“Not voices, it’s more like a sixth sense.” He massages his eyes.

This trip may have been a big mistake. He needs help. He could be close to a nervous breakdown. Dominique suddenly feels very isolated.

“You think I’m a psycho—”

“I didn’t say that.”

“No, but you’re thinking it.” He turns and looks at her. “The ancient Maya believed in good and evil as a physical presence. They believed that the great teacher, Kukulcan, was banished by an evil force, an evil god the Aztecs called Tezcatilpoca, the smoking mirror. It was said that Tezcatilpoca could reach into the souls of man, deceiving him, causing him to commit great atrocities.”

“Mick, that’s all Mayan folklore. My grandmother used to tell me the same stories.”

“They’re not just stories. When Kukulcan died, the Mayans began butchering tens of thousands of their own people. Men, women, and children were sacrificed in bloody rituals. Many were taken to the temple summit atop the Kukulcan pyramid, where they had their hearts cut out from their chests. Virgins were led down the ancient causeway to the sacred cenote where they had their throats slit before they were tossed into the sinkhole to die. The temples in Chichén Itza are decorated with the skulls of the dead. The Maya had lived in peace for a thousand years. Something must have influenced them suddenly to start butchering one another.”

“According to your father’s journal, the Maya were superstitious, believing the sacrifices would forestall the end of the world.”

“Yes, but there was another influence, the cult of Tezcatilpoca, that was also said to have influenced the atrocities.”

“Nothing you’ve told me so far proves the existence of evil. Man has been slaughtering his own kind since our ancestors dropped from the trees. The Spanish Inquisition butchered thousands, Hitler and the Nazis gassed and burned six million Jews. Violence erupts all the time in Africa. The Serbs slaughtered thousands in Kosovo—”

“Exactly my point. Man is weak, he allows his free will to be corrupted by outside influences. The evidence is everywhere.”

“What evidence?”

“The corruption is spreading to our most innocent members of society. Children are using their freedom of choice to commit atrocities, their conscience unable to grasp the difference between right and wrong, reality and fantasy. I watched a CNN story a few nights ago where a ten-year-old took his father’s automatic weapon to class and murdered two kids who were picking on him in school.” Mick stares out to sea, his eyes brimming again. “A ten-year-old child, Dominique.”

“It’s a sick world—”