Shay cycled from the visual band to IR. The display remained blue and black, with no current or residual heat signatures. Durand hadn’t gotten here ahead of her this time.
Doesn’t look like any scaly demons are hiding in there either. Those Brits shouldn’t have let themselves be scared off so easily.
The drone maneuvered deeper into the cave, and Shay switched back to the normal camera mode. She activated the main light on the drone, keeping it a foot under the low, smooth roof of the cave. Loose pebbles and stones lay on the floor, but there were no footprints. Ten feet inside, dramatic proof of something unusual appeared in the form of a solid-gold door.
The door gleamed under the drone’s light, and there was a small flat panel where a handle might usually be.
“Huh. Guess there’s no getting around just going up there, but at least I know there’s something there.”
Shay flew the drone back down and landed it next to the Wrangler. It was time for the annoying part of the job.
After grabbing a helmet with a headlamp from the SUV, she fished her rope and climbing supplies out of her backpack. She needed to find someone to supply her with a levitation ring for the next time she found herself in this sort of situation.
Stupid gnome. I’d ask you, but you’re barely at your shop these days. Your cousin has probably moved to Mars by now because he figured out that Peyton was sniffing around.
“How the hell did the explorers even find this place? Use some magic they didn’t admit to on their map? At least that means Monsieur Artiste Spécialiste de la Récupération won’t be able to reach it.”
The tomb raider smiled. There were no other vehicles in the area, and no other lines or any evidence that anyone had been to this part of the mountain in years. Her drone survey had proved no one else was around, human or monster.
Ha. You don’t even know about this artifact, do you, Durand? Talking all that shit about me being a rookie, but I’m about to grab an alien artifact, or at least proof of aliens, and your precious Nephilim and Ragnarok assholes don’t have a clue.
The smile left her face, and she sighed. She still had to climb the damned mountain.
“Good thing the stupid figurine is small,” Shay muttered to herself. “And I wonder how they even got up to this cave to put in the door? Maybe the aliens put it in.”
The tomb raider kept putting one chalked hand in front of the other as she ascended the steep face of the mountain, anchoring her rope as she went. Her rented Wrangler looked like nothing more than a blue shadow far below her feet. It was only thirty more feet to the cave.
A stiff breeze blew, and Shay took a deep breath. She didn’t fear heights, but her stomach tightened when she looked down.
Shay reached the cave’s ledge and pulled herself up and over.
Good news is at least the climb down will be easier. Thanks, gravity, for not always being a bitch.
She stood and activated her headlamp before striding into the cave. A few feet in she stopped, frowning.
Condensed moisture coated the rocks. She’d seen it with her drone, but she hadn’t considered the implications. Where there was water there was usually life, and she didn’t see a single mushroom or strand of moss. Maybe there were toxins or heavy metals in the rock, or residual alien radiation from centuries prior.
“Should start bringing a Geiger counter, too.”
Shay frowned as she came up to the door. She took a deep breath and placed her palm on the flat panel. Nothing happened.
Guess it’s not some ancient alien panel, or if it is, it’s looking for something I don’t have. Time to try this the old-fashioned way and hope this shit will open.
She pushed on the door, and the bottom scraped against the cave floor. At least it hadn’t been locked. With the aid of her shoulder and a little grunting, the door swung open.
The headlamp revealed a vast cavern choked with long stalagmites and stalactites, almost as if she were inside the jaw of a monstrous stone beast pretending to be a mountain. Unlike the outer cave, the irregular shape of much of the chamber didn’t suggest anything unusual. She’d gone from unnatural to natural-but-unnerving.
Soft dripping and running water echoed from a narrow passageway at the back of the cavern.
Shay didn’t move for a couple of minutes as she continued sweeping the room for any sign of enemies or traps with both her headlamp and the IR and UV modes of her goggles. Nothing. Empty. No humans, no demons. Not even any bugs.
She chuckled.
Sometimes it’s more about just finding the damned place. At least it’s a nice change of pace.
Satisfied with the lack of any killer ancient alien laser death traps or scaly demons, the tomb raider maneuvered through the maze of stalactites and stalagmites to the passageway. The sloping path took her forty feet down and into another chamber.
A deep, cloudy pool of algae-infested water filled the center of the room, the source of which was water steadily dripping from several holes in the wall. The running water noise she’d heard before emanated from the walls above her—a hidden stream.
That mystery was of minor interest. The more obnoxious find was the lack of other exits, or anything looking like the artifact or a container.
Shay stared at the pool of water and groaned. “There’s no way I’m lugging a stupid aquatic drone all the way up here.”
She moved closer to the pool and shined the light into it, but the thick algae blocked any attempts to plumb its depths. She switched to IR mode, but couldn’t spot any major thermal differentials in the water.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
Over the next couple of minutes, Shay removed all gear that
