Good news is, I know I’m in the right spot.
Shay did her best to ignore the half-decayed waterlogged corpse just yards away from her as she carefully searched the area for any hint of the figurines. With only her two lights available, she decided on a systematic approach. She started a few yards above the body, and inch by inch moved her head and hand to illuminate a new stretch of wall.
The seconds ticked along until they were minutes. Plenty of rocks, but nothing shiny.
Wonder how the client knew it was here? Did they do an aquatic drone survey first?
Shay snickered, thinking that might have been a good idea. Going to Lake Toplitz the second time with a team and being more deliberate with her exploration hadn’t been the worst thing in the world. Not every tomb raid might lend itself to that sort of strategy, but she’d fallen into a pattern of trying to get in and out at maximum speed.
It did help reduce her run-ins with assholes like Yulia, but whether she was killed by an ice spear or crushed by logs, she would be just as dead in the end.
Something shone in the beam of her wrist light.
What do we have here?
Shay glanced between the shining material and the body. A few yards. He’d almost found the treasure but then ended up dead in some cave in Oregon.
Was it a good or a bad way to die? She didn’t know, but she’d prefer not to die either in her kitchen from a gunshot wound or from running out of oxygen in a cave anytime soon.
Dying’s easy. Living’s the hard part.
She let go of the line and swam toward the source of the shine. Closer to it now, she could identify the mud-encrusted arm of a small figurine.
Okay, that’s one. Good start.
The tomb raider carefully dug a small golden figurine out of the mud and rock. She did her best to wipe off some of the grime, but her thick gloves and the conditions made it difficult.
The small golden figurine was crude in design, but identifiably humanoid with pointed ears. Any doubts Shay’d had about it being merely stylized were erased by the crude etchings on the body. She couldn’t read the words, but she recognized some of the shapes. It wasn’t elf script, but rather Gnomic from what she could tell. She deposited the figurine in a mesh bag clipped to her belt.
Gnomes sure get around. Or maybe this is just the Oriceran equivalent of a copyright notice.
The next agonizing ten minutes passed as she carefully scraped and pulled around the area. She was just about to give up when she found the corner of another figurine. It was larger, and maybe it was just her recent trip to the Great Treaty, but she thought it looked a lot like a Kilomea. Again, something resembling Gnomic script was written on it.
I need to wrap this up sooner than later. Don’t want to be hanging out down here and worried about reserve oxygen.
Shay continued her excavation near the previous finds. It took fifteen minutes of careful work before she found the edge of the last figurine. She lost a few more minutes of oxygen freeing it: a thin humanoid with four arms.
Jackpot.
A satisfying smugness settled over the tomb raider as she slipped the figurine into her bag. When she looked up, her heart nearly stopped. Huge cracks had spread from her digging site.
Shit. Need to get out of here.
The wall collapsed, sending a wave of mud and rock straight toward Shay. She kicked her legs to send herself back toward her safety line, but debris pinned her against the cave wall, much like the poor corpse of the other tomb raider. The latest cave shift sent his body tumbling into the darkness below.
Shay stretched reaching toward the white line in the dark water.
Just a few more inches, damn it.
Even though most of the rock and dirt had continued into the depths, if she couldn’t get to the line she didn’t think she’d be able to pull herself out of the rock and mud holding her in place. The cave would gain a new body for the next tomb raider to gawk at.
Come on, come on. I can do this.
Shay’s fingers reached the line, and then she got her hand around it. She tugged and managed a firm grasp with both hands.
Three…two…one.
With a push and a yank at the same time, her foot wrenched free, and she immediately started swimming back up. She didn’t look down until she was only waist deep in the stagnant water of the upper cave.
Shay pulled her mask off and bent over, taking deep breaths. She’d been deep underground by herself with not even Peyton on comm. If she hadn’t been able to free herself, she would have been dead in less than an hour, once her air ran out.
Shit, that was too damned close.
She straightened up and shook her head. It was always too damned close, whether it was an army of cursed invisible swordsmen, frogmen, French retrieval specialists, or possessed elves with alien stones.
The tomb raider burst out laughing. Her life was insane, and the only thing she could do was enjoy every minute of it.
Chapter Eighteen
Shay settled into a loveseat in her living room, stifling a slight yawn. It was just as she’d predicted. She’d been able to do the entire job including the delivery in a single day. It wasn’t huge money by her standards, but the job, other than running into the corpse, had been almost an errand more than a tomb raid.
Yeah, I can say that because I didn’t drown. Then again, if I had, I would have been dead.
With James in Las Vegas checking on some Brownstone Agency business with the local police, it left her with an open
