by Stephen Cole
Tye saw the outrage, the anger in Hela’s eyes mirrored in those of the other acolytes. And she knew that they were no longer interested in the heathen.
Samraj was now their target.
Uncertainly, the once beautiful woman turned to face Hela, spoke a few words in the strange language, then paused to spit out some blood. ‘Your god is not dead,’ she began again in English. ‘He … he lives on through you. And – and I can heal you now.’
Hela drew her knife, took a further step towards Samraj. Her brethren did the same. The ground trembled again, as if in anticipation.
‘We should get the hell out of here,’ hissed Motti, edging away from the altar. ‘Now, while they’re distracted.’
‘I can take genetic material from him and give it to you,’ she told them desperately. ‘You will be flesh of his flesh – truly! You will all be gods!’
‘Not everyone wants the same things you do,’ muttered Tye as she and the others crept warily after Motti.
‘Stay back,’ Samraj said as the acolytes formed a tight circle around her. ‘Kill me and your cult will die out too!’
But with their god dead at last, Tye wondered what could be left for these people.
Samraj’s voice rose to a bloodcurdling scream. ‘Help me!’
As the cry choked off, Tye didn’t look back.
Then there came a terrific splitting sound from above. Fresh dirt and pebbles rained down like the chamber itself was weeping. Tye was soon choking on dust and smoke and spores and God knew what.
‘We’ve got to find Coldhardt,’ Patch almost whimpered. ‘We can’t deal with this by ourselves.’
‘Looks like we’re going to have to,’ said Jonah. ‘Face it, Patch – if he’s not dead, he’s run out on us.’
‘On the contrary.’ Coldhardt stepped out from behind a nearby pillar, weighed down with scrolls and coins and jewellery and vases. ‘Help me with these.’
Patch grinned. ‘I knew you wouldn’t leave us!’
‘You’ve been busy,’ Con observed, stuffing the brightest of the jewels in her pockets.
‘Yeah, hiding out the way while we were nearly killed,’ muttered Jonah.
‘Simply doing what we came here to do.’ He smiled thinly at Tye as she grabbed an undamaged lekythos and some scrolls from his bundle. ‘In the end, wealth is the only reality that matters. And after all that’s happened, I’m damned if we’re coming away empty-handed!’
Jonah took an urn from him, almost dropping it as one of the crystal tapestries crashed down from the blazing ceiling and shattered into a million pieces close behind them. ‘Did you honestly come back for us? Or did you just realise you couldn’t carry all this crap by yourself?’
Coldhardt’s wintry smile was his only answer.
‘What about Hela and her barmy army?’ said Patch. ‘You think they’ll let us just walk out of here?’
‘I don’t think they’re a problem any more,’ said Tye.
She could see them through the gusting smoke; the followers of Ophiuchus had gathered round the corpse on the altar in a close circle, their heads bowed in mourning. The ground shook as if it might split apart, but they did not shift in their vigil, didn’t react as a heavy statue toppled over with a crash close by. It was as though their own lives had ended with their god’s.
Of Samraj’s body there was no sign.
‘Move!’ Coldhardt barked.
Con led them out, struggling under the weight of their treasure, through the ruins of the cavern.
‘Please! Don’t let me die!’ came a weak cry from the smoky shadows near the great bronze doors. ‘I was going to live for ever …’
‘Yianna,’ Tye realised. Through the dust and smoke she saw the girl had been half buried by falling rock.
‘I’m trapped. My leg …’
‘Someone help me get her out.’ Con stuffed a thick handful of jewellery down the waistband of her jeans and started scrabbling at the chunks of rubble. ‘We can’t just leave her.’
‘She’s right.’ Coldhardt directed Jonah and Tye to help her at the rock pile.
Motti scowled. ‘Why the hell should we take her with us, after all she’s done?’
Con smiled up at him. ‘Because like you said – it is a gift, yes? Demnos offered us a fortune to bring her back alive.’
‘That’s gonna be the tricky bit,’ said Patch, wincing as another chunk of ceiling came crashing down around them.
With Yianna dug out and slung over Motti’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes, Jonah followed the others out of the great hall. He paused for a second in the doorway, glimpsing the dark figures motionless in the flames as the altar became a funeral pyre. Then he turned and stumbled away feeling sweaty and sick.
The rest of the catacombs were no more secure. Huge cracks had opened up in the walls and parts of the roof were caving in. The tunnels were ankle deep with scalding water bubbling out of the ground. The glowing veins in the snake-root seemed to seethe and pulse with angry life as the tremors grew stronger and longer with every passing minute.
Dazed and disturbed, the rest of Jonah’s journey back passed in a succession of nightmare moments. The pounding vibration of falling stone knocking him off his feet. Priceless relics slipping from his grip, vanishing beneath the steaming water. His ashen reflection staring back up at him. Crossing a cave-in, trying to squeeze through a tiny gap, a moment with the weight of a mountain on his ribs while Tye and Con dragged him through. Yianna dangling upside down ahead of him, tears rolling over her high forehead, her long hair trailing through slimy puddles.
And through it all, the fear of being entombed here for ever. The awful feeling that the wraiths he’d seen before were following close behind, ready to pluck him back into the fetid darkness.
But somehow they made it back to the dark, cramped access tunnel that led up to the antechamber.
‘We’re on the final stretch,’ Coldhardt shouted, stuffing precious relics and ornaments inside his shirt to free up his hands. His torch beam flicked into life now the fungus was too patchy to light their way, but its glow was faint. ‘Has everyone still got their torch?’
‘No,’ Jonah realised.
‘Must’ve dropped mine in the big freak-out,’ was Patch’s answer. Jonah’s heart sank to hear everyone but Motti give the same story.
‘Someone else take Yianna,’ Motti shouted from somewhere up ahead. ‘I’ll go on and light the way, open the outer door.’
‘Take as many of the others’ treasures as you can carry,’ Coldhardt instructed. ‘Patch, Con, go with him. Jonah, you take over with Yianna – pass her up through the gap when Con and Patch are in position. Tye, take my torch and lead the way.’
‘He would have made a good schoolteacher,’ Jonah muttered, offloading the few treasures he’d kept hold of on to Motti, who took them without a word.
‘Schoolteacher, huh?’ Tye forced a half-smile. ‘And what have you learned today, Jonah Wish?’
‘That nothing lasts for ever?’
Yianna lay where she’d been dumped on the hot, dank ground, passive and tear-stained, all the fight wrung from her. Jonah could almost feel sorry for her. He tensed his already aching muscles to lift her, but she actually weighed very little. With Tye lighting the way ahead and Coldhardt following behind, he shifted her along the narrow tunnel in a fireman’s lift, as fast as he could.
But then a fresh tremor, the largest yet, shook down more dirt and rock from the roof. Jonah and Yianna fell back against the tunnel wall as a huge crack opened up in the ground beside them.
A searing heat welled up from the split, together with a red, dangerous glow like molten metal.
‘Magma!’ Coldhardt shouted. ‘Jonah, get up! If it spills into here it’ll burn the flesh from our bones.’
Jonah was already struggling to his feet when he felt Yianna twisting free of his grip as she tried to fling herself into the chasm.
‘I’d sooner die than go back to my father!’ she screamed.
&nb
sp; Coldhardt grabbed her by the back of the neck and hauled her away from the smoking split in the rock. ‘After what you did to my children,’ he hissed, ‘a death like that would be far, far too quick.’
He squeezed a little harder, and Yianna collapsed to the floor, unconscious.
Jonah dragged her body along to where Tye was waiting beneath the exit hole. Together they handed Yianna up to Con and Patch. ‘Good riddance,’ Jonah murmured as the girl was yanked away from them, her long, bloodied legs vanishing upwards into the darkness. Jonah made a stirrup with his fingers and gestured to Tye he could bunk her up. She used him as a springboard, Con and Patch helping her through.
Then a further tremor and a fierce wave of heat almost knocked him over. It was like being trapped inside a volcano about to blow. He knew he should jump up for safety, quickly, before …
But he found himself turning. Coldhardt was watching him. The old man’s features seemed almost satanic in the ruddy glare of the underground fire.
Jonah kept his hands in the stirrup shape. ‘Come on, then!’
Coldhardt advanced on him and gripped Jonah by the waist.
And Jonah found himself lifted up to where six reaching hands were grabbing for him. They snatched him up through the hole to safety. The ground was hot and hard beneath his back, and in the fading torchlight he looked up at their grimy, grinning faces. Saw the relief there.
Then Jonah rolled back over and offered his own hands to Coldhardt. He pulled up with all his strength, the others helping him, until suddenly Coldhardt lay panting on the ground beside them, clutching his treasures tightly to his chest.
But still they weren’t safe.
‘Goddamn torch!’ Motti shouted. ‘The door’s jammed, mechanism’s fouled up. I can’t see to fix it.’
The ground shook again, the noise of the rending rock almost too low to hear.
‘We have to get out of here!’ Tye shouted.
‘Duh!’ said Motti. ‘Anyone got a match? I can’t see a damn –’
Con had reached into Coldhardt’s pocket and pulled out the old arrowhead. ‘Get ready, Motti,’ she shouted, drawing back her arm. ‘I don’t know how long you’ll have – but make it count, yes?’
And she hurled the arrow at the false door in the shallow alcove. The impact detonated the incendiary panel, which burst into white fire like a miniature sun, so bright and hot that Jonah thought his eyes might boil away. At the other end of the short tunnel, Motti whooped for joy.
‘That’s good!’ he shouted. ‘I can see. All right, people, get ready. I’m gonna lick this sucker!’
A roaring, rumbling noise began to build over the sound of the incendiary. ‘And make it fast, Motti!’ bellowed Coldhardt, back on his feet again.
The trembling ground was littered with treasures and relics, and Jonah grabbed at them just as greedily as the others. No longer scared. Determined.
This had to count.
‘Open sesame!’ Motti shouted as the stone slid slowly open.
‘All right, everyone out!’ Coldhardt ordered, leading the charge for the exit. Jonah picked up Yianna and half-dragged, half-carried her out of the smoky cave and into the cold, damp Macedonian night.
The light rain felt intoxicating and cool against his skin. Jonah dropped Yianna and collapsed in a pile of wet grass, pressing his burning cheeks into it, revelling in it.
‘We must seal the entrance,’ Coldhardt insisted. ‘Use the rest of that plastic explosive, Motti. Whatever’s down there now, stays down there.’
‘But we could set off an even bigger earthquake –’
‘Do it!’
‘Understood.’ Motti spoke it like a salute and grabbed hold of Patch to give him a hand.
‘Don’t get comfy,’ Tye told Jonah, dragging him back to his feet. ‘This won’t be a very healthy place to be in a few minutes.’
‘Tell that to them,’ said Jonah, pointing behind her to where two men in ranger-style uniforms were shouting and yelling in some foreign language, scrambling down the side of the gully to get to them.
Coldhardt crossed to help Motti and Patch at the cave entrance. ‘Con, deal with them, would you?’
Jonah watched, bemused, as Con walked up to the men, all smiles, then floored one with an uppercut to the jaw and knocked down the other with a chop to the neck. He knew it was bad of him, but he couldn’t help laughing.
‘What?’ Con glowered at him. ‘You think I’m talking to park rangers in Macedonian after a night like this? Go to hell!’
‘Hell?’ Jonah looked at Tye, marvelling that they were all still standing. ‘Been there, done that.’
‘Next time,’ she said, ‘we’ll have to get T-shirts done.’
Chapter Twenty-Five
With everyone safely out the way at the top of the gully, Motti let off the charges. The rainy night was lit up firework-bright with a fat explosion. It seemed as though half the foothills were thrown up in the air. In the back of the Jeep, Jonah watched as ton after ton of rock and silt came crashing down over the entrance to the ruined catacombs, burying it for ever. The ground juddered and shook, and soon the car roof rang and rattled with the rain of debris sweeping down from the sky.
The tremors kept on as the echoes of the explosion rolled out to the dark shades of the horizon. Had they triggered a full-scale earthquake?
Then, at long last, the ground was still beneath Jonah’s feet. He waited tensely but as the minutes stretched by it stayed still.
And he thanked God for it.
The rangers dozed through the whole thing, lying side by side in the back seat of their 4×4. One of them had the keys to Samraj’s Range Rover stuffed in his pockets with a note reading KEEP ME, I’M YOURS in Albanian, which was the closest Con could get to their native tongue. After all, she’d argued, no one else would be coming to claim it.
Both men were sweetly oblivious as Coldhardt, his children and their captive drove away into the night’s treacherous terrain.
On board the plane, Patch and Con had fallen asleep and Coldhardt was in a private reverie, gloating over the jewels and chains and coins he had taken from Ophiuchus’s fiery tomb. Yianna was bundled up in the hold, out of sight if not earshot. She’d finally tired of the angry tirades and had fallen quiet, at least for now.
Tye was flying them over an ocean of dark cloud, through the long purple bruise of the night sky.
Jonah wanted to relax, but his mind was still choked with all he had seen. He turned to Motti, who was sitting next to him, idly polishing his glasses on his dusty T-shirt, leaning his head against the window.
‘What’re you thinking?’ Jonah asked quietly.
He shrugged. ‘Just about what happened to me down there. And what happened to the rest of you …’
‘And here I was trying to forget about all that.’
‘You gotta peg it in your head, man, or it just eats you alive,’ Motti told him. ‘I mean, I’m sitting here wondering why I didn’t go head-crazy like the rest of you. I just went out, you know? There was something there I tripped, man, some trigger – gas, a blow dart, I dunno. Made me all, “Yeah, come on in, water’s great”, so I didn’t notice the sharks circling.’
Jonah nodded. ‘So you think maybe that whatever hit you stopped you tripping out on the snake-root spores?’
‘If it was spores,’ said Motti quietly. ‘I ain’t never heard of shock bringing anyone round from a bad trip before. And why didn’t we just fall straight back under when the blast faded?’
Jonah wasn’t sure he liked where this conversation was heading. ‘What, so you think what happened down there was for real? That Ophiuchus really did open those doors to the – the higher realities or whatever? And that those demon wraith things were waiting on the other side?’
‘For you to join them on the other side,’ said Motti in a spooky voice. He laughed unexpectedly. ‘Well, it’s one explanation. But then, try this for size. What if the old guy on the altar was just another cultist – one who had the real l
ong lifespan thing going down? Say he’d found a back way in at some point, probably known only to the real-deal cultists – the ones who’d sooner die than go to someone like Samraj for help. And ’cause they know they got some serious secrets to keep down there, and ’cause they know they got, like, this rogue group splinter cell thing going on, they rigged up this state-of-the-art intruder alarm. Some projection-system set up. A big VR rig – virtual reality, right? Anyone comes in uninvited, they see bad, freaky, weird stuff. Drives them out of their skulls, turns them crazy.’
‘But like you said, you never even saw the trip-out stuff,’ said Jonah slowly. ‘Something got to you before that all kicked off.’
‘Right.’ Motti nodded. ‘So perhaps the first person through those big bronze doors – the first intruder – gets hypnotised somehow. Gets programmed. While his buddies stand around helpless being driven crazy by the VR projections, this post-hypnotic suggestion thing kicks in – and it makes him kill every one of them. And the last person he kills is himself. Total wipeout.’
Jonah frowned. ‘You really think that’s possible? That it was all computers and special effects and not … not demons and stuff?’
‘Man, I gotta believe it.’ Motti turned and looked back out at the dark, brooding landscape through the plane window. ‘’Cause if I was under some devil-charm shit … if I wasn’t meant to see all that scare-you-out-of-your-mind stuff …’ He swallowed. ‘… then just what did those creatures down there have waiting in store for me?’
Jonah felt a shiver run through him. It stayed in his spine till the first pink rays of sunlight came to rouse and warm the uncertain sky, and they were close to home.
Home, he thought.
He closed his eyes and lingered on the word. It stayed solid and real, while the horrors slowly ebbed away.
The next day Tye found herself back in the driving seat – although this time, the ride was far smoother. Besides the sale of the treasures looted from the Macedonian tomb, there was just one other piece of business to take care of: Yianna.
So with Coldhardt for company, Tye had driven the girl back to Demnos’s mansion outside Florence. Now, while Demnos and Coldhardt talked business in private, she kept watch over their charge in a luxurious sitting room. And as she watched Yianna, miserable and distracted in the home that had become her prison, Tye felt just a trace of kinship. She knew what it was like trying to measure up to a memory – though thank God her own father had been too poor to reach Demnos’s levels of obsession. That was the privilege and curse of the truly loaded, Tye decided. You could come so close to making your dreams reality, but then you had to live with the consequences.