The big man led him another fifty meters around the mountain's side until they reached an outcropping of large rocks surrounding what had to be a twenty-ton boulder. Without a word, Grant's escort reached between the base of the boulder and some of the large rocks, and once his hand was inside the crack, Grant heard a soft click.
This was followed by a hiss as the boulder began sinking into the ground. As it went, Grant spotted a mark at its base that until now had been obscured by the other rocks surrounding it. It was the symbol of the Secretum scratched into the boulder, no more than an inch in size.
The boulder lowered until it was out of sight, and the hole it left behind led to a spiral set of stairs descending into the darkness.
The big man took the lead, stepping over the rocks.
"Thanks," Grant said, breaking the silence they'd observed since he had regained consciousness. "But I think I can take it from here."
The man turned and squinted his eyes at Grant.
Grant flung a hand at him, and the man was hurled high up into the air and off into the distance toward the mountain's peak. Grant didn't bother watching him soar away. Instead, he entered the hole in the ground and began to descend.
It was dark along the spiraling stairs, but a flicker of light at the bottom caught his attention, and he focused on reaching that light. Once at the bottom of the stairs, he found a single torch jutting out from the rock wall which Grant grabbed as he moved on.
Inside the mountain, it looked much as Grant had expected it to. Carved-out spaces, ranging from very large to very small, one leading to another and another. A steep downhill corridor, just wide enough for a body to fit through, led him on an hour-long trek deep into the earth.
In the shifting light of his torch, he noted that not far ahead, the corridor appeared to give way to a much larger chamber, which was lit brightly. In the distance, he could see more torches lining the round chamber's stone walls.
He felt a familiar tingle at the back of his mind before he heard the voice.
"Took you long enough to get here," Alex said, waiting just beside the entrance to the large chamber as he walked through.
She wasn't alone. Payton was here too, along with Fletcher, Hector, Nora, and their British counterparts-Mrs. Edeson, Cornelius, Charlotte, and that strange, child-like man whose name he'd never learned.
"What are you-?" Grant managed.
Alex spoke up first. "We found something. It brought us here. But Grant, your sister, she-"
"I know," he responded. "They have her."
Alex sighed, and Grant looked closer at the others. They showed evidence of being worn, but not yet defeated. He wondered how much they knew about Morgan but elected not to mention it yet.
The large round chamber they were in was plain and bare. It was nothing more than a hollowed-out cave, with a flattened ground surface to walk on. Aside from the entryway he'd just come through, there were two more archways leading away from the chamber in opposite directions on his left and his right.
"Come here," Alex said, leading him toward the exit on his left. "Let me show you something."
The others followed as she led him in silence on a meandering path through another tunnel. Shorter than the one he'd traversed, it brought them to their destination in less than five minutes. The tunnel opened into an enormous, cylindrical, horizontal tube cut out of the mountain's rock.
"This is how we got here," she explained. She quickly detailed their discovery beneath the London Library-what they could only assume was some sort of "underground transit system." As hard as it was to believe, the nine of them had used this transit system to get there in less than an hour's time.
Grant was amazed but not surprised. "I'm just starting to understand for myself the true breadth and depth of the Secretum's resources. This is incredible," he remarked, studying the colossal tunnel.
As Alex led the group back to the round chamber, Grant offered his own story of how he'd located this place with the help of the young boy, Stephan, his online contact, Levi, and the mysterious Trevor.
"The new Keeper called me," he said, and Payton looked at him with sudden interest. "He's the one who told me Julie was here. They're waiting for me, and from what he said, it sounds like everything the Secretum has been planning-all their schemes and manipulations and plotting for the Bringer-it's all supposed to culminate when I meet them here."
"This new Keeper," Payton inquired. "Did he give you his name?"
"Devlin," Grant replied, keenly watching Payton's reaction.
Payton offered only the subtlest of shifts in his eyes, but said nothing.
They reached the chamber and as a group walked toward the third and final corridor opposite their current position. It was the only remaining place to go, so it had to lead to Omega Prime.
"Devlin told me . . ." Grant began. "He said that the Secretum was behind all of the disasters happening around the world. It was them, all along."
Fletcher did a double take, but Alex merely nodded and took him by the hand. He was electrified by the gesture, his heart suddenly pumping faster.
"I knew it wasn't you, Grant," she said softly as they continued to walk hand in hand. "It couldn't have been. It's not who you are."
He turned loose of her hand, fear clouding his thoughts. "What if it is, and I just don't know it yet?"
The group of ten Ringwearers looked out upon an expanse that was beyond anything they ever dreamed possible. A few recoiled in fear, but Grant, Payton, and Alex steeled themselves at the sight.
The final corridor from the entry chamber led them, single file, steeply downward, farther inside the mountain. Indeed, they were no longer inside the mountain; now they were certain they were far under it. They knew when they reached a large rock outcropping-like balcony that looked out over ...
Over something they had no words to describe. Something that quite possibly, no words had ever been invented to describe.
A subterranean cavern stretched out beneath them that was roughly hexagonal in shape and about five miles in diameter. From its ceiling, hundreds of feet above their heads and probably more than a thousand feet above the ground floor below, descended the most enormous stalactite any of them could comprehend. At the top, it was easily half a mile across; at the bottom, where it now touched the ground, it was about two hundred feet wide.
That any of this was visible at all was its own miracle. It wasn't dark inside the cavern. Bright lights were scattered randomly throughout, illuminating it with a warm glow, like stars shining in the night sky. And as their amazement slackened, more details became evident.
Buildings populated the ground floor, mostly single-story and a blend of Mediterranean and Persian design. Many of them were circular in shape with lotus-style "onion dome" roofs. They ran the full spectrum of sizes. Some seemed quite large, as if they were community buildings, but the majority were small enough to be modest homes.
It was an underground city, Grant realized.
What looked like train tracks of some kind-only with one iron track instead of the standard two-extended the full diameter of the city. There were three such tracks, and they intersected in the center of town, beneath the great stalactite, and when looked at from this vantage point above, the tracks formed a very familiar six-pointed shape.
The city boasted an odd conglomeration of the archaic and the ultra modern. Six mammoth power cables came up through the ground floor, branched out from the great stalactite in the center of town, and touched the outer walls of the city. Smaller cables forked away from the big ones and down to all parts of the city.
A water reservoir or lake of some kind took up a full sixth of the city between two sets of train tracks.
Its scale and proportions made Grant feel infinitesimal. And the very idea that something like this could exist beneath the earth, and yet no one knew about it ... Grant's mind said it was preposterous, but his eyes told another story.
Until now, he had believed the Secretum to be so
me kind of secretive organization. But this ...
His gaze followed the slope of the outer walls until he realized that closer to the bottom, the walls had been carved out. About eight levels of hollowed-out structures lined the outer walls; it was as if all the space on the ground floor had been used up, so the Secretum had taken to expanding into the walls themselves.
The group stood dead silent. For minute after awestruck minute, no one spoke a word.
Grant was the first to assert himself. "We have to do something," he said.
One by one, the others tore themselves away from the sight before them and woke up to what Grant had said.
"There are stairs over here," Fletcher pointed to an archway to their far left. Beyond it a set of steps descended into a tunnel that looked as though it ran parallel, behind the curve of the outer wall.
"Look out there at the center," Alex said, and everyone turned. "That looks like a series of elevators to me, surrounding the point where the tracks intersect."
Grant saw that she was right. Where the great stalactite met the ground, tunnels had been carved out for the tracks to pass through, and outside of the tunnels, at even increments, were several sets of parting doors. Even now, people were passing through the many sets of parting doors, getting on or off of the vertical cars.
"But do they go up or down?" Nora asked.
"Down," said Grant and Alex at the same time, without hesitation.
Alex pointed at the gigantic power cables. "See how the cables poke up out of the ground? They're coming from somewhere beneath all this."
"Then that's where I have to go," Grant declared.
"The Secretum went to enormous trouble to bring you here," Payton reminded everyone. "They know you're on your way. They may even know we're standing right here."
Fletcher stepped closer to the edge of the balcony, addressing Grant. "There have to be more than ten thousand people down there. Short of caving in the entire cavern, that's more than even you could get past."
Grant's mind turned quickly. He faced Alex. "How would you feel about creating a diversion?"
Her eyes danced. "Downright giddy."
"Then I'll make my way through the town and hitch an elevator ride while you make with the distracting," he explained to everyone. "Alex is in charge; make sure you do whatever she says, and make sure you do it big and loud."
The group was shaken and unsure, but nonetheless they were already moving toward the stairs.
"Wait," Payton interjected. "You've said nothing of Morgan's fate. You must have asked Devlin about her."
Grant waited until the others were already descending the stairs. Only he, Alex, and Payton remained on the balcony overlooking the underground city. He closed his eyes and turned down his head. "She's gone. I'm sorry-"
Payton swore, and in a flash, his sword was sailing through the air. It jammed into the solid rock wall beside the stairway entrance and vibrated back and forth there like a spring.
"I'm coming with you," Payton announced, his face harder than the stone surrounding them.
"The others need you here," Grant replied.
"I am not coming to assist you," Payton retorted. "I have business of my own with the Secretum tonight."
Leaving no room for argument, he retrieved his sword from the rock wall and proceeded down the stairs.
Grant rolled his eyes and sighed. He was about to say something when Alex took his hand in hers again.
"I've never been afraid of walking into danger beside you," Alex said, her voice lower and more restrained than Grant had ever heard it. "But this . . ." she glanced back over the balcony again.
"I know," Grant replied. "I'm scared too."
She looked deep into his eyes, as if staring at his soul. There was a sad longing in her own face that he couldn't turn away from.
Suddenly a rush of adrenaline coursed through his veins, a wave of fresh bravery washing over him and preparing him for what was to come.
"Now you're not," Alex said with a brave smile.
"Thanks," he whispered, realizing that she'd just used her powers on him.
"You should get going," Alex said, letting go of his hand. "Julie's waiting for you. And you're going to bring her back to us. I know you will."
He smiled at her, the strength she'd just given him in more ways than one refreshing his determination.
"Be careful," he said simply and then vanished down the stairway.
Everything went according to plan. As Alex and the rest of the team stirred the underground city into a frenzy, Grant and Payton covertly made their way to the elevators in the center of town.
They were inside an elevator with the doors closed before anyone could stop them. It was just the two of them.
"What exactly are you planning on doing when we get there?" Grant asked, watching as Payton stood perfectly still in a quiet fury. Grant could practically feel heat emanating from him.
"What do you think I plan on doing?" Payton spat.
The elevator car descended.
"I would appreciate it," Grant remarked, "if you could hold off dispatching any of these people until they show me where my sister is."
"I've told you before," Payton's gravelly voice intoned, "that the individuals you are about to meet are not people. The Secretum of Six is comprised of individuals unlike anyone you have ever encountered, save for your grandfather. The members of the Secretum are cunning in ways you cannot conceive of and dangerous in ways you don't want to know. Don't bother trying to reason with them. Don't argue with them. And whatever you do, don't lie to them. They will ensnare you with any vulnerability you allow yourself to present."
Grant swallowed this. "So the only solution is to kill them?"
"Unquestionably," Payton seethed without remorse.
The doors to the elevator opened at what they guessed was the bottom-most floor. Another circular chamber greeted them, much like the one near the entrance high above. It was donut-shaped, with elevator access in the center and a dozen tunnels leading outward from every direction.
A tunnel to their left was marked with the symbol of the Secretum carved into the rock wall overhead. They entered that tunnel without comment. It was wide enough for them to walk side by side.
"Part of me still wants to believe that violence is not the best use of our gifts," Grant pondered. "As intelligent, self-aware, moral beings, shouldn't we be able to find better ways to resolve our problems?"
"You are describing some abstract, romanticized notion of existence," Payton replied with cold authority. "Reality is not found in such thoughts. Morgan once told me, years ago, of a quote by Edmund Burke. `It is necessary only for the good to do nothing for evil to triumph.' If the Dominion Stone is to be believed, then battle lines were drawn in this universe long before man entered into it. And the war rages on, all around us. We have only to decide which side we will be on."
Grant stopped walking. He couldn't deny the wisdom in these words.
"And which side are you on?" he asked.
"Today," Payton replied, "it would seem that I am on your side."
The tunnel opened into another gigantic circular chamber, twice as large as the last one. The "ceiling" was at least twenty meters above their heads. Stalactites reached down from it like craggy old fingers.
Unlike the other cave corridors they'd passed through, this room was lit by electric lights on stands, circling the perimeter of the room.
They must be powered by the same cables and conduits that feed into the city above us. But where does the electricity even come from, in a place like this? We must be almost a mile below sea level by now....
A set of large, nickel-plated double doors were closed at the far end of the room. They were like stalwart gates outside some medieval castle.
But they stopped walking as the doors creaked and groaned and swung slowly open.
A full battalion of Secretum soldiers spilled into the room and blocked their path. They wore black jumpsuits and carried swor
ds. Like the attackers Payton had killed in St. James's Square, these sol diers had the same training Payton had. They weren't Ringwearers, and they didn't have his speed. But there had to be more than fifty of them.
This fact was enough to give Grant slight pause, but Payton never slowed his pace, walking straight for them. "Go around. I'll handle this."
"Are you sure?" Grant replied. "I could just take them all out with a blast of energy."
Payton whipped out his sword and faced Grant with more anger and malice than Grant had seen on anyone he'd ever known.
"Right," Grant mumbled. "You'll handle this."
The soldiers were twenty feet away as Payton spun, and Grant saw something he'd never seen Payton do before.
Slowly, deliberately, Payton's left hand came around to join his right. He clutched the overlong hilt of his silver sword with both hands.
He marched straight into the middle of their line, where they stood with swords in hand and bloodlust in their eyes. Payton vanished in a burst of speed, and the soldier in the middle of the line had no time to react as Payton reappeared in the air right in front of him, roaring with murderous ferocity and slashing down diagonally with all of his might.
One down.
He twirled to the right and took out another with the momentum of turning, then he dove for the ground and disappeared in a blur again. Three converging soldiers stopped short, before their heads fell off and plopped on the ground, shortly followed by their bodies. Payton stood in the center of them with a broad stance, both arms and sword out thrust straight ahead. The blade was still horizontal from the beheadings, but his own head was down turned.
His eyes popped up, his head unmoving, as he spotted a new group of attackers moving in.
Payton twisted to his left but flipped his sword backwards, thrusting it in reverse at an oncoming soldier on his right. The sword slid into the man's gut, and Payton let go of it there, leaving the man skewered and in shock. Another man facing him slashed his sword sideways, but it froze unexpectedly in mid-arc. Payton was clasping the broad sides of it with both hands, and with a sudden jerk, the soldier he faced was disarmed.
Fearless (Dominion Trilogy #2) Page 29
