The Collector 3: Cauldron

by A. J. Matthews

  “Will you be coming with us this time?” Kate asked, and Matt looked at the woman.

  Byrne shook her head. Almost as if it was pre-arranged, a cloud covered the sun, and Kate shivered in the sudden coolness. “I’ll not go in there again,” she said softly. “I’ve paid my due.”

  Kate stepped closer and gave her a long steady look. Byrne averted her eyes. “There’s something more, isn’t there?” Kate said. “Something you’re not telling us.”

  The older woman glanced at the boat, then at her. “Okay, I wasn’t alone when I came back. Someone else came with me, but it wasn’t your grandfather.”

  “What do you mean came back?”

  “If you go in, you’ll see. I’m saying no more.” With that she turned on her heel and walked back to the car.

  Matt looked at Kate, and she shrugged. “I’ve not come all this way for nothing. If there’s a clue to my grandfather’s disappearance in there, then I want to find it. A little bit o’ scrub and her attitude isn’t going to stop me!”

  “Would you mind if I lead the way?” Matt asked.

  Surprised at the fact he asked her at all, Kate nodded and waved for him to precede her.

  Sheep droppings covered the patch of ground between the track and the thicket, and she stepped carefully to avoid the deposits. Matt reached the brush and began thrusting it aside, using his powerful body to force a passage. As Kate came up, he held back the branches and thicker stems, guiding her to the best route.

  In this way, they steadily and carefully made progress. The trees on either side seemed to radiate cold at variance with the general warmth of the day, and Kate shivered. The vegetation was dense enough to prevent the land ahead from being visible for most of their passage, and when they eventually cleared the thicket, their first sight of what lay beyond surprised them both.

  “That’s not possible!” she heard Matt say in a half-shout. He sounded excited, outraged, even disgusted ‑‑ and a little scared.

  “What is it?” she asked, standing on tip-toe and putting a hand out on the rock to brace herself as she balanced.

  “It is a barrow; it’s a fucking barrow!”

  “Did you doubt it? It’s what we came here to find.”

  A broad grin lit his face. He swept a hand through his hair and stared at her. “Yeah, but until I saw this I guess a small part of me still doubted.”

  She forbore from speaking. For now, she could see the strange structure that stood in the natural amphitheater beyond the thicket.

  It was humped, almost like some primitive round mud hut, but built of dry-stone walling and roofed with vegetation and it occupied most of the space with a grassy sward some ten feet wide running around it. The roof must have originally been turf put there by the builders of the barrow but had turned quite natural over who knew how many centuries. The wall was shoulder height to Kate, which put it around four feet, and the interstices between the stones looked barely wide enough to take a slip of paper. In all, it must have been some fifty feet across and overlooked a tranquil Atlantic Ocean.

  “It looks in remarkably good condition!” Matt said, forcing his way out of the last of the brush and into the clearing. He flung out his arm to point to the sea. “And look at that! It’s easily visible from the sea, yet no one knows it’s here!”

  The sun shone down on them, and Kate walked in its full glare, yet she still felt a preternatural chill in the air. Much as it did in the thicket, the coldness seemed to emanate from the ground and the walls of the barrow.

  “This is really spooky!” she said. “Why hasn’t anyone come here to investigate?”

  “Someone did,” he said and turned a sober gaze on her. “Your grandfather and Maria came here.”

  “That was thirty years ago!” she protested.

  “I know.”

  “So someone else should’ve known about this place.”

  “Unless it conceals itself by magic?”

  “Very funny!” she said and shivered. She glanced at the thicket. “I wonder why Byrne didn’t tell anyone.”

  “She’s a woman with her own take on life,” Matt said with a grimace. “I think she may have her own agenda too.”

  Kate scanned the walls. Closer up, she could count the individual blocks of stone. They were all close-fitting and presented an even face to the world. “We didn’t cover much of the Celtic culture before I left college, but if I remember my studies, these places were built to be accessible.”

  Matt nodded and looked thoughtful. “You’re right. They were built to be used for ceremonial purposes. Usually it was only the Druids or the nobility who had the right of access, so they could speak with the spirits of the dead. There should be a way inside. Let’s see ...” His voice trailed off as he shaded his eyes and glanced at the high sun. He looked down at his shadow and pointed. “The door of any Celtic structure faces the south-east; it’s a kind of holy direction. That would place the entrance on the other side from here.”

  “The other side? That would give anyone coming through that crack plenty of time to take in the sight of this place.”

  “That may well be the idea,” he said, and of one accord they began to follow the grassy lane around the curve of the barrow.

  “How come the grass is so short? Do you think someone tends to this place?”

  He glanced down at the grass then up and around the nearly sheer sides of rock that held the hollow. “Could be; either that or sheep are grazing here.”

  “How would they get in?” she demanded. “Those cliffs are almost sheer. Besides, there’d be droppings, like we found on the ground outside.”

  “Good point.” He gave her a smile. “Add it to the tally of mysteries!”

  Kate felt her heart begin to beat hard. She was nervous; the whole set-up of the barrow and the coldness caused that. Yet she was excited with the prospect of discovery too; the old thirst for knowledge that had lain in abeyance for so long flickered to life again. She was determined to find out exactly what had happened to Thomas Susadi.

  The entrance was precisely where Matt had predicted. Two tall square cut blocks of granite formed the sides and an equally massive block made a lintel across the top about five feet from the ground. Between lay a dark space that seemed to soak up the light, revealing just a few feet of dirt floor speckled with stones ‑‑ and nothing more.

  “Whatever’s in there is well out of reach of the sun,” Matt murmured. “Damn, but I wish we’d brought a flashlight!”

  “Is there likely to be anything hazardous inside?” she asked, stooping to peer in through the doorway. “Pits, loose stones in the roof, that kind of thing.”

  “And not spring-fired arrows, or gigantic rolling balls?” he said with a half-grin. “The only thing you’d be likely to find would be a mess caused by humanity.” He stood beside her. “I know of one other previously-unknown place like this. It’s a cave in the South of France, which contains paintings from the Paleolithic period. When it was finally found by the professionals, the lower reaches were thoroughly covered in graffiti and strewn with hypodermics.” He shook his head in bafflement. “Some people would piss on the rocks of Stonehenge without caring about the sanctity or the age of it!”

  “Not here it seems,” she said. “This is more like the movie Alice in Wonderland. I keep expecting a giant rabbit in pants and vest to pop out any minute.” Carefully, she reached out and touched the stone blocks. “Oh!”

  “What is it?”

  “Can’t you see?” Kate pointed. “Someone’s carved designs into the stone. They only show up when the light hits them at the right angle.”

  “There’re plenty of ancient Celtic designs carved into Newgrange,” he said, the excitement returning to his voice.

  He moved to follow her line of sight, which brought him into closer proximity than she could ever remember. The closeness of his strong, masculine body made a shiver of unexpected warmth run through her, and she blinked.

  “Hey, you’re right, I can see
them quite clearly now.” His voice sounded distant, as if he were calling from beyond the rocky barrier. “That’s very odd!”

  “What is?” she asked, blinking rapidly. A feeling of dizziness descended on her, and the ground rolled and swooped around her like a boat on a maddened sea.

  “The designs are really clear now.” He reached out and traced a spiral design, carved at about eye-height to him. “This feels quite deeply incised. We should’ve seen them when we came up. I can’t believe they just appeared! They should be visible no matter what the light conditions!”

  The dizziness receded, and she stared up at him. “So what?” she snapped, distracted by the strange feeling rising in her gut.

  He barely glanced at her. “So why couldn’t we see these designs when we first got here?” he said with an edge to his voice.

  “Maybe it’s magic, like you said.”

  “Oh, very funny!” He glanced at her again then did a double-take. “Are you feeling okay?”

  “I’m okay.” She shivered. “I do feel cold.”

  To her surprise he reached out and laid the palm of his hand to her forehead. His touch was warm and sent an extra strong pulse through her veins, and she shuddered. “You feel hot, feverish; maybe you’ve got a touch of something.” He shrugged. “Perhaps we should take a quick look inside and then head back to the car.”

  “Without any light?” she asked, feeling groggy.

  “I don’t think we’ll need it,” he replied. “Look ...”

  He pointed, and she followed the line of his gaze to see the passageway into the interior of the barrow was now quite plain to see. The stonework inside was much coarser than the outer walls. Big, rugged boulders were stacked atop each other and the gaps between stuffed with wadded moss to form a rudimentary mortar. The passageway itself was lower than the doorway by a few inches.

  “Huh!” Matt looked at the walls. “That’s typical.”

  She blinked at him. “What?”

  “The interior work isn’t as good as the side presented to the public. Someone was saving on costs.”

  “That moss looks new,” she muttered.

  “So it does, but how come we can see inside it?”

  “I’m not asking questions,” she said. “There’s some kind of weird shit going on here. I feel really odd. I want to find out what is going on and what happened to my grandfather.” She ducked under the lintel stone and went inside. “The sooner we do that the better!” she called back.

  “Kate, wait up!” Matt shouted, but she kept going.

  More spirals were incised in the rocks at eye-height as she made her way deeper into the barrow. As she walked they began to spin, each one a slowly turning pinwheel galaxy against a basalt black night. The darkness should have been complete ‑‑ but it wasn’t. She knew she should have been scared ‑‑ but she wasn’t. Instead, a great charge of expectancy built up in her with every step, and she knew somewhere ahead was a way to find what she sought.

  Matt’s quiet tread sounded on the dirt floor close behind. After his initial protest, he’d fallen silent, and she wondered if he saw what she was seeing, felt what she felt.

  There was no fear left in her now. Instead a growing sense of heat, of ... of pure horniness, began to rise in the core of her being, and she felt sweat break out on her skin.

  “There’ll be a chamber in the heart of this place.” Matt’s words seemed to enter her mind without passing through her ears, but she knew the truth of what he said. “From the center one, there’ll be a series of other chambers attached, like individual berths for bodies to lie in.”

  “We’ll only need the center,” she replied, voicing her words without using her lips. “There lies the altar stone!”

  “Yessssss!” His voice became heavy and slurred.

  And suddenly they were there.

  The passageway opened into the heart of the barrow, a stone-lined chamber some six feet in height, allowing Kate to stand with room to spare. Matt came up behind and stumbled into her, his solid weight a sudden shock she felt remotely. She was too busy taking in her surroundings.

  Like the outer walls, here, too, the stones were small and irregular, yet presented an even face to the world. Dark openings around the sides told of the sub-chambers, but her eyes were on the great block of granite that lay before her. The spirals were carved here too. They spun gently, and as they spun each pulsed with an eldritch, silvery light. She stepped closer and other symbols emerged from the blank stone as if to greet her. There were the horns, ancient symbol of fertility and plenty. There, too, the circle of wholeness, of completion and renewal.

  Kate's pulse was pounding in her veins, and she felt herself grow incredibly wet between her thighs. She turned to see Matt standing with his head tilted to avoid the low ceiling, a strange, intense expression on his face. She could see him quite clearly in the silver light, the symbols blazing out like high-wattage bulbs now at their presence. A huge bulge shaped the front of his jeans.

  “Kate ...” he began to say, and then they launched themselves at each other, colliding and grappling and gripping and sliding to the floor.

  Matt’s hands were on her breasts and belly and butt, his body pressing urgently against her. She thrust her hands under his sweatshirt and began to haul it off him without regard for causing pain ‑‑ pain was good!

  “I want you!” she cried in a near scream, and the words were cut off as he crushed his lips to hers.

  Matt fumbled at the closures of Kate's jeans and forced them down over the swell of her hips, the fabric grazing her skin, but she didn’t care; she only wanted him, wanted him so fucking badly!

  A small part of her kept its sanity and protested at what was happening, but some power had overridden all conscious volition and was driving her into his arms.

  Jeans around her ankles, she trod on his feet in her eagerness, until he grabbed her and held her steady. The altar was close by, the centuries-old carved block a nice, convenient height for him to lean his butt against. She used her feet to free her ankles from the jeans and kicked them away with a glad cry. Matt enfolded her in his arms, pulling her close, then reached down to push her panties down her thighs. She pressed against him, savoring the feel of his body, moving away reluctantly to allow him to remove her panties. They followed the jeans in a shallow arc across the chamber, and she pulled her sweatshirt off and flung it away, too.

  Matt’s hand was on her breast, and her thighs went up around his waist of their own accord. He began fumbling one-handed with his jeans as she kissed his lips, cheeks, his jaw, his throat, the muscles and tendons there straining like whipcords. She drew her legs up further. The stone of the altar felt cool under the soles of her feet as he held her close, and she braced herself on the hard surface.

  A low animal growl surged from Matt's mouth, and his eyes seemed to blaze. His cock rose up and banged into her butt crack, and she writhed, seeking to grasp it and pull it inside her pussy.

  “Oh gods, now, now,” she moaned into his mouth.

  “Not yet!” he gasped around their crushed lips. “We need more!”

  “More?”

  “To open. The. Portal. Ohhh dear lord, what’s happening?” He grasped a breast and crushed it to his lips, nibbling and biting her until heat surged in her face and throat and fire flamed in her belly. Her nipples puckered and crinkled, rising to peaks that ached to be sucked. She forced one against his lips, and he sucked it in and nipped it cruelly.

  A footstep sounded in the passageway.

  “He’s here,” Matt gasped, squeezing her breast. His eyes rolled, and he seemed to focus with an effort and looked behind her.

  She craned her head around to look to see who disturbed them.

  It was Colm Houlahan. And he was naked. Her eyes traveled down from his enigmatic face, framed by the flowing locks of wavy red hair, over his broad muscular chest and down the V-shape of his perfect abdomen to his cock. It jutted out at her, a long slightly-curved spear emerging from a t
ight nest of russet curls. “Mmmmmm!” she sighed with anticipation and smiled at him.

  What the hell is he doing here? Kate’s annoying little inner voice demanded.

  Colm is a fisherman, and there’s a fishing boat in the cove. That was all the thought she spared for the puzzle as he walked toward them, his cock bobbing gently which each graceful step. “The gods bless you for this,” he murmured.

  And then his hands were sliding up over her back, fingertips running over each bump and hollow of her spine, and a strange mewing arose in her throat. The skin of his palms felt hard but not calloused as she’d expected. He pressed close against her and reached around to cup her breasts in his hands, offering them for Matt to suckle.

  Leaning forward against Matt, she reached down and felt for his cock. It dropped into her hand, hot and smooth and throbbing with his rapid pulse. To her relief it wasn’t as thick as she feared, but it was long, maybe eight inches. It would fit very nicely.

  Wriggling and arching her back she placed the head of his cock against her pussy lips. Matt took the hint and began to enter her, sliding up and into her as she lay braced against him.

  “Good; that’s ... good,” Colm whispered in her ear, his breath hot on her neck and cheek. She could feel his cock nestling hard against her butt, and then he was moving, positioning his hunky body so that he could ‑‑

  “Ohhhhhhh!”

  Her pussy began to stretch and stretch beyond anything she’d experienced before as Colm entered her, his cock sliding up and alongside Matt’s to fill her to the point of bursting. She feared a vaginal tear, but somehow she was moist ‑‑ no, wet ‑‑ enough to lube them both, to take them inside her and hold them there.

  And Matt began to withdraw as Colm thrust upwards, holding her as his comrade slipped down inside her nearly to the point of dropping free. She shuddered, the complex feelings springing from her outraged pussy muscles sending weird lightning flashes up her nerves and into the space behind her vision.

  And Matt began to thrust as Colm withdrew. The relaxation and stretching built to a steady rise and fall as the men found a mutual rhythm that had her shuddering and writhing on their impaling cocks. Matt’s belly was hard against her clit, and she rubbed herself up and down it spasmodically, the movement making her breath catch in her throat, until she had to gulp in great breaths of air.