artifact meant and what significance it held for the N’watu. He’d actually held it in his grasp for an instant, but now it was likely lost for good. His lips tightened. He’d come so close.
If only he’d had a few more seconds.
He touched Elina’s shoulder to wake her. “I think the sun’s up.”
He helped her up and led her along the shoreline until he could see daylight through the underwater tunnel. They plunged one last time into the water and swam through to the other side, where they emerged in the small lake under a blue sky.
They swam to the shore and lay in the dirt, soaking in the sunlight. After a minute, Elina crawled back to the edge of the water. Jack could see she was staring at her reflection. Her face was covered with black marks, obviously something the N’watu had done as part of their ritual.
Elina stood up to face him. “All I can say is this stuff better not be permanent.”
Jack looked her over now in the daylight. She had short black hair and beautiful brown eyes. But any other feminine softness her face might have held was tempered by a firm jawline and a two-inch scar that ran across her chin. She carried herself on a short athletic frame with a rugged sort of beauty. Jack could tell she had been a cop, and a tough one.
The black marks on her face had faded a bit from being in the water but were still fairly distinct. There was no telling what kind of substance the ink was made from. Jack grinned and tried to sound reassuring. “Actually, it’s kind of attractive.”
“Said the guy with no funky marks on his face.”
Jack laughed and pointed toward the trees. “C’mon. The road isn’t too far.” He led her through the woods, retracing the route he had taken only two days earlier.
“What day is it, anyway?” Elina asked.
“Uhh…” Jack rubbed his eyes, trying to calculate the number of days he’d spent in darkness and terror. “It’s Saturday. Or, no… Sunday, I think.”
At length they came to a highway. Jack explained that this was where he had first run into Malcolm Browne. He pointed up the road. “The town’s just up that way.”
Elina stopped. “We’re not really going back there, are we?”
Jack thought about that for a moment. “Well, Carson and that big guy are both dead back in the tunnel. And I think Vale was injured pretty badly too, so I’m guessing he’s either dead or will be soon.” He shrugged, recalling Dwight’s enigmatic message to him before he died. “Besides, Dwight said there was something in his office that I needed to see.”
“What is it?”
“That’s what I want to find out.”
They walked through the morning, slogging along the pavement without seeing a single vehicle. They passed the time talking, sharing their respective histories. It felt strange to Jack, but there was something about Elina that made him feel as if he’d known her for years. He told her more about his own journey and his father’s disappearance. Elina seemed fascinated by the mystery but stopped short of saying what Jack himself had been thinking all along, though his heart had not wanted to speak the words.
“I can’t bring myself to think about how he might have died,” Jack said finally. “That they would have sacrificed him to that—”
“But you don’t know that for sure,” Elina said.
Not knowing was of little comfort. Something inside Jack still yearned to find out exactly what had happened to his father. Despite how gruesome it might have been.
His thoughts drew back to the mysterious amulet. It had been the confirmation he’d been looking for, the evidence he had come all this way to find, and now it lay under a mountain of rock. Forever out of reach. He could have validated his father’s theories, but now he was leaving empty-handed with so many questions unanswered. He still didn’t know what the symbols meant, and now he feared he never would.
But even worse than that was what he had lost along the way. He’d come through his nightmare having left his best friend back in those caves.
It wasn’t until the sun was directly above them that they finally reached Beckon once more. They walked through the middle of town, where everything seemed as quiet and as still as death.
They came to the old Saddleback Diner and peeked in the windows, but no one was around. Then they crossed the street to Dwight Henderson’s office and went inside. The place was cluttered and musty, and Jack made his way down the hall to the back room.
The door was locked, but after a few attempts, Jack managed to kick it open. Inside stood an antique desk, a couple chairs, and some file cabinets. In the corner was a door to the supply closet that was stacked full of boxes.
Jack inspected the boxes as he pulled them out. Each one was packed with notebooks. He shuffled through the top box and grabbed one of the books. “Looks like Dwight had been keeping quite a few journals.”
Elina peered over his shoulder for a better view. “What do they say?”
“Whoa.” Jack tapped the cover. “Look at the date on this one.”
Elina took the book and frowned as she scanned the pages. “Nineteen
Jack opened a second box and pulled out another leather-bound journal. “Nineteen twenty-one.”
“These can’t all be his,” Elina said.
But Jack was busy digging through another box. “He must have wanted me to find them.”
Elina began searching through the boxes as well. A moment later she pulled out a folder and showed it to Jack. Inside was a photograph. A very
Elina stared at Jack. “This can’t be for real… can it?”
Jack shrugged. “He told me perilium not only enhances the body’s immune system but also slows down or even reverses the aging process.”
Elina gestured to all the boxes on the floor. “Well, these dates would mean that Dwight was more than a hundred years old.”
“At least,” Jack said. His gaze beat a trail around the room. “I wonder how old the others were. For that matter, how old were those N’watu in the cave? They might have been down there for hundreds of years.”
The thought was staggering to Jack. He shuddered when he considered the implications of such a miracle drug. And the cost for the people trapped in this town by it. No wonder Vale went to such lengths to protect his secret.
Elina lifted out another leather-bound journal, this one tattered, its pages yellowed and stained. She thumbed through the brittle pages. Coming to one passage in particular, she stopped and read the words aloud.
“I am finding that my great distaste for these activities has waned of late, as well as for Mr. Vale and that godforsaken town. Regardless of my part in the matter, I can no longer pity those souls I have sent to their destruction. I no longer have the room left in my heart for it, for I am driven too deeply by love for my dearest Julia and I am ever compelled to save her. I will not lose her. My soul be cursed, I will not lose her.”
She paused before reading the date. “October 11… 1899.”
They looked at each other in silence. After a moment Elina said, “I wonder if he found it again. His conscience, I mean.”
Jack had found a bitter reflection in Dwight Henderson’s words, echoed by the stinging indictment he had received from Thomas Vale. He’d been driven here by his obsession to solve his father’s mystery. And more than that, to validate his father’s theories and perhaps thereby gain some of that legacy for himself. But at what expense? Jack wondered now if he had lost a portion of his own conscience somewhere along the way, buried deep beneath his ambitions.
Alongside the bones of his friend.
