I remembered the rooftops on the buildings I’d seen protruding from the hills. Like pagodas, I’d said, and the memory made me feel a bit better. If we were somewhere in Asia, maybe we were in the right place after all.
“What now?” Kiera asked, squeezing out of the hole behind me.
“I don’t know.” There was no neon arrow pointing the way. No sign saying Push Here to Retrieve Relic. Nothing at all to help us find the thing we were looking for. I didn’t even know if the thing was bigger than a bread box, and right then I felt a spurt of dark, sour anger. A low fury that I’d been thrust into this job—by both Johnson and Clarence, no less—and neither one of them had given me a clue what I was supposed to do once I got in the general vicinity of the thing.
“I don’t like this,” Kiera whispered. “I can fight demons. They trained me to do that. But I’m not freaking Indiana Jones.”
I felt the same way, but there wasn’t a lot we could do about it at the moment. Complain to the management, and management might just decide to leave us there. Somehow, the idea didn’t appeal.
“Listen,” I said. “Do you hear that?” It was faint, but I was pretty sure I’d picked up on the sound of running water.
“A stream?”
“Where?” I don’t know why, but I was certain the stream was important.
She pointed to the far side of the cavern. “There. Look.”
She was right. From where we were standing, it was almost impossible to see, but there was a small stream running alongside the far wall of the cavern, snaking around past the stone wall and into the connecting chamber.
“Come on,” I said, unsheathing my knife. “We’re following it.”
I knew the moment we followed the stream around the wall and into the next chamber that we’d made the right decision. Not only had the pictograms on the walls changed—the new ones depicting hellish, demonic images fighting bright, shining beings in a pitched battle staged across all four of the chamber’s walls—but my arm was burning like a son of a bitch again.
“This is the way,” I said. “My arm’s burning.”
“Like that hot-or-cold game,” Kiera said. “Guess we’re getting hot.”
The stream widened in this room, moving away from the wall to divide the room into two distinct sections. The side we were on had nothing of interest. Floor. Walls. Us.
The side across the river seemed much more promising. Not only was the climax of the pictograph story being played out over there—the shining creatures were beating back the snarling beasts—but there was a stone table covered with Chinese characters. Four statues of warriors, each holding a sword, stood beside the table. On top of the table there was a mirror positioned to reflect off another mirror on the roof. One that looked straight down at an ornate jade box sitting on the bed of the river, surrounded by and covered with water.
Bingo.
I wasn’t entirely sure how the general public would access this chamber—as far as I could tell, the only way into this entire area was the way we came—but whoever had designed it had obviously wanted visitors to understand, and clearly, that whatever was in that jade box was Important Shit.
And considering the way my arm was burning, I’d bet money it was the Important Shit I’d come for.
“Let’s go,” Kiera said, taking a step toward the stream.
“Wait.” I put a hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged me off.
“Dammit, Lily. Let’s get the thing and get out of here.” She hurried toward the stream, prepared to jump over it. I saw her bend—
—and then I saw her fall, laid flat in the blink of an eye.
What the fuck?
I whipped around, my heart pounding, my knife ready, and faced her attacker.
I turned around and faced Deacon.
FOURTEEN
“No!” I yelled.“You can not be here. You can’t.” “I can’t let you do this.”
“You’re still singing the same song, Deacon.”
“I don’t want to fight you.”
“Then don’t,” I said. I took I step backward toward the stream. It didn’t look deep. If I could get across it, and somehow get my hands on that jade box before Deacon got to me . . .
I didn’t know if that was possible. In fact, about the only thing I did know was that Deacon meant business. If I wanted this first piece of the Oris Clef, I was going to have to fight for it. And, dammit, that meant I had to trust that Clarence would get the bridge to me when I needed it.
Deacon was watching me warily, his gaze shifting from the mirror to the stream and to me. “Work with me,” he said. “We’re running out of time, and you know damn well I’m not your enemy.”