Read Cult of the Black Jaguar for Free Online Page B

Temple de Sangre rising above the other ruins. Fires burned at the top, a deadly beacon in the darkness.
    As he ran through the ancient streets, he prayed he wouldn’t have to be the one to tell the winged demon the professor was dead.
    At the temple’s peak, Ethan found himself in a scene from Guatemala’s barbaric past. Jenny lay unconscious on a stone altar, her hands and feet tied to iron spikes set into the solid rock.
    Signs of a struggle were evident. Scratches marred her porcelain skin and her robe was in tatters. Her hair, its fiery color enhanced by the blazing torches, spread out beneath her head like a fan of spun bronze.
    Ix Chel stood with her back to Ethan, chanting a prayer to her foul gods. Her raised hands clutched an obsidian blade that appeared blood-red as it reflected the light of the fires.
    Ethan leaped from the window ledge onto the Priestess’s back, knocking her away from the altar. He’d expected his attack to stun the woman, but she twisted underneath him and brought the blade up and into his stomach.
    It wasn’t a disabling blow, but the pain was enough to wring a cry from him as he rolled away from her.
    He quickly rose to his feet, the wound already closing, only to find himself facing a different enemy.
    The diminutive teenager with the beautiful face was gone. In her place was a beast half jaguar and half human, with a flattened muzzle where her nose and mouth once were.
    Ebony fur covered her entire body. Although she stood on her hind legs, her knees and ankles held a feline, not human, shape, lending a pronounced crouch to her posture. Her hands and feet were now tremendous paws, each digit longer than a man’s finger and tipped with a wicked-looking claw as sharp as any blade.
    Her chest still bore the rounded outline of a woman’s figure, but now twin lines of teats poked through the fur of her belly. A long, twitching tail extended behind her.
    In the cat-like visage of her metamorphosed face, her wild, amber eyes finally seemed at home.
    â€œSo the legends are true,” Ethan growled. He held his hands outwards, ready for the were-jaguar’s attack.
    Ix Chel’s response was a wall-shaking howl as she sprang.
    Ethan met her attack, gripping her shoulders with his claws even as her own dagger-like nails gouged his scaly flesh. Her momentum carried them backwards into the altar, and Ethan leaned back, using his leverage to kick out with his legs and send the she-beast across the chamber. She hit the far wall with a grunt and regained her balance with lightning speed.
    A wicked grin spread across her short snout, white fangs standing out against black fur.
    As if by some secret signal, the two mythical creatures leaped at each other once more, claws and teeth fighting to inflict damage. Blood flew and animal voices roared.
    Behind them, Jenny moaned as consciousness slowly returned.
    More than a hundred feet below, Rory Amos and Elton Harrison stared up at the epic battle going on in the altar chamber.
    â€œJenny’s up there. She’s still alive.” Rory pointed.
    â€œIt will take us forever to reach her. I don’t think my legs can make it up those stairs.”
    â€œMaybe there’s another way. Don’t these pyramids always have a secret entrance?”
    â€œHow should I bloody know? I’m a doctor, not an archeologist.” Nevertheless, the two of them circled the temple, looking for any sign of a hidden doorway.
    What they found instead was a wide-open entrance set into the rear wall.
    â€œThat must be how they got Jenny up there. C’mon!” Rory grabbed a torch and led the way inside.
    â€œMr. Amos, let’s not be hasty. That Veracruz fellow might be somewhere around here…”
    â€œHe is.” Amos motioned with the torch.
    On the floor just past the entrance lay Hector’s body. Blood ran from ragged bite marks in his neck and deep furrows carved into his chest, and one arm sat at an