Uncharted The Fourth Labyrinth - By Christopher Golden Page 0,78
we’re missing is a Greek Dracula.”
“That’d be just our luck,” Sully sighed, and started walking.
“Good thing there’s no such thing as vampires,” Jada replied, setting off after him.
Drake said nothing. He slipped his backpack on and started walking.
“Wait, there aren’t, right?” he heard Jada ask.
“Not that we’ve ever run across,” Sully admitted. “And we’ve seen some wild stuff. Sometimes stories are just stories. Vampires are absurd, anyway. They’re always better dressed than everyone else, right? But they’re up all night killing people and drinking blood, and half the time they live in graves and crypts or whatever. Yeah, these are not creatures well versed in the laundry arts. Stupid. Who believes that crap?”
Drake smiled. Laundry. He could always trust Sully to find the practical angle.
Jada and Sully caught up with him. Sully patted his pockets in search of a cigar but apparently had left his last one behind in the hotel. He’d managed to remember his gun but not a cigar. Drake almost suggested it might be his subconscious trying to make a statement about smoking but decided not to antagonize his friend. Don’t poke the bear, Sully had often said when Drake was younger. As rules went, it was a smart one.
They began by making a complete circuit of the fortress, following the perimeter and examining the places where the walls had crumbled. The medieval stone structure had begun to collapse like a sand castle in some places, eroded by entropy, but in others the walls remained standing strong. They found only a handful of places where crevices had formed in the exterior of the ruin, and none of them yielded evidence of anything beneath the structure.
In the most dangerous places, haphazard attempts had been made to block off entry. There were signs and in one place a piece of railing that looked new enough to be a recent effort, but if so the village or the island had run out of money before it could be completed. A twelve-foot stretch of metal railing with nothing on either side of it would do little to keep inquisitive visitors away. It slowed Drake and his friends not at all.
At the rear of the fortress they encountered a partially collapsed doorway. Wooden supports had been put in place to prevent more of the stone above the door from falling, and makeshift wooden doors had been put in place to block the entrance. Once upon a time, the wood might have been strong and new, but the arid weather and sea air had dried and weakened it. A chain looped through the door handles, but it took Drake three kicks to smash the doors open, one of the handles tearing right out of the wood.
And they were in.
“Now let’s see what we can find before the police show up,” Jada suggested.
Sully pushed the doors closed, then dragged a couple of heavy blocks of broken masonry over to keep them from swinging inward.
“Do they even have cops here?” he asked.
“Maybe not in the village, but on the island?” Jada said. “Yeah.”
“This is as remote as you can find on Santorini,” Drake said. “I’m guessing there aren’t a ton of cell phones. And no matter what weird looks we got on the way up here, they must see the occasional tourist checking this place out. They’re more likely to think we’re idiots than thieves or vandals or something.”
“So we’re relying on them thinking we’re just American fools?” Sully asked.
Drake shrugged. “Pretty much.”
“It’s probably a safe bet,” Sully agreed after thinking about it for a second. “But if we’re out here long enough, someone will get the police to check on us or come looking themselves.”
“Then stop talking and get to work,” Jada said, smiling.
Sully snapped off a salute. “Yes, ma’am.”
For more than an hour, they explored the courtyard and the rooms of the fortress. Some were completely shattered and full of debris, and Drake tried not to wonder what was beneath the rubble. If what they sought had been closed off by the earthquake, it would take a lot more than bare hands to uncover it.
Other rooms were well preserved but empty, dust on the floor a reminder of the unsteadiness of the whole structure. The wind off the Mediterranean gusted powerfully from time to time. When it whistled over the hill and through the cracks in the walls, it seemed to make the very foundations shiver.
The second and third hours found them peering beneath fallen stairs and investigating darkened alcoves. Throughout the fortress