“Then if you’ll excuse me.” Without waiting for Hall’s response, she turned and began to make haste.
“You’re excused,” he called after her.
She managed to walk away with enough resolve that kept her from making a costly remark, since Obsidian Hall had the emperor’s power of giving a thumbs-down on her life. But that didn’t keep her mind from willfully cursing him with every profane word she could think of.
There was a great divot in the black silica floor where the creature used its tail as a pile driver, smashing the mineral into lumps that were scattered about the chamber. Though it had not broken through, it was close. It rambled around the divot checking its progress, its senses telling it to complete the task by driving its tail up, then down, until a hole was big enough.
With a few powerful intakes through its nostrils, it was able to detect the scent of its prey. Since the thickness of the floor thinned considerably after the constant pounding, it acted as less of a buffer; therefore, their scents seemed stronger and more powerful. But the creature’s mind did not have the mental gymnastics to understand this. It only processed the fact that its prey was nearby.
Ignoring the fact that it had hammered its tail to raw meat in some places, ignoring the fact that the pock marks of the bullet holes were bleeding out slowly, its motivation was paramount.
Raising its head high and expanding its frill to full expansion, the Prisca cried out to keep others away. This was its territory. And it would do anything to defend it.
Circling the divot a few more times, the Megalania Prisca finally set itself, raised its tail high, and brought it down with a crashing blow, causing the first breach in the floor. From the ceiling of the lower chamber, minute particles of black silica began to sprinkle down onto the chamber floor. And then there was a loud crack synonymous with the sound of a fissure racing along the surface of ice, fracturing it. Driven by near madness, the Megalania Prisca was much closer to fulfilling its needs.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“I lost two men for this?” said Butcher Boy. “For some ancient scratches on the wall, a few sculptures and two—” He pointed at the pods “—whatever those things are?”
“Everything you see around you, gentlemen, is priceless,” said Hall.
“Which does us no bloody good,” said Aussie, “since they’re too bloody big and heavy to carry away.”
“Just a small piece of what you see — a memento even, can go for tens of millions on the market. And believe me, gentlemen, there’s a market for everything.”
“It doesn’t mean anything, Hall, if we don’t survive this,” added Butcher Boy.
“Do your jobs, gentlemen. That’s what I paid you for. That’s what we agreed upon.”
“Our bloody agreement is starting to mean less to me. I say we walk away from this.”
“Mr. Aussie, you have two million of my dollars sitting in your bank account with the promise of an additional three. You walk away when I say you walk away. That was the term of our contract.”
“What bloody parts about it meaning less to me did you not understand?”
“You job is to see that I survive. That’s what you agreed to the moment you accepted my money. The terms were clear, unhidden, and you had the opportunity to back away. But you didn’t. You were so confident in your abilities that you opted to nail your worthless souls to the Devil’s altar.”
Aussie retracted his KA-BAR combat knife. “Perhaps I should cut your bloody throat right here,” he said through clenched teeth.
Hall was genuinely frightened. Aussie was never a paper lion when it came to making threats. He held his hand up against Aussie’s advance. “But you knowingly agreed to the terms of the contract under a soldier’s honor.”
Aussie stopped. “That I did, mate.” He sheathed the knife. “But we signed the contract because you didn’t tell us about any of this. You said it was an easy job.”
“Just keep me alive, gentlemen, take a little piece of Eden, a small token, and I promise to find you a market.” His voice was trembling, his confidence lost. “It’ll be worth your while, I promise.”
Aussie gave him a sidelong glance with his disfigured eye. “We ain’t miracle workers,” he said. “We’re running low on ammo and all we know is that we have to go back up to get out of here — past those things.”
For a moment their gazes kept. Then Aussie waved a hand dismissively at Hall and said “Aaah,” before walking away.
Hall’s shoulders deflated, the tension melting away.
“Don’t get too comfortable,” said Butcher Boy. “We’re not out of this yet.” And then he left the billionaire alone, the man standing apart from everyone feeling horribly vulnerable for the first time in his life. So he decided to join the others, whereas there was always safety in numbers.
She could tell that John Savage wanted to tell her something, since he gave her a single nod about something she understood to be positive. So she gave him a covert thumbs-up, her hand by her side, only for him to see, the gesture asking if everything was OK.
He gave a small inclination of his head.
And they had to do this as Butcher Boy and Aussie entered their circle of light by the pods. “Odd things they are,” said Aussie, slapping a hand on one pod, which brought Alyssa to wince. “It’s as bloody ‘ard as a stone, it is. Looks like bloody marble.”
“It’s not,” she countered.
“Then what is it?”
“Some type of composite. I’m not sure yet.”
“And ‘ere I am thinking this was a burial chamber with mounds of gold for the taking. It ain’t anything but a bloody museum.”
“It’s more than just a museum, Mr. Aussie, if that’s even your bloody name.”
He took her mimic of the word ‘bloody’ as a jab. “Don’t get cute with me, Missy.”
“Look around you,” she said. “This is the cradle of mankind. This is Eden. A remarkable civilization with a magnificent planetarium, with walls that make up an incredible library that predates history with messages and information—”
“Which I don’t bloody care about,” he told her forcefully. “I came ‘ere for a treasure of some sort — perhaps a trinket or a bauble. Something that could give me a life I always dreamed about — to be anybody but who and what I am.”
A strange silence passed between them. It was the first time she’d seen Aussie exposed, to hear him admit that he wanted to be something more, if not better, than what he was. Their eyes connected. And she could see that he was not ashamed of his admittance. She even considered it to be a catharsis, perhaps the beginning of some kind of cleansing.
When Aussie looked away, the pink part of his eye glistened against the shine of the lamp, throwing off a spangle of light. And then he waited for a moment as if deliberating before heading off into the shadows.
“Be careful,” cried Butcher Boy. But Aussie didn’t respond.
“He’s a man of many moods,” Savage stated rhetorically.
Butcher Boy accepted it as such while his attention was mainly focused to the pods. “Ms. Moore — there at the bottom of this shell,” he said, pointing. “It’s very faint. But something’s there. Do you see it?”
She did see something. It was the sparse markings of ancient writing. She hunkered down and wiped a hand across the characters, drawing dust away. There were six symbols.
“Can you read it?” asked Savage.
“I can certainly figure it out,” she said. “I recognize the symbols enough to piece them together.” She immediately checked out the second pod and cleared away the dust. It also had symbols, but there were only four and they were of different markings.
“More riddles?” Butcher Boy asked. His trust for the temple had obviously waned by the way he sounded suspicious.