"Oh, I have an idea," Elyssa said. "Map, this city is Atlanta."
We fooled around with the map for several more minutes and figured out that it could show us just about any place we could imagine in detail. I had to pull up images on my arcphone and focus on them if I wanted the map to display that location. Once we told the map a city or location name, it remembered it.
"Show me the door locations in Atlanta," I said.
The map drew a single circle on the east side. When I told it to zoom in, it redrew the area in greater detail, including rows of small rectangles.
"I know that place," Elyssa said.
"What is it? A parking lot?"
She shook her head. "No. A graveyard. It's where we just buried my brother."
I felt surprise light my face. "What kind of bizarre coincidence is that?"
"I don't know if I believe in coincidence anymore after all we've been through." Elyssa touched the map, as if to confirm it was real. "When I was in the Goths, we used to go to that graveyard and scare each other with ghost stories. We were so stupid. I never once thought I'd be burying my brother there. Never thought I'd lose Jack."
I squeezed her shoulder in what I hoped was a reassuring manner. "I'm sorry."
She shook her head as if she could shake off the memory. "Whatever. What's done is done."
"Try the key again?"
Elyssa nodded. Took it and opened the door. Hard-packed earth waited on the other side.
"You've got to be kidding me," I said, kicked at the dirt.
Some of it crumbled, spilling onto the ground, revealing a thick maze of roots and a worm or three.
I looked at the map again. "Show me a street view of the door." When that command failed, I tried again. "Show me the view of the door from ground level."
The parchment cleared and redrew the graveyard from a first-person perspective. By the time it was done, I realized what the problem was. The door was fifty feet or more underground. I had the map redraw the scene from different angles.
"There's an old crypt or something beneath the cemetery," Elyssa said. She traced a finger up a ramp. "Looks like it was buried."
I groaned. "Didn't you say the map could be used to make new connections for the key?"
"According to Underborn, yes."
We fiddled with the map, trying to get it to connect a door in an abandoned warehouse near Elyssa's house, aka the Templar compound known as Big Creek Ranch, or The Ranch for short. The map ignored our pleas. We tried different doors, all to no avail, and finally gave up. I searched the interwebz on my phone for more information about the map, but came up with zilch. Either Underborn had lied about the name, or it was so old, it had already passed from legend, to myth, to oblivion.
"The only person who might tell us how to work this thing is the last person I want to know about the map," I said. "And I don't plan on giving Underborn the key. That leaves one option."
"We dig?" Elyssa said.
I nodded. "We dig."
"Justin, may I help?" Cinder said from behind us.
I almost jumped out of my skin. "Geez, dude, do you have to sneak up on me all the time?"
"My apologies," the golem said. "I had no intention of a stealthy approach, Justin."
"Can you use a shovel?" Elyssa asked.
Cinder's eyes went distant. "If you show me how, I am certain it is within my grasp."
Elyssa closed the shed door and reopened it without the key. She went in, grabbed a couple of shovels, an axe, and a few other items, then stepped back out. Shoved the key in the lock and reopened it to the wall of dirt.
"It's easy," she said, demonstrating. "Just shove the tip in hard, wiggle it around, and then pull out a load."
"That's what she said." I said with a wide grin.
She threw a clod of dirt at me.
Cinder took to the task without another word.
"I'll go tell Thomas," Elyssa said. "Why don't you round up the gang?"
Within twenty minutes I returned to the shed with Bella and Katie in tow. Adam and Meghan promised they'd be over soon. A crowd of Templars stood near the shed watching Cinder work. The door was a little wider than a normal one but didn't offer much room for more than one person. As Cinder worked his way forward, Templars