The Treasure Hunters

by Beth D. Carter

“Who?”

  He shrugged. “A bootlegger. I was moving the cargo. He short-paid me, and when I confronted him he had his thugs work me over. So when I healed, I came after him and I got my money. But I had to leave New York.”

  She grabbed his arm, halting him, and his incredibly tense muscles strained against her touch.

  “The world is different now,” she said softly. “I don’t see it as black and white anymore. None of us do.”

  She stared into his dark eyes, trying to show him that whatever happened back then was exactly that: the past. It didn’t define who he was now. Little by little, he relaxed and nodded, and then he took her hand and led her the rest of the way. A few minutes later, the jungle gave way to sand and Eden realized they had reached the beach, albeit on the opposite side of the island. She was ready to go running into the sun when Asia held her back and pointed. Through the brambles, she saw another ship anchored in the small harbor. This must be the harbor that Sin had tried to sail to, in hopes of avoiding the very rocks that had drowned the Paradise. A rowboat had pulled up on the beach, and eight seedy-looking men rested and milled around.

  “Who are they?” she whispered.

  “That was the boat following us,” Asia answered, voice equally as soft.

  “Following us? Do you think they know about the map?”

  He shifted a little to the left. “That’s Ramzee’s ship, the Predator,” he said. “I’d say it’s a good bet he does.”

  “Who’s Ramzee?”

  “A self-proclaimed pursuer of antiquities. Only he’s not exactly the legit kind. Sin and I have had a few run-ins with him.”

  “Bad run-ins?”

  “The Predator was the sister ship of the Paradise,” he replied. “He lost her in a game of poker to Sin. Unfortunately, Ramzee doesn’t like to lose. One night, he brought some men along to take her back, but…”

  “But what?”

  “We came in the Paradise, didn’t we?”

  “Are we going to steal that boat?”

  Asia looked at her and she saw the confusion on his face. “What?”

  She pointed to the Predator, which did indeed look a lot like the Paradise. “Well, they have a boat and we don’t and they’re obviously the bad guys. Plus, I’d say trying to sneak up on us to steal the treasure doesn’t constitute good neighbors.”

  “Hold on, Annie Oakley,” he said. “Just how do you think we can manage to get past eight armed men?”

  All of a sudden, seven of the men stood and began gathering their gear to head into the jungle, leaving only two men to guard the rowboat. Asia gave a big sigh, but all Eden could do was smile as an idea formed in her head.

  ****

  Sin led the way through the narrow tunnel, the fire throwing ominous shadows all over the place. It didn’t help that there were cobwebs all over. Ruby was glad Sin was there, taking care of them at the front.

  “Do you think this is man-made?” Merridie asked.

  “Yes,” Sin replied. “You see those marks in the wall? Those are hand-drilled grooves to set dynamite sticks in, like in mines. They blast away specific areas to create tunnels. Vouleigh must have been planning this for some time, so it’s got to have an outlet to the surface somewhere, other than the village.”

  “Just watch out for the creepy crawly things,” Merridie said.

  “I won’t tell you how many creepy crawly things I’ve encountered so far.”

  Ruby shivered. It took all her strength to keep her fear of the darkness at bay, but her heart raced and her skin turned clammy. The test of her mettle illuminated her strength, but it also pointed out she was still afraid of the dark.

  They walked until they came to a large chamber with a doorway to a smaller room attached. Sin pointed at several more torches on the walls and lit them from his torch. Light flooded the area with a dull glow, revealing a lot of odd-looking items in the chamber. Why would someone need chairs, a table, pottery, barrels, and ropes?

  “Watch out!” Sin barked and grabbed her arm. Her foot skidded, sending some rubble over the edge of a black hole.

  “God!” Merridie said. “How far does it go down?”

  “I don’t know, and I have no desire to find out,” Sin replied.

  Ruby studied the rotten furniture pieces. “There’s nothing here.”

  “Is this it?” Merridie demanded. “The end? We came all this way for nothing?”

  “Merri––”

  “No! This is bullshit!” she raged, pacing back and forth. “I’ve lost my fiancé, Eden’s lost her father. We were dragged to England, I’ve been forced to polish silver, the boat sank, and now a dead end. For Christ’s sake, what else can happen?”

  Sin opened his mouth to say something, but Ruby grabbed his arm and shook her head. His eyebrows shot up but he took her advice.

  “Is there anything around here that can burn?” Ruby asked, looking around. “Perhaps if that chasm isn’t that wide, we can jump.”

  “Of course, jump,” Merridie muttered to herself. “It’s not like we haven’t done that before.”

  Sin stomped on the chair, which broke apart easily, and then ripped his shirt’s sleeve off to wrap around the end. He lit it and then threw the torch, which surprisingly, landed on the other side.

  “It’s only about three feet wide,” Sin said.

  “So we could jump it.” Sin gave her an incredulous look. Ruby shrugged. “I grew up around the docks playing pirates.”

  Sin studied the chasm. “Perhaps there’s a path. Look, there’s a dip around the rock face. Let’s check that out.”

  He led the way to the hook in the chamber, but as much as they searched for another way to continue, it was a dead end. The first thing Ruby realized when they returned was that Merridie was gone.

  “Merridie?”

  “What’s wrong?” Sin asked.

  Ruby looked at the chasm and put her hands on her hips. “She jumped.”

  “What do you mean, she jumped?”

  Ruby made hand gestures with her fingers of running and jumping high in the air.

  “Are you sure?” he asked dubiously.

  Ruby sighed. “Yeah. She’s angry and frustrated, which makes her do irrational things.”

  “Very irrational.”

  “Merridie!” she yelled. Only silence came back. “We’re going to have to follow her.”

  “Ruby, we could jump the chasm and be confronted with another one. We don’t know what’s ahead of us.”

  “And I can’t let her go by herself. We’re family, Sin. Family sticks together.”

  He pursed his lips as he studied her for a long minute. Finally, he nodded. “All right. But let me go first.”

  Ruby ignored him and backed up. Centering, concentrating, she studied the ground to find the right place to jump from. She took off, running hard, and hit the edge of the chasm, and flying. It was the brief second of weightlessness, flight, and then she hit the ground on the other side and came to a sliding halt.

  She looked back at Sin. “Throw me the torch.”

  He tossed the one he was holding and she let it fall onto the sandy floor before picking it up. She held it high into the darkness of the continuing tunnel.

  “Merridie?” she called out but only her voice reverberated back at her. “Damn it! Once she gets in a mood, she could take off without a backward glance. How far back do you think this tunnel goes?”

  “Hold on,” he said. A moment later he joined her on the other side. She gave him back the torch. “She’s got the book, so I’ve no idea how far this extends. We could be down here a while. And once this torch runs out? We might as well be dead. It’ll be hopeless.”

  Fear threatened to consume her and Ruby looked into the blackness. Should she do the wise thing and turn back? Everything inside her screamed: yes. But the idea that Merridie would be trapped and lost had her resolve stiffening her spine.

  “She doesn’t have a torch,” Ruby said. “I can’t leave her here.”

  S
in sighed. “I knew you were going to say that.”

  Chapter Ten

  Merridie didn’t quite know what had happened. One minute she was leaning against the wall, and the next it was turning around, depositing her into complete darkness. She fell on her hands and knees, and then used the wall to help her up. What now? She was getting tired of all this darkness. Why couldn’t the map have a big old X on the ground, and all they had to do was dig up the treasure? She liked things being easy. Was that a crime? Whenever something had too many parts or too many motions, it just made her angry. Perhaps that’s why she had liked Robert. He wasn’t complicated.

  Her hand hit something that moved, hopefully a way back to Ruby and Sin, and she pushed hard. Sunlight flooded in as the door to the small chamber pushed open and she blinked furiously as her eyes tried desperately to adjust. She was free. Excited, she rushed into the jungle only to stumble to a halt as she saw a bunch of dirty men all staring at her. Where had they come from?

  “Anyone got a towel?” she asked.

  Ignoring her, one of the men stepped forward and by the looks of him he had to be the leader. He was big, fierce and had about six pistols stuck in his belt. She half expected him to start saying, “Arrr”.

  “Blanket’s okay too,” she mumbled, taking a step back. “If you have one. I was in the river and then I walked into a thousand spider webs, and it’s really cold in a mountain. The sun feels nice. What’s your name?” Okay, she really needed to get a hold on her inane prattling. “Here on vacation?” she asked.

  “I’m called Ramzee, Miss Morgan,” the leader said in a raspy voice. “Where you came from is exactly where I’m interested in going.”

  He pointed to the door behind her.

  “How do you know my name?”

  “Why were you in that passageway?”

  It didn’t escape her notice that he didn’t answer how he knew her name and something ugly coiled in her belly. If he went in there, they’d be on Ruby’s heels.

  “I got lost,” she answered. “I’m so clumsy it’s not even funny.”

  He brought up a wicked looking machete and cut the bag that lay diagonally across her chest. One of his goons picked it up and dug through it as she tried not to panic.

  “That’s mine,” she said tightly. She went to reach for it, but Ramzee brought the blade up to her chest. After a moment, the man held up a map and her diary. Ramzee smiled with glee and grabbed it, but his happiness quickly died as he discovered she’d written her notes in the same language the map had been written in: French.

  “Translate this!” he demanded.

  “Oh, sorry. I’m suddenly getting amnesia.”

  Ramzee’s hand shot out and captured her throat, cutting off her air, and she frantically clawed at his fingers to breathe.

  “I know who you are,” he said softly, tone menacing. “I know who you travel with. And I know what you’re after. Now, I’ll ask one more time. Translate the map, and we’ll start with that door you just came out of. Where does it lead to?”

  As panic settled in, Merridie realized he didn’t care if she could breathe or not. Abandoning trying to peel his fingers away from her windpipe, she poked him in the eye. With a howl of pain, Ramzee dropped her and she sank to her knees, taking in big gulps of air and trying not to cough.

  “Little bitch!” he roared. He grabbed her arm, shook her and tossed her toward the circle of men. One grabbed her arm and hauled her back to her feet. She looked into Ramzee’s face and felt honest-to-goodness scared. Her body began to shake as he advanced on her.

  “You’re coming with me.”

  ****

  Eden kept her eyes trained on the man still on the beach, waiting for Asia to return. He had decided to follow Ramzee a bit, to see where the man was heading. He’d been gone a while and she was seriously thinking about taking this lone warrior on by herself when Asia suddenly appeared next to her.

  She jumped and placed a hand over her heart. “Oh! You frightened me.”

  “Sorry,” he said, although he didn’t really sound sorry. “Ramzee got Merridie.”

  “What? We have to go after her.”

  He shook his head. “I couldn’t take all of them on at the same time. Let’s focus on one thing at a time.”

  She took a deep breath. Asia was right, of course. Although she wanted to rush and help her friend, they needed strategy more. “Okay. Ready for my plan?”

  Asia nodded. She took a deep breath and undid the top two buttons on her shirt. She saw Asia trying not to look at her cleavage and she hid her smile. Then she put her hands on her hips and sashayed her way onto the beach.

  “Oh, boys!”

  The thugs looked up and spotted Eden who waved flirtatiously while posing seductively. They smiled widely and when she crooked her finger at them, they headed in her direction. With an excited squeal, she turned and headed into the jungle. She darted behind a tree and waited. A second later, she heard a grunt and a thud. She peeked around the tree and saw one guard lying unconscious on the ground and another holding a knife, facing off against Asia.

  Eden tapped the guard on the shoulder. He turned to face her and she quickly brought back her leg and kicked him in the crotch. Hard. The man got a pained expression on his face before dropping to the ground and letting out a tiny high-pitched whimper. Asia looked at her with raised eyebrows.

  “Merridie showed me how to do that.”

  “What do we do now?” Asia asked.

  “You have to rescue Merridie.”

  One of his dark brows shot up. “I’m not leaving you.”

  She waved off his concern. “Nothing is going to happen. I can take care of myself.”

  “I saw that. I don’t think I want to face Merridie’s wrath if something would happen to you.”

  “How about if I promise to not get into trouble?”

  He eyed her skeptically. She crossed her heart.

  He shook his head and sighed. “All right. But stay here.”

  She watched him head back into the jungle, and after he disappeared she unhooked her twined fingers. Then she turned to look at the Predator.

  ****

  Ramzee led his small party into the cave, a lantern in everybody’s hand except for Merridie. Once the initial fear had passed, Merri realized Ruby had no idea what was going on behind her. She and Sin would be sitting ducks. Her heart sank.

  Behind Ramzee, she began to do a mental list of what she had to fight with.

  All she could come up with was her best weapon: her mouth. She hoped this tactic would distract him, or best-case scenario, Ruby or Sin would hear them coming.

  “I told you, this leads to a big room with nothing in it except spiders,” she said. “Big, hairy, ugly spiders. Believe me, you don’t want to see them.”

  She turned her head and spotted the man behind her. In the lamplight, she took note of his long and a wiry beard. He was definitely one ugly person.

  “Then again,” she quipped, “I guess you’re used to ugly creepy things.”

  The man grunted and pushed her forward.

  Ramzee stopped and Merridie looked around him to spot a side passage that branched off from the main one.

  “Oh wow,” she said. “I didn’t see that earlier. Of course, it’s pitch black and I had to feel my way. As I said, I ran into several spider webs and I’m just glad I didn’t feel any––”

  Ramzee turned to her, looking exasperated. “Don’t you ever shut up?” he interrupted.

  She put her hands on her hips to stare him down. “Not to kidnappers. I figure if I talk long enough, you’ll get so sick of hearing me you’ll let me go.”

  Ramzee took a step closer until she could smell his hot, fetid breath. She wrinkled her nose and tried to lean away, but ‘ugly man’ behind her halted her retreat. Ramzee grabbed her wrists and looped a rope around them. Seconds later, she was being led forward, hands tied and a gag in her mouth.

  Ruby and Sin were in front of them and her mind raced with wh
at she could do to alert them. Ramzee halted for a moment, which gave her a moment to look around, searching for anything to help her, and her gaze landed on the glass lantern the hairy thug behind her held.

  He was shuffling around and Merridie waited until he was lined up with her. She checked her stance and then bent sideways and gave a kick to the glass, shattering it. The noise was loud and it echoed. She hoped Ruby heard it.

  Ramzee turned to her, furious. He raised his hand and backhanded her, the slap sharp and painful. She stumbled but didn’t fall and she felt a trickle of blood spilling from a spilt lip, but still, she managed to show him a triumphant smirk behind the gag.

  ****

  Ruby and Sin walked cautiously through the tunnel, the torch barely illuminating anything. Dank and musty, the tunnel could be a tomb. Their tomb, if they weren’t careful. For the hundredth time she questioned her decision to press forward for a treasure that may or may not be there. Was it worth risking their lives?

  “We should’ve caught up to Merridie by now,” Sin muttered.

  Ruby halted, unable to take one more moment of the absolute darkness. Everywhere she turned it was black, soul-crushing nothingness. The air closed in on her, constricting her chest, and she panted in quick gulps.

  “Ruby,” Sin said gently as he put his arms around her. “Take a deep, slow breath. In through your nose… Out, through your mouth. Come on, now. Relax, baby.”

  Slowly the suffocating feeling ebbed, although she still felt a little shaky.

  “It’s so dark,” she whispered. “I’m not fond of the dark.”

  “You should have told me.”

  “I thought I’d be okay.”

  “It’s going to be fine,” he said. He rocked her and she loved how comforting his arms felt around her.

  “As long as you continue to hold me, I’ll get through this,” she said.

  “If you wanted in my arms, you should have told me. I’d be happy to hold you, Ruby.”

  “You would?”

  He grabbed her ass and shifted his hips, and before she realized what was happening, he loomed over her. The torch lay nearby, throwing flickering shadows on his face. He looked part demon, ready to ravish her, and she was more than willing to be his helpless victim.