Carpathian 17 - Dark Curse

plants clung to the sides of the rocks and shivered naked along the plateaus. She could see the entrances to several caves and felt the strong pull toward them as if they were tempting her to leave her current position.
    Water filled the deeper depressions below, forming a dark peat bog and beds of moss were a vivid green in stark contrast to the browns surrounding them. But she needed to be here-in this spot-this place. She had studied the geography carefully and knew, deep within the earth, a massive series of ice caves had formed.
    The higher she climbed, the smaller everything below her looked and the thicker the white mist surrounding her became. With each step, the ground shifted subtly and the birds overhead shrieked a little louder. Ordinary things, yes, but the subtle sense of uneasiness, the continual voice whispering to leave before it was too late told her this was a place of power protecting itself. Although the wind continued to wail and blow, the mist remained a thick veil shrouding the upper slope.
    \"Come on, Lara,\" Terry tried again. \"It took us forever to get the permits, we can\'t waste time on the wrong area. You can see nothing\'s here.\"
    It had taken considerable effort this time, to get the permits for her study, but she had managed the usual Page 7

    Christine Feehan: Dark Curse
    way-using her gifts to persuade those who disagreed with her that due to global warming concerns, the ice caves needed immediate study. Unique microorganisms called extremophiles thrived in the harsh environment of the caves, far away from sunlight or traditional nutrients. Scientists hoped those microbes could aid in the fight against cancer or even produce an antibiotic capable of wiping out the newest emerging superbugs.
    Her research project was fully funded and, although she was considered young at the age of twenty-seven, she was acknowledged as the leading expert in the field of ice-cave study and preservation. She\'d logged more hours exploring, mapping and studying the ice caves around the world than most other researchers twice her age. She\'d also discovered more superbugs than any other caver.
    \"Didn\'t it strike you as odd that no one wanted us in this particular region? They were fine giving us permits to look virtually anywhere else,\" she pointed out. Part of the reason she\'d persisted when no caves had been mapped in the area was because the department head had been so strange-strange and rather vague when they went over the map. The natural geographical deduction after studying the area was that a vast network of ice caves lay beneath the mountain, yet the entire region seemed to have been overlooked.
    Terry and Gerald had exhibited exactly the same behavior, as if they didn\'t notice the structure of the mountain, but both men were superb at finding ice caves from the geographical surface. Persuasion had been difficult, but all of that work was for this moment-this cave-this find.
    \"It\'s here,\" she said with absolute confidence.
    Her heart continued to pound-not at the excitement of the find-but because walking had become such a chore, her body not wanting to continue forward. She breathed away the compulsion to leave and pressed through the safeguards, following the trail of power, judging how close she was to the entrance by how strong her need to run away was.
    Voices rose in the wind, swirled in the mists, telling her to go back, to leave while she could. Strangely, she heard the voices in several languages, the warning much stronger and more insistent as she made her way along the slope searching for anything at all that might signal an entrance to the caves she knew were there.
    All the while she kept all senses alert to the possibility that monsters might lurk beneath the earth, but she had to enter-to find the place of her nightmares, the place of her childhood. She had to find the two dragons she dreamed of nightly.
    \"Lara!\" This time, Terry\'s voice was sharp with protest. \"We have to get out of here.\"
    Barely sparing him a second glance, Lara stood for a long moment studying the outcropping that jutted out from smoother rock. Thick snow covered most of it, but there was an oddity about the formation that kept drawing her gaze back to the rock. She approached cautiously. Several small rocks lay at the foot of the larger boulders, and strangely, not a single snowflake stuck to them. She didn\'t touch them, but studied them from every angle, observing carefully the way they were