Shay rushed toward the small tunnel. She dropped to her knees and hurried forward. Streams of water gushed from both sides of the tunnel, and sediment poured in from several new holes. When she’d crawled through the tunnel the first time, she’d only spotted a few puddles, now she splashed through several inches of frigid water.
Halfway through the tunnel, the silty water almost reached her chest. Three-quarters of the way through, her shoulders. Her pulse pounded in her ears as she crawled forward as fast as she could manage. The water and silt level kept rising.
Shay pushed forward, keeping her head up. The jagged rocky surface of the top of the tunnel sliced her forehead and blood ran down her face.
Mud and sediment dominated the water now, weighing down her limbs. She fought her way forward, keeping her head up as the water reached her chin.
A few seconds later the water swallowed her. She held her breath and closed her eyes as she struggled on. More sediment dumped into the tunnel, threatening to bury her alive.
Fuck…this…noise.
Shay emerged from the tunnel into the cave entrance. She rolled onto her back and gasped for air before sitting up.
Sand and mud had sealed the tunnel, an invisible wall holding in the water and silt.
“I really have to stop taking jobs that involve deep dives.”
Shay slid the briefcase containing the stone over to the Professor with a smile. “There was a trap, by the way. It wasn’t so simple.”
The elf wasn’t with him this time, and neither was the tension. The rosy-cheeked man who was ready to turn into Father O’Banion after a few more beers had returned.
Smite-Williams took a long draw of his beer. “There’s always something, now isn’t there?”
“You still not gonna tell me what this is all about?”
“If you’re half as clever as I think you are you won’t need me to, Miz Carson.” He winked.
“And Correk?”
“What about Correk?”
“Is he gonna come after me now?”
The Professor barked out a laugh. “And why would he do that?”
“Because I know too much? He had some sort of elven Man-in-Black vibe. I don’t know.” Shay shrugged.
“A lot of people in this world know too much these days.” The Professor clucked his tongue. “The people responsible for holding back the truth of magic were never completely successful anyway. Don’t worry about Correk. I’m sure if you see him again, he’ll have come to help you. If you knew more about him, your opinion might change. He’s a good man.”
“There’s much I don’t know about a lot of the people who try to kill me. A lot of those might be considered good men.”
The Professor scoffed. “Correk’s not going to kill you.”
“Maybe.”
“Paranoia can be useful, Miz Carson, but only to a point.”
She winked. “I’m not dead yet, so it’s been pretty damned useful.”
Shay locked eyes with the Professor, again considering telling him about her stone, but decided against it. If anything, he’d probably already reasoned out that she had a stone and was offering her plausible deniability from Correk and his Elf Mafia buddies or whoever he worked for.
If she admitted to having the stone, he’d probably have to call his Light Elf buddy, and he’d drag her off to whatever passed for an ultramax in Oriceran.
No, some secrets were worth keeping.
The tomb raider slowly stood and shook her head. “Thanks for the money. Except for the whole almost-being-buried-alive thing, it was a pretty easy job.”
“Be well, Miz Carson, and know that every job you do for me does our world a service.”
“Keep paying me and I don’t care.”
A smug smile played across the Professor’s face. “Keep telling yourself that and maybe you’ll eventually believe it.”
An hour later Shay marched straight into the office in Warehouse Two. Osiris hissed at her and she glared at him.
“Don’t tempt me, cat.”
The cat hopped off Peyton’s lap and strolled past Shay with all the arrogance of a reality show contestant.
Peyton looked up from his computer. “I’ve got good news.”
“Tell me it doesn’t involve you verifying that our sprinklers work again.”
He shook his head. “Nope. I was running a comparative analysis on the symbols from your stone with the pictures you sent from the one you recovered from Lake Michigan and the one in the Project Nephilim data.”
“And?”
“I think I might have a possible translation of the first two symbols. Even though the inscriptions are different on the three stones, the first two symbols are the same.”
“Are you shitting me?”
Peyton shook his head. “I’m leaning heavily on some advanced language analysis and code-breaking neural nets that I, ahem, borrowed from the government, and a few other things. I don’t understand the underlying algorithms, but I can still use the programs. I think the government guys couldn’t make much progress because they only had the one sample, but we have three to work with and compare.”
“And what is the translation?”
Peyton licked his lips. “Now, this is all very preliminary—”
“Just spit it the fuck out.”
“Already here,” he announced.
“Already here?”
“Yep. That’s what they say. ‘Already here.’”
Shay stared at the image of the three stones on the screen, her heart pounding. The words could mean a lot of things—and Peyton was relying on translation technology he didn’t understand—but she didn’t believe that changed either the potential message or the implications. There was only one question.
Who was already here?
FINIS
Author Notes - Martha Carr
Written June 16, 2018
Summer has arrived and it’s time to take off those pounds I packed on all winter typing as fast as I could. At the time all that peanut butter and cheese and crackers seemed like a good idea. So quick and convenient. I’m rethinking that one.
Warm weather does that to me every year. I finally get motivated to get up and go outside, move around a little and I take stock of the shape I’m in. Lately, it’s rounder… But not for long!
My life is changing – for the better and
