Part 62 (1/2)

”Where's the door that goes to the underground place?” Jahlil said. ”That's all I wanna know.”

”It's hidden, I'm sure,” David said. He stepped across the threshold. The others entered behind him.

”We'd better close these doors,” Jahlil said. ”The mutts are getting up”

Indeed, back in the cemetery, the vampiric hounds had begun to stir, like broken toys that had been repaired and gifted with new batteries.

David and Jahlil grabbed the interior door handles and pulled the doors shut, cutting off the daylight. The flashlight was the only light source in the silent vestibule.

Nia ran her palms across the walls, searching for an indentation, or a lever. Jahlil began to do the same along the opposite wall. King sniffed curiously at the tombs.

Slowly, David walked, scanning the light beam around. He did not know what he was looking for. Anything out of the ordinary. As if walking inside a family mausoleum was an ordinary task.

”There's gotta be a door, somewhere,” David said. He noticed King snuffling around a tomb against the far wall. ”Wait a minute. King, move away from there”

Ears raised curiously, the dog edged aside.

David shone the flashlight across the lid of the stone coffin.

Large fingerprints were imprinted along the dusty edge.

Someone had recently opened the tomb.

David looked at Nia. ”You said Mason, his wife, and their three kids were buried in here. But there are six graves, not five”

”You're right,” Nia said. She came closer. ”I didn't notice that”

David gave the flashlight to Nia. ”Jahlil, help me open this, would you?”

Nia kept the light over them as they lifted the tomb's heavy lid. The thick cover raised like the hood of a car, attached to the granite casket via a set of steel hinges.

The tomb was empty.

A circular hole, large enough to admit a man, yawned in the center. The flashlight revealed a set of stone ladder rungs that began along the side of the opening, and dropped down into the darkness. David could not see the bottom of the shaft.

”You've got to be kidding me,” Jahlil said, dusting his hands on his jeans. ”We've got to go down there? Why can't we lob a bomb down there and call it a day?”

”That won't work,” David said. ”We have to be sure that he's gone”

”He's right,” Nia said. She looked weary, and a pang of anxiety twisted through David. How much time did they have before the vampire poison worked its way through Nia and robbed her of consciousness? Most likely, not much time at all.

Jahlil groaned. ”All right. This just keeps getting better, doesn't it?”

Nia peered over the lip of the hole, directing the flashlight down there.

”I can see the bottom, but barely,” she said. ”My guess is that it's a drop of about twenty, twenty-five feet”

David looked, too. ”Yeah, something like that” He stepped back. ”You don't all have to go, I can go by myself. You can wait up here”

”Negative, Hunter,” Nia said. ”How many times do I have to tell you that I'm with you all the way on this? I'm going, and you can't stop me”

”So am I,” Jahlil said. He sighed. ”I guess. Let's pray for G.o.d to stay with us on this, y'all.”

David opened his mouth to argue about them following, then stopped, knowing that debating would be fruitless. Already, the three of them had endured so much together. He could not demand that they stand back and watch. Not now. They had already pa.s.sed the point of no return.

”But you, King, you're staying up here,” David said to the dog. ”Unless you can climb down a ladder.”

The dog wagged his tail eagerly, as though game for the challenge. But there was no way that David was carrying the dog down there. It was out of the question.

”Let's lighten our load, then,” David said. ”We need to bring only the essentials: guns and explosives.”

They stuffed the remaining Molotov c.o.c.ktails-they had only three left-into David's duffel bag. David carried the bag over his shoulder. Jahlil carried his shotgun, Nia wore her gun on her hip holster, and David had slid his own pistol at the back of his waist, where it was held snug by his belt.

”I'll go first,” David said. ”Nia comes after me, and Jahlil, you'll bring up the rear. Everyone ready?”

They nodded. David gazed into the shaft. It was like staring into the throat of a giant monster.

We're out of our minds for doing this, he thought. But the thought did not stop him. This had long since ceased to be a rational mission. They were fueled by faith alone. As he looked into the pit, he had an acute understanding of why his ancestor, William Hunter, had never been the same after confronting Diallo in the cave over a century ago. The man, operating on faith and courage, had looked Death in the face and survived, and there was little wonder why, afterward, William had become a legend who dedicated his life to saving others. Why fear man when you had conquered something greater than man?

If I live through this, everything is going to change for me, David thought. I don't know how, but it will.

He stashed the flashlight inside his s.h.i.+rt pocket, leaving the beam on. He gripped the edges of the tomb, slid his leg over the rim, and found a toehold on a ladder rung. He swung his other leg over, balanced that foot on the rung, too.

Then he clutched the ladder in both hands. The stone was cool and dry.

”It's steady,” he said. ”But take your time.”

He began to descend. The sound of his breathing echoed in the shaft. The walls, revealed in the backsplash of the flashlight, were smooth, yet corroded in spots.

Above him, Nia positioned herself on the rungs and began to climb down. Jahlil came soon after.

The combined noise of their breathing was disturbingly loud. David had given up any hope that they would take Diallo by surprise, unless the beast slumbered in a soundproof coffin.

Abruptly, one side of the shaft's wall ended. They were nearing the bottom. After he pa.s.sed the next rung, his foot touched solid ground.

He moved away from the ladder. He shone the flashlight around.

He was at the end of a long tunnel. It was about the width of a hallway in a large house, with a ceiling perhaps eight feet high. Several dark doorways branched off from the main corridor. The area reeked of damp earth, and old dust.

Nia, then Jahlil, pushed away from the ladder and joined him, their footsteps echoing in the pa.s.sageway.

”d.a.m.n,” Jahlil said, in a whisper. ”So Ed Mason had his own little crib down here”

”Yeah,” Nia whispered. ”But which room will we find him in?”

”We're staying together,” David said. ”We'll check in each one. We can't risk being separated”

He was about to ask them to draw their weapons, but they automatically did so without him speaking a word.

David gripped the flashlight in his left hand. In his right, he held the .3 8.