they were completely submerged when the wooden door in front of them cracked inward.
Nate slammed his arms up, cracking the door further, but there was something blocking the other side, some heavy weight.
He looked at Chloe, whose eyes had gone wide. Her arms came up too, and they both pushed. The wood moved a little further but settled back down the instant they weren’t straining at it.
They locked gazes. Nate saw his own panic reAecting back at him, the realization that they were going to drown. She turned and went after the mosaic again. Nate counted himself down.
Three-two-one—PUSH—
Nate screamed as he shoved at the door, the last of his air trailing out in a stream of bubbles as he gave it everything he had, muscles straining—
—and whatever had been blocking the escape hatch shifted away suddenly. The wooden door banged open. Nate followed it out, coughing water, taking in a giant, wheezing gasp—and he realized Chloe wasn’t next to him.
“Chloe?!”
He dropped back into the water, grabbed her limp form, and dragged her into the air, curled over his arm. He thumped her back, hard, and then laid her down, patted her slack face.
“Chloe! Chloe, come on!”
Chloe turned her head and spewed water, choking as her eyes Auttered open.
Nate collapsed against the cold rocks and they both lay there, spitting out water, gasping the cold, stale air of some new environment. For a full minute they didn’t move, just lay there breathing, filling their starved lungs.
* * *
“Nate? Clo? You still with me?”
No answer, but something had clicked when Sully turned the key, he’d felt it.
At his feet, Braddock groaned and rolled her head.
No thanks on round two. He’d regroup outside, away from Ms. Deadly.
Sully pulled the cross out of the keyhole and stepped back over Braddock, stumbling a bit. He felt light-headed and bruised and out of breath… and he was scared that he’d been too late with the key.
They’re fine, their earpieces got wet, that’s all.
He glanced at Braddock, still out cold, and staggered for the exit, crunching through chips of wall.
By the time he made it to the front door, he had his equilibrium back and was ready to act like an escaped hostage if the policia shown up; but there was only a small group of curious gawkers out front, and nobody tried to stop him. He pulled his phone out as he stepped around the corner of the building, out of sight in case Braddock woke up. Nate’s green dot hadn’t moved.
Sully’s heart sank.
* * *
“You okay?” Nate gasped. Chloe was finally taking in air without water coming out on the exhale.
“I think so,” she managed, barely. I actually drowned. “The Infamous Eighteen,” he coughed, “are such assholes.”
They both chuckled, and Nate rolled his head to look at her. She looked back at him, not sure how to express her appreciation. She’d swallowed water and blacked out. If he hadn’t been here…
“Hey, we made it,” Nate said, and she exhaled heavily, and nodded.
“Guys?” Sully’s fearful voice warbled through a burst of static. “Say something. Just tell me you’re alive.”
Nate and Chloe both sat up. There was a pile of dusty broken stones heaped against the wall next to the hatch, accounting for the blockage Nate had somehow pushed through.
“Yeah, we’re good,” Nate said, tapping at his ear. “We’re alive.”
Sully’s tone instantly switched from worried to annoyed. “Then what are you waiting for? Get moving!”
Nate retrieved their Aashlights and their dripping bags out of the well while Chloe caught her breath. They were at the dead end of another arched medieval tunnel, littered with fallen stones and webs. Water lapped at the opening in the Aoor, making mud where it spilled over.
They got to their feet slowly, wringing out their sopping clothes, pushing their wet hair back. The air was cold, Aat and sour, but it was good to be breathing.
Chloe cleared her throat, waited for Nate to look at her. “Thank you.” Nate smiled. “You don’t have to thank me, you had it.”
They both knew better. He saved my life.
He motioned at the tunnel in front of them. “I’m pretty sure it’s this way.”
Chloe shined her Aashlight over the rocks as Nate pulled her key out of the hatch, handed it to her.
“Is that because it’s the only way?” she asked. “Probably,” Nate said. “Come on, let’s go.”
Nate smiled at her again, and Chloe smiled back—but when he turned to start walking their new path, her smile faded quickly. She really liked Nate, and now she owed him… but if Sully had been a second later, both of them would be dead, her and sweet, clueless Nate. And Sully would only care because it would mean his trail to the gold was blocked.
Chloe sighed inwardly and followed Nate into the cold dark.
* * *
The kid answered, and Sully grinned, felt a weight come off his shoulders. The green dot on his phone started moving, and Sully hurried around the block of buildings that held the Papa John’s—then his grin fell away. The dot was crossing open traffic, and there were a lot of cars, Barcelona’s nightlife in full swing.
Sully waited for a break and then dashed into the street, narrowly avoiding a taxi and raising a chorus of honks and some angry Spanish curses. He made it to the other side without dying, just in time to see the green dot slide right through a locked bank building.
Crap. Sully could go left or right—either was a half block—and pick them up on the other side. He hesitated, waiting to see if the green dot would veer in one direction, but it seemed to be going straight… and the distance between the dots kept growing while he dicked around thinking about it.
Just go!
Sully turned east and broke into a jog, nearly mowing down an abuela with a loaded shopping trolley. She let out an indignant cry and told him to look where he was going, but Sully watched the phone, picking up speed as the green dot slid farther away.
* * *
Nate had shaken out his earpiece after their near-death experience but suspected it was done for. It kept crackling. When the seemingly endless, twisting tunnel finally opened into a large, open space, he gave it another try.
“Sully, you still up there?”
“Yeah, kid, I’m here. What do you got?”
Nate and Chloe shined their lights around the new chamber. Rocks and webs and shattered pillars. It was a big room, with part of a wide stone drainage pipe that led up from the back wall—and a small blur of what might have been night sky shining at the top. The air was definitely better, maybe a little warmer, although it smelled like mold. The tight blue beams illuminated arches packed with dirt and high rock walls, layers of ancient dust on the Aoor, but they really needed some kind of lantern…
“Not much, it’s dark down here,” Nate answered, just as his light picked up a sconce on the wall to his left, a torch resting in the metal holder. Nate lifted out the heavy, crusty iron stick, getting a whiff of the torch end—sulfur, yuck. It might still light, though.
“Always wanted to do this,” he said, and took out his Zippo, snapped it open, blew on the wick. Turned the wheel. The first few Aicks were useless, but he got a spark on the fourth spin, and the fifth. And the next five.
“Give that thing up already,” Chloe said.
Nate ignored her and was finally rewarded for his efforts, the wick catching and sizzling a little as the water burned out of it. He touched the dancing Aame to the metal well at the top of the torch—
—and the mixture fizzled to life, fire growing into a hissing, spitting column. Nate held the torch high, illuminating the room in waving shadows.
* * *
The dot stopped moving at the end of a small courtyard surrounded by buildings, empty except for an ancient stone well and a couple of park benches, a few big trees coming up through the bricks. Sully walked to the middle of the courtyard, noting the exit across the way. Backdoors to businesses, mostly, a few gothic-style streetlamps…
He stopped when the dots intersected, just as the kid spoke up. “Yeah, kid, I’m here, what do you got?” Sully said.
Nate said it was too dark to see much. Sully looked around the empty square, and—
Aha! There was a square metal drainage grate set into the stone paving ten feet away, about two feet across. Sully squatted in front of it, hooked his fingers through the rusty bars. Screwed down at the corners, but the screwheads were rusty, too.
A kind of murky glow appeared somewhere below him. Sully could make out what looked like a waterslide made out of rock about ten feet below the grate, descending sharply away from him.
“I see a light, is that you?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Nate said. “We’re in some sort of ante-chamber…”
His voice drifted off, and the faint glow moved away from what Sully could see. Sully pulled at the grate helplessly, biting his tongue. The kid was looking, he’d speak up when he’d found the next clue. They had to be getting close.
* * *
Chloe thought Nate had it right, they were in an antechamber. A large room but narrow and not ornately decorated. The fire from the sputtering torch cast the long, open room in shifting shadows. Giant pillars stood at the room’s corners, disappearing into darkness overhead. All rough-cut rock, the walls were water-stained at the bottom but currently dry as a bone, the Aoor thick with dust. The shallow stone steps off to the right were heaped with it, and the low, wooden, metal-banded door to the left—
Nate saw it at the same time and they both hurried to the door, crouching in front of it. Flat black iron circles like wheel rims were set into the heavy wood in a pattern, the metal clotted with cobwebs. There was a thick keyhole in the center of the largest middle circle.
Yes!
She handed the key to Nate—the least she could offer—and Nate traded her the spitting torch. Chloe raised it high as he pushed the heavy gold into the oblong slot—but the hole was too big. The cross turned uselessly, clanging softly in the rusty lock.
“Something’s not right,” Nate said. “The key doesn’t fit.”
“Sully, look around up there,” Chloe said, thinking about the water trap. “We’re missing something. See anything that might help?”
“I can’t get the grate up,” Sully said, sounding out of breath. “Forget the grate and look!”
* * *
No need to get pissy, Sully thought, and stood up, looking around. The oldest thing in the courtyard was the well, a low, narrow ring of medieval stone behind him. A more modern fountain had been added to the top, but it was empty. He hurried to it and looked inside. Just rock and mortar.
He looked at the rim, then crouched next to the base, brushing at the rocks that faced the grate. Was that an etched line?
Excited, Sully wiped away the sooty, dirty buildup. “There’s something here, it looks like a ladder or something…”
A few more brushes, and the symbol was exposed. Another tree? It was a circle with a straight, vertical line through the middle and four horizontal slashes up high, the two on top shorter than the bottom two…
“Wait,” he said. He pulled out his cross, looked at the symbol again, then stepped back to the drainage grate, pleased with himself. “I think I get it, I think it’s the two keys put together!”
“I need your key,” Nate said. “Can you throw it down?” Sully stopped grinning. Seriously?
He grabbed the grate with both hands and heaved. He could feel the front screws ready to give, and repositioned himself behind it. Maybe from a different angle—
“What’s the holdup?” Chloe asked.
As if you don’t know. “I’m coming down there for this,” he said, and gave the stubborn grate another yank. He realized he was sweating. All the screws were getting looser, though.
“You want a stupid key, or do you want the gold?” Nate asked. “Just throw it down!”
“I’m telling you,” Chloe said. “He’d rather lose the gold than risk trusting either of us, even for a second.”
Oh, really? Sneering, Sully threw the cross through the metal bars and watched it bounce away down the open pipe, to prove her wrong… And besides, he’d have the grate up in another minute. No way she’d have time to steal much before he got there.
* * *
Nate heard the key clatter down the rocky ditch leading out of the chamber, echoing off the impossibly high ceiling. Chloe went to pick it up, looking irritated beneath the glow of the Aickering torch.
“Thank you!” Nate called.
Chloe handed him the second key, and Nate fitted them together. They were like puzzle pieces, the hammered edges fitting together exactly with a soft, dull clink.
He put the heavy pair to the keyhole and the crosses slid in like they’d been made for it, which of course they had. He looked at Chloe, who met his gaze with a delighted grin, her eyes shining. She looked as excited as he felt.
“Here we go,” he said, and turned the key, and there was a satisfying click, the feel of a mechanism changing position.
He pushed at the door, but it didn’t budge. Something blocking the other side? Maybe the wood was swollen, after so many years of drainage water running past. Could do a lot of damage—
Chloe stood up and kicked the door. With a rending creak, the door fell
inward, landing with a thud in a soft billow of dust, the sound echoing into the huge treasure chamber they’d just unlocked.