by J. F. Penn
Jake's phone buzzed.
"It's Martin," he said after a moment. "There are salt caves a little further south, alongside the southern basin of the Dead Sea." He turned in his seat, hope in his eyes. "They're located underneath Mount Sodom, which is entirely made of halite or rock salt. Most unusual apparently."
"A dry environment, too," Mikael said. He stepped on the accelerator and Morgan noticed him glance in the mirror, his concern evident. "It's got to be worth a look, and it's not far from here."
Within half an hour, they had reached a more industrial part of the Dead Sea, where the water was a collection of shallow pools processed to extract minerals. It had a desolate air, as if this ecosystem sensed the end was near and each day another inch evaporated into the atmosphere. Electricity pylons stood across the sandbanks, their shadows like stakes into the heart of the land.
Jake pointed up to the hills on the right side of the road.
"You see that separate pillar up there. It's called Lot's Wife."
"The Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah … destroying all those living in the cities and also the vegetation in the land. But Lot's wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt," Morgan said, quoting from the book of Genesis. "I never thought that was quite fair. She always seemed quite blameless in the whole sordid tale."
"Not much in scripture is fair," Mikael said, no trace of amusement in his voice. As his eyes flicked to meet Morgan's in the mirror, she caught a flash of something off to the side of the road. She turned her head to see a huge truck barreling out from behind one of the works' buildings. She shouted a warning. But it was too late.
Chapter 21
Mikael slammed the wheel sideways in evasive maneuvers but the truck smashed into the driver's side, the sound echoing through the desolate salt valley. Mikael threw his arm up to protect his face, his body thrown violently sideways by the impact. Jake's head whipped back and smashed into the glass on the passenger side. He grunted and his head dropped to his chest, unmoving. Morgan slammed into the side door, the pain of impact rocking through her.
But the attack wasn't over, as they were pushed towards the steep edge of the road.
"We have to get out of here!" she shouted at the two men, smacking her fists against the seats in front of her, but Jake was still and Mikael's responses were sluggish as he shook his head slowly in a daze.
The truck revved again and the Jeep slid off the side of the narrow road. Morgan braced herself in the seat as the vehicle rolled down the embankment towards the water. They were strapped in, but it didn't lessen the impact as the Jeep landed upside down in the shallow water. Scree and rocks tumbled down with them, pelting the upturned vehicle. The saltwater began to seep into the vehicle immediately. Jake's unconscious body lay face down, his mouth open, the trickle close to his face.
Morgan could hear shouts from men on the road above and the slip-sliding of coarse rocks as they began to descend the slope. This was not an accident, and she had a feeling these men weren't intending to help. She undid her safety belt and drop-rolled into the body of the vehicle, then reached down to undo Jake's belt and drag him up so his face was at least out of the intense salty water. Blood dribbled from a deep cut on his temple, pooling in the corkscrew scar. She slapped his face and he groaned.
"Jake, you bastard, wake up," she said, shaking him. "I need you."
Mikael coughed in the seat next to them, rubbing his chest. "Is he OK?" he whispered, his voice hoarse.
Morgan turned to see Mikael's handsome face frowning with concern. Jake rolled his head suddenly and groaned, just as a hail of rocks announced the arrival of the men outside.
Morgan reached for her gun. Mikael put out his hand to stop her.
"There's no point," he said. "There's too many of them. You know that, but if we can give Kadmon the box, maybe he'll be satisfied with that."
"Get out of the vehicle," a rough voice shouted in a coarse Spanish accent. "Don't even think about any weapons."
Mikael reached out a hand to Morgan and took hers, squeezing a little.
"We're going to be OK, I promise." He smiled and Morgan saw her father's confidence in his expression, a certainty about the world. It was a confidence that spoke of a knowledge that went deeper than this physical realm. Was there something Mikael hadn't told her?
He undid his belt and slithered out of the car sideways.
"I'm not armed," he called, putting his hands out first as he was roughly pulled out and dragged up. "My friend is hurt in there. Please be careful."
Faces appeared at the windows and several men bent to drag Jake out the side window. Morgan crawled out after him. As she stood up, she couldn't help but stare at the mountain of a man who led this group, his face tattooed.
"Where's Kadmon?" Morgan asked, wiping the blood from her hands onto her jeans. "Didn't he want to get his hands dirty?"
The man jerked his thumb towards the salt mountain.
"He's up there, which is where you're going, too."
He pulled out a bottle of water and tipped it over Jake's face, the cold making Jake splutter and cough but bringing him round. He shook his head, looking dazed.
"Morgan?" His first word was of concern for her, and Morgan couldn't help but smile.
"Bring them," the big man said to the group. Two of them lifted Jake under his arms, propelling him forward, and the others prodded Morgan and Mikael with their guns, herding them up the embankment back to the road. A tiny path wound up the cliff in front of them.
"Walk," the big man said, forcing them ahead. "It's not far from the top."
Panting and wheezing, clutching their injuries, they stumbled up the slope. Morgan was hyper aware of every difficult breath that Jake took, cursing her idiocy in letting him come on this mission. He had barely recovered from his last lot of injuries and she should have known that this wouldn't be a basic search-and-rescue trip. Once more she had put someone she cared about in danger.
She glanced over at Mikael, his eyes focused, darting around the men, assessing their strengths. At least he seemed to be alright and his wounds were healing fast, the cut on his head almost gone. Perhaps the dry heat and the salty air really were the restorative tonic they sold to the tourists.
At the top of the hill, Jake fell to his knees, coughing as Morgan clutched him tightly. One of the men thrust a bottle of water at them.
"Drink this. We can't have you dying … just yet," he laughed.
Morgan lifted the bottle to Jake's mouth. "Sip it," she whispered. "Not too fast."
Her eyes met Mikael's, her rage barely suppressed, his own reflected back at her. He shook his head, barely perceptible, but she understood. This was no place to attempt any kind of escape. There were too many of them. Besides, she was ready to face Adam Kadmon now – for her father, for Santiago and Sofia, and since none of them had the Key, there was still everything to play for.
When Jake had recovered a little, the group marched on, trudging through the salt hills towards a cave entrance, a slant of jagged rock. A sign clearly noted that this entrance to the caves was forbidden, with danger of collapse. Where once these caverns had been open to the public, rockslides and cave-ins had now made them unsafe to explore. The tattooed man pulled aside the sign and walked into the crack in the rock, fitting a head torch to his thick skull. The guards that followed pushed Morgan, Jake and Mikael onwards, following with their flashlights, shining the way ahead.
It was cool inside, a pleasant temperature, and the air smelled fresh, as if filtered through the salty rock and purified on the descent. Beyond the noise of their footsteps, Morgan could hear dripping. Water that had formed the caves still trickled through here, creating new pathways one droplet after the next. Torchlight illuminated glimpses of the cave walls as they walked, layers of salt like rings of bark belying the age of this place, lines laid down over millennia by the inexorable waters. The path wound around sculptural formations in the salt, reminiscent of the landscape beneath the
waters further north. Time mattered little here and whatever happened on the outside, these caves would outlast the horrors of men.
The darkness began to lighten as they came to a wider section of the tunnels, finally emerging into a large cavern. It was open at the top, where white clouds scudded across a blue sky, oblivious to the human drama below. A thick salt pillar rose from the center of the space, pockmarked with gaping dark holes around its outer edge. Adam Kadmon stood in front of the pillar. Morgan had to restrain her desire to rush him, envisioning how many times she could smash his head into the salt rock before his men took her down.
"Welcome," Kadmon said, turning to look at them. "And apologies for calling such a dramatic halt to your progress on the road."
The tattooed man stepped forward and handed Kadmon the green metal box.
"Of course, I know the Key is not in here." He tossed it aside, the clang as it dropped absorbed by the thick cave walls. "I took my research a little further than your ARKANE friend." He nodded at Morgan's widened eyes. "Oh yes, I know all about you now, Morgan Sierra. I knew your father, of course. His death was one of the easiest of the Remnant to arrange."
"You bastard," Morgan shouted, lunging forward, intent on reaching him as her rage erupted. The tattooed man turned as she moved, backhanding her across the face and knocking her to the floor. Another man held a gun to her head, the muzzle pushed hard against her temple. Morgan froze, her breathing fast as she tried to hold herself back, suppressing her fury.
Kadmon's smile was amused at her attempt, and Morgan swore silently that she would see him dead before the end of this.
"Now I have two daughters of the Remnant," he said. "A potent sacrifice for the Gates of Hell, but we still need the Key. When we hacked your communications to Ben Costanza, we took the research deeper, accessing the records of this area. It seems your father was here once before, Morgan; he knew people who had sheltered here during the war." He turned to look at the pillar. "But it seems they left more than the Key in this place. Listen."
In the hush of the cave there was a muffled sibilance, the hissing of serpents and a rustle of scales as they slid over one another. "They writhe through the pillar, a nest of them, protecting what's inside." Kadmon pointed to a man lying prone towards the side of the cave, his body still curled up in agony. "They're quite testy as well, as he discovered. I don't want to waste any more of my men, so I thought perhaps you might have more luck. All you need to do is crawl in through one of the holes and get the box from inside the pillar."
"How do you even know the box is in there?" Mikael asked.
Kadmon pointed at the prone man.
"He saw it, and told us before his throat closed and he couldn't speak anymore. The box looks to be bone or ivory, carved with symbols of the dead. But enough talking – I want this done before the sun goes down and we lose the light." He gestured to the two men holding Jake up. "That one looks half dead already, he can go first."
"No," Morgan said. "Leave him. I'll do it."
Kadmon laughed. "I love the sentiment, but I need you for later. Your sacrifice can wait, but he's expendable now."
He nodded at two guards and they dragged Jake towards the pillar. He dropped to his knees as they stopped supporting his weight, his head drooping. Kadmon stepped closer.
"If you –"
Jake exploded from the floor, pushing himself up fast, propelling his body forward. He ducked his head at the last millisecond, his thick skull crunching against Kadmon's face.
"Arrghhh!" Kadmon bellowed in pain, blood streaming from his broken nose.
Before Jake could continue his fight, two of the guards jumped on him, tackling him to the ground, beating at his body with their fists and boots. Several of the men around Morgan moved to join in and she took her chance, praying Mikael would do the same. She lashed out at one of the men and pulled him forward, slamming her knee into his solar plexus, and whipping her elbow down onto his neck, leaving him gasping on his knees. Behind her, she heard the grunts of men fighting. Morgan bent and picked up a rock from the floor, ready to finish her guard off.
A gunshot rang out, echoing around the chamber.
Morgan instinctively ducked, using the man she had beaten as a shield.
"Stop this," Kadmon's voice was ragged and nasal, his face bloody and broken. Morgan peered round to see that he held a gun to Jake's head. "The next bullet ends him if you so much as twitch."
Chapter 22
"Finish it, Morgan." Jake's voice was unwavering as he pressed his head into the gun, teeth gritted, eyes blazing. "Take this bastard out for me."
Kadmon laughed. "You're still outnumbered, and you have no weapons. I admire your spirit, all of you, but it does you no good. If you help me get the box, I'll leave you alive. How about that for a deal?"
Morgan stood up, hands raised in surrender. "Don't shoot him, please."
Kadmon gestured with his free hand. "Tell your friend."
She turned to see Mikael with one of the guards in a neck lock, the man's face bright red as he struggled for breath. Mikael met her gaze, and she could see that he would continue the fight if she allowed it.
"Please," she said softly. After a split second, Mikael relaxed his grip and released the man, who collapsed, panting. Immediately, the rest of the guards swarmed them, tugging their arms behind their backs, forcing them to their knees again.
Kadmon used his gun to lift Jake's chin.
"Now, since you seem to have made such a dramatic recovery, why don't you get me the box?" He nodded and the men behind forced Jake to his feet. "Which entrance do you want to take?"
Morgan watched in dismay, her heart thumping with anxiety. Growing up in Israel, she knew there were several kinds of deadly poisonous snake, and the worst of them, the Israeli Mole Viper, lived in these desert parts. If there truly was a nest in there and Jake was bitten with no help at hand, survival was unlikely. There was no anti-venom and they were a long way from any medical help, even if they could get away. Morgan struggled to come up with another plan, but she could only watch as her partner considered his next move.
Jake could taste blood in his mouth as he walked slowly around the pillar, peering into each hole. He stalled for time, each second that passed forcing him closer to a darkness from his childhood in South Africa. His head thumped with pain and he reached out a hand to brace against the rock. The rhythmic sound of sibilant hissing pulled him back into memory.
His father's hand clutched his arm, dragging him down to one of the worker's huts on the farm as a boy. In the shadows of a meager dwelling, a man lay on a low bed curled up in agony, his body swollen from a snake bite. Jake met the man's eyes and saw terror there, a level of suffering that went beyond the fear of death. His father had made him stay to watch the man die in pain, a vital lesson of the bushland. Jake had carried a sjambok, a heavy leather whip, after that day and had beaten many snakes into the dirt until their bodies lay smashed and broken. But the man's expression haunted him and that childhood horror still left him shaken.
Jake looked over at Morgan, on her knees and held captive because of his inability to protect her. He couldn't fail her again.
He took a deep breath, exhaling sharply before crawling into one of the widest holes. His heart hammered in his chest but he pushed inside. His muscled shoulders almost spanned the width, but he wiggled down, pulling his feet up behind him. Jake paused as his eyes adjusted to the dark, the light sandstone walls close around him. He pushed away thoughts of their collapse, aware of the tons of rock above him. His breath came fast and his vision narrowed as the dizziness of panic threatened to overwhelm him. Sweat prickled on his skin, his palms slick with it. Breathe, he told himself, there's still a chance you can do this.
After a moment, he crawled forward slowly and the hissing sound grew louder and more violent. Jake held himself totally still, willing the creatures to quiet. He could see a turning in the tunneled rock ahead, perhaps the opening to the chamber that held the box. It w
as only a few meters. He pictured Morgan behind him, determined that she would not have to crawl in here. He moved forward again, reaching out with tentative hands to pull himself onwards.
The hissing intensified and a sinuous shadow darted from the tunnel, striking Jake's outstretched hand. He cried out as a burning pain shot up his arm. He pulled it away, instinctively shuffling back as the snake threatened to strike again. His dizziness escalated and Jake knew that panic would overwhelm him if he stayed in the tunnel. He would die here, entombed in rock, snakes slithering over his rotting corpse.
Jake backed out of the tunnel, drenched in sweat, his arm a searing pain. As he emerged into the light, he saw the double puncture marks, the skin already swelling as his heart pumped venom through his body.
"Get back in there, you idiot," Kadmon shouted, pushing Jake towards the hole again. "You've got time before the poison affects you. Keep crawling and you might just save your friends."
Jake stood by the hole without moving, his head hanging down, a sense of his own failure welling within. His breath was fast, the panic all-consuming. Tears pricked his eyes as he sought to hold onto his composure, but the base phobic reaction was too much. He fell to his knees by the pillar, limbs weak and shaking.
"I … can't go back in there." He turned his head towards Morgan. "I'm so sorry."
