The Grotto's Secret: A Historical Conspiracy Mystery Thriller (28 page)

124

Still in 42A, Kelby opened the toxicology journal and glanced at the page. She leaned over to squint at the small writing. Half way, she spotted a paragraph that read:
Abrin is 75 per cent stronger than ricin — 3 micrograms can kill an adult human.

Another entry read:
Strychnine tree. Strychnine and Brucine have a potent heart toxin called cerberin, similar in structure to digoxin, found in the foxglove. 30 mg gives a painful death from violent convulsions.

Feeling perspiration prickling her skin, Kelby saw:
Digoxin kills by blocking calcium ion channels in heart muscles which disrupts the heartbeat.

Intrigue and horror propelled her to continue reading:

White baneberries contain a carcinogenic toxin which has an almost immediate, sedative effect on human cardiac muscles and can easily cause a quick death
.

Beside the journal, a tray of bottled jars sparkled under the lamp light. One bottle’s label read:
Ricinus communis
. It contained dried seeds in a black and brown pattern. They looked like a bunch of thick blood-engorged ticks.

Another bottle had
White baneberry
written on it. Inside, clusters of small white balls with a black dot in the middle stared back at her. They reminded Kelby of Annie’s doll’s eyes.

Kelby shivered at a pile of seed pods that looked like red crab’s eyes, sticking out of a dried husk. Near the jars lay a set of test tubes, wrapped together in an elastic band. Feeling a coil of dread snaking around her gut, Kelby straightened. Her gaze landed on a bloodstained lab coat hung on a hook beside the murky jars of mutant monstrosities.

Bile rose into Kelby’s throat, choking her. She imagined a crazy scientist practising with dead and abnormal animals, trying to discover the components of rizado’s healing elixir.

Maybe Gary led her here as proof that Mata Gordo were trying to replicate rizado. If she could find a way to prove what they had done to him, and the others, she could take the evidence to PC Pike.

Kelby had seen enough. Time to get out. A sudden thought struck her. Maybe Roy would understand the journal of numbers and poisons. She grabbed her phone and tapped his number. As before, it went straight to voice mail.

Before she could take another step, a door slammed upstairs, immediately followed by a loud creak on the stairway.

125

María gasped at the young soldier’s declaration of a witch about to be burnt nearby. Like her, the unbooted soldier seemed to be in a stupor about the news.

‘
¡Diablo!
’ The unbooted soldier frowned. ‘Heretics are supposed to be punished in their parish.’

The leather jerkin guffawed. ‘Hah! Some of us get bored with parish punishment.’

‘¡Vaya!’
the unbooted soldier wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and spoke with his mouth full, ‘Come on. Let’s go and watch.’

Still slumped, the quilled soldier protested, ‘We can’t leave. We are on duty for our queen. Besides, I can’t see anything.’ The quilled soldier groaned. The other soldiers had patched his eye with Madre’s torn chemise.

The young soldier at the door hesitated, looking from the quilled soldier to the others at the table. ‘They said it is only a few hours’ ride from here.’

The gloved leather jerkin rose to his feet and strode to the door while the unbooted soldier yanked on his boots and glanced at María. ‘What about them?’

Shutting her eyes with her chin lolling on her chest, María pretended to be asleep.

‘Leave them as they are. We’ll come back to give the young one a spider.’

‘She’s a wild cat, she’ll break free.’ The now booted soldier grabbed his own cloak from the back of the room.

‘How? She’s tied up and gagged. She has nowhere to go.’ The new soldier frowned.

‘Hah! She’s deadly. I don’t trust her.’ The now booted soldier pointed at the quilled soldier slumped over the table, ‘We know what she’s capable of. I don’t want to see her anger again.’

The new soldier gasped, ‘She did that?’

Although the now booted soldier was keen to leave, he hesitated. ‘We’d better hurry back. If we do not find what Queen Isabella wants, she will have our heads.’

The new soldier lifted the quilled soldier to his feet and helped him limp to the door. ‘We can find someone to look at your eye.’

María listened, hoping and praying the temptation to watch a woman die at the stake would take them away. Being imprisoned in this way would kill her spirit. Worse, her mother lay at her feet.

Dying.

126

Kelby listened. There it was again. Crreee. Craaww. Crreee. Craaww. The exact sounds when she descended the stairs earlier.

Someone was behind her. Following her.

Kelby dropped the journal, darted to the door and peered into the corridor. It must be Hawk coming back.

The staircase stopped creaking. Kelby backtracked her path to the base of the ageing stairs and looked up. Nobody there. But she had definitely heard the sounds. Picking her way up the rotten flight of stairs, she kept glancing at her feet to check her steps, and then upwards hoping to see a familiar face.

‘Hawk?’ she whispered.

The hall directly above had no door. A shadow stared back at her. Another skipped beat. She held her breath. No sounds. Then, Kelby realised it was a trick of her mind sending shards of panic into her. The shadow was an old tattered curtain blowing in the breeze from the broken window. Kelby exhaled hard. She had to go back for the journal and get out of here fast. Then a crunching sound came from one of the rooms off the hallway. Kelby’s heart skipped another beat. Her breath caught in her throat. A sound came from above: heavy breathing. ‘Hawk? Is that you?’

Her foot suddenly tipped forward into a hole. In panic, she yanked her foot back, realising she had to run and hide. If it wasn’t Hawk, she had no way of fighting back.

The shadow materialised into a thickset man.

Not Hawk.

127

Unable to move, Kelby stared at the brawny man with his cropped head and a sinister glint in his eyes. Stocky and about her height, his thickset arms and legs looked like an inflated punch-bag. The air inside her jammed in her chest. His brightly coloured tattoos, showed a dragon spitting fire covered his arms.

Kelby snapped out of the terrifying sight’s spell and asked, ‘Where’s Hawk?’

He lifted a finger in the air. ‘Wait.’ He spun on his heel. His heavy footsteps retreated down the hall.

Was he one of Hawk’s security colleagues? He must have gone to call Hawk.

Taking another hesitant step up, Kelby heard the booming strides returning. A flash of relief shot through her.

Hawk was back. At last.

At that moment she leapt backwards as a large object crashed through the air past her and landed at the bottom of the stairway with a loud whumpfh.

Kelby grimaced in horror at Hawk’s sightless eyes staring up at her.

A rusted pipe stuck through the hollow in his neck. An equally oxidised tap stuck out of his mouth. With blood dripping from different parts of him, Hawk’s body looked like a giant garden statue fermenting into a corroding water feature.

The man placed one of his heavy boots onto the top step. ‘Where did your brother hide the rizado?’

Although her instincts screamed at her to run, for a strange surreal moment she felt as though she floated above herself, watching the man advancing towards her in slow motion.

‘I tracked Wade for months before I had to kill him.’

His words exploded into Kelby, rupturing the slow motion. After all this time, she had come face-to-face with her brother’s killer.

Kelby spun on her heel and bolted down the decaying stairs.

128

As the sound of hooves clattered off into the distance, María shifted her weight back and forth, rocking the chair closer to the fire. Dawn peeped into the cottage window giving her new hope.

Thankfully, the soldiers’ brutal lust for bloodshed had given her time to figure out how to escape. Up against the hearth, she felt the rough stone’s edge against her wrists. María rubbed her arms, sawing at the ropes, her mind now focused on survival.

‘Mama? Mama, can you hear me?’

Her mother lay still.

¡Por dios! Is Mama still alive?

María couldn’t move far with the chair stuck to her back so she sawed vigorously against the stone ledge.

¡Bah!

It would take ages to saw through a few layers of rope. Her eyes searched the room. Even if she could find something to sever the ropes, she may not be able to right the chair back onto its feet, and hobble across the room.

‘Madre, can you hear me?’

A faint wail came from Madre as she half opened her eyes and glanced around.

‘We are safe, Mama, they have gone. They are coming back so I must get these ropes off.’

‘María,’ her mother’s voice dropped to a hoarse whisper, ‘when will they be back?’

‘A day. Maybe two.’

‘Get the journal, María, hide it in the grotto. They will ransack our home and find our secrets. We must keep them safe. Then, you must escape.’

‘I will take you to the grotto, Mama. We will hide there until we can find someone to help us.’

Her mother lay still and silent.

‘Mama? Mama, can you hear me?’ María’s breath caught in her throat.
Has Mama died?

She glanced around the room one more time. Suddenly a noise outside startled her.

In shock María watched the young soldier step through the kitchen door. They were back. Although the thought of someone being burned horrified her, she had hoped they would leave. Maybe the others had left the youngest one to guard her and Madre.

Now they would never escape.

129

Kelby raced down the hall. As she swivelled her head to glance over her shoulder, she stumbled into the rusting wheelchair.

She wobbled, tried to right herself and tumbled sideways, crashing to the floor and thumping her head against the rusting wheel’s frame.

Dust rose around her. Coughing and spluttering, Kelby jumped to her feet. Her mouth became engulfed with a bitter coppery taste, and Kelby realised she must have bitten her tongue.

Footsteps echoed along the empty corridor towards her. She glanced back. Punch-bag stepped off the bottom step. He looked in no hurry. That only meant one thing: the tunnel had no way out.

Kelby jumped forward over the wheelchair, now lying on its side. One wheel spun around in the air. Her gaze took in her only options: the lab door or straight ahead into the maze of tunnels.

She darted into 42A and slammed the door behind her. Punch-bag had killed Gary and Hawk. Maybe even Stacie. And he’d do the same to her.

Her heartbeat thumped in her ear drums, almost deafening her. Glancing around frantically, Kelby gulped on panicked air, looking for something to wedge under the doorknob.

Spotting a hefty oak chair at the desk, Kelby raced to it, dragged it across the room and butted it under the lab’s door handle. Trying to quieten her breathing, she strained her ears for any sounds.

Silence outside.

Then … footsteps. Slow. Deliberate. Heavy.

Everything slowed as if she were in a dream from which she couldn’t escape. It took only a few seconds for her to shove a pile of books under the chair’s legs to wedge it tighter beneath the door handle, but it felt like hours.

She grabbed the light switch and yanked it, dousing the room into obscurity. Although she hated dark, closed up places, it would be easier to hide in the gloom.

A key rattled into a lock. Metal scraped metal as it turned. Listening hard, she leaned against the door, waiting to push back with all her strength. But the sound echoed from the other side of the room.

Kelby gawked.

She had forgotten the entrance beside the fridge. The door hinge creaked as it opened a fraction. In the darkening room, Kelby watched a sliver of light knifing in. Behind it a face became visible.

130

Slumped in her chair, María watched the young soldier digging into the pans on the table. He muttered and went to the pot beside the fire.

‘They ate it all!’ He bellowed, scraping out the last chunk of meat. Near the fireplace lay a few scraps of bread. He ducked and stuffed a crust into his mouth. Then another. When the bread was finished, he ransacked the rest of the kitchen in a desperate search to quell his hunger. The young soldier dipped in and out of clay pots and tossed ladles aside.

With a mighty roar he shoved the remnants of the soldier’s meal off the table. The dishes clattered to the floor.

Madre opened her eyes. ‘María? Are you ready to go?’

‘Madre, be quiet.’ María whispered, knowing her mother hadn’t seen the soldier.

Madre glanced at the soldier and then fixed her eyes on María.

María’s heart ached at the look in Madre’s eyes. Sadness creased her mother’s face as she too accepted their fate. They would die in their home.

Unable to find any food or water, the young soldier paced the room. Within minutes, he started coughing. María guessed a crumb of the dried bread had got caught in his throat.

He stopped in front of María, leaned over and plucked a handful of her hair. ‘Where is your water?’

‘In the well. We have none left here. They drank it all.’

‘Where is the well?’

‘Let me loose and I will take you there.’

He threw his head back and bellowed with laughter. ‘Do you think me a fool? If I let you go, you will try to escape. I saw what you did to Paco’s eye.’

María stared at him, her mind racing. This was her last chance to escape. ‘It is far down the track; you will never find it.’

His hand shot out and slapped her across the cheek. María reeled. The sharp sting biting her cheek brought tears to her eyes.

‘Tell me!’ The young soldier coughed, spitting wet crumbs of bread in her face.

‘Go down the track. At the bottom, turn towards the woods. You will see the well hidden amongst the trees.’

‘You better not be lying,
bruja
!’

Without another word, the young soldier slammed out of the door.

María’s heart beat faster. She had sent him the wrong way.
And
had not declared the water barrel behind the house.

Would he come back and beat her to death?

She had only minutes to get the ropes off and get Madre away from here. Her chin trembled as her gut filled with despair. She would have to burn the ropes off her wrists. Even as the thought entered her head, María knew the fire’s heat would scar and cripple her hands. She would not write again. But she had to think on that another time. Now, she had to save Madre from these soldiers and get her to safety. Her sacrifice to her mother would be her hands.

María used her last remaining strength to lumber the chair closer to the fire. Its heat warmed her back. A flame touched her skin.

The ropes had to burn off fast so she stretched her arms backwards, further into the fireplace. White hot flames licked her hands.

María screamed in pain.

131

Kelby shuddered at the sight of Punch-bag’s face. The look of rapture in his eyes when he’d told her he had killed Gary had hardened into a carnivorous daze.

Using both hands, he shoved the old wooden door. It banged open, swinging wildly on its hinges. The handle clanked against the steel operating table.

By Punch-bag’s sides, his hands clenched and stretched continuously, as though flexing for a fight. No weapon. Only his huge hands and hulking body. He stepped closer to her with slow, steady movements.

Kelby stumbled sideways into the cabinet. The glass jars tinkled against each other.

‘Where’s Stacie?’

‘What do you care?’

The roaring of her heartbeat deafened her. Her eyes focused on the red dragon blazing down his arm. ‘Everyone knows you hate each other.’

She gasped again, remembering Stacie’s severed ear swinging in the breeze. ‘Is she still alive?’

With the heavy shuffle of a solidly built man, he stepped towards her. ‘What do
you
think?’

In one swift movement, he reached and grabbed her around the back of her head. He stuck his thumb into the hollow of her neck and pressed her into the mad scientist’s desk chair. He leaned over her, his face rammed into hers. ‘You shouldn’t have stuck your nose in. Haven’t you heard the saying
Let sleeping dogs lie
?’

She squirmed in her seat. Punch-bag yanked her hands and held them over the desk. ‘You have to stop mothering him. Even with him dead, you’re still doing it.’

Spikes of adrenaline raced through her mind, trying to piece his words together. Her hands dropped.

Punch-bag jerked her arms back to the mid-air position. ‘I’m going back to see where he hid the notes.’

Her heart pounded. Balancing out in front of her, her hands shook. ‘There were notes?’

‘
Ja
, that made hunting him more interesting, but your brother was clever at hiding stuff. We never found his notes. Mm, should I use the perfect murder weapon again? The one I used to kill your brother.’

Kelby froze.

Punch-bag inhaled deeply and flexed his right bicep. Looking at it, he sniggered, ‘But I may find another way to snuff you.’