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“They’re gone,” I said quietly.
“But we stay careful and alert,” he said, and moved forward... and stared at the gaping maw in the earth.
“Cavern,” I asked, “or hellmouth? You be the judge.”
“Hellmouth,” Lulu and Theo said simultaneously.
The cavern was a low, long gap in the face of the bluff, the stone red around the edges. The sound of water grew louder, a few insistent drips, as did the echoes of water on rock.
“Let’s go in,” Connor said, then turned to Theo. “Can you stay out here and talk to Lulu?”
“I was just going to suggest I stay here,” Theo said. “I’m not crazy about cramped spaces.”
“Good,” Connor said. “Keep an eye on the perimeter. If you see them, fire one in the air. We probably won’t be able to use comms with all that stone.”
“Done,” Theo said.
“And be careful!” Lulu said. “Especially with snakes.”
“Bringing it up isn’t making it better,” I told her. But we made our way in.
Stone arced above us, the ceiling just high enough to stand in. The ground was carpeted in pebbles and looked dry. The water was somewhere in the distance, in the shadows ahead.
I followed Connor across the space, feeling my way over uneven rocks. The cave was probably forty feet across, then narrowed to a damp hallway of seeping, mineral-streaked rock that was cold and a little slimy to the touch. And would be a very unfortunate bottleneck if we found the shifters at the other end of the tunnel and had to get out again.
The ceiling dipped, grew lower, so we had to crouch to move through. I wasn’t claustrophobic, but the sensation of moving through and under solid rock caused cold sweat to slip down my spine.
I was alternating my gaze between my feet and Connor’s back,and still nearly tripped when we crossed a threshold into another room.
“Damn,” Connor said, standing straight again. “Look at this.”
I wasn’t sure if he meant the space or what was in it. Because both were extraordinary.
We’d entered a chamber cut into rock, the ceiling forty feet above us. The room was roughly circular, cut by wind or water or the movement of the earth into what seemed now like a geological cathedral. White stalactites dripped down from the ceiling and glittered in the beam of our flashlight. The walls were brown and ocher stone. They’d been marked by wind and rain, as well. But also by humans.
There were paintings—not the Paleolithic variety, but made by modern hands. Two stylized humans suckling from a she-wolf, and “Sons of Aeneas” painted in sweeping colors. An altar had been made of one stone formation, covered by a red cloth now stained by time and geological processes.
“I’m guessing this is the cavern,” I said quietly, touching fingers to the painting. “Chalk,” I said, rubbing the grit through my fingers. “It requires less equipment than painting.”
Lulu would be proud that I’d learned something.
“They’ve been sleeping here,” Connor said, and I glanced back. He was crouching near a depression in the wall. “Sleeping bags, camping supplies. No dust. It’s been recently used.”
“But not tonight,” I said. “Beyo’s been gone a while. Maybe they panicked, changed hiding places.”
Something glinted in the dirt. I kneeled, brushed away dust, and picked up my dagger. The one I’d lost at the farm; the one that had been buried in the back of the silver beast.
“They’ve been here since the bonfire,” I said, and cleaned off the dirt, held the dagger up for Connor to see. And where were they now?
***
“Empty,” I told Theo and Lulu when we emerged from the cavern. “They’ve been using it, but not tonight. Any sign out here that they might have gone anywhere else?”
Theo shook his head. “No footprints other than the tracks we’ve already made.”
I frowned. “They couldn’t have passed us. We’d have seen them.”
Connor swore, and I looked back at him. He was staring at the trail, toward the direction of the resort.
