Sands of Time (Out of Time #6)

by Monique Martin

  “Jack?” Elizabeth asked.

  He squared his shoulders as best he could. “I’m all right.”

  But she could see from the pinched look on his face, he was far from that.

  “I’ll take that as well,” Vale said, indicating the watch Simon tried to conceal in his fist.

  One of the men took it from his hand.

  A smug smile spread across Vale’s faced. “And your grandfather’s,” she said. “I’d like to complete the set.”

  Simon took a deep breath, glanced over at Elizabeth and then reached into his vest pocket, but something was wrong. Elizabeth could see it in his body language.

  “I seem to have misplaced it,” Simon said, sounding pleased with himself, but she heard the tint of worry in his voice.

  Vale’s smile fell. “Search him,” she commanded.

  One of the men patted Simon down, but found nothing. Elizabeth’s heart didn’t know whether to sink at the thought they’d lost the watch or soar because Vale couldn’t have it.

  “Very clever,” Vale said. “But I’ll find it. I’ll find them all.”

  Simon glanced over at Elizabeth, his expression worried and confused, but he quickly schooled his features. “You have what you came for,” he said, his voice steady.

  Vale laughed, savoring the flavor of the moment. “Like mice to cheese you came.”

  So, it had been a trap. Elizabeth’s heart sunk even lower. They’d walked right into it. But why such a ruse? Apart from the loathing and wanting to see them eaten alive by dingoes, why not search the tomb herself? What game was she playing now?

  “How did you know it was here?” Elizabeth asked.

  Vale smiled. “How is it I know so many things you don’t? Hmm?”

  She looked at Elizabeth with what she must have thought was pity, but that was an emotion Katherine Vale wasn’t capable of and her expression just looked pained.

  “I will admit, I didn’t know you’d be here. Egypt, of all places. I hoped, of course to find you. When they freed me from Bedlam, I had a very short list of things to do and you two,” she said, her eyes glittering, “were very near the top.”

  Vale sighed dramatically. “I was worried for a while. You were so slow to catch on, despite my best efforts to leave a blazing trail here.”

  Elizabeth shook her head. She’d led them here? To this moment? To this place? She hazarded a glance at Simon and could see him working it through, seeing the pattern he hadn’t seen before and knew he would beat himself up for having missed it.

  Elizabeth slipped her hand into his and he looked at her, apology in his eyes. Elizabeth shook her head.

  “So charming,” Vale said, pulling their attention back to her. With a nod of her head, she indicated that she was ready to her men and they stepped forward. Elizabeth reached out and took hold of Jack’s hand and held tighter to Simon’s. She flinched, closing her eyes, ready to be killed.

  “Oh,” Vale said in delight. “I’m not going to shoot you, my dear.”

  She waited until Elizabeth opened her eyes and with a smile she tilted her head. The men picked up the lanterns and ushered them all out into the larger antechamber.

  Once there, her men bound their wrists. Jack’s arm was bleeding badly and he grunted in pain as the men wrenched it behind his back to bind his hands. Simon caught her eye briefly as he scanned the room for something to use against their captors.

  Elizabeth’s heart raced as the men tightened the ropes around her wrists. This was the second time she’d been tied up since they’d arrived in Egypt and she had a feeling this one wasn’t going to end as well as the first. She joined Simon in a search for something, anything to help them, when she heard footsteps at the door to the outside corridor and turned to look.

  “Oh, yes,” Vale said.

  Two men stepped into the chamber, a man dragged between them. They threw him onto the floor at Elizabeth’s feet.

  “Hassan!”

  Vale looked down at him in disgust. “Got in my way.”

  Elizabeth swallowed her shame and guilt. When Vale and the others arrived without Hassan, she’d foolishly assumed he’d seen them coming and hidden. That he’d magically gotten away. Tears at her own naiveté stung her eyes as she looked down at him.

  He was alive, but barely conscious. Blood ran down his face from a gash on his forehead as he rolled onto his back and blinked up at Elizabeth, his eyes struggling to focus.

  “I’m sorry, Hassan,” Elizabeth said.

  He tried to speak, but couldn’t manage it.

  “Quite a little party,” Vale said. “I’m just sorry your girlfriend couldn’t be here,” she added to Jack. “I don’t like her.”

  “The feeling is mutual,” Jack ground out between clenched teeth.

  “She is a loose end I will snip off,” Vale said with a laugh. “I will be having another party soon. Perhaps she can join that. I know your darling Christina will be there.”

  “Leave the girl out of it,” Simon said.

  “So noble, and yet so thoroughly ineffectual.” Vale smiled. “I owe you a debt on that score. I was going to find any old virgin and you served me one on a silver platter. Knowing her death will be because of you is the icing on the cake.”

  Elizabeth felt sick. Was there anyone they hadn’t dragged down with them?

  “Please,” Elizabeth said. “You don’t have to do this. Any of this. Let us help you.”

  Vale paused and looked at her, her face set in animated shock.

  “Help me?” she said with a laugh that didn’t just border on insane it had permanent residence there. “Like you helped me in San Francisco?”

  Elizabeth flinched.

  Abruptly, unnaturally, Vale’s laughter stopped. “Oh, no, my dear. I’m going to help you this time.”

  She waved her hand toward the doorway to the burial chamber and one of the men stepped forward toward Elizabeth. She tried to move away, but there was nowhere to go. He clamped his hand around her arms and jerked her forward. Despite herself, she cried out.

  “Elizabeth,” Simon said. He lunged forward, but was caught by one of Vale’s men and held in place.

  “You see there are many kinds of prisons,” Vale said.

  Elizabeth looked back at Simon, who was helpless as the henchmen held both him and Jack, while another dragged her to the mouth of the burial chamber. A darkened tunnel stretched out before her.

  “This one’s for you, my dear,” Vale said and then made a show of looking down into the tunnel toward the burial chamber. “Although, I don’t think it or you will last long.”

  Elizabeth’s breath came faster and faster now as she started to realize what Vale was going to do.

  “No,” she said, struggling against the man who held her.

  “Please, don’t,” Simon begged, but it only seemed to make Vale happier.

  “Please don’t what? Bury my wife alive?”

  Elizabeth gasped as she said it. Somehow she’d known that was Vale’s plan, but to hear it. Her breath hitched again as she turned to Simon. His eyes were wild with desperation. His breath came in quick, short bursts as he struggled.

  Vale pursed her lips and looked critically back at Elizabeth’s room. “Perhaps six or seven hours of oxygen. Less if you struggle? That is if it doesn’t crush you, of course.”

  “Please,” Simon repeated.

  Elizabeth pulled against the man that held her. “Simon.”

  “You will have a choice, Mister Cross,” Vale said.

  Simon pulled his attention away from Elizabeth to Vale.

  “Once we leave,” she continued, “we will collapse this corridor to the outside.” She gestured to the main tunnel.

  She looked around the larger antechamber and adjoining tunnel, gauging the size. “You could, perhaps, dig your way out, but of course, then your wife would die. But if you choose to dig your way in, you will use the oxygen you have in here and not have enough time to dig your way out. Save yourself and your friends, or conde
mn them all to death with your selfishness.”

  She smiled almost dreamily. “Either way, she will be dead and you, even if you live, you will be a hollow man.”

  Elizabeth looked at Simon. “Don’t listen to her. If you can save yourself—”

  Simon shook his head.

  “Isn’t that romantic?” Vale said. “And do not think help from the outside will come in time. You will all probably be dead before the dawn, long before anyone even knows you’re missing.”

  “You’re sick,” Jack said.

  Vale ignored him and nodded toward one of her men who started to drag Elizabeth down the tunnel and into the burial chamber. Her burial chamber.

  Elizabeth protested and dug her heels in, but she was no match for his strength. She turned her head just in time to get one last glimpse of Simon and the pain and agony on his face etched into her memory.

  She felt a swell of panic and called out to him. She could hear him and Jack as they struggled. Her mind raced, but she couldn’t find a way out. The four walls already seemed to be closing in on her, the air already feeling thinner in her lungs.

  “Elizabeth!” Simon cried.

  “I’m all right,” she called out, even though she wasn’t.

  She heard his breath catch.

  “We’ll find a way,” she said and in that instant, believed it. As insane as it was, she believed it.

  The man who’d held her left the chamber and Vale stood back as two of her men came forward with a huge sledgehammer.

  For some reason, Elizabeth thought there’d be a pause. That he’d lift the hammer and Vale would tease them with a chance at their final goodbyes, but it didn’t happen that way. The man swung the hammer and one of the struts shifted.

  She could hear Simon calling out to her between blows, between the sound of the bits of dust and rock as they rained down into the little corridor.

  “Simon!”

  She started forward, thinking maybe she could make a run for it. Somehow. She had to do something. She couldn’t just stand there and let it happen. She took two steps closer to the opening and the man kept swinging.

  It was happening. It was really happening. She stood in the middle of the room, as the blows crashed into the wood and stone. More rock started to fall and she froze in place. Bits of the ceiling in her chamber fell and she backed away.

  She heard Simon calling out to her and she closed her eyes, filling her head with thoughts of him.

  “We’ll find a way,” she whispered. Simon’s last words to her were lost as the ceiling of the tunnel finally gave way and the stone curtain fell, thunderous and final.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Simon called out to Elizabeth again and again as the stones fell, trapping her inside the tomb. His chest heaved with effort and emotion as he tried to go to her, to stop this, to save her. It was all in vain.

  His heart lurched in his chest as the cascade of rocks came to an end. Had she been crushed? Was she alive and hurt and calling out to him in the darkness? His breath, when it finally came, was only short rage-filled bursts.

  Vale walked up to him and he strained against the two men that held him.

  “Such a painful decision,” she said. He flinched away from the cold hand she put on his cheek, but kept his eyes fixed on hers, promising revenge if he ever found a way out of this. She gave his cheek a light pat. “But that’s what love gets you.”

  She nodded to her men who shoved Jack and Simon away. Jack took a step toward her, but a gun leveled at his chest stopped him.

  Then, Vale and her men left, taking the two lanterns, their only source of light, with them.

  She turned back, the glow from the lantern behind her making her no more than a dark specter in the doorway. “I wouldn’t try and follow us. Dynamite is so unpredictable.”

  With one last laugh of triumph, she and her men left. Simon edged forward, but Jack stopped him. “We need to get back, away from the doorway.”

  The light from the lamps faded as she and her men climbed up the tunnel. Simon turned his back on it all and stood staring at the mountain of rocks that separated him from his wife. If he started digging now…

  He heard Jack’s voice, urgent with some warning, but he hardly cared. The room grew darker and darker and with each second Elizabeth felt further and further away. He could barely breathe, barely think. Get ahold of yourself, Cross, he berated himself. What can you do?

  “Simon,” Jack said urgently. “Get back.”

  Jack nudged him with his shoulder. “Cross,” he said, his voice tense. “Get back. We gotta move.”

  He hardly took notice, but the intensity in Jack’s eyes pulled him into the moment.

  “Over there,” Jack said, nodding to the back wall. Simon felt himself nod and watched, mute, as Jack made his way to Hassan and knelt down. “Can you move?” Jack asked.

  Hassan nodded slowly, his eyes blinking, trying to regain his senses.

  “Get away from the door,” Jack said. “Over here.”

  Their hands still bound behind them, Jack and Simon moved to the back wall. Hassan got to his feet just as the room fell into total darkness.

  Blind now, Simon turned his head toward the chamber that held Elizabeth and tried to force himself to focus. She heard him, he knew. She would have moved back. He believed it. He had to believe it.

  “Eliz—”

  An earth-shattering explosion swallowed the tomb. Simon could feel a hot gust of wind push against him. He crouched down trying to protect himself as best he could as dust and small rocks flew like shrapnel into the room. Small shards of rock and pebbles sliced into his skin, but the pain meant nothing.

  The blast echoed briefly, followed by the thunderous roar of tons of rock collapsing the outer tunnel, sealing them all inside.

  Simon coughed as dust filled the air. The rumbling reverberated in the tomb, made louder somehow by the dark. Finally, it came to a stop, but there was no silence. Simon could still hear the ringing of the explosion in his head. All other noise was muffled, dampened as if they’d suddenly been submerged in water.

  The deep, but distant timbre of Jack’s voice found its way through the murkiness that clogged his ears and thoughts.

  “Everyone all right?”

  Simon barely heard him and strained to listen for Elizabeth. He heard Hassan instead.

  “I have been better.”

  “Simon?” Jack asked, his body bumping against Simon’s in the dark. “You okay?”

  Simon didn’t answer at first, couldn’t answer. He finally caught his breath. “We need to dig,” was all he could say.

  There was a pause and then Jack said, “Damn right.”

  Slowly, the ringing began to subside, leaving a dull throb behind. At least he could hear again, Simon thought. If only he could see.

  “I will untie you,” Hassan said, his voice weak and breathy.

  It seemed to take forever. Every second was one breath less for Elizabeth.

  “Hurry,” Simon bit out.

  Finally, Hassan untied his hands and Simon felt his way along the wall until the smooth stone became uneven and jagged—the collapsed tunnel.

  He called out for Elizabeth, hoping somehow she could hear him. He waited for her answer, but none came. It didn’t mean anything, he told himself. There was too much rock. She couldn’t hear him. Not yet.

  His hands grasped stones, any stone, and started to pull them away from the pile. They slid down, crashing into his legs, cutting into them, but he didn’t care. He felt for more rocks and pulled at them in the darkness. Elizabeth was alive, he told himself. She had to be alive. And he would find her.

  It was a Hobson’s choice. He would die trying to get to Elizabeth. He would do that again and again without a second’s hesitation. Except now, it wasn’t just his life in the balance.

  It would take their collective strength to dig their way to the outside. If it was even possible. Even if it were, he wouldn’t, couldn’t abandon Elizabeth, even if it
meant only sharing a few more minutes together. But his decision wasn’t just a death sentence for him, but for them all.

  “Simon,” Jack said, his voice loud and close.

  Simon paused for a moment and rested his head on the rocks. He knew Jack was going to tell him it was pointless. That she was probably already dead. That the only logical thing to do was to try to dig their way out, not in. That he was thinking only of himself.

  “I have to find her,” Simon said softly, hoping Jack could find a way to understand, to forgive him.

  For a moment the only sound in the room was their breathing, precious oxygen disappearing with each inhalation and lethal carbon dioxide taking its place.

  As Simon reached for another stone, he heard the sound of a match being lit. He turned and Jack held out his hand. One tiny flame in the darkness between them.

  “We will find her,” Jack said.

  Simon’s throat choked and he fought back the emotion that was already nearly pulling him under.

  Hassan stepped forward and tipped a small taper candle toward the flame. The wick caught fire and the room glowed with light. “Trust in Hassan.”

  Simon looked at both men, humbled by their sacrifice. There were no words. All he could do was numbly nod his thanks.

  Jack worked his injured arm and winced. Simon looked at him, worried.

  “Bigger things to worry about,” Jack said, nodding his head toward the enormous pile of rocks that separated them from Elizabeth.

  “We need to conserve as much oxygen as we can,” Jack continued. “Try to keep your breathing slow and steady.”

  He stepped forward and ran his hands over the rocks. “We should work along the top, try to clear a narrow path to her on top of the rest.”

  Simon looked at the upper edge of the doorway. That made sense and he should have realized it. He had to try to slow down, to think. He would have to make smart decisions, if he was going to reach her in time.

  “Right,” he said, thankful for Jack’s clear head.

  Jack moved back to Hassan and tilted the other man’s head back. “That’s nasty looking,” he said, noting the gash on Hassan’s forehead. “But it looks worse than it is, I think.”