It didn’t matter, he pitied them all equally.
We may not have the numbers, he thought, but we’ve got her.
They splashed through another canal, pushing the outrigger boat and the air tanks, until it hit the bank, around another artificial embankment, and towering walls, some battered and broken in places, torn down by angry vines and merged into thicker rubble.
“You two, go!” Nina hissed, shoving the boat ahead, toward the open bay, as Alexander and Aria scrambled inside. He felt helpless and vulnerable, but then Nina and Jacob were racing back, toward the walls, the trees — and the enemies. Red-laser sights sought them out and stabbed across the debris, dancing off the water, until their targets were sheltered by the protective mangroves.
The beams swung out toward the bay, but Alexander had started the motor, and even at a low thrust, had put some distance between them and the shore. He took Aria’s hand and they ducked below the rim, not taking any chances. She met his eyes, seeing the guilt at leaving their companions, but also the fear — and the urgency.
They had to get below. Had to dive, find the treasure they came here for before it was all too late. And now, given the madness gripping the world, Alexander had the feeling everything depended on it.
On him.
He reached for the tank and the BCDs and started fitting the vest onto Aria when the first helicopter cleared the horizon, stark black and dangerous like a bird of prey, and roared toward them.
Alexander could almost see the pilot’s goggles, and the other man leaning out with a gun. Not wasting another second, he tightened the strap holding her air tank, and pushed Aria (not too gently) over the side. She shook her head, still protesting her inexperience and how she wasn’t ready. The waves had picked up speed in a rising wind as the cloudbanks turned menacing and swallowed up the low, meager sun.
He hoped the darkening sky would provide Nina and Jacob some more cover as they led away the pursuers and bought Alexander time, but he couldn’t think about any of that now. Just like he couldn’t think about Dad, or Aunt Phoebe, Orlando or Uncle Xavier or any of the Morpheus Group.
They had all sacrificed so much and worked so hard to get this far. Everything they’d been through, and it seemed the world was never in more peril.
Something below these waves could change all that. Something untouched for thousands of years maybe. How long? Back to Atlantis — or would it be the other fabled lost continent in this case, Lemuria?
It didn’t matter. Not now, not if they couldn’t evade death from above.
Aria dropped below, mouthpiece clenched between her teeth. She tried to rise, but then the weight of her belt pulled her down and all Alexander could see was her terrified eyes and her splashing hands before they were gone. The reef was around them but deeper. He knew the depth here was anywhere from 50 to more than 200 feet. He recalled the stories of pearl divers harpooning sea turtles and riding them down into the depths. Recalled tales of one (who later died of compression sickness) who had spoken of majestic columns, pyramids and other roads and canals under the depths, partially devoured by the sandy sea floor: an ancient city lost to time.
Alexander would soon find out.
He fit in his mouthpiece, strapped the vest tighter and adjusted the weight belt and his fins and then — as bullets tore into the side of the boat — he launched himself over and after Aria.
Kicking for all his life, he tried to move away from the path of fire and caught up with her quickly as they descended. He held her by the hands, steadying her from dropping too fast — or from rising. They were at twenty feet, and already his ears were tight, his face tightened with the pressure, but he gave a reassuring look to Aria, forcing her eyes on his until she calmed her breathing. He nodded, then pulled a hand free for a ‘thumbs up’ sign.
She mimicked the sign, then looked around and up.
They had to get lower. He could see the shadow of the boat above, and thought he saw bullet trails coming close to where they had dropped into the bay. Fortunately, the strong current had already brought them out and away from the initial descent point.
He reduced the air on her vest, nodding again as she did the same. Then, checking his compass, he pointed down and to the right. Had to at least pretend he knew where they were going, but really this was just a shot in the dark. Literally.
There were stories of this island being riddled with tunnels and underwater caverns, some that might lead to pockets of air, to preserved tombs or storehouses of treasures. The Japanese divers had excavated and supposedly removed hundreds of platinum coffins and other artifacts, as had Kubary, the German explorer whose boat later sank by the Marshall Islands, hundreds of miles to the East.
Aria started moving too fast and too deep, and Alexander had to kick hard to catch up to her. Took her arm and again had her wait for a decompression check, and to calm her breathing before she hyperventilated. Their muscles were working extra hard down here with the strength of the current, but the lower they were descending, the less the strain.
It soon became eerily calm. And darker. He could just barely make out large triangular dark patches floating around gracefully below their feet, and deeper, some outlines of the coral formations, too irregular to be columns, but vaguely reminiscent of monuments and statues. He tried to keep heading to the west as they descended, slower now, with Aria gripping his arm.
The water grew progressively darker as the clouds reigned above, and the light still filtered somewhat, but Aria froze suddenly and kicked back up, just as she turned on the C4-LCD Underwater light she had on her belt and aimed it down. At the black triangular shapes…
Stingrays.
Dozens of them, blanketing the area below. Their eyes and whip tails caught and scattered the beam’s illumination.
The beam trembled as she played the light all over the leathery bodies, as they glided and dipped and ascended to the light, guarding their depths and whatever else lay below. Her free hand instinctively reached for him, caught and clenched his hand.
Maybe it was the fear and adrenaline of the moment. Maybe it was something more.
Alexander had a thought, not much later, that it had to be that. Something more. Something between them. Their attraction, their connection.
It brought out his talent, merged it with hers in a new combination of something stronger.
Something…
…that could tear down walls.
In this case, blue ones.
He remembered his father telling him of the time he almost died in the Alexandrian harbor, after touching a statue head and getting an unbidden vision of ancient Rome; it had been as if his subconscious had been waiting there for the right stimulus to unleash just the right video selection — what he needed to see.
In this case, Aria’s touch spilled over his senses and left his mind so clear, so free, of all but its imminent need.
The entrance. The source, the question:
Where was it hidden?
Some part of his consciousness, the part not overwhelmed with budding excitement and cautionary bliss, knew that wasn’t quite worded in the best question form, thank you Jeopardy, but it was close enough for now.
Close enough to see what effect she had on his sight.
Her own ability to shield others from the Sight — it had to have interacted with his own, counteracting the blocking agent, or maybe he was siphoning the ability, manipulating it and using it to color his own perceptions.
Whatever the cause, it was like he donned a filtered pair of glasses to alter what his normal vision would have shown. Up until now, trying to perceive this place’s ancient past, anything about its construction or its people, resulted in a total blindness manifested as a field of blue.