“So, now what,” Autumn asked as she stood as still as she could.

Andrews crept up closer to Autumn and slowly scanned the room. He flashed his flashlight into all the corners and crevaces but did not see any visible signs of traps.

He replied, “Well, I am not sure. The room does not seem to have any visible traps. But that does not mean that we should watch where we step and be really careful. I am sure there is at least one more thing we need to pass before we are able to touch that scepter. It seems to simple for it to be sitting here alone.”

Autumn nodded and relaxed a bit, “You go in that room first. I do not want to trigger anything.”

“Okay,” Andrews shrugged and boldly took a step inside the cavernous room. He held his breath, and mentally said a small prayer. He did not want to accidently trigger anything to make himself look like a fool. After a minute went by, he waved the all clear to Autumn, “Okay. It feels safe to me. Feel free to join me at any time.”

Autumn carefully followed in the footprints that Andrews made upon entering the room. She stood as close to him as she could but kept her eyes on the sceptre. Leaning over Andrews shoulder, Autumn tried to get a better view of what the wand was sitting on. An ornate, grey and brown stone pillar sat alone, just before them. The odd thing about it was that while it sat completely enclosed in the sun, no plant life grew from out olf the dirt ground or the rocks. No moss, no lichen, no mold. Dust particles glinted like will-o-wisps in the air, swirling and dancing mindlessly in the haze. The golden wand shimmered in the sun as it sat perched on two holders made of obsidian. Now that they were standing close, they could see that the holders were ornately carved into two croching panthers, their sloped backs bent inwards to support the weight of the sceptre. Each cat’s mouth was open to expose a full mouth of tiny sharp-pointed teeth. Autumn smiled and thought that it made the cats look like they were yawning or howling at them.

“You think they are trying to warn us,” she asked, pointing at the closest panther. “You know, so we do not take the wand and upset the gods that these two are minions of?”

“Maybe so. I would not doubt that. The Mayans always had a strong reverence and close ties to their gods. Wish I knew more about their structure, so I could tell which god these little kittens were familiars of. Could probably help us determine what course of action to take when we remove the sceptre from the cradle.”

He bent down near the stone pillar and stared at the stones. There were no hieroglyphs. Nothing marking or identifying what the object was. Autumn took his lead and bent down as well, just as Andrews was walking off towards the glyphs that appeared on the wall directly behind them. Bending down at this angle, she saw that the top of the pillar had been smoothed flat and there was a reflection in the center of the flat top. It was made of a black reflective stone. She stood up again and leaned far over the pillar, her hands locked behind her back so she did not accidently touch anything that could trigger yet another unseen trap.

At first she saw her reflection in the mirror, the contours of her face thin and her skin glowing in a slight tan. The room grew cold and she could see her breath appear over the flat mirror. Autumn shivered and noticed her reflection in the mirror morph and swirl about, changing into something else. Her eyes grew locked on the mirror and she felt a weight press deep into her heart. She continued to stare at the image and forced it to become clearer. Finally, after a minute or two of focused thinking, she made out the new image inside the mirror. It was a reflection of a panther, which winked at her just as the one in her dreams had done. Smiling at the image of the black cat with grey eyes, she knew what she was meant to do. She stretched out with both arms and reached for the center of the mirror. Something warm was now in her grasp and then her vision went black.

“Autumn. Autumn, can you hear me? Damnit, girl, I told you not to touch anything.” Autumn’s eyes fluttered as she heard the sound of a familiar voice off in the distance. “Autumn… wake up, damnit.” Her eyes snapped open, shocking Andrews.

“Oh thank gods, you are alright,” he said hugging her close.

Autumn was laying on the ground. She turned her head and looked around. They were outside the Mayan temple and it was warm and sunny. She quickly sat up and realized that she still held something in her hands. Looking down she saw that the wand that they had spent all this time searching for, was in her hand’s grasp.

“How did I get out here? And how did this get into my hands?” She asked feeling a bit woozy as she tried to stand up. Andrews pushed her back down to the ground gently.

“Honestly, I do not know. One minute I was staring at the hieroglyphs, trying to figure out their meaning from the translationsw provided by the twins and the next, I see you hovering over the sceptre with your hands reached out to grab it. And then, once you got it, you crumpled to the floor. I had to carry you out of the temple myself. Could not even remove the thing from your hands because you held onto it so tightly. Celeste was over by the Jeep when I came out.”

Autumn snapped her head arond. “Where is she? I do not see her anywhere.”

“I sent her back to one of the nearest villas for help. Spent the last twenty minutes trying desperately to wake you up. I hope she comes back soon,” he said uncapping one of the plastic bottles of bottled water. He offered it to Autumn who gulped it down. It felt cool and refreshing to her throat and helped the feeling of sickness go away.

“Thanks. I think I will be fine now,” Autumn said as she handed the bottle back to Andrews. Immediately her hands went back to holding the wand. “All I know is that there was a mirror on the pedastal back there and I saw a panther in the reflection. And it told me to reach out and take the wand, because I had passed the test.”

They heard voices coming from off in the distance. They were able to identify both Celeste’s voice and as many as two other male mexican voices.

“Celeste, over here,” Andrews said, “She is awake. I think Autumn will be alright.” He paused, wishing he had not spoken. The hairs on the back of his neck rose and he felt that something was wrong.

“That is great news, indeed.” came a growl from behind the corner of the temple. It sounded like a mix between part-Celeste and part-something else.

A tall, dark, scaley figure appeared out from around the corner. It was grey and had huge batlike wings growing from behind it. Its eyes were a deep cobalt blue and its mouth was filled with lots of sharp pointy teeth. Puffs of steam rose from out of the creature’s nose as sharp taloned feet dug into the ground as it walked closer to them. Long gangly arms ending in hands with three long clawed fingers hung next to the creature’s side. Autumn gasped in horror as she realized the truth about their guide. She had been a plant, she was a daemon working for Blackstone; he had been watching them from the very beginning.

Standing behind what the now changed Celeste were a group of ten men. They all wore the same clothing, black military fatigues with long sleeve black shirts. On their right arm, was a patch of a black raven on a white background with a red circle that seperated the patch from the black clothes. These were Blackstone’s men. And they were carrying sub-machine guns. Andrews looked closely to where the safety mechanism was and discovered that they were off. The guns were armed and they were pointed straight down at himself and Autumn. The men were ready to shoot them if he did not give them the sceptre.

Andrews pushed the hand that was on the ground deeper into the dirt. He had one shot of creating a distraction and getting them out of there. He figured that he would tell Autumn to run to the edge of the forest. There was no way they would be able to get to the jeep and get it started before the guns cut them down to shreds. “We may not even get a chance to make it to the edge of the jungle. I just hope Autumn is up to a small, afternoon run,” he thought, making mental calculations in his head. His fingers curled around a small pile of dirt. He breathed normall and hung onto the small clump in his hands.

The Celeste-daemon’s tail whipped back and forward as it approached them. Autumn cluthed the wand closer to her chest, in a half hearted attempt to protect it.

“Give me the scepter girl,” the daemon snarled. It stretched out its hand, giving Autumn a chance to hand it over. “We will not hurt you if you give it to me. Blackstone wants you both alive. He needs you for his ritual. So if you give it to me now, we will not harm or mangle you in any way.”

Autumn scambled back. She tried desperately to get as far away from the daemon as possible, “No. I am NOT going to let you have it you disgusting bitch.” And with that, Andrews had found his moment. He whipped his hand that held the dirt around and past Autumn and flung it directly at the daemon’s face. The dirt flew out from his fingers and landed in her face. The daemon howled in agony, she was blinded.

“Autumn run to the jungle,”Andrews said as he jumped up and ran to Celeste. He tackled the big daemon, pushing the smooth and cold being back into as many armed men as he could.

Autumn ran for her life. She continued to hold the wand to her chest and refused to look back behind her. She hoped that Andrews was behind him. She heard the daeomn cry out and then a loud smacking sound as something hit the ground behind her. Against her better judgement, she turned around to see that they had knocked Andrews out and were standing over him, guns pointed to the back of his head.

“If you take another step,” Celeste said rubbing the last of the dirt from her eyes, “we will kill him and then kill you. Either way, we win and the sceptre belongs to Blackstone. Question is, do you want to continue living or die here and now to be forgotten and rotting in an old temple?”

To stress the point even more, one of the men trained his rifle onto the ground besides her. He pulled the trigger and a few rounds thumped down at Autumn’s feet. She screamed and cowered, dropping down to her knees. Tears started streaming down her face as fear gripped her. She did not want to die, but could not really say anything to the abomination. She continued to hug the wand to her chest but did not make any attempt to move further either.

The daemon’s feet made claw-like footprints as it turned and walked towards her. Small clumps of dust followed her as the three-towed claws dug into the ground. The creature’s tail flicking back and forth as it ackwardly bent downwards. Its mouth curled painfully into a fit of teeth and a half-hearted attempt at a smile.

“Pooor thing,” it sneered. “Your mind shut down on you. Is all this, after what you have went through, disturbing you? Or is it my true form that has you all shivering and sniveling like a little child?”

It reached out and swiped the sceptre with its hand. “Haul him into the truck,” it said, “Blackstone will be expecting them alive and unharmed. I hope he does not take it out on me that we had to hurt that one.”

It fixed its eyes back on Autumn. Cocking its head to one side, Celeste thought best on what to do with the stunned girl. The daemon stood up again and its tail whipped faster and faster and then, suddenly it shot out from behind its body and slapped Autumn squarely on the face. “Get her and put her in the truck as well. Tie them both up so they cannot attempt to escape again,” it said as Autumn fell back to the ground, unconscious once more.