Matt: Tales of the Were (Redstone Clan Book 5) (12 page)

When it subsided, she was breathing hard, fear of the possible danger making her heart race. But she wouldn’t let that stop her. Something was wrong here, and they needed to find out as much as they could before anything else happened.

“I’m not arguing with you, Matt, but we both need to go in there. At the very least, by two of us going in, we double the odds of at least one of us getting out again in time to tell the Brotherhood—and your people, too—whatever we learn.”

Matt looked skeptical. “I don’t like your math, sweetheart. You should go back to the office and be ready to call in the troops once I find out exactly what’s going on here. I can get backup in a half hour—maybe less. I’ll call in some of the work crews.”

“Do you really want to blow any advantage we have?” she asked shrewdly. “It’s likely Irma, and whoever has been going down into the mine with her, doesn’t know we’re on to them. But, if you call in a Pack of shifters to traipse all over these woods, they’ll figure it out pretty quick. We need to act now. With stealth.”

Matt cursed as he let go of her arms. He turned and moved a few paces away from her, then spun back, clearly agitated.

“I’m probably going to regret this,” he muttered, then walked right up to her, facing her. “All right. You win. Let’s go.”

Morgan tried hard not to smile in triumph. But then, she thought about the danger of what they were about to do, and any amusement vanished.

He started to walk silently through the trees, out of their hiding spot. She noted how he was careful to erase any small evidence of their presence, and she did the same. Matt was better in the wild, but she was a shifter, and she learned fast.

“Where are we going?” she asked in a quiet voice that wouldn’t carry past the two of them.

“Alternate entrance near the tunnel I think they’re using,” he said in the same tone. “I have a good idea of the layout of the mine, but that entrance we spotted earlier isn’t on any of the maps. Still, I have a notion of where that entrance connects with the rest of the tunnels and shafts. I can get us close enough through this other way in that we can approach quietly through the tunnels. Better chance of finding them this way, and less possibility of being caught at it.”

She followed his lead, glad she’d packed light for a day she knew would probably require shapeshifting at some point. All she had with her was what she could carry in her pockets. She had lived the life of a city cat for far too many years to be comfortable trekking long distances through the woods in her human form.

While she had shifter stamina and strength no matter what form she wore, her cat was better able to cope with the forest. But she couldn’t shapeshift, at the moment, so her two aching feet did their best to keep up with Wilderness Guide Matt on what was beginning to feel like a forced march through far too many trees with pointy, sharp edges that wanted to snag her clothes, her hair, and her skin.

In fact, Matt had to stop twice to remove bits of her hair from overly aggressive branches. After the second time, she was more careful to remove any bits of fiber, hair or even blood from the small scratch on her arm, from the thorny offenders. It was clear Matt didn’t want to leave even the minutest trace of their passing and she understood his caution. They were dealing with magic users that were probably in league with the
Venifucus
. Such evil creatures would be hard to sneak up on, but that was exactly what she and Matt were proposing to do.

Goddess help them.

Still, there was nobody else. They had to find out as much as they could about what was going on below ground, and they had to do it now. Before it escalated into something they might not be able to stop.

Matt led her to a small entrance that was known but disused. In fact, they had to do a little breaking and entering to get in. Matt pried just enough boards away for them to scramble through, then did his best to replace them from the inside, so it wouldn’t be obvious they had been moved.

The farther they moved into the tunnel, the darker it became. Morgan relied on her cat’s superior vision, but eventually, even that didn’t help much in the pitch black of the underground tunnel system. A shiver ran down her spine when the light failed completely as they turned a sharp bend in the tunnel.

Matt stopped in front of her, and she walked into his back. He turned and steadied her, moving close to whisper near her ear as he took her hand. His touch was incredibly reassuring.

“We’ll go slow. There are air shafts all over the place that let in a little light, here and there. I’ve been into this part of the mine before, and the truly pitch black places don’t last long. I don’t want to chance using a light until we know where the bad guys are, but I know where I’m going. Don’t worry.”

Not wanting to chance speaking too loudly, she nodded against his cheek and squeezed his hand. She was already working hard to memorize every turn they took, so she would have a chance of getting out again if they, somehow, got separated.

“Good girl,” he said, placing a gentle kiss on her temple before moving back. But he didn’t go far. He kept hold of her hand and stayed at her side.

Around the next turning in the tunnel, she saw the quality of the dark change. There was a dim glow up ahead, and as they drew closer, she saw it was one of the air shafts Matt had mentioned. It let in enough of the daylight that she could see again, and she felt relieved. As long as she knew those little air shafts were around, she wouldn’t freak out too much in the pitch black spots.

They passed four more air shafts before her ears began to pick up strange sounds coming from below. Matt paused, his steps slowing even more as they began their stealthy approach to whatever was making those eerie sounds.

It sounded like mumbling at first, but as they got closer, the sheer rock faces carried the echoes of strange words to them. Words that felt dirty in a sinister way, even as they bounced off the rocks and went past them.

Chanting. A deep voice chanting evil words.

Yeah, that couldn’t be good.

The chanting stopped long before they saw the glimmer of red growing brighter as they moved closer. Each twist in the tunnel brought them closer to the source of the red light, and the people who were bathed in its glow.

The deep voice was replaced by one she knew well. Irma was chanting now. Her voice louder and more distinct, ringing against the stone walls as Matt and Morgan walked deeper into the mine.

Morgan picked up on the hum of electricity through the very old wires that had been strung along the ceiling of the shaft. There was lighting in some parts of the mine, and it became apparent that Irma and her friends were using one of the strings of lights. Probably the section closest to the hidden entrance they had used to get in.

Humans didn’t have the best night vision. They’d need lights to see where they were going. Especially this deep down into the mine. The pressure in her ears told Morgan all she needed to know about how deep into the earth they had travelled on their winding, downward trek. This had to be one of the deepest parts of the mine, if not
the
deepest.

If these
Venifucus
jerks were trying to cause an earthquake, it made sense they’d want to be as deep into the earth as possible. Damn them.

The red glow grew brighter, turning into an orangey-yellow as they turned another corner. Another twist took them to a bare light bulb hanging forlornly at the end of the wire in the ceiling. Nobody was near it.

The floor was still sloping sharply downward. If what Morgan suspected was true, Irma and company would be at the lowest point in the mine. From the maps she had seen, she knew there was a section at the lowest point that had been used to collect the ore before shipping it back up by pony cart in the oldest days of the mine. It was a wide, open area about twelve feet across and forty feet long. There were little storage bays and offshoots all along the tunnel, if she recalled correctly. Maybe they could hide in one of those and observe whatever Irma and her pals were doing.

As they neared, it seemed Matt was thinking along the same lines. He moved low and silently, crouching as he ducked into one of the side rooms. It was open at the back, and she soon discovered there was a small passageway between the storage areas that they could exploit to get closer to where Irma was still chanting.

Matt led the way, moving with the utmost care until they were in a storage cubby was at an oblique angle to the center part of the chamber. Morgan could just see the back of a rather wide man, who wore a red robe that had a sheen to it like velvet or some kind of thick satin. There was writing around the hem in a broad border, but the symbols were arcane. Not something she had ever seen before. And not necessarily something she ever wanted to see again.

Just looking at the symbols made her feel queasy. No doubt, they were evil magical glyphs of some kind. Power flowed around the man, and she could almost see a sort of glowing bubble around him, reaching out to meet similar spheres around the other two people.

She could just barely see the other two. One was a tall, thin fellow with a black robe on. It too, had the band of symbols running around the hem. And then, she saw Irma. She was in profile, moving in and out of visual range as she swayed and chanted. She was wearing a red robe, like the first man, and it had those evil glyphs running up and down the front in two, parallel rows and around the edges of her sleeves.

The spheres of power radiated out from each one of them and overlapped, joining together where they met to encase the trio in some kind of force field. Morgan noted the ring that had been laid out on the floor, as well. They were standing in some sort of magical circle they had created. She didn’t know too much about magic, but she knew why many magic users cast circles. They were meant to keep things in, or out.

In this case, the ring, along with the bubbles of power, were probably meant to keep the roof from falling in on their heads while they did their evil work. And Morgan knew, without a doubt, that their aim was to cause an earthquake because just as another, even larger tremor struck, Irma cried out in delight, smiling even as the earth shook with them in it.

The mages were protected, but Matt and Morgan weren’t within the realm of their magical influence. And they were at the epicenter of the quake.

Matt grabbed her hand and began to run. Noise didn’t matter so much with the earth groaning around them, but they were shifters and could run silently in either of their forms. They backtracked through the tunnel system and made it to an area much higher in the mountain as rocks and debris clattered down around them.

Morgan thought they’d make it out, but just as they reached the third air shaft, disaster struck.

“Shit!” Matt cursed quietly as the rumble of thousands of pounds of rock echoed off the walls, roaring past them. The tunnel collapsed behind them as they ran.

They turned a corner, just under the little air shaft that let in light, and came to a screeching halt. The way was blocked by a cave-in that must’ve happened only moments before.

“We’re trapped,” she whispered over the roar of rock.

Matt spun her into his arms as the thunder of the collapse galloped toward them. Would the roof fall in on them, crushing them to death? Or would they simply be trapped below ground with no way to get out?

Either option scared the shit out of her. Morgan sent a prayer up to the Goddess while Matt used his hard body to shield her from the rocks shaking loose from above. He crouched against the side of the tunnel, directly below the air shaft, holding her close and using his own body to protect her.

She lifted the neck of her T-shirt over her nose and mouth to try to filter out some of the dust and helped Matt do the same. They huddled together like that for what felt like hours, but were probably only a few minutes before the noise and fury of the earth subsided.

The dust took much longer to settle, but when Morgan could breathe freely again, she scented the coppery tang of blood. Matt’s blood.

“You’re hurt,” she said in a shaky voice. It was the best she could manage under the circumstances.

“Some of those rocks were sharp,” he joked.

“Let me up so I can see,” she demanded, worried for him.

He moved gingerly, which spoke volumes to her about his injuries. She stood and examined him from head to toe. He had a gash on the back of his shoulder that was already beginning to scab over and numerous small cuts on his hands and forearms.

“Nothing too serious that I can see,” she reported, feeling relieved. “Are you sure nothing else is wrong?”

“You mean besides being trapped down here?” he quipped, hands on hips, looking around at the small space they found themselves in.

She told herself to be calm. Hysteria wouldn’t help in this situation, but boy, did she want to scream. Or break down and cry. Luckily, she didn’t do either. But she did reach out to grip Matt’s hand. He was her lifeline. Her sanity.

He pulled her back into his arms, apparently sensing how close she was to the edge. He soothed her, running his hands down her back and rocking her gently, for a few moments.

“It’ll be okay. We’re still alive, and our friends know where we were headed. They’ll send help. Somebody will find us, if we don’t manage to find a way out ourselves in the next few hours. We have air and light. We’ll get through this,” he crooned. “You’ll see.”

“Those bastard mages probably got out the other way. I bet they cast protections on their escape route,” she said, growing angry. Anger was much better than hysteria.

“Yeah, you’re probably right. They’re just practicing, after all. The big event still hasn’t happened yet,” he told her.

Suddenly, she realized what he meant. These tremors were just that—weak tremors that had been growing in magnitude. It was a build-up. A prelude to something much worse and much, much bigger.

“It would have to be pretty strong to pierce the veil between worlds, from what I’ve heard,” Matt continued. “A big earthquake might do it, but I don’t think these little tremors are enough, yet. They’re still working toward the big one. Which means…” he paused, letting her go as he began to survey the small chamber that had been created by the quake once more, “…we still have time to stop them.”