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The crowd disperses once the registration has finished, and those of us on the teams are escorted to our living quarters. The players are taken first, as they’ll be staying somewhere different. Then escorts come for the backroom team and ask for numbers rather than names — since we weren’t registered, they don’t know who we are. They sweep among us, calling out for five members from Emerald or ten from Pearl.
“Six from Sapphire,” a caramel-skinned, barrel-chested man with a long, frosty beard and ice-white hair calls, passing close to Inez and me.
“We’ll join that one,” Inez says, raising a hand and stepping forward, as three others join us and the man with the beard looks for a sixth.
“Hold on,” one of the other escorts – a suspicious-looking woman – says, casting a cold eye over Inez. “That’s the camel who went up the turret.”
“What of it?” the man harrumphs.
“She has gropsters inside her.”
The man runs a hand through his beard. “Gropsters?” he says slowly.
“Four of them,” the woman nods.
“Is this true?” the man asks Inez.
“Yes,” she says.
“Which means...” the woman begins.
“...she should be with the players,” the man concludes, nodding solemnly.
“I never thought of that,” Inez says. “Now that you mention it, I suppose you’re right. My four need to be able to confer and train with the others. What a nuisance. Couldn’t you turn a blind eye?” She smiles sweetly at the bearded man, but he doesn’t return the smile.
“Turn a blind eye?” the man thunders. “Certainly not. You should have gone with the gropsters when they were called. I’ll take you to them immediately and hopefully there’ll still be a bed for you.”
The man turns to leave, but Inez doesn’t follow. “My friend will have to come with me,” she says.
The man sniffs heavily. “Is he a camel too?”
“No,” Inez says.
“No gropsters lurking inside him?” he presses.
“Not unless he’s hidden them up his –”
“Inez!” I gasp.
“– nose,” she says, and winks. I remember saying something similar to her on my previous visit to the Merge, and laugh at the memory.
“Then he has no place in the team quarters,” the man says.
“We don’t split up,” Inez says. “Where I go, Archie goes.”
“Are you a couple?” the man asks. “Boyfriend and girlfriend?”
“No!” we both exclaim, and Inez blushes as deeply as I do.
“But we’re a pair,” Inez growls. “He’s a locksmith and I might need his help to extract the players if the lock seizes.”
“How could that happen?” the man asks.
“If you were a camel, you’d know,” Inez says.
“It sounds very –” the man starts to say.
“I don’t care how it sounds,” Inez interrupts him. “If the players miss a meeting because you’ve separated me from my locksmith, it’ll be your head on the block. Or maybe you want to place the Sapphirites at a disadvantage.” Her eyes narrow. “Are you trying to stack the deck in favour of the Topazers?”
“Of course not,” the man sputters. “We treat all our gropsters the same. It’s just... I mean...” He wrings his hands and looks for help, but there’s no one to come to his aid. In the end his shoulders slump and he nods sullenly. “Very well, but I’ll inform the gropmeisters once you’re settled, and if they have any objections, you’ll have to take the matter up with them.”
The man leaves the others in the care of one of his colleagues, and leads Inez and me to the rear of the island, where there’s a bridge of ice over the river of blood. When we cross, there’s a tunnel ahead of us, angling down beneath the ground, and the man marches us into it, then through a series of subterranean corridors. I don’t see any torches or gleam — the light seems to be channelled through the ice.
The tunnels all look the same to me, but the man takes turns without pausing.
“Excuse me?” I pant, struggling to keep up.
“Yes?” he says without looking back.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Seamus,” he says.
“How do we find our way around if we’re not with you, Seamus?”
“You don’t,” he says. “There are no signs. If you set off without a guide, you’d wind up lost in a matter of minutes, and we might never find you. The tunnels run deep and stretch across the entire city.”
“So when we get to our rooms, we have to stay there?” I ask. “We’re prisoners?”
“Of course not,” Seamus huffs. “There are exits above the ice. You’ll be free to come and go as you please, using the ground-level doors.”
“Then why not take us through the streets?”
“We bring the gropsters underground,” Seamus says, “so they don’t get stopped by fans every step of the way. Not that anyone would stop you.”
“I don’t think he likes us,” I whisper to Inez.
“I’m getting that feeling too,” she giggles, then gives my hand a squeeze. “It’s a good job Ghita wasn’t there when he asked if I was your girlfriend. She might have been jealous.”
“Very funny,” I snap. “There’s nothing between Ghita and me, as you well know. We’re just friends.”
“Good friends?” Inez simpers.
“Seamus,” I say, raising my voice, “are there any holes in the ice where I could dump the body of someone who’s bugging me?”
Seamus ignores me and guides us the rest of the way in silence. We end up outside a large steel door. Seamus knocks on it three times, and it’s opened by a man with a beard much less impressive than our escort’s. “Two more for you,” Seamus says.
“Gropsters?” the doorman frowns.
“It’s complicated,” Seamus grunts, “but I’ll vouch for them. For now,” he adds meaningfully, shooting us a dirty glance.
The doorman shrugs and lets us into a wide corridor. Gleam-smeared chandeliers dangle from the ceiling, all carved out of ice.
“Which room?” Seamus asks.
“The Shackleton suite,” the doorman says, and Seamus strides over to a large wooden door with the letters E.S. etched into it. He knocks, then pushes the door open before there’s a response. We step in behind him.
We’re in a long, narrow room with six beds and a rough wooden chest, chair and wardrobe set next to each. There’s a chandelier, similar to those in the corridor, a table with some fruit in bowls, and that’s all.
“Not much of a suite,” I sniff.
“Don’t write it off that quickly,” a woman says from the furthest bed — I hadn’t spotted her before she spoke, as she’s lying down. She sticks her head up and smiles. I recognise her – she’s one of the condors – but don’t know her name. “Are you two staying with us?” she asks.
“Yes,” Inez says. “They thought they’d better put me here, since I have four of your teammates tucked away inside me.”
“Makes sense,” the woman says, then introduces herself. “I’m Velvet. Pete’s the only other person sharing this room. He wandered off as soon as he’d dumped his bags, but I’m feeling lazy. I’ll check the place out later.”
“Help yourselves to whichever bed you prefer,” Seamus says. “That’s the main door.” He nods to a door in the wall close to Velvet’s bed. “You can get to the other areas of the complex through there. If you need assistance, there’ll be someone outside. I hope you enjoy your stay, however long or short it might prove to be.” He casts one last dark look at us. Then, as Inez and I laugh, he lets himself out, shuts the door, and leaves us to make ourselves comfortable in the room that’s going to be our home for the next few weeks of grop... and kidnapping.
***
Archibald Lox and the Forgotten Crypt is book 1 of 3 of the second volume of the Archibald Lox series...
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Archie’s story continues in book 2 of the second volume, Archibald Lox and the Slides of Bon Repell, which you can click here to buy now
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p.s. if you enjoyed Archie’s adventures, he’d love it if you left a little review for this book on the store where you bought it or Goodreads, or indeed any other book review site. Please spread the word and help the Merge grow! ☺