Chapter Sixteen

After struggling to push open the massive stone doors, Ed's blue eyes darted around the semi-darkened interior in front of him. Lit torches that hung on the stone walls provided the only light in the temple, and made the building somewhat smoky. The gray-haired man stepped cautiously inside; his blue eyes constantly watching out for any sign of movement besides his own. He wanted to call out to his wife and daughter to find out where they were and if they were safe (and he hoped to God that they were, or someone's head would be his!) but knew that giving away his location would be a fatal mistake.

Deline removed one of the torches from its mount before pulling the machete out from his belt and holding it in his opposite hand. He had light and a weapon; all he knew that he would need to proceed in his quest to find the Professor and make him pay for what he had done. He reached a fork in the road, where the giant entrance became two smaller, long hallways. So long that Ed couldn't even see down them, so he would have to go into one of them blind and leave the other one for his employees to search.

"Eeenie, meenie, minie, mo." Ed muttered to himself, moving his machete back and forth as he said each word. The knife pointed down the hallway to Ed's right, so that was the direction he decided to take. However, before he walked down the hall, he approached the section of wall that divided the pair of corridors. The gray-haired man carved an arrow indicating his chosen direction and "ED" into the stone with his machete, a symbol to his employees to take the other way.

"This thing is incredible." Mike commented as the Montecito gang stared up at the brown and gold temple in front of them. "I mean the ancient Incans must have built it!" The bald, African-American man glanced around at the group of people surrounding him. "You really think that the Professor is in there?"

"He's got to be." Sam replied, her dark eyes still surveying the building. "Why else would Ed run in there?" Dismay filled her features upon noticing the sheer amount of steps that led to the doorway, and a whining tone suddenly appeared in her voice. "Why in the hell couldn't the ancient Incans have invented the elevator?"

"We're wasting time." Danny replied, shaking his head at the woman's comments. "We've got to get to Jillian and Delinda before it's too late!"

"What makes you think that it isn't already too late, Danny?" the Professor's voice seemed to ask out of nowhere. Gasping in surprise and terror, the group began to look around them, but the older, black and gray-haired man was nowhere to be seen. His eerie laughter seemed to echo from all around them. Danny could feel a slightly worried Mary lean in against him, and he wrapped his arms around her. "Look at you all! You're like a herd of gazelle, able to hear the lion but not see him."

"Where are you, you spineless coward?" an enraged Nessa asked, looking up at the temple. "Come out here and face us like a man!"

"Tell me, dear Nessa. Am I not supposed to remember what happened the last time you told me to show my face?" a curious Professor wondered, "Am I not supposed to remember you sweet-talking me into showing up at the Montecito, only to be arrested?" He continued to laugh. "Unfortunately for you, neither Ed Deline nor the Las Vegas Police Department are around to help you this time."

"It's because Mr. D. is too busy hunting down your ass!" a firm Mike replied, positioning himself in between the temple and Nessa. A rarely seen look on anger was on the African American man's usually jovial face. "If I were you, I'd be more worried about where Ed is than about us!"

"He's right." Danny added, his brown eyes narrow. "You're a dead man walking, Professor!"

"More yapping from the little lap dog?" the Professor remarked obviously amused, "Does Ed know that you're walking around without a collar and leash on, Danny?"

"You arrogant son of a bitch!" an angered Danny growled as he started running up the stairs towards the temple's entrance. He hoped that Ed would leave at least a piece of the Professor for him to kick the crap out of.

"Danny!" Mary called as the others followed McCoy's lead. "Wait up!"

"Hmm, that's it, Danny." the Professor encouraged after shutting off a nearby microphone so that the Montecito group wouldn't be able to hear him. He twirled a small handgun around in one hand as he watched the quintet enter the temple via a monitor. However, his eyes were mainly focused on McCoy. "Run, like a fool, towards your destiny!"

"Whoa!" Mike gasped as he looked around the smoky, semi-darkened interior of the temple. The same one Ed had observed a few moments prior. "Man, this place looks like it's straight out of an Indiana Jones movie or something!"

"Didn't know much about interior decorating, did they?" Sam remarked as she looked around the bare space.

Suddenly, something fell from the ceiling on top of Nessa, causing the black British woman to shriek in terror as it made her fall to the floor.

"Nessa!" a worried Mary exclaimed as Danny and Mike rushed over.

"Are you okay?" Danny wondered, kneeling down to help her.

"What the bloody hell is that?" a wide-eyed Nessa asked, gesturing to the bones that now lay on top of and around her.

"Uh, don't freak out, Ness," Danny gulped; now holding some sort of decaying bone in his hand. "But I think that it was an Incan warrior at one time."

"Oh, my God!" Nessa shrieked, covering her mouth in shock as she realized that it was indeed a skeleton now laying around and on her. From nearby she could hear Sam laughing hysterically.

"It's never when you have your camera!" Marquez chuckled, holding her abdomen with both hands.

"Shut the hell up, Sam." Nessa muttered as Danny helped her get back to her feet.

"Sorry." Sam apologized, still laughing and not sounding too apologetic at all.

"I wonder what he died of." Mary commented as both her and Danny looked down at the various bones.

"Oh, I think that I've got a pretty good idea, Mare." Mike replied, holding the skull in his hands. As he showed it to the group, they could see the edge of a stone spear still embedded within the cranium.

"What the hell kind of place is this?" Danny asked, his wide, brown eyes looking at the skull and at the group around him.

To be continued...