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  The Fourth Prophecy

  A Sean Wyatt Adventure

  Ernest Dempsey

  Enclave Publishing

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. Washington, DC

  2. Atlanta, Georgia

  3. Washington

  4. Washington

  5. Washington

  6. Atlanta

  7. Washington

  8. Tulum, Mexico

  9. Washington

  10. Tulum

  11. Washington

  12. Tulum

  13. Washington

  14. Chiapas, Mexico

  15. Washington

  16. Chiapas

  17. Atlanta

  18. Chiapas

  19. Atlanta

  20. Chiapas

  21. Atlanta

  22. Chiapas

  23. Washington

  24. Chiapas

  25. Atlanta

  26. Washington

  27. Chiapas

  28. Washington

  29. Playa del Carmen, Mexico

  30. Chiapas

  31. Chiapas

  32. Chiapas

  33. Chetumal, Mexico

  34. Chiapas

  35. Chiapas

  36. Chiapas

  37. Chiapas

  38. Chiapas

  39. Chiapas

  40. Chiapas

  41. Chiapas

  Thank You

  Author’s Notes

  Other Books by Ernest Dempsey

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Yucatan, AD 1523

  General Alvarado looked out over the battlefield—if one could call it that. He was more accustomed to a proper war, not the extermination of an indigenous people. Not that it mattered to him. He didn’t feel the slightest hint of regret other than the fact that the natives hadn’t been able to put up a fight.

  They certainly did their best with what they had. Their primitive weapons and lack of modern strategies, however, made the outcome inevitable. Alvarado gazed out across the bodies of the fallen strewn over the ground under the rain forest canopy. Some of his men had already finished digging the first of the mass graves where the dead would be buried.

  He’d only lost a few of his own men in the fight, poor souls unlucky enough to catch an arrow or a spear in the wrong place. Several more had been wounded.

  The overwhelming sense Alvarado felt wasn’t accomplishment. This wasn’t a victory he’d celebrate. He doubted it would even be mentioned in the annals of Spanish history. He’d beaten a severely outmatched, outnumbered, and outgunned primitive people. There was no glory in that. There would be no honors for him upon his return to Spain. He might—might—get a medal, but even that was doubtful. This battle was more the squashing of annoying insects than a fight between equals.

  He heard footsteps from behind but didn’t turn. Whoever it was could wait. It was something General Alvarado had learned from his superior. General Cortes always made his subordinates wait until he asked them to speak.

  It was a power play and Alvarado knew it, but he didn’t mind. The men beneath him needed to know their place and understand that to speak to someone as esteemed as a general of the empire was a privilege.

  Alvarado heard the man breathing behind him. He knew who it was. The general had been expecting him. It was one of his officers—Carlos. He recognized the labored breathing. Carlos, for all his abilities as a leader, had a penchant for eating large quantities of food, even when food was scarce for everyone else.

  “Yes, Carlos?” Alvarado said after another moment of quiet contemplation.

  “What are your orders, General?”

  The general turned around and stood with his hands folded behind his back. “Are they all dead?”

  “Yes, sir. We hunted down the last ones who tried to flee. They’re with the rest of the heathens now.”

  “Excellent.”

  “Would you like us to bring the bodies back and throw them in the pits with the others?”

  Alvarado pulled in a long sniff of air. When he shook his head, the shiny metal helmet reflected bright sunlight across his second in command’s face.

  “No, Carlos. Leave them for the animals to eat. They won’t last long out here with all the beasts lurking about.”

  Carlos stood at attention, staring his commander in the eyes as if waiting for something.

  Alvarado’s forehead wrinkled as he frowned. “Is there something else you’d like to tell me?”

  Carlos took a deep breath and sighed. “It’s…well….”

  “Spit it out, Colonel. If you made a mistake, I’m sure it’s nothing major.”

  “The men, sir, they found something.”

  Alvarado didn’t look impressed. Since arriving in the jungles of the Yucatan Peninsula, they’d seen all manner of strange things. Massive step pyramids, along with abandoned ancient cities, dotted the landscape. During the evenings in his tent, he’d spent hours wondering who put the enormous stone structures there and why. The indigenous people didn’t live there. From the looks of things, no one had for hundreds of years. The jungle had taken over most of the buildings, covering them with vines, leaves, and moss.

  “What did they find, Carlos?”

  “We…we don’t know, sir.”

  Alvarado’s scowl deepened. “What do you mean you don’t know? If you found it, then you must know what it is.”

  “It wasn’t me who found it, sir. It was the men. They’re too frightened to investigate further.”

  Alvarado couldn’t have been more befuddled. He cocked his head to the side and looked over Carlos’s shoulders at four men standing twenty feet behind him.

  “Are these the men who found this…thing you’re talking about?”

  “Yes, sir,” Carlos said with a nod.

  “Come forward!” Alvarado shouted, motioning with his fingers.

  Carlos took a step to the side. He kept his head low, a sign of humility and deference. More like weakness, thought Alvarado.

  “Which one of you found this…whatever it is my colonel here can’t seem to tell me about?” Alvarado asked the question to the men as they came to attention a few feet away.

  One guy in the middle raised his hand. “Rafael, sir,” the man said. “I found it.”

  “Go on, Rafael. Don’t be afraid. What was it you found?”

  Rafael’s voice trembled as he spoke. The fear in his eyes seeped out of his sockets. “I…I don’t know, sir. It looks like it might be an ancient temple, but it isn’t like any of the others.”

  “What do you mean not like the others?”

  “It was buried, sir.”

  “Buried?” Alvarado still didn’t understand.

  “Yes, sir. As if they’d cut the tunnels right out of the hillside.”

  Finally, they were getting somewhere. “So, there were tunnels?”

  “Yes. An entrance into the structure.”

  “And did you go inside?” Alvarado’s irritation was turning to curiosity.

  Rafael shook his head vigorously. “No, sir. We…we were afraid.”

  The general’s annoyance returned. “Afraid? Why?”

  “Because,” Rafael stammered, “there were strange sounds coming from the darkness inside.”

  “And there was a wind,” one of the other men said.

  Alvarado turned his attention to the man on the left end who’d spoken. “A wind?”

  “A hot wind—like the devil himself was breat
hing out of the passage.”

  Alvarado sighed. His men were being ridiculous. Their paranoia was no better than the superstitions of the people they’d just slaughtered.

  “Is it possible you were imagining these things?” the general asked.

  Rafael defended his comrade. “No, sir. It was real. Our whole unit heard the noises and felt the heat coming from the entrance. Ask any of them.”

  Perhaps his men had been in the jungle too long. They weren’t accustomed to a climate like this because there really wasn’t anything of its kind in Spain. The sweltering heat and humidity—along with the constant nagging of insects—was enough to drive even the most hardened soldier mad.

  Still, it would be uncommon for several of them to experience the same sorts of hallucinations—unless they’d been drinking too much wine.

  “Where is this…temple?” he asked. “Is it far?”

  “No,” Rafael said, shaking his head. “It won’t take long to get there.”

  Alvarado never dropped his stern expression. “Show me.”

  The hike through the jungle was a short journey, but it wasn’t easy. Heavy rains that day and an almost constant, lingering humidity made sure things never really dried out. Several times, the general’s boots stuck in the thick mud, and he had to wiggle them free, nearly losing his footwear in the process.

  Luckily, the men had hacked their way through the forest on their previous trip, so at least the path was somewhat clear of limbs, brush, and huge leaves that had the annoying habit of smacking people in the face as they walked.

  “How did you find this place?” Alvarado asked. He and the rest of the men paused for a moment to catch their breath at the top of a ridge.

  They couldn’t see far across the valley due to the vast forest in their way. Somewhere in the distance, they heard a waterfall churning, its faint roar giving away its location.

  “One of our patrols, sir,” Carlos answered. “They were sweeping the area to make sure any stragglers were eliminated.”

  “That’s a wider swath than ordered.”

  “Yes, sir. Our men…they got lost in the jungle.”

  “Easy to do in this dense rain forest,” Alvarado said with a hint of sympathy in his voice.

  While Cortes had the propensity to be harsh most of the time, Alvarado let his human side show more often. He’d be stern when it was appropriate, but he also realized that men also appreciated a little leeway every now and then.

  “Yes, sir. Fortunately, after finding the temple—or whatever it is—they were able to make their way back.”

  Alvarado nodded. The sun had come out overhead, parting the blanket of dark clouds looming in the sky. While the sunshine meant no rain for the time being, it also caused the moisture on the ground to turn to mist in a matter of minutes. The fog soon enveloped the small group, and sweat poured down their necks and into their armor.

  “How much farther?” Alvarado asked, eager to get moving again.

  “Not far, sir. Another ten minutes, and we’ll be there.”

  “Good,” Alvarado said. “Let’s get moving. The sooner we get out of this heat, the better.”

  Carlos wondered what the general meant by that. Surely, the man didn’t intend to enter the temple, not after the story he and the other men relayed. He wasn’t about to question Alvarado’s comment, though, and instead led the troop deeper into the jungle and down the slope.

  When they reached the bottom of the shallow valley, the group turned right and followed a creek upstream until they came to a place where the water parted and an outcropping of rocks provided a natural bridge across to the other side.

  “Just over there,” Carlos said, pointing over the water to a place in the jungle covered in vines, brush, and trees.

  Alvarado gave a nod, ordering the men forward.

  They made their way across the rocks, careful not to slip and fall in the water since the liquid would potentially ruin their armor. Even with a liberal amount of oil applied, the heavy metal components of their gear easily turned to rust after a short exposure to moisture.

  With every man safely on the other side, Carlos continued down a path—probably worn down by natives or animals—until they arrived at a pair of giant boulders. The huge rocks were set ten feet apart, facing the creek. They each stood around eight feet tall, towering over even the largest man in the group.

  “Where did these come from?” Alvarado asked in a hushed tone.

  “We’re not sure, sir,” Carlos answered. “We haven’t seen stone like this in the area. We assume they were brought here by someone.”

  Alvarado scanned the area, paying close attention to the ground. If the boulders were dragged there, it was done so long ago. There were no signs of the earth being disturbed anywhere around the creek or the rocks.

  Carlos interrupted the general’s thoughts. “It’s just through here, sir,” he said, pointing between the boulders.

  Alvarado and his men followed Carlos between the twin stones. The trees and vegetation seemed denser as they continued on. The fog even felt thicker than it had been on the path by the creek. The birds in the trees no longer sang their exotic songs. Squirrels and other animals were also eerily and inexplicably silent.

  After another minute of slowly moving through the foggy jungle, Carlos stopped and put his hand back to signal everyone else to halt, too.

  “What?” Alvarado whispered. “What is it?”

  “We’re here,” Carlos said without looking back.

  “Here? I don’t….” Before Alvarado could finish his sentence, the fog parted before him as if a strange breeze blew it away. Less than twenty feet away appeared a massive, bulging face carved out of limestone.

  A few of his men took an involuntary step backward at the sudden sight. Alvarado had seen strange things before. This wasn’t much different. In fact, it reminded him of one of the pyramids they’d seen upon arriving in this new world. The ancient people who lived there before had a habit of carving dramatic images out of rock and covering their temples and palaces with them. He’d seen faces similar to the one staring at him right now, though not as large or intimidating. Then again, that was probably the point. Wrapping something so frightening around the entrance to a sacred place was a good way to keep out intruders—at least the more superstitious ones.

  Alvarado had never been a man given to superstition. He’d lived long enough to know what was real and what was imaginary. His faith was the one thing he allowed in his life that stood without room for explanation. While he’d never personally experienced anything miraculous, he still believed in miracles and the supernatural. That being said, it would take more than an oversize stone face with bulging eyes and a menacing grin to keep him from investigating this bizarre place.

  The rest of the structure was designed much like the other pyramids in the area, with a few minor differences. One was that it had three places where the steps flattened out on their way to the top—platforms that wrapped around the entire thing. At each plateau, there were two statues carved in limestone, staring out into the jungle as if standing guard against some airborne invader. Most of the pyramid—standing at around sixty feet—was covered in vines, moss, small plants, leaves, and debris. It was no wonder the thing had remained hidden for so long, even with the two giant boulders acting as its gate near the creek.

  “Have you gone inside?” Alvarado asked, staring into the pitch-black entrance within the beast’s mouth.

  “No,” Carlos said. “Like I reported earlier, the men were scared away when we approached the darkness. We returned without investigating any farther.”

  Alvarado tilted his head back and gazed into the entrance over his bottom eyelids. There was something about the dark that he couldn’t explain. No light seemed to penetrate it, even to illuminate the doorsill or the floor just beyond the threshold. It was as if sunlight itself was afraid of going any farther.

  The general’s right foot slid forward a few inches. Then his left. They m
oved almost on their own, without his even thinking. With each step, his stride grew more emboldened. In less than thirty seconds, he passed Carlos and drew nearer to the entrance.

  “General?” Carlos asked, reaching out a hand to stop his commander. “What are you doing? I would suggest we throw some torches in there first to make sure it’s safe.”

  Alvarado didn’t respond. He was mesmerized by the darkness. It called to him, begged him to come forward and taste what it had to offer. He swallowed unconsciously. He’d not even realized it, but Alvarado had been holding his breath for nearly a minute. Or had he been breathing without his knowledge.

  It didn’t matter. All that mattered was the darkness and what secrets it kept.

  “Sir?” Carlos said again, concern swelling in his voice.

  “It’s fine,” Alvarado said, putting up a hand to silence his second in command.

  The general stepped closer, ever closer to the entrance.

  A breeze rolled through the area, washing over the pyramid as Alvarado neared the opening. The wind grew stronger with each step as if warning him to turn back.

  His eyelids narrowed to protect his eyes from tiny bits of debris and dust flying at his face. He put one hand up to his face to block the onslaught as the wind continued to increase. His body twisted sideways to be more aerodynamic.

  Alvarado was only a few long steps away when the howling began. It started as a high-pitched shriek and grew louder as he drew closer. The noise sounded like a hundred wolves shouting at the moon.