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The Blood Field
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Morgan already had her phone in hand, having used the light all the way, so she quickly dialed. Then she frowned at the screen. “Dead zone,” she said.
“That’s what I used to call my ex,” Crowley said before he could stop himself.
Morgan glared at him, but a smile twitched the corner of her mouth.
“Dead fish, she was,” Crowley said, grinning. “If the power went out, I used to put perishables next to her to keep them cold.”
A laugh escaped Morgan despite her obvious desire to hold it in. She nodded to the hole in the ground. “Shall we help young Mr. Arundel?”
“Certainly.”
“Right, well I have no signal. Like so many places around here, this field appears to be a mobile reception dead zone.”
Crowley checked his phone and nodded. “Me too.” He grinned at her. “Deader than my ex’s libido.”
Morgan grinned, but looked away. Crowley enjoyed the fact that she was finally being less stuck up around him. He understood her reservations, but he was the kind of guy who wanted to be liked. “What shall we do, then?” she asked.
“Mr. Crowley?” came Tommy’s nervous voice from below ground.
“Hang in there, Tommy,” Crowley said. “We’re figuring out what to do.” He turned back to Morgan. “The kid is scared and I don’t know that we can get him out too easily. I’ll jump down there to be with him. I’ll check him out, administer whatever first aid I can. You head back to town and call help. They can get us both out when they get here. Sound okay?”
Morgan nodded. “Tommy,” she called down into the hole. “It’s Miss Morgan here. Are you hurt?”
“Can’t stand on my ankle, Miss. Might be broken, I’m not sure. Just a bit banged up, I think. Turned my ankle a bit.”
“Okay, you just wait there a moment.” She stood, looking back to Crowley. “I’ll head to the village until I get a signal, then I’ll call the headmaster and an ambulance. I can wait by the pub until they arrive and guide them up here.”
“Keep an eye open,” Crowley said. “In case those drunken idiots come back.”
“I think you probably saw them off for the night. Besides, it’s that late now that pretty much every local drunk will be passed out somewhere. But yes, I’ll be careful.”
Without another word she jogged off across the field. Crowley turned his attention back to Tommy. “Scoot over to one side,” he said. “I’m coming down.”
He shined his light down, making an estimate of the drop. Probably about nine feet at his best guess. A fair drop, but not dangerous with enough care. As Tommy shifted sideways, Crowley tested the edge of the hole, then lowered himself to a sitting position on its edge, his feet dangling down. Keeping his hands planted firmly behind him, he shifted forward, lowering himself as far as possible, then pushed off and dropped the last of the distance. He landed easily, bending his knees into a full crouch to absorb the impact. Still, it sent a shock from his heels up to the base of his skull.
“Hello, Tommy,” he grunted, turning to the boy.
Tommy face was dirty, except where the streaks of his tears of relief had cleaned his cheeks. His pleasure at seeing someone, especially a responsible grown-up, was palpable. “It’s good to see you, Sir.”
“You said you’re banged up. Where are you hurt?” Crowley asked.
“My arse is a bit bruised, to be honest. I fell awkwardly.”
“Could be much worse,” Crowley said with a laugh. “No head injuries? Doesn’t feel like anything’s broken?”
Tommy didn’t seem to hear him. “I was running from Black Shuck, Sir.” The fear was back in Tommy’s voice.
“Just a dog, son. A big one, I bet, and frightening, but just a dog. You shouldn’t have run, you just encouraged it to chase you.”
“Not a big one, Mr. Crowley. A giant black dog. Huge, it was, with glowing red eyes.”
Crowley nodded, figured there was no point in arguing, especially while the lad was spooked and sitting in the dark in the middle of the night. “What is this place anyway?” he asked, to change the subject.
“No idea, it’s dark as a crypt.”
Crowley shined his torch around, wondering if there might be something they could use to climb out. He quickly saw the place, whatever it might be, appeared to be both ancient and empty. The walls were grey stone, patched in places with pale lichen. Wooden support beams, silvered with age, held up the ceiling. The large room didn’t look like a cellar, though, Crowley mused. The floor was made up of flagstones, each a couple of feet square, and a similar gray to the walls. Crowley was no expert, but it all looked to have been cut from the same stuff. Then he noticed a perfect, meter-wide strip down the center where Tommy had landed. The boy had been lying in that dirt when they’d found him. It was probably what had saved him from further injury when he fell, thankfully landing on the dirt and not the hard stone. Iron rings were fixed in the floor at the center of the room on either side of the dirt strip. Tommy watched Crowley shining his light around and his face creased up at the sight of the iron rings.
“What are those?”
Crowley shook his head. “Very odd, that’s all I can say.”
He moved around the large space, inspecting the stone walls. One spot stood out, slightly different to the rest of the stonework. Crowley ran his fingers over it, noticed its surface seemed smoother, its corners sharper. He rapped on it with his knuckles and the sound rang hollow.
“What is it, Sir?”
Crowley ignored the boy, lost in the excitement of discovery. He tried to get his fingers into the edges of some of the sharper stones, but couldn’t. He rooted in his pockets for something to use, but had nothing on him. Frustrated, he leaned back, lifted one knee, and kicked it. The fake wall shattered, revealing a low passageway beyond.
“Bloody hell, Sir!”
Crowley grinned back over his shoulder. “Interesting, don’t you think? Wait there a moment.”
Tommy rolled onto his hands and knees. “No way. I don’t want to be left alone again. I can’t stand, but I can crawl.”
“All right, then.” Crowley crouched, crab-walking along the low passageway, Tommy crawling close behind. It followed a slow, gradual ascent until they reached a dead end. Crowley tried to estimate if it had risen enough to be back at ground level, but he had no way of working that out.
Shining his light around the end revealed a detailed and colorful mosaic of a bull and a sunburst. Crowley was no archeologist, but it was obviously incredibly old. He took out his phone and snapped a couple of photos, then tried to see if there was a door or a false wall. It had no edges or gaps he could discern. With a shrug, he hammered on it, yelled out, but heard nothing in response.
“Sir, we should go. I don’t think we should be here at all.”
“Why so agitated, Tommy? It’s all right, the ambulance will be here soon, we just have to crawl back the way we came.”
Tommy smiled, but didn’t seem at all reassured. Crowley tried to have another look at the mosaic, but Tommy tapped him nervously on the shoulder.
“Sir, I don’t like it here, can we go back?”
“You go, I won’t be long.”
“No, Sir, I don’t want to be on my own either.”
Crowley sighed. The boy was thoroughly spooked. It was very late, he supposed, and Tommy had had a hell of a fright, and a fall, and he was hurting. Perhaps Crowley ought to pay more attention to his duty of care here, and less to his curiosity. This place wasn’t going anywhere, after all. “Okay, Tommy, you lead the way back. I’m right behind you.”
As they emerged back through the shattered fake wall into the open room, Crowley heard voices. A moment later, Morgan was at the hole above them.
“Help is here,” she called down.
It only took a few minutes for the emergency services, an ambulance, a police officer, and the fire brigade it turned out, to lower a harness down and haul both Tommy and Crowley back up into the field. Archie Beckett, the headmaster, was there as well, eyebrows cinched together. Whether in concern or disapproval, Crowley wasn’t sure. Probably both, he decided.
“Funny sort of place down there,” Crowley said. He described the room with the strange dirt strip through it, and the ancient mosaic at the end of the short passage. “You ever hear of such a thing around here?”
Beckett shook his head. “Damned mysterious, you ask me. How the hell did you even end up down there, boy?”
Tommy looked abashed, but told his story. It was obvious the police officer and the headmaster were both skeptical about it all, even the alleged dog prints.
“Well,” Morgan said, though she sounded reluctant. “Mr. Crowley and I both saw very large dog’s paw prints too.”
“Really?” Beckett said, one eyebrow raised.
They retraced their steps while the ambulance officer checked Tommy’s ankle. Despite looking several times, the prints they saw were nowhere to be found.
“I think everyone has had a late night and enough excitement,” the police officer said through his large moustache. “Perhaps it’s time everyone was getting back to their beds.”
“Well past time,” the headmaster agreed. He took charge of Tommy and excused himself.
As everyone began to disperse, Crowley gestured to Morgan and they moved aside. “What do you think happened to that paw print?” Crowley asked.
An uncomfortable expression passed over the woman’s face. “I don’t know. Maybe it just...” She shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said again.
“You heard me describing the mosaic I found?”
She nodded.
“Does that mean anything to you? Ring any bells?”
“It sounds Roman, but as far as that particular symbol, I’m not sure. I don’t think so.”
Crowley pulled out his phone, showed her the screen. “I didn’t tell them but I took a couple of photos. Not the greatest images, being dark down there and the flash on these things leave a lot to be desired, but you can see something of what it was like.”
Morgan looked at the phone for a moment, then nodded. “Send me the photos. I’ll do some checking.”
Crowley knew he wasn’t her favorite person, though she had softened somewhat over the course of the evening. He decided he could probably trust her. “Thanks. I’ll send them when we get back to the school.”