The Cleric's Vault (39 page)

Will
looked confused for a second.
 
“I
already know about the other team.
 
They’re right behind us.
 
They are supposed to be working with me.”

“I’m
not talking about them.
 
And they
work for The Prophet, too.
 
I work
for the others.”

Then
the realization hit Will.
 
Carlson
was working for other members of the council.
 
He’d met some of them once, primarily the two men directly
beneath The Prophet.
 
The
impression he had received was of two men who could not be trusted.
 
“Mornay and Carroll,” he said quietly,
more as a statement than a question.

“You
should know that I’m not the only one working for--”

A
gun fired from near the long passageway.
 
The look on Will’s face turned to a grimace and he dropped to his
knees.
 
A hole in the center of his
small backpack smoked from the bullet’s entry.
 
Will fell to his knees and Angela Weaver came into view
behind him.
 
A thin trail of smoke
drifted up from the barrel of her weapon.
 

“Boy
am I glad to see you,” Carlson said as he stood and started to move towards
Angela and her men.
   
She fired two shots into his chest, interrupting his statement and him
reeling backwards.
 
Shock washed
over his face.
 
Two red carnations
started spreading from black holes on his gray t-shirt.
 
The look in Carlson’s eyes begged to
know why.
 
“We are on the same
team,” he stammered, trying to stay standing.
 

She
lowered her weapon to her side as she spoke to him in a harsh tone.
 
“A secret you obviously could not
keep.”
 

He
fell down to his knees and over on his side.
 

The
first gunshot had startled Sean and the others.
 
They looked through the portal in horror as Will collapsed
to the floor, shot in the back.
 
Then the shooter executed the man that had taken Tommy, firing two
rounds into his chest.
 
It looked
like she was saying something to him, but they were too far away to hear.

Adriana
and Tommy looked at Wyatt.
 
Sean’s
old reflexes kicked in.
 
“Find
cover,” he ordered.

As
soon as the words left his mouth, the woman with the gun and her two men turned
and started firing in their direction.
 
Adriana deftly dove out of range and behind the wall next to the
door.
 
Tommy was somewhat less
elegant as he dove, looking more like an out-of-shape baseball player diving
into second base.
 
Sean moved to
the edge of the door opposite of Adriana and held his gun up at the ready.
 

Angela
and her two men unleashed a torrent of rounds at the little group in the next
room.
 
Bullet casings dropped to
the stone floor around their feet with a clinking sound.
 
Their targets all moved to the side of
the door and out of range.
 
She and
her two men did the same on their end and simultaneously reloaded a fresh
magazine of rounds.
 
They each had
several to spare, a luxury she doubted her targets could afford.
 

Angela
poked her head around the corner and saw the silhouette of a gun near the left
corner.
 
She lowered her weapon and
squeezed of two shots.
 
The bullets
sparked off of the edge of the hallway, just missing.
 

Sean
pulled his hand back just in time before two rounds ricocheted off the wall
near his head.
 
He looked quickly
over at the others who’d taken up a position opposite of him, staying close to
the wall.
 

“How
many,” Adriana whispered just loud enough for him to hear.

“Three
or four, I think,” he answered.

Another
three shots popped from the end of the passage and panged off the corner next
to Adriana, causing her and Tommy to both take another step back.

Then,
the woman’s voice came from the other end of the corridor.
 
“You might as well surrender and come
out now, Mr. Wyatt.
 
There’s no
other way out of this place.”

“I
don’t know,” Sean yelled back down the tunnel.
 
“I think we might stick it out here for a while until you
all get sleepy.”

Tommy
smiled at the humor.
 
Even in
extremely tense situations, Sean was still a wise guy.
 

“I
assure you that will not happen,” the voice returned.
 
“You are outnumbered and outgunned.
 
The only way out of this cave is back
the way you came.”

Tommy’s
face lit up.
 
“Sean,” he gasped
across the opening.
 
“That’s
it.
 
Another way out.”

Sean
looked confused.
 
“What are you
talking about?”

“The
stone,” he pointed at the triangular pedestal.
 
“They must have built in a backdoor to get out of this
place.
 
The stone might be our
ticket out of here.
 
Remember how
the one in Georgia worked?”

Sean
recalled the scenario.

“It’s
worth a shot.
 
I’ll cover
you.”
 

*****

Will’s
back stung.
 
He’d been shot before
but this felt different.
 
Something
in his backpack must have stopped the bullet.
 
As soon as the shot had been fired he knew what had
happened.
 
He fell over knowing his
only way to get out would be to feign death.
 
Fortunately, Weaver hadn’t finished the job with a
headshot.
 
Apparently, she felt the
need to execute Carlson immediately and her attention had shifted.

He
wondered what had Carlson meant when he said he wasn’t the only one working for
the adepts?
 
At the moment, Will
didn’t have time to think about such things.
 
He just had to get out of there and live to fight another day.
 
One of the mercenaries had taken his
gun leaving him unarmed.
 
Their
attention, though, was on the people in the other room.
 
He pulled himself over to the base of
the pedestal that held the golden leaves, moving slowly so as not to draw
attention.
 
The stone altar had
given him an idea.
 
One he could
only hope would work.
 
Peeking
around the corner of the stone object, he saw Sean suddenly emerge at the end
of the hall and start firing his gun.
 
Will ducked down as bullets smacked around on the stone, bouncing
dangerously close to where he was crouched.
 
He thought he’d seen Tommy running behind Sean but couldn’t
be sure.
 
As soon as the barrage
ceased, Weaver and her men started returning fire, adding to the acrid smoke
that was already filling the room.
 
That was his moment.

Will
reached up and grabbed the leaf on the right of the pedestal and lifted it
off.
 
The familiar clicking started
again and immediately, he jumped up and darted into the cave entrance just
before a giant stone began to lower over the opening.
 

*****

Angela
stopped firing her weapon and turned to see what was happening.
 
The entrance to the chamber was closing
from above while a huge piece of stone was rising up to the ceiling right next
to their position, effectively closing off the passageway into where Wyatt was
holed up.
 
She wasn’t sure what to
do.
 
The doorway they’d come
through before closed quickly.
 
Both passageways would be sealed off in moments.
 
She looked at both of the men wondering
what to do.
 
The younger man started
to climb over the rising wall but was greeted by a volley of shots from the
other end of the hall, one of which struck him in the shoulder and sent him
reeling back to cover.
 
Blood
trickled down his arm onto the floor as the moving wall reached its destination
with a loud thud.
 
They were
trapped like rats in a box.
 

Then
another rumble began overhead.
 
“Another way out?” the middle-aged man wondered out loud.
 
A trickle of water began to flow from
the hole in the center of the ceiling.
 
The three looked up in horror.
 
That’s when they heard a sound the chilled them all to the core.
 
The sound of running water.

*****

Sean
wasn’t sure but as he laid down cover fire for Tommy, he thought he saw Will
pulling himself over to the pedestal in the other room.
 
It was so dark he couldn’t tell.
 
He’d emptied his clip and ducked back
behind the wall just as the three villains started returning fire.
 
Through the haze of powder smoke, he
could see that Tommy had reached the triangle pedestal and was tucked behind it
as a hail of metal rounds blanketed the room.
 
Then suddenly, their enemies had stopped firing and the room
was filled with the sound of a deep grinding.
 
Some of the metal objects on the floor were rattling as the
earth shook beneath them.
 
A golden
statue with a doglike head fell over on its face, clanking loudly on the hard
floor.

Adriana
yelled over the sound.
 
“What’s
happening?”

Sean
risked a look around the corner.
 
The wall where they’d entered was rising.
 
One of the men appeared at the top, trying to climb
over.
 
Wyatt fired off a few rounds
and sent the man scurrying back to the other side.
 
“The door’s closing!” he yelled.
 
“They must have taken off one of the leaves!”
 

Nearly
as quickly as it had begun, the rumbling came to a halt and the room became
deathly quiet.
 
“So we’re trapped?”

“Maybe
not,” Tommy answered and stood up from his hiding place.
 
He fingered the stone on the altar for
a moment, unsure of what was going to happen.
 
His eyes scanned the room of ancient relics, thinking he’d
come so far to only behold them for a few brief minutes.
 
Then he picked up the small disc.
 
Where it had rested, four small pegs of
stone were revealed.
 
From deep
within the pedestal came four loud clicks.
 
Sean and Adriana looked at Tommy, wondering what was going
to happen.
 
Suddenly, the floor
opened up underneath Schultz’s feet and he disappeared from view.

Sean
and Adriana ran over to the hole that surrounded the pedestal on all three
sides.
 
The floor panels had
dropped away like a trap door, revealing an underground duct underneath with
water rushing through it.
 
There
was no sign of Tommy.

“The
water must have carried him that way,” Sean said.
 

“You
think that’s our way out?”

Sean
shrugged.
 
“Looks like it’s the
only way.”
 

“What
about the treasure?
 
Father
Crespi’s collection?”
 
She looked
around at all the ancient artifacts and precious relics.
 

Sean
looked at her with a grin.
 
“Sometimes you gotta leave the treasure behind,” he said without
resignation.
 
“Maybe this is where
it belongs.”
 
He took her hand and
looked down at the gushing water.
 
She nodded and the two of them jumped into the opening.

*****

Angela
never panicked.
 
It was one of the
reasons she was so good at what she did.
 
But as the water flooded through the opening and gathered around their
feet, fear began to creep into her mind.
 
The two men sloshed over to where the original entrance to the room had
been.
 
They frantically tried to pull
up on the heavy stone but couldn’t find a seam to grip.
 
Angela just stood in the middle of the
room while they leaned on the wall in an effort to get the thing to budge.
 
The water level continued to rise
quickly and was already up to her waist.
 
She waded to the pedestal and lifted a golden leaf off of the top in
hopes that would stop the room from flooding.
 
Nothing happened.
 
There was no way out.