Due to the fact that they were drinking margaritas in the hotel pool well into the night, Peter Mayhew and Greg Van Helsing didn’t make it back to the El Tajin ruins until almost noon the next day. Renea, once again, remained in the hotel room, tapping frantically away at her laptop just the way she did when working from home.
Peter was disappointed that she didn’t come down for margaritas and was even more disappointed that she wasn’t able to go out and do anything at all while they were in Mexico. She just had ‘too much going on’ with work stuff and having to do everything remotely just put a bigger strain on her workload. They still had another handful of days in Mexico though, so he hoped they’d all have a chance to go and do some sight seeing. Today, Peter and Greg were determined to break the code of Kuzco the Fabulous’ password to enter the tunnels beneath the ruins.
Renea hadn’t found a direct translation of ‘birthright’ during her online search. Peter considered, very briefly, whether he should do a search himself. Just in case she missed anything. But that errant thought came and went in a flash. If Renea, the most meticulous and competent person he’d ever met, couldn’t find it, odds were pretty slim that Peter’s scatterbrain would. Still, the two of them put their heads together to come up with an impressive list of possible synonyms and their Nahuatl translations to try. They also compiled the spanish translations despite agreeing that the password was unlikely to be in a language that hadn’t even made it to this part of the world when the password was created. They were just being thorough.
When Peter and Renea worked together, there was nothing they couldn’t do. Between her incredible and unyielding attention to detail and his ability to come up with solutions to any problem that presented itself, he was sure the two of them could take over the world. Were they so inclined.
They were surprised to find the trap door deep in the Veracruz jungle standing open. They had taken the time to close and cover it with vines and leaves before leaving the previous day. Peter and Greg exchanged a glance and then Greg waved Peter back the way they had come. When they were a good distance away from the trap door, Greg stopped and swung his travel bag off of his shoulder. He opened it and reached in, pulling out several items one at a time and setting them on the ground beside him.
“We must’ve tipped ‘em off somehow,” Greg said, grunting in irritation.
“Yeah, the Hel rune apparently acts as an alarm,” Peter said, relaying information he’d gathered from his ability the day before. “I didn’t know it actually worked. I figured if an alarm went off while we were here yesterday there would have been some indication. Like red lights flashing or a fog horn blaring. Or, you know, a horde of vampires showing up to eat us.”
Greg shook his head, still pulling crap out of his bag. “If there wasn’t anybody in the domain, that kind of thing would only have alerted us to our own presence. It’s probably connected to some artifact with a paired rune.”
“So…” Peter let it hang for a moment, but Greg said nothing. “What do we do?”
“We do jack shit. I’m going to go do what I do,” he said, fastening his bag back over one shoulder. “You’re going to wait right here for exactly 15 minutes. Set a timer on your phone. If I’m not back, you get the hell out of here. Get back to the hotel, get your family, and leave Mexico. Got it?”
Shocked at the entire situation, Peter didn’t know what to say. He didn’t want to just leave Greg to it, potentially facing one or more powerful vampires. At the same time, even if he insisted on going along and Greg somehow agreed, what could he even do to help?
“Peter,” Greg said, grabbing him by both shoulders and forcing eye contact. “Phone. Timer. Do you understand?”
Peter nodded, still wrapping his mind around the situation. He pulled out his phone, set the timer for 15 minutes, and then put it back in his pocket. Greg put something in his hand, and Peter looked down to see a clear bottle with a spray function, like a perfume bottle.
“That’s Gregscellent. The garlic content is massive. It’ll deter blood suckers for a solid ten seconds if you get one in the face with it.” He paused, looked at Peter with concern, and then turned to leave. He turned back. “I’m going to want that back, though. Considering I don’t die.”
With that, Greg took off jogging through the jungle back toward the trap door. Peter just stood there, mind racing. He waited, which he did understand was not his strong suit, for as long as he could. To his credit, Peter managed to stay put for nine minutes. Rounded up, of course. Armed with Greg’s cologne, held before him threateningly, he followed after the big man. He didn’t even make it three steps before he heard someone or something approaching him through the jungle. He hid behind a particularly thick tree, careful not to get close enough for any local spiders to touch him, and held his breath, waiting. A few seconds later, Greg appeared not far away.
“Did you get them?” Peter said, still holding out the bottle of cologne and leaning to his left to see if anyone was following Greg.
“Give me that,” Greg said, looking at Peter like he was an idiot. He took the cologne and put it back into his bag. “You look like an idiot. And, no, I did not get them. I could smell them though. There are at least two vampires in the area, but they must have gone into the domain itself. Apart from the door being open, everything was the same as yesterday.”
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Peter frowned. “Then what the hell took you so long? I was just about to come after you.”
Greg looked at Peter, matched his frown, and then a smile started creeping across his grizzly features. And then he laughed in Peter’s face.
“What’s so damn funny?”
“You were coming after me? To save me? Oh, my dear knight in shining armor, how ever would I deal with a pair of blood suckers on my own? Thank all of the gods that Peter gods damned Mayhew, hero of man, has it within his giant heart to save little helpless old Greg Van Helsing.” Greg continued laughing in Peter’s face, finally calming down after a moment. “Sorry to keep you waiting oh valiant and brave Peter, I had to take a shit.”
Peter’s frown deepened. Here he was, worried for Greg’s life, and the asshole was relieving himself in the jungle, only to come back and make fun of Peter. “I’m not talking to you for five minutes.”
No more than 9 seconds later, Peter changed his mind. He didn’t just want to stand around in the jungle in silence for 5 minutes.
“Okay, I’m talking to you now. But I’m putting those 5 minutes on debit, and I’ll ignore you later.”
“Generous of you,” Greg said mockingly.
“What do we do now?”
“We try your list of possible passwords. Find out if you’re as clever as you think you are.”
“Let me assure you, I am at least as clever as I think I am.” Peter paused, thinking. “But what happens then? We just go down there? Even though there are vampires?”
Greg only smiled wickedly in response.
A few minutes later, Peter Mayhew once again found himself standing in a hole in the ground. A beam of light poured in from the trap door, the sun directly overhead, that appeared almost tangible in the otherwise dark room. The runes were no longer visible with the trap door still open. Peter looked to Greg, who nodded as if to say, “Let’s do this.”
“The first condition is a blood sacrifice,” Peter said, looking at Greg expectantly.
Without a word, Greg pulled a knife from his belt and handed it to Peter. It was not an ordinary pocket knife that Greg was offering, but a massive, serrated bladed monster almost long enough to be considered a dagger.
Peter looked from the knife to Greg, face turning squeamish. “Ehhh…” he whined.
“Oh fine,” Greg said, flipping the knife to grasp the handle and then pulling its blade across his other hand without a second thought. “Now what?”
“It worked fine when my palm was bleeding and I touched the rune. We can’t see them now, but they’re probably still in the same places. Right?”
“Good bet,” Greg agreed. “About midway up and centered, if I recall.”
“Mhmm,” Peter said.
Greg shrugged his bulky shoulders, approached the wall, and put his bloody palm against it. He turned back to Peter. “How do we know if it worked?”
Peter’s brows knitted together as he considered it. He placed his hand on the wall next to Greg’s and an info-box appeared. Like the final rune he had inspected the day before, this one showed that 1 of 2 conditions for entry were met.
“It worked,” Peter confirmed. “Now we just need the password.”
He pulled the list of possible passwords from his pocket and began scanning over it, trying to decide which to try first. There were six possibilities they’d come up with. He and Renea had made a bet where they each chose their best guess and, if either turned out to be correct, the other would have to order a pumpkin spice latte in a crowded mall. He really did not want to lose this bet. Knowing it wouldn’t make a difference, but doing it anyway, he read Renea’s pick out loud first - just to get it out of the way.
“Titlaniztli,” he said, using the phonetics provided by the dictionary and transcribed onto his pocket sized notebook. To his surprise, excitement, and chagrin, Renea’s pick was a winner.
Why would I even be surprised? he thought to himself sourly. Now he would have to walk around the mall with a PSL like some basic bitch. He considered telling Renea that it was actually his pick that worked, but dismissed the thought quickly. Even if he would lie to Renea, he couldn’t. She would know he was lying before he even opened his mouth.
The small room under the trap door rumbled and shook with the sound of rocks grinding against one another as one of the four walls, the one facing the ruins, sank away into the earth. In only a handful of seconds, the wall was gone. Where it had once stood there was now a tunnel heading deeper into the earth below the Veracruz jungle. There were candles, not torches or candelabra, just simple, singular, floating candles lighting the way. Their dim, flickering light was an ominous red. Peter looked from what he saw as essentially a tunnel leading into hell to Greg.
The big man was holding his short-barreled-shotgun-esque firearm, aiming straight ahead unblinkingly. They stood motionless and silent for long seconds, but neither of their senses picked up any sign that they were in immediate danger. Greg lowered the gun a little, taking a step forward and getting up on his toes to peer into the tunnel. He looked at Peter questioningly.
“Shall we?” he asked. He was smirking, clearly aware of Peter’s discomfort. “I’ll head in first. Stay right on my tail. If… no, not if. When the vamps make themselves known I’m going to use an ability on you. You’re not going to like it, but it’ll keep you out of the fight.”
Peter furrowed his brows. “Why am I not going to like it?”
“It’s probably better if you don’t know.”
“Can’t you just give me the Gregscellent?”
Greg grumbled in irritation as he held his firearm in one hand and used the other to swing his travel bag in front of him. He reached in and pulled out the bottle of cologne and handed it to Peter. “You can have it if it makes you feel better, but I’m still going to do the thing.”
It was then, when Greg was nearly defenseless, one hand holding his weapon vertically and the other held out to Peter that the ambush came.