Chapter 113

There was no ground beneath Jamie, nothing around him but the rush of air and pitch black. He stuck his arms out, reaching for something solid, anything, but felt nothing. Below him, he could sense the ground rising up to meet him, though he couldn’t see it, and he thought he heard the rush of water. “Oh, God, not a river!” he exclaimed as his shin came into contact with something unbelievably solid, and he bounced backward, hitting another hard object before finally coming to a stop against solid stone.
Luckily, he wasn’t injured, though he was sure that was partially due to his ability to heal himself. Not only were Guardians and Hunters more durable than humans, so he might not have broken any bones if he wasn’t a Healer, he was able to regenerate even more quickly. His tailbone and shin ached, as did the back of his head where he’d struck it on what he could only assume was some sort of a rock formation before he’d landed.
It seemed like he’d fallen forever, but with no light and no way of seeing where he was, there was little he could do to get out. He didn’t even know if his teammates would be able to shine a light down this far to find him without a rope, something they’d neglected to bring, though there might be one at the speakeasy.
He assumed Janette wouldn’t go wandering around looking for him until Jordan got back with the light, but a few minutes later, he heard his name from a distance. “I’m down here!”
There was a pause, and then he heard her say, “Did you fall to the right or the left?”
Since he had no way of knowing for sure which direction she was facing, he shouted back, “If you’re looking at the cave opening, I’m on your left! I can’t see anything at all, though. Don’t you fall, too!”
“No, I won’t,” she assured him. “I’ll wait for Jordan. You’re sure you’re okay?”
Other than the building panic in his chest, he was physically fine. “I’m all right.”
What seemed like hours later, Jamie heard more footsteps, and high above his head, he saw a small light in the distance, which he assumed to be the flashlight. “Jamie, we’re going to get some rope and send down a lantern, okay?” Jordan shouted.
“Okay!” he replied. “I’ll just wait here!”
He was afraid to move without being able to see anything, not knowing where another ledge might be, so he stayed very still, trying not to let the sound of the water lull him to sleep. He was certain there was a river of some sort not too far beneath him, which meant it was either on the other side of the ground or the place he was sitting was not the end of his journey should he be too quick to scurry around.
“Jamie!”
This was a voice he wasn’t expecting to hear. “Maryann?” he called back. “What are you doing in here?”
“Well, the hunt’s over. We got them all. I think. I just… Christian and I came to see what was going on, and Hannah said you fell. Are you okay?”
“I’ll be all right,” he replied, glad to hear her voice.
“Man, it sounds like you’re three miles under the ground,” Christian said. Jamie tried not to roll his eyes for fear he’d accidentally roll himself further into the cave. A few moments later, he heard the sound of a rock clinking off the side of the cave before it landed right on his stomach. It wasn’t a big one, but it had fallen a long way.
“What the hell are you doing, Christian?” he asked.
“I wanted to see how deep it is. Did that hit you?”
“Uh, yeah. I’m in the hole!”
The sound of Maryann’s laughter actually made him feel slightly better, and Christian muttered an apology.
Jordan’s voice cut off any thoughts Jamie had of calling Christian a few choice words. “All right. I’ve got a lantern and a couple of pretty long ropes. I’ll lower the lantern down to you.”
Jamie was glad the speakeasy owners had been more diligent in their planning than his team had been. He saw the lantern slowly coming down the side of the cave, which was probably about five feet in front of him, it appeared, if all things stayed the same as it came down. It had to be a good fifty to seventy-five feet above his head, which means he’d fallen six to eight stories. The lantern stopped about twenty feet above him. “How much further?” Jordan called.
“Far,” Jamie replied.
There was some discussion up there that he couldn’t hear. He imagined they were discussing the fact that the rope wasn’t long enough. Jamie still couldn’t see what was beneath him, but he’d sat up now so that when the lantern reached him, he wouldn’t look like an idiot lying on the ground.
“We’re going to have to tie the lengths of rope together,” Jordan explained. “They’re not long enough.”
“Okay.” Jamie really didn’t care what they did, so long as he didn’t have to stay in this godforsaken hole any longer.
A few minutes later, the rope, and consequently the lantern, began to move toward him again. This time, Jordan was able to drop it down far enough that he could see where he was. “Hold!” Jamie shouted when the lantern was even with his position.
He was sitting on a thin perch, only about three feet across. On either side of him was another sheer drop off, and while Jamie couldn’t see how much further it was to the river, he had an idea he was only about halfway through what could’ve been an even worse fate if he hadn’t happened to bounce off a couple of very tall stalactites that sent him careening onto this island.
The rock wall, and thus the rope, was a good fifteen feet across the chasm from him now as the space opened up the deeper it went. Jamie’s only chance of getting to it would be to jump out and over the drop off and grab it so they could pull him up. He would also be leaping at a fully lit lantern, which could potentially be painful as well, not to mention, he could end up igniting the rope.
“We could tie a counterweight to the rope now that we know where you are, and swing it over,” Hannah suggested, as if reading his mind.
“But you’d have to take away the lantern to do that,” Jamie pointed out. There was no way they could swing the lantern over to him and let him put it down where he was sitting to help illuminate the area.
“Yes, but we could calculate how to swing it to you in the light, and we’d get it to you. It might take a few tries.”
“We could go get more rope,” Christian offered.
The possibilities all seemed unpleasant. Jamie didn’t want to stay in the hole any longer and was in a huge rush to get out. “I think I can make it,” he said, carefully standing up, making sure he didn’t lose his balance.
“From there?” Janette asked. “I can hardly see you.”
“You don’t even have enough space to launch yourself,” Christian reminded him.
Jamie looked at the ground and then back up at the rope. “I think I can make it,” he said again.
“Absolutely not!” Janette said in her mother voice. “James Joplin, if you so much as think about making that leap….”
“You can do it,” Jordan said, and even though he couldn’t see them, Jamie imagined that Janette was giving him a stern talking to or at least a look that could kill.
“Be careful, Jamie!” Maryann shouted down.
That as all he needed to make up his mind. He took off his jacket and tossed it aside, swung his arms around for a second to loosen up, and surveyed the situation. “Can you lower it a bit more?” he called. He thought it would make more sense to jump above the lantern, not directly into it, and also if he missed and there was still rope beneath him, perhaps he would be able to grab it before he fell into the water.
He knew he wouldn’t die, but thoughts of being swept away in that water, pounded against the rocks, potentially trapped beneath the surface for who knew how long as the rushing water attempted to get out of the cave through a hole much smaller than his body, were not pleasant. For a moment he wavered.
Thoughts of continuing to stand in the hole, perhaps for hours as they contemplated how to get him out, of the light going out and leaving him standing in pitch black brought his conviction back around.
“All right. Margie could do this,” he whispered to himself. Clearing his throat, he placed one foot behind the other and then, without thinking any further, he hurled himself across the vast gap in the ground and stretched his fingers out for the rope.
They made contact; he had it! Then, there was a bit of a snapping sound as the fibers began to unravel, and suddenly, he was hanging a frayed bit of the rope as the lantern swung, casting eerie shadows along the cave walls. With nothing beneath his feet again, Jamie grasped for more rope, clutching higher and higher as worn fibers broke. The team was pulling him up toward the surface as well, and Jamie prayed he’d reach the lip of the floor before the rope disintegrated.
When he got to within a foot or so of the ground, Christian grabbed hold of his arm, and he and Maryann dragged Jamie up over the top of the narrow walkway so that his stomach was on what at least seemed to be solid ground. “Oh, thank God!” he said, his eyes closed.
“Just be careful,” Janette warned. “There’s another drop off on the other side.” Then she mumbled, “I cannot believe you did that.”
Jamie smiled to himself, realizing it had been a big risk. He could be down in the mire right now, fighting the current. Instead, he was happy to be making the acquaintance of the cave floor.
“Come on,” Hannah prodded, bending down and tapping him on the shoulder. “Let’s go home.”
“All right,” Jamie agreed. He opened his eyes, and as the flashlight Jordan still carried swung around, he saw something glinting just a foot or so away from his hand. Carefully, Jamie got to his knees and reached out his hand. It was his knife, ashes from the Vampire still scattered around it. “I thought I’d lost this for sure,” he muttered, cautiously coming to his feet.
“Nothing lost is ever gone,” Jordan reminded them, and Jamie knew he meant more than just a weapon.
They took their time making their way back toward the narrow opening, and Jordan let him know that they’d actually ran into six Vampires. He and Hannah had gotten three while two broke in a different direction that came out near the speakeasy opening, an exit Jordan hadn’t been aware of. He and Hannah had pursued those Vampires, but by the time they caught up, Christian had taken care of one and Maryann the other. There was no reason to tell Jamie what had happened to the final Vampire as he was pretty sure he was still inhaling little pieces of its face.
Jamie had seen a lot of terrifying things in his half-century killing Vampires, but something told him that ghastly face and his fall into the black abyss would stay with him no matter how long he lived.