Mick clenches his eyes shut, forcing his concentration deeper. A third and final head pushes out from the mouth of the second, the three extended serpent jaws locking in place.

The array shuts down. Mick drops to one knee, his focus sapped, his mind exhausted from the effort.

And then, high above the pyramid appears a rotating emerald cylinder of energy, a cosmic fourth-dimensional corridor traversing space and time, reaching down from the darkening heavens to link with the tail of the inanimate alien serpent.

The commandos drop their weapons. Ming-Ding falls to his knees, stunned, as if he is gazing into the face of God.

Somewhere off to Mick’s right, the president’s helicopter lands.

Mick gazes into the open portal, weighing his decision, struggling to push aside his fear.

“Mick!”

Dominique climbs down from the chopper.

Guardian’s words: You must not allow her to enter. “Chaney, keep her back!”

The president grabs her wrist.

“Let me go! Mick, what are you doing—”

He looks at her, feeling the heaviness growing in his chest. Go—do it now, before she follows!

Clutching the obsidian dagger in his right hand, he turns away, then steps over the bottom rows of teeth and enters the first of the serpent’s hyperextended mouths.

Chapter 28

Chapter 28

The reptilian jaws close behind him, the third head retracting into the mouth of the second.

Mick is standing in absolute darkness, his heart beating like a timpani. Suddenly, the entrance seems to suck him forward without actually moving him, a nauseating sensation tugging at his internal organs, as if his intestines are being unraveled. Dizzy, he squeezes his eyes shut, clutching the obsidian blade to his chest.

Light.

He opens his eyes, the squeamish feeling gone. He is no longer in the serpent’s mouth. He is standing within the Mayan Ball Court, which is now enclosed within an enormous whirling cylinder of emerald energy.

I’ve entered the porthole … I’m on the cusp of another dimension …

It is as if he is viewing the world through vividly colored glasses. Beyond his rotating surroundings he can see a lavender sky, the heavens blazing with a million stars, each exuding a kaleidoscope of energy waves as it moves across the tapestry of the universe. Directly overhead is the dark rift, running like a jagged cosmic river of purple gas across the very center of the magenta cosmos.

As he steps forward, the surrounding objects blur in his peripheral vision as if he is moving faster than his eyes can focus.

One hundred yards away, at the far end of the enclosed ball court, he sees the second mouth of the serpent, the orifice positioned below the Temple of the Bearded Man.

Moving out from the open jowls—a figure—cloaked from hood to ground in a black shroud.

Mick’s limbs quiver with adrenaline and fear. He grips the dagger tighter.