“If it’s a robot,” Temi said, “maybe that swim it took will cause it to rust.”
“I think this model is a hair more sophisticated than that,” Simon said.
“Darn.”
Another crash put an end to our conversation. We were definitely getting closer. I swept my flashlight across the space ahead again and spotted another stone beach with a wall behind it. That wall held a dark opening. Another chamber? That seemed to be the direction the crashes were coming from.
I licked my lips and continued along the ledge. Nobody spoke as we padded across the beach. I slowed, nearly walking on tiptoes, as we climbed up to the new opening. I approached it from the side instead of straight on, having some notion that I shouldn’t reveal myself. The soft scrapes of claws rasping on stone reached my ears. I stopped and leaned my shoulder against the rock instead of looking. We needed to wait for it to get farther ahead. It’d be a long, hard sprint to get back to the small tunnel. I wished I’d ordered Temi to stay behind instead of simply asking if she wanted to.
The scrapes continued, and I thought I caught a soft grunt too. Of effort?
Temi pointed to my lamp and mouthed, “Off?” I had the light pointed to the ground and could barely see her face. I shook my head though. I knew what she was thinking—that the light was telling the creature where we were, but I couldn’t stomach the idea of plunging all of us into blackness. Besides, our predator could doubtlessly navigate in the dark far more effectively than we could.
A new crash sounded, this one the loudest yet, though maybe it was only our proximity to the noise that had changed. A hint of dust wafted into the air. I crinkled my nose. Was that the smell of blood as well?
More scrapes came from behind the opening, this time in a regular rhythm, as if the predator were running. Because it sounded like it was running away instead of toward us, I risked poking my head around the corner. I swept the flashlight beam through the chamber, catching the broad black back of the creature as it disappeared into one of several tunnels at the end of a long, rectangular chamber that sloped downward, its floor surprisingly smooth after the humps and dips of the outer cavern. Jumbles of broken stone lay at irregular spots in little alcoves that ran along the left wall.
A flash of something pale like straw caught my eye, and I focused my light on the first rubble pile. Stones weren’t the only things in it.
“Is that... a person?” Temi whispered.
What I’d thought might be straw was hair. Blond hair.
I swallowed. One of the riders? If they were dead, who was going to help us escape?
I glanced at the end of the chamber again, making sure the creature hadn’t returned, then crept closer to the first alcove. A wet puddle was spreading from beneath the jumble of rocks. My stomach gave a sick lurch. It wasn’t water.
Simon’s light joined mine in its focus on the rubble pile—and the male body half buried in it. His light wasn’t entirely steady. Maybe mine wasn’t either. It didn’t matter; it was enough to see that this wasn’t Eleriss or Jakatra—in addition to the blond hair, this guy had a big shaggy beard. I was relieved... but confused. I didn’t know what I’d expected to find down here, but it hadn’t been more mutilated bodies.
I walked forward, numbness and confusion making my steps slow. How could there be people down here, and why wouldn’t someone have yelled or tried to run or anything when the predator attacked?
The body hadn’t been decapitated, but bloody gashes across its neck and chest left little doubt that the man was dead. Maybe the creature had been in a hurry, I thought bleakly.
“That’s a strange... costume.” Temi pointed to a bear fur cloak that was clasped about the man’s pale shoulders. His muscular chest was bare, with dark blue tattoos running up and down his arms, and he wore some very old-fashioned wool trousers.
“Looks like he was planning to go as a Viking this Halloween,” I said.
There were weapons too. A spear had broken when a rock fell onto it, though a sword leaning against the back of the alcove had survived unscathed, along with a battered and gashed wooden shield. I picked up a leather helmet that had rolled away from the pile and turned it over in my hands.
I must have made some noise, or perhaps stared at it for an inordinately long time, because Simon prodded me.
“Delia?”
“This is bizarre,” I said.
“Tell us something we don’t know. Are you referring to the situation as a whole or that helmet in particular?”
“This. All of it.” I waved toward the weapons and the body. “I don’t think this is a costume.”
“What else would it be?”
A real Viking, I thought, but I didn’t say it out loud, because it sounded idiotic. This was the American southwest in the twenty-first century, not medieval Europe. “I don’t know. I guess it has to be a reproduction. Nothing is aged the way it would be if it were a museum piece. Whoever crafted it did a good job making it look real though.” I avoided eyeing the dead fellow. It made me uneasy knowing he’d been alive a half hour ago. At least it seemed that way. I was still mystified at the idea that someone had been down here.
“Shouldn’t there be horns sticking out of the helmet?” Simon asked.
“No, that’s only in the comics and cartoons. This is a much more authentic kit. Look at the shield. There are even teeth marks in it—the berserkers supposedly bit their own shields as part of their warrior fury.”
“Maybe he’s a part of someone’s LARP team,” Simon said.
“And what were they role-playing down here? Viking spelunkers?”
“What are you saying?” Simon asked. “That this guy was a Viking?”
“No, of course not. He just died. How could that be possible?”
“Enh, all sorts of weird stuff is happening in town this week.”
I forced myself to consider the man more closely. I’d have no trouble poking and prodding at a thousand-year-old mummified cadaver, but studying someone with blood still trickling from his wounds was a different story. Summoning the detachment of a scientist—or a morgue worker—wasn’t easy. In addition to the fresh gaping wounds, he had a number of old scars on his arms. I didn’t know enough about sword fighting to proclaim that he’d gotten them that way, but they were a mix of straight lacerations and punctures.
“I don’t know,” I said again, reluctant to commit to anything. As the one with the archaeology degree, I ought to be the last one to posit ridiculous unscientific notions. “For all we know, he might have been made by whoever made the monster.” Speaking of unscientific notions.... “Maybe it’s a robot,” I said helplessly.
“A robot that bleeds?” Temi asked.
I made a throwaway gesture, half dismissal and half frustration, then walked farther down the chamber, only to halt at the next caved-in alcove. This one held a body as well, the gashed remains of a lean, muscular black man with his hair pulled back in tiny braids and his ears pierced with disks of elephant tusk. Streaks of red ochre paint smudged his cheeks, and he wore a dyed garment that I dubbed a toga, though I doubted that was the right word. I’d only had one class that had touched upon African history.
“Masai warrior?” I asked and found myself looking at Temi for her opinion. She offered a blank look in return, and I blushed and gave myself a mental kick in the butt. Right, because she was black, she was automatically an expert on nomadic African tribes from centuries past.
“This one got a weapon out at least.” Temi pointed to his hand.
He’d died holding a knife. But if he’d been fighting the creature, why hadn’t we heard any sounds of combat? Surely he would have yelled or screamed in pain when his flesh was torn asunder. His eyes weren’t even open. The first man’s hadn’t been either. From their calm faces, it appeared as if they’d died in their sleep rather than in battle.
Simon had moved farther down the chamber, and I was of a mind to catch up and leave this mystery until later, but something about the African ma
n’s face snagged my gaze. He appeared to have been about thirty with broad handsome features. Trying to put scientific curiosity ahead of squeamishness, I knelt to examine his teeth. His lips were still warm. I felt sick. If we’d had decent weapons or some kind of plan, we might have been able to stop the predator from slaying all of these people. Whoever they were—had been—I was certain they would have been intriguing to know.
“What are you looking for?” Temi asked.
Remembering my original purpose, I leaned in with my flashlight and inspected his teeth. They were white, straight, and uncrowded in his mouth. He had flawless skin as well, aside from a few scars that, as with the first body, appeared to have come in battle.
“Answers,” I said, “but all I have is more questions.”
“About his teeth?” Temi raised her eyebrows.
I sat back on my heels. “I thought that if he had some cavities, it’d be a clue that he was a modern dude dressed to look like a primitive dude. You didn’t see much of that before sugars and processed foods were introduced to cultures around the world.”
“But he doesn’t have any?”
“Nope. Perfect teeth with a jaw large enough to let all his wisdom teeth come in without trouble. Lots of theories on the why, but that’s getting rarer these days.”
“Guys?” Simon said from the end of the chamber where he was staring into the last alcove. He had his hand flat against... nothing. It was as if there were a window there, but I didn’t see any glass. Maybe it was simply too clean and perfect to see from where I stood. The stone columns framing that alcove hadn’t been smashed. “I think these are stasis chambers,” Simon said.
“They’re what?” I asked. “And if the words star or trek come up in your explanation, I’m going to thump you over the head with that big shield.”
Simon had his mouth open, about to launch into his answer, but he closed it and glowered at me before starting again. “In Space Seed, an episode of an excellent but at the time under appreciated space-based adventure show—” I rolled my eyes, but he pressed on, “—a team of genetically engineered super men who’d tried to take over the planet were cryonically frozen and placed into stasis chambers inside a ship that was launched into space. These superior beings were revived by the crew of the Enterprise before the captain realized what they were dealing with.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve seen it. These guys weren’t frozen though.” I rubbed my fingers at the memory of the lingering warmth of the dead man’s lips.
“That’s just what happened in the story,” Simon said. “Maybe these chambers used some other kind of technology to keep their specimens alive. Alive but in a biologically suspended state.”
“Swords, glowing relics, advanced technology, and robot monsters,” I muttered. “Someone want to let me know whether we’re wandering through a fantasy movie or a science fiction one, because I’m getting mixed messages here?”
Simon shrugged. “Does it matter?”
“I want to know whether we should be looking for a warlock to help us build a magical artifact of doom to destroy the evil wizard behind this or a scientist to construct an electromagnetic field generator to wipe out the nefarious aliens’ super technology.”
This statement earned me blank looks from Temi and Simon. Apparently they weren’t impressed with my tendency to get sarcastic and cranky when the world wasn’t working right.
Shaking my head, I walked past more destroyed alcoves on my way to look at the undamaged one in front of Simon. I passed three more bodies along the way. One wore the dark garb of a ninja, one had the headdress and jade axe of a Mayan warrior, and one was clad in the helmet and armor of a Roman centurion.
“They’re all from different time periods,” I told Simon. “They couldn’t have been snatched up and frozen here at the same time. Not to mention that they’re all here, thousands of miles from where they’re from. Who would have brought them to Arizona? And for what purpose? I think it’s more likely that...” I rubbed my face. “Ugh, this is sounding more science fiction-y all the time, but maybe someone found samples of DNA and grew them from scratch.”
“Oh, like Jurassic Park,” Simon said.
“Is everything a movie or TV show for you?”
“No... that one was a book. It was a book first, anyway.”
“Maybe if we keep hunting around, we’ll stumble across the secret lab where it was all done,” I said. Not exactly the archaeological find I’d hoped to make down here, but nothing about this day—or week—was going as planned, so I don’t know why I’d expected something different from these caves.
“Oh,” Simon said again, this time with an enthusiastic bounce, “maybe the monster was the scientist’s first creation, and the reason it’s back here destroying everything is because—”
One of the rocks half burying the Roman centurion shifted and tumbled down the pile. I jumped a yard.
More helpfully, Temi pointed her flashlight at the body. My breath caught. His eyes were open, his face contorted in a rictus of pain. As with the other warriors, his chest had been torn open by claws and his neck slashed, but the creature must have been in a hurry for it hadn’t severed the jugular. The man tried to turn his head to look at us, but ended up gasping, short wheezing breaths. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
I wasn’t sure whether to run from him or try to comfort him. Was he an enemy? Or a friend? Or neither? Just a victim?
Temi didn’t hesitate. She knelt by the pile and took the man’s hand.
He looked at her, his dark brown eyes full of pain. He whispered something, urgency lacing his tone.
“What?” Temi asked.
I crept forward. I could barely hear him.
“I don’t know what he’s saying,” Temi told me. “It’s not English.”
I knelt at his head. “It’s Latin.” I didn’t know if that made perfect sense or blew my other theory out of the water. If some American geneticists were engineering super warriors for who knew what purposes, why wouldn’t they teach their soldiers English? Who was even around to teach Latin any more, especially the verbal form?
“He keeps saying the same thing over and over,” Temi said. “What does it mean?”
“I am my own... man? No, erus is master. Lord.”
The centurion turned his head toward Simon, gasped, and tried to sit up. Rubble tumbled down the pile. He spit out another sentence, then coughs overtook him. Blood sprayed from his mouth and he flopped back down. He tried one more time to speak, but failed. The rigidity left his body, and his eyes rolled upward, unfocused.
I rubbed a hand down my face, blinking a few times. All of this was too strange, too upsetting. Why’d we ever get involved?
“Uh,” Simon said.
He’d turned toward the tunnels the monster had used to leave the chamber. Two familiar figures were standing there, one holding the curved sword, its silver glow illuminating the air around him more effectively than a flashlight. Jakatra. Eleriss stood at his side, staring at us in disbelief.
I realized the Roman hadn’t been looking at Simon when he spat out those last words.
“What did he say?” Temi whispered. She must have realized the same thing.
I responded in a whisper of my own, not wanting our black-clad friends to overhear. “Don’t let them enslave you.”
CHAPTER 25
I hadn’t needed to worry about whispering. Eleriss and Jakatra were busy pointing at us and arguing with each other in their own language.
“I don’t suppose you know what they’re saying?” Temi murmured.
I was still waiting for the final verdict on the language, but I ventured, “If I had to guess? ‘How did those idiots get down here?’”
I stepped away from the Roman to join Simon in facing Eleriss and Jakatra. A few minutes ago, I would have been relieved to see them. After hearing the soldier’s last words, I was less certain that their appearance was a good thing. What if they were the mad scientists behind everything?
The argument ended, and Jakatra strode toward us. His gaze flicked toward Temi—she’d come up to stand at our backs—but it returned to Simon, as if he were in charge. Jakatra stopped two paces from him and extended a hand, one long finger pointing between Simon’s eyes. The fact that he held his big sword in his other hand made the gesture all the more threatening. I fingered the grip of my bullwhip, though I didn’t fancy the idea of skirmishing with him again.
“You will leave now,” Jakatra said.
“We came to warn you about the creature,” I said. “It dropped in through the ceiling back there. It’s here now. Close.”
Jakatra glanced at the destroyed alcoves. “Obviously.”
“Has it attacked you? What does it want?”
“This is none of your concern. It’s—”
“Jakatra,” Eleriss whispered. He had his own weapon out, the serrated dagger, and he’d turned to face one of the dark side passages.
Jakatra sniffed the air, and he too spun in that direction. I hadn’t heard a thing yet, but their reactions told me enough. I grabbed an arrow out of my quiver and readied the bow. Rock scraped rock behind us. I whirled, expecting to see the creature charging from that direction, but it was Temi, pulling the spear out of the first alcove.
“Good idea,” Simon muttered and grabbed a katana out of the ninja’s stash.
I eyed the centurion’s sword for a second, but decided it’d be better to stick with a weapon I knew how to use. Jakatra waited in a combat stance, the sword raised to shoulder level, blade pointed forward, ready to strike.
I had no more time to think about it. A black shape charged out of the shadows of the nearest tunnel. Though Eleriss was the closest person, it blasted straight toward Jakatra.
I might have had time to loose an arrow, but I hesitated, afraid it’d turn toward me if I annoyed it, and in that split second it crossed the chamber. It had to weigh five times as much as Jakatra. A sane person would have run. He waited like a statue. At the last instant, he leaped to the side, the sword whipping around so fast it blurred.
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