White Devil Mountain (17 page)

Suddenly, the darkness sprang into motion. D’s sword flashed out. Falling to his feet without a sound was the rough wooden needle, now in two pieces. Had the one lurking in the depths of the darkness hurled it back? Had they caught D’s needle first?

The gate behind him opened. D backed through it. A narrow space swallowed him, and the gate shut. It was an elevator. The Hunter’s left hand pressed against the inner wall, and the elevator quickly began its descent.

“Hurry up. If this thing stops along the way, we’re in trouble!” the hoarse voice from his hand told him. “Three thousand stories belowground—this is one hell of a setup, eh?”

A green line above the door was rapidly dwindling. It was a series of flickering digits.

“A thousand stories belowground. Eleven hundred and six—eleven fifty-eight.”

The sensation of controlled falling came to a dead stop.

“This isn’t good. Now we’re stuck. We’re hanging in midair.”

By the time the hoarse voice was done grumbling, D had already begun to take action. He reached his left hand into his coat. When it came out again, a black sphere rested in its palm.

“Is that one of the mountain folks’ grenades? I’m surprised the lasers didn’t hit it. Stingy little packrats will inherit the earth.”

D’s form flew up, then back down again. He’d stuck the grenade to the center of the ceiling. A slim wooden needle jutted from the ceiling at an angle and ran through the grenade. The faint sound of its fuse could be heard.

“You’ve already
activated
it? Being a packrat wasn’t enough—you had to be impulsive to boot?”

The voice sounded almost despairing, but the span of a single breath later, the ceiling was removed by a loud and fiery blast. This was the kind of archaic device the Nobility favored—and with the cables blown free along with the ceiling, like the proverbial stone the elevator dropped two thousand floors, with D still onboard.

Duke Gilzen

chapter 7

I

A
lthough the group hadn’t gotten caught up in an avalanche, the snowstorm picked up with the coming of twilight and began to trouble them. They dug a hollow in the snow and planned to use their coats as sleeping bags to keep warm. Vera’s medicine would also prevent Dust’s wound from getting infected. That left as their only problems the fear of the darkness and the castle.

The snow-covered peak of Mount Shilla had suddenly transformed into an enormous castle. The ridge had collapsed, leaving the four of them utterly stranded. They had to wonder if the mountain folk who’d been turned into vampires might not somehow return to life yet again to assail them with fangs bared. Worst of all, they didn’t know what had raised them from the dead, where the culprit was, or what they had planned. Even if whoever it was had returned to the castle, they would be watching them even now with the bloodshot eyes of the Nobility and lips crazed by eternal hunger.

Two tents had been erected. Vera and Dust went into one, while Crey and Lourié occupied the other. Initially the plan was to have Vera and Lourié in one and the two men in the other, but not knowing what might be prowling around out there, it was decided to have one man in each tent.

When their meal of crackers and canned goods was finished, Lourié—who hadn’t said a word up to that point—was looking out the window when he started talking.

“Say, you think that lady’s okay?”

He was referring to Lilia.

Rolling over, Crey was incredulous.

“You’re worried about that sorry-ass woman? She treated you like crap, and left us in the cold! Normally, that’s the kind of thing you could hold against her to your dying day.”

Nothing from the boy. Lourié was silent not because he agreed with the outlaw, but because he’d noticed the malice that permeated the man’s words. Nevertheless, he ventured, “But what if, somehow, she ended up in the castle and . . .” He couldn’t bring himself to finish.

Crey chortled. “Then so much the better. Hell, right about now the master of the castle’s draining her blood.”

Then the boy changed the topic. “I’m worried about the two next door.”

Crey gave the boy a stunned look. “Why’s that? They’re a guard and a doctor!”

“I’m worried about them. The doctor seems to think she’s done something wrong to Mr. Dust, and he’s so cold to her.”

“You’re gonna grow up to be a nosy old man. I agree with you, though.”

The boy then turned back to Crey and asked, “Why do you suppose that is?” He was talking about Vera and Dust.

“Damned if I know. Something must’ve happened.” Crey looked up at the ceiling. “Frontier or Capital—wherever you go, so long as there’s people there, you’ll find kinds of trouble you’d never imagine. Then throw the Nobility into the mix, and you’ve got a real mess. What really makes things dangerous is the Nobles seem to have emotions like hate and sadness and love, too.”

“They both look so sad.”

“Really? It don’t look that way to me.”

“I think it’s in their hearts.”

“You really are like a nosy old landlord, aren’t you? I’m sure that’ll serve you really well!”

“Mr. Crey, why are you up on the mountain?”

The guileless eyes upon him flustered the outlaw.

“Don’t go turning your guns on me all of a sudden.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just—”

“I know. I don’t exactly look like the mountain-climbing type. You’d expect to see me shaking folks down at knifepoint at best, eh?”

“That’s not what I—” Lourié began angrily. He shook his head ferociously in denial.

Crey grinned wryly. “Oh, that’s okay. Let me take this opportunity to put my cards on the table. You get to be about your age, that makes you an adult out on the Frontier. You should make it a point to find out a little about the man sleeping in the next bed. I’m Crey Jansen, just so you know. Knife expert and outlaw. The first time I killed anyone, I was seven.”

Lourié gazed, dumbfounded, at the willing confessor.

“It was the landlord of our apartment, who was pawing at my mother. That was some pretty smooth knife handling, if I do say so myself. Even at that age, I was already a full-blown punk!”

“Please don’t bring out your knife.”

Seeing how the boy’s terrified eyes focused on the knife that flew from his sleeve, Crey smiled at the boy and said, “No need to be as scared as all that. Hell, a knife is just a tool. The same as a hoe or a plow.”

“I don’t think so. A knife like that can’t be used for anything but stabbing people. And the person who carries it—” Here the boy hastily clamped a hand over his mouth.

“C’mon, can’t you come right out and say it?”

“Say what?”

“You’re a crafty little squirt, ain’t you.” Giving another one of his countless bitter grins, Crey twirled the knife intently. “Sure, the kind of fella who carries a couple of these around ain’t gonna amount to much. By the time I realized that, it was already too late. Yeah, I’d killed fifteen, maybe sixteen by then. I was, what, maybe eighteen years old?”

“Are you sure you don’t think of those as ‘the good old days’ ?”

“Shut your yap.”

“So, why go up Mount Shilla?”

The boy then buttoned his lip. He’d noticed a shadow skim across Crey’s profile. Though Lourié wasn’t yet fully grown, even he could understand it was a wound that would never heal. It was enough to give him the impression the outlaw had a very good reason for climbing the mountain.

“That’s enough about little ol’ me. Getting back to you—you were up here searching for your dad, weren’t you?”

“That’s right. Even now, my father lives somewhere on the mountain. I’m sure it was my father who took care of those mountain folk.”

“Well, that’s just great. But, if your dad’s still alive, wouldn’t he be better off coming down the mountain instead of wiping out mountain folk? I mean, that’s only human. Or is there some special reason why he wouldn’t wanna come back? Your mom wasn’t some kind of mad nymphomaniac or something, was she?”

“Please, stop it!”

Crey shrugged his shoulders and laughed sheepishly. “Sorry for saying that. Forgive me?” Seeing the tears filling the boy’s eyes and the way his body quivered, the outlaw pointed the knife in his hand in Lourié’s direction. “To show you how bad I feel, I’ll save you just once if you get into trouble. Even if it kills me. Then that’ll put us square, okay?”

Wiping the corners of his eyes, Lourié replied, “That’s all right. Don’t worry yourself about it. I’m used to people saying all sorts of things to me.” And saying that, he got into his sleeping bag. “I’m going to bed now. Good night.”

The sound of the wind howled fiercely in Crey’s ears.

–

When they found Crey at their tent a few minutes later, Vera and Dust were startled.

“What is it?”

“Well, I just wanted to hear a female voice. Say, Gramps, go keep an eye on the squirt.”

“Gramps” glowered at the outlaw. For a moment his look was savage enough to drain the color from the hired killer. But the guard quickly turned to face Vera.

“It’s okay. Go on.”

Once Dust had left, Crey asked right away, “About the squirt: you happen to know anything about his family?”

Vera was stunned. “What are you trying to hide? It’s hard to picture you being concerned about that child.”

“I ain’t really concerned about him. The squirt’s got nothing to do with me. It’s just that, in my experience, when a kid like that pulls a stunt you’d never imagine, there’s usually a heap of money involved. No way in hell would a kid that age be climbing a mountain in winter—I don’t care how much he loves his dad. What I wanna know ties into that.”

“I figured it was something like that—or I wish I could say I did.” The doctor’s gaze seemed to see right into his soul, and Crey averted his eyes. “So you really want to know about the child’s family situation because of money?”

“Why else?”

“Very well, then. I pretended not to know around the boy, but his father went up to check out the Noble’s castle.”

“What, he was a scholar or something?”

Vera shook her head wearily. “Paintings and jewels, weapons and machines the likes of which the Nobility alone could produce but humans could use—haven’t you ever heard how Nobles were able to make gold from seawater?”

“So that’s what he was there for, to loot the joint?”

Knitting her brow, Vera shushed him. Drawing a crumpled pack of cigarettes from the chest pocket of her thermal coat, she took one for herself, then offered the pack to Crey.

“I feel like I’m in one of those classy ‘liquor salons’ in the Capital.”

“Do they have hostesses my age there?”

Sparking the strike-anywhere match on the sleeve of her coat, she lit her own cigarette and Crey’s.

Blowing out a lungful of smoke, the outlaw said, “That tastes foul. What’d they do, roll up dried mildew or something?”

“Live with it. Out on the Frontier, this is what you get.”

That life on the Frontier was no easy thing had surpassed fact and become the stuff of legends. To wit: Without shipments from the Capital, they would starve in three days. In this constant state of starvation, parents would kill and eat their children. When there was nothing left to eat, they would drink their own blood. In doing so, they would become half vampire themselves despite never having been bitten by a Noble. And so on, and so forth . . . The truth was, most areas were capable of self-sufficiency, and items that supposedly could be acquired only in the Capital were frequently brought out by black-marketers and moved at exorbitant prices. Depending on the territory, there were places that had entered contracts with mail-order firms in the Capital and squeezed out the black-marketers. Still, luxury goods remained in short supply.