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“This incarnation of that ancient being has a new tale. To confine the creature, we write that tale on his tomb.”
“And then the Nahual just strolls in and holds still while we bury him?”
Mandenauer shot Matt a glance that reminded him very much of his mother when he’d annoyed her. “Hardly.”
“Then how do we get him in there?”
“You let me worry about that.”
* * *
Not long afterward, Matt rappelled into the cavern. He reached the bottom and waited, expecting Mandenauer to follow. Instead, the old man waved him off. “I will stay here and keep watch.”
“It’s daytime.”
“For Gina,” Mandenauer said, “that does not matter. Until she has killed, she will remain in wolf form.”
“You think she’ll come after us again?”
“I know she will.”
“Do not kill her,” Matt reminded him.
“Make sure I do not have to. The sooner you are finished, the better off we all will be.”
Matt moved past the glyph-covered wall, past the stone doorway, and around the corner, where he started on a fresh canvas, so to speak.
With the paints and brushes he’d discovered in the knapsack Mandenauer had handed him—one Matt had thought held clips, ammo, maybe a few grenades—he worked fast. Matt wasn’t an artist, and he didn’t care how the glyphs looked. All he cared was that they were legible enough to hold meaning. That appeared to be the key.
He drew the man-wolf figure, adding the la glyph as the Ute had before. The ingeniousness of that little quirk in meaning added a kind of “lock” to the spell that only blind, dumb luck had managed to “unlock.”
Matt sketched a woman standing before a scribbled-upon wall, black smoke whooshing out an open doorway, and the magic dogs—because he liked them. In the distance he drew the ranch, surrounded by wolves. Stepping back, he examined his handiwork. Something was missing.
Matt picked up the lantern he and Gina had left behind, then crossed the short space until he stood in front of the original panorama. He immediately saw the difference between this wall and the new one. A thin, wobbly line encircled the entire tableau.
“Words have power,” he murmured. “What occurs in a being’s life is what makes them who they are. Willing sacrifice is the ultimate power.” Then he thought of Derek’s game, the spell that could imprison a Worgen. It had seemed silly then—really violent and kind of disgusting—but silly. Now…?
Matt traced a finger along the reddish-brown line and knew without a doubt how the Aztecs had “set” the spell and confined the Nahual.
He headed for the opening. But as he approached he heard a whoosh, a howl, a thud.
Then nothing.
CHAPTER 26
Gray light filtered through the opening. When had the sun gone down?
Matt hurried back in the direction he’d come. Even if Mandenauer was still alive, they had no time left for discussion. Matt would have to move forward with his theory without confirmation. Right now, he didn’t have much choice.
Setting the lantern down, Matt tore through the knapsack. But where the old man kept every type of weaponry on his person, in his knapsack not so much. The sharpest thing Matt found was the broken end of a paintbrush. How had Mandenauer planned on making a blood sacrifice with nothing but that?
Matt scanned the ground. Snatching up a likely rock, he dragged the jagged edge across his arm. Blood welled; he dabbed a finger, then began to paint.
“Not enough,” he muttered. He was going to need a bigger hole.
A soft thud, followed by the pitter-patter of wolf feet, had him grasping at the first idea that flitted through his head. Matt ducked behind the stone door, then pulled it as close to his body as he could. He was trapped in the small space, but at least the Nahual couldn’t rip out his throat.
A snarl erupted, and something slammed into the door on the other side, driving the stone into Matt’s chest and his chest seemingly through his shoulder blades and into the wall at his back.
