while she crossed the street and went into the café. Small, sturdy tables and people to match. She took a scrap of a table toward the center.

Ten steps after her, Hunter walked in. He saw Lina and Rodrigo in the same sweeping glance. As expected, Rodrigo was in a dark corner. Not that darkness was difficult to find—after the tropical sunlight outside, the café looked like a cave.

A shrine overflowing with offerings of liquor and flowers filled one corner of the bar. The shrine looked a lot fresher than anything else in the café.

The interior lights hadn’t been turned on, probably to help the patrons ignore the dirt and flies. A weak glimmer of light marked the video jukebox screen. The music was a mix of urban Mexican pop and songs glorifying narco traffickers.

Rodrigo was slumped over a row of empty shot glasses and a small pile of lime rinds, squeezed and scavenged for every drop of juice. A stubby unlit candle waited on his table amid salt scattered from tequila glasses. An empty bottle of Herradura lay on its side next to the candle.

Without a word, Hunter dragged a vacant chair over and sat next to Rodrigo at the scarred table, where the view of both exits was clear.

“I told you not to come,” Rodrigo said in a soft, slurred voice.

“And I told you I was coming anyway.”

Hunter palmed two hundred-dollar bills and gave them to Rodrigo under the table.

“If your info is useful, there’s more,” Hunter said.

“That’s why I’m here, for now. I’m flying out tonight. Adios, Yucatan. I’ll come back when the crazies go away.”

“What’s with the shrine in the back corner?” Hunter asked.

Rodrigo stared at the dark blue tequila bottle lying on its side. “Ask the crazies.”

“You’re the one I’m talking to.” And you’re the one I just laid two bills on.

Rodrigo looked up from the bottle. Even in the gloom, his eyes were red. “All the old demons are coming out of the jungle. All those old stories people don’t believe until they see the blood and then they believe or die.”

“Narcos?” Hunter asked.

The other man slowly shook his head. Gloomy light slid like oil over his ragged beard, which looked more accidental than a deliberate statement of manhood.

“You really going to Tulum like you said yesterday?” Rodrigo asked.

“Why?”

“Bad shit going down there. Worse than here.”

“Who’s behind it?” Hunter asked.

“Dead men don’t talk. I’m playing dead.”

“For two bills, get a little life.”

Hunter watched Lina from the corner of his eye. She was chatting with the waitress. Both women were animated, smiling. Lina lit up the room like a fire, but the people who had watched her when she walked in were back to shoving food in their mouths.

Rodrigo stirred uneasily and stared back at the tequila bottle, a kind of pretense. If he didn’t meet Hunter’s eyes, he wasn’t really talking to him.

“There are fires at night,” the Mexican said. “Big fires in the jungles. People going missing. Parts of people showing up later.”

“Q Roo cartel? Narcos?”

Sighing, Rodrigo shook his head like he was mourning the empty tequila bottle. “Those temple sites outside of Tulum that I told you about? The ones that were gonna make me and my compadres rich?”

Hunter shrugged. Rodrigo and his buddies always had a get-rich plan. And he always ended up looking at the bottom of a tequila bottle in some dive.

“Yeah. So?” Hunter asked.

“They are all dead. Hearts cut out, blue palm prints on their bodies. They were cut up, man. Cut. Up.”

For the first time, Hunter realized that Rodrigo’s numb stare came from more than tequila. He had the shell-shocked look of a man fresh from a bloody battle.

“You sure they didn’t just cross the wrong narcos?” Hunter asked very softly.

He didn’t need to glance around to discover if anyone was listening. He’d been checking since the instant he sat down. So far, all the patrons were more interested in chow than nearby chat.

“When the cartels kill,” Rodrigo said, head down, in a voice too low to for anyone but Hunter to hear, “they either hang the body from a bridge or shove it into a mine shaft or a mass grave.”

Hunter nodded.

“But not these bodies,” Rodrigo said, a sheen of terror coating his eyes and throat. “My compadres were prepared with great care, in the old way.”

“Sacrificed?” Hunter asked very softly, remembering a filthy Houston basement.

Rodrigo looked up. “If you go to Tulum, you keep away from the temples. You stay in the town. You don’t stand near nobody you don’t know like your own cock. Then you watch the skies and the jungle and your back. Death is out there. A hard death.”

Hunter palmed another Ben, put his hand on the table so that only Rodrigo could see the money. “You hear of anyone called El Maya?”

Rodrigo wanted the money enough to sweat, but he shook his head. “I don’t hear nothing.”

For a moment Hunter thought of pushing hard. But he’d known Rodrigo long enough to know when he would talk and when he wouldn’t. Apparently the subject of El Maya was taboo here as well as in Padre.

Yet it wasn’t a name in his uncles’ files. Since most narco types thrived on notoriety, the usual sources of information were coming up dry.

“What else can you tell me about Tulum?” Hunter asked finally.

Rodrigo took the bill and sagged back in his chair, looking haunted. “You ought to talk to that pretty lady so lonesome a few tables over. The one you came in just behind. She has that Tulum look about her. The eyes. See the regal shape? And the cheekbones. She’s a queen among peasants.”

“You’re drunk.”

Abruptly Rodrigo’s eyes sharpened, making Hunter wonder if he’d really worked his way through a bottle of tequila after all.

“You believe what you want to,” Rodrigo said clearly yet very softly. “Maybe I see you again sometime. Maybe you die on the twenty-first. Bet you wish you believed me then.”

“Did your buddies get anything out of the temple sites?”

“A hard way to die.”

“No artifacts?”

“Not a peso,” Rodrigo said bitterly. “That’s why I waited for you. Need money to fly. Another three, and you can have my pistol. Clip is full.”

“Two. If I like what I see, and you throw in your boot knife, I’ll give you another hundred.”

Rodrigo started to protest, then decided he wanted money more than an argument. He reached beneath his loose shirt and pulled out a flat black pistol, square and chunky. He passed it under the table to Hunter.

A casual look, plus the feel of the gun itself, was all it took for Hunter to know what was for sale.

H and K Mark 23, SOCOM variant. Nice piece.

“Is it hot?” he asked quietly.

Rodrigo gave a liquid shrug. “Isn’t it always? But I never fired it. I never had a chance to. They were dead when I got there.”

Under the table, the pistol and another hundred changed hands. Hunter concealed the weapon the same way Rodrigo had, under his shirt at the small of his back. The gun felt hard, heavy with potential death. Slowly Hunter’s body adjusted to the presence of the weapon. It wasn’t the first time he’d worn gunmetal under his shirt, but he’d never learned to like it.

“Knife,” Hunter said softly.

Rodrigo bent, pulled the knife out of its boot sheath, and gave it to Hunter. A flick of his thumb tested the edge. Clean, hard, sharp. Hunter passed over another hundred.

“Two hundred more if you talk about El Maya,” Hunter said very softly.

“If you get out now,” Rodrigo said, “I’ll see you again.”

“Three hundred.”

“Vaya con Dios.”

With that, Rodrigo stood and walked out the back door, staggering just enough to make any watchers believe he’d been drinking hard.

No one looked up as he passed. No one seemed to care.

After a few more minutes of watching, Hunter went to Lina’s table.

“Your ‘friend’ is a drunk,” Lina said.

“That’s what he wants you to think,” Hunter said softly as he sat near her. “You try to roll him, you get a nasty surprise. Being tricky is how he survives.”

The waitress came over and put down a huge bowl of pibil. Steam that smelled of lime and orange and pork rose up. Bowls of corn tortillas and various condiments followed. She put plates and silverware along one edge of the table, smiled, and left.

Lina took a big bite of pibil and looked around as she chewed.

“See anyone you know?” he asked. “Tulum isn’t that far away.”

“No. I just can tell by the faces that I’m in the Yucatan. Undoubtedly, our workers have relatives here, but I don’t know them by name.”

“But they could know you.”

“Recognize me, yes,” Lina said. “Knowing me is a lot different.”

“How does your neck feel?”

“Calm,” she said, licking up a stray bit of spicy sauce.

“Let me know when that changes.” He looked at the piles of food. “You mind sharing?”

“I was thinking of you when I ordered. The sauce in the green bowl will eat through steel. You should love it.”

Hunter smiled and went to work. He ate with excellent manners, and quickly enough so that if something interrupted the meal, he wouldn’t leave the table hungry. After a few minutes, he looked up. Lina was watching him, smiling in a way that said she liked seeing him enjoy the Yucatec food she loved.

“You really do feel at home in Mexico,” she murmured.

“As long as I don’t have to eat the worms at the bottom of the mescal bottle.”

She laughed and relaxed.

Hunter ate and kept an eye on the patrons.

He didn’t want any nasty surprises. But so far, so good. The café was filled mostly with chattering people, laughter, and the occasional off-color toast from a table of five young men. Their clothes labeled them as workers, not narcos.

“Rodrigo called you a queen among peasants,” Hunter said.

“Now I know he was drunk.”

Hunter looked at Lina’s strong, high cheekbones and large, almost almond eyes. She had an extraordinary face. Haunting. Timeless.

“Rodrigo has seen more than his share of Maya ruins,” Hunter said. “He lives well over the line between angels and devils. If I hadn’t saved his life a few years back, he wouldn’t even talk to me now. He’s a hard man to frighten. Yet he’s running scared, heading for the airport and the hell away from Tulum.”

Lina paused just before she took a bite. “Why?”

“Some tomb robbers he knows got themselves killed.” He took a big bite and watched her.

She chewed, swallowed, prepared another bite. “If I don’t think of their families, I can say they had it coming.”

But her dark eyes said she was thinking of wives and children, parents and siblings and cousins who would have holes torn out of their lives.

“They died the old-fashioned way,” Hunter said, swallowing the pibil, which was as savory as it was nuclear. “As a sacrifice. Body paint, no hearts, sacred glyphs on the skin. You know of anyone local who might take ancient history a little too seriously?”

“There are many full-blooded Maya here,” Lina said. She really wanted to eat more, but wasn’t sure her stomach had room. “And out in the small villages…well, you saw the cross of corn and the like. Catholic sure, but only on Sundays. The rest of the time, they live with the gods of their ancestors.”

“All the Maya are pagans underneath?”

“No. They’re like every other people. When it comes to any religion, they have fanatics and unbelievers and everything in between. But as a rule, the closer the jungle, the closer the old gods.”

Hunter nodded. He’d noticed the same thing himself.

“What’s next?” Lina asked, giving up on the savory food.

“De la Poole. You sure you don’t want to call him?”

“I’d rather surprise him.”

“What if he isn’t there?” Hunter asked.

“Someone at the museum will know where he is.”

Without appearing to, Hunter took another look around the café. Nothing had changed. The locals might admire Lina’s royal looks, but they weren’t groupies.

“You finished?” he asked.

“Stuffed.”

He threw some money on the table. “Let’s go.”

They left the café and went to their rented Bronco. Hunter didn’t see anyone who cared. Lina’s neck didn’t itch.

“I’ll drive,” she said. “You check on Jase.”

Hunter didn’t argue. She knew the way better than he did.

The Cancun-Chetumal highway was two lanes of divided road in either direction. There was jungle crowding on both sides, giving only rare glimpses of the ocean that was close enough to taste as an underlying tang in the air pouring through the open windows.

Hunter changed chips in his phone and called Jase at the hospital. As he waited for the call to connect, he noticed a flash of color on the right. Another shrine overflowing with flowers and offerings of food and liquor. By the time he was put through to Jase’s room, a second shrine flashed by on the left.

To Hunter’s shock, Jase answered his own call.

“’Lo?”

“Jase, it’s me, Hunter. What are you doing answering the phone?”

“Enjoying being alive.” Jase’s words were a bit slow and slightly breathless, but otherwise strong. “’Sup?”

“I took Lina and ran south.”

“Good. Bullets hurt like a bitch.”

“Brubaker off your ass?” Hunter asked. He damn well better be.

“Off it? Hell, he’s kissing it. Dude’s rolling in artifacts.”

“What?”

“Got ’em all back and then some,” Jase said.

“Wait, are you telling me that the missing artifacts have been returned, obsidian mask and all?”

Lina shot Hunter a startled look, then went back to driving. But she kept listening real hard.

“Close enough for government work,” Jase said.

“Amigo, you’re not making sense. I’ll call later.”

Jase kept talking. “Snake’s lawyer delivered the box, from what I heard. Said he had a client with a dirty conscience. Now it’s clean.”

“Snakeman’s lawyer coughed up the artifacts?” Hunter asked in disbelief. “Did the lawyer say where the artifacts came from?”

“Janitor stole them to pay Snakeman a gambling bet.”

“Bullshit.”

“Yeah,” Jase said, “but it grows mighty fine roses. Even if they aren’t what you planted.”

Ali’s voice came in the background, talking to the nurse. It was time for Jase’s pain shot.

“Give it to me while I’m on the phone,” Jase said.

Hunter knew he’d have to talk fast. Pain meds tended to hit Jase like a landslide.

“So you have artifacts,” Hunter said, “even if they aren’t exactly what went missing?”

“Yeah. They’re in real good shape, too. Like new.”

“And Brubaker’s buying it?”

“Ouch! You using a twelve-gauge needle?” Then, “Brubaker ain’t looking in no gift pony’s mouth. ICE will be front and center at the re-pa-tri-a-tion ceremony. Gold star in my file. Maybe a raise, new title.”

“Are you high?”

“Getting there. Damn, the drugs in here are prime. Hey, darling, c’mon over and give your big stud a kiss.”

Ali’s giggle came through the connection, then the sound of a kiss. Over Jase’s muttered protests, she took the phone.

“Hunter?”

“Hi, Ali. Sounds like our boy is feeling good.”

“The stuff they give him hits him hard and fast. Otherwise he wants to get up and go home.”

“He said something about Brubaker.”

“Whatever the boss was so upset about is over,” Ali said. “I don’t know the details, but Brubaker got his hands on a box of old stuff and he’s doing the happy dance around Jase’s bed. I don’t understand any of it, but Brubaker can’t say enough nice things about Jase.”

“Huh.” Hunter saw a riot of color whip by on the left side of the road. Another shrine. Rodrigo’s words echoed in his mind.

Death is out there. A hard death.

And the locals were praying like hell that death didn’t find them.

“…out of danger,” Ali said. “He’s recovering so fast the doctors are amazed. He’s in a regular hospital room now.”

Hunter snapped back into focus. He smiled as a weight he hadn’t realized was there shifted off his chest. “He always did heal fast. Give your big stud a kiss for me.”

Ali snickered. “I’ll be sure to tell him it’s from you.”

The instant Hunter turned off the phone, Lina said, “What’s going on?”

“Someone returned the stolen artifacts, or something close enough that Brubaker doesn’t care.”

“That’s…” Her voice died.

Hunter laughed without humor. “Yeah. But Jase is off the hook and recovering so fast the docs are smiling.”

“So if we assume that the artifacts and the kidnap attempt on me are connected…” she began.

Hunter waited.

“Because the coincidences are pretty overwhelming otherwise,” she added. “So I should be safe now.”

He didn’t answer.

“Well, hell,” she said.

“Pretty much. None of this makes sense. Until it does, I’m all over you like fur on a bunny.”

A spark of color up on the right resolved into another roadside shrine.

“Pull over,” Hunter said. “I want a closer look at that.”

“And you want to make sure we’re not being followed.”

“Two birds, one stone.”

Lina slowed and carefully pulled off the paved highway. They bumped to a stop ten feet from the shrine. Unlike other parts of the highway, no trash was scattered near the shrine. The only bottles there were full, offerings left by believers. The only paper or plastic was in the flowers, though many were fresh. The arms of the cross were longer than was usual for a Christian symbol.

The flowers were brilliant yellow and scarlet and purple against the white limestone crumbles of the roadside. The cascade of petals was interrupted by candles of various sizes and shapes. The cross was covered in snakeskin that the reptile hadn’t shed willingly. Bright feathers were glued to the cross. They moved in the lightest breeze, like they were somehow alive, breathing.

“That’s the fifth one of these that we’ve seen out in the open since Playa del Carmen,” Hunter said.

“Normally you see a roadside shrine and they’re for someone who died in a crash along the highway or something,” Lina said. “They aren’t really legal, but it’s an old custom. They just appear overnight and gradually fade into the jungle.”

“Whoever put this shrine out was pretty brazen. Or else drivers on the highway don’t really care what happens on the side of the road. Must have a lot of accidents here.”

“I don’t remember this many shrines. And there aren’t any pictures or names of loved ones.” Lina rubbed her fingers together, as though trying to clean them. “Flowers don’t smell like this. Like death.”

“I was thinking that.”

“This is creepy, Hunter. Can’t you feel…something out here?”

The wind picked up, making the wall of vegetation rustle and shake as if something large slithered through the undergrowth. Wind whistled over the snakeskin, a sound like thin reptilian wings. The head of the snake appeared to be swallowing the cross from the top down.

For a moment everything felt dry, a forest fire or a desert riding on the restless wind.

“This is wrong,” she said.

Hunter agreed. “Not a quaint little roadside shrine. Someone around here is really into ancient gods.”

The snakeskin twitched in the wind, pulling like an animal wanting to be free.

Lina made a low sound.

“What?” Hunter asked instantly.

“This is an altar to Kukulcán. The cross isn’t here to pay lip service to Catholicism.” She shivered, though the temperature was warm. “This represents an ancient Maya belief system.”

There was no photo or name to honor a relative killed along the highway. The only writing was crudely drawn glyphs painted on snakeskin or inked onto paper and tacked into place.

It was silent except for the random swish of traffic.

No one pulled off farther down the road. No one even paused. The intermittent parade of ancient cars and trucks was splashed with the shine of rich people’s vehicles and the duller gleam of rentals.

Insects crawled among the shrine’s offerings. Wind stirred restlessly, carrying the scent of old blood, old flesh.

“Roadkill?” Lina asked, wrinkling her nose.

“Smells like it, but I don’t see any. Would the locals get upset if I looked more closely at the shrine?”

“As long as you don’t deface anything, it should be okay.”

Hunter went to the shrine and sat on his heels. Very carefully he lifted a mound of flowery offerings. Dull eyes stared back at him. The smell of carrion became overpowering.

“What is it?” Lina asked.

“Monkey head. Maybe a cat. Hard to tell at this point.”

Her breath came in hard, coated with the odor of death. “Blood offering.”

“Looks like it.” Gently Hunter replaced the flowers and tried to ignore the memories of a basement where human blood had flowed red and dried black. The gun he had stuffed into the back of his jeans felt better than it had since Rodrigo had sold it to him. “You recognize any of the glyphs?”

Carefully she leaned down, breathing through her mouth in an effort to minimize the smell. “They’re very rough.”

He grunted.

“Blood. Power.” She stood suddenly. The smell was making her stomach twist. “This shrine calls the powerful old gods, but most of all, the gods of knowledge and death. Kukulcán and Kawa’il.

“I was afraid of that. You think the others along the road are the same?”

“Not all of them. At least one had a picture nailed at the center of the cross, and the arms were shorter. That usually means a Christian commemoration of a dead friend or a family member.”

“But most shrines were like this?” he asked grimly.

“Yes. Kawa’il. Death.”

Hunter straightened swiftly. “Want me to drive?”

“No. I’m okay. Just…” She shrugged.

“Yeah, me, too. Wonder what Mercurio de la Poole thinks of this?”

“I’ll be sure to ask.”

Lina and Hunter got back in the Bronco and drove through a green tunnel of jungle punctuated by flaring shrines.