Uncharted The Fourth Labyrinth - By Christopher Golden Page 0,73
labyrinth was buried for, like, thousands of years. If the archaeologists unearthing the site didn’t know there was another way in, how did they?”
“Now you’re just creeping me out,” Drake said.
“I’m creeping myself out!” Jada said. “ ’Cause the next question is, if they knew the bat cave entrance to that labyrinth, do they know about this one?”
Drake caught another whiff of the pipe smoke he’d smelled before. Mixed in with that odor were delicious aromas of frying onions and spices. From another bar, a ways back along the walk, loud music had begun to play, the kind of thumping dance noise that roared in the sort of nightclub he had always avoided. But earlier they had passed a young bearded guy playing a bouzouki, and Drake had allowed himself a moment to wish they were here on some less troubling errand and without the specter of Luka’s death looming over them.
“I don’t think I want the answer to that,” he admitted. “But I figure we’ll find out when we find the labyrinth on Therasia.”
“Can’t wait,” Jada muttered.
They turned together, in silent agreement that they were moving on from both the topic and the location. Something caught Drake’s attention, a shifting of the night shadows on top of the darkened jewelry store to their left. He glanced up and froze, staring.
Jada walked on several steps before she realized he wasn’t with her.
“Nate?” she asked, turning to see what had snagged his attention.
Drake started walking again, taking her elbow and hurrying along the path. He glanced over his shoulder, looking at the jewelry store’s roof and then checking others on both sides of the path. They went down five steps, and he picked up his pace further.
“What the hell’s wrong with—” she started. “Wait, did you see one of them? The hooded guys?”
“I’m not sure,” Drake said.
And he wasn’t. It had been a momentary glimpse, little more than a shadow detaching itself from another shadow and retreating out of sight. But something had been moving up there, and even if Henriksen had caught up with them this quickly, the men he’d hired thus far weren’t clever or stealthy enough to lurk in shadows.
“You think they’re trailing us right now?” Jada asked.
“Maybe.”
“Why just watch? They don’t know what to make of us? Or they’re biding their time?”
Drake wanted to comfort her, but he’d had a lifetime of telling people what they needed to hear instead of what they wanted to hear. And Jada wasn’t exactly a damsel in distress.
“These guys are like shadows. They don’t like being seen,” Drake said. “They took a risk back in Egypt with so many people seeing them. My guess is they didn’t like it. They’re doing what any decent hunter would do, waiting for the right moment. They’ll want us alone, away from a crowd. Better still if they can take us one by one.”
Jada’s face went slack. “Oh, no. Uncle Vic.”
Drake felt his heart sink. He couldn’t be sure of what he’d seen, but if they were being shadowed—if these ninja assholes really did want to take them out—and they’d left Sully alone—
He took Jada’s hand, and together they ran.
They raced along the walkway, past the bars and darkened shops, watching rooftops and shadows for any further threat. But Drake’s thoughts had shifted away from self-preservation. The fear that made his heart race, thrumming in his skull, had nothing to do with his own safety. He hadn’t seen the corpse of Luka Hzujak, but he knew how the dead man had ended up—in a trunk with his arms and legs cut off and his decapitated head resting on his chest, abandoned on a train platform. He had to force himself not to picture Sully’s face staring up from inside that trunk, a bloodstain spreading out beneath it on a vintage guayabera, the copper stink of blood mixing with the earthy odor of old cigars.
Jada let go of his hand, and he wished she had held on. But they needed to run faster, and that didn’t leave time for them to soothe each other’s fears.
Drake darted along a narrow path that led down, cut into the cliff face. The island fell away to the right. There were homes and hotels and even a few more restaurants below, slashed into the rock, but none of them were likely to save them if they fell. Small trees and bushes grew around the path, along with fall flowers, a minor miracle considering the severely arid climate of the island.