A Darkness Absolute (Rockton 2)

"That path up the hillside..." I say. "At the time, I was crowing about our good luck, finding a natural path straight to the cave entrance. Now I'm thinking it was a little too lucky."

"Yep."

"So we try to get closer?"

"Yep."

We take the other passage. It's slow going. We catch the occasional sound of a voice, but it echoes too much to track. Each time we try a new route, we mark it so we don't get lost. We crawl around for at least an hour, and the woman has gone silent. I'm about to say we should just give up when I catch soft crying. Then I see light.

We flick our own light off fast. In front of me, Anders picks his way toward the crying until I see an opening ahead, and he stops so fast I bash into him. He drops onto his stomach so I can see over him. The passage ends in a cavern, and in that cavern, there's a coiled rope and an old wooden crate. The light, though, seems too dim to be coming from there.

Anders motions that he's going to check it out, and he crawls on his belly, knife in hand. Then he stops. At least a minute ticks by as I watch him leaning and peering before he inches through.

I creep along until I can see the cavern. It's no bigger than the first one we'd stopped in. There's the crate and the rope and ... a hole in the floor. That's where the light is coming from--that hole. Anders is edging around it, trying to peer down without leaning over.

As I crawl through, I realize the rope is attached to an old metal hook, driven into the rock. It's knotted for scaling down the hole, but right now it's coiled at the top. Yet that soft crying comes from below. From inside the hole.

It's a trap. It has to be. Otherwise ...

In the city, I'd think this was a hostage situation. But out here, that makes no sense.

If it's not a trap, then someone is trapped. A settler or a hostile, or even just an adventurer, too naive to realize she's a few months out of season for adventuring.

There. A logical explanation. Either a trap or an accident. As for that shiver up my spine, the voice whispering that isn't what this looks like? Clearly mistaken.

I motion to Anders that I'll take a closer look. I try to peer down that shaft without being seen, but there's no way to position myself in shadow--the light is right in the center of the hole. When I peek over the edge, she sees me. And I see her, and the second I do, I know my brain has made a mistake. My gut did not.

She wears what looks like men's clothing, oversized and ragged, and she's standing at the base of a drop at least fifteen feet straight down to a cavern no more than five feet in diameter, the bottom covered in furs. There's a crate, like the one up here. Hers has a candle burning on it. Nothing more. Just a woman and furs and a crate and a candle. Her long hair is matted, her face streaked with dirt, tear tracks running through it.

She could still be a hostile. This could be her home, and we've been lured here. But when she looks up and sees me, she bursts into fresh tears.

I've heard that expression before. Bursts into tears. I've never really seen it, though, like I'd never seen a storm strike before today. This is exactly what it sounds like: a dam bursting, tears coming so fast they leap from her cheeks as she falls to her knees, face upturned to mine.

"Oh, God," she says. "Please be real. Tell me you're real."

Anders crawls to the edge. "Just hold on. We're going to get you out--" He stops. "Nicole?"

She's looking up, blinking as hard as she can. "Will?"

"Holy shit," he whispers. Then, "It's me, Nicole. Will Anders. Just hold on. We're going to get you out of there."

She grimaces, as if she's trying to smile. Then the tears come again, body-racking sobs of relief as she falls to the floor.

FIVE

As we lower the rope, Anders whispers to me, "Nicole Chavez. She disappeared last year in the fall. We found--We thought we found her body. We were sure of it. The clothing--"

He shakes his head. Time for that later. We've lowered the rope, and Nicole reaches for it but misses. Anders shines his light down and says, "Nicki?" and she looks up straight into the beam and yelps, hands going to her eyes.

"Sorry," he says and turns the flashlight aside. "There. Light's off. Just take hold of the rope. Good. You've got it. Now put your foot on the first knot..."

He coaches her, and she tries

--damn it, she tries so hard, and every time I say, "Here, we'll come help," she says, "No, I've got this." But she doesn't have it. She's too weak.

I look at that hole, not even big enough to stretch out in, and I hear Anders's words

Disappeared last year in the fall.