“Sure wish you two had some idea of what we’re going to find,” J.B. said sourly to the Puerto Ricans. “This could be a wasted trip.”
“No, Sefior Dix. All the evidence we have collected from the old tales, along with what we re- searched for ourselves, points to this site as the chu-pacabras’s lair.”
“Well, then, we’d better get looking,” Ryan said, stepping forward and rubbing the back of his neck. Another one of the sudden rainfalls that had soaked them all was starting to pick up in intensity, and he wanted to go ahead inside and get out of the rain. “Guess we’ll start at the far left and work our way down.”
‘ ‘Do you want to split up?” Soto asked, his worried expression revealing his own doubts of such a tactic.
“No,” Ryan said, his eye following the path revealed by J.B.’s flash. “We’re in no hurry. Stick together-there’s safety in numbers. We check out the caves one by one.”
The band of travelers fell into a defensive stance before entering the first of the many black openings. A routine was quickly established. Ryan took the point. Soto, Jorge, Krysty, Dean, Jak and J.B made up the rest of the search party. Go in one cave, follow it back, check on any side tunnels, turn and exit.
Soon, an hour passed. Then another. The similarity of the rocky clefts’ interiors began to press on their minds, making each of the caverns interchangeable. When the second hour passed, Ryan’s wristchron gave off a soft beep, and he called for a break so they could clear their heads.
The one-eyed man stepped over and sat on an outcropping next to Krysty. “Hey,” he said to her, running a hand down the back of her soaked red hair.
“Hey yourself.”
“How you feeling?”
“As good as you.”
“That lousy, huh?”
“‘Fraid so. At least the rain stopped for a little while.”
“You picking up anything out of the ordinary? Any echoes of the earth power in those caves?”
Krysty got a focused look in her vibrant green eyes, as if she were peering down a hallway in another place far, far away. “Nothing in particular,” she finally answered. “But there is something old and dark and ancient about this place. Like these caves are older than man, and will still be here long after we’ve taken the last train West. Know what I mean?”
“Right. Place gives you the creeps.”
The redhead smiled. “And Doc’s supposed to be the one with the vocabulary.”
Twenty minutes later, the pattern began anew. Soto suggested going back a few caves, since the last ones checked might have had a hastier scrutiny than earlier ones when they started. His own weariness now beaten back, Ryan agreed. If the others felt as refreshed as he now did after a quick break from stumbling around in the darkened caverns, something might very well have been missed through fatigue.
It was inside one of the caves being searched for a second time that Ryan spotted something he hadn’t during the first go-round. “Wait a minute,” Ryan said. “J.B., get that flash back over here on the wall. To the right.”
J.B. did as his comrade asked, raising the illuminating beam and playing it across the back stone wall, seeking out whatever had alerted Ryan. He patiently moved the beam and revealed a familiar-looking steel doorway framed in dull silver vanadium steel. On the right side of the frame was a keypad display.
The doorway imbedded in the rock wall was open, the vanadium-alloy door itself recessed into the narrow ceiling slot of the reinforced support frame. The familiar and standard entry code numerals were still glowing patiently on the tiny screen, unwiped by the last person who had exited from what was clearly another redoubt.
“Black dust,” J.B. breathed, his amazement echoed by the use of the arcane epithet he used only in times of complete and utter surprise.
“Gaia’s heart,” Krysty added, equally surprised.
“Dad, is that what I think it is?” Dean breathed, his eyes squinting at the door.
Ryan nodded. “Answers one question that’s been bothering me about the timing of Jamaisvous’s appearance in San Juan with the return of El chupa-cabras. The goatsucker must’ve come out of the redoubt.”