Destiny by Alex Archer Read Free Book Online

trouble. This is a sinkhole.
    She felt the roughly circular contours of the shaft around her as she stretched to fill it. A sinkhole was a natural formation of a cave that finally hollowed out to the point it nearly reached the surface. As a nation, France was probably more honeycombed with caves and cave systems than any other country in the world.
    The Cévennes Mountains held many volcanic caves, created by lava after it had cooled and the volcanoes had subsided. Along the coast, sea caves formed by waves had provided hidden harbors in the golden age of piracy. Limestone caves in the interior were made by erosion. There were even many caves made by the passage of glaciers across the land millions of years ago. Cro-Magnons had lived in caves at Pech-Merle and Lascaux, leaving behind cave paintings millions of years old.
    Annja wasn’t surprised to find a new cave in the mountains. In fact, in scaling the cliff she’d been hoping to find some sign of one. Le Bête had taken up refuge somewhere all those years ago.
    However, she hadn’t expected to plummet into her discovery.
    In a hail of flying stones, she hit the ground hard. The impact drove the breath from her lungs. Blackness ate at the edge of her conscious mind, but she struggled through it and remained alert.
    It’s not the fall that kills you, she reminded herself. It’s the sudden stop at the end.
    She covered her head with her arms as more debris rained down around her. Several pieces of stone hammered her back and legs hard enough to promise bruises for a few days.
    Then everything was quiet.
    You’re alive, she told herself. Get moving.
    She pushed herself up. Nothing felt broken. That was always a good sign.
    When her lungs finally started working again, dust coated her tongue. Reaching into her backpack, knowing by touch and years of experience where the contents were, she took out a bandanna, wet it with the water bottle and tied the material around her nose and mouth. The water-soaked cloth would keep her from suffering respiratory problems caused by inhaling too much dust.
    Wet cloth won’t protect you from carbon dioxide buildup or poison gas, she reminded herself. Carbon dioxide wasn’t a natural byproduct of a cave the way coal gas was, but if humans or animals had frequented it, the gas could have filled the chamber. She hoped the opening created by the sinkhole would help.
    Echoes sounded around her, indicating that the cave was large or long.
    Fishing out one of the two halogen flashlights she habitually carried, she turned it on. Then she took off her sunglasses and stored them in the backpack, marveling that they hadn’t broken during the fall.
    The flashlight beam cut through the darkness but was obscured by the swirling dust that filled the cave. The chamber was at least thirty feet across and almost that high.
    The sinkhole was at the back of the cave. At least, it was in the area she decided to refer to as the back of the cave. Almost four feet across, it snaked up but the twists and turns were so severe that no outside light penetrated the chamber.
    Going back up is going to be a problem, Annja realized. If it’s possible at all. She carried rope in her backpack. Over the years spent at dig sites, she’d learned that rope was an indispensable tool. She never went anywhere without it. But she wasn’t sure it could help her now.
    Bats fluttered from the stalactites. She swept the flashlight beam after them.
    Okay, Annja thought, if you guys are in here, there’s got to be another entrance.
    Unless the sinkhole that had opened up had originally been some small holes that had allowed the bats to enter and exit. She didn’t want to think about that possibility.
    The air was thick and stank from being closed up. More than that, it smelled like an animal’s den. That was good news and bad news. If the cave did provide a home to an animal, the chances were good that another entrance was