The abbey, p.2
The Abbey, page 2
****
Her job was done. She had spent six days on the side of the mountain, freezing her ass off. The last two days had been icing on the cake, as she had already obtained all the data that she needed. When she saw the local following her around the ruins, Lasha knew that she had pushed too hard, but she had wanted to be sure of her readings. Now she was leaving in the middle of the night before the caretaker's curiosity could lead to questions that Lasha wouldn't be able to answer. Barb was going to be pissed. She might have compromised their situation. Maybe she wouldn't tell her about the curious caretaker who had done a poor job of tailing her for the last couple of days. Maybe it wasn't important.
She shifted her backpack on her shoulders and stepped out of the quaint room she had occupied for a week. She inched down the wooden steps of the ancient pub, cringing at every creak of the stairs. It was two in the morning, and she wanted to leave without being seen. She had left a wad of cash on the antique, wooden nightstand for the innkeeper, even throwing a little extra in the pile to show her appreciation of his disinterest in her comings and goings. Fuck it, she thought. It wasn't her money anyway.
She reached the bottom of the stairs, opened the inn's door, and walked out into the night, her breath catching in her lungs as the cold, mountain wind blasted her in the face. It was a frigid evening, and a fog drifted across the rocky terrain. The moon shone above, lighting up the fog and the night. She placed her feet carefully, not wanting to twist her ankle. She had quite a hike ahead of her.
As she walked, she became more and more aware of the weight of the ground-penetrating radar in her backpack. Her shoulders were sore from lugging around the expensive piece of equipment for the last week, but that was the price one paid for being fastidious. After all, if there was nothing at the site, there wouldn't be any future work, and she needed future work.
The fog disappeared as she hiked up the side of the mountain. The incandescent face of the moon allowed her to find her way among the shrubs and grasses of the island. The soil of the island, a volcanic hotspot before men had ever existed, was too rocky to grow trees, so with the moon overhead, she could find her way with ease. She passed sleeping sheep penned in by low, stone walls and skirted around the Fay Pools, ignoring their deceptive depths. Her goal was the other side of the mountain.
As she walked, she thought about the GPR in her bag. It was cutting edge. The device had provided the proof that they would need, the proof that Lasha had come searching for. During the day, she had wandered among the ruins, sitting in strategic spots that Lasha and Barb had plotted out before the trip. Despite its advanced technology and accuracy, the GPR was amazingly sensitive. All sorts of factors influenced the readings.
Movement was the largest such influence. If Lasha's task had been on the up and up, if they had ever planned on getting permits and going through the proper channels, the device's finicky readings wouldn't have been a problem; she could have sat in one spot and let the device do its work. But Barb had no intention of going through the proper channels. Barb was always fond of saying, "The archaeologist knows the value of time." Permits, hypotheses, proof... these things would take years’ worth of time, and Barb was perhaps the most impatient woman that Lasha had ever met. For this reason, Barb had educated Lasha on the radar's operation, handed her a wad of cash and put her on a plane to Scotland where Lasha had pretended to be a tourist, a task that had turned out to be more difficult than she expected. She was an archaeologist; not an actor.
The second problem with the GPR was that it was such a strong device. The presence of large groups of people created electromagnetic interference. Every group of tourists that walked up the side of the mountain to view the abbey's ruins created a blip in the machine’s readings, skewing the data. To combat this effect, she had taken more readings, establishing a baseline that they could use to cross off any anomalies resulting from random interference spikes. At the end of each day, she had lugged the radar down to the inn, eaten dinner and then spent her evenings analyzing the readings from the machine on a laptop in her room, away from prying eyes.
She wished that cell phones worked out here, but this was not a place of creature comforts. This was a desolate place. Sparse. Hard. There was only one power line leading into the place, and cell phone towers... well, those were unheard of on this side of the island. She wanted to call Barb and give her the good news, but she supposed it could wait. Some things were worth waiting for, and this was one of them.
Lasha wondered if Barb would let her keep the GPR after this whole enterprise. It's not as if Barb would need it if they found what they were hoping to find. The money that Barb would earn if they were successful would ensure her retirement. Having her own GPR in her pocket would allow Lasha to branch out on her own ventures... which would have a more legal bent if she had anything to do about it.
She remembered when Barb had first presented her with the device. They were in Barb's office on the University of Seattle campus, Barb detailing the journey she would like her to undertake. She had bent down underneath her desk, pulled out a heavy black suitcase, and plopped it down on her desk. Unlocking the clasps, she had opened the case and allowed Lasha to behold the equipment within. Inside, resting on stiff foam was a blue metal box, the size of an old VCR. A blue metal tablet was connected by a black wire that looked like a pigtail.
"What is that?" Lasha had said.
Barb had just smiled and said, "That's our meal ticket, Lasha."
Lasha had run her hands over the machinery. It was so much more complicated and advanced than the models that they had been using in the course of her studies, third-rate junk that was obsolete, but which was judged suitable enough for students to learn with. The device that Lasha now lugged on her back was a top of the line model. How Barb had gotten her hands on one with a professor's salary was a mystery that she didn't dare broach. There were secrets involved, as there were with most of Barb's endeavors.
The secrets could wait. The chance to go to Scotland and use the equipment as a real archaeologist, well... that was a once in a lifetime opportunity. And to get paid on top of it? Psshh. She had jumped at the opportunity like a salmon swimming upriver to spawn. Besides, if what they thought was down there was actually down there, she would never have to worry about her student loans again. Of course, no one would ever know of their achievement, but sometimes you had to take a risk to get out of the slow, crushing responsibility of the future. What did they say? Nothing ventured, nothing gained. She was venturing it all, and she hoped to gain everything.
Lasha slipped on a loose pile of scree, and threw herself to the side to avoid crushing the expensive GPR in her backpack. Adding another forty-thousand dollars to her ever-growing educational debts was the last thing that she needed. She landed hard on her side, jagged rocks digging into her ribs.
She was examining a bloody scrape on her elbow, when she screamed into the night as a set of hands grasped her around the waist. "Fuck!" she yelled at Matt, slapping him on the arms as he helped her to her feet. She could see Matt's teeth shining in the moonlight as he smiled, clearly amused by her frightened start.
"Easy. I was just trying to help you up," he said, protecting his face from her attacks.
"Don't sneak up on me like that. What are you doing here anyway? You're supposed to be staying by the camp."
"I got worried. I was going to come looking for you."
Lasha sighed. "There's nothing to be worried about. I just needed a little extra time. I wanted to make sure we got the information we needed."
"Did we?" Matt asked, his pale face reflecting the moonlight.
"Oh, yeah," she said. "We got more than enough."
"Well, then let's get the hell out of here," Matt said. "I'm dying for a shower."
Lasha smiled and said, "Yeah. I'm dying for you to have a shower as well."
They made their way back to the camp, packed up their belongings in a rental van, and drove to the other side of the island to wait for the ferry. The secrecy had been Barb's idea. She didn't want anyone knowing they had been there. Lasha had posed as a simple backpacker who was interested in ruins, while Matt had stayed on the other side of the mountain, posing as a simple camper. Barb had wanted a means for them to escape if anything went wrong. But now... now they were going home. They would be back soon. Lasha was sure of it.
Chapter 2: Shanghaied
Barb Hamilton sat on the edge of the desk, scrolling through the data with the trackpad on Lasha's laptop. The girl had done a wonderful job. The data was conclusive. There was something there, underneath the surface of Inchorgrath Abbey, just as she had known there would be.
Barb smiled at Lasha who smiled back, square white teeth set in her tan face. Barb let her eyes linger on Lasha's face and then said, "This is great. This is exactly what we need."
"What is it?" Matt asked.
The professor looked at Matt. He was plain, white, college-ish, exactly the sort of student she had seen hundreds of throughout the years. He was also perfectly malleable and naive, a good combination for the sort of business she was up to. "It's a system of caves and tunnels, archaeological gold."
"Why has no one ever found it before? Certainly people know there are ruins there," Matt said.
She humored the student. What kind of professor would she be if she didn't? "What do you know about the history of Skryger Island, Matt?"
Matt and Lasha shared a look, and then Matt jumped into his textbook spiel about the island, just as Barb had expected. "Skryger Island is the most northwesterly of the Hebrides Islands. It has a population of one-thousand. Its chief exports are wool and fish. The island was originally settled by Germanic people. In the 8th Century, it fell under the umbrella of the Norwegians, though no blood was shed. After that, it just sort of passed from king to king and country to country without any major conflict."
Barb nodded her head, smiling on the inside. "That's great Matt... but what about the history of the island?"
Matt's head tilted to the side, like a puppy dog not quite sure what its master was saying. "What do you mean? I just..."
Sitting on the detestable oak desk that dominated her office, Barb laughed. "History is not the things you can find in books, Matt. History is the truth. What is the truth of the island? The things that are known... count for nothing. It's the mysteries that make the history, just as our secrets are what make us who we are. So what is the island's history, Matt?"
Matt shook his head, struggling to comprehend the words that Barb had just given him. "I don't know."
"But, if mysteries are history, then what happens when a mystery is discovered?"
Barb smiled at Matt and Lasha. "Then it's all just data. Meaningless, useless data. Fodder for nerds and bookworms. It's the mystery that matters."
Barb opened a wooden box on her desk and pulled out a thick brown cigar. "You want one?" she asked the students.
"No, thanks," Matt said as Lasha shook her head.
Barb closed the lid on the humidor and said, "Suit yourself. Follow me."
They walked through the hallways, down the stairs past students bustling to and from classes, backpacks, notebooks, and cups of coffee in their hands. At the bottom of the building, they exited and stood in the courtyard, walking over to the "Smoker's Park." In the middle of the octagonal park, a statue of Everson Hartings stood. The statue was a memorial, a tribute to the founding father of the University.
Dressed in sensible black slacks, Barb sat at the foot of the statue, her legs spread in a decidedly masculine fashion. She pulled a cigar cutter from her pocket, snipped the tip off and then lit it, her cheeks puffing in and out until a nice orange cone of ash had formed on the end. The pungent smoke wafted through the air of the park. It was the only place where one could safely smoke without receiving a ticket from campus security. It was here that Barb felt most comfortable, outside the confines and restrictions of the university's rules and expectations.
"Take this University for instance," Barb said, her cigar waving in the air to encompass the campus grounds. "Lasha, what can you tell me about this place?"
Lasha looked around. "The University of Seattle, founded in 1890 by that guy there." Lasha pointed at the bronze statue of a plain looking man, with a far-off look on his face and an open book in his hands.
"Everson Hartings," Matt interjected.
Lasha looked at Matt out of the corner of her eye, annoyance crackling like lightning across her nerves, "Yes, Everson Hartings. After that... eh. It's just a normal college as far as I can tell."
Barb leaned back against the statue, smiling. "What if I was to tell you that this university is the byproduct of slavery and corruption?"
Lasha laughed and said, "You're kidding."
"Hartings was a Christian," Matt added.
It was Barb's turn to laugh. "And that precludes him from slaves and corruption?" She tapped her cigar, sending a rain of gray ash to the ground. "No, Hartings was rich. But his money had been created through the use of some decidedly unsavory business practices. Everson Hartings was a human trafficker."
"Get out of here," Lasha said.
"It's true. You want to see?" Barb smiled at her students, turning her charisma up to ten. She needed these two. She needed them because she could use them, and if she needed to throw them away... well, she could do that as well.
"Of course," Matt said.
"Follow me," Barb said as she walked towards the campus, her little lambs following behind her in a trail of cigar smoke.
****
They were in the theater building, Miller Hall. Barb and her pupils walked quietly through the gloomy, old building. It was the oldest building on the campus, a brick affair meant to evoke the academic feel of universities back east. While newer buildings on the campus were crafted from more modern materials, Miller Hall still stood at the heart of the campus, withstanding the test of time and modern architecture. Still, despite its history and fascinating architecture, it was the dumpiest building on campus, and it had been relegated to hosting classes for drama professors and their over-dramatic students. It served to keep them out of the way of the real academics.
They passed by a girl sitting with her classmates in the hallway and having a quick lunch between classes. She held up a blueberry muffin like Hamlet holding poor Yorick's skull and declared, "Oh muffin, how I love thee." Her peers laughed at her cleverness, one snorting like a jackass.
Barb spared the students a withering glance before she led Matt and Lasha down the stairs, down and down, until they finally came to a locked door. She pulled a lockpick gun from her pocket, inserted it into the lock, squeezed the trigger and turned the gun quickly. The door swung open with ease, and the students and their professor stepped inside.
"That's a handy little tool," Matt said.
"You don't know the half of it, Mr. Callingway," Barb replied.
Barb smelled the musty air of the seldom used sub-basement. Before she closed the door, she could see footprints in the dust. They were the ones that she had made when she had first discovered the room a decade ago. No one had been here since. She closed the door behind her, and then pulled her cell phone from a jacket pocket. Lasha and Matt did the same. With the otherworldly light from their cell phones, they peered around the room. She could see the wonder in their eyes... or was it fear?
"Welcome to the oldest room in the University of Seattle."
Lasha looked around the room, holding her phone high to cast the light further. All there was to see was some ancient office equipment and some stacks of old textbooks, the pages yellowed and crumbling.
"So? It's a storeroom," Lasha said.
"Yeah, what's the big deal about this place?" Matt asked.
Barb laughed at their simplicity. She admired the cut and dry world of youth, but she had long ago shattered that world. "You see what you want to see. You see history right before you, but you refuse to recognize it. Of course, you didn't have the advantage of finding this building's original blueprints in the archives, so it's understandable."
They listened to her, picking up on the fact that this was not all for naught. Barb was up to something, and they could tell; they could feel it in their bones. "This room is not on those blueprints, and that's because, this room is all that remains of Everson Harting's original home. His home was the original administration building for the college. When he moved up in the hills with his fortune, he donated his house to the University. After he died, they tore most of the building down, but kept this room as a sub-basement. Over the years, once the administration moved out as newer and better buildings were built, they completely forgot that this place even existed. But the blueprints didn't. Look at the dust." Barb pointed down at her feet.
Matt squatted and looked over it. "These are your footprints, I presume?"
Barb nodded.
"The dust. There must be a hundred years of it piled up," Lasha said as she squatted to the ground. She ran her fingers across the floor. "There's more dust here than there should be for a sealed room. It's not airtight."
"Correct. When they built the new administration building, which you now see as the old administration building, they did add venting. This of course brings dust and fresh air into the room."
Matt stood up. "That's why the books over there are faded and yellowed instead of preserved."
Lasha stood up and followed Barb's footprints to the edge of the room. Barb watched her stare at the floor, examining the ancient radiator against the wall. She smiled as Lasha bent down and slid the radiator out of the way. She was such a good student, with a great ass.
Lasha's hands searched along the wall, finding what she was looking for. She pressed a section of wall, and it swung inwards, revealing a square of darkness.
"What the hell is that?" Matt said.
Barb just smiled and walked into the hole. It was a tough fit for Barb. Her height was one of her favorite features about herself. She was imposing, taller than many men, she towered over most of her students. The tunnel had been crafted more than a century ago, when the average height of a man was five and a half feet. For Barb and her 6'1" frame, she had to continually duck to avoid smacking her head on the jagged roof of the tunnel.
