Blue Abyss: Timewalker Chronicles, Book 3 (The Timewalker Chronicles) Read Free Page A

Lucia Jean-Mennette squinted through the dive mask to check her gauges. Fifty-one meters deep, plenty of oxygen. Diluent tank full. Computer working perfectly. Scrubber working. Gas mix perfect. Backup, open circuit tank checked, full, and strapped to her side in case she needed it…in case anyone needed it. She had plenty of time to explore. And she would use every minute of air she could scrape together because she’d finally tracked him down…
    He was down here, somewhere, the lost warrior that haunted her dreams. He was down here with the monsters, and she had to find him.
    Mari swam the distance to the cave wall in seconds and reached out with her gloved fingertips to trace the outline of a symbol she’d seen a hundred times.
    Madre de Dios . Her mother’s favorite saying hummed through her head over and over until she’d swear she could actually hear her mother’s panicked voice. She’d found this place. Finally. Her dreams come to life. Heart racing, her stomach threatened to heave-ho the protein bar and yogurt she’d had for breakfast.
    She waved off her dive partner, just a few feet behind her in the prior cave. He hadn’t turned the corner yet, hadn’t seen the man-made walls of this cave, or the strange markings etched into the smooth limestone.
    Warned off, he waited, asking her with his fingers if she was okay.
    She gave the okay signal, and held up her hand for him to stay outside the cave. Lucky for her, he didn’t argue this time. He’d give her five minutes, maybe ten, before he tied off his extra tanks and came looking for her. Problem with these older military guys was what she called the Hero Complex.
    She was small, five foot five with shoes on, and looked like a fresh-faced, innocent college kid. He was pushing fifty with more than two decades of hero time under his belt. Drove the guys crazy to see her risking her life on these deep cave dives. But he had two extra tanks stapped to his sides and would have more trouble squeezing through the opening to this offshoot. She packed light for a reason, and she’d earned their respect on close to a hundred dives. Less gear meant she couldn’t stay down as long, but she could fit into the tight spaces that he couldn’t. And this wasn’t the first time she’d left him behind.
    It was dangerous, and he’d yell at her later, like an angry beast, but he’d wait for her for as long as he could.
    Okay, Mari. This is what you’ve been waiting for. Get on with it. Go get him! Little mental pep talk over, she laid more line as she swam, more certain than ever that she’d need it to find her way out. Two more divers waited above at safey points, packing extra tanks and emergency equipment. The fifth man on her crew, not much more than a kid, was a native of the islands and knew the water and currents like the back of his hand. He’d grown up on these waters, and she trusted him to get her where her gut told her she needed to go.
    Which was here. Right here.
    The rock wall should’ve been cold to the touch. Strangely, it radiated warmth through her dive glove and the heat invaded her palm where it hovered above the strange symbol. She slid her hand slowly along the jagged surface of the cave wall until her index finger reached the softly glowing symbol. It was level and glossy beneath her glove’s tip, slick as oil in a baking pan. A pulsing orange light radiated from the symbol. It grew brighter every second, lured her like a moth to a flame.
    Make that a moth and a bug zapper.
    Every logical bone in her body, every suspicious instinct she had, urged her to swim away. She wasn’t ready. She needed help. A chisel maybe? A big gun? Hell, an armed S.E.A.L. team and a couple fire-throwing wizards from Harry Potter.
    No. No! I will not leave without answers. Because if he was down here, they would be too. The monsters.
    What now? God, what was she supposed to do now? She wasn’t a bad-ass superhero. She didn’t have any weapons or Special Forces