Michael Belmont and the Tomb of Anubis (The Adventures of Michael Belmont) (8 page)

After the plane found its altitude, Elizabeth began to feel more relaxed.
 
She picked up the book again and took out the bookmark.

"That's a nice looking family," Gabriel said with a smile.

"Oh, thanks.
 
This is my best friend and her family."
 
She told him their names and about how she had known Rachel since high school and had even been there when the kids were born.

"Lovely children," he said.
 
"One of my best friends is named Michael.
 
He's a very impressive person, and I've known him for a long time."

"Is he married?" she asked him awkwardly.
 
But what she had really wanted to ask was, Are
you
married?
 
She noticed he wasn't wearing a wedding ring.

"No," he said.
 
"His boss keeps him very busy, he wouldn't have time for marriage."

The two continued to talk, and before Elizabeth realized it, a few hours had passed.
 
Gabriel was a very good listener.
 
The kind of person who you feel like you've known for years.

Elizabeth told him about things going on at work, about some music therapy she had been doing with children in the hospital, and a bit more about her friend Rachel's family.

She realized that she often got caught up in speaking about the Belmont children as if they were her own.
 
She was very attached to the Belmonts and knew they loved her as well, even considered her a part of the family, but she sometimes got the feeling that it was a little pathetic to live her life vicariously through her best friend.

Elizabeth longed to have a husband and children of her own.
 
There was one man in particular who she had fallen in love with long ago, but every time he seemed like he might be interested in her as well, he ended up pulling away and placing distance between them.
 
She knew the healthiest thing she could do was to let him go and move on, but it never seemed to be something she was capable of.

Maybe all she needed to do was meet the right person.
 
She knew that someone out there had to be right for her, someone who was willing to commit.
 
She wanted an intelligent, kind, mature man who would appreciate a loving wife and wanted at least a couple of children.

Gabriel seemed interested in children, and as they continued to talk they started telling stories from their own childhoods.

He had one story in particular that Elizabeth found very interesting, perhaps because he seemed so passionate in telling it.

"My friends and I were out hiking in the mountains when we came across an old mine shaft," he told her.
 
"There were a lot of abandoned shafts in that part of the country, and all the children had been warned how dangerous they were, but when you're young you sometimes feel like there's nothing out there that can harm you, and we couldn't help but investigate.
 
We had gone a few hundred feet inside when the passageway behind us collapsed, and we were trapped inside.
 
Everyone was extremely scared."

Elizabeth's eyes grew wide.

"We all had flashlights, but knew the batteries would only last for so long.
 
We had no food, no water, and nobody at home really knew for sure where we were.
 
We looked over the area of the cave in, but the rocks were much too big for us to move, and we soon knew that we weren't going to get out that way, so we headed deeper into the mine, hoping to find another way out.

The shaft broke off in several directions, and none of us was sure which way we should go.
 
We were all losing hope, but I knew I needed to be strong for my friends so we could all get out together.

After a long time searching the tunnels, we concluded that we must have come through the only entrance.
 
All of the passages seemed to lead to dead ends.
 
We headed back toward the entrance, and when we got there everyone just sat down.
 
We turned off our lights to save the batteries.
 
Nobody said anything; there was nothing to say.
 
We were trapped."

"How did you get out?" inquired Elizabeth, her eyes growing wide.

"Well, that's the weird part.
 
We all heard a noise a few dozen feet down one of the shafts.
 
You can imagine what an unpleasant shock that was.

I shined my light toward the source of the noise, and standing on the ground by the wall was a really big jackrabbit.
 
We all got up slowly so we wouldn't spook him, and he began to hop down the chamber on the far right.
 
We followed him.

Every time we got within fifteen feet or so he would hop a little farther.
 
We all hoped silently that maybe he had a way out he was unknowingly going to show us.

As we approached the end of the shaft he disappeared behind a boulder, and looking behind it we found a small opening in the side of the rock.
 
It was just big enough for us to crawl through one at a time, which we did.

After what seemed like forever, I looked up ahead and saw what appeared to be the twinkling of stars.
 
We crawled out of the side of that mountain, a little bit bruised and beaten up, but much, much wiser.
 
We were glad to be alive."

"That's amazing.
 
I don't know what I'd do in a situation like that, I'm not very fond of closed-in spaces."

"I noticed," said Gabriel.
 
"But I have a feeling that you might be braver then you think you are."

She smiled at him with a grateful but doubtful look on her face.

"It's getting kind of late, why don't you try to get some rest," Gabriel told her.

As soon as he said this, she realized just how tired she was.
 
She couldn't help but close her eyes, and was just starting to nod off into a deep sleep when she felt a gentle but firm hand shaking her shoulder.

"Excuse me, miss, but you need to wake up, we've landed."

Elizabeth opened her eyes and drearily looked up at the stewardess standing beside her.

"You're a deep sleeper, not an easy one to wake up," she said kindly.

"We're here?" Elizabeth asked a bit dumbly.

"That's right, you need to get off the plane now.
 
Looks like you'll be the last one off."

Elizabeth turned quickly and noticed that Gabriel had gone.
 
She swiftly thanked the stewardess and gathered up her things.

Rushing to the end of the line, she was trapped behind an old man with a cane and his wife, who were slowly creeping into the terminal.
 
She looked everywhere, but Gabriel was nowhere in sight.

She could barely contain her tears.

Michael often had trouble getting to sleep at night.
 
This was especially true when his parents were away traveling.
 
Although he was quite used to them going away for business, he had never liked it.
 
As his parents had left for Egypt that morning, he found his mind wandering nervously about the things he would do to occupy himself for the next few weeks until they returned.

They had assured him that the trip would only last for two weeks, possibly three, and then they would return to Scotland for another few weeks before the whole family went back to Egypt for the rest of the summer.
 
He looked forward to spending time with Liam, but wished that his parents were going to be around as well.

Michael wanted to sleep, but his mind kept racing, and all he could do was lay there and think.

Then he heard the pipes again.

Over the last few nights, Michael had intended to return to the spot where the corridor had appeared to him the first time he'd heard the music, but he had not yet gotten the chance. His parents went to bed after he did, and he knew they would get after him for wandering around the castle alone at night.
 
On top of that, he had been so exhausted over the last few days that he was asleep before his head hit the pillow each night.

In actuality, he had come to a point of convincing himself that it had all been his imagination, but now that he heard the music again, going back down to look for the corridor would take away all doubt.

He slid to the floor, put on his slippers and robe, and grabbed his flashlight.

Walking past his sister's room, he instinctively looked in to check on her.
 
Abigail could be a tremendous pest at times, but Michael was very protective of his little sister, and this was especially the case when his parents were away.
 
She was sleeping soundly.
 
Michael had always envied her ability to fall asleep so quickly.

He went past her room and headed toward the spot where the mysterious corridor had previously appeared.
 
The music was certainly growing louder as he walked.

The castle seemed especially drafty tonight, and Michael was glad he had remembered to put his robe on.
 
He moved swiftly down the hall, and soon arrived at his destination.

There was the corridor, just where it had been the first night he'd found it.

Was all of this a dream?
 
He certainly didn't think so.
 
But why had this corridor disappeared?
 
Perhaps it only revealed itself at night, or maybe someone had the ability to open it up whenever they chose to.
 
Maybe it only appeared when the bagpipe music was played?
 
This was a question that demanded an answer.

Now that he was here once again, Michael wasn't at all sure that he liked the idea of going down a disappearing corridor by himself in the middle of the night, especially when he knew what kind of grotesque works of art littered its walls.

He had an urge however; to make sure that everything was there just as it had been before.
 
He wanted to confirm that he wasn't going crazy or imagining things.

And what about the piper?
 
Was the ghost of the piper of Argyll trying to show him something?

"I need to go get Liam," he told himself quietly.
 
But even as he said this the music of the bagpipes began to slowly fade, as if it were moving away from him.

Without hesitating, he began to run down the corridor, intent on catching the source of the music, but it seemed that the faster he ran, the faster the music faded.
 
By the time he got to the portrait of the wild looking man and the werewolf mural, the piping was completely gone.

"You again," he said nastily, looking at the man's ugly face.
 
"Well, this trash is still hanging on the walls, I was right about that."

He took a moment to reexamine the door next to the portrait.
 
He could still find no keyhole, and again the door would not budge.
 
He ran his fingers along the carving of the full moon.
 
"It's a beautiful door.
 
Too bad this other stuff is here next to it."

Now that the piping had stopped once again, he was mad and frustrated, and determined to go on.
 
He continued walking to the end of the hall, and stopped at the winding stairway.
 
He was going to go up those stairs even if he had to do it alone.

He took a deep breath, and began to climb.
 
He held his head down and his chest out, which seemed to give him confidence.
 
This only lasted a while, however, as the stairs seemed to go on and on, and by the time he reached the top, he was dragging himself along.
 
He felt as though he had gone up about ten flights, although he knew that this was impossible.

He took a moment to catch his breath before taking a good look around.
 
He noticed a light switch by the edge of the stairs and flipped it up.
 
The lights flickered for a moment before illuminating the room, which was very large and reminded him of a museum.

There were display cases that housed all kinds of antiques and strange artifacts.
 
Many of the items had small paper cards in front of them, but Michael couldn't read the writing on some of them, and not all were written in English.

Some of the items looked very valuable, like a large golden gauntlet with gems set in the knuckles.
 
Michael focused his eyes on the card, which was partially obscured with a cobweb.
 
He made out part of a word, "Infin…", but that was all he could read.

Other items looked like common, worthless junk.
 
In one of the glass cases were a mallet and a leather pouch with wooden stakes hanging out of it.
 
"Property of Professor Abraham Van Helsing," the card read.

"Who was he?" Michael said to himself.
 
"Must have been a famous land surveyor."

There were some intricate models set up as well.
 
Michael recognized one as a flying machine he had seen in a book of Leonardo Da Vinci inventions.
 
It looked very old.
 
He examined it with wide eyes, but for some reason was afraid to touch it.

Not far from the flying machine was a six foot tall bronze android, it reminded him of something he'd seen in an old 1950's B Movie.
 
It was gritty, but intricate and in a way, beautiful.
 
Its card read "Talos".

Going on down the row of artifacts, Michael suddenly heard a light, metallic hum.
 
It was almost like a song, but it seemed rather unstructured, like wind chimes.
 
He looked around, trying to discover what might be making the noise, and then something magnificent caught his eye.