Haunted (Otherworld 5)

"It's in a room, inside a drawer. I cannot be more specific than that. There are many rooms down there. When I hid it, I had no time for drawing maps. Search and you'll find it."

A soft laugh fluttered from behind us. A feminine laugh.

"Thank you, Dantalian," a lilting voice said. "I intend to."

I wheeled to see the Nix, her face pushed through the wall across the room, where she'd been listening on the other side. Dantalian roared. Trsiel's hands shot up, the sword invocation flying from his lips. The Nix pulled back to the other side. Kristof and I both raced into the hall, Trsiel at our heels, but the Nix was gone.

"Downstairs," I said to Trsiel. "To the tunnel. Kris..."

Our eyes met.

"Go," he said. "And be careful."

"Wait someplace safe."

"I will."

Trsiel and I hurried down the stone steps to the basement, and came out in...

"A cafeteria?" I said. "This is the castle catacombs?"

"You'd prefer a dungeon maybe? A few skeletons chained to the wall?"

"Well, yeah. What's a castle without a dungeon?"

As we talked, we walked in opposite directions, each scanning a side of the cafeteria. There was no sign of the Nix.

"Washrooms, kitchen, cloakroom," I said, reading the signs. "'This way to the tunnel' would be too much to ask for, wouldn't it?"

"There is no tunnel," Trsiel said as he walked through a storage closet door. A second later, he returned, still talking. "It was a hoax. In 1939, the last owner of Huntly, a Colonel Paterson, claimed to have unearthed a tunnel linking Glamis to Huntly while carrying out renovations on his castle. No evidence of it has ever been found to support that claim."

"Which makes it false? What happened to this Paterson guy?"

"Drowned a year later, in a boating accident."

"Aha," I said, as I ducked my head into a closet. "I smell conspiracy. Who owns Castle Huntly now?"

"The state. It's a prison."

"And they claim there's no tunnel leading out of it? Very convenient." I glanced over at Trsiel. "I know you're convinced Dantalian found a way to lie to us, but humor me. Which direction is Huntly?"

He paused. "North."

Trsiel headed for that side of the room, but I waved him back.

"Keep checking these rooms," I said. "If we're searching for the tunnel, so is she. You look for her. I'll look for it."

"Don't go anywhere--"

"Without you. I know. I don't need to. X-ray vision, remember?"

I used my Aspicio power all along the north side of the room and up a short hall. It took another twenty minutes, but I finally looked through a section of stonework and saw something besides solid dirt on the other side.

"Got it," I said.

He took my hand. "Lead on."

We stepped into the wall and darkness enveloped us. Using my sight, I led us through the dirt and into the empty space beyond. After a moment in there, my night-vision kicked in, and I could make out a dirt tunnel, no more than four feet wide. I took a step and banged my forehead on a chunk of soil.