Jumlin's Spawn Read Free Page B

dangerous.”
    Yancey nodded. “The caves are lined with obsidian, a
black volcanic glass that’s sharp as hell and deadly when somebody
falls on it. The obsidian also makes the cave system really dark in
places. There are drop-off projections all over them. Every couple
of years, they find some poor, dumb kid impaled on one of the
spikes.”
    “Then how did Narvel, or whoever he got them from,
come into possession of them?” Elfie asked.
    “They weren't buried deep,” Yancey said. “I believe
they were in the sacred outer areas where ancestral graves are. As
our anthropology professor friend can tell you, everyone knew the
relics were there.”
    Oliver leaned forward, a number of thoughts appearing
to crowd his face. “True, their inherent sacredness, not to mention
the very convenient legendary curse on them, kept them safe in the
past. What I don't get is, if Duryea found them, or paid someone to
find them, why did he return to the same place? That's where he
died.”
    Yancey shrugged. “Looking for more maybe?”
    “Probably researching his Lakota Book of the Dead, I
think,” Elfie said.
    “It's not a big area to research, the part that can
be walked,” Yancey replied, “and the M.E. Report said he had cave
dust on his shoes. There is a handful of old cave-walker Sioux who
can survive them. They probably made the trek for him, killed him
and kept whatever they found. Duryea walked over dust that they had
tracked out.”
    “Then how was he drained of blood?” Elfie asked.
    “I don’t know,” Yancey said. “Some wacko cult group
working together pumped the blood out of him so they could blame it
on vampires, maybe?”
    “And they expected the police to believe it?” Elfie
asked, her eyebrows crowding together in confusion.
    “Well, the fake vampire theory is better than the
real vampire one, isn’t it?” Yancey asked. “Who knows…maybe I'm
wrong, maybe he got deep in the caves somehow. Could be he cut
himself on obsidian groping around in all the darkness and bled to
death inside. Could be he just stumbled out and died in the
opening, with no blood around him.”
    “If the caves are dark enough for that to happen, why
do they glow from the outside?” Elfie asked. “Isn't that why they
call them the Angel Caves? Because of the halo glow?”
    “The theory is the black glass reflects a whole
series of natural light shafts from various points in the
mountain,” Oliver explained. “That gives them the optical illusion
of a glow from the outside when you look up from Willow Wash.”
    “Willow Wash? I thought this place we’re talking
about was some place on the Stronghold,” Elfie said.
    “No, you're thinking of the Wounded Knee place,”
Yancey said, “where Wovoka and the Ghost Dancers were.  The
Angel Caves are beyond Willow Wash.”
    “Beyond Willow Wash?” Elfie asked, wincing slightly.
“That's a two or three day drive over that terrain.”
    Yancey shrugged. “It's going to take some time to get
there. We're going to take Oliver's Land Rover. The bench seats
fold down into beds.”
    Elfie frowned a lot. “I hate camping, you know
that.”
    Yancey smirked in reply. “I know that, but my
Starfleet transporter is on the fritz.”
    Elfie groaned in frustration, and then finally leaned
back in surrender. “Okay, okay, I guess we're going camping.
Besides…” Elfie pushed the case gently toward Yancey. “I need to
put these back where they belong.”
    Yancey's eyes widened with amazement. “We can seize
the other items because he hid them on Sioux land. But wouldn’t
keeping these get you in trouble with his estate?”
    She shrugged. “They aren't in the paperwork anywhere.
And, there is the fact it was theft. Let them set the dogs on me, I
don't care at this point.”
    Yancey slowly leaned down toward her. He cradled one
side of her face in his hand and planted a firm kiss on the other
side. He moved his mouth against hers for a moment. As he'd never
kissed her on the mouth