“Which leaves these two,” Tenzin said. “This one smells of earth.” She nodded to the center tunnel. “This one, water.” She motioned to the left.
“You think earth?”
“I think the rivers are unlikely to have changed course significantly over the past two hundred years. Not underground. So Tomás would have avoided them. I’m betting he went for the driest tunnel, not the one with a risk of flooding.”
“Makes sense.” Ben stood. “So when do you want to start?”
“Now.”
Ben unpacked the caving equipment first. He wanted to explore the tunnel to set pitons, ropes, and lights before they brought out the metal detector.
He could feel a low level of tension coming off Tenzin, like a buzz in the air.
“I’ll go first,” he said, adjusting his helmet and headlamp. It wasn’t his first time in a cave, but he wasn’t an experienced explorer. “Let me set up some lights and lines before you start in. If it’s even, we’ll be fine. If it’s not, I’ll have to bring heavier equipment from the Jeep and it’s going to take a lot longer.”
“I’m fine.”
“I didn’t say you weren’t.” He stepped in front of her. “But let me go first. You can follow right after me if you want. But let me go first.”
She crossed her arms but said nothing. She’d been unusually quiet.
A silent thread of worry took root in his belly. He hadn’t been around Tenzin many times when she felt truly uneasy. Even in the middle of a battle, she was in her element. But here? Under the earth, cut off from the sky where she thrived?
Ben stepped into the center cave, flipping his helmet light on low and checking the flashlight hanging from his tool belt and the lump of glow sticks in his pocket. Even on low the helmet light nearly blinded him, but he let his eyes adjust and took his first steps inside. The line of parachute cord lay over his shoulder. He’d tied one end to a stake at the mouth of the tunnel. The other line he’d anchor at various points when he had the chance.
It was a narrow passage roughly three feet across, bordered by rocky walls and a somewhat even floor. The height of the tunnel ranged from four feet to immeasurable black. He stepped up and over a tumble of rocks, heading into the unknown.
“It looks pretty even,” he yelled over his shoulder. “No evidence of rock slides. No drops.”
He heard nothing from Tenzin, but he kept walking. He carried his own copy of the map in his hand, referencing it every time he came to a turn.
At each juncture, he hammered a piton in the limestone and strung the cord through the eye to keep track of his path. All told, there should have been nine turns.
He reached the first, anchored, and turned right.
He reached the second, anchored, and turned right again.
The third, after the anchor, he kept to the main tunnel going straight. It was a honeycomb of tunnels beneath the surface, but evenly sloping and mostly clear.
Left again.
Right.
Right.
Left.
Right.
He felt his heart rate begin to spike. He wasn’t thinking about how far underground he was. He wasn’t thinking about how deep into the earth he’d crawled.
He was thinking about gold. One last turn and he’d anchor his line, hang a lantern, then go back for his metal-detecting equipment. He could almost taste the gold in the dusty, damp air.
He came to the last turn, which… wasn’t.
“Shit.”
He checked the map again. Looked up.
Dead end.
After turning in place a few times, Ben began the walk back out of the tunnel. He left the cord where it was, but in the back of his mind, he was convinced he’d missed a turn, missed a branch, missed something that would have led to the correct cavern.
Tenzin was waiting. “Well?”
“We’ll have to walk it again.” He fidgeted with his extra flashlight. “I’m pretty sure I missed a turn.”
“What was at the end? Did you make all the turns? What did you find?”
“Nothing.” He flipped his flashlight on to check it and stuffed some extra glow sticks in his front pocket. “It was a dead end.”
“That can’t be right.”
He cocked his head. “Because we didn’t find it our first walk in? You’ve got to be joking. We rewalk it. Then we walk it again. Then we use the metal detectors. I’m not giving up, Tenzin. But I am saying we need to be on top of this and realize it might be one of the other tunnels.”
She shook her head. “I’m telling you—”
“I know. I know. You’re positive this is the tunnel.”
“Exactly. The priest may have made a mistake drawing the map. We can’t give up.”
“I’m not going to.” He strapped a different-colored cord to his waist. “I’ll take the metal detector next time. Let me walk it once more now that I have a feel for the place. I probably missed something last time.”
“Yes,” Tenzin said. “You can be careless when you’re excited.”
He rolled his eyes. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“You’re welcome.”
Three more attempts at exploring the cave exhausted Ben’s energy for the day.
“I’m done,” he said, unzipping his coveralls. “I’m cold. I’m bruised. This is going nowhere. We’ll have to start again tomorrow.”
“We’re not giving up,” Tenzin said, staring at the mouth of the tunnel.
“I’m not saying we’re giving up, but I’m taking a break. We have to be methodical about this, or we could miss the right path by a few feet. We go back tomorrow, start at the beginning, and slowly eliminate possibilities. Keep the first line for a reference point.”
Tenzin nodded. “And I’ll keep looking.”
Ben watched her from the corner of his eye. “I’m not sure about that, Tenzin.”
“Why not? I’m not going to sleep.”
She’d been edgy all day. He knew being underground made her nervous, whether she admitted it or not. She became more disconnected. Less… human.
“I just don’t think it’s good idea for either of us to be alone down here with no backup. Give both of us a break. I may sleep for a few hours and be ready to look again.”
“Fine.”
She said it, but her tone of voice told Ben she was humoring him.
He walked over and crouched in front of her. “Don’t go in there without me. I’m asking you as your partner and your friend.”
Tenzin was silent.
“I don’t know why you hate being underground so much, and I don’t need to know unless you want to tell me. But I know it’s not a good idea. So just… don’t.”
Her eyes flashed. “You presume, Benjamin Vecchio.”
“Yeah, I do. But only because I’ve seen what tight spaces underground do to you. I’ve seen it in more than one place, so don’t stress me out for no reason other than your stubbornness. Please.”
“Fine.”
This time her voice was less patronizing and more annoyed. That was fine. Ben could deal with annoyed. What he couldn’t deal with was a murderous vampire disassociated from her more human instincts.
“I’m going to eat something and then sleep. Do you want anything to eat? Maybe just something warm? Blood? Blood-wine? I brought both.”
“No.” Tenzin rose and returned to her pallet near the water tunnel. “Come get me when you’re ready to work again.”
Ben bit his tongue and walked back to the small kitchen he’d set up. He heated a package of chili and opened a bag of corn chips. A shot of whiskey added to his tea and he was feeling nearly human again by the time he crawled into his tent.
He opened the file of Tomás’s letters again and started rereading from the beginning. He read about the last days of the privateer Miguel Enríquez and the anger and bitterness the man felt about his fate. He had been powerful, rich, influential, even if he wasn’t popular. It was all gone. At the end of his life, th
e powerful man vented his bitterness on the priests he’d supported so diligently early in his life. Priests who cared for him out of moral obligation and divine vow.
He was a bastard of indeterminate birth and questionable moral compass, neither at home in proper society or the class of criminals he brushed against.
Was it any wonder Ben had avoided looking in a mirror that reminded him of his own uncomfortable truths? He fell asleep with the priest’s letters on his chest, the sound of dripping water in the distance and a voice singing softly in the darkness.
“You’re a little bastard.”
Ben looked up from his bowl of cereal with caution. It was morning, but his mother already sounded drunk. Maybe she’d been drinking already, or maybe she hadn’t gone to sleep the night before. It was impossible to tell. Ben had figured out how to put a lock on his door at age seven and had been locking himself in at night ever since. Once he was in his room, he didn’t leave until the light came.
“Do you know what that means?” she asked him, slurring her words. “To be a bastard?”
“Uh-uh.” He resumed eating with one eye on her as she leaned against the counter.
He knew what it meant when people yelled it on the street at each other, but he didn’t think that’s what his mother was talking about.
“It means,” she said, “that your parents weren’t… weren’t married when you were born.”
“Oh.” Ben kept eating. He finished one bowl and poured another. The cereal didn’t fill him up, but he liked how crunchy it was. He should probably buy oatmeal the next time he went to the bodega. When Mrs. Novak made him eat oatmeal, he was full for hours. But it didn’t crunch. He liked the crunch.
“But I wasn’t married to Joe.” His mother opened the fridge, stared inside long enough for the kitchen to get cold, then closed it without taking anything out. “I’d never marry Joe.”
Of course she wouldn’t. His parents couldn’t stand each other. He learned early where babies come from, and it still confused him that his parents had ever liked each other enough to do that even once.
“So you’re a bastard,” she said again. “A bastard.” Louder. “Do you care?”
Ben shrugged. “Not really.”
Lots of his parents’ friends weren’t married, so it wasn’t like Ben was the only bastard on the block. Carla was probably the only kid in the building with two parents at home. Well, Austen had two parents sometimes, but they fought a lot, so his dad was only there a little bit. But Ben thought they were married. Probably.
“Does it matter?” he asked, not looking at his mother.
“I guess not.” She slid down the counter and sat on the floor, her back propped against the cupboards. “My parents were married.”
“I think Joe’s parents were too.” Ben was sure of it actually. His abuela talked about her late husband a lot. She even told Ben that he reminded her of his grandfather, and Ben had felt unaccountably warm and proud of that. Why? He had no idea. He’d never met his grandfather and he never would. The old man had died before Ben was born.
“Joe’s parents…,” his mother muttered, and a dark look came to her eyes.
Ben quickly finished his second bowl of cereal, drank what was left of the watery milk, and cleared his dishes. He shouldn’t have brought up his abuela. His mother only got pissed off when he did that.
“You shouldn’t see her anymore,” his mom said. “She… what’s she ever done for you, huh?”
Fed me. Bought me clothes. Took me to movies. Made cookies.
“Nuthin’,” Ben said, quickly exiting the kitchen and making his way to the living room. He turned on the TV and switched the channel to one of the shows his mom liked to watch. Something on MTV with lots of flashy cars and houses. That would distract her. He’d been planning to watch cartoons since it was Saturday, but he didn’t want the headache.
He’d let his mom fall asleep on the couch, then he’d go out. The weather was okay this morning. Maybe he’d walk over to Washington Square and lift some wallets from the tourists. If the dancers were any good, the pickings were easy, easy, easy. And if he got enough cash, he could go to a movie or something. Maybe he’d hang out in the park and eat hot dogs all day.
Anything but stay at home.
Anything but that.
14
Tenzin listened to him sleeping. Ben talked in his sleep, far more than he probably realized. He also spoke various languages. English mostly. Spanish second. A surprising amount of Arabic, notably curse words.
She unzipped his tent and watched him. He had the priest’s letters on his chest and had kicked off some of the blankets. She re-covered him, knowing how cold human blood could get underground.
I don’t know why you hate being underground so much, and I don’t need to know unless you want to tell me.
He didn’t want to know. Ben was remarkably adept at avoiding ugly things. He reminded Tenzin of herself that way. Why dwell on ugly things if it wasn’t necessary? Why ruminate on the past when you could remake yourself in the future?
Tenzin had asked Ben why he hadn’t told Giovanni about his grandmother, but she already knew the answer. She was curious what he’d say, but she knew.
It was easier.
It was always easier to leave the past behind. Forget it. Cut off the disease. Start fresh. Start new. It was a technique she’d used many times. Mostly it worked.
And when it didn’t… you became an inhuman monster who reverted to her most animalistic instincts. That happened sometimes too.
Not the most desirable option.
It was why she’d agreed to wait for Ben even though she was certain the treasure wasn’t in the tunnel they were searching. She was nearly certain of it. They’d tried. The map was clear. Perhaps the rivers had shifted. Perhaps they were imagining the mind of the priest wrong.
Water.
Holy water.
He was a native of this place. He was familiar with the tunnels and the caverns. Maybe he knew the treasure was safer where humans would avoid it, where it was surrounded by water. It was treasure stolen on the water. It could be stored near it too. The underground rivers had their own labyrinthine passageways, enough to discourage most treasure hunters.
That was it. That was the truth.
They were looking in the wrong place.
Ben mapped each attempt in a notebook as he explored. Attempt five? No luck. Attempt six? Dead end after turn four. Attempt eight nearly took his head off with an unexpected drop that left him with a lump on his forehead.
He was taking notes, grabbing an energy bar, and crossing off previous map attempts when he noticed that Tenzin wasn’t staring at the earthen tunnel anymore. She was staring at the center tunnel. The watery-smelling one.
“Tenzin?”
“I was wrong.”
Did it break your brain to say that? Ben rolled his eyes. “You think it’s the center tunnel? Why not the one that smells like bones?”
“Because a vampire that close to gold would have noticed it.” She turned to look at him. “Do you think I’m making that up? Each gold alloy has a distinctive smell. A vampire would have to be an idiot not to smell it. I don’t know why that’s so hard to understand.”
Ben kept his temper in check. Barely.
“Well, since it’s literally the first time you’ve ever mentioned that little fact, I don’t know why I’m supposed to have known that. Why the hell would I know that gold has a scent, Tenzin? It’s a nonreactive metal.” Okay, his temper had shown through a bit on that last question.
She ignored him and stared at the tunnel. “Pure gold is nonreactive. But most gold for coinage was alloyed, which means it has a scent, even if humans are too dull to sense it. I thought everyone knew that.”
Bullshit.
She was just trying to piss him off. He closed his notebook and opened another one. “Great. Wonderful. Okay, we’re starting over. Where’s the map? And where’s the extra rope?”
“I’m goin
g on this try.”
“No, you’re going to let me map it out first and see if there’s a chamber that would be logical to keep a treasure in. There’s no telling—”
“What’s down there?” She nodded. “Exactly. That’s why I’m going. If you get into trouble, it’ll be better if I’m there.”
“Because you’re so great underground,” he muttered.
“If you’d let Carwyn change you, you’d be an earth vampire and we wouldn’t have to worry about all this, would we?” Tenzin put her hands on her hips and rose a foot off the ground. “But you can’t do that, can you? You can’t think of anyone but yourself. Do you know how much easier it would be to do this kind of work if we had a wind vampire and an earth vampire?”
“You seriously fucking want me to change into an earth vampire so we can hunt more treasure?” Ben didn’t know why he was shocked. It was near-perfect Tenzin logic.
What is good for me?
What will make me richer?
What will give me exactly what I want?
Okay, do that.
He shut his eyes and took a few deep breaths. “You’re certifiable.”
“Yes. But I’m not wrong.”
He unzipped the heavy coveralls and yanked the sleeves down, stripping to the waist. “Why did you even want to do this with me if you’re going to be such an asshole? You want a vampire partner? Go find one! Leave me out of it.”
She scoffed. “As if you wouldn’t go crazy without the challenge. You need this, Ben. Just as much as I do.”
“I don’t need this.” He flung his arms wide. “I don’t need all this shit. I don’t need treasure maps and… and getting dragged to places I hate. I don’t need you shoving my shitty childhood at me. Have I ever done that to you?”
“No. I don’t tell you anything about my past for a reason.”
“Fuck you!” He marched back to his tent, tossed the notebooks and ropes to the side, and left the cavern, walking into the light and letting the sun pour over him, well out of reach of Tenzin’s antagonism. He climbed out of the sinkhole and stretched on a rock that lay near the edge. The stone was warm on his back, and the sunshine hit his skin, leaching into his bones like water soaking into dry earth.
Blood Apprentice: An Elemental Legacy Novel Page 13
