The Long Way Down (Daniel Faust #1)(70)

Caitlin came back an hour later with a plastic bag from a local grocery store and a sack of cheeseburgers from Wendy’s. “Let’s get some red meat in your stomach,” she said cheerfully. “That’ll help.”

I got up and ambled to the table by the window. “Don’t suppose you got me a Coke with that?”

“Yes,” she said, rolling her eyes, “you should absolutely have caffeine right now.”

“Oh. Right.”

“You can, however, wash it down with a few shots of this,” she said, digging in the grocery bag and setting a bottle of Nyquil on the table.

I groaned, shaking my head. “Seriously?”

“Short of knocking over a pharmacy to get the really good stuff, I know of no better aid in the pursuit of short-term unconsciousness.”

I sat next to her, my fingertips brushing her thigh. “I’m sure I could think of an idea or two.”

“That,” she said with a smile, “is exactly what you said when I came back to the motel. You’re a bit disoriented.”

“Huh? You just came back now.”

Caitlin whistled tunelessly and spun her finger, gesturing for me to turn around. I looked over my shoulder. Our bodies, naked and entwined on sweat-soaked sheets, slept peacefully in the double bed.

“We’re already asleep,” I said flatly.

“Mm-hmm. Your short-term memories are muddled. It happens.”

I pointed at the bed. “But I missed the good part!”

“I think,” she said, touching my shoulder as she rose from her chair, “an encore can be arranged. Come now. Let’s find the good Dr. Planck. It shouldn’t be hard. I can feel him yearning for us. He wants to be heard.”

I looked around the motel room, concentrating. I couldn’t hear the echoes of Planck’s soul, not like Caitlin, but I knew a message needed a medium.

“Let’s try this.” I turned on the television set.

Sunlight filtered through the canopy of a lush tropical jungle, woodshrikes chittering in the branches. I didn’t recognize Eugene at first. The man on the television screen, frowning as he studied a crumbling stone slab under a magnifying glass, was young and vibrant. So was the girl beside him, dressed in an explorer’s khakis, her eyes wide and bright.

“Lauren,” Caitlin hissed.

The stone might have been a doorway, submerged into the loam by tremors and time, choked by centuries of vines and weeds. Something about it, the shape of it, the curious lean of the arch and the glistening sheen of the rock, set my teeth on edge.

“This is all wrong,” Planck said on the screen, echoing my thoughts exactly. “These symbols aren’t Hindu, and this style is far too old to date from the Maurya Empire. I can’t even read this part; it’s not Sanskrit or any of the Prakrit languages. This temple shouldn’t be here.”

Lauren traced a twisting symbol with her finger, following the ragged cut. “We should go in! Come on, where’s your sense of adventure? There could be anything inside!”

Planck shook his head, taking a step back.

“Not without the entire team, and not without the right tools to clear the passage without risking any damage to the walls. Not a scratch. You know my motto.”

Lauren sighed, but she favored him with the smile of an indulgent lover. “‘Proper archeology takes its proper time,’” she recited.

“She didn’t listen,” Planck said from behind us. He stood in the corner of the room, young again, watching the screen with a look of abject misery. “She went back under the cover of the stars with a machete and sheer stubbornness. The next morning, she had a new ring on her finger, an old pewter thing that looked like something her grandmother might wear. That’s when things started to change.”

A young Indian trembled on a cot in an army-surplus tent, his terrified eyes bulging and his lips flecked with white foam. We stood next to Planck, the motel room suddenly gone. Oppressive summer heat baked into my bones and sucked the breath from my lungs.

“Snakebite,” a stout man with an Australian accent told Eugene, “third bloody case this week. Been seeing ’em all over the camp, bold brown bastards with a nasty bite. The porters are finding ’em in their bedsheets. They’re about to take a hike, and I don’t blame ’em a damn bit.”

“Where are they all coming from? The site was clear when we struck camp.”

“Your guess is as good as mine, mate. They’re saying this place is cursed.”

The outside light slipped away as we plunged into nightfall. Insects droned in the jasmine-scented dark. Eugene opened the tent flap and stepped outside.

Lauren stood with her back to him, facing the jungle, the temple ruin. Whispering.

“Who are you talking to?” he asked cautiously.

“My new friends,” she said, turning to face him with a jubilant smile.

“Lauren,” Eugene said, hesitant, “nobody’s out here but us.”

“They’re on their way. You’ll see them. Not everyone will. Certain sacrifices have to be made for progress. But you? You’re special.”

She leaned in to kiss his cheek and froze. The trees stopped their swaying, the insects silenced, the world gone rigid and still. Eugene shook his head at us.

“I didn’t understand what she meant. More porters died. Snakebite. One of our other interns went missing. We found her body the next morning in the brush, savaged by a pack of feral beasts. Then I sent my assistant on a run to the nearest village to buy food and medical supplies.”