The Nymph's Curse: The Collection (21 page)

“Are you going to risk your life on the hope that your phone will work when we are deep underground?”

He tapped the phone that was stuffed in his back pocket as her words sank in. Reaching in the bag, he grabbed the ball of wire and tossed it to her. Taking an end, she tied it to the bottom of the limestone column that stood beside them. She stuffed the ball into her back pocket, so the thin wire would automatically feed out as they made their way through the maze of tunnels.

She stood up and leaned her shovel against the dirt wall. “Okay. I’ll go in first and you can follow.”

He stood up and he dusted off his pants. Grabbing his shovel, he leaned it next to hers against the wall. He turned to her, grabbed her arms and stared into her eyes. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be angry. I appreciate this. I hope you know that.” There was softness in his round brown eyes.

“I know. And I hope you know … I trust you.”

He let go of her arm and ran his hands over her hair. Putting his hand to the back of her head, he pulled her into his embrace. His lips crushed against hers as he held her tightly against his hot, sweaty body.

Releasing her from his hold, he looked down. “I want you to be careful. Don’t do anything foolish.”

“In case I haven’t told you, there’s only one thing that can kill me. So
you
don’t do anything foolish.”

He smiled and kissed her lips with a tenderness that reminded her of the night they had spent in the surf.

She pulled back, and then stopped and gave him one last quick peck on the lips. “Let’s go.”

Turning away, she faced the dark hole in the side of the wall. A new fear rose within her. The last time she had been in that place was with Theseus, and she had been badly wounded when a Chimera had attacked her and burned her with its fiery breath. Theseus had disposed of the creature, but the gods only know what atrocities he had left behind.

The rocks in the entrance scratched at her skin as she shimmied her way through the small opening. She sat up and jumped the last few feet to the floor of the tunnel.

The stagnant air of the Labyrinth was filled with the scents of burnt charcoal, rotting vegetation and decay. It had been over three thousand years since she had been here, but the scent was the same as it had been the first time. Bile rose in her throat, but she swallowed it away.
No weakness.

Rocks tumbled from the entrance as Beau struggled to fit through the hole behind her. “You need help?” She turned to him in the darkness and extended her hand.

“No, ugh. I got this,” he grunted.

Stubborn men … they’ll never change.

She blinked as she let her eyes adjust to the blackness.

Beau jumped down from the hole and landed beside her. “Okay, which way?”

There were some things that had been lost from her memory forever, but not the day she had last experienced this place. “Left. At least that’s the way Theseus and I went. But I can’t say for sure where Kat put the staff.”

“Well, left’s as good a place as any to start looking.” Beau took her hand and led her away from the security of the entrance.

She tried to control her fear of the dark tight walls that circled around her. Closing her eyes, she swallowed her fear. This was the time to be brave, to push past her comfort level. This was her time.

The further they moved away from the small hole, the darker it became until finally Beau clicked on his small LED flashlight. He flashed its beam at a wall and bugs scuttled frantically out of the brightness.

“Is it going to be like that the whole way?” He asked, pointing at where the bugs had been.

“When we get deeper, they’ll lessen.”

Their footsteps echoed in the eerie silence of the tunnels. Blindly, they moved forward until the tunnel came to an end. Beau shone the light down the right and the light was swallowed by the maw of blackness. To the left, the light hit the dull dry brown of a far wall, another T-shaped turn.

“Where now?” Beau asked as he flipped the light between their choices.

She pulled him to the right and moved into the endless darkness. The sounds of drips echoed up from the cavernous expanses as they zigzagged around corners. They followed a hairpin turn downward and it led them to a steep decline. The scraping of their shoes stopped and Beau flashed the light down, exposing a smooth-looking rock surface.

“Water must have seeped through cracks somewhere and deposited the minerals here.” Beau pulled her closer as he spoke. “Be careful, sometimes these types of deposits can be slippery.”

She smiled at his protective tone. “I’ll be fine. From here on out, as far as I know, the floor will be like this.”

“Do you think we should go toward the center?”

“Well, Kat obviously didn’t lay the staff within the entrance like we were hoping. In the center of the maze, where Theseus killed the Minotaur, there is an altar of sorts. She might have put it there.”

“Let’s try it. Can you find the way?”

“That’s where we’re headed. As long as we continue down this way, I think we should be close. But when — ”

A woman-like scream pierced through the still air.

Ariadne gasped. Beau clenched her hand. “That sounded like a cougar. You don’t have cougars in Crete, do you?”

“We’re not really in Crete anymore,” she whispered. “We’re in another world.”

“What was that noise?”

“We don’t want to see the being that made that noise.” They came to a three-way fork. She peered down to the right, the known path, and then motioned for them to take the central corridor and away from the direction of the scream.

“What’s it from?” Beau relaxed his grip.

“It’s a spirit of death. If we meet her, you might not leave this place alive.”

“So there’s a banshee that lives here?”

“Worse than a banshee. The young woman, Fantasma, whose spirit roams this cave system, died not long after my adventures here. It was said that she fell in love with a mariner’s son and she came from a wealthy Minoan family. When her parents found out about her love affair with the boy, they had him killed and told her that they had thrown his body into the Labyrinth.”

Their footsteps echoed through the caves.

“What happened to her?” Beau whispered.

“Overcome with grief, she committed suicide and her spirit found the buried cave. Of course, her parents had lied and the girl never found her lover’s body. Her wails are her anguished cries for her lover. When she meets anyone, she takes their body as an offering for the Labyrinth to release her love back to her.”

Beau squeezed her hand tight. “There’s so much that the world doesn’t know that you do. I could add so much to the history books.”

Her heart lurched.
Did he only care about science? Or was it his image he was so worried about?

She thought for a moment. “In the past, history was written by politicians, without concern for the truth. Even with the change in technology, there is still a long way to go before the world and people are ready to learn the truth of their existence — and where they really stand in the greater order of life.”

“Where is that exactly?”

“Somewhere right above dogs, but pretty low.” Ariadne flinched as she spoke. “To most non-humans, they see you as a constant flow of chatter, an endlessly replenishing supply of workers, almost like ants. To most, you all look alike, without individuality.”

“Do you think I’m an ant?”

She stopped and looked up into his eyes. There was sadness within them. “It would be easier if I wasn’t close to your kind. I could think as they do, and I’d sit idly by and watch the short lives of humans play out below me. But I think humans can teach gods.”

Beau frowned. “What can we possibly teach immortals?”

“Kindness, real love, sacrifice, and above all, humanity. Gods and all immortals lose a sense of themselves the longer they’re alive. Things that were once important fall to the wayside. The fire of love is tempered by time. They become complacent and forget the feelings that once brought them joy. They forget what love is.”

“Does that happen to your kind, to nymphs?”

She ran her thumb over the back of his hand. “Nymphs can’t love, remember?”

His eyes were filled with the shadows of his insecurities. “Can’t or won’t?”

She picked up his hand and pressed it against her heart. “Can you feel it?”

His fingers uncurled from hers and pressed against her chest. For a moment, he let his hand rest above her left breast.

“My heart is just like yours. I feel the same feelings that you do. But I have to follow my mind as well as my heart. I can’t expose others I care about to the curse.”

“There are others?” Beau sounded hurt. “I thought I was the only one in your life.”

The keen of the woman’s scream echoed down the tunnels, and the sound seemed closer. “Shhh,” she whispered. “Let’s not forget why we’re here.”

He looked at her as if she were guilty of a thousand sins. “You’re not getting out of this that easily. You will answer me, eventually.”

She turned her back on him and led the way further down into the bowels of the earth. Love was off the table as far as she was concerned. In its place were the dangers that surrounded them. There were too many unknowns, and not just within the Labyrinth. She could never love a mortal man — unless she could find a way around the curse.

The drip of water echoed closer as they descended deeper, and the walls cried with its earthly tears. Beau stumbled behind her; his light flickered back and forth in the darkness, and cast a shadow in her path.

“You think we’re close?” Beau said, breaking the tense silence between them.

“The Labyrinth, as far as I know, has another exit somewhere close to the palace of Knossos. But getting there — ” Her foot slipped and her scream penetrated the darkness.

“Ariadne!” Beau yelled.

She reached out toward the walls, but her body continued to fall deeper, unstoppable as the flesh from her fingertips ripped away on the unforgiving cave walls. The wind whistled by her as she floundered.

Her feet hit first. The pain radiated up from the balls of her feet, into her ankles, all the way to her hips. She cried out as her body dropped and her head bounced off the wall. Sickening pain spread through her body and her mind went black.

Beau shined his flashlight into the swirling blackness at his feet. “Ariadne?”

His heart thrashed in his chest.
God, please let her be okay. She can’t be hurt … she just can’t be … but the fall was so far. God, let her be alive.

The golden wire from her pocket stretched tight over the harsh rock to his right. He tried to quiet the drumming of his heart, to listen if he could hear her from the depths. He held his breath. There was no sound.

“Ariadne?” He called again.

Nothing.

How am I going to get down?

Placing his hand against the rough volcanic rock wall, the water dripped down his hand and fell freely from his wrist. If he took his time he could work his way down, but he would need to be careful.

He opened his backpack and pulled out a rope. He looped one end around a small outcrop of rock on the side of the wall. Wrapping the other end of the rope around his waist, he fished the rope into an intricate knot.

He took another look down into the black depths. “Ariadne?” He silently pleaded for her to answer, but the only answer came in a chill that ran down his spine.

The flashlight trembled as he pushed the thin cord over his wrist. He would need both hands. Stepping to the edge of the precipice, he turned around and grabbed the rope.

He leaned backward as he shuffled down the side of the hole. His shoes slipped slightly, but he held firm and forced himself to take another step. His hands ached as each fiber of the rope dug into his hands, but he refused to let the pain register — Ariadne needed him.

Just when he began to wonder if the hole would ever end, his feet touched down. Unlooping the rope from his waist, he stuffed it in his bag. His numb hands fumbled with the cold metal flashlight. On the ground next to where he stood, Ariadne laid in a crushed heap. Her hair was thrown over her face, and her arm was contorted in a sickening V-shape.

A gasp escaped him.

Hadn’t she said nymphs couldn’t die?

He put his fingers to her neck. There was a faint pulse.

“Sweetheart?” he said, as he pushed back her hair, exposing her face.

Her eyes were closed and a torrent of blood streamed from her nose. He brushed the rest of her hair out of her face, but she didn’t respond.

He looked up toward the heavens. “Please, whatever gods are out there. Please, help her. She needs you. Damn it, I need you. Come on.”

What was he going to do? He couldn’t jar her by carrying her around the tunnels. What if she had a spinal injury?

Closing his eyes, he ran his fingers over her cheeks. Her skin was cold
.
He had to do something. He needed to get the staff.

Beau leaned over her body, and gingerly took the ball of golden wire from her back pocket. He pushed it into his jeans pocket.

He cradled her neck and carefully rolled her crumbled body onto her back. Taking off his jacket, he draped it over her body. Taking the edge of the jacket’s sleeve, he dabbed the blood away from under her nose. Leaning in, he softly kissed the pale skin of her cheek.

“Ariadne, sweetheart, I’ll be right back. Trust me.” She couldn’t hear him, he was sure, but the action made him feel better. Somewhere deep inside her mind, she would know that he was going after help in an attempt to make things right.

Standing up, he picked up his backpack and looked at Ariadne’s face. A bruise was beginning to form under her eyes and her nose looked crooked. She was going to be sore when she woke up, but at least she was alive.

His footsteps echoed the beat of his heart. He turned back toward Ariadne and flashed the light in her direction, but the beam was quickly swallowed by the dank tunnel.

He turned back and continued walking. Nothing could approach her. He blocked the entrance. If anything wanted to find her it would either have to fall down the hole, or get through him.