James Rollins - Excavation

“Scouts,” Sam said. “They’ve spotted us and are calling for reinforcements.” Sam kept going, swinging his Winchester backward, and fired off one round. It was a blind shot. The bullet rebounded off the wall and bounced between the tomb walls to either side. Something yelped past the reach of their light.

Norman mumbled with grim satisfaction, “You’ve really got to watch those damn ricochets.”

Shouldering the rifle, Sam hauled the photographer with him. The Winchester had only one shot in the chamber, then Sam would have to reload – which meant stopping. They would not survive the delay.

A voice called from down the street, drawn by his rifle blast. “Sam! Hurry! I have a way inside the statue!” It was Maggie. He spotted her small form at the end of the street, outlined in torchlight.

“Then get inside! Now!” Sam hollered back.

“Just move your asses! Don’t worry ’bout me!”

Norman glanced at the mass of beasts upon their tail. “Personally I was worrying more about them,” he said sourly.

Lungs on fire, legs burning, Sam forced them to a faster pace. He fought to close the distance with Maggie. He was now close enough to see her eyes widen at the sight of the company pursuing them.

“Holy shit,” she said. “Hurry!” She ran toward them.

“Get back!” Sam gasped.

But she ignored him. She raced toward them with Denal at her heels. As Maggie drew near, she waved the gold dagger overhead and whistled a piercing note, a sheepherder calling his dogs.

What the hell did she think she was doing?

Sam glanced anxiously behind him. The forefront of the pale legion tumbled from the rooftops onto the street, almost at his heels. Sam shoved Norman forward and swung to face the coming onslaught with the single shell in his Winchester.

Maggie appeared at Sam’s side. “Don’t!” She shoved his rifle down and stepped forward. She brandished the long blade.

“Maggie!” But to Sam’s shock, the squabble of creatures skidded to a stop, claws scraping rock. Black eyes were fixed on the knife. Even overhead, the scouts backed from the roof’s edge, retreating. Those caught on the street crouched against the sight of the blade. They scrabbled slowly away.

Maggie indicated their party should do the same. “I don’t know how long their fear will overwhelm the hunger for fresh meat.” Maggie glanced at their group with concerned eyes. “Where’s Ralph?”

“Dead,” Norman said softly.

“Oh, God, no…” Maggie muttered, returning to guard the group with the dagger.

Sam kept at Maggie’s shoulder. He glanced between the knife and the huddled pack. “Why do they fear it?”

“I don’t know,” Maggie answered tightly, voice strained with the news of Ralph. “Right now, all I care is that it works.”

Sam agreed with her, but he could not keep his mind from working on the beasts’ odd reaction. He remembered his earlier assessment that the creatures might be some inbred line of ape or prehistoric man, cave creatures the Incas had discovered down here and had revered as mallaqui , underworld spirits. But why would they fear this old Incan dagger?

Sam frowned, sensing he was still far from the true answer to the mysteries here. But as Maggie had said, the first thing a good researcher did when investigating something strange was to survive.

To either side, the line of tombs suddenly vanished. They had reached the central plaza.

“Around here,” Maggie said, finally turning her back on the mass of creatures crouched down the street. She quickly led them to the door he had noticed earlier. Skirting around the heel, Sam saw the way now lay open.

“How did you manage to unlock it?” Sam asked.

Maggie passed him back the dagger. “It seems the weapon is also an all-purpose skeleton key. It changed to match this lock, too.”

“You’re kidding?” Sam flipped the dagger back and forth, examining it. “How did you get it to work?”

Maggie’s brows furrowed. “That’s the thing. I don’t truly know.”

Panting and wheezing, Norman pushed beside them, leaning on Denal now like a human crutch. “We’ve got company!” he gasped out, pointing back.

Sam turned. The pale beasts had begun to creep again from the shadowed streets and into the central plaza. Low growls began to flow. Sam herded everyone through the doorway in the golden heel. “It seems their hunger is winning out.”

Maggie ducked in. “Hurry, Sam! Help me with the door!”

Without turning from the slathering pack, Sam backed to the narrow entry. As he struggled through, his rifle’s strap caught on the door’s hinge. Sam yanked on it, but only jammed the leather strap tighter. “Goddammit!”

Sensing his distress, one of the creatures bounded forward, growling and snarling, all teeth and claw. A soldier. As it neared, it hissed at Sam, drool foaming from its mouth, and swiped a razored claw at his throat.

Ducking back, Sam parried the attack with the gold dagger. The knife struck pale flesh, but it was a pinprick in a bull. The creature heaved up, screaming its rage. Blood splattered Sam from the injury, while he fought to unhook the rifle.

“Leave it!” Maggie yelled.

“It’s our only weapon!” With one hand on his rifle, Sam kept the gold dagger between himself and his adversary. Other pale beasts squealed and cried behind the injured one. They had smelled the blood.

Sam met the eyes of the creature looming over him. In those black wells, Sam sensed a dark intelligence. It raised its injured arm, red blood drizzling down its pale flesh from the knife wound. A low growl of hate seeped from its throat. Sam tensed for the blow.

But instead the beast suddenly jerked away as if it were a marionette directed by some unseen hand. The raised arm blackened, starting from the clawed hand, then spreading down the arm like a flaming poison. Wisps of smoke trailed up from the limb. Howling in pain, the creature crashed backward into its brethren. Its arm, now charred, crumbled and fell away to ash, but still the burning spread. The beast rolled on the stone floor. In mere seconds, its pale torso and other limbs blackened to match the granite beneath it. Smoke swirled around the writhing figure; even spats of flame shone through cracks in its flesh.

Sam knew what he was witnessing. The rare phenomenon had been documented in the past, but never witnessed: Spontaneous combustion .

Stunned, Sam backed away, his rifle forgotten. Without him tugging any longer, the gun simply clattered to the floor. He left it where it fell, brandishing the dagger instead.

Beyond the doorway, the pale creatures retreated from their charred brother. The large beast lay unmoving, a sculpture of ash upon the stone floor.

Maggie crouched and grabbed the Winchester’s stock and dragged it into the small chamber with them. “Help me with the door.”

Sam nodded dully. He glanced at the gold dagger, then slipped it carefully into his belt. With his hands free, he joined Maggie in hauling the heavy door closed. Once shut, it snapped tight, the lock clicking in place.

Maggie leaned against the silver entry. “We should be safe now.”

Suddenly the floor under them rumbled. Everyone tensed.

“Great, you had to say that,” Norman whined, his eyes on the floor.

Under their feet, a deep-throated gurgling arose. It sounded like the rush and churn of a mighty river beneath the floor. The sound grew deafening, echoing up the hollow statue overhead.

“What the hell is that?” Maggie asked.

“Another trap!” Sam yelled.

“This way,” Abbot Ruiz said, turning and walking down the long, sleek hallway.

Henry hung back as the abbot continued their tour of the research complex beneath the Abbey of Santo Domingo. Joan, her street clothes now masked in sterile white laboratory coveralls, walked alongside the large man, while Henry marched beside the stoic-faced Friar Carlos, who watched the group from under lowered lids, suspicious and vigilant. The foursome, now all dressed in matching white lab suits, seemed part of the research team that manned the suites of laboratories. Only the 9mm Glock carried in Carlos’s tight fist suggested otherwise.