Guardians of Stone (The Relic Seekers)

by Clenney, Anita

  She looked back at the wall where the ghost had disappeared. Maybe that was why he came. To show her a way out.

  Her heart pounding, she slipped on her shoes, and since the room was chilly, she pulled a jacket from her bag and put it on over her shirt. After picking up her backpack, she leaned over Jake once more and touched his face.

  “Jake. If you can hear me, I’m going for help.” God knew where she’d find it. Not from Raphael. He must have been the one who’d locked them inside the tower and somehow drugged Jake.

  Using the lantern, she examined the wall where the figure had disappeared and found a notch in one of the stones. She pushed it and heard a click. A section of the wall swung open. She called to Jake once more, but he didn’t wake. She checked her watch. Midnight. She would follow this entrance. Maybe the monk would lead her outside the castle.

  She grabbed her flashlight and stepped inside the secret door. It smelled musty and stale. The passageway was narrow, but she was used to tight spaces. She’d spent more time inside pyramids and tombs than most kids had spent in a sandbox. A set of steep, curved steps led down. Keeping the light low so as not to startle the ghost in case he was interactive and not a residual haunting, she followed the narrow stairs. At the bottom the passage opened slightly. This must be the third floor. She didn’t see the monk, but he must have come this way.

  Idiot. He doesn’t need an exit. He can walk through walls. You’re the one who’ll probably get trapped.

  It was so quiet she could hear her own breath echoing. Then another noise. Singing. Like she and Jake had heard earlier. If there was someone else here, perhaps he would help Jake. Unless he was the one who’d drugged him, not Raphael. She tried to pinpoint the sound, but it was too muffled through thick walls. She found a small doorway a few feet away. She opened it and peered inside. This was a part of the castle they hadn’t seen. There were two doors, one on either side of the hallway. The soft singing sounded louder here, but she couldn’t tell if it was English. Someone else must be here, or Raphael was listening to music.

  Even if Raphael hadn’t drugged Jake, if he caught Kendall here, he’d probably kill her. If she could get to the main part of the castle, surely there was some kind of phone. Considering the lack of electricity, that might not be the case. If she couldn’t find a phone, she would have to get somewhere with a cell signal so she could call Nathan.

  From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed a robe. She followed the shadow down two more sets of winding stone stairs. At the bottom, she stopped to get her bearings. This must be the first floor. The passageway began to slant downward, changing from stone to dirt. The air was different here, not as dank. The path ended at a set of stairs leading up to a wooden wall. There must be a way out. Using her light, she found a circle like the one on the wall surrounding the castle. She pushed and the wall opened into a space the size of a closet. There was another door in front of her, but no knob or motif. She put both hands on the door and pushed it open. A rush of fresh air lifted her hair as she stepped out. She was in a graveyard. Looking back, she saw that she had stepped out of a massive tree.

  For a minute, concern over both Jake and the monk faded into the background as she studied the graveyard. Its pull was powerful. The moon was full, so she didn’t need her flashlight. The graveyard was small, perhaps a few dozen graves in all, and edged by the same woods that surrounded the castle. The headstones varied in shapes and sizes, but they were all old, some leaning, others fallen. A breeze stirred, rustling the leaves, and the whispers came, teasing with their secrets, pulling at her to enter the woods. Why?

  She moved to the edge and saw a stone building that looked like a chapel. Someone had taken pains to hide it from view. Just like the castle. Beyond it was another statue. They must surround the entire place. She looked around for the monk, but he was nowhere to be found. Maybe he was the one pulling her toward the woods.

  She looked back at the castle and remembered the darkness she’d seen, the danger, the blood and bones. This could be a trap. But the whispers calling her were too urgent to deny. She found a path at the edge of the graveyard. Turning on her flashlight, she followed the crumbling stones through the thick woods. The chapel was old but well tended. The windows were intact, showing beautiful scenes in stained glass. The door was made of thick wood. Her senses started tingling. That was the only way she could describe it. Sometimes it was in her fingers, sometimes her body, sometimes her head. She touched the handle and had a vision of a bright light. There were voices, a boy and a girl, but she couldn’t hear what they were saying. Her head felt as if it were wrapped in gauze.

  She tried to open the door, but it was locked. The nearest window had a clear section in the stained glass, so she used her flashlight to look inside. There weren’t any pews. At the front of the chapel there was some sort of altar; a large flat rock, and behind it, three tall, rectangular stones that looked out of place inside a building. There was writing on the stones and on the altar, but she couldn’t read the words from a distance. The wall surrounding the altar was decorated with friezes. She wanted to look closer, but she had to get Jake out of the tower. And Raphael would probably kill her with that big dagger if he found her trespassing. Trespassing. The image came again, a boy and girl, and the whispers grew frantic. Memories pounded her head with so much force that she knew if she didn’t turn them off she would end up with a migraine.

  She backed away from the window and distanced her mind, though her heart still raced. She backtracked to the graveyard, wondering if her preoccupation with the chapel had caused her to lose the monk. But there he was waiting for her, standing in the moonlight near the edge of the graveyard. He looked back at her, his face still hidden by the cowl, and then he started walking again.

  She didn’t know where he was going but assumed he knew the area better than she did. She hurried through the gravestones, and when she reached the place where he had stood, she saw two square stones stuck in the ground. If these were graves, they must be unconsecrated—that, or they were some kind of monument. She touched one of the stones and felt a rush of grief so strong her legs trembled. She dropped to the ground as a vision came.

  The robed procession moved silently through the trees, a dozen men—three on each side of the casket, six walking behind—their lanterns swaying with each step as they neared the waiting grave.

  She pulled herself from the vision, her chest empty, like it had felt when she found out her father and Adam were dead. Whose funeral had she seen? And where were the other men now? She looked at the other stone and wondered whose body lay underneath. She felt the shadow of evil a moment before something dropped over her head, plunging her into darkness. Grief turned to panic as she clawed at the cloth covering her mouth and nose. Her captor grabbed her arms and pinned them roughly to her sides. She heard voices. American, she thought through her panic. But none belonging to Jake.

  She struggled, twisting her body, kicking and yelling, her cries muffled by the cloth. Her captor was strong, and struggling just made it more difficult to breathe.

  Someone cursed. “Did you see that?”

  “Yeah. What was it?” a second man asked.

  “I don’t know. Where’d he go?”

  “He disappeared, just like that.” The man’s voice was shaky. “I told you I thought I saw something a few minutes ago. I’ve heard stories about this place. I’m getting out of here.”

  “What about her?” asked the first voice.

  “Thomas is on his way. Let him get her.”

  The arms released her and she stumbled to the ground. She yanked the bag off her head and sat up. She heard the men running through the bushes, back toward the castle. Without waiting to see what had startled them, she took off in the opposite direction, where she’d last seen the monk. She thought she saw him, but realized it was a tall stone. When she drew closer, she counted seven stone pillars, taller than the ones in the chapel, all arranged in a circle. Beyond the pillars, she saw more statue
s, spaced every few hundred yards. She felt a vibration in her bones as she ran. Ducking behind the closest stone, she waited, trying to catch her breath as she listened for her pursuers. Raphael’s voice wasn’t there. Had he drugged Jake and sent the men to take her necklace? One of them mentioned Thomas. The same Thomas from the hotel?

  She didn’t dare turn on her flashlight, so she studied the formation by moonlight. One of the pillars was turned at an angle. She felt it pushing her away, like an opposing magnetic field. Her curiosity was almost as strong as her fear that the men would come back. She ran her hand over the surface and her arm began to tingle. She felt a rush of sensations: danger, protection, power. The stones were old. And they didn’t want her here. She felt something near the base, a change in texture. It was hard to see with just the moonlight, so she flicked on the light, and she saw the circle motif. Intrigued, she pushed and heard a grinding noise. The pillar started to move and the ground disappeared under her feet.

  He saw the torn, raw ground and his feet froze. His mouth went dry but he forced himself closer to the hole, knowing what he would find.

  He woke from the dream disoriented. It took him a few seconds to realize he’d been drugged and that Kendall was gone. He hadn’t had any food or drink except the water he’d used to brush his teeth. Water Kendall had given him. But he knew her well enough by now to know that she wouldn’t drug him so that she could start searching for the box. She’d just go off and do it. She must have mistakenly given him one of the bottles Raphael brought.

  Jake stumbled out of bed too quickly and had to sit for a second until his head stopped spinning. Still unsteady, he checked the bathroom—garderobe—opening the door without knocking. She wasn’t there. He went to the door and saw the key sticking out of the lock. He turned the knob but the door wouldn’t open. It was locked from outside. Raphael had trapped them in here. Jake had a few seconds of panic, thinking about how Raphael had looked at Kendall’s cross and what he feared Raphael would do to get it, but Raphael couldn’t have gotten past the inside lock. Either Kendall had climbed out a window and gone exploring or there must be another entrance to the room and Raphael had used it to kidnap her.

  Jake went back and touched Kendall’s side of the bed. It still held a little warmth. She hadn’t been gone long. Then he noticed her backpack and phone were missing. A kidnapper wasn’t likely to let her gather her things. He threw on clothes and boots. Since the door was locked from the other side, picking it was out of the question. He gave it a shove with his shoulder, testing. No give. It was too thick to break down, and chopping through it would be too noisy and take more time than he had. That left the bedroom window or the garderobe. He chose the window.

  It opened onto a small ledge, but it was a good eighty feet off the ground. Raphael had locked them in a tower, just like Rapunzel. Jake didn’t have hair long enough to reach the ground, but he had the coil of rope in his pack that he hadn’t told Kendall about. A pale flash in the woods caught his eye. Someone was out there, and she had blonde hair. What was Kendall up to now? Did she want the box for herself? Maybe she had drugged him. Didn’t matter what her motives were. He had to get her back before she got hurt. Nathan would hold him responsible.

  He took the rope from his pack and checked the length. Not quite long enough, but he could jump the last twenty feet. After testing the ledge to be sure it was safe, he tied the rope to the heavy bed and gathered his things. He put his knife inside his boot, tucked his gun into a holster and slipped his pack through the window. Standing on the ledge, he checked the drop again and made sure he hadn’t been spotted. The moon was bright and he didn’t want an unpleasant surprise halfway down.

  He slung his pack over his shoulders and slipped on gloves so he wouldn’t shred his hands. Wrapping the rope around his ass, he dropped over the edge, planted his feet against the tower wall, and then started lowering himself down. When his rope ran out, he found a thick vine and used it to get the rest of the way down. He dropped to the ground. Ducking low, he sprinted toward the trees. He searched the ground. No tracks. He was certain he’d seen her from the window, but how had she gotten here? And where did she go? She couldn’t have vanished into thin air.

  He found the first footprint in front of a huge tree near an old graveyard. She was alone. Raphael hadn’t taken her. Dammit, she was after the box. All this psychic crap must be a ruse. The box had to be valuable if both she and Nathan were so desperate to find it. She probably wrote the note at the hotel and then claimed it was the man in the elevator just to throw him off. Hell, she was probably working with the man. That would explain why she’d been watching his room and his surprise when he saw them in the elevator. It pissed him off to think that he’d misjudged her. Even though she drove him insane, deep down he’d trusted her. He looked around the graveyard. Did she believe the box was buried here?

  He studied the footprints again. They appeared out of nowhere. After a few minutes he found the door in the tree. There was just enough room to stand inside. On the back wall, there was another door that opened to stairs that led to a tunnel, and probably to their room.

  That explained how she’d gotten here, but not why she’d left. He tracked her through the graveyard, trying not to think of all the bones that lay under his feet. Every now and then he glimpsed another statue. The whole place seemed to be surrounded by them. Outside the graveyard, two more sets of footprints fell in behind hers. A cold finger ran down his spine.

  She was being followed.

  He found the place where the tracks came together. Smeared footprints, trampled grass and moss—evidence of a struggle. His stomach felt like mush. Had they killed her? The two larger sets of prints broke away and went back into the woods the way they’d come. It looked like they’d been running, while Kendall’s tracks continued toward a circle of tall stones. The air felt heavier, as if he were trudging through mud. He pushed forward and saw the footsteps stopped here. He bent to examine them and saw a circle on one of the stones, like the one that had opened the hidden door in the castle wall. He pushed it and the stone began to slide forward. He jumped clear as a set of worn stairs were revealed.

  Kendall lay on her back, gasping for air. The beam from her flashlight speared the darkness, showing the stone stairs where she’d fallen. It felt like she’d hit every step coming down. When she could finally breathe, she made a quick check for broken bones. Her hip was numb, her foot throbbed and she was missing a shoe, but there were no serious injuries as far as she could tell. Her backpack had probably protected her spine. She sat up and reached for her flashlight, lying a few feet away.

  She was in some kind of underground room. The walls reminded her of the Egyptian tombs her father had excavated. An arched door with mosaic tiles along the edges led farther into the tunnel. She wanted to explore, but this wasn’t the time. Rising, she collected her shoe, readjusted her backpack, and started back up the stairs. She heard a scraping sound above her. They had followed her. She slipped off her shoes and ran for the arched doorway. If this didn’t lead to an exit, she was screwed. Jake could be too.

  From the position of the steps, she thought the passage might lead back to the castle. She dreaded the thought of running into Raphael, but she had to help Jake. She looked around, hoping to see the ghost monk. She’d followed him here. Maybe she could follow him out. Unless it had been a trap all along.

  The floors and walls were the same here—stone and mosaic tiles. Her breath echoed, an eerie sound, and she shivered, wishing she’d brought a heavier coat. A noise sounded behind her. They were inside. Her flashlight flickered once and went black. She banged it against the heel of her hand to no avail. She removed her pack and felt around inside for extra batteries. Changing them didn’t help. The fall must have broken it, and she didn’t have another flashlight. She couldn’t move quietly if she couldn’t see where she was going, and there was no telling what nightmares this place held.

  She found a recess in the wall and crouched in the dar
kness, waiting. She saw a flash from the corner of her eye. A light. She watched it moving steadily toward her, the beam widening. Then the light vanished. Had he left? She pressed her back against the wall and tried to listen, but the blood rushed past her ears so hard she couldn’t hear. The air stirred and the hairs rose on the back of her neck. Eyes straining at the darkness, she gripped the flashlight, ready to use it as a weapon, when a light struck her full in the face. She swung the flashlight and heard a curse.

  “Kendall?”

  “Jake?” Her body flooded with relief. She launched herself into his arms and held on tight until her aches forced her to let go. “I’m glad to see you.”

  “That’s why you just bludgeoned me with a flashlight.”

  “I thought you were one of my attackers.”

  “I saw where they grabbed you. What happened?”

  “They ran away. I think the ghost scared them off.”

  “Ghost?”

  “I followed him from our room through a secret passageway.”

  “You’re out here chasing ghosts?” He gave her a God-help-me look and aimed the flashlight deeper inside the tunnel. “I thought we agreed that you wouldn’t run off alone.”

  “I was trying to get help. I couldn’t wake you, and I was afraid you’d been drugged.”

  “I was.”

  “But neither of us ate or drank anything.”

  “I think it was in the water you gave me to brush my teeth.”

  “You think I drugged you?” Kendall asked.

  “I don’t think you’re that desperate. Must have been Raphael. You probably gave me one of the bottles he brought us. It’s the same brand as the bottles we bought.”

  “No, this one was in the bottom of my backpack. It came from the inn.”