Beckon (22 page)

Chapter 40

Elina was nearly faint with terror as Nun'dahbi finished marking her face with the black ink. She spread her hands over Elina's body, then took the staff and swept it across her again, rattling the beads and the round gourd affixed to the top.

After this she lowered her veil again and barked a few more commands to her men. They lifted Elina from the stone table and carried her toward the edge of the pit.

They looped additional ropes around her and tied them to another line connected to the log. Then one of the N'watu lifted Elina up and dropped her over the edge of the pit.

She screamed a muffled cry of terror as she felt herself fall away from the ledge over the open black maw. She swung out and then back, dangling from the log like a fishing lure.

She kicked frantically, trying to swing herself back to the side, but another N'watu loosened the rope and began to lower her into the hole. Elina descended slowly into utter darkness. The smell of death and rot wafted up from below, a sickly sweet odor that filled her with fear. She could feel that her struggling was beginning to work the gag loose from her mouth.

Her heart pounded against her chest and she prayed desperately, wondering what was down here, what kind of horror she was about to encounter.

Then her toes scraped against something solid; she hoped it was a rock but couldn't be sure. They let her dangle there, twisting in the darkness. Waiting. She looked up and could see the black outline of the rim against the faint glow of the lanterns above her.

She hung in silence, weary from struggling. Yet her terror was like a noose, strangling her. She stared into the solid black void, waiting to die.

Suddenly a muffled clap of thunder echoed through the cavern. Elina looked up and heard some sort of commotion among the N'watu. Clearly whatever made the sound wasn't something they were expecting. She could hear them speaking to each other—arguing in their choppy, guttural language. Their sounds quickly receded, leaving her in silence again.

But now she felt a spark of hope kindle inside her. Maybe the others had gotten free somehow and were coming for her. Maybe someone had finally notified the FBI.

Or maybe . . .

Somewhere in the darkness in front of her came another sound. A low, erratic tapping, unlike anything she had ever heard before.

Chapter 41

The passage came to an abrupt halt, depositing Jack, Dwight, and Javier into a large, open chamber. Jack took one of the flares from his bag and snapped it open. The bright red-orange glow lit up the whole room.

Along the far wall was a large wooden gate of some kind. It stood over eight feet tall and at least six feet wide.

“Not another one,” Jack groaned. He slid his hand along the wood. “So that's where they took her?”

They inspected the surface, looking for a way to open it. Jack told them about the first door he had encountered and how it opened upward. Yet this one was different. There was a clear crease running vertically up the center that seemed to indicate it opened from the middle. But there were no handles. They pushed against it to no avail, and there was clearly no way to pull it open either.

Dwight stepped back. “Looks like it only opens from the inside.”

Jack sat down and rubbed his eyes. “Any suggestions?”

Javier reached into Jack's bag and pulled out one of the grenades they'd taken from the armory.
“Vamos a tocar a la puerta.”

Jack stood. “Is he going to try what I think . . . ?”

Javier scooped a bit of mud from under the middle of the door, pulled the pin out of the grenade, jammed it under the wood, and ran for cover.

Jack and Dwight scrambled back to the other side of the chamber and flung themselves behind a jutting rock formation. A few seconds later the ground shook as a clap of thunder erupted in the cavern. Jack felt his ribs jolt from the force of the blast. Rocks and debris scattered across the room, and when the air cleared, his ears were ringing from the explosion.

He stood and brushed off the mud. “Are you crazy? You could get us all killed! You don't just go setting off explosions inside caverns. You could bring the whole place down on top of us!”

But Javier was shining his flashlight at the doors. One side was cracked and splintered and had been torn off its hinge. And the other had swung wide open. He turned and grinned at Jack. “Good, yes?”

Dwight shrugged. “Well, now they know we're here.”

Jack grabbed the flare and tossed it into the passage beyond the doorway. The place seemed deserted. At least for now. They got their weapons ready, Jack grabbed another couple flares, and they proceeded inside.

They spread out and moved along the passage quickly. Dwight held his flashlight out along with his gun. Jack snapped a second flare and tossed it farther ahead.

He looked into his bag and now wished desperately that he'd brought more of them with him. And to make matters worse, there was only one hand grenade left.

Dwight paused in the tunnel, his shoulders stiffening. Jack nudged him gently. “What's wrong?”

Dwight shook his head and shuddered. “Jack . . . I have to tell you something.”

“What is it?”

Dwight flicked the light toward Jack's face. “We're probably not making it out of here alive.”

“Come on, Dwight, don't talk like that. We're going to find her.”

Dwight leaned close. Jack could see a strange sort of resolve in his eyes. Or maybe it was resignation. “If you do—if you make it out of here—there's something in town you need to see.”

“What?”

“In my office, in the back room, is a closet—a supply closet full of boxes. They're my journals. And there's something under the floor that you need to see.”

“What? What is it?”

Dwight shook his head again. To Jack it looked like he was shaking himself out of a trance. “You have to make it out of here to find out.”

He turned and continued through the tunnel. They walked on for several minutes before Jack could see a dim light ahead. The tunnel widened and he noticed a few side passages leading from the main tunnel. Jack saw that the passages here seemed larger and more evenly shaped, as if the N'watu had carved them right through the rock over the years.

One of the tunnels opened into a long, oval-shaped room with several small glass jars of the glowing slime scattered around the perimeter. In the middle were two long wooden tables and a large wooden chair. Dozens of pots and jars and other vessels of various sizes littered both of the tables. The whole scene reminded Jack of something out of the Dark Ages. Like an ancient alchemist's laboratory.

Jack noticed one bowl in particular looked similar to the one he had seen during the ceremony earlier. The interior appeared to have some sort of thick, dried residue on it. Jack also spotted several more glass jars of a milky, yellowish liquid stacked along the wall.

He pointed to the jars. “Is that . . . perilium?”

Dwight inspected one of them and nodded. “This must be where she prepares it.”

“Who? The woman I saw? Who is she?”

“They call her Nun'dahbi. She's the matriarch of the tribe. Their queen.”

Jack just shook his head as he looked through the objects in the room. “This is pretty incredible. These tables and chairs definitely show an outside influence on their culture. Maybe they're not as xenophobic as Vale says they are.”

“Trust me,” Dwight grunted. “They hate outsiders.”

Javier had been waiting by the entrance and motioned for them to continue on. He was obviously anxious to find his cousin, and Jack quietly chided himself on getting distracted by this room. Elina was in serious peril.

They moved onward and soon emerged into another open cavern. Only this one was different from all the others. Jack could see that this one contained remnants of structures. Pillars and archways in varying states of decay. And all around them were glass lanterns similar to the one Jack had seen out in the bone pit. Clearly this was some sort of common area of the N'watu.

Jack shone his flashlight around, momentarily stunned by the discovery.

“Look at this place,” he said softly. “My dad always said there was an underground city somewhere out here. This must be part of it.”

Suddenly Javier grabbed Jack's shoulder as if trying to tell him something, but instead he seemed to be choking. His eyes bulged and blood dripped from between his lips as a serrated spear tip emerged from the middle of his chest and a skeletal face loomed up from behind him.

“No!” Jack shouted.

Javier slumped forward and Jack stood, stunned at the sight. The pale N'watu warrior yanked the bloody spear from Javier's back and now fixed his white eyes on Jack.

Jack could see the warrior towering over him, but he was frozen with shock. Paralyzed. He tried to will his arms to raise his weapon or his legs to run, but he felt like he was in a dream, unable to even control his limbs.

Then a gunshot rang out, snapping him out of his daze. The warrior lurched backward as a bullet tore into his chest. Jack glimpsed Dwight standing a few yards behind him, his revolver smoking. Jack spun back to see that the N'watu had quickly recovered his balance, his face contorted into a mask of fury. He raised his spear.

But now Jack lifted his shotgun and fired. White-hot pellets hit the N'watu's chest at close range, tearing through his flesh and ribs. The warrior stumbled back another few steps as Jack felt rage welling up inside him. He pumped the next shell into the chamber and fired again. This time the shot blasted directly into the warrior's face, lifting him off his feet and flat onto his back.

Before Jack could react or even check on Javier, another spear came whizzing out of the darkness and sliced across his upper arm. Jack ducked, clutching his tricep. He could feel warm blood on his fingers. He snapped another flare and tossed it out in front of him. Immediately the chamber lit up, overwhelming the soft glow of the lanterns. And Jack saw two of the warriors cringing from the light not more than fifty feet away. He strode forward, keeping his eyes fixed on the N'watu, and fired another shot. This time he was aiming high—straight for the head. One of them dropped like a sack of rocks. Jack pumped and fired at the second one, who dove behind a crumbled archway.

Jack snapped another flare and tossed it back in Dwight's direction. He could see that Dwight had both revolvers drawn and was keeping a couple more warriors at bay. One pale corpse lay at his feet.

Jack knelt next to Javier. He was coughing up blood and was barely coherent.

“Elina,” he said, blood spattering from his lips. “Find . . . Elina.”

Chapter 42

Elina could hear the tapping sounds echoing in the darkness, almost like someone hitting a pair of baseball bats together. Fast, then slow, changing timbre ever so slightly.

She struggled to free herself. Twisting her neck, she could feel the rope holding the rag in her mouth slide down farther.

Now off in the darkness, along with the tapping, came more noises—a series of thuds like a pickax jamming into rocky soil, and the sound of something heavy scraping along the ground.

From above she heard gunfire echoing across the cavern. Several shots were fired, and they sounded close by. Hope rose again in her, and as she twisted her head sideways, she could feel the rope slipping from her mouth.

She worked it down below her chin until at last she was able to spit out the rag, suck in a lungful of air, and scream. . . .

/  //  /

Jack and Dwight moved back-to-back across the cavern, guns poised to fire. The flares seemed to be keeping the N'watu at bay, and they resorted to flinging their spears blindly from their positions of cover.

“Do you see her anywhere?” Jack said.

“No, I—”

Suddenly a terrified shriek echoed up from somewhere in the darkness. Jack snapped his head around and saw an open pit.

“Elina!” he cried out. “Where are you?”

“Down here!”

Jack rushed across the cavern with Dwight following close behind. Jack ignited another flare and flung it ahead of him. It hit the ground and the orange glow lit up more of the chamber. He could see several carved stone structures all situated around a central pit. A stone table stood off to one side and another structure—some sort of primitive altar—had been built right at the edge of the pit. A thick log had been mounted to the altar and extended out over the hole. Jack could see a rope hanging down from the end.

“There!” He leaned over the edge as Elina's frantic voice called up from below.

“Pull me up!”

Dwight climbed onto the wooden beam where the rope was fastened. “I'll pull the rope over.”

Jack could hear the sheer terror in Elina's voice as she cried out, “Please hurry!”

Dwight scooted forward, stretching his hand out for the rope. The beam extended perhaps eight feet from the edge, and the rope was just out of his reach. He inched out a little farther, but the whole structure shifted under his weight.

Dwight slipped and plunged into the darkness.

“Dwight!” Jack screamed. Just then he saw movement from the corner of his eye. A shadow detached itself from behind one of the carved figures and shot toward him like a missile.

Jack leaped out of the way as the dark shape landed in the spot where he had been standing. In the flickering glow of the flare, he recognized the diminutive figure, the tribe's matriarch who seemed to be the leader. Dwight had called her Nun'dahbi.

She was cloaked in black veils and holding a long wooden shaft tipped with a jagged spearhead that looked like it had been fashioned from part of a kirac's foreleg. She shrugged off her outer cloak and crouched before Jack. Jack suppressed a gasp as he got his first good look at her.

Her skin was ghostly pale and her head was completely hairless. Beneath the veils she wore a snug jerkin made from some kind of animal skin, interwoven with beads and animal claws. And Jack could see she was also still wearing the amulet she'd had on earlier. The image from his father's papers.

Nun'dahbi glared at Jack with yellow eyes reflecting the light of the dying flare. The skin around her eyes was blackened, accenting the glow of her irises and giving her gaunt face a skull-like appearance. Her black lips peeled back and she hissed words Jack could not understand. Though one of them did register.

“Outsider!”

She spat the word with such contempt that Jack could almost feel her venom.

He swatted the spear away from his face and was reaching for his shotgun when something hard slammed into his ribs. He fell to his knees, gasping for breath. The woman's bare foot drew back as Jack blinked, wondering how she had struck him with such power for her size.

He rolled to the side as the spear flashed out at him, slicing his shoulder. Jack sucked in painful gasps of air. He hadn't seen anyone move so fast in his life. The woman crouched low and moved sideways, circling him like a cat preparing to strike. Jack had never taken any formal hand-to-hand combat training, no martial arts, nothing. So reacting purely on instinct, he swept his leg back across the woman's feet, but she jumped easily out of the way.

Jack struggled to stand, dazed from the blow to his ribs. But before he could even straighten up, he felt another kick to his side and tumbled back to the ground. Nun'dahbi leaped in and out of the ring of light like a panther, striking hard and then jumping back into the darkness.

Jack had managed to stagger to his feet again when she drove a fist hard into his jaw and another one just under his sternum. He crumpled to the ground, gasping for breath. His mind wavered on the brink of consciousness and he reached blindly for his gun. Nun'dahbi leaped to the edge of the pit, raising her spear to finish him off.

But Jack rolled to the side and brought his shotgun up into her abdomen. His lips parted in a bloody grin.

“Not . . . so fast. . . .”

Her face twisted into a mask of hate as Jack pulled the trigger. The blast launched her diminutive frame off the ground and out over the pit. She plunged, shrieking, down into the darkness.

“Jack!” Elina's terrified voice cried from the pit.

“I'm coming.”

The wooden beam was tilted downward after Dwight's fall. Jack leaned against the altar, gasping for breath. He was stretching out for the rope when a deafening shriek echoed up from the pit. But Jack knew it had no human source; he had heard that sound once before, out in the caverns as he and Ben were escaping.

Elina screamed again.

Jack snapped another flare and dropped it into the pit. Now he could see the hole went down at least twenty feet. Dwight lay in the mud, and Nun'dahbi's twisted body was sprawled out on the rocks, covered in blood. Elina lay on the ground between them, wrapped tightly in ropes.

She looked up, wide-eyed. “Jack! Get me out of here!”

“I can't reach the rope!”

“Hurry; something's down here.”

Jack secured his shotgun and the bag of flares around his back and leaped out for the rope. He felt it in his fingers and clutched it. The log shifted again, and he slid down several feet before managing to stop himself. The rope tore the skin off his palms as he lowered himself farther into the pit.

He reached the bottom and bent over Elina's quivering body. They had painted her face with what looked like the same type of marks that the warriors had covering their bodies.

“Are you hurt?” He fumbled with the ropes in his bloody hands. “Is anything broken?”

“No . . . I'm okay,” Elina said. “You're bleeding.”

Jack shook his head. His wounds throbbed and stung, but he couldn't afford the luxury of worrying about that now. “I'm okay.”

Jack surveyed the elongated cavern that extended away into darkness. The flare lit the immediate area, and Jack could see numerous tunnels and side passages leading off the main chamber. Large rocks and bones cluttered the floor of the pit. The remnants, he guessed, from an untold number of human sacrifices to the Soul Eater.

Beside them, Dwight groaned.

Elina sat up. “He's alive?”

Jack moved to check him. “Dwight? Are you okay?”

Dwight groaned again and rolled onto his side. He looked up at the top of the pit and rubbed his head. “What happened?”

“You fell,” Jack said. “You should be dead.”

“Yeah . . .” Dwight sat up gingerly. “I should've been dead a few times in my life.”

Jack was still struggling with Elina's ropes. “I can't get them untied. I need to cut them.”

“Hurry.”

Jack turned to retrieve the spear wedged in the rocks beside Nun'dahbi's limp body when he saw the amulet glimmering in the light of the flare. His eyes widened. He'd lost his pack in the caves earlier and with it, all the evidence he and Rudy had collected. But this medallion would be even better. To come back with an actual N'watu artifact, a piece of their culture . . .

Momentarily forgetting everything else, Jack crawled over and reached out for the amulet.

A cold, bony grip clamped onto his arm. Nun'dahbi clutched his wrist and lifted her battered head. Blood gurgled though her clenched teeth as she grimaced, hissing with what seemed to be pure vitriol.

Jack let out a yelp. Obviously the perilium made the N'watu as hard to kill as the kiracs.

Just then a second chilling shriek burst out of the darkness at the far end of the cavern, followed by a familiar tapping. Whatever was in the darkness was getting closer. Jack could hear a scraping sound—like something big being dragged across rocks.

Something very big.

“Hurry, Jack!” Elina's voice came from behind him.

Jack yanked his hand free from Nun'dahbi's grip. She immediately clutched the amulet in her broken, bloody fingers, still hissing curses at him and struggling to move. Jack picked up the spear instead and returned to Elina.

Dwight stumbled to his feet. “How do we get out of here?”

“I don't know. I've never been in this part of the caves.” Jack sliced through the top rope and started on the bands around Elina's feet. Then the flare died out and darkness folded over them like a wave. Jack could hear Dwight digging through the bag for another one.

He snapped the cap off and ignited it.

Elina screamed.

Shadows fled away, partially revealing the bulk of an enormous, armored beast looming directly over Dwight. It reared up, flexing its huge mandibles. The jaws opened to reveal a hideous mouthful of dripping fangs. It lifted one of its massive, spiked forelegs and stabbed at Dwight, who barely managed to duck out of the way. The pointed claw sank into the ground where he had been standing. Then it swiped sideways and flung him into the rocky wall of the chamber. Dwight fell back to the ground, groaning.

Jack found himself stunned by the sight. This thing—this
Soul Eater
—was more hideous than he could have imagined. Based on what he'd seen in Dwight's lab, he had expected the queen to be larger than the other kiracs . . . but not
this
big. Its long, bony forelegs looked like gnarled tree branches, and its jagged shell was the size of a large dining room table, ringed with hundreds of spiked protrusions.

Jack reached for his shotgun and fired directly into the beast's underside. It shrieked again—deafening at this close range. Jack pumped in another shell and fired once more. The Soul Eater lumbered backward, maneuvering its bulk with stilted, jerky movements.

Jack could sense great age in it. A twisted, hulking beast that had been stalking these tunnels perhaps for centuries. The creature swatted at Jack with its other foreleg, sending him tumbling across the rocks. He felt like he'd been hit by a truck.

He looked back to see Elina kick her feet free of the ropes and scramble against the wall of the pit. The giant kirac swiveled its massive body around, clicking its palps as if in search of new prey. Suddenly the beast turned, raised itself off the ground, and lumbered away from Elina. Then Jack saw its new target.

Nun'dahbi was dragging herself with one arm toward the far side of the pit. Her other arm hung limp at her side and both of her legs were contorted, with a bone jutting through the flesh of one calf. Still, she struggled furiously toward one of the side tunnels. Jack spotted the amulet still in her grasp.

But the Soul Eater stalked hard after her, raising its foreleg and impaling Nun'dahbi through the back. She let out a horrifying scream and flailed her arm as the beast quickly pulled her writhing body under its bulk and sank its fangs into her neck. Nun'dahbi's cries were cut mercifully short as the Soul Eater sucked out what little life was left in her.

While the beast was occupied, Jack scrambled to his feet and rushed over to Elina. “Are you okay?” His voice was a hoarse whisper.

“I'm okay; I'm okay,” Elina whispered back. “How do we get out of here?”

For a moment Jack thought they might be able to use the rope to climb out, but they'd never get up fast enough and would only be an easier target. He shrugged, keeping an eye on the giant kirac. He was quickly running out of time and his thoughts were scattered. But he couldn't let fear overwhelm him. This creature could probably smell fear from a mile away.

Just then the queen kirac lifted itself from its food and turned toward him.

Jack pulled Dwight to his feet and pointed toward one of the side passages. “Through there!”

Dwight nodded groggily as Jack pushed Elina down and into the tunnel first, then Dwight, and then . . .

Another high-pitched roar thundered through the chamber as the Soul Eater lumbered toward them.

Jack scooped up his gun and the bag of flares and dove into the dark tunnel, bashing his knees against the rocks as he scrambled forward. “Move, move!”

He turned to see the creature's bulk blocking the entrance to the tunnel. Its mouth filled the hole with a tangle of twisted fangs, hissing and snapping in a blind fury. The confined passage was filled with another piercing screech.

Jack crawled on, fumbling through the bag for another flare. He found one and ignited it. The light revealed a rather tight space, barely two feet high and curving out of sight ahead and behind. He looked into Elina's eyes and then Dwight's.

Fear was painted on both of their faces like the marks on Elina's skin. He could hear the beast still growling behind them, but they seemed out of reach and safe for the moment.

“What now?” Elina said.

Jack shook his head. “I don't know. I guess we keep going. See where this leads.”