Thorn Fall (20 page)

Nothing resembling a trail led away from the road. That wasn’t unexpected. If there were trails, people would know about the cave.

Temi climbed out of the van, her sword in its scabbard across her back. Despite all the reluctance she had shown toward being trained to be a warrior, she made a convincing soldier, standing there in camo clothing, listening for the drone of aerial attackers. With his long hair and spear, Alek didn’t look quite the image of an American soldier, but there was no doubt he was a warrior. I grabbed my whip and knife and joined the team, wondering what
I
looked like. I probably didn’t want to know.

After locking the van, Simon showed up with…

“Is that a flamethrower?” I asked.

“More or less.” He tapped the bulging pockets in his jacket. “And incendiary devices.”

“Didn’t we decide those weren’t effective on the
jibtab
?”

“Actually, we decided my throwing arm wasn’t effective, but you never know when weapons might be useful. I see you have your whip.” He arched his eyebrows.

“Not for attacking monsters.”

“Just for looking cool?”

“I’ve yet to see the fashion magazine where the models are strolling down the runway with bullwhips dangling from the belts of their dresses.” Admittedly, I had thought the
Indiana Jones
movies were cool when I had seen them, and that might have had something to do with me talking Papou into helping me make a whip in the first place. Still, a ten-year-old’s standards of cool couldn’t be trusted. “But they can be useful for climbing trees.”

“And outrunning giant stone balls, yes, I know,” Simon said.

“Are we ready to go?” I pointed into the trees in the direction my map suggested.

Simon and Temi nodded. Alek was gazing back at the van, his brows raised.

“Problem?” I asked him.

He held up a finger, then jogged around the van. An indignant squawk came from a tree on the far side of the road, a feminine squawk.

“Uh?” I leaned around the back of the van as Alek dragged someone out from hiding. It was our pig-tailed neighbor. Naomi.

She struggled, trying to escape Alek’s grip, until she noticed all of us staring at her.

“Where did she come from?” Simon looked up and down the dirt road. There wasn’t another truck, car, bicycle, or pogo stick anywhere in sight, and we were at least ten miles up the highway outside of town. “Her grandmother isn’t around, is she?”

“No,” Naomi mumbled. “It was an accident.”

“How did you get here?” I eyed the back of the van. She hadn’t been inside with us, had she? There wasn’t a lot of free space in there. It was hard to imagine her squeezed into a cabinet or under a seat.

“I climbed on top of the van when you were packing. I wanted to be able to hear you… You were talking about such weird things. I heard those guys last night. I thought… I was just curious. And then you all got in and drove away, and I didn’t know how to get off without someone seeing…” She was doing a good job of avoiding everyone’s eyes as she gave us this story.

I wasn’t sure if I believed her. Temi and Alek were both tall enough that it was hard to imagine them not seeing someone lying on top of the van. And Alek was so observant that it was hard to believe he hadn’t seen, heard, smelled, or otherwise sensed a tagalong. Indeed, he looked a little perplexed by the girl’s appearance.

Simon scowled suspiciously at Naomi, then climbed back into the van. “My Dirt Viper
better
be in here.”

Naomi scowled back at him. “I’m not a thief.”

“Just a spy?” I asked.

“No, I’m not that, either. I’m just…” She looked at Temi, Alek, and me—Simon was still rooting around behind the seats. “Look, what were those weird guys talking about? I heard about the monster, but they were talking like they’re not… human.”

“It’s a long story.”

Simon hopped out of the van, holding his metal detector. He gave Naomi a squinty-eyed look, then said, “Nobody who was riding in the back noticed that my sleeping bag, clothes, and tent were sitting on the floor instead of in the storage cubby under the seat cushion?”

I propped a fist on my hip. “You say that as if your stuff not being put away is an oddity.” We had packed up everything before leaving, in case that grumpy police sergeant drove through this afternoon, and I hadn’t thought anything of Simon’s junk being all over the floor.

Naomi smiled and shrugged. “I like long stories.”

Alek scratched his head, his expression thoughtful as he gazed at the van. He hadn’t spent much time inside and might not have known about the compartments under the seats. Maybe he had even heard a bump or sneeze or something and been curious about it.

“We’ll take her back when we’re finished here.” I pointed into the woods again. “We better get going. I don’t want to be stuck out here after dark again.”

“Can I come?” Naomi asked brightly. She didn’t appear at all ashamed to have been caught stowing away in some strangers’ van. “I’ll carry your Dirt Viper for you.”

I couldn’t find it within myself to truly be irked with her, because I had certainly done dumb things in the quest to satisfy my curiosity before. The days we had spent tracking Eleriss and Jakatra had to qualify. Still, I didn’t want the grandmother to have a reason to call the police on us again.

“We better not leave her here alone.” Temi’s gaze flicked toward the sky.

“Fine. Let’s go. We have to get close to the canyon wall and then parallel it for about a quarter mile. I suggest a brisk pace.” For oh so many reasons.

“In case we’re not in the mood to test these vests?” Simon asked. He gave Naomi another scowl, but then handed her his metal detector. Huh.

“Yes.” I jogged off the road and into the dry yellow tufts of grass sprouting between the pines.

“I probably should have stayed in town,” Temi said, something she had pointed out earlier, too, believing that the
jibtab
was drawn to her sword. Something else, I realized, that poked a hole in my theory of human origins for the creatures. “The monster might ignore you altogether if I wasn’t around.”

“Like it ignored those hikers and bikers?”

Temi didn’t have a response for that.

Sweat soon dripped down the back of my neck and dampened my shirt. The sun was out, and the vest was heavier than what I would usually wear here during the day. I didn’t take it off, though. I was too busy glancing from the GPS to the woods, to the sky, and worrying I was leading us into trouble. I scrambled around a patch of boulders from a rockslide. It hadn’t taken long to find the canyon wall; our road probably wouldn’t have continued much farther.

“I think we’re getting close,” I said after about ten minutes of huffing around obstacles and through dry brush. Without a trail, we weren’t covering ground quickly, but thanks to the guidance of the rock wall towering over us, we were sticking to a relatively straight line.

“I like how she keeps
thinking
we’re at the road or getting close to the right spot,” Simon said.

“Sorry, did you want a more authoritative guide?”

“If you don’t mind, please.”

“I’m just glad we haven’t heard anything buzzing,” Temi said.

“Buzzing?” Naomi asked. She had her smartphone out. She wasn’t recording video, was she? Planning to post her adventure on the web? Who would have thought Simon would find an acolyte at a campground in Sedona?

“Nothing.” I paused, realizing Naomi was bringing up the rear; Alek wasn’t behind us anymore. “How long has Dundee been on walkabout?”

“What?” Temi asked.

I pointed behind her. “Alek?”

“Oh, I didn’t hear him leave. I don’t hear him when he’s here, either, so I didn’t notice…” She grimaced. Displeased that she hadn’t noticed?

“Yeah, he’s got that elf blood, too, remember? I—”

“Delia,” came my name from a few feet behind me.

Startled, I whirled around and found Alek not at the rear of the party, but up ahead.

He gave me a curious look, then said, “I have located a cave.” He pointed in the direction I had been leading us.

“We were probably too slow for him,” Simon muttered.

“I guess.” I made myself smile at Alek and extended a hand. “Show us, please.”

He trotted off, his sandaled feet light as he skirted shrubs and cactus and jumped over boulders.

“How can he possibly find that footwear conducive to desert hiking?” I muttered, doing my best to keep up.

“Nothing wrong with sandals.” Simon slipped on a rock even as he spoke, flailing, then grabbing a tree for balance.

“Yours don’t work quite as well as his.”

“Weird, isn’t it?”

After a few more minutes, Alek stopped at the base of the cliff and looked upward. What he was pointing at might have been a cave, but from this angle, it was hard to tell. It might have been nothing more than a crevice in the rock too. Unfortunately, the trees grew right up to the cliff, so we wouldn’t be able to back up for a better view.

“Who’s climbing up there to check?” Simon asked.

A bleep came from Naomi’s direction. At some point, she had turned on the metal detector, and she wore a grin as she ran it back and forth near the bottom of the cliff. At least she was gainfully occupied.

I eyed the climb. It had to be nearly fifty feet up to the crevice. The red rock happened to be quite sheer at that spot. Reason number two that those cave paintings weren’t in the archaeological database.

“I have rope, a hammer, and anchors,” I said, removing my pack, “in case anyone wants to volunteer to scramble up there and prepare the climb for the rest of us.” I smiled at Temi.

She blinked. “Me?”

“Well, you’re the one who had all that special training.”

“I was only gone a week. I’m not a Navy SEAL.”

“Climbing and rappelling is more of an army thing, isn’t it?” Simon asked.

“I’m sure they can all do it.” I dug into my pack for the hammer and anchors and thought about asking Alek if he was willing to do the task, but he wouldn’t be familiar with modern climbing equipment. I found myself reluctant to ask him to do dangerous things on our behalf, as well. So far, he had been willing to help in every instance, but it made me uncomfortable asking him for favors when this wasn’t his world and these weren’t his problems. Spending a few minutes a day helping him to speak modern languages didn’t seem a payment commensurate with the risks he was taking by traveling with us.

I glanced over at Alek, found him watching me curiously, and blushed for no reason whatsoever. Okay, there was a reason. I was bullshitting. It was less that I didn’t want to ask him for favors and more that I didn’t want him to think I wasn’t capable of doing this sort of thing myself. He had seemed to approve of the fact that I could smack bikers in the backsides with my whip. Asking for help here… I don’t know why asking Simon or Temi was different, but it was.

“This will just take a minute.” I looped the hammer through my belt, the coil of rope across my torso, and pocketed the anchors. Then I took a deep breath and started up the wall. “Three points of contact,” I reminded myself and was relieved when the climb didn’t prove to be as hard as I had feared it would be. A crevice running up the face of the rock provided good handgrips.

Alek’s voice drifted up to me, though he was speaking quietly, and I couldn’t make out the words.

“I think Mr. Sexypants is wondering why you’re scaling Mt. Everest instead of him, Del,” Simon called up.

Alek made a shushing sound and said, “Let her concentrate,” in a language Simon was no more likely to understand than Navajo.

I was in a good spot, with four hand and footholds, so I paused to look down. “Sooner or later, he’s going to understand what your nickname means, and then you’re going to have to explain why you’re using it.”

“That’ll probably be the same day he finally grasps our underwear discussion.”

Temi elbowed Simon. “He’s right. Be quiet and let her concentrate.”

I caught Simon’s chagrined expression before turning back to the cliff. I wondered if Temi knew she was the only one who could chastise Simon and have an effect. The police sergeant sure hadn’t managed it.

A hawk screed somewhere, the noise reminding me that there were predators out here, and I shouldn’t dawdle. I inched higher, only pausing when my crevice dwindled and the handholds grew less enticing. Less than ten feet to the opening. I could do this. I reached up, gripped a slender ledge, and my fingers slipped. I hadn’t shifted my weight yet, and wasn’t in danger of falling, but my heart lurched with alarm, anyway. The pebbles that clattered down fell at least forty feet before hitting the bottom. Sweat slithered down the side of my face, and I paused to wipe one hand at a time on my shirt.

An image popped into my head, and I almost laughed. “Has it occurred to anyone else that Temi’s sword could probably carve out some nice handholds in a cliff?” I called.

The silence that answered me probably meant that they hadn’t thought about it until that moment, either.

“We can try to throw it up to you if you want,” Simon said.

“Next time.” I eyed the wall. The ledge looked more promising over there.

“Alek is coming up,” Simon called.

I gritted my teeth. I didn’t want help, and I was afraid it would be distracting, or that it would cause me to do something stupid, proving I could do this. Wait, I was already doing that. No, that wasn’t fair. I would have made this choice, regardless, for the chance to see the pictographs. “Which means I’m stupid in regard to ancient civilizations, too, not just boys.”

I grabbed the ledge, determined to take my time, and made it a few more feet before something moved in my peripheral vision. Alek was climbing up well to the side, giving me my space so he wouldn’t be a distraction. I gave him a nod and continued toward the dark opening. He reached it first, and I decided not to find that depressing—guys were naturally stronger, and he had those elf fingers, right? I did feel triumphant that I made it a few seconds later, my hand clasping the lower edge of the opening, before he was tempted to call for the rope or offer any assistance.

“Any snakes?” I asked, more because I didn’t want him watching me grunt and scrape my way into the cave than because I was worried about rattlers at fifty feet.