"Take what you're comfortable with," Paul interjected. "The hope is we won't need any of this. But bloody hell if I'm going in unprepared. Not happening." He took a dagger in one hand and a tomahawk in the other. Rory and Ryan took knives as well.
I reached for the stun gun and held it in my palm. It was heavier than I anticipated and shot a sense of security up my arm. I turned it in my hands, inspecting how it might work, and Rory reached over.
"You activate it by taking the safety off," he said as he flicked a switch near the trigger. He put his hands around mine and lifted the gun. "Aim the laser beam at your target and shoot." He jolted his hands as if shooting.
"Got it." I turned the gun over in my hands again and then pushed it into the side pocket in my pants. I grabbed extra refill cartridges, as well. Then I reached for a can of pepper spray and hung it off my belt. Influenced by a last-minute shot of adrenalin mixed with fear, I grabbed a leather-wrapped dagger as well and slid it into the side of my boot.
Ryan caught my eye as I concealed my weapon and I saw directly into his thoughts. My first expectation was that he'd be worried and want me to get rid of the knife.
But I was wrong.
He was relieved that I was prepared to defend myself at all cost. He approved. And he was impressed.
I smiled, seeing a smolder of desire in his gaze, and I struggled to hold back my own need to devour him.
Before long, the pile of weaponry was off the floor and loaded onto everyone's personal arsenal.
"I'll go first," I said, reaching for Maeve to join me. "Let's stick together. Communicate anything you see or hear."
Maeve and I moved into the tunnel that led into the burial chamber. The light from both of our headlamps illuminated the deep crypt and its catacombs glowed a brilliant hue of gold. We spread out around the altar to make room for the others.
Rory gasped. "It's incredible." It was his first time entering the tomb, and his wide eyes and shaking voice described his feelings perfectly.
Jayne moved through the space in silence, soaking in every detail. Paul and Ryan stepped toward the secret opening in the wall and peered in.
"Wait." I jumped over to them. "Hang on. We need to proceed with caution and understand everything we’re doing."
Their visible curiosity made it obvious that they were excited to enter the hidden passage, but they hung back as I’d asked.
Maeve trailed her eyes along the carvings in the floor and followed their lead over to the opening in the wall.
"The prophecies trail off at this point." She looked into the darkness of the passage. "They must continue somewhere inside there."
"We need to go in," I said. "Someone, or two of us actually, should stay out here. To keep watch in case something goes…you know…unexpectedly."
"Makes sense," Paul replied. "Rory. You?"
"Fuck that!" Rory shouted.
"No, seriously,” Paul added. “We need you out here, man. To watch our backs." He bent his head, waiting for a reply.
Rory stepped backward and leaned on the altar in disappointed agreement. "Yup. Got it."
I exhaled in relief. Knowing Rory was going to be our watchman settled my nerves ten-fold.
I needed Maeve with me. And Paul too. They would be the best ones to help decipher the code of the prophecies. And Ryan, I needed him as the other half of my soul.
"Jayne, will you keep watch with Rory?" I asked.
She glanced at him and he sent a gentle smile to her. Her eyes moved back to mine and she nodded. I caught a glimpse of relief in her gaze as she stepped closer to Rory.
"Okay. Good," I said. "Give us thirty minutes before you come looking for us. Deal?"
"Deal," Rory agreed.
I turned toward the opening in the wall. I grabbed hold of Maeve's hand, and we pushed through the stone entrance and beamed our lights into the great expanse.
Our light beams crossed, illuminating the deep passage ahead of us, and we gazed into the opening of a dizzying maze of haunting tunnels. My eyes darted to Maeve's in jittering panic. We could get lost in there. Forever.
My breathing accelerated, echoing off the ancient walls around us.
"It opens up into a bunch of smaller tunnels," I called back to the others as Maeve and I stepped further in. “It looks like it goes for miles."
My voice trailed off in echoes through the darkness and became lost in the mysterious maze.
Paul and Ryan pushed through the opening to the secret chamber and shined their lights all around us.
"It could be a trap set by their army," Paul said. "Like a distraction. Or a way to get us lost." He looked to Maeve. "We need to outsmart them."
Maeve nodded. "Agreed. Let's take it slow."
Her eyes shot to Paul’s then as if she’d said something unintentionally. I glanced to him to see his reaction. His lifted eyebrows proved he’d picked up on it too.
Double entendre, then. Or maybe a reminder of their shared past.
I pulled my gaze away from Paul, pretending I hadn’t noticed, but my quick inhale proved my understanding. Something was brewing between them. It had been Paul’s obsessive focus for the last six years, getting Maeve back. But was she ready to acknowledge his feelings? I hadn’t thought so. She’d chosen another man. One from the deep past, and she struggled with letting him go. Her sorrow lay deep within her eyes. I saw it in every lost glance.
But now I wasn’t so sure. Something about her connection to Paul, it was reawakening. Maybe it was intended to be this way. They were connected through history, through the ancestry of Grace O’Malley and her lover, Hugh DeLacey. It made sense that they held a mystical connection. But could they get past the memory of Rí?
Maeve turned her focus away from us and examined the walls and the stone floor beneath our feet. She trailed her light along every surface and ran her hands over any abrasions she found. Her attention focused on the space from the opening we came through to where we stood now.
Paul and Ryan watched her as if expecting an ah-ha at any moment.
I turned my headlamp away from them and scanned the gathering space more closely, searching for clues of any type. I moved toward the entryway to the maze of tunnels. Its massive stone arch was like a gateway to a new world, one of darkness and fear. The deep space beyond it exposed smaller routes within—a maze of connecting tunnels and crawl spaces that could go on into eternity.
To the side of the large opening, a small mound on the floor caught my attention. I moved to it.
"Don't go in there," Ryan called out, causing me to nearly jump out of my skin.
"Just looking," I whispered back to him.
I stepped closer to the mound and aimed my light onto it. A pile of dark fabric lay heaped in a stack, as if it had been thrown against the wall and settled there long ago.
I reached for a piece of it and pulled the woolen cloth from the floor. When I gave it a gentle shake, it opened out and a hood fell back. It was a shawl of some form. Small. Like for a little girl.
I gasped and dropped it.
I stepped back and shook my head as a strange feeling of déjà vu swept through me.
I knew the garment. I'd seen it before. I'd felt it.
"What is it?" Ryan came to me and followed my haunted gaze to the pile of fabric on the floor.
He stepped closer to it and the others followed.
"Don't touch it," I snapped.
Maeve reached for my arm. "What is it, Isobel?"
I looked back at the cloak and swallowed hard. I didn’t blink as tears fell from my eyes.
"It's a shawl," I said through my tight throat.
And silently, in my head, I added my true reply.
It's my shawl.
Maeve gasped and stared at the wall behind me, focusing on something that had caught her attention.
I followed her line of vision and my attention moved from my shawl to the ancient Celtic carvings on the wall.
"And so hereforth the truth seer will seek passag
e home to deliver news of the coming of darkness." Her voice choked.
My spine went rigid.
"What the hell does that mean?" Ryan barked, losing his patience through his own inner panic.
"It's the fifth prophecy," Maeve whispered as her hand covered her mouth.
All eyes fell on me and I stepped back from the others, shaking my head. I bumped into Ryan and he wrapped his strong arms around me, holding me like he would never let go.
"I don't know what's happening," I sobbed, staring into the gaping archway to oblivion. "I need to get out of here."
The fifth prophecy spoke of the truth seer returning home. And the shawl—the cloak of an ancient Druid. It was mine from when I was a little girl—the little girl I had no memory of. I wasn’t sure how I knew it had belonged to me, but I did.
Terror welled within me.
I was a Druid.
Mother Maureen said it was always within me. As the truth seer, I thought I understood my higher rank and responsibility within the order. But now, the weight of its true meaning came crashing down on me.
"Wait," Paul hushed us. "What’s that? Do you hear it?"
We followed his line of vision into the gaping arch leading to the lost tunnels. Echoing voices trailed out in a repeating chorus of the same word, whispered again and again in a haunting assault to my senses.
Isobel.
Isobel.
The sound of my name whirled around me in taunting waves, as if exploring me to determine my true identity. The harrowing echoes beckoned for me to enter the darkness of the tunnels.
My knees buckled beneath me and Ryan held me up, pulling me into his chest.
"Who the fuck is that?" he called into the darkness. "What do you want?" His voice cracked with agitation. "Paul, hold Isobel. Don’t let her go, even for a second. I won't fuckin' allow them to torture her like this." His rage emanated off him like heat.
"No, please," I begged as he passed me to Paul. "Don't go in there, Ryan. Please." I reached for him and wobbled on my rubbery knees as Paul grabbed hold of me.
"Ryan, it's not safe," Paul shouted. "You can't go in there alone."
"I won't go far. I just need to shine my light down one of the tunnels and expose the assholes," he said. "I'll stay in earshot." He barreled into the mouth of the labyrinth, shining his light frantically in every direction.
Before I could cry out to him again, he moved into the darkness of one of the tunnels.
"Ryan!" My voice finally broke free.
"It's okay, Isobel," he called back. "There’s nobody here. And it looks like the tunnels go on for miles. It's unbelievable."
"Come back now!" I yelled.
We froze in place, waiting for him to reappear.
"Ryan?" I called to him. Each passing second felt like an eternity.
Paul passed me to Maeve and moved to the opening. Then he shouted for him too.
"Ryan!" His voice echoed through the maze of subterranean passages. He turned back to us. "What the fuck?"
I buckled down to the floor and landed on my knees. Tears of fear fell from my eyes as terror moved through me.
Where could he have gone? He promised to not go far. Maybe the voices were real and someone or something lingered within the maze of horrors.
In that same instant of sheer panic, Ryan stumbled back into view. He staggered out of a different tunnel from the one he originally entered, and then fell to the floor in exhaustion. We jumped back like skittish animals as if seeing a ghost.
He panted at the floor without lifting his head and I scrambled over to him.
"Ryan." I helped him sit up.
He slumped as if every ounce of energy had been drained from him. His head wobbled while he tried to focus on me, then he reached for my face.
"Isobel. It's you," he murmured as he stared at me. His astonished gaze absorbed my every feature, as if he hadn’t seen me for years.
"Yes, Ryan. It's me." I looked to Maeve and Paul in bewilderment. What the hell was wrong with Ryan? Did they see it too? He was like a weakened form of himself. Like he’d been lost in the great abyss for endless amounts of time. I shined my light into his face—and stared in horror.
His scruffy stubble had grown into a full-face beard in the short moments he'd left our sight. Dirt and soot covered his skin and his riot gear was ripped and worn. He gasped for fresh air, as if trying to pull life back into his weary bones.
Squinting his eyes, trying to filter the direct beams from our headlamps, he strained to speak.
Then the words finally came.
"How long was I gone?"
Chapter 11
Paul grabbed hold of Ryan’s shoulder and yanked him up. Maeve kept her hold on me and we all barreled back to the narrow opening in the wall leading toward our escape. We hurried as if an evil force would groan out of the depths of the tunnels and take us into the darkness of its lost maze forever.
As we squeezed out of the secret cavern into the catacomb chamber, Rory and Jayne leapt over to us.
"What the hell happened ta him?" Rory shouted as he stared at Ryan’s decrepit condition.
"We're not sure yet," Paul shot back, supporting Ryan’s exhausted frame. “Let’s just get out of here for now.”
I clung to Maeve as we all scrambled out of the catacombs and gathered at the feet of the guardians.
Jittering from shock and uncertainty, we paced around the bags and ponchos piled on the floor, waiting for someone to take charge.
"It's still pissin' rain, I'm sure," Paul said, reaching for the ponchos. "Let's remain calm and systematic. Our gear needs to be organized and we..." His voice was cut off by a burst of energy surging from deep within the catacombs. Our hair blew back and I stumbled from the force.
"Something's awakened," Jayne murmured as she squinted into the blast.
"What’s awakened?" Rory shot his gaze to her.
She looked all around and into everyone's eyes. "I don't know. But it's searching."
My eyes jumped to Ryan’s and then to Maeve’s. Jayne knew something. She held some form of understanding of what was occurring. Whatever supernatural crap was happening down in the cavern, it had crept into Jayne’s consciousness.
Or her lack of consciousness.
I had to wonder if her condition, being so closely entwined with true death, had something to do with her awareness.
“Death?” The word left my lips before I could stop it. I stared at Jayne for an answer.
Everyone froze and all breathing stopped as the word sank deep within us. Death was coming and we all felt it. We waited in terrified suspended animation for our next command.
"Shit!” Rory blurted. “We gotta get out of here. Fuck the gear. We’ll deal with it out in the fuckin' real world."
And with that, we all launched for the narrow tunnel to our escape. Maeve pulled me up through the tight passage as Jayne pushed. The guys did the same with Ryan. In record time, we pulled ourselves out of the hole and rolled into the safety of the clearing.
It didn't take long for the comforting relief of our freedom to turn to panicked running again as sinister groans wafted out from deep within the tunnel. The rain and wind had kicked up into a blasting frenzy, adding to our hysteria, and we ran through its driving force, hardly able to see two meters in front of our faces.
With speed and agility fueled by adrenalin, we flew down the trail toward our vehicles. We kept sharp focus on our safe destination while swiping stinging rain from our eyes. Our shouts of direction to each other were barely heard over the wind. Once we reached the trucks, we piled into the Jeep.
Panting and squished together, we fogged up the glass instantly. Rory put the windows down a few inches and within seconds had the Jeep in gear, ripping up the mud and gravel beneath the wheels. We charged along the road, bouncing in every divot along its surface, as we bombed away from the mystical clearing in shocked silence.
But the dead silence was soon broken.
Jayne lifted her head of
f the window she’d been resting on. She blinked her eyes at me as if to clear her thoughts, then moved her lips with great effort and spoke.
“Yes, Isobel,” she replied. “Death.”
Leaving our utility belts in the Jeep, we fell into the nearest pub we could find, looking like a battered militia group. Jayne’s monotone delivery of the word death had rattled us beyond our normal chatter and silenced us into a frightened quiet place.
The barman stood at attention as shock splashed over his face from the sight of us.
"Sorry sir, no alarm," Paul started with a wave of his hand. "We're just in from a trainin' for the Garda. Hoping' fer a few pints is all." He smiled to top off the friendly social fake, putting every ounce of his energy into hiding the fact that we were terrified.
The barman’s shoulders relaxed and he began pulling the pints.
"Six, please," Paul added.
"Right, so," he fired back, eager for a bit of conversation. "Have they kept ya informed of the poor fecker in Dublin? I'd think the Garda would be trainin' ye ta handle such things better, no?"
Paul froze in his tracks and then moved closer to the bar. "What are you talking about?" he pressed.
"Poor fella starvin’ himself. You know the one. Sacrificin’ himself for the children of God. Them poor kids who’d been abused.” Barman paused, watching for Paul’s reaction.
“Yeah, the martyr,” Paul said, sending a glance back our way. “What about him?”
The barman wiped the counter with his rag as he kept an eye on the settling pints. "If the Garda could only make the proper arrests. You know, to the ones who caused the pain. But we all know they're blocked. By the higher authority. The church."
"That's right," Paul feigned agreement with him. "'Tis a shame. We’re prayin’ for the safe keeping of the martyr."
“Ach, sure,” the barman flicked his rag, “’Tis too late for that.”
Paul leaned in closer to him, searching the man’s face. Then his eyes were drawn to the television glowing behind him. The headlines ticked across the bottom of the screen as the images showed crying marchers and uniformed officials pushing their way through the crowds.
Truth Seer (Irish Mystic Legends Book 3) Page 9