“She could have heard them talking about the monastery, too,” I said anxiously. “She must have told someone he was going to the ruins.”
“I suspect she alerted more than one someone.” Damian consulted his wristwatch and began to jog faster. “They may simply want to chat with him, Lori, to get him in a corner and frighten him into keeping his mouth shut. Threatening to harm Cassie would do the trick, and he’s certainly made it easy for them, going off by himself and leaving her with no protection. How could he be so stupid?”
“He’s young,” I offered.
“He’s an idiot,” Damian muttered, and charged onward through the fog.
We came to a halt a short time later. While I caught my breath, Damian peered into the murk, as if to confirm his bearings. He nodded once, then swung around and put his mouth close to my ear.
“Here’s the plan, Lori,” he whispered. “We’re going to leave the path here, in case they have a lookout posted at the Slaughter Stone. We’ll cut around the side of the hill until we reach the monastery terrace—it’s the highest of the three, remember? Then we’ll see what’s what. Keep close to me and don’t use your torch until I tell you to. No more talking—not even in whispers—from this point on. Understood?”
I demonstrated my understanding by nodding.
We boosted ourselves over the edge of the sunken path and began to climb. The hill was steep and the long grass was infuriatingly slick, but although I slipped and slid and bashed my knees repeatedly on half-buried rocks, I managed to keep my vow of silence. More important, I managed to keep up with Damian, who was as goat-footed as Peter.
I was greatly relieved when we came across a sheep track, where the grass was sparse and the footing a trifle less treacherous. We followed the faint trail as it curved around the side of the hill, until our boots hit close-cropped grass and level ground. We’d reached the outer edge of the highest terrace.
Damian motioned for me to crouch beside him while he surveyed the ruins. They gave me the willies. The plundered monastery’s skeletal remains loomed before us in the moonlight. Shreds of mist drifted like ghosts between the stunted pillars and clung like cobwebs to the broken arches. Shallow pools of vapor swirled sinuously along the ground, obscuring the foundation stones and curling like smoke around the crumbling walls. The only element missing from the magnificently haunting scene was the soul-rending scream of a massacred monk.
Fortunately, the only sound to reach my straining ears was the muted gurgle of the spring-fed brook tumbling merrily downhill, and though I stared long and hard at our surroundings, I couldn’t see so much as a flicker of light glimmering in the gloom. It seemed to me that if a gang of thuggish islanders were grilling Peter in the ruins, they were being extraordinarily stealthy about it. The monastery appeared to be deserted.
Damian evidently agreed with my assessment, because he put his lips close to my ear and whispered, “They may have taken him somewhere else, but we’ll have a look round, just in case.”
We crawled from the edge of the terrace to the heap of stones that was all that remained of the church’s north wall. Damian stepped over the stones, bent low, and turned on his hooded flashlight. Tendrils of fog wrapped the narrow beam in a gossamer veil as he swung it from side to side, scanning the ground for clues. I moved beside him, my eyes trained on the cracked and pitted slabs that paved the church’s central aisle until he flung an arm across me and knocked me flat onto my bottom.
I swallowed an indignant croak and stayed where I was, wondering what had set him off. Rolling onto my knees, I followed the ghostly thread of light from his flashlight as he inched toward the church’s eastern end, where an incised memorial tablet marked the burial site of a long-forgotten churchman. I raised myself higher, to get a better view, and clapped a hand over my mouth to suppress a gasp.
The tablet had been moved.The great stone slab had been raised like a door on hinges, and in its place a chasm yawned, a passage hewn from solid rock, with steep steps plunging into utter blackness.
I sat back on my heels, stunned by the chilling realization that Damian had very probably saved my life. If he hadn’t seen the peril in time and knocked me flat, I would almost certainly have crawled into the hole and tumbled headlong down the precarious stone stairs. I instantly forgave him for manhandling me and crept forward until I reached the lip of the yawning cavity. Coils of fog wafted down a staircase that was so steep it was nearly vertical.