Death World's Divide Book 2

by Ryan Hartung

  “Wow, there’s not a scratch on this wall!” Colt shockingly said, eyeing the white marble.

  Leonardo, not about to let his American adversary prove him wrong, rushed over to inspect the wall for himself. Carefully, he traced his finger along the smooth cool edges of the chiseled stone. Only when finally convinced Colt was right did he mumble, “Harrumph.” He folded his arms and took a defiant pose a few steps from the newly exposed structure.

  “Told you I was right,” Colt unnecessarily said, pouring salt in the bronze skinned Italian’s wounds. Hillary shot him a quick glare for his boyish attack but was secretly glad he had done it.

  “Can I dig any of this dirt out with my beast?” Dominic asked; already back in the Bobcat’s cushiony leather upholstered seat and itching to try out the small digger.

  Cliff unfolded his military shovel he’d stored in his backpack and sunk it into the ground at the base of the wall. The shovel cut through the rock and pebbles to a depth of about three inches before hitting another layer of thick rock.

  “That’s a negative everybody,” Cliff remarked after his shovel clinked against the hidden layer of rocky crust. The Colonel pulled the shovel out of the broken earth full of black rocky pebbles, revealing another two inches of the immaculately preserved white wall. He stabbed at the hardened layer a couple more times to make perfectly sure he was correct, before standing, knowing that they needed more explosives.

  The shovel made the same clinking noise as before drawing a sigh from Dominic, who at the moment desired to drive the Bobcat above all else.

  “Looks like we need another round of explosives,” Cliff announced to the others. Unlike using an existing crack as they had before, this time Cliff and Colt took turns creating a hole four feet deep for the cylindrical sticks of destruction. Cliff dropped the two sticks of TNT down the hole, while the others again positioned themselves behind the Bobcat for additional safety.

  BOOM!

  Dust and small pebbles shot into the sky then gradually fell back to earth, pelting them like small pieces of hail. Colt and Hillary held hands during the explosion, creating a mixture of warmth and security between them.

  After the rocky rain began to taper off, Colonel Cliff Barns made his way to the now much deeper crater. There, he found a new six-foot section of the white wall the dynamite had exposed with also what appeared to be a singular step or landing of some sort by the wall’s side.

  “We’re going to be here a long time if that’s the beginning of stairs,” Leonardo speculated.

  “Let’s see,” Colt replied and grabbed Cliff’s military shovel. He dug the shovel’s triangular tip into the fractured rock at the edge of the step and pushed. The shovel’s angular blade easily disappeared five inches into the debris until it hit a hard-unseen surface. Quickly Colt tossed the powdered rocks aside and began digging with the tips of his fingers.

  “There’s something here,” Colt announced. “It’s either more rock or a second step,” he said while excavating the newly exposed white marble.

  Before long, Colt had pushed away enough rock to where a second white step began to appear through the mixture of back dust and small pebbles.

  “Whoa, how far do these steps go down you think?” Dominic asked his friend.

  “I don’t know, but Leonardo’s right. We’ll be here for weeks, if we tackle this ancient site one explosion at a time. It’s amazing the dynamite has no effect on this white rock, but we need to find another way inside. I doubt the dynamite in Cliff’s bag is going to be even close to enough to finish the job anyway. But that’s okay, because I have an idea,” Colt said, turning away from the white wall and two stairs.

  “What are you going to do Colt?” Hillary asked as she watched him walk to their pile of supplies.

  “I’m thinking outside of the box,” he returned with a wry smile. As Colt approached their combined pile of belongings and supplies, he reached for the Lightning Staff, which he had carefully rested against a large rock.

  “What are you going to do with that?” Leonardo wondered aloud. As an archeologist, he desperately wanted to see the staff in action, but being somewhat of Colt’s nemesis he had been hesitant to ask for a demonstration.

  “Before we came to Italy, Dominic, Hillary, and I were discussing about what we humans thought we knew as fact, only to have history prove us wrong,” he said while pulling the Lightning Staff toward him. Immediately the staff began glowing, but upon approaching the white marble-like structure the normal golden-white light the staff usually emitted turned orange, then orange red, and then finally to a deep pulsing magenta as Colt stopped and stood on the top white step.

  “That’s incredible,” Leonardo said, barely able to mouth the words at observing the Lightning Staff’s powers. Only when Colt carried the staff to the top of the volcano had Leonardo seen its pulsing light, but that was only one constant color, not the changing hues it was radiating now.

  “How did you know?” Hillary asked, mesmerized by the staff’s brilliant pulsing colors herself.

  “About the change of colors? I didn’t,” he said admiring the beautiful aura. “This is just a hunch, but I think something is protecting the stone wall and stairs. I mean, if you look closely, they both appear to be made of common marble, which is everywhere around this part of the world. But if that’s the case, the dynamite should have blown it to smithereens just like the igneous rock we’re standing on. Nothing else can explain why this particular set of marble walls and stairs has been able to last through explosions and volcanoes, with heat hotter than any of us can imagine, and come out of it without so much as a scratch. My guess is there’s an artifact somewhere below us, and it’s protecting this structure.”

  “So, what are you going to do with the staff?” Cliff asked, wanting a plan of attack. He agreed there was an unknown for keeping the marble wall and stairs safe, but for the moment, he didn’t care what it was. General Radcliff had tasked him with finding the treasure and that was what he was going to do.

  “Why don’t the rest of you get back behind the Bobcat? I want to try striking the area with lightning and see what happens. Obviously there’s some sort of connection between the staff and this place, because I’ve never seen its color change until now.”

  Cliff led the others back behind the small-parked excavator while Colt took a few steps backward from the two protruding stairs. He held the Lightning Staff away from his body and imagined lightning striking the ground just past the second visible step. A small black cloud formed above and then shot a bolt of pure energy into the spot Colt had envisioned in his mind.

  The igneous rock hissed, while instantly turning into molten lava, as the lightning bolt made direct contact with the cone’s surface. Colt shielded his face from the lava’s searing heat and took another few steps backward. As instantly as the lava formed, the red molten rock began to seep through unseen cracks below, leaving another twenty steps leading further down into the volcano now visible. As the lava receded underground, and its harsh heat with it, Colt walked to the stairs and peered down. Same as with the dynamite, Colt could tell there were still more stairs yet to be uncovered.

  “Stay there guys,” he ordered as his friends began leaving their place of refuge. “There’s another twenty or so stairs visible now, but I need to use the staff again.”

  Colt held up the staff a second time and asked it to strike just in front of the bottom most visible stair. Again lightning struck, turning the rock back into molten lava. He watched the liquid rock slowly disappear as before, but this time revealing another fifty stairs following the white stone wall. However, this time, maybe ten steps from the bottom, where the wall should have continued, was a doorframe and door constructed out of the same white marble-like material.

  “Alright guys, I think I’m at the end of the stairs,” he said, giving the all-clear for them to come out of hiding. Before they reached the stairs’ beginning, Colt was already halfway down the newly unearthed stairway. At the botto
m, the stair there was an inscription on the top of the door with read:

  HERE LIES HADES, THE GOD OF THE UNDERWORLD’S FINAL RESTING PLACE. THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE HADES

  Colt traced the inscription with his finger, feeling the etchings carved thousands of years ago. As he inspected the door, Leonardo followed by the others, descended to the door’s landing.

  “Your staff has changed color again,” Leonardo, pointed out. Colt gazed up at the staff and stared in amazement. He had been so intense on uncovering the covered stairway, curious about volcano’s buried treasure; he hadn’t noticed his relic’s beautiful color change. The deep blue, an indescribably beautiful blue and one that human hands would have had extreme difficulty in producing, had replaced the Lightning Staff’s dark magenta.

  “Do you think your staff is something like an artifact compass?” Dominic questioned as he brought up the party’s rear.

  “I don’t know,” Colt admitted, “but now that you mention it, I think there’s a good chance you’re exactly right.”

  As Cliff and Dominic approached the door to try to open it, Colt moved off to the side, careful to keep the Lightning Staff as far away from them as possible. The last thing any of them needed was to be shocked from the staff this close to unearthing another miraculous find. He watched while the two American males heaved and hoed against the massive block of stone. Slowly, inch by inch, the stone door moved, letting the day’s light flood into the unsealed chamber. Once they had pushed the door far enough into the unseen room for the largest of them to squeeze through, the party of five entered the ancient chamber hoping for the best and preparing for the worst.

  Chapter

  7

  “Follow them,” Vladimir commanded as the American archeological party disappeared down the white marble steps. The Russians took their time scanning the area to make sure no one was around to see their prohibited descent into the volcanic crater. Leaving most of their equipment under the rocky alcove, except their flashlights and pistols among a few other key items, the Russian team silently formed a line and trekked down the volcano’s decline to the floor below.

  Vladimir led the party followed by Natalya then Dmitry with Pavel bringing up the rear. As Pavel was the soldier most trusted by Vladimir, it was his honor to protect the party from any unwanted trouble to their backs. Vladimir kept Natalya close to him for many reasons. First and foremost, she was the most inexperienced in respect to warfare and weaponry, and it was his job to keep her safe. If anything happened to Anatoly Lipov’s daughter, there would be hell to pay, and the blame would fall squarely on him for sure.

  However, there was a more non-military reason Vladimir was keeping Natalya close and that was because he wanted it that way. Not because of her lack of military training, or her added expertise in archeology, but because he found her intriguing, and for once in his career, he could use his high military ranking to obtain something more rewarding than a pat on the back or a enamel pin; a possible non-military relationship.

  Of course, Vladimir hadn’t said anything to Natalya to let her know that in the days’ time they’d spent together he was starting to find her more interesting than he had originally thought. Initially he had only been attracted to her beauty and position in life, but after spending time alone with her, while staking out the Americans’ hotel, Vladimir found it interesting he actually wanted to spend more time alone with her, which wasn’t normally the case with him and non-military personnel.

  At the top of the stairs, Vladimir whirled his head for a quick check of his party, making sure they were still together as one unit. “Flashlights and guns,” he said only loud enough for his party to hear. Vladimir heard the clicking of metal as his compatriots brought them out into the open. After Natalya patted him on the back, signaling the party was ready to resume movement, Vladimir started down the stairs to the open door beckoning him at the bottom.

  Shortly after descending the seventy stairs or so, which under the secretive circumstances felt more like two hundred, the Russian contingent was at the bottom landing. Vladimir quickly raised a hand for quiet and peered around the marble doorframe. Inside he could see flickers of light and hear muffled voices further down the corridor.

  He pulled his head back and whispered to the others, “They’re just around the corner in some sort of short hallway. There’s another stone door in their way. We’ll hold here until they make it through.” So far, the Americans had been doing the Russian’s work for them, and Vladimir reasoned there was no reason to stop. For now, they would wait.

  ***

  As they entered the room, undisturbed for over a millennium, the Americans found they weren’t actually in a room at all. Instead, they were in a fifteen-foot corridor leading to another massive stone slab door with the same inscription regarding Hades as the one before it. The corridor was unusually warm, but not surprisingly so, as the stairs they had just descended had brought them close to four or five stories underground. Although Mount Vesuvius was dormant on the surface, there was still plenty of lava and steam flowing underneath their feet. Within a few minutes of being inside the long corridor, each of them begun lightly sweating.

  As the others followed Colt and the Lightning Staff’s deep blue pulsing, the staff’s color began changing again. Slowly but steadily, as Colt approached the second sealed doorway, the blue aura turned to an even deeper purple, to where the purple was so dark hardly any useful light was being generated from its glow. With the Lightning Staff’s glow practically obsolete, Hillary and the others flipped on their flashlights for additional light.

  “Ready to push another slab Dominic?” Cliff asked, handing his flashlight to Hillary.

  “Sure, it’s not driving the Bobcat, but I’ll do what I can to help,” Dominic replied. He walked over to Leonardo, who had been noticeably quieter since Colt used his staff to uncover the hidden steps, and handed him his flashlight. With Colt off to the side, and Hillary and Leonardo both shining their two high-powered beams on the second door, Cliff and Dominic pushed with all of their might.

  As with the previous door, Cliff and Dominic pushed as hard as their aching muscles would allow. Slowly but methodically, with an eerie sound of rock grating against the floor, the large slab of stone was pushed out of the way. Similar to the Lightning Staff in Peru, as the slab of rock was moved further and further from the door’s opening, a new light began to appear. Unlike the bright pure white light that had appeared from the Lightning Staff, this time an eerie almost sinister haze of bright emerald green flooded the corridor.

  “Is this what it was like when you found your staff?” Leonardo asked. He sensed an evil in the adjacent room as did the rest of them. Although the green hue of the misty haze in the adjoining room was not an evil color in itself, there was a definite vibe that whatever was in there had something to do with death.

  “Yes and no. Yes, we saw the staff glowing through cracks in the wall and even more once, we opened the door, but no in the fact that I didn’t feel anything ominous about the unknown. How about you guys?” Colt asked Hillary and Dominic.

  “Nope, definitely not the same,” Dominic replied.

  “Yeah this is different. This time it feels... wrong somehow,” Hillary added.

  “I can’t say I don’t agree with the four of you, but our mission is to secure the device, whatever that device might be. Just because something’s putting out a bad vibe does not mean our objectives have changed. Remember, there are the Russians and who knows whom else out there, just waiting to get their hands on whatever is emitting that green glow. You all had better know, if we’re not man enough to go in there and get the artifact, for sure someone else will be,” Cliff interjected into the conversation, adding a brave face.

  “You have a point Colonel,” Colt replied, watching Hillary and Dominic nod their heads in agreement.

  “I’d never forgive myself if I let you Americans have all the glory,” Leonardo added. He then handed Cliff’s flashlight back to him and shi
mmied through the door’s open crack, disappearing into the newly unsealed room’s green haze. One by one, each of them followed Leonardo into the room, leaving the corridor completely empty.

  ***

  Finally, after what seemed like an hour to the Russian team members, Vladimir gave the order to move inside the underground structure. Before disappearing into the first corridor, Vladimir put a solitary finger to his lips indicating complete silence. He left his flashlight off, but drew his pistol as a careful precaution.

  Once inside the fifteen-foot long corridor, just as he had outside the white marble structure, Vladimir heard voices coming from the adjoining room. Silently, like a cat stalking its prey, he moved through the long hall and to the next open door. As the corridor’s darkness increasingly muted the rays of light from the outside world, he began noticing the green light radiating from the next room.

  From behind, he felt a gentle but hurried tap on his shoulder. He stopped and turned to Natalya, who was pointing to the eerie green haze coming from the next room. Without speaking, he nodded and pointed two fingers to his eyes and then to the open door, signaling that he too saw the strange light.

  Vladimir quickly patted Natalya’s hand, which she had yet to retrieve from his shoulder and began moving again. Again, Vladimir pulled his small contingent into place in front of the newly approached door and raised a finger to wait. He didn’t like the feel of the place and could tell his compatriots agreed, but failure wasn’t an option.

  ***

  Inside the newly entered room Hillary, Dominic, Cliff, and Leonardo each let their hands and arms holding their individual flashlights go limp, resulting in the artificial beams of light dropping onto the temple floor. Colt still tightly clutched the Lightning Staff, which was now pulsing such a dark purple it almost looked black.