The Lightning Stones by Jack Du Brul

Author:Jack Du Brul [Du Brul, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Science Fiction, Thriller
ISBN: 9780385527750
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2015-08-10T04:00:00+00:00

14

Michael Dillman. It had to be. Mercer scanned the ceiling of the cave just a few inches over his head, and he saw the rock protrusion where Dillman had hit and subsequently split open his scalp.

Mercer’s doubts evaporated, and he knew now more than ever that he was on the right path—not just the physical trail of the lightning stones, but also the goal of avenging Abe Jacobs. Mercer needed this wrong to be righted. Someone had murdered his friend, possibly for what was to be found in this cave, and Mercer owed it to him to see this through, no matter where it ended and what it cost.

He moved now with renewed vigor, the near hypoxia he’d been experiencing almost forgotten as adrenaline saturated his blood. Mercer squeezed deeper into the tunnel-like passage, forcing his body through the constricted space and allowing his cave training to take over. Fifteen feet farther, and the walls and roof suddenly opened into a chamber about the size of a small bedroom. The ceiling wasn’t quite the standard eight feet, more like six for the most part, but in one corner it had collapsed into a pile of loose stones with a hole above it. No light made it down from the surface, but Mercer could feel air being drawn up through the ceiling as if from a chimney. It was cold enough for him to see his breath.

Three other things caught his attention as he swept the flashlight beam around the room. One was the odd jagged stripes radiating from the hole in the ceiling and etching their way down the walls and across the floor. It looked as though the gray stone had been painted with snaggy black lines. The second thing was the grotto at the far end of the room. It was a natural formation, about four feet high and two wide, and it seemed most of the black scorch lines terminated at its entrance. The final thing, and the one that held his interest, was the body.

The corpse was obviously ancient. It was little more than black parchment skin drawn over a skeleton that had shrunk and shriveled over time. The dead figure was sitting in the meditative lotus position, with wrists resting on its knees and feet crossed over onto the opposite thigh. The only incongruity was that while the corpse maintained this most Eastern of poses, it was actually resting on its side, so one bony knee stuck up in the air and the head had detached from the neck after it no longer had support. Mercer immediately understood that the body had once sat guarding the entrance to the grotto and someone, Dillman most likely, had moved it out of the way by simply setting it aside without any thought to repositioning it.

Looking more carefully, he saw that ragged holes had been punched through the body at random places and that the skin had discolored around these spots in zigging streaks of darker char. He

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