by J. R. Rain
Under the cover of darkness, just as before, I easily worked open the lock on the tomb and led Hannah and her father into the tomb. We went directly to the place where the entry could be found and slid it open. Just as before, the opening was an extremely tight squeeze that didn’t do either my ribs or the stitches any good, but I’d clenched my teeth and forced myself through in spite of the pain. Force of necessity had often made me push past my limitations.
Seeing the tomb and its contents firsthand, instead of relying on what Hannah was able to communicate to me, provided an entirely different picture—and one that I wished I’d explored earlier. After some snooping around, in the way that we archeological adventurers have a tendency to do, I located the trigger to another sliding wall. Descending from its opening was a very old stone stairway.
“After you,” Hannah said, waving, not warming to the idea of descending first down a foreboding stairway into the bowels of the earth with nothing more than a flashlight to light her way. And two full-grown men behind her. I didn’t blame her.
And so, I squeezed through another tight opening and took the first few tentative steps upon the stone steps.
“Stick close behind me,” I ordered.
I didn’t hear any complaints, and together, we descended the stairs and soon came to a landing inside a large room. A room shaped hexagonally, with each wall sporting its own arched opening. One of the openings led to the very same stairway we’d just descended.
Dr. Byrd and Hannah drew up beside me in the room and pointed their lights in random fashion, illuminating the various openings.
“Does your fancy mosaic indicate where we’re supposed to go?” I asked, stumped.
Dr. Byrd drew out the journal and studied it while Hannah and I shined our lights on its pages.
A moment later, he ordered us to shine our beams above each of the archways. As Hannah and I complied, we noticed immediately that there were symbols carved into the keystones of each doorway. To me, they appeared to be identical and certainly useless as any sort of reference. But with his finger tracing a symbol in the mosaic, Dr. Byrd studied and compared each keystone with grueling intensity.
“Is there something in particular you’re looking for, Professor?” I asked, suddenly wishing for a cigarette, and after nearly a quarter of an hour had passed, during which time he’d ordered our lights to be shifted from one keystone to the next, then back to the journal. We repeated the process ad nauseam.
“There!” he shouted. He snapped the journal shut and started toward the opening below the last keystone he had been studying. In a cheerful tone, he said, “I’ll let you lead on, Mr. Quatermain, if you’re of a mind to.”
Chapter Thirteen
The narrow hall was lined with human skulls and bones, all covered in dust, although patches of white gleamed in our lamplight.
“Oh my God,” Hannah whispered, and held fast to my arm.
I agreed with her sentiments completely, and, after pushing forward through the corridor of death, we soon came upon a small room sporting two more arched openings. Again, Dr. Byrd studied the mosaic against the symbols over the doorways and, after several minutes, directed us through what he believed to be the proper opening—and found ourselves in yet another bone-lined tunnel. We repeated the pattern three more times and traveled what I estimated to be close to a mile before we stopped in another hexagonal room, similar to the first, but with one major difference: the arched doorways were sealed instead of open.
“What does your mosaic say now, Professor?” I asked.
“I’m afraid it’s rather silent at this point,” he replied.
“So, you’re saying that we’ll have to break through the seals of all five of these arches to figure out where to go next?” I asked.
“Just one, although we had better choose wisely. Undoubtedly, the other four will be booby trapped, and we will all die a horrible death.”
“Great,” said Hannah.
I found myself looking above each archway, stepping from one to the next and shining my light. Hannah and Dr. Byrd stayed close. “They each have a symbol above them. A sword, a sun, a moon, and a horse, and a chi-rho.”
“A chi-what?” asked Hannah. “Never mind. Maybe we should pick the one with the word, which is close enough to spear.”
The professor and I looked at each other, and we both nodded. “The chi-rho,” I said, referring to the X-shaped symbol with a P down the center, “was the predecessor to the cross, one of the original Christian symbols.”
“And it was upon the cross that Christ’s dead body unceremoniously was pierced by the legionary’s spear,” said the professor.
And with that, I removed the iron rod from my bayonet and began chipping away at the seal, which because it was an ancient form of concrete, crumbled away easily. After fifteen minutes, I had worked a large-enough hole that we could see into the chamber, but there was nothing more than a large sarcophagus with a Latin inscription, only parts of which we could make out. So far, the hexagonal room hadn’t collapsed, nor had poisonous gas been released. We were still alive, and that gave us hope.
Another ten minutes were required to chip away the edges of the hole to make it large enough to pass through into the chamber, the interior of which was mostly empty except for the sarcophagus bearing the Latin inscription that translated as: “ashes to ashes and dust to dust.”
Lifting and sliding the sarcophagus lid required some more work with the crowbar—as well as all three of us working together—but after a struggle, we slid it aside and were rewarded with the sight of a jewel-encrusted skeleton with a spear lying across its chest.
We all stared for quite some time, until I realized that the sound I was hearing was wheezing. Dr. Byrd was clutching his heart.
“You okay, Professor?” I asked.
“I... I really don’t know.”
“Is that what I think it is?” asked Hannah.
Dr. Byrd nodded, or tried to nod. Then again, he might have been having a seizure or stroke, too. Finally, he said, “The Holy Lance,” and he spoke the words with a reverence befitting a lifelong quest. “Along with the late Holy Roman Emperor’s bones.”
“And some damn fine jewels,” I added.
Dr. Byrd reached toward it with a trembling hand. “I can’t believe we’ve actually found it.”
Lucky for all of us, Hannah and I remained quiet as we watched him. I say lucky because I wouldn’t have heard the sound of boots echoing through the catacombs beyond the hole in the chamber’s seal.
“If you intend to keep that spear, Professor,” I said in a low tone. “You’d better snatch it out of there and get moving. It sounds like we have company.”
“Company?” Dr. Byrd’s hesitation ended quickly and he reached in and grasped the spear. “With this, we can hold off an entire army!” As he drew out the spear, the brittle shaft snapped in two.
“Move it!” I hissed.
With the remaining half of the spear in his hand, Dr. Byrd started through the opening with Hannah and me hot on his tail.
Chapter Fourteen
Of course, I’d liked to have gotten my hands on the jewels in the late emperor’s coffin, but escaping had been my primary objective at that particular juncture.
We slipped out of the burial chamber and had just clambered across the hexagonal room outside when I saw the beam of light coming down the corridor. I hoped that its source was beyond the intersecting corridor because we had to run directly toward it in order escape the hexagonal room.
Within a few seconds, my hope was confirmed. “Turn right,” I commanded, trying not to be too loud, but loud enough for Hannah and her father to hear me. We were just making our turn when the first alarm sounded in German. The pursuit was on.
Unfortunately, there were plenty of corridors to follow and thus, plenty of errors to make. Still, we rushed blindly along with only flashlights to light our way. At times, we turned them off and remained silent, hoping that the pursuing beams of lig
ht wouldn’t find us. We had no such luck; the entire maze of tombs seemed to be crawling with German soldiers.
“We could hide in this,” the professor suggested, keeping his voice low, after a close call. We had just ducked behind a lesser sarcophagus when a trio of soldiers had appeared, flashlights crisscrossing the room. Amazingly, we hadn’t been spotted. “It doesn’t appear the soldiers are too keen to get too close to them.”
“I’ll lie in a tomb when I’m dead,” I said. “Until then, it’s not going to happen.”
“If you two have a better idea, I’m all ears.”
I didn’t. At least, not in that moment. Hannah reached out and took hold of my hand, and her touch seemed to galvanize my synapses. Not to mention the strain that had come between us from our earlier disagreements melted in that moment. Though no words were spoken, it was a reconciliation of sorts. As I gave her hand a soft squeeze in response, an idea occurred to me.
“Remember what we did in the alley?” I asked her.
“Yes.”
“What idea?” asked the professor.
“Let’s try that again. Only this time, I won’t be asking any questions. Just follow our lead, Dr. Byrd.” I turned off my flashlight, shoved it in my pouch, hefted the crowbar up out of its new resting place within my belt loop and held it up in the dim light of Dr. Byrd’s flashlight. I had left behind the shotgun in the king’s chamber. That might have been a grave mistake, surely giving away our position and intention. But that was neither here nor there. More boots echoed toward us. It was time to get moving. I nodded to the others and soon, we were moving. We didn’t bother to muffle the sounds of our own footfalls; indeed, we even shouted. Soon, we had pursuers. Two of them, by the sound of it.
“Next intersection,” I called out as a signal to Hannah. I hoped like hell my plan would work. We couldn’t take them all out, but we might be able to slow them down and give ourselves a fighting chance to get to an exit.
At the next intersection, I cut right and Hannah and the professor went left. I waited in the darkness beside the opening of the corridor with the ancient crowbar poised for action. The beam of light from the pursuer’s flashlight was dancing on the wall as he ran and I could hear heavy footsteps; there were definitely two, maybe even three, sets of them.
The first of the pursuers appeared in the corridor opening and I swung hard. The bar hit home and momentarily lodged in his skull. I pulled hard, wresting it free, and the man slid to the ground, jerking, and then lay still. I might have killed the poor bastard. But I was having a hard time feeling any sympathy for anyone hunting me. The second pursuer was upon me, and he was just raising his pistol when I swung the rod a second time. The weapon clattered to the floor and its bearer screamed in pain. No doubt, I’d broken his wrist with my blow. In my opinion, he’d gotten off lucky. I took his flashlight and gun; same with the first guy, who lay in a pool of spreading blood. I shoved the iron bar in my belt loop.
Now laden with weapons and flashlights, both of which I hoped to disperse to Hannah and the professor, I made my retreat down the corridor that my comrades had taken. Shortly, I spied a beam of light at the far end. As I drew closer to the light, I suddenly realized that there was no way of knowing who was behind the beam, which was why I approached carefully, one of the pistols pointed before me.
There. It was Hannah and her father. Both standing unmoving, flashlights by their side. As I drew closer, I saw the tears in Hannah’s wide eyes, which watched me carefully.
“Hannah, are you okay? Dr. Byrd? Are you guys—”
“I’m sorry, Allan,” she said, simultaneously cutting me off as two soldiers stepped out of the shadows, their weapons trained on my companions.
“You will drop your weapon, Major,” said one of the Germans in halting English. I dropped the pistol in my hand, all too aware that a second pistol was stowed in my lower back and hopefully out of sight.
I was shoved next to Hannah and her father. The old man was wheezing, and Hannah whispered her apologies again. No doubt, she had been directed to stand there with their flashlight, to lure me out of the shadows. The plan had worked perfectly. My own, not so much.
More footsteps approached. Many more footsteps. The glow from something more than a flashlight began to flood out of the corridor behind our captors. Moments later, two men bearing kerosene lanterns stepped around a corner. They snapped their heels together and I noted that the others in the room reacted in the same way. We might just be in some serious trouble.
The man who next stepped around the corner was the reason everyone had come to attention. He was a man I had seen a hundred times in newspapers, magazines, and on TV, although he looked different, too. Older, of course. But oddly different, too. As if he’d had some facial reconstruction surgery. First and foremost, there was gray in his hair above his temples, but his easily recognizable toothbrush mustache was gone, of course. And there was no mistaking the beady, insane, and frigid stare. Yes, he might have changed his name to Aloïs Pölzl, but there was no denying that the former Führer of the Third Reich had just entered the corridor.
“The spear!” he snapped in sharp German.
One of his men leaped quickly into action and snatched the spear out of the professor’s hands.
“We will deal with your treason later,” Hitler said as he glared at Dr. Byrd. He moved a couple of short steps to Dr. Byrd’s right and fixed his cold stare on Hannah. The way his eyes traveled from head to toe in a methodical study of her form made me clench my fists. The appearance of a gun barrel in my back held me back. “Lovely. Your daughter, I presume?”
“Leave her alone,” I said, although I might have growled the words.
A slight upturn of one corner of his mouth revealed his amusement as he turned toward me. “Major Allan Quatermain. It’s been a long time.”
“Funny, I’ve never seen a ghost before,” I said. “I didn’t know they were so ugly. Or so murderous.”
“You always had a smart mouth, Quatermain.”
Hannah turned to me, mouth open. “Are you telling me you know this monster?”
“It’s a long story,” I responded. “Not a particularly good story, granted. And certainly, one that ended badly for millions of people.”
“We were kids together in Vienna,” Hitler said.
“I was a kid,” I snapped. “You were an overgrown bully who didn’t have the balls to pick on someone his own size.”
“Be that as it may,” he responded, “here we are, together again. I sort of like the fact that you’ll be a witness to the raising of my new army. Perhaps you’d like to join me as I establish my empire.”
“You’re out of your mind. You’re still nothing more than a bully. You’ll have no empire. You’ll have nothing more than a bullet in your head.”
Fury, with a hint of insanity, flashed across his eyes as I spoke. Trust me, I’d seen the expression before. The guy was nuts and always would be. The very definition of megalomaniac. Anyway, I was pretty sure that I had crossed the line and that he would order me shot, perhaps in the next few moments.
“You speak bravely for a dead man,” said Hitler.
“Funny, I was going to say the same of you. The world thinks you’re dead.”
“The world is full of fools.”
“You need us,” I said, glancing at the spear he now held tightly in his hands. “You need us to unlock that.”
The Führer paused, then nodded. “You are correct, Quatermain. I do need some of you. The professor, of course. And his daughter for, ah, later. But you are disposable. Perhaps it’s time we end this dance, Quatermain.” He glanced at a soldier. “Kill him. But do so away from here. That room over there will be fine.”
I told Hannah that I would be back, and one of the soldiers snickered about coming back from the grave. I thought that was kind of rude. With Hannah shouting for my return, and then, pleading, I heard a sharp smack that silenced her immediately. Another shout, and another smack, and I assumed Professor
Byrd had been met with the same fate.
Three soldiers marched with me, shoving me into the room and to my knees.
This is it, I thought. The end of the Quatermain line of adventurers.
Mostly, the end of me.
Chapter Fifteen
Amazingly, I hadn’t been searched more thoroughly.
The cocky bastards assumed I was helpless, and as they marched me into the hexagonal-shaped room and ordered me to go to my knees, I knew I had one chance, and one chance only. I also knew that the moment my knees hit the floor, I would be dead.
“On your knees, you Tommy bastard,” said the German soldier behind me, using a common slang for all British soldiers. He pushed me down toward the stone floor. Or tried to. Another soldier kicked at the back of my right knee, which buckled. “Take it like a man, you dirty limey.”
There were three of them, and they were prepared for anything. They were also preparing to shoot me in the back of the head, whether I dropped to my knees or not. I had, if anything, seconds. Which was why I asked for a cigarette.
“No cigarette for you, pom,” said the German behind me, now having fully run the gambit of British ethnic slurs.
Two different boots kicked me in the back of the knee, and I went down, but instead of falling to my knees, I rolled and reached behind my back and knew that there was just no way in hell I was going to find the pistol’s grip inside my waistband. But, son of a bitch, I gripped mahogany, and by the time I landed on my back, I was shooting. Granted, I didn’t know what the hell I was shooting, but I was shooting.
From the looks of it amid the chaos, only one of the bastards had his rifle ready. And from the looks of it, he was the one who bore the brunt of my blind shooting. As he went down, the others swung their rifles around. By that time, I was already scrambling to my feet. My last shot before the pistol clicked on empty was into the face of a rather handsome young man who wanted to kill me. Sorry, ladies.