She brought up her binoculars and watched the Escalade. The vehicle remained still.
“Come on, asshole. Take the fucking bait. Just assume I’m some stupid gringo who got lost and come over to save me or kill me or whatever you have planned. I don’t have time for twenty questions or a gun fight.”
Shay licked her lips. The dry air surrounding her continued to draw all the moisture out of her body.
The Escalade swerved to the right and peeled off toward the drone’s location.
Shay quietly golf clapped. “And the Oscar goes to Shay Carson for best use of a drone in a chase scene.”
Shay drove on through the desert, this time without a tail and parked her Land Rover a hundred miles further west. She hadn’t spotted anyone else following her for a while and a quick check with binoculars only confirmed that. She didn’t want to risk sending a drone up into the sky for a larger survey. There were few things that screamed “I AM HERE, ASSHOLES” more than a drone suddenly flying around the middle of nowhere. After all, she’d depended on that logic to bait her pursuers.
The terrain had become impassable even for her four-wheel-drive vehicle, meaning the last leg of her journey involved a combination of climbing and hiking.
“This is why I train on the course,” Shay muttered.
No convenient mountain path presented itself as she closed in on the coordinates. Now that she was farther up the mountains, the cacti had given way to sparse shrubs and bushes. She wasn’t seeing much life of any kind, other than the occasional lizard scuttling away from her or a buzzard circling in the distance.
“I’m not dead yet, motherfuckers,” Shay said, after seeing her fourth buzzard. She flipped off the bird. “You don’t get an early meal.”
Her sunglasses and safari hat spared her eyes most of the sun, but even her light clothing could only do so much to protect her from the heat. The cold waters of the alpine lake were looking rather nice in comparison.
Sweating as she gave thanks one more time for those hard workouts in Warehouse One, Shay finally reached a sheer cliff leading to a deep canyon. A small ledge protruded from the cliff wall about one hundred feet down. She looked up at the rock face easily picking out small handholds and picturing the direction she would need to take.
“You’ve got this, tomb raider.”
Chapter Thirteen
Shay let out a quiet cheer as her feet landed on the ledge. A frown quickly followed as she glanced over her shoulder into the distance where the setting sun painted the sky an intense orange-red.
Temperature’s about to do a radical drop on me. Fair enough, I saw this coming. I won’t be getting back to town before dark.
Shay may have become a tomb raider, but the part of her that was used to being a calculating killer still assessed every situation, looking for the flaws. There was a constant checklist running in her head when she was on a job.
She wasn’t standing in front of an obvious opening to a cave. That would have been too much to expect. That was the hard lesson Shay was learning on the job.
A shimmering field covered the narrow entrance, fading from opaque to translucent. She picked up a pebble and tossed it at the field. Nothing happened.
Just don’t start an earthquake, please.
She reached out with a gloved hand to touch it. Again, nothing happened.
“Huh… promising...”
Shay took a deep breath and held it as she stepped through the field. No burning pain or piercing noises. She didn’t get turned into a harpy or flung into the cavern. As far as she could tell, nothing happened.
Okay, that’s… not what I expected, but not going to complain about not getting zapped with magic.
She reached into her pocket to pull out her phone. Fuck me. The phone is off. Several attempts to turn it on failed. She’d charged it in the car and used low-power mode on her hike to ensure she would have plenty of power remaining.
Furrowing her brow, Shay reached down to a belt pouch and grabbed a small electric flashlight. She flipped it on, but no beam came out.
“Okay, perfect. Some sort of electrical dampening field or some shit. Found the magic.” She considered her options calmly. Her AR goggles would be useless, and if she moved too far away from the cave mouth, she’d lose the remaining light.
With few options, Shay walked farther into the narrow cave. The sound of something scratching the wall echoed from deeper in the cave.
Son of a bitch… What the fuck was that?
Shay pulled out her gun in one swift, smooth motion.
At least this baby doesn’t require any electricity.
The scratching grew in volume as she lifted her weapon. Her eyes widened, despite her training as a writhing black mass rushed right toward her. She squeezed off several rounds, only to be greeted by a choir of inhuman shrieks. The mass closed in on her.
At least I’m not dying in my fucking kitchen.
Her heart thundering, she dropped down, hoping to avoid the attack. Shrieks echoed over the narrow cave. As it poured over her the sound broke up into a pattern of high pitched squeaks along with another noise… the flutter of wings. Shay lay on her back, watching as a continuous stream of hundreds of bats rushed overhead and out of the cave in the waning light.
“Beautiful…” she whispered.
The horde of bats exited the cave as Shay sat up and rose to her feet, her core muscles taut as she whispered, “thank you” that so many animals flew over her without one of them crapping on her. It’s the small things.
It was getting difficult for Shay to see her hand in front of her face. She fished out a thin, flashlight that easily fit in a small pocket carried for just this kind of occasion.
