Her hair flexing, Krysty sniffed. “Flowers?”
Moving deeper into the structure, they found the front hallway completely filled with flowering plants of a thousand different colors, the air rich with their sweet perfume.
“Don’t see anything moving,” Krysty said, watching for traitorous intent among the leaves.
“Perfect place for the greenies to go camou,” Ryan noted. The hallway resembled a jungle with blossoms clustering thick on the walls, yet the floor was bare, as if inviting visitors.
“How can they grow without sunlight?” he asked.
“Mebbe some of it is still outside,” Krysty guessed. ‘”These could be just the roots.”
“Roots seek nourishment,” Ryan noted grimly.
A short flight of wide stairs went up a level, the steps and railings festooned with hanging leaves that offered no resistance to being pushed aside. Bracing himself, Ryan experimentally tore off a leaf. It came loose in a normal manner, and nothing else happened. They both relaxed.
The perfume smell thickened as the hallway opened onto a sports field, the ground covered with wags of every kind—cars, trucks, wooden wagons, bicycles, motorcycles, Jeeps, vans and even a few Hummers. Strewed among the vehicles were countless backpacks, suitcases, duffel bags, swords and blasters of every description.
“Thank Gaia!” Krysty cried out. “There’s our stuff!”
“What the hell is going on here?” Ryan demanded softly as they approached the backpacks and saddlebags. “The greenies rob travelers and just toss the stuff here to rot? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Not to rot, as offerings,” Krysty said, pointing with her blaster. “I think this is their temple.”
Standing majestically amid the piles of tributes was a huge flower, its stalk thicker than a tree trunk. Rainbows marked in hypnotic swirl patterns spread skyward from the plant. Oddly, there seemed to be no pistil or stamen, and Krysty wondered how the plant reproduced without pollination.
There was a funny tickling in his throat, and Ryan coughed on the thick smell of the plant. However, it was remarkably pleasant, and he felt his heart beating faster, a familiar tingle starting in his groin. Fireblast, this was no place to think about sex, Ryan chastised himself. Concentrate on the job, man!
Feeling woozy, Ryan tried to speak, but Krysty turned toward him, her eyes moist with emotion, her face flushed red. The fiery heat of lust welled within him, and Ryan crushed the redhead in his arms. Her lips so soft and warm beneath his own, their tongues intertwined in a long soulful embrace.
Something shouted a warning in his mind, but it was already too late.
As he murmured tender words, his hands roamed across her yielding body, savoring the womanly curve of her firm buttocks as her hips thrust against him in a delicious manner. Hands removed her coat—his or hers, he had no idea—as somebody undid his gun belt and pants. Krysty knelt before Ryan and took him full into her mouth, her fingers stroking and caressing. He grabbed her hair and thrust himself harder toward her, striving to get deeper into the sucking wetness. Her nails raked across his muscular thighs, the pain shattering the wild delirium for a split second.
That was when he noticed the bones on the ground, skeletons and clothing covering the dirt, which was filled with tiny roots. It was a carpet of death. Icy adrenaline flooded his body as the realization came that they were in a terrible trap. This plant wasn’t ambulatory like some mutie foliage. Instead, it lured in victims with a sweet perfume and drugged them into a sexual fervor until they had to mate. Probably doing so on and on until they eventually died of starvation, still trying to blindly copulate. Their rotting bodies would feed the roots in the ground, and the death flower would blossom in hellish beauty.
“No,” Ryan whispered, trying to push Krysty away. “Trap…we gotta…go…”
She pulled away from him, her face distorted in animal need. “Take me,” Krysty commanded, starting to remove her clothes.
The blood was pounding louder than cannons in Ryan’s ears, and he heroically struggled to fight the drunkenness of unfettered desire by thinking of dead friends and torture. He knew that once started, there would be no stopping until they collapsed from exhaustion, and in that weakened state, they would never again be able to resist until death claimed them both. It was now or never, and the Deathlands warrior forced himself to act.