Secrets of the Deep (34 page)

So, one by one, they walked cautiously down the gangplank and stepped onto the rocks where the seals had lolled. Jake and Maddox kept an eye on everyone, ready to assist as they walked in single file along the bridgelike boulders and finally jumped down onto the gravel beach.

“Careful,” Sapphira chided her sister as they neared the spot where the waves broke, splashing up into white curlicues of sea foam. A protective hand clutching Lil’s shoulder, she bade her sister wait until the wave retreated, then they dashed past before the next one rolled in.

“Well, here we are, then.” Archie glanced around on the beach, hands on hips.

Between the rhythmic soughing of the surf, the rattle of the shingle rasping up and down the beach with every wave, the cries of the gulls, and the wind that curled into the cove, it was hard to hear Maddox’s mumble over their crunching footsteps.

“What did you say?” Jake asked loudly.

“That’s a lot of caves!” the older boy repeated.

Jake nodded, scanning the concave bluff before them. “At least it’s in the shade. We’d better split up or we’ll be here all day. Can’t miss the ferry.”

“How do you want to approach this?” Archie mused aloud as they made their way toward the bottom of the slope.

Every step on the gravel beach was difficult, and the climb before them promised to be even harder. Beneath the spiky Cyclops’ Crown, the hill that awaited them was covered in rocks of all sizes.

Such terrain would’ve been challenging for a mountain goat, but for two mermaids still getting used to walking on human legs, it was impossible. Even Sapphira admitted she was not ready for that.

Instead she stayed on the beach with her sister, roaming about precariously, and watching as the others approached the slope, debating where to begin.

“How about this?” Maddox said. “We divide the bluff into thirds—right, left, center—and then split each third into upper and lower halves. The girls can check the caves on the lower portion. Harder to climb wearing skirts, I should think.”

“You’ve got that right,” Nixie muttered.

“We three”—he gestured to himself, Jake, and Archie—“will search the caves on the upper half. Archie, Nixie, you take the caves on the right. Isabelle and I will take the left. Jake and Dani, you’re in the center.”

“Sounds fair,” Dani said, still eyeing him in disapproval for his roughing up the professor.

Jake snorted. “Mind your footing, everybody,” he advised, then they all started scaling their assigned sections of the bluff.

“Take your time,” Maddox added, looking eager to get started. “This loose scree, as it’s called, can be treacherous. We don’t want anyone falling and getting hurt out here.”

“And nobody start a rockslide, please,” Archie said wryly.

Jake was right behind Dani as she started picking her way up the center of the slope. “I wonder how deep these caves go,” she remarked.

“And which one holds the treasure,” Jake replied with a wily smile.

“Whoever finds it wins!” Dani called out playfully to everyone. With that, she started running up the hillside—and promptly stumbled, landing on all fours with a small cry of pain.

“Carrot!” Jake dashed after her and helped her up. “Watch yourself!”

“It didn’t hurt.” Her face turned beet red as she dusted off her hands.

“Don’t be in such a hurry. I don’t want you breaking your neck.”

She gave him a meaningful glare, not needing to say a word.

“I’m sorry, all right?” he exclaimed. “I had to do it!”

“Not like that. Red would be ashamed.”

“I got him to talk, didn’t I?”

“Humph.” Thankfully, she let it go. “What are we even going to do with this Atlantean treasure once we find it?”

Jake shrugged as she steadied herself and continued climbing ahead of him. “I suppose we’ll load it onto the boat, have the captain sail out over Calypso Deep, and throw it all back down into the sea where it came from.”

“Hmm. Then at least some good could come of your bad behavior.”

Jake rolled his eyes.

As Dani peeked into the first cave she came to about a quarter of the way up the hillside, Jake paused to check on Sapphira.

Bracing his foot against a rock, he glanced down at the beautiful older girl on the beach below. Briefly entranced all over again by the way her waist-long, blue-black spiral curls blew in the breeze around her graceful figure and the wind rippled through the long green day gown that Isabelle had begrudgingly lent her, he felt a surge of pride at having the two princesses under his protection.

Mermaid princesses, at that.

She
hadn’t minded his intimidation tactics on that greasy little man. Then he saw that, while he had lingered to daydream about Sapphira, he had fallen behind Maddox and even Archie.
Right.

“Be careful,” he reminded Dani as he moved past her, resuming the climb toward the upper half of the bluff.

She snorted, and he realized as he moved past her that she had just seen him ogling Sapphira. She shook her head without a word and looked around for the next cave.

Jake scowled.
So what if I think she’s pretty?
Blimey, the redhead never let him get away with anything! It annoyed him to no end.

Who did she think she was, always having her opinions on everything he did and said?

Still, he thought uneasily, there had been a different quality to the flicker of disappointment he had read in Dani’s green eyes just now compared to her obvious disgust with him for roughing up Dr. Giannopoulos back at the shop.
That
had clearly been anger, but this had almost looked like hurt.

He turned away, confused, and focused on climbing.
What would she care if I fancy Sapphira? We’re just friends.

Aren’t
we?

Small rocks rolled and skittered down the hillside behind him.

Off to his right, Archie and Nixie were making good progress. They had managed to find a little winding path up the base of the hillside. To his left, Maddox was vaulting nimbly up the boulders, and Jake frowned to notice that Sapphira was watching him intently, shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand.

Isabelle had hitched up her skirts a bit, her white ankle boots already scuffed and dusty from her efforts. The cave entrance in front of her was one of the largest and easiest to reach. It looked like a sensible place to put a treasure.

“See anything, Izzy?” he called down, curious, as she reached its threshold.

Before she could answer, Maddox suddenly fired out an order. “Everybody—hold still!”

“What is it?” Dani cried.

“Quiet!” Maddox stood motionless on a large, round boulder, scanning the whole vista, no doubt consulting his Guardian instincts. “Something’s off. I sense danger.”

Everybody waited uneasily for him to identify the source of the threat.

Silence.

“Well? I don’t see anything!” Jake called, growing impatient at the delay.

“I don’t
see
anything either, but I still…”

“If this treasure is as valuable as Dr. Giannopoulos claimed, they probably didn’t leave it unprotected,” Dani said.

“She’s right! The real cave could be booby-trapped!” Archie yelled.

“Everybody, test them first.” Jake picked up a bread-loaf-sized rock and tossed it into the cave nearest him.

Nothing happened, booby-trap-wise, but Archie let out a yowl. “What are you doing, man?” he yelled at Jake from across the cove. “You’ll smash the artifacts if they’re in there!”

Jake cringed to realize the clumsy error he had made in front of Sapphira. “Well, what do you suggest?” he retorted.

“I don’t know, but we can’t risk breaking all the artifacts!”

While they started bickering about how to proceed, Nixie heaved a sigh, rolled her eyes, and took matters in hand. Carefully approaching the nearest cave entrance, she pulled her wand out and waved it at the cave mouth before her.

Nobody saw exactly what had happened, but a little lightning bolt of magical energy bounced off some sort of invisible barrier over the cave entrance, and flew back at her, hitting her squarely in the torso.

The next thing anybody knew, she was falling, flying backward off the ledge.

Archie let out a cry of horror as her skinny, black-clad body plummeted.

“
Jake!
” Dani screamed, pointing at her.

He gasped and reacted directly from his training: in the nick of time—forgetting all about the watching fisherman—he used his telekinesis to catch Nixie in midair. Forcing himself to focus, he set her down gently on a rock ledge a few feet below her, while Archie began scrabbling down the slope toward her.

“What happened?” Isabelle cried. “Did anyone see?”

They shrugged and shook their heads, but Liliana piped up, “She used her wand on that cave, there!”

The little girl pointed at the place where Nixie had been standing.

Sapphira nodded to confirm it. “I could see it, too, from where we’re standing. She flicked her wand and the flash from it bounced off the cave mouth back onto her.”

Jake was baffled by this revelation, but the question of how to determine whether or not the caves were booby-trapped was put aside for the moment. They all watched anxiously as Archie reached Nixie’s side and dropped to his knees.

“She’s unconscious!” He lifted her upper body to a sitting position, but her eyes stayed closed and her head flopped back. He tapped his fingers on her milk-white cheek. “Nixie? Nix, wake up!”

“Maybe she fainted,” Jake suggested as he started climbing down toward them.

“Nixella Valentine never fainted in her life!” Archie said with a scoff. “C’mon, Nix, can you hear me?”

Just then, Jake heard a strange, scraping rumble of stone on stone from about ten feet away, near the cave where Nixie had had her accident. He glanced over, and what happened next was strange even in the life of a boy with a gryphon for a pet.

A large boulder wedged into the hillside came to life.

Glowing orange eyes opened in its blunt, craggy surface, stared at him for a second in mindless malevolence, and startled a small shriek out of him as its massive body started rising from the bluff.

Everyone was screaming. Jake’s heart pounded, but he just stared in disbelief, tilting his head back as the rock golem rose up before him, presumably to guard the treasure cave that Nixie, still unconscious, had unwittingly found.

“Everybody, get back on the boat!” Maddox roared from above.

“What good will that do?” Sapphira said. “I
told
you, they were made for going underwater! They’ll just walk out and follow us!”

Even the fisherman was slack-jawed with shocked terror, backing away across the deck of his boat.

There were three rock golems in all, arrayed in a triangular formation about the hillside. Jake stood closest to the uppermost one; the other two were posted on the left and right sides of the bluff, about midway down the slope.

The monsters turned their heads this way and that, as though assessing the situation. As they stood up, a smattering of dust and gravel rained down from their huge bodies.

“Jake, what do we do?” Dani screamed.

He just shook his head, at a loss. “I have no idea.”

All of a sudden, the monster on the right lifted its fist to deliver the first blow, intent on smashing the ledge where Archie was trying to shield Nixie with his body. Seeing the giant stone arm barreling straight toward him, Archie gathered Nixie into his arms and rolled away.

Before Jake’s eyes, they disappeared into one of the small, narrow crevices dotting the hillside.

When the giant fist slammed down where they had been lying a moment ago, the rock ledge shattered. Chunks of it skittered down the hillside, but the monster had missed them.

Isabelle screamed her brother’s name; he poked his head briefly out of the whole. “We’re all right. It looks like some of these caves connect! I suggest you hide!”

With that, he whisked back into the hole, presumably pulling Nixie to safety deeper inside the limestone bluff.

Unfortunately, Isabelle’s holler had drawn the attention of the rock monster nearest to her. As its unnerving stare homed in on her, she shrieked and dashed into the cave to hide as her brother had suggested.

Dani headed for the mermaids on the beach, taking Maddox’s advice to get back on the boat.

The one going after Isabelle could not fit inside the fairly large cave she had started to explore moments ago, but it reached its arm in, trying to grab her.

Seeing this, Maddox leaped off the precipice above and landed on the monster’s back. It roared and tried to shake him off, but he held on around its neck and started kicking it to make it leave her alone.

Jake watched in alarm for a heartbeat, but then the one nearest him leaned down and bellowed in his face. He reacted automatically, using his telekinesis to fling a bolt of energy at it.

Stunned by this unexpected attack, the creature shook itself but didn’t fall, and no wonder. This Lord Wyvern who, according to Giannopoulos, had created the golems, had designed them to bear up under massive water pressure. A mere jolt of telekinetic energy did little more than vex it.

It let out an indignant grunt and then swiped at him with a huge arm. Jake dove out of the way to avoid getting smashed; unfortunately, when he landed, the contents of his knapsack spilled out. The library books, including
The Lost Secrets of Atlantis
, went flying everywhere—and the orb dropped.

Jake gasped. By some miracle, he stopped it with his telekinesis before it hit the rocks below.

Hand shaking slightly, he levitated it back toward himself.

It was then he noticed a curious thing: the sight of the shiny silver ball had arrested all of the monsters’ attention.

Of course,
he thought, scrambling to his feet. They had been left here as treasure guardians, and this was a piece of the treasure.