Archibald Lox and the Forgotten Crypt by Darren Shan

Author:Darren Shan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: quest, afterlife, adventure, alternate reality, epic journey, otherworld
Publisher: Home of the Damned Ltd
Published: 2021-06-30T16:00:00+00:00

FIVE — THE HEADS

16

First things first. It’s early afternoon when I emerge from the room of panels. I’m barely able to keep my eyes open, so I head for bed and sleep for ages, dead to the world until the following morning.

I grab something to eat when I wake, and tell Havel when he comes to check on me that they don’t need to do that any longer. Then I go looking for Inez. I could nip through the borehole by myself, but I have no idea what lies on the other side, so it would be foolish to cross without saying anything to anyone. And there’s another reason why I want to tell her about it.

Inez is with Hugo, in his grop-playing Logu guise. He hasn’t reported for training yet. They’re in the room that he’s sharing with three other gropsters. His teammates aren’t present, so Hugo’s running through some of the kidnapping plans with Inez.

They pause when the door opens, but when they see it’s me, they carry on talking. I take a seat on the bed and wait for them to finish. I still find it weird to think that this Indian-looking gentleman is Hugo. He doesn’t even sound like the biker.

When they wrap up their plotting, Inez turns to me with a smile. “Everything OK, Archie? You left the restaurant the other night as if your tail was on fire.”

“What’s that?” Hugo asks, and she tells him how I rushed off.

“Sounds like he was in a hurry to meet a girl,” Hugo grins.

“Maybe it was Ghita,” Inez smirks. “Archie’s sweet on her.”

“No I’m not,” I bleat, cheeks reddening. “Besides, she was with you.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Inez says. “So what was so important that you couldn’t stay for dessert? Did you have to practise tying bandages for Baba Jen?”

“No,” I growl. “I haven’t been to lessons for a while. I’ve been hard at work on something else.”

I tell them about the room of panels, and the face that looked the same as the one in Seven Dials. I don’t cover everything that was involved in opening the lock, just say it was extremely difficult. They listen politely but without too much interest.

“Where do you think it leads?” Inez asks when I stop.

“I don’t know,” I sigh.

“Why didn’t you check?” Hugo asks.

“There’s something different about this lock,” I mutter. “I became obsessed with it the moment I saw it. Winston helped me work on it, taught me things that would allow me to maybe tease it open.”

“Why didn’t he just show you?” Hugo asks.

I shrug. “He didn’t know how to open it.”

“Nonsense,” Inez snorts.

I shrug again. “I’m only telling you what he said.”

Inez and Hugo share a look. I’ve finally tweaked their curiosity.

“You’re telling us you opened a lock that Winston couldn’t?” Hugo asks. When I nod, he turns to Inez. “Winston’s one of the best locksmiths, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” she says. “Other Loxes talk about him with awe.”

“I remember when the royals of Sapphire hired him to help block the vines,” Hugo says.

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