He couldn’t have stunned her more if he’d shot her with his inventor friend’s gadget. Hunters, especially the Chosen, were supposed to be ruthless. Not—apologizing.
“All I want is for us to find the Book so you can get it back together and I can escape Rathe.”
Colt twisted the crystal between his fingers, the light bouncing off it and sending refracted sparkles over the walls of the machine room.
He looked at it, then handed it to Lilly. “How about you do the honors.”
Chapter 21
“Go on, give it a try,” Colt urged.
Lilly gazed at the imposing roaring lion emblazoned on the silver door before her and then gingerly plucked the clear quartz crystal from his thick fingers and shoved it into the first round hole in the silver panel of the transponder. “Now what?”
Colt turned the hand crank several times, then twisted the dial beside the crystal. A high keening noise began. The crystal lit with white light from below and the silver door beside the transponder shuddered, the topaz crystal eyes of the lion’s face on the door beginning to glow.
“Try another one,” Lilly urged, grabbing hold of his arm.
“But Marley said—”
“He doesn’t know everything!” she retorted.
Colt pulled an amber-colored citrine from the bag and plugged it into the transponder above the quartz. Again he cranked, then turned the dial farther. The keening sound grew into a wail. The crystal glowed yellow. Slowly the door lifted and stopped halfway. Enough room to get through if they crawled on their bellies.
“Put in the last one.”
This time Colt didn’t even bother to argue. He took the piece of amethyst from the pouch and plugged it in the last hole on the transponder’s receiver board, gave the hand crank several vigorous spins, and turned the dial. The keening sound turned into a high whine, purplish light shot up through the crystal, and the door lifted completely, revealing a huge two-story chamber unlike anything Colt had ever seen.
Large bronze lions, taller than Colt, sat as silent sentinels on either side of a metallic floor checkerboarded with different colors of metal tiles—silver, greenish copper, gleaming golden brass, and black wrought iron. All along the base of the walls behind them, greenish light pulsated and arced in long cylindrical glass tubes. But his gaze was drawn to a stream of bright pale moonlight streaming in a blue white shaft from high above at the far end of the chamber.
The eerie light illuminated a black marble pedestal atop a raised dais, and atop the pedestal sat a large rectangular box.
“This is it.” Lilly tugged Colt’s hand, prodding him forward when he just stood there staring. “Come on.” She stopped because he wasn’t budging. “What’s the matter?”
“What if—Dammit, Lilly. What if we’ve gone through all this, endured death-defying experience, only to find that we did all that and this isn’t what I’m looking for?”
She tugged harder. She understood wanting something so badly she could taste it. She understood bitter disappointment. “We won’t know unless we go over there and look, will we?”
Colt’s feet unglued from the floor, and he moved forward. Far too slowly for Lilly’s taste. “Get moving, Mr. Jackson.”
“You don’t think that the light beam will act like that other one we encountered, do you?”
Colt wrapped an arm around her and held her tightly to his side. “You mean as a trigger to send out a bolt of electricity that’s designed to kill rather than stun? Yes, that’s exactly what I think.”
“But we’ve gotten through their traps. Surely even that is enough of a test for the best of Hunters.”
“Unless whoever put it here intended for it to never be moved.”
Colt peered at the floor and bent down, examining the array of metal tiles in the floor. Some were greenish copper, others paler brass, some looked silver, and others were nearly black. The silver tiles looked like they were slightly elevated from the others. He stood and grabbed Lilly’s shoulders. “Listen to me carefully. The colored tiles in this floor are pressure plates. You step on one and it will act as a trigger.”
“To what?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t want to find out. Just follow close behind me, and step where I step. Stay on the silver tiles.”
Lilly sighed. She’d had just about enough of Hunters and their traps.
They started across the floor, Colt going first. He stepped carefully from one pale silver tile to another, then turned back to assist Lilly. The tiles weren’t large enough for two, so their reach had to stretch from one spot to the next. The problem was, his legs were longer than hers. At one point she had to hop to reach the spot where he’d last been. While one foot landed solidly in the middle of the silver tile, the other landed half on the proper tile and half on the dark iron one beside it.
The dark tile dipped down, making her ankle twist. She shrieked, windmilling her arms backward as she lost her balance. Colt grabbed the waistband of her pants and pulled her forward, flush up against him. Shush. Thwang! A rush of air stirred over the back of her neck. Lilly glanced at the wall where the shaft of a small crossbow arrow quivered. Both of them had narrowly missed getting shot where their heads would have been. Looking at where it must have come from, she noticed that each large lion had an opening in its mouth. Clearly the statues were not just pompous decorations.
“Now we know what happens when we step on the iron tiles,” Colt huffed. Lilly’s frantic heartbeat pounded against his chest like a frightened rabbit’s. “How’s your ankle?”
Lilly stepped down on it and winced. “Hurts, but I can walk on it.” She swiveled and gazed at the pedestal still halfway across the room. “There’s no way we’re going to make it. I’ll stay here and you keep going.”
“We can make it together, we just need to go slow and be careful.”
She tried hard to keep up with him. At one point she misjudged his movements and bumped into him, sending him off balance. His toe caught on a copper tile in front of him. He quickly withdrew it. A drop of something liquid hit where his foot had been a second before, and the small spot sizzled and fizzed, turning bright orange. Colt glanced upward. “Acid. Avoid the copper tiles.”
Lilly bit her lip and nodded. The problem was, the closer they got to the pedestal and the elusive box, the farther and farther apart the silver tiles seemed to be spaced. She wasn’t certain she could make the jump from one tile to the next, and Colt was already two moves ahead of her.
Exhaustion was beginning to take its toll. She leapt for a silver tile and missed, her foot landing on the brass one next to it. The hard bite of an electric shock clamped down on her foot, shooting up her leg, burning and causing her leg muscles to twitch involuntarily. Colt yanked her to the silver tile and she collapsed into his arms.
“I can’t go on anymore. You go and get it,” she pleaded.
“Nonsense. A Hunter never leaves his partner behind. We’re in this together, you and I. We started this together and we’re going to finish this together.” He scooped her up into his arms and deftly crossed the last three silver tiles leading to the base of the dais.
Up close, the case on the pedestal looked far larger and more imposing. Colt took the steps two at a time, Lilly still clutched tight to his chest, and set her down only when they reached the top of the raised dais. He kept a firm arm around her waist and kept her tucked in close to his side.
A thick coating of dust made it difficult to see precisely what was inside the box, but upon closer inspection she saw the ledger-sized box was actually a glass case with seams made of metal. Lilly blew on it, coughing a little at the cloud it created.
Inside the glass case on black velvet was what looked like an ancient illuminated manuscript, the pages created from yellow matte vellum, the gilt lettering and hand-colored images glittering in the light of the torch. Lilly gasped. “It’s beautiful.”
“And in the right hands it’s deadly to all Darkin.”
She locked gazes with him. �
��And in the hands of the Chosen, a key to saving this world.” Excitement tingled in her fingers and toes, sparkling and fizzing up inside her until she felt light-headed, like she’d drunk champagne. They’d done it! They’d actually done it!
Colt pointed at the ragged edge of the dark leather binding on the spine of the Book. “Part of the key anyway.” His voice had a catch to it as if the sight choked him up. It took a moment but Lilly realized how much this stack of vellum pages really meant to Colt. This was more than a tool. This was his family legacy, the legacy of all Hunters.
“This is Cadel’s piece of the Book,” he said quietly. “See there? That’s the back cover. And those loose pages at the back, those are my pa’s notes.”
“So that’s the last third of the Book of Legend.”
He nodded, never taking his eyes off the Book in the case.
“Well, get on with it.”
He turned and gave her a questioning look. “What?”
“We didn’t come through all this to just stand here and look at this relic, did we? Pick it up so we can take it with us.”
“Right.” Colt put his hands on the case. Blue sparks shot out, the current arcing up his arms and making the hair on his arms rise. He let out a yelp and jerked back, shaking his hands. “Damn thing is electrically charged!”
“It must be the gold on the edges acting as a conductor.”
Colt stared hard at her for a moment. “So no case, no conductor.”
“It seems logical to me.”
Colt stripped off his shirt and wrapped it around his right hand several times. The moonlight highlighted with silvery fingers the ridges and ripples of his bare torso. Lilly’s heart sped up in response. She tightened her hands into knots to prevent herself from reaching out and touching him while he was concentrating.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting rid of the case.” He pulled back his hand and hit the glass hard, shattering it.
Lilly squeaked at the impact.
The fabric had done its job, protecting his hand. He unwrapped his hand and gingerly reached between the shards, careful to avoid the gold and the razor-sharp edges of the glass. As his fingers wrapped around the edges of the Book, a warm heat flowed through his hand and up his arm. Whatever else could be said, the Book was a powerful thing. It was also far heavier than it looked.
Colt pulled the manuscript from the ruins of its housing and shook off the glass shards glittering on the surface.
“We’ve got it! We’ve actually got it!” Lilly squealed with sheer delight.
“Finding it is only half the battle. Getting it out of here and to the Gate is the other half,” Colt murmured. He was too awestruck by what he held in his hand. This was legend in physical form. An ancient depository of secrets from the ages meant to enlighten Hunters and protect humanity.
Lilly peered at it, a gleam in her eye. “What shall we do with it?”
Colt pulled an oilcloth out of his pack and gingerly wrapped the Book in the cloth, then tied it shut with a length of twine. “We’re taking it out of here,” he said as he tucked it into his pack and swung the pack over his bare shoulders.
Their plans were short-lived. The walls began to tremble and Colt heard what sounded like thunder.
“Must have been a pressure safety switch,” he muttered. He glanced at the pedestal where the Book had lain and only now noticed the small section of raised velvet. He tried pushing it downward, but the thunder only grew louder. “Damn.”
A deep rumble started in the recesses of the darkness above them. All the hairs on Colt’s body lifted as he glanced upward. “That sounds like water, coming fast.” He glanced back at the maze of colored tiles behind them, knowing now what each colored tile held in store for them. There wasn’t time to walk from silver tile to silver tile. The safe route wasn’t going to save them from whatever was coming.
Beneath their feet the floor trembled. A section of the wall slid open slowly far above them.
He grabbed hold of Lilly’s hand and ran. Crossbow bolts zinged behind them and the drips from the ceiling created an acid rain in their wake as they sped across the booby-trapped floor.
A rush of water came cascading down through the opening, an artificial waterfall that turned the room into a giant lake. The torrent had been designed to drown intruders, then flush away what was worthless, leaving the precious metal room intact.
Colt sputtered and gasped as the water caught them mid-run, extinguishing the torch and plunging them into a cold, wet rush and darkness. He held Lilly with an iron grip, determined not to lose her in the flash flood. His lungs and eyes burned, but in the tumult and dark there was no way to tell which end was up.
He broke through the surface and gasped, pulling Lilly up to join him. She wrapped her arms around him, her breath coming in short, desperate pants. The water twisted and swirled through the labyrinth of smooth metal tunnels, rather like pipes beneath a drain. There was no way to keep his bearings or even see.
Colt tried to keep his boots pointed downstream in case they came too close to smashing into anything, so he could kick away from it as they rocketed through the smooth rock tube inside the mountain, but the water carried them along so fast, he couldn’t find purchase to hold on to anything to slow down their rapid momentum.
They shot out of the rock face of the mountain into open space and the night sky. Lilly shrieked, arms and legs flailing.
“Hold on to me!” he yelled above the roaring of the water. She latched on to him tight, and together they sucked in a great gulp of air as they plunged down toward the torrent.
Chapter 22
“Whatever you do, don’t let go!” Colt knew it was a useless warning. Nothing could be heard over the roar of the tumultuous rush of water. The power and force of the deluge drove them over the edge in a chaotic waterfall of thousands of gallons of frothing, twisting, turning water. All he could do was hold tightly to Lilly and pray they survived. The night stars were streaks of light overhead as they were inextricably swept in a tidal wave with no up and no down.
Nothing to grab hold of, nothing to brace their bodies. They hit rock, were flipped end over end, feet first, then head down. He dragged in a gasp of air when he could, and felt his lungs burn when he couldn’t.
They plummeted down hundreds of feet until they hit the roaring torrent below. It was more like slamming into solid rock than water, rasping his bare skin, jarring every bone in his body, tearing off his hat and threatening to rip the pack from his back. Colt wanted to cry out, but he had enough sense to know he’d just suck in more water.
The raging water carried them down the narrow rock crevasse, the narrow opening causing their trajectory to increase as the water deepened and moved even faster between the narrow rock walls. There was no stopping the flood. No way to control it.
The water was a merciless fury of nature with a mind of its own. If they hadn’t landed in Hell, it was damn close.
Branches cracked and snapped in the onslaught, echoing like gunfire off the canyon walls. Dirty water cascaded into his mouth and ears. He choked and sputtered, desperate for a sip of air. But as long as he felt the tight grip of Lilly on his skin and the strap in his hand, he had something else to focus on instead of the exploding panic in his gut.
Lilly and the Book. That was all that mattered, he firmly told himself. He was a Hunter. Expendable for the greater good. But to have it end like this, dying in a flash flood, was embarrassing.
He was saved from his own morose thoughts when they slammed into a snag of mesquite trees caught up in the flood. The impact jolted him so hard he lost all his breath and nearly lost his hold on Lilly.
He struggled against the beating force of the water trying to drag him under. “Hold tight to the tree,” he ordered. In the moonlight her wet hair had a silver sheen, and he saw her nod. Teeth chattering, Colt placed his face against the rough, wet bark, dug his fingers into the wood, and held on for all he was worth.
Slowly the
force of the water lessened, and the level of the water lowered. The earthy scent of wet rock and wood permeated the air. Colt opened his eyes, blinking back the moisture on his lids, and glanced around. His limbs were numb with cold and exhaustion, but as he moved every muscle screamed.
“Lilly?” It came out a barely audible rasp. “You all right?”
Lilly knew she wasn’t dead. She just hurt enough to wish she was. But thanks to being Darkin, the bruises and lashes in her skin were already beginning to heal. She stirred beside Colt, wet hair plastered to her head and across her shoulders in heavy, wet ropes.
“I’m alive, if that counts,” she murmured, then coughed hard, her chest burning.
Colt set his head back down beside hers and gave a small laugh. “Yeah. It counts.”
“Remind me never to follow you into a Hunter-devised death trap again,” she said slowly. “Or ride on that mechanical monstrosity of yours.”
He laughed off her asperity. “I’m just glad that we’re still alive.” He reached over and brushed the wet hair from her cheek with a tender touch and looked into her eyes. “We did it, sweetheart. We got the Book.”
She managed a tremulous smile. “We did.”
The cool wash of desert air, scented with the heavy sweetness of night-blooming cactus flowers, caressed her cheek. Lilly should have felt elated. She should have been able to fly. They had done the near impossible, and if they were capable of that, she might actually stand a chance of escaping Rathe. But deep down, everything within her just hurt.
In the moonlight the water had turned into a silver ribbon on black wet rock. It still burbled and flowed beneath the snag, but it was slowly going back to being the small stream they’d first encountered in the gulch.
“Our pact is complete,” she said softly.
He closed his eyes. “Not yet,” he croaked. “I promised to free you from Rathe, and I will.”
A small shimmer of hope welled up inside her. Colt had never said he loved her, but perhaps he really, truly did.
The Hunter Page 25
