Addison Cooke and the Treasure of the Incas (8 page)

Raj crossed the narrow chamber, peering closely at the rough-hewn stone walls. “Looks like another dead end.”

“I still think we're looking for a crypt. Everybody search for a trapdoor.” Addison shone his flashlight on the torture equipment, hunting for a concealed switch or a hidden panel. He eyed iron cudgels, spikes, sticks, and chains. Handcuffs and manacles anchored to the rock walls. A medieval rack for stretching people.

Raj, unable to resist, picked up a heavy sword and gave it a few swings. Molly found a rusty dagger and practiced a few stabs at the air.

Eddie searched the far wall of the chamber for any telltale cracks in the mortar. A bat flew out from a corner, and Eddie shrieked. The group jumped.

“Jeez, you scared me,” said Molly.

“
You
were scared,” said Eddie, clutching a hand to his chest.

Addison's eyes lit up with excitement. “Where did that bat fly out from?”

“I don't know,” said Eddie. “I didn't ask.”

“Eddie, bats live in caves. If there is a secret tunnel, that bat will know all about it.” Addison stood stock-still. He licked his thumb and held it in the air. “Does anyone feel a draft? A current of air?”

Molly closed her eyes, concentrating. “Maybe. It's hard to tell.”

“Raj, you wouldn't happen to have a box of matches on you?”

“Safety matches, long-reach matches, or strike-anywhere matches?” asked Raj, producing three boxes from his backpack.

“This will do the trick,” said Addison, selecting a regular safety match and striking it on the edge of the box. He stared at the tiny blue flame and sure enough, the flicker betrayed a slight breeze in the underground chamber.

The group held its breath.

Addison followed the dancing flame to the far wall of the torture chamber, next to the iron cross. He held the burning match up to tiny fissures in the cracked stone masonry. The blue flame wiggled and leapt where fresh air hissed through. “This isn't just a cross,” said Addison. “It's a door handle.”

Addison tossed his flashlight to Molly and doused the match. He stepped up to the iron cross, gripped it with both hands, and tugged with all his strength. Nothing much happened. “Eddie, little help?”

Eddie added his grip to the cross, braced himself, and pulled.

There was a low grumble of scraping rock. A circular section of the wall swung open, revealing a hidden tunnel.

“Dibs,” said Raj. He climbed into the hole first, followed by Molly.

“What's in there?” Addison called down the dark shaft.

After a few seconds, Raj's breathless voice echoed back. “Skulls! Thousands of them!”

“I'm not going in there,” Eddie declared.

“You never know, you might like it,” said Addison.

Eddie fixed him with a steely glare.

“Won't know unless you try.” Addison followed Raj and Molly inside.

Eddie, left alone in the dark torture chamber, weighed his options. He quickly scurried after Addison, leaving the door open behind him.

•   •   •

The team crawled a few feet through the passageway. The air was cold so deep underground. The tunnel opened into a large cavern, part of the natural caves worn into the limestone by the Olvidado River.

Molly handed Addison the flashlight. He held the beam high to fill the room. Addison brushed a comma of hair from his forehead and gasped. He marveled at the underground chamber.

Raj wasn't kidding. The vault was crammed with skeletons—tens of thousands of them. Entire vats piled high with skulls. Towering pillars ringed with rib bones. Chambers decorated with spiraling patterns of leg bones. Intricate ceiling mosaics of finger and toe bones.

“What is this place?” Molly whispered.

“An ossuary,” said Addison. “An underground room
decorated with bones. And you need to bone up on your vocabulary,” he added.

“What kind of person uses skeletons to decorate?”

“This is just how they buried people.” Addison removed his Ivy cap as a sign of respect for the dead. He took the lead, picking his way along the cavern. “Careful, everyone, this place is sacred.”

They followed a winding footpath marked with leg bones. The femurs were still attached to the tibias. Complete skeletons leered from stone alcoves, their ghastly teeth frozen in permanent grins that appeared to laugh in the flickering light.

“All these skeletons are short,” said Raj.

“They're ancient Incas. You can tell from the jewelry.” Addison pointed to a turquoise bracelet wrapped around a skeleton's ulna.

The team inched slowly along the path, keeping carefully within the glow of Addison's flashlight.

Eddie, craning his neck to stare up at a rib bone chandelier, somehow contrived to catch his shoelace on a stray collarbone. He tripped headlong, landing in the arms of a cobweb-covered skeleton. Eddie screamed, tangling himself up with the dead body. “Help!”

“Careful, Eddie!” Addison hissed. “This is an archaeological site. Do you have any idea what these skeletons are worth to historians?”

But Eddie had already lost his balance again. He
tumbled into the vat of skulls, the mummy on top of him. “Get it off me!”

The skull bin tilted, pulling an ancient trip wire, releasing a boulder. The falling stone yanked a rope through a pulley, sending a massive scythe blade whipping through the air.

“Look out!” Raj took a running start and leapt for Eddie, tackling him to the ground. The scythe sliced inches over their heads, the jagged blade imbedding itself in the soft limestone wall with a quivering thud.

“Eddie, what were you thinking?” asked Addison. “This is a sacred burial ground.”

“I thought that mummy was going to kill me.”

“He's been dead for five hundred years,” said Addison. “He's at a huge disadvantage.”

“I didn't know this place was booby-trapped,” said Raj, delighted.

“Don't move, you guys. Stay right where you are.” Addison aimed his flashlight up at the dark recesses of the cave ceiling. The narrow beam illuminated a fretwork of guy-ropes, barely visible in the shadows. “Each pile of bones is rigged to a trap. The Incas did not want anyone disturbing their remains.”

Raj was still lying on top of Eddie, whose face was squished into a dusty rib cage. They were fifteen feet off the path. “Well, what do we do?”

“You need to get back to the path, touching as few bones as possible.”

Raj helped Eddie back to his feet. “Let's just run for it.”

“Are you sure that's the best plan?”

Patience was not Raj's strong suit. “Three . . . two . . .”

“Raj, let's think this through, first!”

“. . . one!”

Raj sprinted and Eddie followed, their feet dancing across the piles of bones. A massive blade sprung from the ground, splitting every bone in its path. Raj and Eddie dove to either side of the blade's deadly course. They rolled and scrambled back onto the stone trail. It was a close shave.

“I can't believe we're not dead yet,” marveled Eddie.

“The night's still young,” said Raj. He dusted off Eddie's back for him.

Sticking close together, the group crept slowly forward.

At the end of the burial chamber, they reached a narrow staircase. Addison took a careful look. The steps were paved with skulls. At the top landing was a small doorway carved into the cave wall. “Let's climb up and see what's inside.”

“Let's not and say we did,” said Molly.

“There's that can-do Cooke spirit.”

“I'll go first,” said Raj.

“Wait!” Addison stayed Raj with his hand. “We have
to assume this is a trap. The Incas didn't want us touching any bones, so why would they let us just fox-trot up a staircase of skulls?” Addison and Raj dropped to their knees and examined the steps under the glow of the flashlight.

“There,” said Raj, his eyes gleaming. “Some of these steps are the tops of skulls. And some are just polished limestone rocks.”

Addison smiled and turned to the group. “Everybody got that? Step only on the rocks, and we'll live to tell the tale.”

The team gingerly climbed the skull staircase, carefully choosing their steps. At the top landing stood a doorway marked with a skull and crossbones—an actual skull with actual crossbones. Addison reached for the door handle.

“Let's take a second,” said Raj. “We don't know what's waiting for us behind that door.”

“Nothing good, I'm guessing,” said Eddie.

“Well, we've come this far,” said Addison. “Everybody ready?”

Addison heaved open the final door. Everyone ducked.

A moment passed.

Addison was shocked by how little happened. The door simply stood there. An empty dark space gaping at them.

Eddie stood up from where he was crouching. “Well, I don't know what I was so afraid of.” He strode confidently through the doorway and screamed as a hundred
bats flew out of the cavern, screeching like wailing banshees. He covered his head from their flapping wings and clawing feet. The first hundred bats were immediately followed by several thousand more.

Addison ducked and waited for the storm to pass. It was hard to tell what was more terrifying: the bats' high-pitched screeching or Eddie's high-pitched screaming.

At last, the cloud of bats tapered off. Eddie slowly regained his breath. And then a few hundred more bats flew shrieking out of the cave for good measure.

Eddie sat down on the cold rock. “I liked the dead people better.” A big, slow bat loped out of the cave, squawked at him, and flapped down the tunnel. “I think that's the last of them,” Eddie sighed.

Addison's team ducked as another thousand bats rocketed past Eddie's head.

•   •   •

The group entered a final chamber with a high, arched ceiling. Raj found an ancient torch that he managed to light after snapping a few matches. He held the flickering torch aloft.

The hall was flanked by thirteen suits of armor, covered in the dust of centuries. Each medieval gauntlet clutched a rusted ax or broadsword. Their jagged shadows lurched and danced in the torchlight.

Eddie stared transfixed at the plumed Spanish helmets.
He rose on his tiptoes to peer through the slats of a visor . . . then yelped as he spotted a skull inside, leering back at him.

“There are skeletons in this room, too!”

Addison blew dust from a knight's shield and examined the coat of arms. “Francisco Pizarro's Famous Thirteen,” he said reverently. “The Spanish knights who stuck by him at Isla de Gallo. These were the conquistadors who overthrew Atahualpa and conquered all of Peru.”

“Why are they in an Incan burial ground?” asked Molly. “I thought Diego hated Pizarro.”

“It's a mystery,” Addison admitted. “There are wheels within wheels.” He led his team down the center aisle, where the tattered remains of a red carpet crumpled to dust beneath their feet.

At the end of the chamber stood a raised platform. And on the platform was a single pedestal, guarded by the silent shadows of the knights.

Addison slowly lifted his gaze . . .

On the pedestal, glittering in torchlight, lay Atahualpa's second key.

Eddie gasped. “It's pure silver. Just that key alone will make us rich!”

Addison, keeping his distance, carefully studied the key, the pedestal, and the raised platform. “Raj, what do you think?”

“I think we didn't come all this way to waltz into a booby trap.”

“Agreed,” said Addison. He swung his flashlight beam up to the ceiling but could not spot any hidden wires or guy-ropes. “Raj, can you borrow a sword from one of those knights?”

“With pleasure.” Raj had already been eyeing the heavy bronze broadswords with admiration. He wrestled one from the rusted gauntlet of the shortest knight and passed it hilt-first to Addison.

Addison hefted the sword, his arms shaking from the weight. He gingerly poked the stone platform. Eddie ducked and covered his head, expecting bats.

Nothing happened.

Addison prodded the marble pedestal with a few cautious taps.

Again, nothing happened.

“If a booby trap doesn't kill me, the tension will,” said Eddie.

Addison shushed him; he needed to concentrate. Arm muscles trembling, Addison raised the sword to the top of the pedestal and gently, ever so gently, nudged the key.

A massive explosion rocked the room with a blinding flash.

Addison's team hit the deck, clutching their ringing ears.

“I think I just had a heart attack,” Eddie gasped.

“What
was
that?” asked Molly, waving acrid smoke from her nose and sneezing.

Addison picked up his Ivy cap from the floor and stared at it in astonishment. He poked his finger through a seared hole in the peak. “A bullet hole,” he whispered.

He aimed his flashlight at a small loophole concealed in the far wall. “That blast was a musket shot.” Addison panned his flashlight around the room, revealing a dozen gun bores burrowed into the wall. “Spring guns,” said Addison, his voice shaky with fear and wonder. “Move the key and a musket fires.”

Raj took Addison's cap and turned it over in his hands, staring at the bullet hole in amazement. “Addison, if you were as tall as a grown-up, you'd be dead.”

“We've found an advantage.” Addison tucked his cap back on his head. “These traps aren't designed for us. The Incas counted on conquistadors, not middle schoolers.”

Addison handed the sword to Molly. “Mo, you're the shortest. Would you do the honors?”

Molly blew the hair from her eyes. She grunted as she hoisted the long sword.

Everyone else ducked and covered their ears.

Molly swung the sword like a baseball bat. She knocked the key clear off the pedestal. The muskets fired in a deafening blast that echoed around the stone room. By the
time Molly's ears stopped ringing, Addison held the key safely in his hand.