Chapters (42)
- BENEATH THE DARK ICE
- Table of Contents
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Epilogue
- One
- Two
- Three
Alex walked back a few paces, looked towards the doorway then charged. This time Alex aimed the large stone into the hole he had previously created. The granite boulder shattered in two and half the stone stayed embedded in the ice. Alex pulled it out and used a shard of stone like a shovel to clear away the loose ice debris. The hole was now two feet in diameter and intruded into the ice a little more than that. The impacts had created numerous faults in the once dense blue ice and each one made the next throw more effective. The beautiful vista of Aztlan was now gone as the ice doorway was a craze of shattered and splintered ice.
An unearthly howl came from beneath their feet. It was so close they could feel as well as hear it. Matt and Aimee forgot about Alex’s instruction to stay clear and inched closer to him. Alex was looking down at the tunnel floor with his head slightly turned.
“OK, nearly there. Another couple should do it.” Alex still wasn’t even breathing hard; he walked back down the tunnel to select another stone. This time he selected one a little bigger than a football. He hefted it in one hand, then took another run at the ice door. In a long arm throw any football coach would have been proud of, he launched the stone at the hole with even more of an upward angle. It left Alex’s arm so fast Aimee and Matt could barely see it travel through the air. It struck the upper centre of the ice hole like a cannonball. On this launch it didn’t bounce back or become lodged in the ice; it punched its way through and let a streaming ray of white sunshine into the tunnel, followed by a gush of warm water.
Aimee watched the muscles in Alex’s back ripple as he let loose the stone. She realised that all the wounds on his back had ceased to bleed and most now were even starting to knit. Who was he? What was he? Why did he call himself the “Arcadian?” She knew from school that Arcadia was the legendary birthplace of one of Zeus’s sons. But it didn’t make sense. Ever since she had watched him defeat the giant Russian and then, by himself, shift stones that must have weighed tons, she had questions. Aimee knew about stress-related adrenaline bursts that gave normal men short but explosive strength to perform superhuman acts. But those capabilities disappeared immediately after the act or stress event was removed. But this man, Alex Hunter, could summon those strengths and extra abilities at will.