Free Devlin's Curse by Lady Brenda Page B

to arrive. They parked their wagons side by side. After much deliberation the rescuers began to unblock the entrance. They estimated several days were needed to clear enough rubble to get to the mineshaft.  One by one buckets and wheelbarrows of rock and debris were carried away. Esmeralda and Jaime joined the bucket line alongside volunteers from every walk of life. For hours they removed the stones and debris. For hours they worked until their fingers bled. The only breaks they took were when the black garbed suffragettes, walked up from the town and served them hot coffee and sandwiches.
    As she worked Esmeralda was careful to keep her hair covered by a scarf so that not a wisp was shown; she knew all about the miner’s superstition. It claimed red haired women were bad luck, or worse, their presence heralded death. She prayed it was not true.
    As she worked she wondered if immortal vampires, like Devlin, could be buried alive. With her psychic powers she could feel the press of darkness around him.
    “Hang on, damn you!” she called out in her mind, and willed him to hear.
    In the bowels of the mine the Beast stirred restlessly. The quaking earth had driven it from one bottomless crevice to another. Its sightless eyes sensed the heat of two bodies.
    One was mortal and one was immortal.
    Insulated beneath an armory of scales was a creature that was ravenous for the taste of blood and bone. It flattened its shape and slithered as easily as a vapor through the smallest of holes towards the human scent.
    After a few short hours Devlin and Walking Ghost had used up the last of the candle stubs. They now worked in total darkness feeling for the rubble before them to move it inch by inch by inch. Thirst consumed them. Walking Ghost had drained the last dregs of water from the canteen. Devlin, though, had not had a drop. The smell of sulfur made the air close and stuffy. The cloying darkness created what miners knew as ‘night blindness’ in which the darkness became a blank canvass and provided an environment ripe for nightmarish visions.
    Walking Ghost paused. He dropped a last handful of rubble at his feet. He could see Spider Woman. She stood before him, bent and wizened, smoking her corncob pipe.
    “I ain’t never seen an Injun yet what gave up without a fight.” She harangued him. “You just keep diggin’ I can see the daylight up ahead.”
    He gasped and stepped back. “Spider Woman…” 
    “It’s all right. I can see her too my friend,” Devlin rasped. 
    They dug on for several minutes.
    As a vampire Devlin’s vision was as sharp in the gloom of the mine as it was in the daylight. Out of the corner of an eye he saw a serpentine slither. He drew his sword and swung it. A piercing shriek filled the humid air. Walking Ghost stumbled forward his hands covered his ears.
    The cry penetrated the rubble to the rescuers outside. When they heard the cry they paused in their labors then raised a ragged cheer. It was with renewed energy they attacked the mounds of fallen rocks. Once they knew there were men alive down in the Gilded Bird it was a race against time.
    Momentarily they looked at each other but no one voiced the unspoken truth. It could be days before they broke through. Days before the trapped men had food or water. Days while the tainted air got thinner and thinner, until the men ran out of oxygen entirely.
    Side by side men and women increased their efforts and worked around the clock.
    After what felt like an eternity, in the close confines of their debris choked prison, Devlin and walking Ghost heard a faint cry,
    “Haaaaloow in there!”
    They shouted back.
    Twenty-four hours later the townsfolk had tied a chain around a large stone, the one that blocked the entrance of the mine and hitched it to a four mule team. With a great heave it came tumbling free.
    When the dust cleared Devlin and Walking Ghost emerged from the mine.
    Esmeralda rose unsteadily to her feet. She hung on Jamie’s arm for