War of the Damned (Relic Hunters) Read online

  Contents

  Also By Martin Ferguson

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  The Relic Hunters

  Historical Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  War of the Damned

  Relic Hunters

  Copyright © 2018 Martin Ferguson

  SECOND EDITION

  All rights reserved.

  No parts of this book may be reproduced in any form without written consent from the author. Except in the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a piece of fiction. Any names, characters, businesses, places or events are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, events or locations is purely coincidental.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you are reading this book and have not purchased it for your use only, then you should return it to your favorite book retailer and purchase your own copy.

  Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Cover by Tom Roberts of Zoom Illustration

  Editing by Karen Sanders Editing

  Formatting by Pink Elephant Designs

  Also By Martin Ferguson

  Relic Hunters:

  Eagle of the Empire

  Curse of the Sands

  War of the Damned

  Blood of the Dragon

  THEY SHALL NOT GROW OLD,

  AS WE THAT ARE LEFT GROW OLD.

  AGE SHALL NOT WEARY THEM,

  NOR THE YEARS CONDEMN.

  AT THE GOING DOWN OF THE SUN

  AND IN THE MORNING

  WE WILL REMEMBER THEM.

  1

  ADAM—Wincomb Manor, Oxfordshire, England

  ‘Hurry it up, mate,’ Duncan tells me with urgency. ‘This is taking way too long.’

  ‘All right, all right,’ I reply, working as fast as I can on the locked door. ‘Just this last pin to go. You better be keeping an eye out for security.’

  ‘Like my life depends on it,’ he says nervously.

  My name is Adam Hunter, a seventeen-year-old college dropout, and somehow, an operative and hunter of historical artefacts for the British Museum. That’s the day job, anyway, if you can call it that, but right now, I’m standing in the darkened halls of a vast mansion, hidden in the shadows of the night.

  Duncan, my best friend for more years than I can remember, is with me, and we may not have exactly entered the building legally. The skull masks across our faces incriminate us even more.

  ‘Oops!’ I say in panic as my elbow clumsily knocks over a vase. Thankfully, Duncan has quick reflexes, catching the ornament before it can fall.

  ‘Shh,’ I hush him as I laugh quietly.

  ‘You’re going to get us caught,’ Duncan says, checking the rooms around us.

  ‘Have I ever got us caught before?’ I ask.

  ‘Are you kidding?’ He laughs back. ‘Mister Walters’ classroom…’

  ‘Anybody could have set off those alarms.’

  ‘The girls’ changing rooms at school when we were twelve…’

  ‘That was your fault!’

  ‘The football stadium…’

  ‘Yeah, okay, but that one was your idea,’ I concede. ‘You worry too much. Besides…there…we…go.’

  The pin and rod of my picklock click into place and the mechanism unlocks, the door beyond it opening. The pair of us walk inside, lighting the way with our torches and being careful not to touch anything, not that we would want to. We have walked into what looks like a trophy room; the walls covered with the mounted heads of animals from hunts across the world.

  ‘Jeez, can you believe this?’ Duncan remarks.

  ‘No, I can’t,’ I reply in disgust.

  There are lion and polar bear pelts, rhino horns, elephant tusks and more. Heads of a dozen different species, all listed as endangered, line the walls along with framed photographs. I take in everything, paying particular attention to the photographs, especially those including the hunters. They look proud in their victory and wear sickening smiles.

  ‘Have you got enough?’ Duncan asks, obviously creeped out and eager to go.

  ‘Yeah,’ I tell him as I lead us out of the room.

  ‘Right, let’s get out of here,’ he says.

  ‘See, I told you it would be quick and easy,’ I boast as I close the door to the trophy room behind us.

  As soon as the door closes, a shrieking siren echoes through the mansion. The lights of every room flash on.

  ‘You had to say it, didn’t you?’ my friend utters in disbelief.

  ‘That’s our cue to leave,’ I tell him, grabbing Duncan and my backpack. We run towards the staircase and hurtle up the steps. Below us, we hear the security guards storming inside; men and women shouting and dogs barking. Now the real fun begins.

  ‘Abbey, are you with me?’ I ask via my earpiece.

  ‘Every step of the way,’ the young historian at the British Museum replies. ‘If Charles or your brother knew what we’re doing, we’d be in so much trouble.’

  ‘Not as much trouble as we’ll be in if those dogs catch us!’ Duncan replies as he bounds up the steps with me.

  ‘Why’d I listen to you and your plan?’ I joke as we run.

  ‘My plan?’ Duncan laughs. ‘This was all your crazy idea!’

  ‘You didn’t have to agree to it!’ I laugh back. ‘Em, you finished setting up?’

  ‘As if you need to ask,’ Emma Lovell, fellow hunter for the British Museum, replies with her ever-present confidence. I didn’t want to get her or Abbey involved in this, but when they discovered the equipment I was trying to smuggle out of the museum, I had no choice but to tell them. Surprisingly, they were eager to help.

  ‘I’m now heading towards Sara. She’s in the woods at our rendezvous,’ Emma tells us.

  ‘Good, we’ll meet you there,’ I reply.

  ‘Turn left at the top of the stairs then through the ballroom,’ Abbey advises, her Irish accent growing stronger with excitement. ‘Then you should reach the balcony.’

  ‘Got it,’ I reply as we reach the summit of the staircase and head left. Ahead of us, we see security guards running, trying to cut us off, but we reach
the ballroom first. We run across the polished floor, pulling tables and chairs down in our wake to slow the pursuing guards and their dogs.

  ‘Why are you laughing?’ Duncan asks.

  ‘You not enjoying this?’ I yell back, grinning from ear to ear.

  Barging through the far doors of the ballroom, we reach the balcony. I hurtle on, clambering over the railing and jumping down to the roof of the next part of the building, and then on to the roof of the massive garage below. I think Duncan is right behind, but when I check, he is nowhere to be seen.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I call back to him, seeing he is still up on the balcony.

  ‘Taking the short-cut,’ he yells back.

  I cry out for him to stop but he doesn’t listen. He’s taking a run-up and leaping from the balcony. He falls fast and plunges into the swimming pool below. Crossing the garage roof, I jump down, clambering across a parked Jeep before dragging my soaking wet friend out of the water.

  ‘You idiot. You could’ve got yourself killed,’ I tell him.

  ‘Didn’t though, did I?’ he replies with a grin. ‘You’re just mad ‘cos you’re too chicken to do it!’

  ‘Damn right I am,’ I say, looking back at the pool.

  ‘Police are on their way,’ Abbey warns us.

  ‘Good,’ I say. ‘We’ll need them if we’re to pull this off.’

  ‘You two out of there yet?’ she asks with concern.

  ‘Not yet,’ Duncan says, just as we are blinded by the search lights of the security detail. The guards and their dogs surround us. We’re trapped with no escape.

  ‘Give it up, lads. There’s no way out,’ one of the guards orders before summoning his master via his comms system.

  More guards arrive with one man at their lead. Overweight, sweating despite the cold of the night and barely dressed, he hurries towards us, muttering and swearing under his breath. We recognise him instantly; the honourable Sir Trevor Wincomb.

  ‘What did you take?’ he demands. ‘What did you steal from me, you rotten thieves?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Duncan states with contempt. ‘We took nothing from you.’

  ‘I hardly believe that,’ Sir Wincomb laughs. ‘Why else would you be here but to steal what you could never possibly afford?’

  ‘We came here to help you celebrate,’ I tell him, lowering my skull mask so he can hear me clearly. ‘After all, you should be living it up after your recent success.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ replies the owner of the mansion, the lands, the helicopter, the yacht moored nearby, and the fleet of sports cars in the garage.

  ‘Your recent windfall,’ I explain. ‘After all, are you not the Sir Trevor Wincomb, knighted by Her Majesty the Queen? Are you not the Sir Trevor Wincomb, former owner of Home & Life Stores?’

  ‘I am,’ he states proudly. ‘And you are under arrest, whether you stole anything or not. The police have already been alerted and are on their way.’

  ‘Good,’ I say, ‘they’ll need to be here. They’ll want to meet the Sir Trevor Wincomb, the man who drove his businesses into bankruptcy, casting thousands of employees aside, leaving them jobless without redundancy pay, and using their pensions to fill his own bank accounts.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, boy!’ he yells at me, the dogs barking furiously, barely held back by the masters.

  ‘You are the thief, Sir Trevor,’ I tell him. ‘You stole from your employee’s hard-earned pensions, pillaging them to line your own pockets with millions, and leaving your former staff with nothing.’

  ‘I was cleared by the legal system!’ he snaps at me. ‘You will rot in prison for breaking into my home! You don’t have the friends I do.’

  ‘The friends, the judges, and lawyers you paid vast quantities of money to escape justice?’ I sneer. ‘The same friends you were photographed with during your illegal hunts of endangered species? We saw the trophy room.’

  ‘Those with wealth and power can shape the world as they will,’ he says as if he is some great philosopher. ‘Money worked with most, and threats to welfares and families did for the rest. Wealth and power make the world go round. That’s something a penniless thief would never understand.’

  ‘You are the thief, Sir Trevor,’ I repeat, ‘and the rest of the world knows it now, too.’

  I throw him the circular pin that was fastened to my grey leather jacket, a small camera inside recording everything we saw in the trophy room, and Sir Trevor’s angry confession. Sara Starr, Duncan’s girlfriend, is in the nearby woods with Emma, streaming the footage to every social media system in existence; revenge for her parents who were former employees of Sir Trevor.

  ‘Every word you just said has been streamed across the world,’ I tell Sir Trevor as sirens sound in the distance. ‘I think the police will be more interested in you than us.’

  ‘You…you…’ he says blustering with fury, crushing the pin camera under his boot. ‘I will wring your necks with my bare hands before the police arrive. I will see the dogs tear you both limb from limb!’

  ‘Time to make your exit,’ Abbey whispers to us via the earpiece.

  ‘Ready?’ I ask Duncan. He laughs in reply, putting in ear-plugs and pulling on sunglasses.

  ‘Time to celebrate, Sir Trevor,’ I say with a grin, donning my own ear-plugs and sunglasses.

  ‘Celebrate?’ he asks in confusion. ‘Celebrate what?’

  ‘You’ll see,’ Duncan replies.

  Squeezing the trigger in my pocket activates dozens of devices set across the roof of the mansion and throughout its grounds, all rigged to the same explosives. Hundreds of fireworks explode as far as the eye can see. Duncan and I look away just in time, the only ones not blinded as the world around us explodes. We’d be deafened too if not for the ear-plugs. In the confusion, we sprint for the woods, lost in the chaos as the dogs flee in panic and the guards and Sir Trevor are stricken blind and deaf by the fireworks.

  ‘Wow!’ Emma states repeatedly as I re-connect the earpiece. ‘Sure beats New Year’s Eve fireworks, don’t it? You can see it for miles.’

  ‘Guy Fawkes has nothing on us.’ I laugh, turning to see the fireworks still engulfing the mansion. ‘Even if our little recording doesn’t succeed, at least he’ll get fined for noise disturbances!’

  ‘Is Sara happy?’ Duncan asks of his girlfriend.

  ‘Ecstatic,’ Emma replies. ‘At least this is some payback for her parents.’

  ‘Thanks for doing this,’ Duncan says to me.

  ‘Anything for you guys, you know that,’ I reply. ‘C’mon, let’s find the others and head for home.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ Abbey interrupts. ‘Em, Adam, I’ve just received word from Charles to bring the team in immediately. We’ve got work to do.’

  2

  ADAM—Reporting for duty, The British Museum, London, England

  ‘Con...con…containment and storage...age…age,’ announces the lift as it comes to a sudden stop.

  The doors barely open and I have to force them the rest of the way to get out. The lift, and much of the museum, is still undergoing repairs since Osiris’ curse struck London. In the upper ‘public’ floors, over a hundred workmen are labouring to replace the museum’s tessellated glass roofing and reinforce the cracked pillars and walls. Seems they finally managed to turn off the sprinkler system too, but only after it had flooded most of the public areas for days. The museum has certainly seen better days, with more necessary repairs and glitches in the systems discovered every day.

  As always, since I first discovered these secret levels of the British Museum, I am struck in awe of the wonders that are housed in the hidden lower levels. There are sets of armour of the samurai and medieval knights, coins of every civilisation resting in vast glass cabinets, royal treasuries and jewels beyond value beside them. There are statues, mosaics, and pieces of art from all over the world. All manner of vehicles are in rows; the first cars and planes ever built, and recovered space rockets from na
tions I didn’t even know had a space program. There are Viking longships in perfect condition and salvaged wrecks of vessels thought lost to the oceans. I deliberately avoid looking at the sarcophaguses containing mummies – I have had my fill of them for some time.

  Beyond all these historic artefacts and treasures is more, sealed away inside secure containers, locked away. Those are the pieces that possess power too great for even us to keep on display. Among them is a Roman Legion Eagle standard and the very reason for my first encounter with the museum. I can only wonder, what else is protected down here?

  My destination is one of the larger objects, a vast wooden war galleon with black sails and a Jolly Roger skull and crossbones flag hanging atop its main mast. I climb a rope up and onto the deck, amazed that I am now standing aboard a real pirate ship.

  ‘Permission to come aboard, Captain?’ I call out with a rubbish pirate accent.

  ‘Granted,’ my brother replies from his seat behind the ship’s wheel.

  At twenty-years-old, three years older than me, my brother Matt is the entire reason I am here. He was always top of his class in everything and won all kinds of awards in school and college before he began what I thought a dull office job. I had no idea he was secretly working with the museum and what his true life was until I too found myself among their ranks. He is the ‘Golden Boy’ in our family, though he hates the nickname.