Chapter 35 - Ascent Through the Iron Well
The shockwave from the explosion tore up the vertical drainage shaft like the breath of a dragon.
The ladder vibrated so violently my boots slipped from the rungs. I clung to the iron with raw, bleeding fingers as a column of black, suffocating smoke rushed past me, stinging my eyes and scorching my throat. Tears blinded me. The roar from below was a continuous, howling furnace, consuming the oxygen from the pipe.
*Keep moving,* I told myself, Arthur's final words echoing through the fire. *Don't stop until you reach the surface.*
Hand over hand, rung over rung, I hauled my body through the vertical stone tube. The canvas satchel containing the Archangel drive bounced against my ribs with every pull, its heavy steel casing bruising my side. The pistol tucked into my waistband dug painfully into my hip.
After what felt like miles of vertical crawling, the iron ladder ended abruptly at a heavy circular iron grate.
Above the grate, I could hear voices. High-pitched, panicked, domestic voices.
"I told you he had money down here, David! I told you!"
It was Evelyn.
I pressed my face against the rusted iron bars. I was looking up through a hidden floor cavity beneath the hearth of Grandpa’s stone fireplace in the main study. The hearthstone had been pried open with a crowbar, resting awkwardly on its side amidst a sea of shattered antique pottery, torn wallpaper, and splintered floorboards.
David was on his knees, his hands caked in dry plaster, feverishly shoving stacks of faded Cold War bearer bonds into an old canvas duffel bag.
"Shut up, Evelyn!" David snarled, his voice trembling with manic greed. "The feds said we had thirty minutes to clean out whatever was in the perimeter walls before they leveled the property with an agricultural burn! If that suit comes back up from the basement and catches us pocketing these notes, he'll put a bullet through both our heads!"
"He isn't coming back up," I whispered through the grate.
The room went dead silent.
David froze, his hands hovering over a bundle of banknotes. Evelyn dropped the brass candlestick she was holding; it clattered loudly across the oak floor.
Slowly, David turned his head toward the open hearth.
I pushed the iron grate upward with both arms. It groaned against its corroded hinges and flipped back against the brickwork with a heavy metallic slam.
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Covered in soot, blood, and the reek of burning kerosene, I hauled myself out of the black throat of the well and stood up in the center of my grandfather’s ruined study.
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