Page 152 of The Lost Guardian

“What about the hands, then?” she asked.

Santiago frowned. Now, that was unusual. He hadn’t read about any Incan or pre-Incan burial sites that featured hands. What was their significance?

He placed his fingers inside the cupped palms, staring between them and the mask.

“The mask should be made of gold,” he noted absently.

“The entire room should be made of gold!” Torres yelled. “There should be gold and jewels everywhere!”

“No, I mean, there was a reason that gold was so popular in the empire. It didn’t hold the same value as it does to us now. It was important because they worshipped Inti, and gold was the representation of sunlight on earth.”

“And yet, there’s no gold here,” Torres growled. His gun remained trained on Ali.

“Exactly,” Santiago confirmed. “But there should be. I think that we need to make an offering.”

“What?” Torres asked, the wild look still in his eyes.

“An offering,” Santiago repeated. “Does anyone have any gold on them?”

Mario scoffed and Leo just shrugged.

Torres, however, gave a long-suffering sigh, finally thrusting his gun back in its holster. He unbuttoned one of his shirt cuffs, fishing out a small object. Then he tossed it to Santiago.

Of course. Who goes on a trip to the middle of the Andes without their solid-gold cufflinks? Santiago thought to himself.

Santiago twirled the flat gold disk in his fingers. It felt smooth and warm.

Please, he thought. Please let this be the answer.

Santiago stretched out his arm, hovering the gold piece above the carved stone hands. With a deep breath, he released the cufflink into Atahualpa’s open palms, and it settled into place with a soft clink.

The result was instantaneous.

The door behind them slammed shut, a giant stone slab plugging the once-empty space. Then the room shook. Santiago took a massive step backward as water began to pour from the back wall.

“What?” Mario squeaked, water sloshing over his boots.

When Santiago turned, he saw it was similarly pouring from the side walls, spilling from every crack between the stones.

“What is happening, Rios?” Torres shouted, the water already rising to mid-calf. The room flooded fast, much too fast, and there was no exit. Santiago grabbed Ali and swung her up on top of the coffin, and Torres jumped up behind her.

Mario pounded on the sealed door, as if he could break through a foot worth of stone.

The water came up to Santiago’s knees.

“What did you do?” Leo cried out, trying to scramble up the coffin as well. Torres kicked at him.

“Figure out a way to stop this!” he yelled at him. “All of you!”

“It’s coming in too fast!” Santiago called back, having to pitch his voice over the noise of the rushing stream. It sounded like he was directly under a waterfall. He waded to one of the walls, trying to see if he could figure out the mechanism that powered it. Maybe there was a way to stop it.

Santiago saw nothing, just weeping cracks in the walls, water pouring over from the surface in sheets. It reached his hips now.

Santi had to force his breaths not to shallow. A ringing picked up in his ears. Is this really happening?

Mario abandoned his attempt to beat down the door, opting instead to pull out his gun and shoot at it. Everyone screamed, ducking instinctively at the earsplitting wail of gunfire.

“That won’t do any good!” Santiago yelled, incensed. That bullet could have ricocheted off the door and hit Ali. Or him.