The Ancient Breed (10 page)

“That’s where I’m staying, too,” Lisa said. “Small world.”

“Make that three,” Neo added, impressed with Nick’s attention to even the smallest details.

“I’m homeless at the moment,” Grandfather declared. “I’ll try to get a room there, too.”

“You can stay with me,” Crow offered.

Grandfather frowned. “I’d prefer a private room. You night owls stay up way too late for me.”

“We’ll get you a private room,” Neo interjected before Crow and Grandfather waged another of their infamous battles.

Crow stifled his rising anger and pulled the drapes together to darken the room.

The
hairnet
agent opened his mouth to object, but Neo silenced him with a curt wave of his hand.

“I know,” Neo said quietly, aware that they were breaking official protocol by allowing civilians to view significant evidence. “It’ll be all right.”

The first few pictures they viewed on camera’s dim LCD display were personal in nature. Shots of Corey hamming it up in a bathing suit, Blossom posing provocatively in her brief bikini, their fishing boat rental and Blossom changing into an flowered sundress. Crow scowled his disapproval of his niece wearing such a revealing bikini, but he continued to review the photos without comment. The next several shots showed a tarnished gold chest in varying stages of cleaning, and the final six pictures displayed the completely cleaned chest from every angle. It was truly opulent and ornate.

“There,” Lisa pointed. “See the letter ‘H’ engraved above the lock?”

“Do you recognize it?” Neo asked hopefully.

She retrieved a magnifying glass from her purse and studied it closer. “No I don’t, not right off hand. There are a lot of possibilities, but without checking the historical ship logs on my computer, I couldn’t venture a worthwhile guess.”

“I’ll run these pictures by Geronimo and see what he comes up with,” Crow stated.

Lisa wrinkled her brow. “Geronimo?”

Crow described his computer creation, careful to avoid any details that would betray its top-secret status to a perfect stranger. He made a mental note to have Geronimo investigate her past simultaneously with its search for the origin of the gold chest.

“Well, I don’t know about you folks, but I’m famished. It’s been almost twenty-four hours since I’ve eaten anything more nutritious than airplane snacks,” Neo groaned. “Anyone care to join me for an early dinner?”

No one did. The lab agents wanted to wrap up their crime scene investigation so they could drive back to Tampa later that night. Lisa claimed fatigue, Grandfather needed to rent a room at the Holiday Inn and nap for a while, and Crow was eager to get Geronimo started on the searches.

“Let’s powwow in my room tomorrow morning instead of tonight. How about seven?” Crow suggested.

“I can’t,” Lisa replied. “I have a meeting with a contractor at six tomorrow morning.”

“That’s okay. We’ll bring you up to date when you get back to the motel,” Neo offered. “Just give me a call.” He handed her a card with his satellite phone number printed on it.

“Before we leave here,” Grandfather said, “I want you to be aware of one important fact.” He approached the dresser and flattened his hand on the bath towel. “Whatever was inside that chest certainly wasn’t treasure.”

“How could you possibly know that?” Lisa asked, amazed.

Grandfather removed his hand from the towel and flexed it a few times. “This towel radiates an evil energy. Miss Anders, if your theory is correct that the motive for Corey’s death and Blossom’s kidnapping is theft, then those three men have gotten far more than they bargained for.”

“What kind of evil are you talking about?” Lisa asked, intrigued by his claim.

“Very powerful and dangerous magic. Beyond that, I don’t know,” he replied glumly.

“That would put Blossom in danger, too!” Crow proclaimed.

Grandfather nodded. “The sooner we locate our beautiful Blossom, the better.”

Later that evening, Lisa sat on the beach with her knees tucked against her breasts and watched the setting sun splash orange, violet and red streaks across the horizon. Tears trickled down her cheeks and dripped onto her knees like a gentle rain. Blossom’s romantic adventure wasn’t supposed to end like this. Why did the girl have to go and get herself kidnapped?

This certainly wasn’t the homecoming Lisa had envisioned for herself. She now found herself mixed up in a kidnapping case, when her Florida activities were originally to be restricted to the extremely dangerous Warnke construction site.

Grandfather’s take on the gold chest had been absolutely accurate. Blossom and Corey’s motel bedroom reeked of evil. Her tears fell faster. Lisa desperately wished she could rescue Blossom and spirit her back home to safety, but for the first time in her life, she was completely powerless. Stripped of most of her abilities. There wasn’t a single thing she could do to help Neo and Crow track down Blossom.

And to make matters worse, she was convinced that Blossom and her kidnappers were in mortal danger from the malevolent contents of the gold chest. Like Crow, she sensed it, too.

Lisa’s mood brightened a little. She had an idea. She brushed the tears from her face as twilight cast its cold ghostly fingers across the calm gulf. Maybe there was something she could do for Blossom after all. Indirectly, of course.

When she left for the excavation site in the morning, she’d call the one man who could find Blossom. He appeared to be the girl’s only hope.

His special abilities would be invaluable
.

11

B

lossom scanned the kitchen counter for a potential weapon, but the yellowed tile surface was completely bare. Jay opened a rotting cabinet door and removed three blue Solo cups from the plastic wrap. He got a bottle of inexpensive red wine from the refrigerator, poured two-fingers of it into the first two cups, and carefully decanted an identical measure of the bladder’s liquid water into the third. They were both astonished at the effervescent bubbles bursting at the surface.

“What the hell is this shit? Sprite? Tonic?” he hissed.

“See the rainbow at the bottom of the cup? The water acts like a prism,” she observed.

“So? What’s the big deal?”

“So, this isn’t ordinary water.”

“I didn’t need a ton of bricks to fall on me to see that,” Jay retorted.

“I mean that this stuff could really be from the fountain of youth,” she added quickly, not wanting to anger him. “Let’s just see what happens.”

“Yeah, right. I just hope this bubbly shit don’t poison Lonny. I need him this week for my . . . venture.”

Blossom was so engrossed with the water that she didn’t notice that there were only three cups on the counter. “Hey, where’s my wine, Jay?”

“Sorry, baby, but you’ll have to sit this one out. You’re strictly an observer at this point.”

“Maybe I could help you with your
venture
,” she offered.

He eyed her warily and shook his head. “Maybe the next one,” he replied cautiously. He called to Lonny and Juan and asked them to come into the kitchen. When they appeared, he handed them each a cup.

“What the hell’s this all about?” Lonny asked suspiciously after peering at the bubbly liquid in his cup.

“Hey, buddy, you practically begged me to let you taste the wine from that bladder, so there you are.”

“
White
wine?”

Jay ignored him. “Here’s to our success on Friday.”

They touched cups and gulped the contents.

“This shit tastes pretty damn good,” Lonny said, smacking his lips. “You guys ought to try it.”

“Yeah, maybe tomorrow,” Jay replied, watching Lonny closely. There was no immediate change. Hell, maybe he and Blossom were way off base. It might not be water from the fountain of youth after all. Or if it was, the shit was so old that it wouldn’t remove a single crow’s foot from a nursing home debutante. He checked his watch. Midnight.

“Time to call it a day,” Jay announced. “We’ve got a lot of work to do tomorrow and Thursday.”

Lonny and Juan argued over who got first dibs on the bathroom, while Jay escorted Blossom back to her room. It gave her the willies.

“I’ll be back in ten minutes, babe. You’d better be stripped, cleaned and under the covers by the time I get back, or you go to bed as is,” he warned her. “The bathroom’s through that door.”

Blossom hurriedly stripped down to her underwear, did her thing in the bathroom and was huddled beneath the blanket in less than Jay’s allotted time. She didn’t want him ogling her scantily clad body. It might arouse him, and that was the last thing she wanted to happen tonight or any night.

Jay returned and handcuffed one of her wrists to the bedpost.

“Sorry, but I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you, baby. Sleep tight.” He clicked off the overhead light and grabbed the doorknob.

“Wait!” she whispered.

He paused.

“I hope you’re going to keep a close eye on Lonny tonight. We don’t know what’s going to happen, and I’m pretty defenseless handcuffed like this,” she said.

“Don’t worry your pretty little head about Lonny. I’ll sleep with one eye open.” With that, Jay pulled the door shut.

In the total darkness, revulsion crept into Blossom’s consciousness. God, how she hated that man!

After Jay uncorked the long-sealed bladder and poured its contents into Lonny’s cup, a brilliant white energy glowed between the buried pillars east of the Warnke command trailer. Gradually, the Zyloux materialized in the muck, its clawed hands shackled to the pillars. It sensed the presence of the elixir that had been stolen so long ago and dropped into the ocean where the demon guardian could not go. Now that his master’s elixir had been recovered from the great water, the Zyloux could now track and slaughter the thieves.

The demon broke free of its shackles, thrust its three-clawed, webbed palms upward into the soft muck and began the long process of digging itself out.

Jamille, seventeen years old, checked his stolen Rolex watch. It read fifteen minutes after midnight. Sirjo calmly guided the van along the imperceptible dirt roads past dark farmhouses and pastures of bunched cattle. Distant lightning flickered on the eastern horizon, signaling an approaching sea breeze storm. They had to hurry.

It was nearly twelve-thirty when the van sped past the Warnke Construction command trailer toward the monstrous mechanical shovels in the muck fields. They resembled long-necked dinosaurs in the surreal moonlight, and Jamille shivered. This isolated place gave him the creeps.

Sirjo held up a hand and splayed the fingers. “You got five minutes to rig each shovel, man. The pigs cruise past here on a regular basis, and I don’t plan on gettin’ caught. Dig?”

Jamille nodded as rushed to the back of the van, opened the twin doors and seized his supply box. Sirjo, six years older than his accomplice, lifted his supply box from the back and strode toward the command trailer. Jamille ran along the plywood walkways that crisscrossed the muck and led to the monstrous mechanical shovels.

Jamille rigged the first two shovels with enough C-4 explosive to cripple them for months before heading toward the last one. The first of the mushrooming thunderheads obliterated the moon and shrouded the entire site in an impenetrable gloom.

“Shit, man!” Jamille swore as he stepped off the walkway into knee-deep, malodorous muck. He sat down and pulled his leg out of the sucking ooze with both hands. His leg finally shot free, and his momentum nearly rocketed him off the boards and into the muck on the other side.

He sat gasping in the muggy air. There was a slight breeze, but not enough to keep the black mosquitoes from swarming. He swatted the vicious insects as he approached the final shovel. Suddenly he stopped. He heard a noise from the east where there shouldn’t be any noises. He stood absolutely still, listened and stared into the vast blackness. It sounded like someone digging. He listened for a few more minutes but heard nothing but the wind and the murmuring trees.

Stupid chump, he thought, and scaled the last shovel’s arm up to the massive hydraulic joint. He quickly set the radio-activated charge and then paused again to listen. He heard the same digging noises as before, but this time it was louder and accompanied by heavy grunts.

“That ain’t like no man I ever heard,” he whispered to himself and slid down the thick steel as fast as he could go without toppling into the muck below. When his feet hit the cab roof, he froze. Ground-pounding footsteps splashed and sucked through the muck, and they were getting closer!

Jamille’s eyes widened as he strained to capture even a glimmer of the approaching person.
Person, hell!
It had to be a big animal. Maybe a bear. He swung through the cab and scampered down onto the wood walkway. The splashing and sucking were very close now –
too close
. Jamille’s hands trembled as he quietly laid the supply box on the plywood and slipped his 9mm automatic from his belt.

“Get back, motha fucka!” he shouted at the advancing animal. “I gotta a gun here.”

But the footsteps didn’t slow. Jamille fired blindly into the blackness to scare off the animal and then sprinted toward the van.

Sirjo ran from the trailer. “Jamille, what you shootin’ at?”

Before he could reply, Jamille slipped on a patch of slick mud and pitched forward, landing flat on his stomach with his arms and legs spread like a facedown
Vitruvian Man
. His gun clattered on the plywood before sliding over the edge into the muck.

The footsteps ceased, and Jamille gradually raised his head and gazed up into a pair of enormous soulless eyes, with blood-red pupils floating in a sea of glowing green. They stared down at him from a height of nearly twelve feet. Its breaths were prolonged and raspy, with rumbling growls rising in its throat.

The prone teenager remained glued to the plywood, too frightened to respond to the desperate screams inside his head urging him to make a run for it. A brilliant light beam distracted his attention from the unseen beast. Sirjo swiveled the van spotlight until its dazzling beam drenched his young partner. Jamille wished he hadn’t.

The powerfully built creature that bent over Jamille was gargantuan. Its leathery gray skull sloped down from a sharp crown, with two brief spikes above its large eyes. The mouth and jaw extended like a long muzzle with a single row of jagged fangs dripping thick saliva. Its ears were finely sculpted to a point, and its nostrils were two flat holes atop the muzzle. The flesh was smooth and pale gray and tightly stretched over the brawny frame. Its arms were knotted with twisted muscles, and its hands were webbed with three keen rubicund claws, curved slightly at the tips.