Scaderstone Pit (The Darkeningstone Series Book 3) (31 page)

But when he tried to follow the squirming lights as they wriggled away into the shadows, he saw a sudden flash of bright blue, and he cried out in alarm, jumping back and raising the striker in front of him. But there were no blue flames, and no strange noises. He was safe—for the moment.
Perhaps it is not wise to disturb the Shades further
, he thought.
I have done enough
.

He looked sadly at the blade embedded in the rock. “I won’t try it again,” he muttered. “Not yet.” But he was already thinking of the following day and wondering when he could slip away and climb up to the ledge. And the next day. And the next.

This place was special. It was favoured by the Shades, drenched in their presence. And it was
his
. He need not fear the Shades. They had sent for him, given him a glimpse of their power, hinted at their boundless secrets.
I must protect this place
, he thought,
guard it night and day if need be
. He thought of the villagers: the blundering elders, the swaggering fools who scorned him night and day. They must never know about the secrets that lay beneath the stone slab. If anyone dared to come here, if anyone tried to take what was his…

“I’ll destroy them,” he whispered. “I’ll strike them down.”

He crossed the ledge to where the baby lay then squatted down beside the child. Cleofan tucked the handle of the striker underneath the strap that normally held only his knife.
Let them gawp at my mighty new weapon
, he thought.
Let them fear what I can do
. Then he picked up the baby, cradling the boy’s head gently in his hand. “Now we must look after you, little one,” he said. “We must get some food inside you.”

Cleofan stood, pressing the baby against his chest, then he walked across the ledge and began to climb down.

Chapter 36

2021

IT WAS COMPLETELY DARK
by the time Crawford steered the pickup truck away from the main road, but even so, I recognised the lane that led toward the hill. Crawford drove on in silence, and soon the pickup’s headlights picked out the metal barrier across the road.

“We walk from here,” he said, then he killed the engine and turned the lights off.

“We won’t get far,” I said. “When Cally and me came, they were waiting for us.”

Crawford gave me a look. In the darkness, his eyes glinted, cold and pitiless. “There’s no one waiting here. My guess is that you were followed. This time, we’re alone.”

He glanced down to the storage well between the seats than he turned to me sharply. “Give me the flashlight.”

“All right,” I said. “I wasn’t—”

“I know exactly what you were thinking,” he interrupted. “And the next time you try anything stupid, you’ll pay for it. Do you understand?”

I didn’t reply. I just pulled the flashlight from my pocket and handed it over with a resigned shrug.

Crawford snatched the flashlight and checked that it was working. “Now, get out and stand quietly. I need to get something from the back.”

We both climbed out of the cab, and Crawford went to the back of the pickup. I stepped forward and peered through the gloom to see what he was doing. He switched on the flashlight then pulled a black plastic toolbox toward him, sliding it across the metal bed of the truck. He opened the box then searched through it. Every movement this man made was precise and efficient, but even so, the contents of the box rattled over each other, and the sound seemed unnaturally loud as it rang out in the still night air.

“That will have to do,” he said. He turned off the flashlight and came to stand at my side. “Come on. Get moving.”

“I’m not sure of the way,” I lied. “It looks different in the dark.”

Crawford grabbed my arm and pushed me forward. “Save your breath.”

We walked in silence across the grass. Ahead, the stand of trees loomed dark on the skyline; closer and closer. I swallowed hard. “We didn’t actually get to see the stone,” I said quietly. “They turned us back before we got anywhere near it.”

Crawford let out a humourless bark of laughter. “You’ll see it soon enough. This is going to be your lucky day.”

There was something in his tone that sent a chill down my spine, and after that, we didn’t talk until we were passing through the deep shadows beneath the trees.

Crawford stopped walking and tightened his grip on my arm. “In a moment, we’ll see the compound. No more talking until I say so.”

“What compound?”

“You’ll see. Just keep quiet. Not a word.”

“All right,” I said. “I get it.”

Slowly, we picked our way through the trees, treading carefully through the undergrowth. And as we stepped out from the shadows, and I finally saw the top of the hill, I understood why Crawford had called the place a compound.

There was just enough moonlight to make out the cluster of low buildings on the hilltop, and I could see they were surrounded by a high chain-link fence that was topped with coils of wire. There were no lights coming from any of the buildings, but the whole place looked bleak and forbidding.

“Oh my god,” I whispered.

Crawford squeezed my arm tighter and urged me forward without a word.

When we reached the fence, Crawford switched on the flashlight and handed it to me, then he pointed toward the base of the fence. I shone the flashlight where he’d indicated, and Crawford knelt down and took a pair of wire cutters from his pocket. He began working at the wire, and I glanced nervously around the compound. The hollow sound as Crawford snipped each wire seemed loud enough to wake the dead, but there was no sign of movement beyond the fence. And soon, Crawford was standing up, holding a flap of wire to one side. He pointed toward the gap and I knelt down and crawled through. It was easy enough for me, but as I stood and waited on the other side of the fence, Crawford made heavy work of it; his breath wheezed and rattled as he crawled through, and the noise set my nerves on edge.

When he finally pushed himself to his feet beside me, he was breathing hard. “Where is it?” he whispered.

He didn’t have to explain what he meant. I made a show of looking around, but there was only one place that could contain the black stone. On the very top of the hill there was a large concrete building, its walls smooth and featureless. I nodded toward it. “It must be in there.”

“Good,” Crawford said. “Turn the light off.”

Reluctantly, I switched the flashlight off and we walked together toward the ugly grey building. As we grew closer, I noticed a steel door set into the wall, and Crawford must have seen it too because he headed straight for it.

When we reached the door, Crawford bent down to examine the lock. “Shine the light on here,” he muttered.

I did as he asked, and Crawford slipped a small set of slim tools from his jacket pocket. He knelt down and inserted one of the tools into the lock.

“Seriously?” I asked. “You think you can pick the lock? Won’t it be more secure than that?”

Crawford paused in his work for a moment then selected another tool. “Human error,” he murmured, “is always the weakest link in any security. The men who built this place never expected anyone to get this far.”

“But, won’t there be alarms?”

“Maybe. But by the time anyone gets here, we’ll have seen what we came to see, and we’ll be long gone.”

“You mean, we’ll be heading back to Saint Victor?”

He gave a noncommittal grunt and concentrated on the lock. “Bloody thing,” he muttered. He let out a breath then tried again, his tools grating and clicking inside the lock. Suddenly, there was a hollow metallic clunk. “There!”

He stood and grabbed the door handle, and when he turned it, the catch disengaged and the door swung open. I held my breath and prepared myself for the harsh cry of an alarm, but there was nothing.

“Give me the light,” Crawford said.

I handed the flashlight to him and he peered cautiously inside the door. “It’s clear,” he said. “Come in and shut the door behind you.”

He stepped inside, but I hesitated, taking a last look around compound. Every instinct was telling me to make a run for it. I could be out through the fence and running back down the hill before Crawford even realised what was happening. I could easily outpace him and get back to the pickup truck. But what then? He would certainly have the keys in his pocket. And then there were his threats to harm Cally and ruin my dad’s life; I had no doubt he would carry them out. This man was cold-blooded and merciless. If I was going to be free of him, I’d have to make sure he couldn’t escape and come after me; I’d have to outsmart him. That wasn’t going to be easy—he left nothing to chance—but I had to try.

I followed Crawford into the building, shutting the door behind me, and though I tried to close it carefully, the heavy door met its frame with a dull boom that echoed and reverberated around the room. I could see very little except for the small circle of concrete floor illuminated by Crawford’s flashlight, but I had a sense of space and emptiness, as though I’d just walked into an abandoned warehouse.

Crawford played the flashlight’s beam along the wall beside the door and found a bank of light switches, but when he stepped forward and flicked them, nothing happened. “Never mind,” he said. “We’ll manage without them.” He turned around, shining his flashlight across the room, and I saw that I’d been right to guess at the size of the place; the room seemed to take up the entire building. I thought at first that it was empty, but Crawford’s flashlight picked out a dark shape in the centre of the room. It looked like a large metal container: a brutal cube made from glistening steel.

I swallowed hard. “That’s it,” I whispered. “It’s in there. It has to be.”

“Good. Let’s take a look.”

Crawford set off across the room and I followed, my footsteps grating noisily on the dusty concrete floor and my heart in my mouth. We stopped directly in front of the tall metal container and Crawford shone the flashlight slowly across its surface, then he walked all the way around it, taking his time. The container gleamed dully, and it looked as though each wall was made from a single sheet of metal; featureless except for the heavy duty stainless steel bolts dotted around its edges.

“Damn it!” Crawford hissed.

“There isn’t a way inside, is there?”

“No.”

“They don’t want it found,” I said. “They don’t want anyone to see it. Not ever.” I pressed my hand against the steel. The cold metal tingled against my fingers. And there was something else. I stared at Crawford. “It’s buzzing,” I murmured. “It’s starting.”

“What?” Crawford put his hand on the metal. “Yes. I can feel it.”

We looked at each other in silence for a moment. The flashlight’s beam made a cruel mask of Crawford’s face: his eyes dark hollows, his mouth a cruel sneer. I took my hand from the container and stepped back. “We should get out of here.”

“No,” Crawford snapped. “Stay right where you are. It needs us close.”

“But, it isn’t safe.” I took another step back, but Crawford lunged toward me and grabbed my arm, pulling me back toward the container.

“Stay there. This is why you’re here. You have a connection with the stone.” He let go of my arm and reached up to his throat. He pulled something from beneath his shirt. It glinted in the flashlight’s beam: a long gold chain. “And you have a connection with this.” He held the chain out toward me and some part of me knew exactly what I was about to see. I wanted to look away. I wanted to turn and run. But I couldn’t do that. I had to see it for myself.

I looked at Crawford’s hand, and there, between his fingers was the black amulet: the amulet I’d seen in the museum, the amulet I’d seen on this very spot thousands of years ago. “Where?” I whispered. “How?”

“I took it,” Crawford said. “It’s mine now.” He turned his hand back around to admire his prize and in that moment, a flash of blue light flickered across the amulet, lighting his face. “And it’s working,” he murmured.

I shook my head in disbelief. I’d wanted to see the stone again, but not like this. Never like this. I looked back at the steel container. The buzzing was louder now, the metal walls vibrating like the skin of a drum, the sound booming through the empty room, sending tremors through my chest.

Crawford put his hand back on the container wall. “It’s getting warm.”

Despite myself, I touched the steel, sliding my palm across its surface. “Yes. It’s getting hotter.” I pulled my hand away. “Listen, we have to stand back. You don’t understand—it’s so strong.”

“Oh, I understand,” Crawford said. “But we’re not going anywhere.” He opened his mouth to say something else, but suddenly, he gasped in pain and took his hand from the container.

“We can’t stand here,” I said. “It’s too dangerous. I can feel the heat on my face.”

Crawford shook his head, but he took a couple of steps back and I followed suit. The steel container began to glow, a dull orange radiance spreading across its surface. And the buzzing noise was even louder now, the harsh sound bouncing between the concrete walls, hammering against my eardrums.

I glanced at Crawford. His full attention was on the container, and I took the opportunity to edge away from him, the sound of my footsteps covered by the droning din. As I watched, the container glowed brighter. The acrid smell of scorching metal tainted the air and trails of smoke curled up from the steel bolts. The heat stung my face and the smoke caught in my throat. Parts of the metal were white hot now, and I moved farther away, squinting against the glare. A gobbet of molten metal dribbled down one edge of the container and fell sizzling to the floor. The stench of burning was unbearable and the room was rapidly filling with bitter smoke. My eyes streamed, and I rubbed them with the heels of my hands.