Solomon's Seal

by Skyla Dawn Cameron

  “Well, Mr. Pulaski, I had some troubles with the last men sent to help me—do I need to worry about you forcing me at gunpoint over a nest of drakones?”

  The man paled. “Oh fuck no. West would torture me.”

  Interesting that he didn’t say “kill me”—couldn’t’ve been an exaggeration, then. “Good to know.” I looked at Mr. Rolph next. “Think we’re close?”

  “I hope we’re close,” he said.

  “Good enough for me—let’s finish up and keep going.”

  ❇

  Echoes of shouts and scuffles plagued us as we made our way through the cave, following carved marks that indicated we were on the right path. Occasionally the bloody aftermath of drakones corpses met us—only two that I’d see, both much smaller beasts, but tunnels led off the main path and there could’ve been more. Movement was easier, however, without the constant threat of beasts after us. They must’ve enjoyed trailing the tiger more than humans.

  We passed another room that looked manmade—no sign of the Seal, and thank fuck there was no nest—which continued into a tunnel. The tunnel then widened until it could fit two lanes of traffic easily; the ceiling rose higher and higher, dwarfing us, and darkness yawned ahead. Abruptly the large passage sloped downward, so deep my headlamp didn’t pierce the darkness.

  And we found rigging already set up.

  I looked down the slope where ropes disappeared into darkness and didn’t see the bottom, so I pulled out a glowstick, cracked it, and tossed it down. It hit the rock and rolled, twisted, spinning down a hundred feet until it splashed in water at the bottom and disappeared.

  Great. A huge, gaping diagonal pitch into water and god knows what else.

  I eyed the rig. “Would West and the others really get far enough ahead of us to put this together and be down there already?”

  Mr. Rolph came to my side, gazing down the slope. “Not in my opinion—I think they branched off at the last fork chasing something.” He met my gaze when I looked at him quizzically. “Tracks in the dirt.”

  “But someone came down here recently?”

  “Yes.”

  Realization was slow at first, dawning for a moment before crashing hard, gripping my shoulders with tension and speeding my heart’s beat.

  Martin.

  “Let’s move.” I already had my harness and descender clipped to the rope, and stepped off the rock, the rope rigged up taut and holding my weight. My feet left the ground and I gripped the rope with my gloved hands and eased myself down. Mr. Rolph and Pulaski followed.

  The air chilled the farther down I went; I breathed in the dank, wet smell of mold and decay, choked on it, and kept going. Something dripped in the distance, a steady, irritating noise that I blocked out as best I could. The sloping tunnel didn’t narrow, still wider than a highway—enough for a couple of buses to drive through.

  Or a whole lot of drakones.

  I dangled over the water at the bottom for a moment; extending my legs let my feet touch the water and inches from there I hit solid rock. I unhooked my harness again and slipped out of it as Mr. Rolph joined me. He cast his flashlight ahead, hitting more limestone and the huge black mouth of the cavern beyond.

  No sign of Martin.

  Worry tightened my throat and sped my steps as I walked from the pool, up an incline, and deeper into the cavern. Sibling rivalry aside, he was my brother—I couldn’t bear the thought of anything happening to him. He had to live another day so that I could laud my finding the Seal over him.

  I glanced around, my headlamp dragging over the walls immediately around me but not penetrating the darkness at the end—the cavern was the size of a stadium easily. Pulaski reached the bottom behind us, and I left Rolph with him as I headed into the chamber to explore. My steps were soft and deliberate, boot treads gripping the ground, and my knees were slightly bent as I readied for anything. An uncomfortable chill had settled in my bones and gooseflesh spread down my neck. My stomach twisted, a sense of foreboding pushing hard on me.

  Whatever was down here, it wouldn’t be good.

  The walls around me branched off into darkness. My right hand moved toward my gun, resting on the butt, ready to draw it.

  Fingers latched on my left wrist and yanked.

  I spun, hand raised to strike, when my headlamp struck a familiar face.

  I froze and Martin did the same. His brown eyes were wide, face smeared with dirt and something darker, possibly blood. He pressed a finger to his lips and let my wrist go slowly; I nodded and went with him when he took a few steps back.

  My brother wore a helmet but his lamp was off, coveralls were stained in dirt and grime, and a large handkerchief was tied about his neck to be easily pulled over his face as needed. He didn’t have a gun that I could see—rarely carried and wouldn’t in a cave like this, which certainly explained why he was so ashen. We moved back from the large cavern, running into Mr. Rolph and Pulaski. An additional man I didn’t recognize joined us, also with his light off and sticking close to Martin.

  “My team is dead,” Martin said in a low voice. “We’re all that’s left.”

  “Is the Seal in here?” I asked.

  “In theory, yes, but,” he leaned in close, “it’s not the only thing.” His gaze lifted over my shoulder.

  I looked as well and couldn’t see anything—nothing in the cavern but more rock. My lamp scanned the ground, catching massive boulders—

  Wait. That isn’t rock.

  I left my companions and took three steps forward, eyes probing the shapes in the dim light.

  Not a rock: the knuckle of a long clawed toe.

  I looked up, up, the shape taking form—it was another drakon, all right, but bigger. Much, much bigger.

  West said the adults could reach over one hundred feet long—he wasn’t kidding. What I could see of her looked like something out of a dinosaur replica museum: she was a great, hulking beast of leathery skin, larger than any creature on land and, quite possibly, the sea. It was a gentle mercy she slept, eyes that were no doubt sightless closed and body curled.

  I stepped back with caution, staring at the creature though it didn’t move. The cavern was enormous to support such a thing—in fact I had no idea how deep this cave went underground—and the ring could be anywhere.

  “Well,” I said softly as I stood with the others, back from the mouth of the cave, all of us staring at Momma Drakon. “Guess you should’ve listened to me.”

  Martin’s gaze flickered my way. “He told me giant lizards, Liv. You really thought I was going to buy that?”

  “It was worth a try.”

  “We scouted around the cave. Symbols something like the Order of the Seal of Solomon’s are carved all over so it has to be the right place—this was a temple at some point—but I can’t figure out where the ring is.”

  “I would guess the other side of the cave,” Mr. Rolph spoke up.

  I sighed. “Of course. Any other creatures in here you’ve seen, besides the drakon?”

  Martin shook his head. “Not even the smaller ones—haven’t seen one of them since we got down here.”

  I will put that under the “good news” column. “I wonder why.”

  “She eats her young.”

  I didn’t turn in the direction of West’s voice but continued to watch the sleeping dragon ahead. “Being a single mother will do that to you. Did only you make it back?”

  West moved to stand next to me. “The other two are waiting at the top in case they’re needed to clear the path out.”

  I wasn’t entirely certain I liked everyone separated but I didn’t argue. “She eats them, you say?”

  “They’re cannibals. It’s how they’ve survived down here so long.”

  Oh, Dawson was going to love stories about this—especially as I didn’t think “so long” referred to just four years since the Pulse. “Any more tidbits?”

  “I imagine she’s blind as well.”

  So we could keep our lights on, at leas
t. “Okay, let’s split up—you go left, scouting, while Mr. Rolph and I go right.” When West didn’t argue, I continued. “Mr. Pulaski?” I didn’t wait for a response. “Please keep a gun on my brother and ensure he doesn’t follow me or get hurt.”

  “Liv,” Martin started.

  I cast a grin at him over my shoulder. “My ring, Martin. You get to watch your baby sister win the prize this time.”

  I stepped forward with caution, my stomach twisting despite my bravado. I kept the drakon in my peripheral vision as I glanced around at my surroundings. The ground was broken stone tile, large squares cracked and smashed—centuries old, at least. I stepped with care, feeling the ground before lifting my foot again, careful not to crunch stones under my boots though my footfalls echoed anyway. A breath in through my nose filled my lungs with damp cave air, and I tried to steady myself with each inhalation. Wasn’t doing much good—of everything I’d encountered in a few years on this “job”, I’d never seen anything quite so...big as the thing currently to my left.

  I kept to the perimeter of the cavern but the mother drakon took up most of the space. The odd bone gleamed white in the darkness; I figured she ate her prey whole normally, but perhaps a few were from kills that invaded her territory rather than a meal. A recent kill was entirely human, slumped to the side, the wall above him cracked and streaked with blood. The drakon tail had to be like being hit by a bus, enough to kill on impact rather than bruise some ribs like when the baby hit me days earlier—the guy must’ve been part of Martin’s team, and given the blood loss, I didn’t check to see if he was still breathing. A machete was in the dirt a foot from his outstretched hand, not a speck on it—probably didn’t get a single hit in before being killed.

  Still nothing indicated the location of the Seal—no light shining on a pedestal like in an Indiana Jones movie, no ancient writing on the walls with a cryptic message I wouldn’t’ve been able to decipher anyway. Rarely had I felt so far out of my league, despair hovering on the edge around me.

  Movement caught my attention; I froze, turned. Held my breath.

  And stared into a blinking, white eye the size of a platter. Terror iced through my veins as she drew in a breath through slit nostrils, scenting me from six feet away.

  Momma Drakon was awake, and as she opened her mouth and hissed, she made it clear she knew we were here.

  21

  Drakon Rising

  I backed up as her tongue darted out and sliced through the air. The ground rumbled under my feet as the drakon shifted and rose. Her tail whipped behind her and someone shouted.

  Shit. I had to not get hit by that thing.

  She breathed in again and moved forward with more speed than a creature that size should be capable of, her head the size of an SUV coming dangerously close to me. I scrambled back, ducked. My heel slipped on loose rock and I fell back, thumping hard on my elbows even through the padding I had strapped on. I blinked and my headlamp caught her foot coming down, straight for me; rolling, turning, limestone crunched under me as I moved and she missed me by inches. Her foot thundered down, claws scratching stone. I scrambled away, kicking until I got my feet under me.

  My heart hammered as I kept running, twisting from side to side, scanning the massive cavern. Ideally I wanted to get the Seal and get out but I hadn’t a fucking clue where it was in the first place, and a leisurely look for it wasn’t on the menu for us now.

  Hisses. Stomping. The crack of smashed stone. Chaotic din rose around me as my companions shouted and I couldn’t make their words out, not past the pound of my pulse in my ears. If finding the Seal and running was out of the question, there seemed two choices: run away and hope it goes back to sleep so we could come back, preferably without being eaten by the babies, or...

  We had to kill it.

  Someone else must’ve had the same thought as gunfire ripped through the cavern, echoing. Fangs glistening with saliva shone in the shaky light from multiple headlamps—fangs the size of a small person.

  And those fangs were headed right for where Martin and Pulaski stood near the entrance.

  Pulaski raised a gun and fired but Martin had nothing except a multi-purpose knife he pulled from the sheath at his belt, which wasn’t going to do him any good. I slipped out both my guns and squeezed the triggers repeatedly, aiming for the head, but though they ripped through her flesh, she barely seemed to notice. Her tail swung toward me and I dove forward, hitting the ground an instant before she would’ve smacked me, so close the underside brushed my helmet and blew a breeze over my face.

  Just as the tail was past me I was on my feet, running and holstering my guns. This wasn’t working—she dripped blood but wasn’t slowing. A fatal wound would put her down and not much else.

  I didn’t let the plan fully form in my head because it was just too insane to contemplate, even for me; I simply acted, racing around the dragon for the others as I angled my backpack around so I could rifle through it. I yanked out a plastic parka that was rolled up and gave it a shake, snapping it into place as I cast my backpack aside. The pack thumped at my feet, was left behind and temporarily forgotten as I struggled into the waterproof plastic. My hands worked automatically, pulling back the helmet to slip the parka’s hood over my head, then back the hardhat went again, strapped under my chin. With the hood pulled down, most of me was covered except my lower face.

  The others had scattered and I made Martin my target; as the drakon went after Pulaski, I met my brother and gestured for the scarf around his neck.

  “Give!”

  He frowned but didn’t argue for once in our goddamned lives and pulled the handkerchief. I tied it around my lower face, old west style, and rounded the cavern again. My headlamp caught the dead guy and his machete, and my brain promptly went on autopilot, as if giving up on talking me out of this.

  I grabbed the machete and scanned the massive cavern; between the darkness of its sheer size and poor lighting, and the prehistoric looking beast taking up most of it, I couldn’t see much of anything.

  “West!” I trusted he could hear my shout as foolish as it may be.

  Movement caught my attention, West diving out of the way of the drakon’s tail and landing in a crouch like a cat. He met my gaze.

  “Distraction!” I said.

  He barely nodded and was stripping off his shirt as fine white hair sprouted from his flesh. I nearly halted to watch with an awkward fascination, stripes rising as bone shifted, man turning to beast, but I hadn’t the time.

  The plastic parka crackled as I moved and the handkerchief over my face was musty, trapping my warm breath and bouncing it back at me. My grip tightened on the machete’s handle and I rocked on the balls of my feet, waiting. West bounded past, a streak of white in the darkness, leaping with grace over the drakon’s hind foot and darting under the body. A moment later he was on the creature’s back, clinging with claws dug in deep while the beast thrashed.

  One more piece needed to be in place. I glanced at Mr. Rolph and he met my eyes; perhaps he knew what I was about to say but I spoke it aloud anyway. “I need a boost!”

  He jogged over, darting to the side as the drakon stomped, her attention still on West clawing across her spine. Rolph dropped to one knee, facing the creature, and waited.

  I took a deep breath and didn’t remember taking another after that as I ran forward. A foot sank into the ground near me, long nails chipped with age and spitting up dirt beneath them. I ducked under the creature’s body, limestone crunching under my boots, and I ran past the underside of her neck, past Rolph several feet away, and then spinning and stepping back to gaze up. West darted along her spine and the tail flicked dangerously, cracking stone walls—I hoped the others had the sense to hide.

  I ran, pushing my legs until they ached, not allowing even a moment of hesitation despite knowing how Mr. Rolph was about to hurt. I hit his lower back and he held; next foot landed on his shoulder.

  Her head whipped my way just as I barely caught my b
earings, jaw open to release a horrific, angry cry.

  I pushed off Mr. Rolph and leapt.

  My free hand latched onto her fang, pushed me forward, and I landed on the soft surface of the dragon’s tongue. My knees sank and slipped, the creature shaking her head and throwing me off balance. Darkness closed around me, my headlamp adjusting to illuminate pink, wet flesh. A dank smell rose from bad teeth and the darkness that faded into her throat and beyond.

  Shit shit shit... Even a playlist wouldn’t make me feel better being in a Drakon Momma’s mouth.

  Her head shook and I latched onto the teeth, nearly losing the machete as she tried to knock me loose. I scrambled, feet kicking wetly at the tongue as I struggled up. She lurched, jostling me. Slick wetness coated my parka, plastic crackling. I reached blindly, grasped something smooth and long—a fang. Foul air was thick and hot, making it hard to breathe with the scarf over my face.

  I glanced upward. Now or she swallows you whole...

  I stood tall; my foot slipped. Again, I righted myself—it was akin to being in a closet during an earthquake, the tiny world I was stuck in shaking back and forth. I squealed like a damn girl, unable to even form a curse. The tongue beneath my feet moved, rolling as if to swallow me. My grip tightened on the machete.

  I didn’t count to three, didn’t plan, just folded my other hand on the machete as well. Before I could lose my balance, both feet flew out to brace against the drakon’s gums, practically throwing me into the splits, and I thrust the weapon upward, in a very awkward He-Man pose.

  Blade bit through cartilage. Blood splattered and I bowed my head as it poured down. A deafening shriek worked up the vocal cords behind me, blasting my ears. Even as the mouth shook, I hung on, straining my arms to keep the weapon in my target. I gave it a twist, blade cutting through meat, screaming from the effort.

  More fluid and hunks of flesh fell. Light not my own pierced my eyes—she’d opened her mouth.

  I left the machete behind, kicked off her gums and trudged forward. Landing was gonna hurt but no more than being swallowed whole by a hopefully-dying beast.