Forged in Smoke (Red-Hot SEALs #3)(82)
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Chapter Sixteen
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IT DIDN’T OCCUR to Rawls, until he was sitting in the motorized cart across from Wolf, that Zane hadn’t said whether he believed in ghosts. Or more specifically—Rawls’s ghost. The conversation had gotten off track, and then their private little chat had been disrupted by a shift change at the medical bay.
Zane had left, without much more said, but they both knew the discussion wasn’t over—merely shelved for the moment.
Wolf showed up an hour later to escort him to his first séance. Not that they called it that, but hell, they wanted to summon a ghost . . . wasn’t that exactly what a séance did?
He didn’t bother to ask any questions as Wolf drove. His escort had proved—repeatedly—that he wasn’t much of a talker, let alone an explainer.
Instead, he took the opportunity to check Shadow Mountain out. Not that he could see much. The landscape was comprised mainly of shiny black walls, with embedded caged lights. The corridor Wolf took was wide—two lanes separated by a solid yellow line. White-striped paths to the right and left were designated walkways, or so he assumed from the volume of people they passed walking along them. Corridors branched off the main street, because that’s what it was, a damn street—underground, inside a mountain.
They passed a wide section with defined parking spaces along the sides and a wide, almost translucent section of the wall that slid open every few seconds disgorging a steady stream of people, along with the rich, thick scent of cooking. Rawls’s stomach growled loud enough to catch Wolf’s attention, reminding them both they’d lost dinner and breakfast.
But Wolf pressed on.
They passed a good two dozen golf carts identical to the one Wolf was driving, as well as others twice as long, and then a few with rows of seats for extra passengers.
As one would expect from a facility this size, it bustled with men and women, although far more of the former than the latter. The ages ranged from midtwenties to midsixties. Most wore jeans and Tshirts or sweatshirts. Some wore overalls, others basic green fatigues. The lack of uniforms was a dead giveaway that the place wasn’t military.
The army, navy, and air force were damn proud of their regalia.
Nor were all the people he saw Native American—although most looked like they were.
Slowly the maze of corridors grew narrower, and they ran across fewer people. Eventually they reached a walkway the golf cart couldn’t navigate and Wolf parked along the wall.
This section of the facility looked old, ancient even, the path carved from damp stone. Rawls followed Wolf in silence. A hundred feet in, his escort suddenly took a hard right and disappeared through the rugged rock wall. Rawls blinked, but he didn’t see the narrow, irregular gap in the wall until he was right next to it.
It was a tight fit squeezing his body through the opening, which meant Wolf must have scraped off a layer of skin forcing his considerably larger frame through the hole. More of those caged lamps burned along the walls of another narrow corridor. He could just make out Wolf’s big shadow ahead and increased his stride.
The rock passage wound from left to the right, but after the fourth bend, it opened into a large cavern. Rawls stopped in the mouth of the cave and stared. Caged lamps ringed the walls here too, but several were dark. Flickering shadows twisted and twined along the stone, highlighting faded white-and-red images of stick animals and stick people and strange prehistoric symbols that reminded him of cave paintings he’d seen in National Geographic.
They looked old, thousands of years old. Reluctantly, he dragged his gaze from the walls to check out the rest of the room. In the middle of the cave, large white rocks, identical in size and color, had been placed next to each other, so close they were touching, and then curved into a perfect circle. Outside the circle of white rocks were four split logs. Each log was braced on more of the white rocks to form a bench.
Rawls slowly stepped into the room.
In front of each bench burned a small fire ringed with smaller white stones. The scent of smoke hung heavy in the air and stung his eyes.
“Come,” Wolf said from his left, and Rawls turned.
His escort was standing beside four men with graying braided hair and a patchwork of wrinkles carved into their leathery faces. Each of the elders wore a poncho-type garment made out of hide. Etched on the front was the same layered sunburst symbol that was woven into the hiixoyooniiheiht.
Like the amulet that had been given to him and the one Jude carried, each of the elders’ ponchos was embossed with dual colors, but in varying combinations.
The elder closest to him wore a sunburst of deep red and vivid yellow. The elder closest to Wolf carried colors of forest and pea green. Another, blue and yellow. The last, flat red and vivid green. Rawls sensed that the colors had some significance, but doubted he’d be told what it was. It wasn’t until he got closer that he noticed each of the elders carried a leather pouch with a sunburst matching the design on their garments.
Once he was in front of them, Rawls stopped and shifted uncomfortably. Should he offer a greeting and handshake? Or would touching them be considered an insult?
“They are ready to begin,” Wolf said, taking the decision out of Rawls’s hands. “Give me your hiixoyooniiheiht.” He waited until Rawls had removed the cord from around his neck and handed the weaving over. “You will stand beside me until they give you leave to summon your biitei.”