“That’s what I was calling to ask you. He took off like a bat out of hell over half an hour ago and we need him here. I thought he’d be at your place.”
“No, in fact, he said he couldn’t be here until around three. Did you try his aunt?”
“Yes, and she hasn’t seen him since yesterday. He’s not at his apartment, either. I was hoping you’d know where he is.”
A shudder of apprehension rippled up my spine. Joe wasn’t at the station, he wasn’t at Margaret’s, and he wasn’t at his apartment. And then, I knew where he’d gone.
“I’ll call you back, okay?” I hung up and whirled around. “Mur, Joe’s gone after Bear. He was so upset when I told him what happened out there and now he’s headed for that old mine and he’s going to get himself hurt.”
Murray stared at me. “Oh shit. We have to stop him. Between the lunatic hiding in the caves, the creature lurking in the bushes, and the Warriors of the Mountain, Joe’s in real danger.”
Jimbo, who by now was fully engaged in using his finger to follow the tracers produced by his pain pills, piped up. “I’ll go,” he said, trying to push himself to his feet.
“No you won’t.” Murray steadied him, keeping him from taking a nose-dive onto the floor. “I’ll call for backup and then Emerald and I will head on out there and stop Joe before he gets himself in trouble. And you,” she added, “will rest.” She led him to the sofa as Harlow watched her with interest.
“Murray’s right, Jimbo. You stay here.” I grabbed an afghan and covered him with it. Grumbling, but too wiped to do anything about it, Jimbo sprawled out on the sofa and was snoring within less than a minute.
Murray brushed the bangs out of his eyes. “You stupid galoot. You’re going to get yourself killed one of these days.”
“Murray—?” Harlow asked, her voice soft, but Murray ignored her and turned back to me.
“Let me give Deacon a buzz and then we’ll take off.”
I grabbed my jacket while she put in a terse call. “Harl, can you stay with the kids and Jimbo? I don’t want to leave any of them alone.”
She nodded. “Finally, part of the action again, even if it is only to baby-sit a banged-up biker and two precocious kids.”
Murray jerked her thumb toward the door. “Deacon will meet us out there in twenty minutes. Let’s take my truck, it’s got better clearance.”
I grabbed up my pack, which still had Clyde’s jacket in it, and we headed out the door. As we pulled out of the driveway, I glanced at Murray. “Joe was so mad when I told him about Bear. I guess he decided to take matters into his own hands.”
She flashed me a knowing look. “He’s in love, doll. And men do the strangest things for the women they love.” As we drove into the growing dusk, I knew she was right, and I knew that Joe and I were headed for a shift in our relationship. I prayed it would be a good one.
Chapter 19
BY THE TIME we got to Klickavail Valley, Deacon was waiting for us. He was standing next to Joe’s pickup, which was parked in the shade beneath a huge fir tree. “Sorry Emerald, but Joe’s nowhere in sight,” Deacon said as I ran over to him, with Murray right behind me. I gave him a feeble smile and checked the truck but both doors were locked.
As I pressed my face to the window on the driver’s side, not sure what I was hoping to find, Murray rested a hand on my shoulder. “See anything?”
I peered through the glass. Joe’s baseball bat, which he kept on the floor of the passenger’s side, was missing. “Oh hell. His bat’s gone and I don’t think he’s off playing baseball with the biker boys. He’s gone after Bear.”
Murray nodded. “Okay, then. You need to show us where the caves are. We have to get a move on. Dusk falls early in these mountains, and we sure don’t want to be still hunting for him out here after dark.” She checked her gun, then snagged an industrial-strength flashlight out of the back of her truck. Deacon handed her a roll of pale, greenish-looking tape.
“Here’s the tape you asked for, Murray.”
“Tape?” I asked.
She nodded. “Just shine the flashlight on it for a little bit and it will glow in the dark for over an hour. I thought we might be able to use it to mark our way in case the tunnels get confusing, so I asked Deacon to snag a roll on his way up here.”
Impressed by her forethought, I opened my pack and handed her Clyde’s jacket and George’s glasses. She examined them briefly, then gave them to Deacon to lock in the squad car while she brought him up to speed.
When she finished, he nodded and said, “While I was waiting, I talked to one of the bikers—a guy named Terry-T. Apparently, the boys are scared shitless about this patch of land. Not only have they heard weird things over on this side of the windbreak, but a few of the guys mentioned seeing shadows where there shouldn’t be shadows, and movements in the bushes like some big animal was roaming this part. Cougar, maybe, but they said it was bigger than that. Clyde’s death appears to have left a real mark on the enclave. A few of the men have actually hit the road.”
“Oh wonderful. Well, I hope our murderer wasn’t among them.” Murray shaded her eyes and glanced around the narrow strip of meadow. “I wonder how long Joe’s been out here.”
“Joe must have taken off shortly after I told him what happened.” I struggled to remember about what time that had been. “He probably left the fire station fifteen… maybe twenty minutes after I phoned him, so I’d say about ninety minutes.”
“Long enough to get himself into trouble, then. Okay babe,” Murray motioned for me to take the lead. “Let’s book.”
I led them past the outcropping and bramble patch directly toward the slope leading up to the sinkhole. Since the cave-in had effectively blocked the main adit, our best course was to hike up to the shaft through which Cathy and I’d made our escape from Bear. Frustrated, I started up the mountainside.
Damn it, why did Joe have to go and play the hero? Images of him lying somewhere in a pool of blood swirled in my mind. George might stand accused of murdering Clyde, but I knew damned well that he didn’t do it and I was terrified that whoever—or whatever—had killed the two bikers was now stalking Joe. Or maybe, it had already found him. On one hand, we had the Klakatat Monster, who had warrior-spirits protecting him. On the other, we had Bear, who—well, I didn’t know his story but he obviously didn’t want to be disturbed and I had the feeling he’d go to any lengths to protect his privacy.
As the slope became steeper, my heart raced along, adrenaline fueling my muscles as I forced my way up the side of the mountain. Going down had been much easier, by the time we reached the top, I was panting. I crouched, resting my hands on my knees as I struggled to catch my breath. Neither Murray nor Deacon had broken a sweat.
With a cough, I straightened up, pointing ahead to a huckleberry bush. “There, to the right of that bush. That’s where Cathy and I escaped. Bear must have found another way out. The ladder’s gone.”
“Or Joe found it,” Murray said. “He’d have to use an alternate route, since the cave-in blocked the main adit. You told him everything, right? Including where you escaped and how you got out?”
With a sinking feeling, I nodded. “Yeah, everything.”
Murray took a long look around us. “There’s no sign that anybody’s watching us. Can you sense anything?”
I dreaded opening myself up to the energies out here on the mountain, but it was the most expedient way, and both Murray and I knew it. Deacon cleared his throat and stepped back, studiously watching the trees that dotted the slope. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the breeze as it played against my skin. As it lulled me into trance I sank to the ground, but nothing triggered an alarm. A rabbit was hiding behind a nearby fern, and I sensed a deer farther in, among the trees, but otherwise—nada. The area on the surface of the slope was clear.
“Nothing.” I squinted up at Murray. “There’s no one topside. Mur, I’m going to go out on the astral and peek in the
caves.”
She glanced over at Deacon, who was doing a good job of pretending to be otherwise occupied. I could sense that he was… not exactly skeptical, but wary. “Are you sure? Remember what happened the last time?”
I still had a faint mark on my forehead where the last psychic blast had nailed me, but there was too much at stake for me to chicken out. Joe’s life might be in my hands, and I couldn’t turn away.
“Yeah, I’m sure. Shake me out of it if things get too weird.” I closed my eyes again and sent my consciousness down, delving into the tunnels, deep into the earth to see if I could pick up movement or life. The energy on the slope was older than that of the meadow, and the energy in the tunnels older than both.
Dense and stubborn, the waves of earth-mana ran sleepy. Haste would not waken the dreamers here, but only persistence—like tickles of water that constantly eroded away the surface layers of the rock millimeter by millimeter, that filtered in through the tunnels and trapdoors to wash ashore the treasures and mysteries secreted in this mountain.
Flowing on the astral currents, I reached out, searching for Joe.
And then—somewhere beneath the tons of rock and dirt, a flutter caught my attention. Joe! The shimmering spark that fueled his spirit beckoned to me. Living and warm, but fuzzy, as if he might be asleep or unconscious. A rush of relief washed over me. He was alive!
I couldn’t pinpoint where he was in relation to where we were standing, but when I thought about the configuration of the maze Cathy and I’d ran through, I figured it had to be somewhere to the left of the main cavern, near where I’d found the jacket. I was about to bring myself out of trance when I sensed something else, something close to Joe. I homed in on it. Big… ancient and definitely not human.
As I tuned into this new energy, a chaotic tangle of emotions flooded my mind—hunger, confusion, weariness. And then, once again, the image of the skull floated before me, only this time a sense of urgency emanated from it. Words that were not words formed in my mind, and I knew that it was asking me for help. Floundering, I struggled to sort out the vortex of emotions before snapping out of the trance.
“What is it?” Murray dropped to my side.
“Joe, he’s down there, but so is something else and it’s not Bear and it’s not one of the Warriors of the Mountain.” I gazed into her eyes, knowing all too well what I’d stumbled on.
Murray read me loud and clear. “The Klakatat Monster?”
I glanced at Deacon, then lowered my voice so he couldn’t hear. “Yeah, I think so. And I can tell you right now that it’s not happy. It seems to need help, though for the life of me, I don’t know what I can do for it. Something weird is going on down there and we have to get Joe out before it’s too late.” I pushed myself to my feet. “The ladder’s gone from up top, but is there another way we can get down through this chute?” As I headed toward the sinkhole, Murray grabbed my arm, holding me back.
“Let me check,” she said. Murray edged toward the shaft, dropping to her hands and knees as she neared the opening. She drew her gun as she approached, cautiously peering over the side. She motioned me over. “The ladder is back in place,” she said. “The question being: Is Bear down there waiting?”
“I didn’t sense him in the area, but don’t wager a bet on my impressions. They don’t come with a money-back guarantee.”
Deacon joined us. “If there is somebody down there, chances are they’ve heard us by now. I’ll go down while you cover me. We’re not going to find an easier way in, not without scouring this mountain.”
After a moment, she nodded and pulled back. Deacon slid his legs over the edge and, with gun in one hand, used his other hand to steady himself on the ladder as he disappeared into the dark hole. After a jittery thirty seconds, we heard, “All clear.”
Murray agilely swung onto the ladder and, quick as a mountain goat, descended into the black cave. I waited until she was clear, then hesitantly slipped onto the rungs. As I scurried down to join them, memories of Cathy’s and my frantic race out of this cavern flooded back. I dreaded facing the dark tunnels again, but the image of Joe loomed large in my mind and I pushed away my fears.
The chamber was as I’d last seen it—though the boxes were closed, and the sleeping bags were rolled tight. A backpack sat atop one of the boxes, and Murray poked through it. She pulled out a piece of paper, along with a handful of cash.
“Well, what do we have here?” Poking around in the stuffed backpack, she pulled out bundle after bundle of stacked bills. “Holy crap, look at this—there must be seventy or eighty thousand dollars here! And what’s this?” She examined the paper. “It appears to be a copy of a recent court order, releasing somebody named Ian Hannigan from jail.” She handed it to Deacon. “That name sounds familiar. Where have I heard it?”
It sounded familiar to me, too. “Wasn’t it on the news not long ago? I can’t remember where but…”
“Could be. I can’t seem to place it though. Okay, Deacon, head topside and get down to the squad car. Call the station and find out everything you can about this guy, then hightail it back here.”
“Should I just use my cell phone?” he asked.
Murray shook her head. “Use the radio—it’s too easy for people to tap into cell phones and I don’t want anybody listening in on this.” She pulled out the roll of glow-in-the-dark tape. “I had a feeling this might be handy. I’ll use strips of it to mark our path, so keep your eyes peeled when you get back. And Deacon—step on it?”
We watched as he shimmied up the ladder. When he’d disappeared out the mouth of the sinkhole, I turned to Murray. “We have to get to Joe,” I pleaded. “I think he might be hurt.”
Murray nodded. “I’d really like to go through this stuff, but we’ll come back for it. Which way do we go?”
I led her down the tunnel through which Cathy and I had escaped, stopping along the way as my walking stick, kicked to the side of the passage, came into view. I retrieved it, feeling more confident now that I had some sort of weapon in my hands.
Mur’s flashlight cut a swath through the darkness, accentuating the shadows that played against the wall as we crept through the tunnel. Time seemed to be going much slower than it had my first time through, and I began to appreciate just how long this passage actually was. Every few yards, Mur stopped to tear off a strip of tape and slap it against the rocky walls. She shone her flashlight on it for a few seconds, and then we moved on. Once, I thought I could hear the faint fall of footsteps echoing somewhere up ahead, but it could have been water dripping or rocks trickling off the roof of the cavern.
“Did you hear that?” I whispered, leaning closer to Murray.
She sucked in a deep breath. “I’m hearing a lot of things—whispers and voices and footfalls. These tunnels have a lot of history bound up in them and I’m not sure I really want to know all of it.”
As we moved farther into the mine, the energy began to thicken until it felt like we were walking through pea soup. We crept closer together, and even Murray’s strength seemed to diminish as the power of the caverns took hold. Just another foot, I told myself. We’ll just go another foot and maybe Joe will be there. But I knew he wasn’t. Joe was somewhere down the tunnel from us, past where I’d found Clyde’s jacket.
Finally, we came to an opening on the left. I recognized it—it led into the main cavern where Bear had first appeared. I pointed it out to her. “Joe isn’t in there. He’s farther along this tunnel. Whatever else is down there, I dunno.”
She nodded and, silently led off again, with footsteps that barely seemed to graze the passage floor. I used my walking stick to steady myself as we picked our way through a scattering of loose rocks and pebbles that littered the tunnel floor. At one point, Murray held up her hand.
“Be careful, there’s another fissure directly ahead. It’s small, but I think the lip is thin. If you get too close, you’d probably break through and who knows how deep it is to the bot
tom.” She shone her light on the shaft that fractured the surface of the floor, and carefully marked it with the tape so that Deacon wouldn’t chance falling in. The last thing we needed was a repeat of Cathy’s fiasco, especially with a fissure as deep as this one seemed to be.
As we skirted the cavity, testing each step as we went, I paused, listening to the sound of water trickling along far below in the darkness. Images of vile creatures hiding in the depths raced through my mind, courtesy of J.R.R. Tolkien and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Edgar Rice Burroughs. Shuddering, I caught up to Murray. The corridor turned sharply to the left.
Mur peeked around the edge. “Are we on the right track?”
I leaned against my walking stick, resting my weight on it as I let myself spiral down again, searching for Joe, searching for signs of life. There—ahead—he was nearby. I was starting to pull out when a surge of energy hit me. I reeled, as did Murray. Whatever it was had caught her in its wave, too.
She flashed her light around, searching for the source. As she turned to look behind us, I cautiously stepped around the corner, sensing that whatever it was, was there, waiting for me. In full-living silhouette, one of the Warriors of the Mountain faced me, near enough to touch. I inhaled sharply. Just then, Murray rounded the bend. I heard her stumble back with a gasp.
“You are walking on sacred ground.” The words reverberated through the tunnel, but whether they’d been spoken aloud or were just echoing in my mind, I didn’t know.
Shaking, I forced myself to stand my ground. “What do you want from me?”
The shadow-shape flared ever so slightly, and once again, I heard the thundering voice. “Clear this place of the intruder’s presence.”
Intruder? Who was he talking about? Joe?
The spirit must have been peeking in my mind because he said, “The man reeking of death and destruction who woke up the mountain with his anger and greed. We must protect the lore-keeper from him, but we cannot touch him. He doesn’t hear us. We need your help.”