The Treasure Hunters (11 page)

 
“You certainly managed to do just that.” Her
body lay replete in satisfaction and she was loath to get back up and continue
on. “But I thought you said we were going to have sex.”

“Give me some credit. I’m not such a
brute to ravish you in the tunnel of fear.” He nudged her nose with his own. “When
I do ravish you it’ll be in a soft fluffy bed with lots of pillows.”

“Pillows?
Why pillows?”

“You’ll see.”

He grinned, then his head dipped
and he kissed her again, softly at first until she responded and then it went
deeper, slicker,
hotter
. The sound of breaking glass
broke their kiss and both sat up to look behind them.

“You heard that, didn’t you?”

“Maybe it’s
Merri
.”
She opened her mouth to call out, but Sin slapped a hand around her mouth. He
shook his head.

“I don’t think that’s
Merri
,” he said grimly. “First of all, we wouldn’t have
passed her. Second, I haven’t known her long but she doesn’t seem to be the type
of girl who stays quiet much.”

Ruby nodded as fear sliced through
her. She had to agree about Merridie’s personality. She’d be screaming her head
off. So that meant someone was coming. Someone was following them. They
scrambled to their feet, and Ruby had to adjust her clothing.

“Who is it?” she asked.
“The natives?”

“I don’t know,” Sin said grimly. “I
don’t think it’s the natives.”

“Then who?”

His mouth tightened and he looked
away.

“Sin?”

“Remember when I talked about the
past catching up?”

She nodded.
“Your
ghost?”

“Yes. A ship has been following us,
the ship of an old foe named Ramzee. If he’s behind us, we could be in
trouble.”

“Do you think, somehow we got ahead
of
Merri
and he has her?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t think we
should wait around for whoever it is behind us to catch up.”

“How do you know this even leads to
a way out? I…I’m scared. I thought this was going to be easy, but I’m terrified
of being lost here. Sin, if we go back…”

“We can’t go back, Ruby,” he told
her gently. “Go back to what? Meet up with whoever is behind us?
To a sunken ship?
To your father’s broken
company?
What would we be going back to, Ruby?”

“I don’t know,” she said, a bit
desperately. “But it’s better to be alive. Better to be in sunlight than lost
in this nothingness.”

He cupped her face and tilted her
head so she was staring up at him. “No one knows the future, Ruby. If we did we
wouldn’t have lost everything on the market. We wouldn’t have met. And believe
me,
of all the possibilities in this world I’m glad you found
me. I trusted you once, Ruby, so please trust
me
now.”

He was right, of course. Life was
not about turning back. She was the one that had talked everyone into taking
this adventure, so she couldn’t chicken out now. She took one of his hands in
hers and nodded.

Another noise echoed through the
tunnel.

“Come on,” he said and she nodded
in agreement. He scooped up the torch and then they were hurrying through the
tunnel, trying to outrun whatever, or whoever, was behind them.

Chapter Eleven

Sin could barely believe he’d just
brought Ruby to climax in a dirty, dark as pitch tunnel, full of dirt, cobwebs,
and God knew what else. Now, they were being pursued by someone: Thieves, he
suspected, and he really hoped he was wrong about the man who probably followed
behind them. Ramzee was one of those mysteries of the universe that always
managed to show up at the wrong time. He had an innate tracking ability that
Sin admired, but the man was absolutely ruthless.

“So, this ghost of yours…who is it?”

“A man named Ramzee.
A damn modern-day pirate of the seas.”

“Why is he following us? He can’t
know about the map. Unless…”

He shot her a quick, searching
look.
“Unless?”
“
Well, I don’t think the men in the warehouse where I found it were
hunting for themselves. Maybe this Ramzee knew about it, and I intercepted it.”

Could that be the reason why? Was
Ramzee really just following for the map and not because of the
Paradise
?

“I suppose anything is possible,”
he said. “Ramzee used to own the
Paradise
.”

“Your game of chance was with this
pirate? You’re braver than I thought.”

He shrugged. “Cards are about
numbers, and I’m good with numbers.”

“So…you cheated?”

“Let’s just say, I rigged it so I’d
win. I
really
wanted that boat.”

“And now this Ramzee wants his boat
back?”

“I think it’s more that he wants to
get back at me,” he corrected. “Ramzee steals artifacts and treasures. I’d
known about him for some time, so when I saw a chance to take his boat, I
thought that would knock him out of commission for a time. I was wrong.”

“Wrong, how?”

“The
Paradise
had a sister boat, the
Predator
.”

“Oh,” she said. She gave him a
speculative glance. “What did you used to do?
Before the
crash?”

“Nothing
so
sinister as stealing, I assure you. I worked with the British Museum in Cairo,
arranging transportation of Egyptian antiquities. Ramzee used to plunder my
ships for the cargo.”

“Ah, that answers a lot of
questions.”

They’d entered a large cavern and
the torchlight bounced throughout the room. Sin suddenly threw his arm out to
halt her. Ruby came to a skidding stop and scattered pebbles over a cliff. They
tried peering over the side, but the feeble light didn’t even penetrate the
utter blackness of the pit. He held up the torch, but the other side was too
far to even see.

 
 
“We
won’t be jumping this time,” Sin said.

“I don’t understand. This has to be
the way.”

“What did the map say?”

“Um…something about trusting our
fears, I think.”

“Were those the exact words? Think,
Ruby.”

“I didn’t memorize it!” she
snapped. “I just quickly read
Merri’s
notes over her
shoulder. It said…it said
trust your
fears of descending into night
.”

“Descending…?”

Sin looked around, lay down on the
ground and hung his head over the side of the pit. He waved the torch into the
blackness.

“There,” he said.

He pointed to an area past the
cliff’s side as she lay down next to him. A staircase bolted into the cliff’s
side and followed the rocky side down, plunging into the blackness.

“We’ll take those.”

Even before he’d finished saying
the words she shook her head. When he picked up her hand, her skin was cold and
clammy.

“No, I can’t,” she whispered.

 
Sin sat up and pulled her with him. He cradled
her in arms as he cupped her face and stared into her eyes. “Listen to me,
Ruby. You can do this. I’m right here. I promise I won’t let anything happen to
you, you hear me?”

“It’s too dark.”

“I know
it’s
dark, but we can’t stay here. And we can’t go back. Ruby, this is what we’ve
come to find.”

He kissed her gently on the lips. They
felt cold under his touch.

“You’ll be with me?” she asked
quietly.

“I will,” he vowed.

She nodded. Sin stood and pulled
her up so they faced each other. Ruby’s eyes kept darting between him and the
pit.

“No, look at me. Keep your eyes on
me, sweetheart,
okay
?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

He wedged the torch in some
boulders and turned to face her. He helped her sit down on the cliff’s edge
over the wooden stairway. She kept her gaze on his, even when she raised her
arms, so Sin could grab her hands and slowly lower her. Down, down, until her
feet landed on the platform.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She nodded. Sin released her hand
and then passed her the torch.

“Step aside so I can come down.”

“Be careful, Sin. Please.”

He sat down with his legs dangling
over the cliff before turning to slide down on his stomach. Tricky, as he tried
to keep his balance with his arms and stretch down to his toes. He didn’t feel
anything right away and his heart jolted in fear as his arms slid a little in
the loose gravel. He prayed that he wouldn’t fall to his death, and then he
prayed he didn’t die and leave Ruby all alone in the dark.

Ruby’s hand grabbed his calf to
help steady him, and then he felt his foot touch the platform. When he was
secure on the wooden step, he looked back up the ledge and for some
reason,
it was scarier looking up than down.

“The steps seem sturdy enough after
a hundred years,” she replied.

“Mm,” he grunted. He took a deep
breath. “Just be careful. Come on, hold my hand.”

Her hand seemed tiny in his and he
couldn’t help but wonder, just what in the hell were they doing? This was sheer
and utter madness.

****

Holding Sin’s hand, Ruby didn’t
look down as they descended. A few feet down, they came across a cave and Sin
stretched up to wipe away the grime from above it to show a carving.

“Look,” Sin said, holding the torch
closer.

“That’s Vouleigh’s crest.”

They smiled at each other and for
the first time since entering the dark, Ruby felt excited. After all they’d
gone
though,
the treasure was finally within their
grasp. They entered the dark cave and the torch barely illuminated the area,
but what they did see were smooth walls, and a large wooden chest pushed up
against one side.

“What’s that smell?” Ruby asked.

“Rot. I’m surprised anything is
still standing after a hundred years, in this damp air.”

He walked over to the chest and
studied it. The wood was encrusted with mildew and the metal hinges were
overgrown with rust.

“This should be easy to open.” He
handed her the torch, raised his leg, and kicked the front lock squarely. The
lock not only broke, but the wood around it shattered into splinters. He tore
away the lid.

“What’s inside?” she asked eagerly.

“It’s art.”

He lifted one canvas up to show a
portrait of a man, woman, and young girl. The man looked happy and proud,
standing for the painter. The woman sat in front of him with a beautiful smile
on her face. The young girl was clearly their child.

Ruby backed up as Sin began to take
the paintings out to line them up. Each one was rather ordinary: A life, per se,
in painted pictures. As he worked, she glanced around and noticed another shape
in the back corner. Curious, she walked cautiously toward it, holding the torch
up.

“I don’t like it here,” Sin
muttered. “It feels like we’re in a tomb.”

The light touched upon something
long and white: A skeleton. Ruby screamed and backtracked.

“Ruby, are you all right?”

She gestured wildly toward the
corner. “It’s a,
a
s-skeleton.”

Sin took the torch from her and
headed for the area she pointed toward. Ruby glued herself to his back and held
onto his shirt. Darkness, skeletons––this hunt was almost more than she could
bear.

The skeleton was lying on top of
the sarcophagus, his arms down by his side. The clothes were mostly rotten away
and large spider webs lay in thick patches on the bones.

“Why isn’t he in the sarcophagus?”
she asked.

Sin kneeled down and traced the
side of the stone coffin with his fingers.

“Because his wife and child are in
here,” he said.
“
Agathe
and Gabrielle
Vouleigh
.
Beloved wife and daughter.”

“He laid them to rest here?”

He straightened and nodded.
“And then died with them.”

As she stood there looking at the
graves, a riot of emotions went through her.
Confusion, pity,
sadness––and acceptance.
She was looking at a love so
strong,
a man was willing to die in this blackness to stay with them.

“His greatest treasure,” Ruby
murmured. Tears gathered in her eyes but she let them fall. His arm curled
around her and he pulled her into his side.

“Yeah.”

 
“We should leave. Let them remain
undisturbed.”

“Yeah,” Sin said again.

“Oh god.
What
if Ramzee is behind us?” she asked. “He’ll tear this tomb up looking for gold.”

Sin looked at the paintings. “Help
me hide these behind the sarcophagus.”

Ruby and Sin gathered the paintings
and slid them between the wall and the casket.

“How are we going to get out of
here? If Ramzee is coming, we could run straight into him.”

Sin looked around the chamber
before his gaze went to the opening. “There’s only one way in and one way out. The
stairs continue down. We’ll go that way.”

“You think there’s an exit that
way?”

“I don’t know. But I don’t know any
other way.”

****

 
Ramzee led them into a chamber that was empty.
He held his hand up for his men to halt and advanced cautiously, holding the
lamp out to the large void where the cliff abruptly gave way. Up and down he
walked the path, but even Merridie saw that the other side was too far to jump.

He turned and stomped back to them
and tore her gag off. “What’s the map say about this?”

She rolled her lips inward her
teeth, showing she refused to say a word. In retaliation he grabbed her arm and
pulled her until she dangled over the black chasm. Fear exploded through her,
but there wasn’t anything she could do since she was tied up. She was at his
mercy.