Rogue Angel - Warrior Spirit Part 35

"But maybe if you find the bridge, you're not supposed to go forward." She dragged Ken back to the edge of the chasm where they'd started. "Look!"

Ken squinted and then barely saw what Annja was pointing at. A small crawl s.p.a.ce made to blend into the rock. He glanced back at Annja.

"I guess we go this way," he said.

Annja nodded. "I think so."

35.

Annja led the way as the crawl s.p.a.ce opened down at a sharp angle. "Hold my ankles," she called back to Ken. "It drops off farther ahead."

"Don't get complacent, Annja," Ken said. "That's what has probably killed everyone else."

That and the fact they weren't legitimate heirs to your family, Annja thought. But she kept her wits about her and moved slowly. Every few feet she would stop and close her eyes. Every time she felt a pull to keep going.

The crawl s.p.a.ce emptied out into a large room. Annja didn't step down onto the floor until she'd tested it both physically and using her instincts. Both proved sound, so she slid all the way out of the crawl s.p.a.ce and waited for Ken to join her.

He slid out and shook his head. "I don't know how earthworms do it."

Ahead of them a single door awaited. Annja frowned. "Not much of a choice here, it would seem."

Ken held her back. "Let's exhaust every other possibility before we take the obvious choice."

They spent the next twenty minutes going over every inch of the simple room. They both reached the same conclusion that the door was the only way to proceed, or as Annja reminded them, go backward.

Ken pulled the door open, and a strong updraft greeted them, extinguishing both of their torches and plunging them into absolute darkness.

"Uh-oh," Annja said.

Ken cleared his throat. "Well, I don't suppose you have any matches, do you?"

"Eiji and his boys cleaned my pockets out before we came into the labyrinth. I don't have a sc.r.a.p to work with here," she replied.

Ken dumped his torch. "No sense carrying it along with us if we can't rely on it."

Annja dropped hers, as well. "I guess this is the real test, huh?"

"Yeah. The entire thing has been designed to whittle away at what we use and take for granted on a daily basis. Now we're deprived of the one thing that really makes our conscious mind work against us-our eyesight. If we're to continue on, it will have to be by using our other senses."

"And instincts," Annja said.

"Exactly."

They both paused. Finally, Ken said, "Did you still want to take point?"

Annja laughed and felt Ken brush against her. "What are you doing?"

"Looking for a point of reference."

"That was my b.u.t.t."

"Seemed like a good enough point for me." He chuckled. "Actually, that was an accident. I was looking for the door frame, so at least I know which way we came in." He paused. "You, uh, didn't turn around when you came in, did you?"

"No."

"Good, I'd hate to get started going in the wrong direction."

"You wouldn't get far," Annja said. "You'd run into the walls of the room we came into from the crawl s.p.a.ce."

"Good point."

Annja felt him brush past her again. "You got that reference point?"

"I think I'm ready. But we're going to crawl if that's all right with you."

"Absolutely." Annja got down on her hands and knees.

"Take my ankle," Ken said. "We'll do this the way they do in search-and-rescue situations."

Annja grabbed for his ankle. "Okay."

"Go ahead."

"I just did."

Ken paused. "Annja, hurry up and grab my ankle so we can get going."

Annja squeezed harder. "I have your ankle."

"No," Ken said. "You don't."

NEZUMA STOPPED just short of the door. just short of the door.

He could hear breathing on the side of it. Two distinct breathing patterns, he decided after another minute.

Guards?

Or meditating monks?

He frowned. It didn't really matter. They would have to be killed. They prohibited his access and that simply wouldn't do.

The question was how to get them to open the door.

Nezuma slid back and to the side of the door, checking the entire perimeter of it. It didn't seem to have a lock.

So why not just open it?

He grinned. The two monks on the other side were about to get the surprise of their lives.

He gripped the door handle and pulled.

"ANNJA?"

She felt higher and found skin. Searching for the inside of the ankle, she tried to palpate the skin and detect a pulse.

There was none.

"I think I just found another seeker who didn't quite make it."

Ken scrambled back and b.u.mped into her. "You okay?"

"Just a bit startled. I was going to comment on how cold your leg felt, but then when I realized it was a corpse, I felt better, if you can imagine that."

"Probably better than finding another live person in here with us," Ken said, sounding shaken.

"Yeah."

Ken sniffed. "He hasn't decomposed. Is it stiff?"

Annja nudged the body. "Yeah, definitely rigor mortis but not decomposition. Is that even possible?"

"I don't know. I'm not used to being around the dead."

"Let's move," Annja said. "Staying in the room with a dead body doesn't do much for me."

"Good thing," Ken said. He scrambled back up but not before taking Annja's hand and placing it on his ankle. "You ready?"

"Now I am."

Ken started crawling and Annja followed.

NEZUMA KNELT in the darkness of the room. On either side of him, the bodies of the two monks lay with their necks snapped. He'd decided it wouldn't be good to shoot or stab them. Too much noise and too much blood. in the darkness of the room. On either side of him, the bodies of the two monks lay with their necks snapped. He'd decided it wouldn't be good to shoot or stab them. Too much noise and too much blood.

By snapping their necks, they could still be positioned in such a way that they looked as if they were meditating.

Provided no one examined them too closely.

It ought to buy him some more time.

That was all he needed.

Nezuma stood and stole down the new corridor.

"I'VE HIT A WALL."

Annja came up alongside Ken. She let her hands travel up and over the surface, but she found nothing but solid stone. "Weird."

"How far do you think we crawled?"

"Felt like it had to be at least two hundred feet."

"That's what I thought, too."

Annja sighed. "Have you been checking your internal compa.s.s?"

Ken chuckled. "Good phrase for it. Yeah, I have. And everything seems to indicate this is where we need to be."

"I agree."

"But what is here?" Ken asked.

"Let's check all over the walls and see if we can find something that we'd be able to see immediately if we had light."

She felt Ken's hands on her. "Something's been bothering me," he said.

"What?"

"How did the person back in the room die? We haven't seen anything that I'd say is dangerous for a while now. So what made him die like that? And why hasn't he decomposed?"

"Maybe he's the swamp vampire," Annja said.

"I'm being serious."

"I know. I've been wondering about that, too."

"The only thing I can think of," Ken said, "is that there must be something in here that killed him."