Bones wasn’t sure he bought her explanation, but he let it go.
“Want me to go down and look for him?” Grizzly asked.
“Yeah, headfirst,” Bones said.
Grizzly tilted his head, a slight frown creasing his brow. Then he laughed. “You always trip me up with your sense of humor.”
“I imagine a lot of things trip you up.” Bones still couldn’t quite believe that the cryptid hunter whom he’d so admired had turned out to be such a disappointment. Sure, the guy knew his monsters, but in every other area, he was woefully lacking. With a wry shake of his head, he turned his attention to Isla. “You going to be all right?”
“I think so. But if something happens to Maddock, I don’t know what I’ll do.”
Suspicion flared inside him. Had things between her and Maddock gone farther than he’d thought? Surely not. Maddock had returned from her room after only a few minutes the night before. No time for anything serious to happen.
“Chick, you hardly know him.”
“I just meant because I got you two into this,” she said much too quickly.
“Relax, we’re free agents. When it comes to our work, that is.” He cast a meaningful glance at her, and she lowered her head.
“I think we can get down there,” he said, shining his light down the well. “It only drops a couple of feet below where the floor was, and then it looks like it angles out. Might be like a water slide going down, which could be dangerous. Maybe you two should wait here while I check it out.”
Isla gave a firm shake of her head. “I’m going too.”
“Me, too,” Grizzly added. “The treasure is down there, and maybe the monster. That’s where I need to be.”
“Great,” Bones said. “Just stay behind me and try not to slip. If you come crashing down on top of me, I’ll be highly pissed.”
A dark sense of foreboding creeping over him, Bones lowered himself into the well.
Chapter 28
Maddock careened down the steep passageway. He grabbed for a handhold, tried to use his feet to slow his fall, but he could find no purchase on the water and grime-slicked stone surface. Worn smooth by the passage of water and time, the channel down which he slid was like a tube. He slid along the slimy rock, oddly unaware of how fast he was moving in the pitch darkness. Bones would think this was a blast, he thought.
And then he hit level ground. It happened so suddenly he scarcely had time to protect his head before he was tumbling across a rough stone floor. His body found every bump in the uneven surface, and then he crashed into a solid wall. Sparks flashed as his head struck rock, and hot pain coursed through him.
“I don’t even have Grizzly to blame for this,” he muttered to no one.
He lay there, flat on his back, arms and legs splayed out, breathing heavily. He concentrated on listening to the messages his body was sending him. Which parts were injured and how badly? He’d wrenched his back, but he thought his spine was uninjured. He checked it by wiggling his fingers and toes. At least, it felt like they wiggled; he couldn’t see an inch in front of his face in the pitch black. Next, he flexed his arms and legs. Everything seemed okay there as well. After a quick head-to-toe assessment, he diagnosed himself with a bump on the head, a few bruised ribs, and a similarly injured kneecap.
Satisfied that he was going to live, he decided it was time for action. His hand found the wall next to him, and he rose to his feet. A wave of dizziness washed over him, but he managed to remain standing. Maybe the blow to the head was worse than he thought. He sucked in a few deep breaths and waited for the dizzy spell to pass.
“Okay,” he said, “no light, and no idea what’s down here. I guess I can find the tunnel and try to crawl back up, or I can wait and see if Bones and the others come down.”
The decision was taken out of his hands when he heard Bones’ voice echo through the chamber.
“Hooooly craaaap!” Bones rumbled. And then, “Everybody make yourselves into a ball!”
“Wish I’d thought of that,” Maddock muttered.
And then he heard a soft thumping sound and his feet flew out from under him as something, rather someone, crashed hard into his legs. He hit the ground hard, the wind forced out of him, as new spears of pain lanced through his side. And then, one after another, two more bodies crashed into him.
“Seriously?” he gasped. “Not one of you managed to avoid hitting me?”
“Maddock? Are you all right?” He felt Isla’s hand on his cheek, her breath damp on his neck. As if of its own volition, one of his hands found hers and gave it a squeeze, but she jerked it away. “Just checking,” she snapped.
Still angry about last night, I suppose.
And then a light blossomed in the darkness.
“That was actually kind of fun,” Bones said. “Except for the part where Maddock kicked me in the head.”
“Kicked you?” Maddock said, still regaining his breath. “You three treated me like a bowling pin.”
“Yeah, but I’m the one who managed to pick up the spare. Can you stand?”
Maddock nodded and allowed his friend to haul him to his feet. Everything hurt. Bones returned Maddock’s belongings to him, and Maddock added his own light to the one Bones held. A moment later, Isla and Grizzly clicked on their flashlights. After the pitch black, the cavern now seemed bright as day.
It was a domed chamber, maybe thirty feet across. Up ahead, a wide opening led into a dark passageway beyond. And all around the entryway lay…
“Skeletons!” Isla gasped.
Human bones lay scattered across the floor. The beam of Maddock’s light fell upon a skull; its open mouth and empty eye sockets appeared to gape at him, as if shocked by this intrusion into its final resting place. Here and there he saw bits of leather and fabric, metal buttons, and rusted weapons.
“Who were they?” Grizzly asked.
“And who killed them?” Isla added.
Maddock moved closer to examine one of the skeletons that remained mostly intact.
“I don’t think it’s a question of who,” he said, “but what. Look at this guy.”
The others moved in around him for a closer look.
“His left foot is gone like it was bitten clean off. Same with his right hand.”
“Why do you say ‘bitten’?” Isla whispered.
“It’s too clean. If either were hacked off with, say, a sword, or blown off by a gunshot, you’d see shattered bone, fragmentation, crushing.”
Grizzly swallowed hard, let out an audible gulp. “Couldn’t a sword slice through cleanly?”
“The right sword, wielded by the right man, striking the right place, maybe. But look how high up on the leg it’s severed. See the thickness of the bone? Something powerful sliced through this man’s leg like it was nothing.”
“Hold on,” Grizzly said. “I can’t believe that Nessie is a killing machine. I just can’t. There’s no record of her attacking anyone.”
“Except the German soldiers on the U-boat,” Bones said.
“Remember the clue?” Isla prompted. “The beastie guards the treasure. Maybe when the monster’s down here it’s more… territorial?”
“It looks like these bodies have been down here a while,” Maddock said. “It looks like this guy was wearing a tunic.” He pointed first to the moldering remains of a loose-fitting, knee-length shirt clinging to the skeleton, and then to the claymore, its blade pitted with rust, lying nearby. “But the well, and the false bottom were built long after these guys died.”
“So the Tuatha chose a cavern where the beastie lives as the place to hide their treasure,” Bones said. “Makes sense.”