“Who’s Kaufman?” Bishop asked, his statement punctuated by a boom of thunder that shook the forest floor.
“I don’t—”
Queen cleared her throat. She had a handgun leveled at Hudson.
Hudson’s face twisted in fear. “The man in the photo. He’s a … a journalist. He’s doing a piece on El Mirador for National Geographic. What … what do you want with him?”
“Where does he spend his time?” Knight asked.
Hudson looked at him dumbly.
“Is there a specific location he’s shown interest in?”
Hudson thought for a moment. “He toured the whole site, but has spent most of his time at the biggest pyramid.”
“La Danta?” Queen asked.
“Yes. In fact, that’s probably where he is now.” He nodded. “I’m certain of it. Since discovering the entrance he’s been—”
“Where’s the entrance?” Queen asked forcefully.
“On top. A tree had put its roots down in it. A storm knocked it over a few days ago. You … you don’t need me to take you there … do you?”
“No, boss,” Queen said, tightening her grip on her weapon. “We don’t.” She pulled the trigger, firing a dart into his neck. Thanks to a powerful sedative, he lost consciousness immediately. After shoving his feet inside and zipping up the entrance, Queen stood and joined Bishop and Knight, who were looking at a map of the site.
“Which way, boys?”
“East,” Bishop said. “Mile and a half.”
Anyone who saw them running out of the camp, dressed in dark green ponchos, concealed by sheets of rain, and accompanied by earthshaking thunder might have mistaken them for one of Alexander’s Forgotten. As a result their exit from the camp went unhindered.
FORTY-SEVEN
Wiltshire, England
THE SHAKING SUBSIDED as quickly as it had begun, leaving King and Alexander on edge. It felt like a simple tremor, but they knew the source was much more likely to be Ridley.
Lauren flashed a nervous smile. “Now that doesn’t happen much round here.”
Eager to get a better view of Stonehenge, King headed for the tunnel, but was stopped by Lauren’s next words. “Now what do you suppose that is?”
King looked to where she was pointing. A black plume rose into the sky in the distance. It spread, dissipated, and was carried off by the wind. “What’s over there?”
Lauren glanced around and looked up at the sun, getting her bearings. The dark cloud had risen from the northeast. Her eyebrows arched. “Durrington Walls and Woodhenge.”
“I’ve never heard of them,” King said.
“Not surprising for a Scotsman.”
“Woodhenge is a circle of timber,” Alexander said. “Similar to Stonehenge, but built of wood, which rotted long ago. The postholes have recently been filled in with modern beams.”
Lauren looked at Alexander, impressed with his knowledge. “You’d be surprised how many of our kinsmen don’t even know that much about the site. Durrington Walls is only five hundred meters beyond Woodhenge, but is more significant because it not only held a wooden henge, but a village as well. Several homes have been uncovered. The sites might have been used for burials, with cremated bodies being carried from one site to the other before being discarded in the river. But that would’ve just been the peasants. Some think that religious leaders or cultural champions, like the designer of the circles, would have been buried beneath Stonehenge. It’s one of the reasons a planned highway tunnel project, which would have burrowed through the earth under the henge, was scrapped. Seems like no one will see what’s buried under there at this rate—archaeologists or contractors.”
The ground shook again.
They all looked northeast, expecting to see a second dark cloud rise up. But nothing happened. Still, King thought they were connected. Whatever was causing the ground to shake had begun at the Durrington Walls.
“How far is it?” he asked.
“Two miles straight shot from here to there, but a little more if you don’t have wings.” Her face brightened. “I can get you there in three minutes if you don’t mind getting your hair mussed.” She looked at King, his hair slightly askew as usual. “Which I can see won’t be a problem for you.”
She cheerfully walked to the bus, though her walk was now closer to a skip. She hopped in the big red double-decker, turned on the engine, and gunned the gas twice. A thick cloud of gray coughed from the muffler. She leaned out the window. “C’mon, mates. I have forty-five minutes before I have to take these Yanks to the next stop.”
Alexander motioned to the bus. “After you.”
They entered and took seats behind Lauren. Then they were off, speeding back onto the road. She glanced at them in the large rearview mirror. “It’s always boggled my mind why people are so much more interested in Stonehenge than the Durrington settlement. Granted, the stones are something to look at, but when it comes to history, the village is far more informative. What they ate, how they cooked, what they slept on, what weapons they had. It’s all boring details to some, but it reveals who lived there. Who knows, maybe Merlin’s magic wand is buried in that field’s dirt?”
King thought her statement might not be far from the truth, then held on tight as she made a hard left turn.
“What’s really interesting is that both sites were constructed at the same time as the pyramid of Cheops in Egypt.”
“That is interesting,” King said.
“The sites are thousands of miles away from each other and somehow, around 2500 B.C., people simultaneously developed the technology to move giant stones over long distances? Bollocks, I say. And we still can’t figure out how they did it.”
Alexander pointed beyond her. “We’re here.”
Lauren hit the brakes hard, bringing them to a stop across the street from a green field, which was now scarred by a dark hole at its center.
They left the bus and entered the field. The hole opened up before them, thirty feet across, burrowing into the soil at a forty-five-degree angle. Darkness filled the void, but echoing from deep within was a constant droning rumble.
King took a step in and turned to Lauren. “Best if you notify the authorities. Get the Stonehenge parking lot cleared out.”
“What? Why?”
“Because this tunnel heads southeast and we’re not feeling the rumbling here like we did there. Whoever made this hole is beneath Stonehenge by now.”
Lauren’s eyes widened and then squinted. “Hey, what happened to your accent? You sound like a Yankee.”
Alexander entered the tunnel. “He is a Yankee.”
King took her by the shoulders and glared into her eyes. “Never mind who I am or where I’m from. You go do what you need to do to clear out that parking lot.”
“But I don’t understand. Why?”
“Because if you don’t it’s likely they’ll all die.”
A look of horror came over Lauren as she realized that King and Alexander knew a lot more about what was happening then they let on. She broke out in a run back to the bus, hoping that King and Alexander were crackpots, but somehow knowing they weren’t. And that terrified her. Because it meant there was something big, something evil, beneath Stonehenge that wanted to kill people.
And she was heading straight for it.
FORTY-EIGHT
Location Unknown