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Her glasses fogged up before she was halfway down the steps. Annoyed, she propped them on top of her head. The underworld scene blurred. She gripped the railing to make sure she did not trip.
Luke reached the floor of the vast underground chamber and studied the sea of glowing foliage.
“You know, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a couple of dinosaurs walk past,” he said.
“Hopefully not a T. rex.” Talia shook her head, amazed. “We thought what was happening on the surface and in the conservatory was bizarre. This is jaw-dropping. It feels like something went very wrong down here.”
Luke wiped sweat off his forehead. “There’s a hell of a lot of energy in the atmosphere.”
“The plants down here are even more agitated than those on the surface, but there’s no wind or rain.” Talia shuddered. “Listen to them. It’s almost as if they’re whispering about us. Maybe wondering if we’re food.”
“You have a very vivid imagination. Forget the plants. There’s a path. Same kind of stones that we saw in the conservatory and the aboveground gardens, but these look hotter.”
“As in too hot to touch?”
“No, as in radiating stronger paranormal energy.”
Talia slipped her glasses down over her eyes and took a quick look at the glowing path that sliced through the towering plants. “I get the feeling that the people who constructed this place lost control of their experiments.”
“They were screwing around with forces they didn’t understand,” Luke said.
Talia looked at a cluster of radiant mushrooms growing in the shadows cast by massive leaves and then realized that her glasses were fogging up again. She positioned them back on her head.
“I wonder what happened to make the researchers shut down the project.”
“Maybe the results turned out to be too dangerous to pursue,” Luke suggested. “Or maybe the funding got cut off because experimenting with the paranormal became a third rail for any scientist or politician who was serious about a career. In the course of my own work I’ve come across several instances of projects involving psychic phenomena that were quietly closed down.”
“Did any of those projects involve botanical research?”
“Yes, but most of those labs were small operations, usually attached to academic institutions. There was only one program that I’m aware of that would have had the resources to establish a facility like this, and officially it never existed. It’s a legend among those who study the history of the paranormal.”
“What was—” Talia began. She was interrupted by the quickening pulse of the crystal in Phoebe Hatch’s necklace. She reached up to touch the stone. “The vibe from the crystal is very strong and clear now. Phoebe is down here somewhere, and she’s close.”
They moved cautiously forward. The plants on either side of the stepping stones stirred and swayed. Leaves clashed against eachother. A frond came out of nowhere, brushing Talia’s arm as if tasting her. She gasped and quickly pulled away. A particularly aggressive vine reached for Luke’s neck. He yanked it off.
“Does the wordcarnivorouscome to mind?” Talia asked.
“Yes, it does,” Luke said. “Whatever you do, don’t step off the path.”
“Trust me, I’m not—” She stopped abruptly as the familiar dark frissons lanced her senses. “Oh,shit.”
Luke whipped around. “What?”
She turned to stare at the mass of greenery on one side of the path. “I think I just found Keever’s body.”
Luke lowered the pistol and reached out to push aside a curtain of wide leaves.
“You mean, what’s left of the body,” he said quietly.
Talia stared at the sole of a running shoe and the torn pant legs of a pair of trousers. The clothing looked as if it had been shredded by scissors, but the thorn-studded vines draped around what was left of Keever’s legs told the real story. The rest of the body, or what was left of it, was concealed by a blanket of orange mushrooms.
Talia turned away, swallowing hard to suppress the nausea. Luke touched her shoulder.
“That answers one question,” he said. “Whoever decided to get rid of Keever’s body knew enough about this place to realize that the plants could make it disappear.”
“Nathan Gill. He must have been the one who murdered Keever and later hid the body.”
“I’m not sure he murdered Keever,” Luke said. “I keep thinking about how he searched the body while trying to make us think he was checking for injuries. If he was the killer, why not do the search at the time?”
