The forbidden temple, p.13
The Forbidden Temple, page 13
part #16 of Sean Wyatt Series
Sean had already thought of it. “Not if he threw them off the trail.”
“Or maybe his escape wasn’t an escape. Maybe it was his way of getting whoever was following him off the right track—just so he could put us on it with the help of Priya.”
Sean and Adriana took a deep breath and blew it out through tiny holes in their lips, both making a low whistling sound.
“That’s pretty deep, Schultzie,” Sean said.
“Thank you.” Tommy put his hands out wide as if to say, “It was nothing.”
“There is one way we can figure out the professor’s location…or at least where he was last week.” Adriana glanced from Tommy to Sean and back again.
The two men didn’t have a clue what she was talking about.
“Oh yeah?” Tommy asked. “How?”
“The letter. It has a stamp on it from the post office, a rubber stamp in ink. You saw it.” She nodded at Sean.
“That’s right. And it would have the post office and town where Patel would have mailed it.” His voice rose with excitement as the realization set in. “Patel must have put her name and address on both parts, sender, and receiver, to throw anyone off the trail. They’d likely think she was just sending herself a note or something. Or they would ignore it entirely.”
“So, we need Priya to show us that envelope. Once we do, we’ll know where Patel went.”
“And,” Sean added, “if we’re lucky, that location might be the first breadcrumb.”
“To finding this town or whatever it is?” Adriana asked, motioning toward the schematics.
“Precisely.”
“The others,” Sean said. “He references the others. You think he was talking about the other items held by Vishnu in some of those images?”
Tommy nodded. “Makes sense. Especially when you work your way over to my section.” He tipped his head to the sheet of paper in the center. “Reading through these paragraphs, it seems like you need to have all those other items together before the mace will do its thing.”
Adriana snorted. “That your scientific explanation? The do-its-thing part, I mean?”
Tommy cracked a smile. “Yes, very scientific.”
“He’s right, though,” Sean said. “Based on Patel’s notes, we have to locate these other three things before we find the Gada.” He pointed to the last page where the image of a shadowy mountain dominated the paper. “This passage suggests the same thing.”
He pressed his finger to the paragraph.
When brought together at the holy mountain, the door will reveal itself to Vishnu’s abode, and the holy weapon will share its light with the world once more.
“Pretty interesting.”
The other two nodded in agreement.
Tommy set his jaw and crossed his arms. “I guess the first thing we need to do is get that envelope from Priya one more time and figure out where the professor went. It would be clever if he were to send it from a town near where this thing is.” He motioned to the blueprint of the village. “If there is a town near there.”
“Could we be so lucky?” Sean asked.
“We’ve been lucky before,” Adriana said in a sultry tone. “No reason why it can’t happen again.”
“Any chance Priya is still awake?”
Tommy shook his head. “I don’t think so. I noticed her going to her tent earlier. Just now when I came over, I saw her lights were out. She’s likely asleep. Not that I blame her.” The comment seemed to force a yawn out of him, and he stretched his arms high and wide.
“Let’s all get some sleep,” Sean suggested. “We can ask her about the envelope in the morning. Sounds like tomorrow is going to be a big day, so we’ll need all the rest we can get.”
16
Thiruvananthapuram
They’d made their way through the first chamber. It led down a set of stairs to a landing where Brock knew the first of the six vaults was located. He and his team had moved through quickly, bypassing that first staircase until they arrived in the next room, another chamber with high ceilings and a set of stairs descending down into the ground in the center.
The room was as unimpressive as the golden exterior was spectacular. There were a few symbols and decorations carved into the stone in the doorframe and along the walls, but by and large, there was nothing in the chamber that suggested there was something of value hidden below.
Brock knew that wasn’t the case.
He stopped at the top of the stairs and glanced back over his shoulder. Tre was standing guard at the door with a big shoulder pressed into the frame. The man leaned his head out and took a quick look down the hall. There was no sign of anyone. No reinforcements coming to find those responsible for the dead in the corridors and courtyard. Not yet, at least.
Heather stood close to Brock a few feet away and staggered from his right shoulder. In one hand, she held a handgun. In the other, she clutched a cop, a straggler who’d strayed away from his post and stumbled into her arms. She’d been about to kill him when Brock—inexplicably—ordered her to stand down and let the man live.
She hadn’t questioned his reasoning, not yet. He’d never mentioned anything about taking prisoners. This wasn’t a situation where hostages would be an advantage, at least not that she could tell. Dragging dead weight around on a heist would slow them down exponentially, especially if the guy turned out to be trouble. He hadn’t so far, but that could change when things started to heat up again. Up to that point in their mission, she’d killed several men in close quarters. In that kind of scenario, a hostage could cause all sorts of problems.
“Tre?” Brock said, still staring down into the dark stairwell.
“Yes, sir?”
“Cover the door.”
“Done.”
Brock turned on a flashlight and took a step down.
“You’re mad,” the prisoner said. The tremor in his voice underscored a fear deeper than the immediate threat of execution by means of a bullet. There was something else to it.
Brock sensed this strange sense of fear and twisted his head around, glaring at the prisoner. The man’s lips quivered. Brock’s lips curled in a devilish grin. “Afraid of the dark?” He reached out with a pocket-sized butane torch, pressed a button, and lit a candle on the wall. The little flame flickered for a moment, struggling to keep burning, and then steadied itself, casting a consistent yellow glow into the stairwell.
“It’s not the dark I fear,” the cop said. “There are far worse things down there than the dark.”
Brock’s grin widened, showing off his bright white teeth in the combined light of his flashlight and the candle. “I know. That’s why we have you.”
He turned slowly back to the stairs at his feet and began descending once more, stopping intermittently to light additional candles along the way. Behind him, Heather shoved the cop forward, forcing him to follow. Tre stayed at the entrance to the chamber in case reinforcements discovered their location.
It wouldn’t take long for a patrol to discover the bodies in the courtyard or the ones in the tunnel. It was only a matter of time. By their best guess, based on watching the movements of the guards for the last few days, they had roughly ten minutes, give or take a few.
At the bottom of the stairs, Brock stepped through the antechamber leading into the main room where the door to the infamous vault awaited. He stopped on the threshold, just inside the doorway, and waited.
He could make out the images of serpents—more like dragons—wrapping their long, slender bodies up around the vault door. He noted the huge one sticking its head out at any trespassers, a snarling, gaping mouth issuing a final warning to any who dared consider an attempt to enter.
There was no mistaking what the architects of this place had in mind. Their goal was to ward off any who thought to rob the temple of its most priceless and powerful treasure. According to the tales that had been passed down through the decades, their ruse had worked—until now. Brock had no intention of letting some children’s ghost stories keep him out.
He stepped purposefully through the archway, aiming his flashlight directly at the vault door straight ahead. His ears pricked as he heard the sound of Heather’s prisoner scraping his shoes against the floor as he shuffled forward.
Brock’s eyes lingered on an object lying on the floor where the tiles met the vault wall. The skeleton still clung to its tattered clothing. Shards of the fabric dangled, silent and motionless, from the bones. The skull was twisted to one side, the jaw open wide in a fearful, permanent gape as if still calling for help.
“There’s another over there, sir,” Heather said, her voice cracking the deathly silence of the room.
Brock looked to the right, shining the bright white circle on another heap of bones.
“You see?” the cop said. His voice wavered, bathed in fear. “This is a place of death. You must turn back.”
“No,” Brock said, “I’m not going to do that.”
He loosened the tactical backpack from his shoulders and removed a strange gun. Its boxy frame and body looked like nothing the cop had ever seen. There was a canister attached to the top, about the size of a propane tank used for lanterns or camping stoves. Brock flipped a red switch on the side of the black weapon and nodded to Heather.
She shoved her gun’s barrel deeper into the prisoner’s back. The man grunted in protest, but his legs moved forward involuntarily, a natural response to the jabbing pain in his lower back.
The man’s toe dug into the tile as he moved ahead and he nearly tripped. Heather grabbed one of his shoulders, though, and kept him upright.
“What are you doing?” The tremor in the cop’s voice was growing. “This place is cursed! We are all going to die if we don’t leave now.”
Brock’s eyes narrowed. Wrinkles streaked from the corners, almost all the way to his temples. “Well, you’re not entirely wrong.”
The prisoner eyed him warily, cocking his head to the side to ascertain the meaning of his captor’s words.
Something made a sound from the darkness. Brock’s lips creased. “There they are. Right on time.”
The cop looked at Brock, then to the vault door, and back to Brock. “What are you doing? We need to go. Please!”
Brock shook his head. “End of the line for you, old boy.” He used a mocking English accent to mimic the captive.
The sound grew louder, though not by much. It was a slithering noise with an intermittent flop thrown in now and then. Brock pointed his light at a small port in the wall to the left of the door, while keeping his eyes fixed on another one at the opposite side.
Hissing filled the room, the sound swelling to a whispery crescendo, like an army of ghosts approaching to perform their ghastly tasks.
Then Brock saw it, an eerie sight that sent a chill through his bones, though he dared not let on to the other two. He had nothing to fear. The sacrifice would be enough.
He steeled his gaze as the two glowing orbs neared, pushing through the black vent to reveal a smooth, scaly head. A long, forked tongue flicked out of tightly pressed lips. The snake slithered its way out of the opening until gravity did the rest and brought the body to the floor with a gentle smack.
The serpent’s eyes locked on the prisoner, the nearest victim to his domicile. The snake’s constantly flicking tongue fed it the heat signatures of the people in the room. Its focus, however, was on the closest target, the cop whose body trembled in absolute terror. The man’s fear caused his heart to race within his chest. Beads of sweat dribbled down his forehead and the sides of his face, splattering on the tile around his feet.
“NO!” He begged to be relieved of his fate, but Heather kept the gun pressed hard against his back. His wide eyes gazed into the serpent’s. He’d seen king cobras before. This variety, however, was different. It had a golden layer of scales covering its body, with black splotches along the back and sides. If the prisoner thought this was the worst of it, he was dead wrong.
More slithering bodies appeared through the vents, all driven by a communal urge, ancient instincts that pushed them to defend their home. Or was it something else, something more sinister?
This kind of behavior was uncharacteristic of snakes. It wasn’t like them to swarm this way. They lived in perpetual competition with one another. Unlike creatures in other species, most serpents were extremely selfish by nature.
As more of the reptiles fell from the ventilation ports and slithered toward the prisoner, Brock stayed calm, watching them with a close eye. He was standing far enough away that the snakes barely noticed him, or so it seemed. Apparently, they were more interested in the closest, easiest target.
“Let me go! Please, I beg you!” The cop continued his begging, desperate pleas that fell on deaf ears. “I don’t want to die!”
The last word out of his mouth came as a shriek as Heather shoved him forward toward the approaching, leathery death. The man stumbled over the tip of his boot and lost his balance, falling headfirst into the writhing mass.
One snake snapped out at him in an instant, latching on to the man’s neck before he had even hit the floor. Within seconds, a half-dozen more serpents lashed out, fangs brandished in the blink of an eye. They latched on to his arms, legs, hands, and face, each pumping their deadly venom into the man’s tissues.
His screams of agony faded as the toxins did their vicious task with almost merciful speed. His body twitched and squirmed, still unwilling to give up the last gasps of breath in lungs that were rapidly suffocating.
The mass of snakes piled on to the victim, each issuing a bite to defend their turf. When Brock saw there were no more of the deadly reptiles exiting the vents, he shifted to the left, flanking the deadly mass.
Heather continued to move back and then around to the side where Brock had positioned himself. She kept her weapon trained on the beasts, watching with curious and horrified fascination.
The serpents were doing something, unlike anything she’d ever seen their species do before. While Heather was no expert on snake behavior, she was fairly certain they didn’t hunt in packs like that. The more gruesome and disturbing part of the cop’s fate wasn’t the pack mentality. They were gnawing at the man’s flesh, tearing skin and muscle from his body while he was still alive. Most snakes, as far as she recalled, consumed their victims whole as they had no teeth to chew their meal. Yet these beasts seemed to be doing just that—grinding sharp, small teeth in the back of their mouths behind the fangs, ripping into flesh and pulling it into their throats.
The cop had stopped moving on his own, but the arms and legs shifted and twitched as the snakes feasted on his body.
“Is he dead?” Heather asked.
“Yeah, I think so.” Brock took a step forward and leveled his weapon, pointing the barrel at the writhing heap.
He flipped a button on the side, lighting a tiny torch on the tip of the muzzle. He pulled the trigger. A split second after, a stream of fire shot out of the gun. The compact flamethrower cast a swath of blazing death onto the serpents, bathing them in fire.
The flammable compound stuck to them like napalm. The snakes flopped around, biting at their own scaly skin in an attempt to put out the flames. Some rolled around on top of the others, but there was no stopping the inevitable.
When every single snake was burning, Brock pulled a bandana over his face and stepped back. Heather followed suit and watched the living pyre pour black smoke to the ceiling where it lingered briefly before finding a path out into the next room and up to the chamber above.
One by one, the snakes died off. Their bodies ceased their jerky movements, slowing to a few rolls and flops until the entire pile was nothing but a still bonfire of charred reptilian logs.
“Ugh,” Brock said as he switched off the flamethrower. “The stench is awful.”
“What did you think was going to happen?” Heather asked. She pinched the mask over her nose to keep from breathing in the foul odor.
“You’re up,” he said. “The second that smoke hits fresh air outside, we’re going to have company.” Brock shoved the weapon back into his gear bag and pulled out a roll of thick, gray material that looked almost like tape. He handed the first roll to Heather, and she immediately set to work.
She didn’t need to be told twice. Heather was more than aware of the potential trouble that awaited if they didn’t move quickly.
She took a second roll from the bag and hurried over to the door, carefully navigating the smoldering heap of dead snakes to her right. Fortunately, their ruse had worked. The serpents had pursued the cop far enough that they were clear of the vault gate.
Heather took the second roll and set it on the ground, while Brock took a third and began unraveling it. He pressed the sticky substance against the outside of the vault door’s frame, running it around the vent on the left, creating a line that stretched up about six feet. She did the same, creating a parallel line and then, with the second spool, ran a horizontal strip that connected the two vertical ones.
Then she reached into her bag and took out small packet about the size of Brock’s fist. She shoved the little satchel into the vent and flipped a switch on the top of it before pushing it deeper into the recess.
“You good?” she asked.
Brock nodded and pressed the thick tape a little harder at the top corner one last time.
“Yep.”
“Okay then.”
He grabbed his bag and slung it over his shoulder. She did the same, and the two hurried back to the antechamber on the other side of the doorway. Once they were through, the two ducked into the corners—one on either side.
“Cover your ears,” Heather warned.
Brock did as told, cupping his ears with both hands while Heather pulled out a small black box from her bag. She flipped the safety switch on the top and then pried open the plastic cover that protected a red button. She glanced up at Brock one last time and gave a nod. He returned the gesture and she pressed the button, instantly covering her ears.
