White Devil Mountain (18 page)

“Well, I bitched about it too for the first six months I was on the Frontier. Out with a bunch of bumpkins like that, you weren’t likely to find someone looking to hire a killer. Hardly a surprise someone would turn sneak thief and go after a Noble’s treasure.”

“There were rumors for a long time that the child’s father was collecting items that belonged to the Nobility and selling them to black-marketers. I think the boy knows it, too. When I served as the school’s doctor, it was the cause of a big fight that ended up with students carried into my office.”

“Oh, the poor little fella.”

Blowing out smoke, Vera replied, “Wrong. It was the children he fought you should feel sorry for.”

“Really?”

“Three upperclassmen. All boys who stood a head taller than him and were used to getting in scrapes.”

“Just a minute,” Crey said, pointing in the direction of the other tent. “You mean to tell me he’s some kinda wolf in sheep’s clothing?”

“He is when he fights. The rest of the time he’s just like you see. If he’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing, sometimes he’s just a sheep. But . . .”

“But what?”

“The child didn’t remember anything about the fight, you see. He knew they were teasing him about his father, but after that his memory was a complete blank. The other three weren’t hurt too badly, so we didn’t ask too many questions.”

“You sure he wasn’t so excited his mind just went blank? I’ve seen a fair bit of that myself.”

“No—but that’s just my intuition . . .”

“In that case, what is he, some kind of genius brawler who loses his memory? I don’t get it,” Crey said, exhaling smoke flamboyantly.

“Well, whatever he is—and I didn’t come right out and ask him about this—but he might have come looking for his father to clear him of the accusation of looting ruins. I don’t know how he’d do that; frankly, I think it’d be impossible.”

“Amen to that. Thanks.”

Crey got up. Perhaps due to the wind, he had to struggle to get the door open, shoving his way through the snow as he stepped outside.

About five minutes later, there was a knock at the door. After the sealing tape had been removed, the person who stepped in accompanied by the wind and snow wasn’t Dust.

“What is it, Crey?” the doctor asked in a suspicious tone.

With a rather odd expression on his face, the outlaw replied, “They’re gone!”

“
What?
”

“The tent’s there. Inside, it’s like they just stepped out. They left cups of cocoa and coffee, both still warm. Both of ’em were there until a second ago. It’s just . . .”

Though Crey’s features stiffened, no terror surfaced in them. Even if he was holding it back, that in itself was laudable. Leave it to the professional killer.

“Were they taken?”

“Most likely. I don’t know about the kid, but I hardly think your bodyguard would’ve gone without a fight. Think maybe a roaming dimensional vortex got ’em? Or did some foe come along who was so tough they couldn’t do a thing . . .”

“From the castle?” Vera didn’t conceal the fright in her voice. “In that case . . . it’s Duke Gilzen . . .”

“It’s a little late to be getting scared. When the mountain changed into that castle, we decided not to take off, right?”

“I know.” Putting her hand on her chest, Vera let out a deep breath. “I’m okay. But what’ll we do about those two?”

“At any rate, I’ll search our immediate surroundings, and if I don’t find ’em I’ll give up. You’re staying right here. You’ve got a weapon, don’t you?”

Vera touched her hand to her right coat pocket, where she’d tucked a rapid-fire rivet gun. She had a rifle, too. Neither calmed her in the least.

“See ya, then.”

Crey disappeared into the darkness.

After redoing the tape on the door, Vera went to the center of the tent and sat down. Anxiety gnawed at her heart.

As she was rubbing her right hand over her face, there was a knock at the door.

“It’s me.”

She recognized the voice as Crey’s.

“Open up. If you’ve got a flashlight, I need to borrow it.”

“Just a minute.”

Running over, Vera peeled off the tape. In that instant, a horrifying thought sparked in her brain. The voice was Crey’s. But was the person using it really him or not?

A snow-covered man stepped inside. Brushing the flakes off his hood, Crey looked up.

“Doc—”

His breath caught in his throat. There was no one there. The lady who’d just undone the tape was nowhere to be seen.

“Not the doc too . . . She was just here . . .”

Rooted in place, the outlaw stood mired in a bottomless solitude—but it was immediately extinguished. Someone had tapped him on the shoulder.

II

D halted.

“This is the place,” the hoarse voice told him. Its tone was low, but it carried a steely confidence.

Just ten feet away was an iron plate set in a stone wall. It was thirty feet high and ten feet wide. Myriad rivets studded its surface, and on the walls to either side of it torches burned in iron sconces.

“This clown’s old fashioned to the very last,” the hoarse voice said.

This was the central control room.

D stepped forward, putting his left hand against the iron door. It creaked open. In light of what the room contained, this was a bit underwhelming.

“Great—this is a trap.”

That went without saying. However, this young man wasn’t the sort to fall back just because of that. Waiting for the trap to be sprung, D stepped inside.

“So, this is why nothing’s interfered with us up till now. Even though we made it out of that elevator in one piece, it’ll pay to be careful.”

It seemed the Hunter had easily escaped from the iron box that dropped two thousand stories.

D pressed forward without a word.

It was a white room. D was in the very center of a plain littered with white metal. Ahead of him, at an indeterminate distance, lay a hemispherical dome.

“That’s the anti-energy reactor. For all the Nobility’s science, up till now they’ve never managed to make a perfectly stable one. One little slip-up and they go berserk. There’s a theory that the reason the Sacred Ancestor had Gilzen put under wraps was to keep his reactor under control. What the—”

Cold air crushed in around D. Even the white light was frozen, the crystallizing air forming dancing flakes of ice in D’s periphery.

“Oh, no . . . It’s four hundred and fifty-eight degrees . . . below zero. So sleepy . . .” His left hand let out a yawn. “Be . . . careful . . . This guy . . . knows . . . about us.”

“Enjoy your rest,” D said softly, and he started forward.

A voice rained down from the heavens. “Oh, even without your guardian angel, you can walk, stripling?”

Though D focused his gaze, he could detect nothing save ice crystals in the air of this world at almost absolute zero.

“You can’t see me because I have no form,” the voice said. “I myself find it strange, but you too are a creature that doesn’t seem to be restricted by your human form. Come here and you will see.”

“Will you interfere?” D inquired softly.

“I suppose I will, at that. That’s the reason we, the Sacred Protector Knights, returned to life. My name is Budges.”

“D.”

A sense of bewilderment radiated from the presence. “D? Did you say D? I’ve heard that name somewhere before . . . Oh, but it’s been ten millennia since I last lived. I’m sure I’ll remember it sooner or later. After I’ve disposed of you, that is!”

D sailed into space. Making one whistling slash through the air, he executed a splendid landing.

“Oh, is that where I am?” the voice from the ceiling remarked with admiration. “You see, not having any feeling in my limbs, I’m not entirely sure of my own location. You probably determined it by my voice, but this is a treat. However, no matter how competent you might be, you can’t cut something that has no form.” The voice laughed thinly. “That being the case, you’d think it impossible for me to attack, but it would seem that even without form I still have a mind. That will serve as my hands and feet. Like so!”

A sharp pain ripped into D’s right shoulder. With fresh blood spurting from it, the Hunter changed to a backhanded grip on his sword.

“Oh!”

Not even giving Budges time to voice his surprise, D hurled his sword. The distance to the reactor was unknown, but after a hundred yards the weapon broke apart.

“
What?
” Budges cried, as if his eyes were bugging from his head.

The sword his will had fractured still continued to zip straight toward the reactor. But it was just the blade, which had broken free of the hilt. Perhaps it was too late for Budges to do anything with his willpower, because the blade flew another two hundred yards and sank into the wall of the reactor. Pale light raced through the air.

“Damn it! The wall’s been breached?” Budges’s voice cried out weakly. “My willpower didn’t work on your blade. Who the hell are you?”

There was no reply.

D turned around. A number of figures were speeding toward him from the same direction he’d come. They were accompanied by something that sounded exactly like the buzzing of an insect. Ion engines. D was surrounded by a number of vehicles that resembled wheel-less motorcycles. The orange-armored figures straddling them were almost lying flat. The red muzzles protruding from the fronts of the vehicles were undoubtedly laser cannons. Even D, with his left hand asleep and his sword gone, was in no position to do anything.

“Is that you, Jeanne?” the voice of Budges inquired.

“Don’t use my name.”

The source of this new voice came over like a celebrated actor stepping on stage. Splendid in form, like a crystal given human shape, the lithe figure wore similar armor to the others, yet was draped in a purple cape. The sword on this one’s hip was more delicate than those of the other riders. The stride could be termed naught but elegant. However, the aura that gusted from her was so powerful, the men lined up there naturally stepped to one side and let her pass. “Her”
?
Yes, it was a woman.

With a beauty that would make males both human and Noble alike weak in the knees, she looked D straight in the face. And said nothing. Blinking her eyes, the lovely woman—Jeanne—turned and looked away. As she looked up toward the ceiling, the madly dancing electromagnetic waves truly bathed her face and body in pale light.

“Don’t ever say my name again. I won’t have that from a moron like you, who couldn’t even protect the reactor.” Such anger tinged her lovely voice.

Budges was silent.

The young woman called Jeanne then finally turned to D and said, “You did well to make it this far. I have orders from Duke Gilzen that you’re to be treated courteously. I, Jeanne, shall be your guide.”

Respectfully dropping to one knee, she brought her right hand against the amply curving breast of her chest plate and bowed. Her breath was white, so at least she had warm blood coursing through her.

The laser cannons on the magnetic force bikes surrounding D all lost the glow in their muzzles in unison. Suddenly, flames burst from one of the vehicles. It’d taken a direct hit from the electromagnetic waves. The rider leapt off it.