“Come see this,” he said, and pointed.
The flames weren’t so much going out as they seemed to be draining down a round hole in the pyramid’s side. Curious, Jake bent closer. A curl of the stone dragon’s tail circled the hole. But the hole wasn’t really a hole. It was more of a shallow indentation in the gold surface—as if some jewel might have rested there but was now missing.
The flames vanished away just as the red emergency lights kicked in and cast the room in a ruby glow.
Jake straightened.
Strange…
Curious, he flipped open his mother’s sketchbook and found the page with the pyramid’s sketch. In the weak light, he spotted the same hole portrayed on the drawing. It was just as blank.
“Nothing’s here,” he mumbled, and tapped the spot.
Kady leaned over him. “At least not any longer.” She reached out and felt the paper. “Look at how it’s smeared. I can still feel a faint impression in the paper. Something was once drawn here.”
“You think it was erased?”
Kady nodded. “Whoever did it, they did it in a hurry.”
“Mom?”
“I don’t know.”
Jake lowered the sketchbook and stared at the gold pyramid. Why would their mother draw something, then erase it?
He cocked his head and studied the hole.
It was perfectly round, about the size of a—
Jake slapped himself on the forehead.
“Of course…” he mumbled.
“What?”
Jake didn’t answer. He closed the sketchbook and tucked it back away. He remembered another of his father’s lessons.
Never assume something—that’s bad science—always test, then retest.
Jake reached to his neck, slipped the braided cord over his head, and pulled free his half of the gold Mayan coin. He held it up toward the pyramid. It seemed the same size as the hole.
Always test…
Jake stepped closer and reached out with his coin.
“What are you doing?” Kady whined in fear.
Ignoring her, he placed his coin in the hole. It seemed to be a perfect fit—but he had to be sure.
…then retest.
Still holding his half in place, he turned to Kady. “Try yours.”
Jake knew she had her coin, but she shook her head.
“Kady! Mom and Dad must’ve sent us the broken coin for a reason. Don’t you want to know why? This might be the first clue.”
She hesitated. Jake saw the fear in her eyes…and maybe pain.
Still, she slowly reached under her hair at the back of her neck. She unclasped the fine gold chain that bore her half of the coin. She shifted next to Jake, shoulder to shoulder.
She shook her coin off its chain and held it up.
“If I get a shock from this…” Kady warned, but her voice also held a hint of excitement.
“Just see if it fits.”
She lifted her coin, but as she reached for the pyramid, a shout boomed across the marble hall like a blast from an elephant gun. Jake turned and spotted Drummond running straight at them.
“DON’T TOUCH—”
Jake couldn’t explain why he did what he did next. It was some instinct buried deep in his heart. Ignoring Drummond, Jake turned and grabbed Kady’s hand. She had frozen in place with the sudden shout. Jake shoved her half of the Mayan coin toward the pyramid’s hole. It snugged neatly in place next to his.
A perfect fit.
The re-formed coin suddenly glowed brightly, highlighting the joined Mayan glyphs in the center.
Jake mouthed the words represented by the two symbols: “sak be.”
They translated to “white road.”
“NO!” Drummond shouted. The man tried to yell something else. It sounded like a warning, but his words were drowned in another shattering crack of thunder.
Blinding and booming, the explosion blew away the emergency lights.
Before Jake could react, the world fell out from under him. Blood rushed to his head as if he were plummeting down a well. Stars danced across his vision. A roaring filled his ears. Then even the stars vanished, and darkness somehow got darker again.
Still, he held Kady’s hand. It seemed his only connection to anything solid and real. His fingers tightened on hers. The moment stretched.
Though still blind, Jake sensed they weren’t alone in the blackness. The tiny hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He knew something was staring at him out of that darkness.
Then it began to move toward them.
He saw nothing, but he sensed it like a pressure building in his head as it got closer. Kady’s fingers squeezed harder on his. She felt it, too.
A few words scraped into his mind, like fingernails digging at the lid of a stone coffin. “Come to me…”
Jake pictured skeletal fingers reaching through the darkness. Before those fingers could reach him, something dove between Jake and the lurker in the dark, as if protecting him. Still blind, all Jake felt was a rush of wind, as if something with wings had swept between them.
As it passed, Jake tumbled, and the blackness shredded to scraps around him. The world returned in a kaleidoscope of color and sound. He caught a flash of emerald green, heard the screech of a strange bird. Then the world righted itself. With a heavy sinking in his gut, Jake’s knees caught his weight though he hadn’t truly fallen anywhere.
Or maybe he had.
Jake crouched next to Kady in deep grass. The two halves of the gold coin clinked together as they dropped to his toes. He snatched them up. His other hand still held tight to his sister. Something he hadn’t done since he was six years old.
The world had indeed returned—but not the same world of a moment ago.
PART TWO
5
LAND OF THE LOST
Jake straightened next to Kady. He sucked air deep into his chest. With the one breath he knew something was dreadfully wrong. The air was too thick, too steamy to be London. And it smelled of mud and rotting plants.
He pocketed the two halves of the gold coin and stared around him. Leafy ferns the size of beach umbrellas spread all around. Towering trees rose from massive tangles of roots, like the knobby knees of giants. Overhead, branches wove a dense emerald canopy.
Jake shook his head, trying to clear the illusion.
It didn’t go away.
Had he and Kady been knocked out? Gassed? Kidnapped and dragged off to some jungle?
Insects whirred in a rasping chorus.
“What did you do?” Kady asked.
He glanced hard at her. “What did I do? What are you talking about? I didn’t—”
She cut him off, deaf to his words. “What happened? Where are we?”