Crystal Gardens (18 page)

“Keep your voice down,” he warned. “Sound doesn’t carry far in here, but if they come close enough they will be able to hear us.”

Cautiously he took his hand away from her mouth.

“You know about the two men who followed you in here?” she whispered.

“I sensed them a few minutes ago. What are you doing here?”

“I saw the men enter the garden. I came to warn you.”

“You should have sent Stone.”

The irritation in his voice was more than a little annoying.

“Believe it or not, I thought of that,” she said coolly. “Unfortunately Mr. Stone is incapacitated.”

“What?”

The question was asked in a rather absent manner. She realized that he was focused on listening for the intruders.

“Stone is lying unconscious out in the Day Garden,” she said quietly.

“What?”

She had Lucas’s full attention now, she thought.

“I think those two men must have done something to him,” she added. “That is why I’m the one who came to warn you.”

“Hush.” Lucas put his hand across her mouth again. “Here they come. It didn’t take them long to realize that they made a wrong turn a while ago.”

She nodded to show that she understood the need for silence. Lucas
freed her mouth. Now she could hear the ghostly voices in the maze. There was an eerie distortion, as if the men were conversing in another dimension. It was impossible to tell how close they were, let alone estimate their position in the labyrinth. But as they drew nearer, their words became more distinct.

“What if the guard is dead?” The voice was masculine and laced with anxiety. “There will be a search in the morning when he is found.”

“There is nothing to be done about it now. If he is dead, it will no doubt appear that he died of a heart attack or a stroke.”

The second man spoke with impatience and authority. He was the one in command.

Evangeline realized she had been expecting to hear the unpolished accents of street criminals. But the intruders sounded like respectable, educated men.

“I told you it was dangerous to come here tonight,” the nervous man said.

“It is not as if we have a choice. It was one thing to wait a few days in hopes that Sebastian would not stay long. But they’re saying in town that he has opened up an entire wing of the abbey. Damnation, three women and a lady’s maid are now in residence. He has hired day help. It is obvious that he means to settle in for the summer.”

“We can wait until he leaves,” the anxious man said hopefully.

“We cannot take the risk. There is every indication that he is planning to make the gardens his country house and the locals are saying that he is as mad as his uncle. We must find the gold before he starts looking for it himself. At the rate he is accumulating houseguests and increasing staff, it will soon be impossible to obtain access to the grounds. We were fortunate to get past the guard tonight. There may not be another chance.”

“I understand, but we must be away from here as soon as possible.”

“I’m no more eager to remain here than you are, believe me.”

“Nothing in these gardens is natural,” the anxious man warned, “especially this maze.”

“Be grateful,” the other man said. “If not for the paranormal energy in the vicinity and Chester Sebastian’s botanical experiments, the gold would likely have been found and removed long ago.”

The pair would come around the corner in a few seconds. There was nowhere to hide, Evangeline realized. That left two options. They must either confront the intruders or flee deeper into the maze.

Lucas’s hand closed around her upper arm. He drew her toward another intersection in the maze and around the corner.

“Stay here,” he whispered into her ear. “Do not touch any of the foliage.”

She nodded again to show that she understood the instructions.

He moved to the entrance of the passageway and stood just to the side of the opening. She knew then that he intended to confront the pair. Her intuition spiked.

“I do not think this is a good plan,” she whispered.

He ignored her. Perhaps he had not heard her. There was no time to say anything else. The ghostly voices were coming closer.

She watched one of the intruders walk past the entrance. In the otherworldly illumination of the maze he was little more than a silhouette. She saw enough of him to note that he was tall and thin with a sharp, narrow profile. He held an oddly shaped miniature lantern in both hands, carrying it before him like an offering. The device emitted a narrow beam of paranormal light. The man’s entire attention was on the beam. He did not even glance into the intersecting passage.

Lucas let him pass.

“Hold on.” The nervous man sounded as if he were succumbing to panic. “If I lose sight of you I will never be able to find my way out of this damned maze.”

“Then you’d best hurry, Horace,” the other man said.

“I’m coming. I don’t dare move quickly in here. The thorns, you know.”

The one called Horace hurried past the opening. He was a head shorter than his companion and on the plump side. Light sparked on the lenses of the spectacles perched on his nose. He was evidently sweating profusely, because he kept dabbing at his brow with a handkerchief.

Lucas glided out into the passageway behind Horace. Evangeline felt the sudden heightening of ominous energy—not the foliage, she realized. Lucas was generating the dark currents of power. She shivered even though the waves of energy were not focused on her. Nightmares stirred in the atmosphere.

“What the bloody hell?” Horace’s voice rose on a crescendo of fear. “Burton, wait, there’s something here, something dreadful—”

The words were cut off abruptly. They were followed by a solid-sounding thud. Evangeline knew the intruder had just collapsed on the floor of the maze.

“Son of a bitch, you must be Sebastian.” Burton’s voice echoed eerily. “I had hoped to avoid using this again tonight, but you have left me no choice.”

“I do not encourage treasure hunters,” Lucas said. “I should let the gardens deal with you, but these damn plants don’t need any more food. They are flourishing too well as it is.”

A sharp, intense beam of green paranormal energy flashed in the passageway. Evangeline realized it was a more powerful version of the ray given off by the odd lantern device. Simultaneously, Lucas’s nightmarish energy roiled the atmosphere.

Psychical fire exploded in the passage. Shock waves reverberated through the heavy foliage. There was a fearsome rattling of leaves and vines, as if long-quiet skeletons had awakened and started to dance.

Ghostly winds began to howl.

Evangeline ran to the entrance of the passage. A dark storm was coalescing, filling the green corridor.

“Lucas,” she screamed. But her voice was lost in the thunder of the rapidly evolving paranormal tornado.

A dark figure moved through the churning gale. A second later Lucas emerged from the shrieking storm. He stumbled into the passage where she stood. A searing rainbow of energy enveloped him.
His aura,
she thought. He had somehow used it to protect himself from the violent forces. But she sensed that the psychical shield would cost him dearly. He had to be employing a vast amount of energy to maintain it.

“Lucas.”
She could not even hear her own voice above the crashing winds of power. She grabbed his arm. He stumbled and went down hard on one knee but managed to stagger back to his feet.

A small object rolled through the entrance behind him. She recognized the lantern that the intruder had carried. Without thinking about it, she stooped and seized the handle.

Lucas clamped his powerful fingers around her other hand and hauled her upright. His palm was warm against her skin.
Too warm
, she thought. At least the hot rainbow had disappeared.

“Run,” he ordered.

She needed no urging. He drew her toward the far end of the passage and around the corner into another avenue of the maze. She thought she heard a panicked shout behind her but she did not turn around to look. She could feel the energy of the storm at her back now. The violent winds were being channeled into the intersecting corridors of the maze. The foliage writhed like nests of snakes on all sides.

Lucas pulled her swiftly around another intersection.

“Whatever you do, don’t prick yourself on any of the red-tipped thorns,” he said. His voice was harsh, as if it required enormous effort just to speak.

“Trust me, I’m doing my best to avoid touching anything in this place. What happened back there?”

“I think those two were using the energy of that lantern to navigate the maze. But when one of them turned it on me he did something to intensify the beam. It became a weapon. But there is a great deal of unstable energy in the atmosphere in here. I suspect that the lantern beam touched off the paranormal firestorm.”

She realized that the hand he had wrapped around her wrist was growing warmer, as if a high fever were heating his blood.

“Lucas,” she gasped, stumbling to keep up with him, “are you all right?”

“We can’t go out through the gate because of the storm. We need to get to the baths in the Night Garden.”

“You were injured in the explosion, weren’t you? I can feel the fever in you. Tell me what is happening, I beg you.”

“I don’t know what happened back there,” he said. “It felt as if my psychical senses were being seared.” He shook his head and blinked several times, as if trying to focus.

“We must get you back to the house.”

“Not tonight,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“We’re trapped in here until morning. I told you, that storm is blocking the only exit. Given the amount of energy in this place and the fact that the forces in here are so powerful at night, it will take hours for things to calm sufficiently to allow us safe passage.”

“Dear heaven.”

He yanked her around another intersection. The lantern she was carrying rattled.

“What is that sound?” Lucas asked.

“The weapon that man used against you. He dropped it and it rolled
into the passage where I was waiting for you. I thought we might want to examine it.”

“What the devil?” Lucas glanced down at the lantern. “Have a care with that thing. We don’t know how it works or what it can do.”

“Of course I’ll be careful,” she said very coolly. “I’m not a fool, Lucas. I grew up in the household of an inventor. I am always cautious around unknown devices.”

Lucas’s jaw tightened. He plunged down another narrow passage, hauling her with him. “My apologies. I will, indeed, want to take a closer look at it after we get out of here.”

“No apologies are necessary. I do comprehend your concern. And I realize that you are not accustomed to working with a woman who is also a trained investigator.”

His mouth twisted into a grim smile. “I appreciate your making allowances for me.”

“Do you have any idea who those two men were?”

“No. Never met either of them. Treasure hunters from the sound of it. I think it’s safe to assume that they were involved in my uncle’s death.”

Evangeline was about to ask more questions, but at that moment they rounded one last corner and emerged into the jungle that was the Night Garden.

“Good heavens,” she whispered. “This is an incredible place.”

The thick canopy of massive leaves and twisted branches shut out all traces of moonlight, but the garden glittered with iridescent energy. The glow was much brighter than the midnight light of the Day Garden. The atmosphere was warmer, as well. But she knew intuitively that it was the surging, crashing waves of paranormal power that made this section of the grounds so dangerous.

The energy tides ebbed and flowed around her in unpredictable currents.
She sensed that some of the rivers of power could drag a person under, drawing the victim down into the paranormal depths that waited just beneath consciousness.

A pool of dreams waited there in the darkness, dreams of wondrous worlds and endless pleasures, dreams in which she would know power and passion beyond anything she had ever imagined.

“Evangeline.” Lucas gave her a quick shake. “Wake up.”

“But I am awake.” Startled, she blinked a couple of times and pushed her jangled senses higher. The subtle trancelike sensation faded. She caught a faint, delicate whiff of a compelling, exotic perfume. “Do you smell something?”

“The Dream Rose.” Lucas urged her through a cluster of radiant ferns. “One of my uncle’s last creations. He hoped to produce a variety that could be used to induce sleep. Like so many of the rest of his experiments, it went awry. Try not to breathe deeply until we are inside the bathhouse.”

“What can possibly be so terrible about a flower that smells so good?”

“From a distance it exerts an alluring effect on the senses. As you get closer, the effect becomes hypnotic, irresistible. Even one bloom releases enough perfume to put a person into a trance. But it is not a true sleep. One dreams, however, and the dreams are nightmares.”

“You sound as though you have experienced the effects of the blooms.”

“I did on one occasion. Believe me when I tell you that once was more than enough.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” She looked down and saw a cluster of spectacularly luminous blooms. “Look at those flowers. They are incredible.”

“Whatever you do, don’t touch them, especially not now, not at night.”

“They are dangerous, too?”

“Everything in this place is dangerous. I thought I’d made that clear. That particular plant is carnivorous. The young ones eat insects. The larger version attracts and kills mice and rats.”

“Good heavens.”

“Another botanical experiment that was supposed to have a practical application.” Lucas was sweating now. He scrubbed the perspiration from his eyes. “My uncle was convinced that a few pots of the plants placed inside a house would control vermin. His theory was correct. Has it escaped your attention that even though a large portion of the house has been closed for years, there are no mice or spiderwebs?”

She shuddered. “Now that you mention it, I was very relieved to discover that there were no signs of vermin in the kitchen and the pantry. I attributed it to the diligence of the missing housekeeper.”