Hunt Through the Cradle of Fear by Gabriel Hunt, Charles Ardai Page B

escape, but even assuming he didn’t get them both killed, the best he could hope for was to make it out alive—he’d never know what lay beyond the hole, what the ancient reliquary held. If there was any chance Sheba could coach Rashidi into opening it successfully…
    “Inside the hole,” Sheba said, “there should be a basin, some sort of recessed area. He should put the offering in that. You’ll need to fill it completely,” she said to Rashidi. He nodded furiously, desperately. “Make sure you bring enough.”
    The pile on the ground had grown considerably—Zuka had split open a second sandbag and emptied a second canteen. Anything to ensure his son’s success.
    DeGroet flipped a metal pail into the air with the tip of his sword. Hanif caught it. “He can use that,” DeGroet said. “Go on, fill it.” Hanif fell to the task, scooping handfuls of the mud into the container.
    When it was filled, he exchanged a glance with Zuka and handed the pail to Rashidi.
    “Go slowly,” DeGroet told the young man. “You don’t want to end up like the others, do you?” Rashidi violently shook his head. “Then for god’s sake, be careful. You understand what you are going to do?” Rashidi nodded. “Then tell me.”
    “I am going to pour the mud into a basin.”
    “It may not be an actual basin,” Sheba said. “It might just be a, a, a depression, a shallow area. Or a hole—there could just be a hole.”
    “A hole,” Rashidi said.
    “Enough,” DeGroet said. “In with you.” And he struckRashidi smartly on the backs of his legs with the flat of his blade.
    The young man took off his cloak and crawled into the hole, pushing the container of mud before him. It was a tight fit. He wriggled to get his shoulders and head inside, then his torso, and finally his legs. For a moment, his feet remained, sticking out of the hole, but one at a time they vanished inside, too.
    A moment later they heard his voice, muffled and echoing in the enclosed space. “I can’t see anything,” he said.
    “Feel for it,” Sheba called out. “On the bottom.”
    Silence.
    “Do you feel anything?” she shouted.
    “Rashidi?” DeGroet said. “She asked you a question.”
    “I do,” his voice came. “It’s like a bowl, with sloping sides.”
    “Good,” Sheba said. “Are you filling it?”
    “Yes,” came the voice. And a moment later: “It’s full.” And then: “What should I do now?”
    DeGroet looked at Sheba who had nothing to offer but a look of grave uncertainty. “Keep going,” he shouted.
    “No,” Sheba said, “don’t, it could be booby-trapped—”
    They all heard a sound then, a terrible sound, the sound of stone moving against stone deep within the wall, rapidly gathering momentum, like a heavy boulder as it topples off the side of a cliff, gaining speed as it sweeps past; and then the sound of a collision, but only briefly, as though the object in the stone’s path had offered only token resistance and been plowed through.
    “No!” Zuka shouted, and he ran forward, dived head-first into the hole himself. DeGroet had been right—he could not fit past his shoulders, but he knelt with his head and arms inside, reaching for something, groping,then finally grasping and pulling, extracting. Gabriel saw Zuka’s head pop out of the hole first, then his arms emerged, and in each hand one of his son’s boot heels. Zuka pulled at his son’s body and it came, shins and thighs and lower torso—but where his upper torso should have been there was nothing. He’d been sliced neatly in half at the breastbone.
    Zuka fell back, howling.
    “Of course it’s trapped,” DeGroet said, disgusted. “Whatever did you think you were here for?”

Chapter 8
    The smell was stronger now, and no doubt at all about its source. Gabriel saw Sheba turn aside, one hand clapped over her mouth.
    “If you insist on being sick, Miss McCoy,” DeGroet said, “please do so quickly. We have work to do.” He swung around, saw