I heard a low grumble, as if the earth itself was loathe to give up its secrets without protest, and then heard rocks, gravel, and earth falling back and away from the end of the passage and the door leading inside opened up at last.

  I had to duck my head to enter, and felt the roots of plants brush my scalp as I did so. I kept the pistol ready.

  The earthen passage before me ended in a sharp right turn that sloped downward at a twenty degree angle. The air grew noticeably cooler and when I put my hand onto the walls, they were smooth stonework, suggesting that these catacombs had been purposefully constructed at some point.

  I kept moving. If I’d wanted to hide something, this was certainly an excellent place to do so. If you didn’t know about this location, there was no way you’d ever find it. I was lucky that Harry had done his homework.

  This passageway ended in another right turn and yet another downward sloping angle. I felt like I was going downwards, ever downwards, in a corkscrew pattern. But how far into the earth could I descend? At some point, I’d hit the ocean unless the makers of the catacombs had figured out a way to keep the seawater from flooding the chambers.

  I frowned. Maybe they had. Wasn’t that the problem with Oak Island to the north? Each chamber seemed to be boobytrapped and flooded when the treasure hunters got too close. Was such a thing at work here as well? Had they been built by the same people who had supposedly hidden treasure at Oak Island?

  What if Oak Island was simply a red herring? Designed to fool everyone and keep them all away from discovering that the real treasure - the jacket I was after - was hidden farther to the south in Castine?

  I shook my head. All of this magic stuff was mixing with conspiracy theory in my head and getting me all screwed up. I needed to concentrate on what I could control, which was killing Maleagant without the crazy bastard unloading any more of his magical death orbs at me.

  I kept moving, aware that the longer it took me to find the end of the catacombs, the more likely it would be that Maleagant would find the jacket first.

  Around another two corners, the passages started to finally level out. I was freezing by this point, and figured we had to be close to fifty feet underground. Whoever had constructed this catacombs must have built the whole hill around it. Maybe even the British had been unaware that it was manufactured by someone, rather than just a naturally occurring landscape feature.

  But that would have meant it predated the Colonial times as well. Could Native Americans have constructed this? It was possible. But if this truly was a place of magic, then perhaps there was another answer.

  I hoped to find out sometime.

  If I lived long enough.

  I took another corner in the passageway and then froze.

  Maleagant’s voice floated into my ears. I think he was speaking that strange language again. What had he called it? Vandalic?

  Had the Vandals built this place?

  I started breathing a bit deeper to flush my system with oxygen. You tend to tunnel a bit and things constrict when adrenaline starts pumping, so I always tried to make a deliberate attempt to counter that effect by breathing as deeply and slowly as possible.

  I couldn’t even distinguish what Maleagant was saying from just straight up gibberish. For all I knew, he could have been reciting dirty limericks about a sorcerer from Nantucket. It didn’t really matter. In a few short minutes, he was going to get the jacket.

  And I had to stop him.

  The passageway lit up just then with ambient light bouncing off of the walls from some unseen source. I assumed that there had to be a chamber of some sort further on where I would find Maleagant and hopefully, the jacket.

  The light danced, making weird shadows on the smooth walls. I was entranced and watched as the colors changed, running the gamut of the spectrum before returning to a brilliant yellow.

  On and on chanted Maleagant. If was as if he was trying to open something. I don’t know where that thought came to me from, but it seemed almost as if he was trying several things that hadn’t worked. Perhaps I could detect a note of frustration in his voice as he chanted.

  In any event, I was only twenty feet away when I finally saw the opening to the chamber where he stood, and beyond, Maleagant himself.

  I brought my pistol up, steadying it for the shot. I wanted to punch a round right into Maleagant’s temple and drop him fast before he had a chance to know I was even there.

  Just one shot.

  I took first pressure off the trigger, breathed out and steadied myself.

  Then I fired.

  20

  It wasn’t the first time I’ve ever pulled a trigger. Neither was it the first time I’ve killed someone. So, I certainly knew what to expect when the round shot out of the end of the barrel and into Maleagant’s temple.

  Namely, that the round would punch its way through the bone and gray matter contained therein, then, depending on the caliber, either bounce around the inside of the skull, or create a horrible trajectory before exploding out of the other side of his head, leaving bits of brain and blood everywhere.

  It was a reasonable expectation.

  Naturally, that’s exactly what didn’t happen.

  Instead of drilling Maleagant through the skull with a bolt of lead, the round tore out of the gun, streaked through the air, and promptly hit some sort of force field roughly an inch from impacting with the side of the sorcerer’s head.

  It hung there for a quick second, and then dropped harmlessly to the floor where it clinked against the stone, rolled, and then lay still.

  All before the explosion of sound had even had a chance to register in my head.

  Instinct’s a good thing. And what they drill into you during training is a lot of the time exactly what saves your life in combat. So even as my brain processed the fact that the first bullet hadn’t done a damned thing, my reflexes took over and I shot the pistol another three times.

  But to no avail.

  Each round bounced off the force field and dropped to the ground without doing one bit of damage to Maleagant.

  And the sorcerer, for his part, ignored me while he continued to chant. It was a rather awkward situation, frankly. Me, standing there holding a pistol aimed at his head, and him standing there reciting some sort of old time spell.

  I’d be lying if I said that a big part of me didn’t want to simply back out of the room and head back the way I’d come. I was not used to shooting people in the head and having the bullets do nothing whatsoever.

  I was obviously going to need a bigger boat.

  But I stayed where I was, partly because some small part of me actually thought I might have a chance to steal the jacket as soon as it revealed itself and before Maleagant could recuperate from the obvious enormous amount of energy he was expending.

  The bigger, rational part of my brain laughed at that. Then again, the number of times I’ve told my rational side to fuck off astounds me, so I clung to the idea for a little bit longer than I should have.

  I wondered what Harry was doing at that moment. Probably he was in the pub having a drink while he waited to see if I was going to show up again. I’d spent a few long nights in his position. You never rested until you knew your operatives were safe.

  Maleagant’s voice rose to a climax and then dropped into a deep bass that made me wonder if he was going to rattle the stones around us loose. The sheer vibratory nature of his voice seemed to undulate out in waves from his throat, producing a bizarre effect in the room itself, almost as if he was focusing it on a certain spot in the wall before him.

  Was the jacket hidden inside?

  In answer, a single large stone about two-feet by two-feet started jiggling ever so slightly in its position in the wall. Around the edge of it, bits of mud and earth and mortar and old grass shook free and cascaded to the floor. Maleagant never wavered in his vocal intensity.

  More of the wall shuddered now as he continued to chant. I wondered if he was going to draw a breath, but it didn’t seem as though he needed to. Probably these sorcerers knew every trick in the book about breathing. Hell, for all I knew, he might not have even needed to breathe at all.

  Lucky.

  The edge of the stone started moving free of its perch. It began sliding right out from the wall, centimeters at a time.

  A line of sweat broke out along Maleagant’s hairline. He was expending a helluva lot of energy trying to rip the stone free from the wall. He was getting there bit by bit, but the sheer cost of the effort seemed extraordinary.

  If the jacket was truly hidden behind this wall, then it was a good thing I hadn’t been able to shoot him. First of all, I would have had no idea where the jacket was. Secondly, I wouldn’t have been able to break through the wall, at least not without a lot of explosives and heavy machinery.

  I lowered the pistol and took a few breaths to relax myself as much as possible. Whenever Maleagant was done breaking the jacket free, he was going to be pissed off with me for trying to shoot him. I’d need all the energy I could muster to deal with him. I just hoped that he wouldn’t be able to get his hands on the jacket first. If that thing was truly a magical relic endowed with special attributes, I didn’t want Maleagant being able to benefit from them.

  I wanted them for myself.

  Almost as soon as I had that thought, I smiled. I realized that I did want those magical abilities for myself. If I was dipping into a world of magic and everyone else seemed to have magical assets, I figured I ought to have one, too. Maybe I could keep the jacket for myself.

  Maybe.

  I concentrated a bit on my lower belly and found the heat radiating in pulse waves throughout my body. I felt my energy levels increase.

  My senses seemed to sharpen. My hearing became acute and focused. It was almost as if I could hear every bit of sound in the catacombs that surrounded us. Small furry rodents picking their way through tiny tunnels above us, chewing on bits of food they’d found. Roots from grasses and shrubs elongating and growing in search of water.

  And, of course, the sounds of the stone trying to free itself from the wall in front of Maleagant.

  His face was shiny now, as sweat poured out of him. I had to hand it to the guy, his concentration didn’t falter, not even once. I wondered what would happen if it did. Would the gods of magic destroy him in that instance for not being to maintain focus?

  When I was a teenager, I’d once read The Necronomicon and all the legends that surrounded it. When I got to the part about reciting it from start to finish without messing up even once, I gave up on it. No sense risking the existence of my soul in order to gain world domination.

  More of the stone came away from the wall now. Judging by its size, the rock must have weighed well over two hundred pounds. It was smooth with streaks of mica running throughout it. As it came away from the wall, it sparkled in places and, on its own, looked rather beautiful.

  But I doubted Maleagant was going to be interested in keeping it as a paperweight. Or even a doorstop. He wanted what was behind it.

  So did I.

  He had the stone about halfway free of the wall now and still, his voice continued the deep resonance that he’d started a few minutes before. Whenever this was done, I expected he’d probably lose his voice for a few days.

  The ground underneath the stone was now littered with dirt and smaller rocks and mortar. I just hoped that the stone itself wasn’t some sort of load-bearing piece that would cause the entire cavern to come down on us when Maleagant succeeded in getting it out. Being crushed to death underground wasn’t really how I wanted to go out of this world.

  The stone rattled out another inch. I could see now that it was less of a stone than an actual slab that had been laid in such a way to show only its smaller side. But lengthwise, it had to be much larger. No wonder Maleagant was having such a hard time getting it out.

  And the more that came free, the more the stone reminded me of a piece of the game Jenga. How long was it actually, and was there enough space in the room for it to come all of the way out?

  Maleagant didn’t seem concerned, but then again, it was tough to say what he was thinking at that point. I imagine he must have known the effort it was going to take to get the jacket, otherwise he wouldn’t have set off on the quest in the first place.

  But still, this was an awful lot of hard slogging.

  The slab of stone was now three feet out from the wall, jutting into the room pointed directly at Maleagant’s head. It continued to slide free, inches at a time.

  Sooner or later, it had to end.

  Maleagant’s voice rose then, abandoning the deep bass and soaring into a high pitched shriek that made me clamp my hands over my ears. It invaded my head, it hurt as it careened around my skull. The vocal bullet tore through my consciousness and left a thudding aftershock in its wake.

  I dropped to my knees, willing the sound out of my head. Instantly, I felt a rush of heat flood my skull, dissipating the noise. Muted, as if the heat I was able to summon created some type of sound-dampening effect. I was going to have to remember that.

  Around the back of the slab, I now saw light enveloping the rear edges of it.

  He was close!

  The slab came free from the wall and levitated in the air before him as Maleagant’s voice rose to an even higher pitch. So much so, it didn’t even sound human.

  Instead, cracks and fissures spidered across the stone slab and then in a moment, the entire slab simply fell apart in a rush of stone bits to the floor below.

  And where the slab been seated in the wall, a brilliant yellow light emanated from some unseen source beyond the wall.

  Maleagant fell silent, his head deeply bowed as I saw his chest heaving to take in oxygen. With his eyes closed, I wondered if I could attack him at that moment.

  But even as I started to rush him, he simply lifted his hand toward me and I felt immobilized by some sort of energy. I couldn’t move.

  He turned and opened his eyes, fixing on me for the first time. “So apparently, you’re a bit harder to kill than I expected.” He shrugged. “No matter. I will deal with you after I release the jacket from its slumber.”

  Slumber? Was the jacket asleep? The way Maleagant talked about it, it was as if he thought the jacket was some type of living entity.

  I just wanted the bomber jacket and the two million bucks Dante had promised me for retrieving it.

  Come to think of it, maybe I should have negotiated a better price.

  I tried moving my arms and legs, but it was no good. I was stuck in place, frozen there as if caught up in some sort of magical tractor beam.

  Maleagant wiped his face free of sweat and then started toward the wall where the slab of stone had rested for so many years.

  The light from the other side illuminated his face as he bent close to inspect the opening. His skin shone from the intense workout he’d gotten. He must have been soaked through.

  “Now at last we come to this place.” Maleagant turned and flashed me a smile. “Together. For better or worse.”

  “Are we getting married?” I asked. “Because you’re really going to need some plastic surgery before the honeymoon.”

  Maleagant smirked and then gestured at the opening. “I wish you could see what I’m looking at right now.”

  “Let me loose and I’ll take a peek,” I said.

  “I’m afraid not,” said Maleagant. “You seem to have the very bad habit of attempting to kill me whenever you get the chance.”

  “Well, it’s not personal,” I said. “And you tried to kill me first.”

  “True, but I think I rather like you right where you are now,” said Maleagant. He turned back to the opening and studied it for another long moment.

  The light that streamed forth from the opening didn’t flicker at all, so the source must have been constant. But what sort of magic light could do that? I’d expected some flickering torches in an ancient chamber. My assumptions about magic seemed to be completely ridiculous. I blamed the dungeon masters I’d played with growing up.

  Maleagant wiped a hand across his face. “Interesting,” he said finally.

  “Hey, if you’re going to say something, then be sure to share it with the rest of the class, would you?”

  He eyed me for a moment. “You know what? You’re absolutely right. I will share this with you.” He pointed a hand at me and I felt myself drawn to him.

  When I got closer, he nodded at the opening. “There. Look inside and tell me what you see.”

  I turned but saw nothing but brilliant, yellow light. It was as if I was staring to the sun without the bad effects on my eyes.

  “I don’t see anything,” I said.

  Maleagant nodded. “Exactly.”

  21

  I wasn’t sure what he meant by that. “Isn’t there supposed to be a jacket in there?”

  He nodded. “Oh, there is. I’m sure of it. But from out here, we can’t see it.”

  I eyed the stone wall. Given how much effort it took Maleagant to remove that single slab, I didn’t want to wonder how long it would take him to take out an entire wall. “So how do you know it’s in there for certain?”

  “Because they wouldn’t have gone through this much trouble unless it was,” said Maleagant.

  “Isn’t that rather presumptuous?”

  He smirked. “I’ve spent my entire existence being presumptuous. It’s gotten me this far. And in a few short minutes, it will get me even further.”

  “How are you going to get the jacket if you can’t see it?” I stared into the opening again. The light drew me like a moth to its flame.

  “You’re going inside there,” said Maleagant.

  “Excuse me?” I turned back to him. “I can’t fit inside that opening. In case you haven’t noticed.”

  “Well, of course you couldn’t fit in there in your current state,” the sorcerer smiled. “But I can help you with that.”

  I held up my hand. “I don’t want any of your-”

  But even as I said it, I could already feel the effects of Maleagant’s magic working on my body. I started shrinking before him and as his size seemed to grow, my own diminished until I was only about two feet tall.

 

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