THEY WERE LESS THAN half a mile away from Blackpool. Stay with it, Molly urged herself. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other.
The voices grew steadily louder behind them, like hounds closing in for the kill.
“They’re catching up.” Lydia was approaching another full-blown panic.
“We’re almost home.” Michael still held on to her elbow and propelled her at greater speed than she could have managed on her own. “Just keep thinking that.”
The stairs at the end of the tunnel came up suddenly and Molly couldn’t stop herself in time. She tried to leap onto them but slipped off one and turned her ankle painfully. Her hands broke her fall as her flashlight skidded away. Her chin banged against the steps in front of her and bright lights exploded behind her eyes. The impact knocked the wind from her lungs.
“Molly!” Michael rushed forward and tried to help her to her feet.
Managing her panic, Molly fought to suck in a breath. “I’m fine.” Brushing his hands away, she stood, embarrassed at her inelegance. But in the next moment, she chided herself for feeling embarrassed given the situation they were in. She picked up the flashlight and scanned the steps.
They led up to an arched doorway someone had built a long time ago. Most of the stones were rubbed smooth by frequent passage, and two of them were missing, resembling vacant teeth.
“Can you carry on?”
“Yes.” Molly shone her light inside the small room. The space was almost square, as long as it was tall. All four walls contained narrow doorways that looked just like the one she’d stepped through.
“You’re bleeding, love.” Tenderly, Michael pulled up his shirttail and blotted her face.
The effort stung sharply enough that Molly drew back.
“Sorry.” Michael kissed her forehead. “Now, let’s see what you’ve discovered.”
“We don’t have time.” The sound of the approaching men grew louder in Molly’s ears.
“Molly, we have to take time.” He didn’t look at her while he was speaking. His light moved incessantly around the walls of the room. “We’ve already heard about Charles Crowe’s nasty little penchant for traps from the local spelunkers.”
The tunnel explorers around Blackpool attributed the traps to Charles Crowe’s efforts to hide his treasure, but that didn’t mean they were all of Crowe’s design.
Molly immediately grasped what Michael was getting at. “And there’s no reason why this place would have been constructed with so much attention to detail.”
Michael nodded. “Down one or more of those passageways, I’d be willing to wager that Charles Crowe left some deadly little surprises.”
Excitement flared inside Molly, but it paled in comparison to the fear that writhed within her. She didn’t know how much time they had before Draghici and his thugs found them. “It can only mean we’re close to Charles Crowe’s ultimate hiding place.”
“That’s insane.” Lydia went to one of the passageways and peered into the darkness. “There is no treasure. If there had been, the family would have found it long ago.”
“I didn’t say there was a treasure.” Michael studied the walls, then lifted his light to the ceiling. “I said there was a hiding place.” He paused, then shifted the light and reached up to brush at the accumulated dust and lampblack. “Well, hello.”
Michael’s fingers trailed over the ceiling, following an engraved line he’d found there. He slipped the Leatherman multitool from his pocket and opened a Phillips screwdriver attachment. His renewed scraping produced a cloud of dust and debris that coated his face and he had to stop occasionally to wipe stray bits from his eyes.
When he finished, though, the image of a bird in full flight was revealed.
“What is that?” Michael scrubbed at his tear-streaked eyes and tried to focus.
“Definitely a bird.” Molly studied the carving. “If I had to guess, I’d say it’s a crow.”
Michael smiled. “Narcissistic bugger, wasn’t he?”
“I thought we’d already established that.” Lydia screamed.
When Molly swiveled her light back she saw that Lydia had gone through one of the doors and into the passageway.
Lydia screamed again.
The men’s voices out in the tunnel quieted, and Molly knew they must have heard Lydia’s cries. The sounds of their approach redoubled.
Michael strode into the passageway with the pistol in his fist. “Lydia?”
“Here. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself.”
Molly stepped in behind Michael and peered down the tunnel. Lydia leaned against one of the walls and shook as she silently cried. She had her left forearm pressed against her mouth. Tears cut tracks down the dust that coated her face.
On the floor, a skeleton knelt with an iron spear shoved through the empty space where his guts should have been. Enough remnants of clothing remained to identify him as male, or a female dressed as a man. The spear had come out from the wall and a tumble of rock blocked further passage.
Michael put the pistol in his waistband and knelt down to examine the skeleton.
Lydia peeled herself off the wall and came running to Molly, who wrapped her arms around the young woman. “Michael?”
“In a moment. If there’s something here to learn, we may need to know it.”
FROM THE CUT OF THE CLOTHING, Michael ruled out the dead man being from Charles Crowe’s time. The clothing was at least fifty or so years later. A suit, from the looks of it. Definitely not an expensive one, but no one these days wore a suit to go spelunking in.
Sorting through the man’s pockets, Michael found nothing. Whatever personal possessions he’d had on him had vanished. Probably one of Draghici’s little band had found the skeleton while wandering the tunnels. Or maybe a spelunker from earlier times.
Moving the torch around, Michael spotted the skeletal hand of another victim sticking out from the tumble of rock. Charles Crowe certainly hadn’t played around with his vicious death traps. Behind this second victim was a dead end.
Red eyes gleamed in the shadows of the rocks. Rats. Michael hoped the little beasts didn’t choose to put in an appearance. Molly wouldn’t react well to their intrusion.
Just as he started to get up, the torchlight caught something inside one of the dead man’s boots. With two fingers, he carefully removed a small leather-bound journal.
“Michael.”
“Coming. Just give me a moment.”
“Draghici and his men know where we are. Hurry!”
Entranced, Michael opened the journal and found two pencils, a fountain pen that had long gone dry and a narrative written in ink in a precise hand.
This journal belongs to Elliott Crane of Leister, England, Intrepid Explorer and Discoverer of all Lost Secrets.
The first entry was logged 26 December, 1936.
Dearest Glinda,
I do hope you enjoy your little gaff. All the fellows thought the idea of you giving me an “explorer’s” journal quite the joke. At my expense. So it only stands to reason that I dedicate my first entry to you. However, I will have you know that my forays into abandoned or neglected bits of history might one day provide us with a means of support after we are married. Also, since I know that you will always avail yourself of this book anytime you’ve an inclination to, I will also say—
“Michael!”
Michael closed the journal and shoved it into his pocket. He darted back to Molly and Lydia. “Sorry.”
The approaching men sounded much nearer now.
Molly shone her torch over the remaining two tunnels. “Do you think these have traps?”
“Definitely. Charles Crowe wouldn’t have wanted anyone to find what he’d hidden.”
“So we have a fifty-fifty chance of picking the right one. Do you feel lucky?”
“Lucky?” Michael stared at the two openings and considered how hard Crowe had worked to maintain his secrets. The wily old pirate and slave trader hadn’t wanted anyone to know his business. He’d even dug the communications hole to the passageway to give his men a faster response time.
The man had been a master at planning and misdirection.
“Michael?”
“Give me a minute, love.”
“We don’t have a minute.”
Still absorbed in the thread of thought he was following, Michael looked at Molly. “Think about it. Charles Crowe was a gamesman. He liked puzzles and challenges.”
“Draghici and his men are coming.”
“Take this room. Look at how it’s designed. The formation isn’t natural.” Michael waved his torch around the room. “This is a deliberate bit of theatrics. What was the first reaction you had when you entered this room?”
Molly gazed into his eyes and he knew she was making an effort to figure out where he was going. “I thought that this was the entrance to his hiding place.”
Michael smiled tightly. “Yes. And I believe that it is.” He pointed at the two unexplored passageways. “I also believe both of those hold only death traps. Crowe wouldn’t leave the path to his secret stash open for someone to find. He’d be much more devious about it.” He tilted his head. “In a game, I’d do the same. But I’d provide clues for the player to find.”
“There are no clues.”
“Aren’t there?” Michael took out the Leatherman multitool again and started scratching at the ceiling. “Why show the picture of a crow?”
“To make a statement.”
“Sure. But also to draw attention to it.” When the tool failed to uncover anything, Michael’s nerves tightened. He was certain only death awaited them down the passages, but Draghici and his men wouldn’t be any more generous. “This crow is flying.”
“Up?”
“That’s what I’m hoping.”
Lydia stood in Molly’s shadow and gazed upward. She whispered hoarsely when she spoke. “‘Crows rise above.’ That’s the—”
“Family motto.” Michael nodded and kept scraping. “I know. I’ve seen it.”
“Charles Crowe is the one who instituted that saying,” Lydia told them.
The knife blade suddenly stopped, caught on a crevice buried in the accumulated grime. Michael couldn’t help grinning. Working quickly, he uncovered a circle that more than encompassed the carving of the flying bird of prey.
When he stepped back, they all knew what it was.
“A door?” Lydia gawped at the circle. “But how do you open it?”
Michael was already searching the ceiling. “Molly, take a look at the walls. There has to be a switch or—”
“Here!” Molly shone her light on a stone inset nearby. The stone was only a foot and a half from the floor and almost hidden by the stones that framed the door they’d originally come through. A small, skeletal-looking raven had been inscribed there.
Michael stepped back from the circle he’d uncovered and took Lydia with him. He wasn’t willing to believe that Charles Crowe didn’t have one more death trap at the ready. The man hadn’t merely taken advantage of the natural formations in the cave system at this point. He’d improved upon them. “Press it.”
Molly dropped to one knee and shoved with both hands. Michael was just about convinced that there was another trick or that the engraving was a false lead—or that the device might have gotten permanently stuck—when the crow carving moved with a shrill grating.
Machinery shifted above the stone ceiling. Michael felt the vibrations up his legs. Lydia threw her arms around him and clung as if for dear life.
With inexorable slowness, the circular cut slid down out of the ceiling and exposed three rusty metal rods that were bolted into the stone. The rods lowered the trap door, creating a black hole a couple inches wide into a tunnel above.