Guardians of Stone (The Relic Seekers) (12 page)

She moved to the edge and saw a stone building that looked like a chapel. Someone had taken pains to hide it from view. Just like the castle. Beyond it was another statue. They must surround the entire place. She looked around for the monk, but he was
nowhere to be found. Maybe he was the one pulling her toward the woods.

She looked back at the castle and remembered the darkness she’d seen, the danger, the blood and bones. This could be a trap. But the whispers calling her were too urgent to deny. She found a path at the edge of the graveyard. Turning on her flashlight, she followed the crumbling stones through the thick woods. The chapel was old but well tended. The windows were intact, showing beautiful scenes in stained glass. The door was made of thick wood. Her senses started tingling. That was the only way she could describe it. Sometimes it was in her fingers, sometimes her body, sometimes her head. She touched the handle and had a vision of a bright light. There were voices, a boy and a girl, but she couldn’t hear what they were saying. Her head felt as if it were wrapped in gauze.

She tried to open the door, but it was locked. The nearest window had a clear section in the stained glass, so she used her flashlight to look inside. There weren’t any pews. At the front of the chapel there was some sort of altar; a large flat rock, and behind it, three tall, rectangular stones that looked out of place inside a building. There was writing on the stones and on the altar, but she couldn’t read the words from a distance. The wall surrounding the altar was decorated with friezes. She wanted to look closer, but she had to get Jake out of the tower. And Raphael would probably kill her with that big dagger if he found her trespassing.
Trespassing.
The image came again, a boy and girl, and the whispers grew frantic. Memories pounded her head with so much force that she knew if she didn’t turn them off she would end up with a migraine.

She backed away from the window and distanced her mind, though her heart still raced. She backtracked to the graveyard, wondering if her preoccupation with the chapel had caused her to lose the monk. But there he was waiting for her, standing in the moonlight near the edge of the graveyard. He looked back at
her, his face still hidden by the cowl, and then he started walking again.

She didn’t know where he was going but assumed he knew the area better than she did. She hurried through the gravestones, and when she reached the place where he had stood, she saw two square stones stuck in the ground. If these were graves, they must be unconsecrated—that, or they were some kind of monument. She touched one of the stones and felt a rush of grief so strong her legs trembled. She dropped to the ground as a vision came.

The robed procession moved silently through the trees, a dozen men—three on each side of the casket, six walking behind—their lanterns swaying with each step as they neared the waiting grave.

She pulled herself from the vision, her chest empty, like it had felt when she found out her father and Adam were dead. Whose funeral had she seen? And where were the other men now? She looked at the other stone and wondered whose body lay underneath. She felt the shadow of evil a moment before something dropped over her head, plunging her into darkness. Grief turned to panic as she clawed at the cloth covering her mouth and nose. Her captor grabbed her arms and pinned them roughly to her sides. She heard voices.
American
, she thought through her panic. But none belonging to Jake.

She struggled, twisting her body, kicking and yelling, her cries muffled by the cloth. Her captor was strong, and struggling just made it more difficult to breathe.

Someone cursed. “Did you see that?”

“Yeah. What was it?” a second man asked.

“I don’t know. Where’d he go?”

“He disappeared, just like that.” The man’s voice was shaky. “I told you I thought I saw something a few minutes ago. I’ve heard stories about this place. I’m getting out of here.”

“What about her?” asked the first voice.

“Thomas is on his way. Let him get her.”

The arms released her and she stumbled to the ground. She yanked the bag off her head and sat up. She heard the men running through the bushes, back toward the castle. Without waiting to see what had startled them, she took off in the opposite direction, where she’d last seen the monk. She thought she saw him, but realized it was a tall stone. When she drew closer, she counted seven stone pillars, taller than the ones in the chapel, all arranged in a circle. Beyond the pillars, she saw more statues, spaced every few hundred yards. She felt a vibration in her bones as she ran. Ducking behind the closest stone, she waited, trying to catch her breath as she listened for her pursuers. Raphael’s voice wasn’t there. Had he drugged Jake and sent the men to take her necklace? One of them mentioned Thomas. The same Thomas from the hotel?

She didn’t dare turn on her flashlight, so she studied the formation by moonlight. One of the pillars was turned at an angle. She felt it pushing her away, like an opposing magnetic field. Her curiosity was almost as strong as her fear that the men would come back. She ran her hand over the surface and her arm began to tingle. She felt a rush of sensations: danger, protection, power. The stones were old. And they didn’t want her here. She felt something near the base, a change in texture. It was hard to see with just the moonlight, so she flicked on the light, and she saw the circle motif. Intrigued, she pushed and heard a grinding noise. The pillar started to move and the ground disappeared under her feet.

He saw the torn, raw ground and his feet froze. His mouth went dry but he forced himself closer to the hole, knowing what he would find.

He woke from the dream disoriented. It took him a few seconds to realize he’d been drugged and that Kendall was gone.
He hadn’t had any food or drink except the water he’d used to brush his teeth. Water Kendall had given him. But he knew her well enough by now to know that she wouldn’t drug him so that she could start searching for the box. She’d just go off and do it. She must have mistakenly given him one of the bottles Raphael brought.

Jake stumbled out of bed too quickly and had to sit for a second until his head stopped spinning. Still unsteady, he checked the bathroom—garderobe—opening the door without knocking. She wasn’t there. He went to the door and saw the key sticking out of the lock. He turned the knob but the door wouldn’t open. It was locked from outside. Raphael had trapped them in here. Jake had a few seconds of panic, thinking about how Raphael had looked at Kendall’s cross and what he feared Raphael would do to get it, but Raphael couldn’t have gotten past the inside lock. Either Kendall had climbed out a window and gone exploring or there must be another entrance to the room and Raphael had used it to kidnap her.

Jake went back and touched Kendall’s side of the bed. It still held a little warmth. She hadn’t been gone long. Then he noticed her backpack and phone were missing. A kidnapper wasn’t likely to let her gather her things. He threw on clothes and boots. Since the door was locked from the other side, picking it was out of the question. He gave it a shove with his shoulder, testing. No give. It was too thick to break down, and chopping through it would be too noisy and take more time than he had. That left the bedroom window or the garderobe. He chose the window.

It opened onto a small ledge, but it was a good eighty feet off the ground. Raphael had locked them in a tower, just like Rapunzel. Jake didn’t have hair long enough to reach the ground, but he had the coil of rope in his pack that he hadn’t told Kendall about. A pale flash in the woods caught his eye. Someone was out there, and she had blonde hair. What was Kendall up to now? Did she want the box for herself? Maybe she
had
drugged him. Didn’t
matter what her motives were. He had to get her back before she got hurt. Nathan would hold him responsible.

He took the rope from his pack and checked the length. Not quite long enough, but he could jump the last twenty feet. After testing the ledge to be sure it was safe, he tied the rope to the heavy bed and gathered his things. He put his knife inside his boot, tucked his gun into a holster and slipped his pack through the window. Standing on the ledge, he checked the drop again and made sure he hadn’t been spotted. The moon was bright and he didn’t want an unpleasant surprise halfway down.

He slung his pack over his shoulders and slipped on gloves so he wouldn’t shred his hands. Wrapping the rope around his ass, he dropped over the edge, planted his feet against the tower wall, and then started lowering himself down. When his rope ran out, he found a thick vine and used it to get the rest of the way down. He dropped to the ground. Ducking low, he sprinted toward the trees. He searched the ground. No tracks. He was certain he’d seen her from the window, but how had she gotten here? And where did she go? She couldn’t have vanished into thin air.

He found the first footprint in front of a huge tree near an old graveyard. She was alone. Raphael hadn’t taken her. Dammit, she
was
after the box. All this psychic crap must be a ruse. The box had to be valuable if both she and Nathan were so desperate to find it. She probably wrote the note at the hotel and then claimed it was the man in the elevator just to throw him off. Hell, she was probably working with the man. That would explain why she’d been watching his room and his surprise when he saw them in the elevator. It pissed him off to think that he’d misjudged her. Even though she drove him insane, deep down he’d trusted her. He looked around the graveyard. Did she believe the box was buried here?

He studied the footprints again. They appeared out of nowhere. After a few minutes he found the door in the tree. There was just enough room to stand inside. On the back wall, there was another
door that opened to stairs that led to a tunnel, and probably to their room.

That explained how she’d gotten here, but not why she’d left. He tracked her through the graveyard, trying not to think of all the bones that lay under his feet. Every now and then he glimpsed another statue. The whole place seemed to be surrounded by them. Outside the graveyard, two more sets of footprints fell in behind hers. A cold finger ran down his spine.

She was being followed.

He found the place where the tracks came together. Smeared footprints, trampled grass and moss—evidence of a struggle. His stomach felt like mush. Had they killed her? The two larger sets of prints broke away and went back into the woods the way they’d come. It looked like they’d been running, while Kendall’s tracks continued toward a circle of tall stones. The air felt heavier, as if he were trudging through mud. He pushed forward and saw the footsteps stopped here. He bent to examine them and saw a circle on one of the stones, like the one that had opened the hidden door in the castle wall. He pushed it and the stone began to slide forward. He jumped clear as a set of worn stairs were revealed.

Kendall lay on her back, gasping for air. The beam from her flashlight speared the darkness, showing the stone stairs where she’d fallen. It felt like she’d hit every step coming down. When she could finally breathe, she made a quick check for broken bones. Her hip was numb, her foot throbbed and she was missing a shoe, but there were no serious injuries as far as she could tell. Her backpack had probably protected her spine. She sat up and reached for her flashlight, lying a few feet away.

She was in some kind of underground room. The walls reminded her of the Egyptian tombs her father had excavated. An arched door with mosaic tiles along the edges led farther into the
tunnel. She wanted to explore, but this wasn’t the time. Rising, she collected her shoe, readjusted her backpack, and started back up the stairs. She heard a scraping sound above her. They had followed her. She slipped off her shoes and ran for the arched doorway. If this didn’t lead to an exit, she was screwed. Jake could be too.

From the position of the steps, she thought the passage might lead back to the castle. She dreaded the thought of running into Raphael, but she had to help Jake. She looked around, hoping to see the ghost monk. She’d followed him here. Maybe she could follow him out. Unless it had been a trap all along.