Bone Key Read Free

half the time it had taken to load up on the docks. Outside, the storm had worsened steadily, however, the wind battering the big double doors until the cross brace that held them closed snapped like a matchstick. The doors flew inward, slamming against the stone sidewalls, the wind driving horizontal sheets of rain halfway into the room. It took all seven of them to shove the doors closed and wedge a section of the shattered cross brace back into place.
    Ainsley managed a look outside, but it told him nothing. The sky was dark by now, the visibility down to nothing in the driving storm. The
Titanic
could have been bearing down upon them from a dozen yards away, for all he knew. He wondered if he would ever make it home.
    With the doors shored up, they turned their attention back to the movement of the crates into the subterranean vault. Ainsley hurried down the narrow stairwell and took up the post at the end of the line, leaving two of his men on the stairs and the last to hand the crates down.
    He was a man who had spent most of his life on the open water, and while he’d spent his own share of time in the cramped holds of a score or more of ships and boats, he had never overcome his aversion to close quarters. He’d never heard the word “claustrophobia,” but if the symptoms had been described to him, he would likely have admitted an understanding. Furthermore, as the foreman of this hastily assembled crew, he could have been the one to stay up top and pass the boxes down, but he knew that all the others felt as he did about such dungeon places, and he would not put that on anyone else. He’d swallowed his own fears, therefore, and carried the lantern down.
    “Come on now,” he called up the narrow stairwell and saw the first crate come through the opening.
    It was a dank, low-ceilinged space, barely enough room for him to stand his six feet straight, but wide and long enough to hold what they’d brought here, he thought. He held the lantern high and saw at the far end of the room what looked like another set of steps chiseled into the rock…leading up to
what?
he wondered, but then the first crate was ready for him to stack and there was no more time to see.
    He hadn’t counted the crates exactly, but having moved them all twice, he had a fair notion of the numbers. He stacked the crates five high—just above head height—against the near wall and built out from there, six crates abreast. He was past the point where the stairs descended quickly and, leaving room to maneuver at the foot, worked himself steadily backward toward the other flight of steps, grabbing and stacking, grabbing and stacking. Sooner or later, he thought, feeling the sweat trickling down his weary back, he’d satisfy his curiosity.
    “That’s all,” he heard then, from Ben, his mate at the bottom of the stairs, and he paused to survey the work they’d done. He glanced over his shoulder toward the other flight of steps and saw that his stacking had hidden the far end of the cavelike room in shadow. He’d need his lantern if he wanted to see anything back there, and he wondered if he had the time to waste. Working below several feet of rock had shielded the sound of the storm, but he knew from the popping in his ears that its force could only have grown.
    He reached a hand to massage his back and began to make his way toward Ben, thinking that he could live without knowing where that staircase led, when he heard a pair of explosions from above. At first, he thought it might have been the cross brace snapping again, or something crashing on the roof, but he knew at once it was nothing so benign.
    Ben gave him a startled glance and began to hurtle up the steps even before Ainsley could warn him. Another explosion sounded, and another and another, and Ainsley felt himself covered by something wet at the same time he heard Ben cry out and tumble backward down the staircase.
    Ainsley staggered back, gasping, wiping at the gore that