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sealieBy Sealie and LKY
Warnings and disclaimers in Part One
In the far distance voices echoed.
Shit.
Jim moved fast. He didn’t stop to analyse a plan or play out the possible consequences. Clamping one hand over Blair’s mouth and fisting a large wad of collar at the nape of the kid’s neck. He long-axis dragged his protesting partner to the edge of the pit.
Jim dropped to his knees and knelt down until his face was close to Blair’s. “Listen up. We’ve got company. Stay completely still, no matter what and, for God’s sake, no noise. Clear?”
Wide-eyed, Blair answered with a sharp nod and Jim removed his hand. He scooped his arms underneath Blair’s bound legs and carefully, yet quickly pivoted him until he was tucked up against the wall. Blair took the movement without a murmur, even though Jim knew it had to have hurt.
Frantically gathering up the broken bits of filthy planking, Jim dropped them on top of his guide, before going for more. The trick was to leave enough to make Blair’s shelter look natural, not a screen.
“Jim,” Blair protested with a sneeze as a third armful was dropped on him.
“Shut up and start covering yourself.” Jim went for more and judged it enough. Besides there wasn’t much time left. His knee’s protested as he landed once more at Blair’s side. “Remember, Sandburg. Not a peep.”
Blair was scared. His face showed it, emotions were never made to hide within the kid’s makeup. In a daze, Blair’s hands blindly felt for the wood bits and repositioned them.
Jim patted his chest. “It’ll be okay.” The last large broken board was saved to place at an angle over Blair’s face. The resulting effort barely hid the grad student.
Hopefully the darkness of the cave would work to their favour.
“… care what you say, I heard a noise.”
Jim pushed back from the edge and collapsed on the hard ground as if he’d just fallen. He waited.
“I heard a beastie.”
The voices were male, mature. Jim could make out at least two maybe three sets of footsteps approaching. Through slit eyelids he watched a flashlight beam paint the cave wall and ceiling above.
“Bugger!”
Play possum, Jim told himself and lay as if dead or unconscious.
The cold white light of a flashlight played over his legs, moving rapidly to his chest to finally stop on his face.
“It’s the man who visited the Keep the other day. Damn it.” The voice was familiar, Jim needed a moment to place it.
“He’s a tourist. We can just leave him in the tunnel. Nobody will care,” that voice was whiney, a young man.
“What’s he doing down here?” Jim identified a third person – not good odds but not impossible.
“His little friend was interested in the stuff you took. You idiot, I told you that stuff wasn’t to be took. Andrew, go see if you can find his mate. If you find him bring him back here.”
Footsteps moved away as Andrew followed the terse order. Jim knew the first speaker it was Coates, the Keep’s caretaker.
“Get down there and see if he broke his neck.”
Jim rolled onto his back and groaned. The light speared him.
“Mr. Ellison, are you all right?” Coates asked.
Shielding his eyes, Jim sat up. He coughed experimentally. “I got the wind knocked out of me.”
Coates crouched at the edge. “So tell me Mr. Ellison why are you trespassing in my tunnels?”
Jim rubbed his forehead as if pained and then muttered. “The lights. I had a headache. I went to bed. Blair said that I was jet lagged. But the orbs called.”
“The beasties?”
Jim plucked at his trousers. “I’d gone to bed. I was in my PJs.” He had hadn’t worn pyjamas since he was seven.
Coates hummed introspectively. The flashlight played over the ground around Jim.
“Where’s your torch, Mr. Ellison?”
“Torch? What?”
”Get the ladder, Donald.” Coates ordered. Jim heard the other man leave. “You are quite gifted, Mr. Ellison. It must make life difficult. Do you often wake up in a different place to where you went to sleep? Do the ghosties talk to you all the time?”
Displaying utmost care, Jim slowly rose to his feet. He folded his arms defensively over his chest.
“I gotta admit it seems a bit more in my face here in Good Ol’ England. Back home the ghosts aren’t as… widespread.”
Coates hummed again, his wrinkly face pensive. The trick was to convince Coates that he had wandered down here in a dazed, psychic haze and that nobody knew where he was. The thing was though, that he wasn’t very good at pretending to be defenceless.
Donald returned with the ladder and poked it down through the hole in the pit. He jerked it back and forth and more of the paper thin boards broke, falling into the pit, further obscuring Blair. Jim heard his pained gasp. Donald finally situated the ladder securely.
“Come on up, boy, and don’t try anything or you’ll regret it.”
Eyes firmly fixed on the diminutive Mr. Coates, Jim climbed up the ladder.
He wanted to whisper something encouraging to Blair but didn’t. He couldn’t risk being overheard. He stepped off the ladder to the cave floor and pretended to stumble. The three men stepped back instead of offering assistance. Not a good sign.
“The little guy didn’t come?” Coates asked.
“I told you,” Jim answered rubbing his brow and stepping away from the pit, “I was sleepwalking. It’s not like I asked for an escort. Listen, I’ll just leave.” He raised a hand against the glare of the flashlights.
Sucking on his teeth in thought, the old man eyed Jim. He tilted his head. “How you gonna find your way out, son?”
“I’ll manage.” Jim took another step toward the tunnel. If they let him walk he’d wait until they left and come back for Blair. If not…
Well, he’d taken out more than two men by himself. He hadn’t smelled gun oil. This was England. No guns, right? Got to love those kind of laws.
“Stay where you stand, lad. I’ll not have you telling everyone about this place,” Mr. Coates declared.
Decision made, Jim swung a punch toward Donald, judging the younger man more of a threat. Donald dodged as if he expected the move, but Jim was ready. Pouncing, he lashed at Donald’s flashlight, knocking it to the floor. Enduring a blow to his ribs, he ended the fight with a combination knee to the gut and sledgehammer blow to the back of the neck. The man was more girth than muscle and fell to the dirt with a grunt.
Jim turned toward Coates just in time to see the tazer. Jim barely had time to twist his dial to zero before the rattle of electricity snapped through the air. Coates thrust it into his side and billions of nerve endings screamed. Icy pain tried to attack his brain but the dial held. Jim’s body stiffened yet he forced heavy arms to reach for Coates.
A momentary look of surprise flitted across the old man’s face and Jim took courage.
Without warning something hard slammed into the side of Jim’s head. He had a second to remember the third man in the gang before dropping to the floor as darkness look him down.
~*~
Jim surfaced in confusion with a throbbing temple and every muscle in his body on strike. The cave was empty and the men gone. He tried to lift himself off the floor. Tried and failed. His arms had been hogtied behind his back with a coarse rope looped around his neck and around his bound ankles that had him bend backwards like a horseshoe.
“Jim! Please answer me!”
Blair.
“Sa-“ Jim paused, his throat feeling ripped open from the stun gun. He made a note not to let anyone do that to him again. “Sandburg.”
“Jim? JIM!” Blair called up from the pit. “You okay? Oh God, man. I thought…”
“I’m fine.” Jim tried to roll into a more comfortable position. There wasn’t one. The fine dirt on the cave floor tried to invade his mouth and nostrils. Why had Coates left him here? “Did they hear you, Chief?”
“No,” Blair answered. “I stayed quiet.”
“Good.”
“I thought they’d killed you.”
The emotion in Blair’s statement caused Jim to pause. “Just knocked out, what happened?”
“Ah, they said they’d come back for your body at high tide and take you out to sea,” Blair said between huffs and grunts. “That’s… that’s soon man. I remember the tide chart. Ouch!”
“What’s happening down there?” Jim tried to get his fingers to reach his ankles. It only managed to choke him. Now he knew why they took the time to loop his neck. Dried blood pulled the skin around his temple as he moved.
“I’m… trying to… get to the… ouch, ladder.”
Jim could hear Blair dragging himself across the floor. The ladder. Blair was going to try and climb a ladder with a broken leg. Thank God it was splinted. He wanted to tell the kid not to try, but the truth was plain. If they didn’t get out of this cave before Coates and his men returned both of them would end up dead.
“Listen to me, Chief, use your arms as much as possible.”
“Duh, man.” Blair huffed. “No kidding.”
“Take a minute,” Jim coached. “Rest up before trying.”
Blair’s breathing filled the cave and Jim wished he could do something to help. He wanted to meet Blair half way. He wanted to do something, anything to keep the kid’s impending pain to a minimum.
“Okay, man,” Blair muttered more to himself than Jim. “Showtime.”
The top of the ladder wiggled. Jim watched it rock and bit his lip, willing the damn thing not to topple. It settled down as it bore the weight of the climber. Blair’s first grunt of pain was like dipping a bare toe in an icy bath. Knowing that it was going to get worse before the task was done. Jim ground his molars in frustration, aware he had started to twist his captive wrists. He stilled. Sawing the skin off his arms was not going to help.
“Shit!” The sharp expletive was immediately followed by rapid breaths, reminding Jim of an old locomotive chugging up a steep grade. Finally the pants slowed down and the sound of the climb picked up again.
Jim held back encouragement. He doubted it would be appreciated at the moment.
“Ahhgh, *God*!”
The course strands once again dug into Jim’s raw skin as he listened to Blair grind his teeth in pain. It was impossible to judge his position on the ladder. Was he near the top or still at the bottom? “Chief?”
“In a - *gasp* - second, man.”
“No, just listen to me. No rush, take your time with this. You’re doing great. I know you can pull this off. A walk in the park.” Jim cringed over the last comment but pressed on. “You’ve got to be one of the most tenacious grad students I’ve ever met. Simon told me once you had an ‘Ever Ready’ battery hooked up to your brain. You just don’t give up.” God, he was babbling now.
“Yeah?”
Jim smiled. “Yeah, that’s what he said. You know how he hates to be called a liar.”
Blair chuckled between his gasps. “Can’t have that… now, shut up… and let me climb.”
“Right, shutting up now.” Jim let his head tilt to the ground, picturing waves of strength from his own body flowing down the ladder for Blair to use. Sounds of the climb continued, broken by frequent rests and more than a few gasps, even soft sobs as his broken leg must have bounced off some part of the ladder.
Finally twin fists appeared, gripping the ladder rung a few inches above the floor. The dirt streaked knuckles were white as Blair’s curly mop broke out of the pit. His profile showed the strain as he used the ladder rung to hook his chin. Finally the chin unhooked and Blair rested a sweaty brow on the rung between his fingers.
“You’re a piece of work, kid,” Jim praised softly.
Blair turned his head, his unfocused eyes blind in the darkness. He smiled through his exhaustion and pain. “After this, I want… three tests a day.”
“Done.”
It was another long twenty minutes before Blair was lying at Jim’s side, his small Swiss army knife cutting through the ropes. When Jim felt the cords around his wrists loosen, he yanked them off and carefully took the knife from his guide to finish the task.
Blair collapsed on his side, as still as Jim had ever seen him. As the blood began to circulate through his toes again, Jim slid over the floor to check Blair’s leg. The skin was still unbroken over the break. The climb had to have been hell, but Blair managed not dangerously aggravate the injury.
“Jim,” Blair said, sleepily. His adrenaline was spent, leaving him past exhausted. “Go for help. I’ll wait here.”
“No way, Huck.” Jim stood and tested his balance. It would do. He ducked out of the rope necktie and squatted by Blair’s side. “Come on.” He lifted Blair’s shoulders off the dirt until he was sitting.
“Noooo,” Blair whined. “I can’t hop anymore, man.”
“Not going to.” Jim spared a second to push back the filthy hair to see into Blair’s pain constricted pupils. He patted Blair’s wet cheeks. “Just relax, my turn.”
Careful not to bump the broken leg, Jim lifted Blair into a fireman carry over his shoulder. He stood, wavering for a second until he found balance and headed back toward the North Sea and freedom.
~*~
The light from Blair’s mag-lite ebbed and died. Jim froze as complete and utter darkness enveloped them. He could feel blackness pressing against his skin.
Where was an orb when you needed one?
“Jmmm?” Blair mumbled.
Even squinting yielded nothing. Jim ground his teeth. Evidently, regardless of his sentinel abilities, he needed a modicum of light to see. No light entered the inner depths of the caves.
Darn, Jim swore inwardly. He was effectively blind
Blair rocked on his shoulder, uneasy.
"Settle down, Sandburg," Jim hissed through gritted teeth, his hand feeling for the cold, wet earth wall.
Jim clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. The minute sound echoed subtly around them.
Interpreting the sound was a synaesthesic nightmare. Explaining it to Blair would be an exercise in frustration.
'Yes, Blair, I'm really a vampire, I can navigate by echo-sounding, but I see it in red and black colours.'
Blair settled.
Perhaps it was best the kid wasn't altogether present. Jim didn't want a new chapter of his thesis documenting the next half hour of torturous progress.
Following the echoes, Jim forded ahead slowly. The tunnels took on a new quality as he navigated the twists and turns, becoming quite adept at avoiding the hazards. The problem was the uneven ground. At one point Jim nearly dropped Blair as his ankle started to roll, but he caught himself in time, scraping his right palm.
A Metro train passed through a tunnel in the rocks overhead. The seismic vibration, simultaneously blasted his eardrums and skin. Jim curled up to the floor.
Blair shrieked as Jim scrabbled at his ears.
Jim saw star blasts as the rumbling train careened over metal tracks. Then, blissfully, it passed.
Slowly, Jim sat up, he batted at his ears and heard nothing.
Shit, he was deaf.
How could he echo locate without his ears?
The hopelessness weighted heaver than his guide.
Jim closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath, beating back the feeling. He was a Ranger, damn it. Even before this Sentinel shit turned his life inside out, Jim was no stranger to difficult missions. Blair may be just a college kid but he was the best second in command Jim had ever been teamed up with.
'This is just another day in the life of a ranger, Ellison,' Jim thought. 'Get off your ass and do it.'
Struggling to his feet, Jim stood again. Bits of dirt clung to his torn palm as he followed the wall. Blair whimpered as he pulled him back into a fireman’s carry. Progress became even slower. The tunnel turned sharply to the right and he went with it. The air became staler somehow.
Shit. He'd taken a side tunnel back there at the turn. Before he retraced his steps, Jim picked up the faintest of faint lights, equivalent to a dying firefly. Yet, it was light.
How? He'd gone round in a complete circle.
He was back at the criminals' store room.
He wasn't as good at black and red echo sounding as he guessed. This definitely wasn't going in Sandburg’s thesis.
Okay, it wasn't ideal but Blair was getting cold and tipping unerringly into shock. They had to get out and following Coates and his cronies was the next best thing.
He skirted past the antechamber which held the products of their thievery.
The low light from small camping gas lights illuminated his way.
He passed the plaque that had started this whole adventure and felt Blair stir on his shoulder.
The kid struggled, and ungainly, Jim swung him down. Blair pointed at the stone plaque, his mouth worked, but Jim couldn't make it out.
Urgently, Blair hop-jumped out of his hold -- face creased with pain -- towards the stone plaque
Jim immediately caught him and brushed up against the stone tablet.
‘It’s amazing how unschooled you are.’
“What?” Jim spun around. Trying to hone in on the disembodied voice.
“Unschooled? It means that you’re really, really bad this sentinel stuff.”
“Are you channelling, Sandburg?” Jim demanded
The roman sentinel stepped out of the ether.
End Part Nine
Part Ten
Warnings and disclaimers in Part One
In the far distance voices echoed.
Shit.
Jim moved fast. He didn’t stop to analyse a plan or play out the possible consequences. Clamping one hand over Blair’s mouth and fisting a large wad of collar at the nape of the kid’s neck. He long-axis dragged his protesting partner to the edge of the pit.
Jim dropped to his knees and knelt down until his face was close to Blair’s. “Listen up. We’ve got company. Stay completely still, no matter what and, for God’s sake, no noise. Clear?”
Wide-eyed, Blair answered with a sharp nod and Jim removed his hand. He scooped his arms underneath Blair’s bound legs and carefully, yet quickly pivoted him until he was tucked up against the wall. Blair took the movement without a murmur, even though Jim knew it had to have hurt.
Frantically gathering up the broken bits of filthy planking, Jim dropped them on top of his guide, before going for more. The trick was to leave enough to make Blair’s shelter look natural, not a screen.
“Jim,” Blair protested with a sneeze as a third armful was dropped on him.
“Shut up and start covering yourself.” Jim went for more and judged it enough. Besides there wasn’t much time left. His knee’s protested as he landed once more at Blair’s side. “Remember, Sandburg. Not a peep.”
Blair was scared. His face showed it, emotions were never made to hide within the kid’s makeup. In a daze, Blair’s hands blindly felt for the wood bits and repositioned them.
Jim patted his chest. “It’ll be okay.” The last large broken board was saved to place at an angle over Blair’s face. The resulting effort barely hid the grad student.
Hopefully the darkness of the cave would work to their favour.
“… care what you say, I heard a noise.”
Jim pushed back from the edge and collapsed on the hard ground as if he’d just fallen. He waited.
“I heard a beastie.”
The voices were male, mature. Jim could make out at least two maybe three sets of footsteps approaching. Through slit eyelids he watched a flashlight beam paint the cave wall and ceiling above.
“Bugger!”
Play possum, Jim told himself and lay as if dead or unconscious.
The cold white light of a flashlight played over his legs, moving rapidly to his chest to finally stop on his face.
“It’s the man who visited the Keep the other day. Damn it.” The voice was familiar, Jim needed a moment to place it.
“He’s a tourist. We can just leave him in the tunnel. Nobody will care,” that voice was whiney, a young man.
“What’s he doing down here?” Jim identified a third person – not good odds but not impossible.
“His little friend was interested in the stuff you took. You idiot, I told you that stuff wasn’t to be took. Andrew, go see if you can find his mate. If you find him bring him back here.”
Footsteps moved away as Andrew followed the terse order. Jim knew the first speaker it was Coates, the Keep’s caretaker.
“Get down there and see if he broke his neck.”
Jim rolled onto his back and groaned. The light speared him.
“Mr. Ellison, are you all right?” Coates asked.
Shielding his eyes, Jim sat up. He coughed experimentally. “I got the wind knocked out of me.”
Coates crouched at the edge. “So tell me Mr. Ellison why are you trespassing in my tunnels?”
Jim rubbed his forehead as if pained and then muttered. “The lights. I had a headache. I went to bed. Blair said that I was jet lagged. But the orbs called.”
“The beasties?”
Jim plucked at his trousers. “I’d gone to bed. I was in my PJs.” He had hadn’t worn pyjamas since he was seven.
Coates hummed introspectively. The flashlight played over the ground around Jim.
“Where’s your torch, Mr. Ellison?”
“Torch? What?”
”Get the ladder, Donald.” Coates ordered. Jim heard the other man leave. “You are quite gifted, Mr. Ellison. It must make life difficult. Do you often wake up in a different place to where you went to sleep? Do the ghosties talk to you all the time?”
Displaying utmost care, Jim slowly rose to his feet. He folded his arms defensively over his chest.
“I gotta admit it seems a bit more in my face here in Good Ol’ England. Back home the ghosts aren’t as… widespread.”
Coates hummed again, his wrinkly face pensive. The trick was to convince Coates that he had wandered down here in a dazed, psychic haze and that nobody knew where he was. The thing was though, that he wasn’t very good at pretending to be defenceless.
Donald returned with the ladder and poked it down through the hole in the pit. He jerked it back and forth and more of the paper thin boards broke, falling into the pit, further obscuring Blair. Jim heard his pained gasp. Donald finally situated the ladder securely.
“Come on up, boy, and don’t try anything or you’ll regret it.”
Eyes firmly fixed on the diminutive Mr. Coates, Jim climbed up the ladder.
He wanted to whisper something encouraging to Blair but didn’t. He couldn’t risk being overheard. He stepped off the ladder to the cave floor and pretended to stumble. The three men stepped back instead of offering assistance. Not a good sign.
“The little guy didn’t come?” Coates asked.
“I told you,” Jim answered rubbing his brow and stepping away from the pit, “I was sleepwalking. It’s not like I asked for an escort. Listen, I’ll just leave.” He raised a hand against the glare of the flashlights.
Sucking on his teeth in thought, the old man eyed Jim. He tilted his head. “How you gonna find your way out, son?”
“I’ll manage.” Jim took another step toward the tunnel. If they let him walk he’d wait until they left and come back for Blair. If not…
Well, he’d taken out more than two men by himself. He hadn’t smelled gun oil. This was England. No guns, right? Got to love those kind of laws.
“Stay where you stand, lad. I’ll not have you telling everyone about this place,” Mr. Coates declared.
Decision made, Jim swung a punch toward Donald, judging the younger man more of a threat. Donald dodged as if he expected the move, but Jim was ready. Pouncing, he lashed at Donald’s flashlight, knocking it to the floor. Enduring a blow to his ribs, he ended the fight with a combination knee to the gut and sledgehammer blow to the back of the neck. The man was more girth than muscle and fell to the dirt with a grunt.
Jim turned toward Coates just in time to see the tazer. Jim barely had time to twist his dial to zero before the rattle of electricity snapped through the air. Coates thrust it into his side and billions of nerve endings screamed. Icy pain tried to attack his brain but the dial held. Jim’s body stiffened yet he forced heavy arms to reach for Coates.
A momentary look of surprise flitted across the old man’s face and Jim took courage.
Without warning something hard slammed into the side of Jim’s head. He had a second to remember the third man in the gang before dropping to the floor as darkness look him down.
~*~
Jim surfaced in confusion with a throbbing temple and every muscle in his body on strike. The cave was empty and the men gone. He tried to lift himself off the floor. Tried and failed. His arms had been hogtied behind his back with a coarse rope looped around his neck and around his bound ankles that had him bend backwards like a horseshoe.
“Jim! Please answer me!”
Blair.
“Sa-“ Jim paused, his throat feeling ripped open from the stun gun. He made a note not to let anyone do that to him again. “Sandburg.”
“Jim? JIM!” Blair called up from the pit. “You okay? Oh God, man. I thought…”
“I’m fine.” Jim tried to roll into a more comfortable position. There wasn’t one. The fine dirt on the cave floor tried to invade his mouth and nostrils. Why had Coates left him here? “Did they hear you, Chief?”
“No,” Blair answered. “I stayed quiet.”
“Good.”
“I thought they’d killed you.”
The emotion in Blair’s statement caused Jim to pause. “Just knocked out, what happened?”
“Ah, they said they’d come back for your body at high tide and take you out to sea,” Blair said between huffs and grunts. “That’s… that’s soon man. I remember the tide chart. Ouch!”
“What’s happening down there?” Jim tried to get his fingers to reach his ankles. It only managed to choke him. Now he knew why they took the time to loop his neck. Dried blood pulled the skin around his temple as he moved.
“I’m… trying to… get to the… ouch, ladder.”
Jim could hear Blair dragging himself across the floor. The ladder. Blair was going to try and climb a ladder with a broken leg. Thank God it was splinted. He wanted to tell the kid not to try, but the truth was plain. If they didn’t get out of this cave before Coates and his men returned both of them would end up dead.
“Listen to me, Chief, use your arms as much as possible.”
“Duh, man.” Blair huffed. “No kidding.”
“Take a minute,” Jim coached. “Rest up before trying.”
Blair’s breathing filled the cave and Jim wished he could do something to help. He wanted to meet Blair half way. He wanted to do something, anything to keep the kid’s impending pain to a minimum.
“Okay, man,” Blair muttered more to himself than Jim. “Showtime.”
The top of the ladder wiggled. Jim watched it rock and bit his lip, willing the damn thing not to topple. It settled down as it bore the weight of the climber. Blair’s first grunt of pain was like dipping a bare toe in an icy bath. Knowing that it was going to get worse before the task was done. Jim ground his molars in frustration, aware he had started to twist his captive wrists. He stilled. Sawing the skin off his arms was not going to help.
“Shit!” The sharp expletive was immediately followed by rapid breaths, reminding Jim of an old locomotive chugging up a steep grade. Finally the pants slowed down and the sound of the climb picked up again.
Jim held back encouragement. He doubted it would be appreciated at the moment.
“Ahhgh, *God*!”
The course strands once again dug into Jim’s raw skin as he listened to Blair grind his teeth in pain. It was impossible to judge his position on the ladder. Was he near the top or still at the bottom? “Chief?”
“In a - *gasp* - second, man.”
“No, just listen to me. No rush, take your time with this. You’re doing great. I know you can pull this off. A walk in the park.” Jim cringed over the last comment but pressed on. “You’ve got to be one of the most tenacious grad students I’ve ever met. Simon told me once you had an ‘Ever Ready’ battery hooked up to your brain. You just don’t give up.” God, he was babbling now.
“Yeah?”
Jim smiled. “Yeah, that’s what he said. You know how he hates to be called a liar.”
Blair chuckled between his gasps. “Can’t have that… now, shut up… and let me climb.”
“Right, shutting up now.” Jim let his head tilt to the ground, picturing waves of strength from his own body flowing down the ladder for Blair to use. Sounds of the climb continued, broken by frequent rests and more than a few gasps, even soft sobs as his broken leg must have bounced off some part of the ladder.
Finally twin fists appeared, gripping the ladder rung a few inches above the floor. The dirt streaked knuckles were white as Blair’s curly mop broke out of the pit. His profile showed the strain as he used the ladder rung to hook his chin. Finally the chin unhooked and Blair rested a sweaty brow on the rung between his fingers.
“You’re a piece of work, kid,” Jim praised softly.
Blair turned his head, his unfocused eyes blind in the darkness. He smiled through his exhaustion and pain. “After this, I want… three tests a day.”
“Done.”
It was another long twenty minutes before Blair was lying at Jim’s side, his small Swiss army knife cutting through the ropes. When Jim felt the cords around his wrists loosen, he yanked them off and carefully took the knife from his guide to finish the task.
Blair collapsed on his side, as still as Jim had ever seen him. As the blood began to circulate through his toes again, Jim slid over the floor to check Blair’s leg. The skin was still unbroken over the break. The climb had to have been hell, but Blair managed not dangerously aggravate the injury.
“Jim,” Blair said, sleepily. His adrenaline was spent, leaving him past exhausted. “Go for help. I’ll wait here.”
“No way, Huck.” Jim stood and tested his balance. It would do. He ducked out of the rope necktie and squatted by Blair’s side. “Come on.” He lifted Blair’s shoulders off the dirt until he was sitting.
“Noooo,” Blair whined. “I can’t hop anymore, man.”
“Not going to.” Jim spared a second to push back the filthy hair to see into Blair’s pain constricted pupils. He patted Blair’s wet cheeks. “Just relax, my turn.”
Careful not to bump the broken leg, Jim lifted Blair into a fireman carry over his shoulder. He stood, wavering for a second until he found balance and headed back toward the North Sea and freedom.
~*~
The light from Blair’s mag-lite ebbed and died. Jim froze as complete and utter darkness enveloped them. He could feel blackness pressing against his skin.
Where was an orb when you needed one?
“Jmmm?” Blair mumbled.
Even squinting yielded nothing. Jim ground his teeth. Evidently, regardless of his sentinel abilities, he needed a modicum of light to see. No light entered the inner depths of the caves.
Darn, Jim swore inwardly. He was effectively blind
Blair rocked on his shoulder, uneasy.
"Settle down, Sandburg," Jim hissed through gritted teeth, his hand feeling for the cold, wet earth wall.
Jim clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. The minute sound echoed subtly around them.
Interpreting the sound was a synaesthesic nightmare. Explaining it to Blair would be an exercise in frustration.
'Yes, Blair, I'm really a vampire, I can navigate by echo-sounding, but I see it in red and black colours.'
Blair settled.
Perhaps it was best the kid wasn't altogether present. Jim didn't want a new chapter of his thesis documenting the next half hour of torturous progress.
Following the echoes, Jim forded ahead slowly. The tunnels took on a new quality as he navigated the twists and turns, becoming quite adept at avoiding the hazards. The problem was the uneven ground. At one point Jim nearly dropped Blair as his ankle started to roll, but he caught himself in time, scraping his right palm.
A Metro train passed through a tunnel in the rocks overhead. The seismic vibration, simultaneously blasted his eardrums and skin. Jim curled up to the floor.
Blair shrieked as Jim scrabbled at his ears.
Jim saw star blasts as the rumbling train careened over metal tracks. Then, blissfully, it passed.
Slowly, Jim sat up, he batted at his ears and heard nothing.
Shit, he was deaf.
How could he echo locate without his ears?
The hopelessness weighted heaver than his guide.
Jim closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath, beating back the feeling. He was a Ranger, damn it. Even before this Sentinel shit turned his life inside out, Jim was no stranger to difficult missions. Blair may be just a college kid but he was the best second in command Jim had ever been teamed up with.
'This is just another day in the life of a ranger, Ellison,' Jim thought. 'Get off your ass and do it.'
Struggling to his feet, Jim stood again. Bits of dirt clung to his torn palm as he followed the wall. Blair whimpered as he pulled him back into a fireman’s carry. Progress became even slower. The tunnel turned sharply to the right and he went with it. The air became staler somehow.
Shit. He'd taken a side tunnel back there at the turn. Before he retraced his steps, Jim picked up the faintest of faint lights, equivalent to a dying firefly. Yet, it was light.
How? He'd gone round in a complete circle.
He was back at the criminals' store room.
He wasn't as good at black and red echo sounding as he guessed. This definitely wasn't going in Sandburg’s thesis.
Okay, it wasn't ideal but Blair was getting cold and tipping unerringly into shock. They had to get out and following Coates and his cronies was the next best thing.
He skirted past the antechamber which held the products of their thievery.
The low light from small camping gas lights illuminated his way.
He passed the plaque that had started this whole adventure and felt Blair stir on his shoulder.
The kid struggled, and ungainly, Jim swung him down. Blair pointed at the stone plaque, his mouth worked, but Jim couldn't make it out.
Urgently, Blair hop-jumped out of his hold -- face creased with pain -- towards the stone plaque
Jim immediately caught him and brushed up against the stone tablet.
‘It’s amazing how unschooled you are.’
“What?” Jim spun around. Trying to hone in on the disembodied voice.
“Unschooled? It means that you’re really, really bad this sentinel stuff.”
“Are you channelling, Sandburg?” Jim demanded
The roman sentinel stepped out of the ether.
End Part Nine
Part Ten
