Chapter Text
CHAPTER ONE
Nothing, Ianto thought, was ever easy.
The branches that kept smacking into his face threatened to blind him, but frankly, that was the least of Ianto’s problems. Up ahead, Jack was a blur of light blue, dodging through the undergrowth ahead of him.
“What was it they’d do to us is they caught us again?” Ianto asked; his chest burning as he just managed to catch up with Jack.. It wasn’t that he thought he could spare the breath to talk; more that he felt the need to remind himself exactly why they couldn’t stop.
“Rip your still-beating heart out of your chest,” Jack replied casually.
Oh right, yes. That was it. “Thought so,” Ianto said with equal ease. “Do we have a plan?”
“Working on it,” Jack shot back, not rising to the bait.
“Oh. That’s good, because for a minute I thought we were in trouble.”
Ianto’s hat caught on one of the branches and he snatched it back reflexively. The short battle caused him to slow a little. Ahead, he saw Jack also slowing, allowing Ianto to come even with his shoulder.
“What kept you?” asked Jack, biting back a smile.
Ianto waved the fedora in Jack’s general direction.
“Didn’t I tell you not to wear that?” Jack questioned him with a raised eyebrow.
“You told me not to wear it…for anyone else,” Ianto said continuing to look straight ahead.
Ahead, the trees had thinned out and behind them their pursuers appeared to have fallen back. Rising in the centre of the clearing, covered with undergrowth, was the remnants of a step pyramid. It matched almost exactly, the blurry image that had brought them here in the first place.
“I said I’d come up with a plan,” said Jack, this time not hiding the smile.
Behind them, rustling and voices signalled the men following them weren’t far behind.
“Given that they seem to be chasing us towards the temple with a view to sacrificing us,” Ianto said, “your plan is to give them what they want?”
Jack looked down at his wrist device, “The rift readings are coming from the pyramid.” he gestured at the stone steps, “If we’re going to find out what’s going on in there, and maybe stop it, it’s where we need to be.”
“If we can do that in such a way as I keep all my internal organs…” Ianto said, as he fell into step behind Jack.
***
A week prior, two things had happened. An Earthquake had rippled through central Mexico, dislodging enough of the rubble and plant growth to reveal the temple entrance to the archaeological survey team in the area. Second and simultaneously; the rift monitors back at the hub had gone crazy, notifying Torchwood of distant temporal activity. Reports had been sporadic at first, little oddities dismissed in the more pressing need of the quake’s effects in Mexico City. Eventually though, repeated stories of unusual sightings had filtered out of the region. The archaeologists had stopped transmitting data four days ago, and five reports of ‘men dressed as Aztec warriors’ who were ‘wreaking bloodthirsty havoc’ had fallen across Jack’s desk.
This had left Jack with a problem. Gwen was two weeks away from getting married, and Owen was, at the very least, mostly dead. He wasn’t in a position to send either of them to Mexico. The very last thing Jack wanted to do was rely on UNIT for help. Particularly when alien technology had been satellite-identified at the site. Jack had decided he and Ianto would make the trek, despite Tosh’s quiet protestations. He’d needed her at the Hub providing support for both he and Ianto, as well as Owen and Gwen on the domestic front. So, Jack had left them with a list of important phone numbers, a detailed list of instructions that all started with ‘in the event of’, and he and Ianto had caught the next flight to Central Mexico.
That flight had been interesting. Funny how they’d ended up with seats in first class.
Back in the present, Jack settled on examining the remains of the archaeologists’ camp. Equipment was strewn about; tents were damaged, finds trays overturned, but there was nothing that might account for their disappearance here on the surface. He’d been half expecting to find them with their hearts torn out, and the fact he hadn’t meant solving this puzzle had just become a little more difficult. Jack looked up at the broken steps that lead to the top of the pyramid and squinted into the sun. From his current location, he couldn’t tell if anything had happened up there recently.
“According to this,” Ianto said, looking down at the scanner Tosh had entrusted to his care, “the entrance should be round about ...”
Jack took that moment to find the entrance to the temple by falling into a hole.
It wasn’t far to fall and the landing barely knocked the wind out of him. Quickly dusting off his shirt, he looked up to see Ianto’s concerned face looking down at him from the edge of the hole.
“Are you all right?” Ianto asked, worriedly..
“I’m fine,” Jack called back up, “although I’d suggest you come down more carefully.”
A rope appeared a few moments later, then Ianto tentatively stepped backwards over the edge, easing his way carefully down the side of the pit. Not a bad view, Jack mused.
Jack caught Ianto at the bottom, holding him briefly, “You know, that leather jacket suits you,” he said with a smile, brushing debris off the collar. “Still not sure about the hat.” He followed his tidying efforts with a rough kiss.
Ianto tipped the hat back for a moment’s better access, then turned his head away abruptly from the kiss and looked down at his feet. He pulled the torch from his pocket and shone it on the ground near where they stood, revealing a pale, upturned hand.
They both took a step back from the corpse.
The dead man lay against the slope, partly concealed by stone blocks. Jack switched on his own torch, the sudden extra light disturbing other inhabitants of the hole. Insects scuttled back into the shadows, and a rat scurried over the chest of the body as Jack tracked his torch over it. A single bullet wound smeared the chin of the corpse with blood, the greater mass of gore spilled from the exit wound. Jack crouched down; looking at the gun laying centimetres from the cadaver’s other hand.
Ianto had drawn his gun and now he aimed it, and his torch, towards the dark maw of the temple. He cast his eye over the body, but kept his weapon and his torch towards the as yet unknown depths.
“Suicide?” Ianto suggested.
“Looks like.”
Jack was no stranger to forms of death. He estimated this death had occurred 48 hours ago, which made it even less pleasant to search the pockets of the dead body for identification. The papers he found were for one Miguel Castille; a missing archaeologist.
Jack knew Ianto was watching him, saying nothing, but obviously thinking the same thing as Jack. What’s down here that made an archaeologist shoot himself?
Jack got to his feet, checked his own gun, and looked into the blackness ahead. A pair of cats’ eyes glinted in the beam from his torch, a low growl sounding ahead of them in the darkness.
“What’s that?” Ianto said.
“Jaguar?” Jack suggested, He threw a stone in the direction of the animal, unwilling to kill it out of hand. With another growl it paced silently away, disappearing into the shadows. “It will probably leave us alone, but don’t let your guard down. Ready?”
Ianto nodded his assent. Let’s do this.
***
The small chamber they were in; Ianto guessed was not really a chamber at all, just given the appearance of one by centuries of tree roots growing through the blocks above, opened into what seemed to be part of the temple proper. He trailed the light of his torch along the walls as Jack searched ahead.
The light caught something red; Ianto’s first thought was blood, sending his heart racing, but it turned out to be paint. It was bright paint, protected from the elements for several centuries by its subterranean location. He caught Jack’s arm, pointing the images out to him. “Some kind of mural,” Ianto said, mostly to himself, “depictions of a God. Tezcatlipoca, I think. Yep, there’s the mirror.”
Seeing Jack’s quizzical expression Ianto asked, “What? I read up before I came.”
Jack tried out the unusual syllables, “So what’s Tez-catl-ipoca doing?”
“Fighting another God,” Ianto explained, “maybe Quetzalcoatl?” Ianto studied the images and then produced a small book from his pocket, holding it up for comparison. “Yes.”
“Anything else, Doctor Jones?” Jack grinned.
Ianto took a long moment to adjust his hat and voice to their most academic, “The two Gods are variously illustrated as enemies, or as variations on a theme, throughout Mexican history. The smoking mirror, Tezcatlipoca, and the feathered serpent, Quetzalcoatl.”
Jack looked down briefly at his wrist, eyeing the flickering readings with suspicion, “The focus of rift activity and the technology readings are both that way,” he pointed deeper into the temple.
Ianto nodded, “That way it is then.”
Jack took the lead. As Ianto followed, he was aware of the darkness closing behind them, even as the torches illuminated the way ahead. Stark white bones, thankfully none of them human, littered the passageway. The musty scent of a wild animal, Ianto assumed the jaguar, was heavy in the air. Every so often something crunched underfoot and Ianto tried hard not to think about what it might be.
More murals danced in the torchlight; vivid against the whitewashed stone blocks, two priests, one of each God. As Ianto turned to look again and comment on the details; something was irking him but he didn’t know what, something about the way they seemed to be telling a bloody story about Cortez’ men. Out of the corner of his eye, Ianto caught sight of something moving up in the tunnel. He whirled, training his gun and torch onto the spot and seeing only a grainy, reflective surface ahead.
“Whoa,” Jack said, putting his hand up to shield his eyes from the sudden glare of Ianto’s torch.
“Sorry,” Ianto caught his breath and lowered the light, “thought I saw something.”
Ahead, the passage had reached its end, terminating in a cracked slab of glassy volcanic rock. The torchlight and polished surface gave Jack and Ianto the illusion of ghosts, reflected in the smoky greys of the obsidian. To the left, a cracked edge and narrow opening offered a route beyond the wall.
“Shall we?” Jack’s voice was go-lucky, but there was just enough light to notice his eyes were dark with concern.
This probably wasn’t the time for Ianto to mention he was beginning to feel a little claustrophobic; so he buried it deep, funny how easy that became at Torchwood, and found humour instead. “Age before beauty,” he gestured for Jack to precede him.
“Some of us have both,” Jack retorted, and peered into the space.
“Careful,” Ianto said, “I don’t want you to get your ego stuck; it’s a very narrow gap.”