“I didn’t keep asking and I never told you about the fogous, so how did you find me here?”
“The innkeeper said I’d find you here or at the tavern. You weren’t at the tavern.”
“He just told you where I was?” Jade stopped herself, realizing there was nothing to be gained by hammering at the issue. “Never mind. I wasn’t trying to cut you out of anything, Kellogg. Roche wanted me to find this. That’s what I’m doing. As soon as I figure it out, the book is yours.”
Kellogg spread his hands as if genuflecting. “That’s all I wanted. That, and for you to start calling me Jordan.”
“Quit while you’re ahead.” She shone the light up the length of the tunnel. “Come on let’s get out of—”
She broke off abruptly as she spied movement directly ahead. Something — an animal perhaps, or possibly a person — had drawn back into the shadows at the first touch of light, like a sea anemone shrinking from contact. She turned to Kellogg. “You saw that, yeah?”
“I didn’t…I wasn’t really looking.”
Jade frowned. Another ghost? She didn’t think so. Whatever she had spotted had seemed more substantial. More real. “You bring a date, Kellogg?”
Kellogg’s only answer was a bewildered stare.
Jade was pretty sure no one had seen her enter the fogou, but she doubted Kellogg had been as discreet. Maybe a local farmer or shepherd had spotted him tramping through the woods and followed. She waggled the light back and forth, creating a stroboscopic effect. “Hey you,” she called. “Don’t be shy. Come and say hi!”
Several seconds ticked by. After half a minute, Jade was starting to believe that she had imagined it but then a man stepped fully into view. At least, she assumed it was a man. The build looked decidedly masculine, average height and weight, not overly muscular, but definitely not dainty. The facial features would probably have resolved any remaining doubt about the gender of the new arrival, but those remained mostly hidden behind a black ski mask. That, and the two-foot length of steel pipe in the man’s hand, told her this was no mere curious passerby.
Jade kept her light pointed at the man’s face. The flashlight was an older, low intensity affair, bright enough to irritate but not blind the would-be attacker, but in its glare, Jade could see the man’s eyes, and read the fear written there. This man was no killer, had probably never even been in a serious fight.
Why’d you pick today to start something? Jade thought.
Another figure, similarly attired and equipped, stepped into view behind the first. The second man’s eyes were harder than his companions but only a little. Of the pair, the second man was clearly the instigator, pushing his timid friend forward to ensure that he would not run away.
Jade took a deep breath. “Okay, boys. I’m not sure what this is about…”
She trailed off when she realized that the first man was muttering something. She could just make out the outline of his lips moving under the fabric of his mask, but the words were nonsense. “La-la-la…”
The man abruptly lurched forward, raising his cudgel even though he was still a good ten steps away. Jade took an instinctive step back and bumped into Kellogg who was also retreating. She didn’t need to look behind her to know that there was nowhere to go.
Okay. Fight, then, but with what? It wasn’t like she could just pull a weapon out of thin air.
She straightened her back and widened her stance, trying to remember all the self-defense courses she had taken, all the martial arts instruction Professor and her ex-boyfriend Dane Maddock had tried to impart to her.
Maddock’s new girl was some kind of professional cage fighter.
She’d know what to do, Jade thought mordantly.
The man seemed to be moving in slow motion, as if every step, every action, was being stretched out deliberately to accentuate the dread Jade now felt. She saw his muscles tensing like a clockwork spring being wound tight, and then the subtle shift in his balance as he reversed direction and swung the cudgel at her.
Jade easily side-stepped the attack and thrust outward with both hands, planting the heels of her palms in the man’s chest. A hard shove sent the man stumbling back, his cudgel swiping empty air, yet even as he went reeling, the second man moved in, aiming his pipe at Jade’s head. She tried to duck away, but inertia conspired against her. She had invested too much momentum in repelling the first attacker to change course now. The bludgeoning instrument swung toward her cranium with the precise angle and timing required to deliver a crushing blow, and there was nothing she could do to avoid it.
Something clamped onto Jade’s wrist, pulling her arm taut with such ferocity that Jade thought her shoulder would be dislocated. The violence of the unexpected seizure caused her head to snap sideways. The sound of cracking vertebrae was so loud, she didn’t ever hear the length of pipe whooshing through the space where her head had been only a moment before.
It took her a moment longer to realize what had just happened. Kellogg had yanked her out of the way of the crushing blow. Unfortunately, in so doing, he had also whipped her around and sent her careening into the wall of the fogou.
The impact shuddered through her, rattling her teeth, but it wasn’t as bad as hitting solid stone. The battered rocks shifted like a pile of gravel, and then something broke under her and she spilled forward into a cavity that had been concealed behind the wall. Kellogg, his hand still locked around her wrist, was pulled along with her into the newly opened hole. The flashlight tumbled from her grasp and hit the ground with sufficient force to snuff out the light, plunging the cave and all its newly revealed secrets into darkness.
The darkness offered only a brief respite. A light, probably from a smart phone, flared to life in the circular main chamber, revealing the irregular break in the wall through which Jade and Kellogg had crashed. The light shifted, filling the opening with blinding radiance, forcing Jade to look away, but as she did, Jade realized that the space beyond the wall kept going.
“A tunnel,” Jade gasped. She hoped it was a tunnel at least, and not just a dead end passage. “Come on!”
Jade thought about digging her own phone out for light, but doing so would have served only to give the club-wielding men something to focus on. As long as she and Kellogg could avoid being illuminated, they would be safe.
She started forward, one hand stretched out before her in order avoid colliding with another wall, the other gripping Kellogg’s hand and pulling him along. After a dozen steps, her groping hand encountered something. A wall, but not the dead end she feared. Instead, it was merely the oblique angle of a bend in the tunnel. She shifted direction and continued forward, following the turn. For a few seconds, the darkness was absolute, but then a faint glow from behind signaled that the two attackers were still in pursuit.
The retreat, fumbling along one cautious step at a time, gave Jade time to process what was happening. If the third time was enemy action, then this could only be construed as a declaration of war, yet something about that explanation didn’t ring true. She did not doubt that the disparate events were somehow connected, but each successive link in the chain seemed weaker, as if the enemy was intentionally deescalating the conflict.
The enemy.
Who the hell was the enemy? Islamic extremists? Changelings? Neither felt plausible, but regardless, it was hard to believe that all of the incidents were being carried out by the same group. After disappearing an entire jet full of people, a couple of thugs with crude clubs was almost embarrassingly unsophisticated.