Beautiful Sacrifice Read Free Page B

around for an ass to pin the tail on. Must have been my lucky day, huh? He put me on paid leave, told me I had until the twenty-first to find those artifacts, then said if I even breathed the word ‘ICE’ in my investigation, much less showed my badge, I was roadkill. No word of the theft was to get out.”
    Hunter stared at him. “That’s a joke, right?”
    Jase looked back with hard, dark eyes.
    “When did this happen?” Hunter asked.
    “About two weeks ago. I tried to call you, but…”
    “Cell phones don’t work where and when you want them to,” Hunter finished. “I was up to my pits in jungle and limestone scrub.”
    “I hear those beaches on Riviera Maya are primo.”
    “Didn’t get that far. You have pictures, file numbers, descriptions?”
    “Of the artifacts?”
    “What else?”
    Jase reached for the manila folder on the counter. “You never saw these.”
    “Saw what?”
    Hunter opened the envelope and started looking at photos he never should have seen.

C HAPTER T HREE
     
    T HERE ARE STILL MANY AREAS OF M AYA MYTHOLOGY THAT are wide open to interpretation,” Lina Taylor said clearly to her more-or-less attentive students. “This is to be expected, given that people are still fighting over the meaning of texts that have been widely available, translated from culture to culture, and practiced for more than two thousand years.”
    Nobody coughed or stirred. The truly uninterested students were still asleep in various beds. Part of Lina envied them, especially if they were with lovers, but nothing of her simmering emotions showed in her face or voice.
    “The fact that so much of Maya myth and lore was lost in one night, at the hands of Bishop Landa, means that we may never know the actual names of deities such as ‘God K’—suggested as Kawa’il by some—much less the subtle distinctions in their hierarchy and powers, religious and civil lives.”
    An unlikely blonde who was dressing like her teenage daughter dutifully took notes from the front-center seat.
    Does she ever look in the mirror? Lina thought. Does she need glasses?
    “The nuances of the ancient Maya may be lost to us,” Lina continued, “but the broad strokes are reasonably clear. And in many ways, unchanged since the first glyph was chiseled into limestone.”
    She clicked a remote and the room lights dimmed. Another button on the remote brought the overhead projector to life, displaying an image of jungle broken only by the reclaimed ruins of a Maya ziggurat in the distance. The ancient building was pale and jagged under a cloudy sky. In the foreground, several people were gathered at a bonfire, dressed in bright shawls worn over a variety of very colorful garments. Each person carried an offering of flowers, handmade crosses, or small glass bottles of liquor. When the people withdrew, the offerings remained behind at the feet of traditional Maya deities overlaid by a veneer of Christian names.
    “Notice the syncretic nature of the celebration,” Lina said, using her laser pointer, “the mixing of elements of Christianity and indigenous deities. This picture was taken last year during the Días Perdidos celebration, not far from Chichén Itzá. The celebration roughly translates as their version of Mardi Gras—a syncretic festival which also mixes Christian and other religious elements—for a holiday directly before the season of Lent.”
    The jungle image was replaced by that of a wooden cross, taller than the man standing next to it. The heavy beams were covered in cornstalks and leaves, as if the cross were living, growing.
    “The question that this image begs is, Which is more important to the villagers living here? The cross or the maize? You could separate the corn from the cross, but without the corn to sustain them, there would be no worshippers for the cross. The two can’t be separated, but neither side is truly ascendant here.”
    Immediately the reporter who had been allowed into the final class for a