Grateful to have something else to focus on, he joined her, heaving the slab aside to reveal a stone staircase spiraling down into darkness.
“Grab the torch,” she said.
He did, bringing it back to illuminate the stairs. And the smooth black water that covered them about five feet down. Now he understood why she’d left the phones. “You didn’t say we’d need scuba gear.”
“We don’t.”
She stretched out her hands. At first nothing happened. Then the surface of the water began to ripple and sink. Mick glanced at her face, snared by the electric blue eyes that flashed with lightning and power. The tomb shuddered as the water receded, frothing and bubbling as she seemed to push it back into the ground, clearing the path below.
“Holy Moses,” he muttered. “What are you?”
“My family tree isn’t exactly a priority right now. Give me the torch.”
Mick handed it over, noting the tension in her back. “You’re still holding all that water back, aren’t you? It’s not gone.”
“Right. So we need to hurry.” She stepped over the ledge and started the descent.
Underground. It had to be underground. The wolf paced restlessly under his skin. Neither part of him liked enclosed spaces. At all. But, resolutely, he followed Sophie down the stairs, stepping carefully to avoid slipping in the still wet stone. To distract himself, he started asking the questions that had been spinning in his brain since the ransom call. “Who else knows about this Devil’s Eye? I mean, I’ve never heard of it.”
“You wouldn’t. It was lost to legend for centuries.”
“How did you find out about it?”
She hesitated a moment. “I was part of the retrieval team. We were following up on some rumors for the Council, trekking through the wilds of—well you don’t need to know where. Let’s just say we were feeding our inner Indiana Jones. And then it turned out that it wasn’t a rumor, wasn’t myth. The artifact was real. We didn’t know what it was when we brought it back. I still don’t know exactly what it does, just that it’s extremely dangerous. After some deliberation, the Council decided it was best hidden again, and a core group of us brought it here. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, it’s still lost.”
“It has to be someone from that core group, doesn’t it? Who’s got Liza, I mean. Those of you who placed it here in the first place. Or at least somebody who knew you were part of that mission.”
“That does seem likely,” she admitted.
They paused at the bottom of the steps to take in the long, dark tunnel stretching before them. Water dripped onto the torch; it hissed and sputtered in protest. The air was dank, reeking of sour mud. Mick felt vaguely sick as he thought of how much earth and stone stretched above them.
Sophie was already moving forward, taking the light with her. Mick noted that the walls were studded with bones. Thousands of them in a filthy, imitation of the catacombs he’d once seen in Paris. Except these were odd shaped. Then he realized that the tunnel was lined with the bones of other Mirus. Cheery.
Picking up the pace to catch up to Sophie and the light, his foot kicked something that made an odd muffled noise. Definitely not the hollow click of bone. He called Sophie over with the torch.
“Flippers,” he said. “And a dive mask. We weren’t the first ones to come down here.” He stood and started walking again. “Could be that kidnapping Liza was a Plan B. You think he targeted you because Liza was easy leverage or because you were the only one who could access it? Obviously somebody didn’t have any luck this way.”
She shot him a glance. “You’re quick, Guidry. Yeah I’m one of the few people who could do this part. I don’t know how he found out about Liza, though. I’m very close-lipped about my family. I’m careful.”
He heard what she didn’t say. That Liza wasn’t. “I never heard her say or do anything to compromise you. I’m not even sure anybody knew she had a sister.”
“Clearly somebody did. If anything happens to her I’ll never forgive myself.”
“We’re gonna get her back, Sophie. How much—” He stopped, cocking his head.
“What is it?”
“I thought I heard something.”
Stretching his senses beyond his own shallow breathing, he listened, hard. There was a strange creak and rattle, then a scuttling noise, like beetles or rats. Lifting his nose, he sniffed, but there was nothing beyond the stench of mud and stale air. Frowning he moved several paces back the way they’d come, out of the circle of torchlight. He heard the scuttling noise again, closer.
“There’s somethin’ down here.”
“Do you think we were follow—” Sophie’s question ended with a scream.
Mick whirled in time to see hands dragging her into the depths of the tunnel before the torch hit the ground and went out.
~*~