Thieves Like Us 01 - Thieves Like Us (28 page)

‘Yeah,’ said Jonah. ‘I know.’

‘So if you’re not superstitious, why do
you
sleep with the lights on?’ She smiled coyly. ‘Or was that just
so I could find you in the night more easily, yes?’

Jonah felt himself flushing. ‘I didn’t know you were coming – I mean, I was just – well, I –’

Tye just laughed. ‘Guys, could you keep it to yourselves?’

‘Oh, Tye, nothing happened,’ Con said quickly, a mischievous look in her eyes. ‘Nothing much.’

‘Whatever.’ Tye shrugged, glanced back at Jonah. He looked away, embarrassed.

Coldhardt walked back to join them; with a few minutes’ rest he looked more like his old unflappable self. He glanced round, saw the look on Jonah’s face. ‘No last-minute nerves, I trust?’

‘He is fine,’ said Con. ‘Aren’t you?’

‘Fine,’ Jonah agreed.

‘Then let’s go join the others and see what we’re dealing with,’ said Tye, leaving them to trail behind after her.

It would be night soon. Tye shivered a little, stared up at the darkening blue sky. Small violet clouds had gathered above as if spying on them. Her ears strained to catch the sound of distant engines, any sign that Samraj might be approaching.

Patch and Motti had been poring over the old stone for some time. Coldhardt looked in and offered a measured comment or opinion every time they seemed to be flagging. Now they were starting to argue about how much force they should use to get inside.

‘We ain’t archaeologists,’ Motti was saying. ‘Screw the gentle touch. If that
is
a door it ain’t gonna give easily.’

‘It’s just some kind of plaster they slapped on to disguise the opening,’ Patch argued. ‘If we keep chipping away –’

‘It was slapped on, like, a thousand years ago! It’s hard as the stone. Now, time’s running out, and I say we blow it open.’

‘Well
I
say blow it out your arse!’ stormed Patch. ‘You don’t know what was hidden inside this door, Mot! Projectiles, gunpowder, poisoned sand – could be anything!’

Motti held out his hands, a calming gesture. ‘OK, fine, so we lay charges in the surrounding rock.’

‘I don’t like it.’

‘I don’t like it either, Patch, but Motti’s right.’ Coldhardt looked at Motti. ‘Make it a small charge, hmm?’

‘Tell you what, then …’ Patch reached up to his glass eye and made to pluck it out. ‘I got a little gelignite in this one. Detonator cap is in the pupil.’

‘Leave that damn thing where it is!’ said Motti, cringing. ‘I got some plastic here. I’ll lay it round the frame, multiple detonation …’

‘Say the Inuit charm prayer first.’

‘I’m saying every prayer I know, man.’

While Motti got busy, Patch wandered over and sat down beside Tye. ‘This place is bad news.’

‘Tell me about it,’ she said.

‘Got any more food?’

She gestured to her rucksack. Patch dug himself out a half-chewed chicken leg and pulled off some scraps. Then he gestured over at Jonah and Con. ‘Those two had a row or something?’

‘Something.’

Jonah was sitting alone on the scrubby grass, minding his own business. His back was turned to Con who lay half-reclined on a slab of rock, silhouetted against the sunset with artistic abandon.

‘She’s incredible,’ sighed Patch.

Tye nodded. ‘Never ceases to amaze me.’

Motti didn’t take long with the explosives. He uncoiled the detonator wire and motioned everyone to shelter behind Con’s plinth of rock.

It was weird, having Coldhardt there amongst them. He ensured an air of respectful silence held sway, but Tye decided it was a mixed blessing. It spared her any more of Con’s small talk, but left her with too much time on her hands to mull over what had – or hadn’t – been said.

Truth was, she would never have put Jonah and Con together. But then, if Con had come on to him, why the hell would he resist? She could reel in anyone, as she’d proved to Tye on a fairly regular basis. Jonah was no different.

And she couldn’t help feeling disappointed about that.

‘Here we go, people,’ said Motti, hurrying to join them.

The explosion was crazily loud, the rumbles of the after-echoes mingling with the clatter of distant birds taking flight.

‘Well, that’ll bring the park rangers running,’ muttered Jonah.

Motti was back on his feet and running to see before the smoke had even cleared. As he ran into the
grey wisps, he whooped.

‘We got us a doorway!’ he yelled. ‘It’s solid stone, five-sided.’

‘That’s a warning in itself,’ snapped Coldhardt. ‘Echoes of the pentagram.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Jonah.

‘Five-pointed star,’ Con told him. ‘Occult symbol.’

‘Black magic, you mean?’

‘With me, Patch.’ Coldhardt strode off into the clearing smoke, Patch at his heels, and Tye quickly followed them.

There was something about the crude, thick outline of the door in the blackened stone that sent an instinctive shiver down her back. Coldhardt was showing some circular impressions in the rock to Motti and Patch, who were nodding like eager students. How could they be so casual about it all?

She walked away, troubled. Growing up in Haiti, half the people had practised voodoo. Not the creepy, zombie undead stuff you got in horror films – almost all of them considered themselves Roman Catholics – they just believed they could commune with the lesser deities and messengers who travelled between God and the believer. Tye had turned her back on the spirits like she’d turned her back on so many things. But sometimes, normally in the darkest hours when sleep or rest seemed a thousand miles away, she liked to believe she could hear the whispers of kinder spirits.

Right now, she could almost feel those whispers like a scratch deep in her ear, warning her that the door, and whatever lay beyond it, was evil.

* * *

Jonah knew there were more important things to worry about, but found he couldn’t help wishing Con had kept her big lip-glossed gob shut. He knew she’d used him to score a cheap, throwaway point against Tye, but she’d made it seem like a lot more had happened than actually did.

The worst thing about it was that Tye probably didn’t give a damn – if he tried to explain what really happened, she’d think he was a freak. So instead an undefined awkwardness hung in the air between them like the smoke from Motti’s explosions.

Jonah went over to join the guys by the door in the wall, where things seemed less complicated.

Wrong again.

‘I believe that each of these circles in the rock is a cylinder, seen end-on,’ Coldhardt was explaining. ‘A kind of bolt securing the door, probably knocked through with a stone and hammer. One of them will open the door, the others are undoubtedly booby-trapped.’

‘So how do we know which to release?’ asked Jonah.

‘We don’t,’ said Motti. ‘Trust those dumb cultists to leave that part off the lekythos.’

‘Probably obvious if you’re one of them.’ Jonah pointed to the topmost bolt. ‘That bit of the Spartan cipher said something about the north. If it
did
include instructions about how to get in here, maybe they meant –’

‘We have no way of knowing that,’ said Coldhardt. ‘No, Patch, I’m afraid the call must be yours. Think of each bolt as a key in a kind of lock, turning tumblers
and mechanisms within the stone.’

‘Except if you louse up, God only knows what’s gonna happen,’ said Motti quietly.

‘He won’t louse up,’ Tye insisted, as she and Con came over. Jonah noticed Con was crossing her fingers behind her back.

Patch turned his stoic eye on the stone. ‘Square holes in the top of each circle. Probably for holding a tool of some kind, to get it to open …’ He started rummaging in his rucksack. ‘Reckon a big torque wrench might fit it.’

‘Start with the topmost bolt,’ Coldhardt suggested with a glance at Jonah. ‘It’s the only clue we’ve got.’

‘We’re starting to lose the light,’ said Jonah.

‘’S OK,’ said Patch as he carefully inserted the wrench and placed his ear cautiously against the stone. ‘I’m gonna close my eye anyway. Gotta think myself into the lock.’

‘Here comes the Jedi mind crap again,’ Motti said gruffly, but there was no disguising the concern on his face.

‘You guys better stand clear,’ Patch whispered.

Coldhardt simply nodded, falling back to what he felt was a safe distance and gesturing that his children do the same.

‘This could take for ever, couldn’t it?’ said Jonah quietly. ‘Surely after all these centuries, that bolt’s going to be stiffer than a corpse’s –’

There came a cold scrape as the stone cylinder shifted a little way into its housing. Jonah broke off, held his breath.

‘Craftsmanship,’ whispered Coldhardt, a rapt look
on his craggy features.

‘Patch, man, can you feel anything through that rock?’ Motti whispered.

‘Only thing I can feel is a trickle down my leg,’ he joked. Another scrape. ‘Wait. No. That didn’t sound –’

Everything kicked off at once.

There was a rasping
shunk
as some ancient mechanism activated behind the doorway. Patch twisted aside. The wrench flew from his hand. A stubby arrow burst out of the door, nearly skewered him as it shot through the air.

Patch landed awkwardly, sprawled on his back. Motti was already on his feet, sprinting over to check on him.

‘Wait!’ Coldhardt shouted. ‘There could be a second trap!’

‘That’s why I’m going,’ Motti yelled back. The next second, Jonah found himself rushing to join him. Together they lifted the shell-shocked Patch and carried him awkwardly away.

‘I’m all right,’ gasped Patch, laughing weakly. ‘I’m OK. Didn’t get me. I felt something give inside the stone – guessed it wasn’t good.’

Coldhardt regarded Jonah and Motti. ‘If I give you a command I expect you to obey. You would have achieved nothing by killing yourselves.’

Motti nodded sullenly, then glared at Jonah. ‘So much for the “north” clue.’

‘Here’s the arrow,’ said Con, running back from the side of the gulley with the ancient projectile. ‘I think it’s gold.’

Coldhardt took it from her. ‘Ebony shaft, gold head.’ He turned it carefully in his gloved hands. ‘Almost certainly poisoned. This alone must be worth a small fortune.’

‘Next time I’ll try to catch it,’ said Patch shakily. ‘How’d it fire through stone?’

‘I’ll bet it wasn’t real stone in that part of the door, just more of that plaster stuff,’ said Motti. ‘They must’ve sealed the hole back up each time an arrow went off.’

‘What are we going to do now?’ asked Tye. ‘Is Patch going to try every other bolt till he kills himself and one of us steps in?’

‘P’raps I’ll be lucky next time,’ said Patch nervously.

Coldhardt looked round at his children. ‘You want to leave now that we’re so close? You want to lose the chance to hit back at Samraj?’

‘We ain’t giving up,’ Patch declared, retrieving his torque wrench and moving on to the next bolt.

‘For God’s sake,’ Con hissed, ‘be careful, yes?’

Dusk was falling, and the landscape was taking on a strange, alien quality. It was eerily quiet, and a cool breeze was blowing across from the distant lake. No one spoke as Patch started to probe the next bolt, his gestures precise and unerring, his face pressed up to the scorched and blackened stone.

Until he suddenly dropped the wrench and threw himself backwards. Tye swore, Jonah jumped.

And with a grinding, grating noise, the great stone slab yawned slowly inwards, surrendering an entrance.

‘See? Second time lucky,’ said Patch happily, dusting himself down.

‘Yes!’ Motti yelled, grabbing him and swinging him round as the others clapped and cheered.

But the jubilant mood didn’t last long. Jonah put it down to the entrance itself. It stood gaping like a great maw waiting to devour them. Or perhaps screaming at them silently to leave this place. To leave well alone.

But Jonah knew they’d come too far to turn back.

‘Tye,’ Coldhardt whispered, ‘we’ll need the torches.’

She’d already collected them from her rucksack, and pressed one into his hand. White, comfortless light flicked from the end of the steel tube.

Cautiously, Coldhardt led the way across the stony threshold and into the darkness.

The stone slab had been lowered by a primitive but effective wheel-and-pulley system. ‘Knew it,’ said Motti, his torch beam playing over the mechanism. ‘It’s good news. Means we can close the door behind us.’

Patch shuddered. ‘That’s good?’

‘It is if someone else comes looking for us, numb-nuts.’

‘Leave it open for now,’ said Coldhardt. ‘We don’t know what’s up ahead.’

They were standing in a small cave. A wide crack in the back of it led to a narrow passage through the rock. After taking just a single step inside, it felt to Jonah as though the outside world was a mile away.

The glare of the torch beams made him nervous at first. It felt like the six of them were poking bright white sticks into each dark corner, and risked disturbing whatever might be hiding there. But the blackness seemed absolute, the torches could show no detail; it was as if something in the air was absorbing the light.

Coldhardt broke the silence. His voice came out dry and echoless as he moved warily deeper. ‘In centuries past, Macedonia was known as
Catena Mundi
– the
link between worlds. I’d always assumed that was due to its position on the ancient trade routes. But it’s possible the phrase has a more literal significance.’

‘What, connected to this place?’ asked Jonah.

‘If the rumours about Ophiuchus were true …If his experiments with the snake-root led him into planes of darkness beyond human comprehension …’

‘The link between our world and the underworld,’ said Tye softly. ‘Like a kind of no-man’s-land?’

‘This ain’t so much a link road as a dead end,’ Motti pronounced. The passage had opened out into a semicircular cavern. ‘No way through.’

Jonah jumped at a sudden clattering sound close by. In an instant, five spears of torchlight landed at Con’s feet. But her own beam was playing on the yellowing skeleton she’d knocked against on the dark, silty floor of the cave.