White Devil Mountain (21 page)

“You just don’t see, do you?” Lilia said, her eyes giving off a red glow. “Don’t act like you know what you’re talking about when you don’t understand the joy and possibilities of this other world, this other way of life. Fine. I’ll kill you myself. I’ll be damned if I’ll let you find out what this joy is like.”

Letting her breath whistle out, Lilia bared her teeth. Or rather, her fangs. Even Crey pulled back in spite of himself.

At that point Lilia seemed to sense something, because she stepped away from the bars, flicked her gaze down to the opposite end of the corridor, and turned and ran off as if the two of them weren’t even there.

“Why did she—the lousy traitor,” Crey spat, and on noticing that he was wiping sweat from his brow he clicked his tongue in disappointment and lowered his hand again.

“Mr. Crey,” Lourié called out.

Noticing the fright the boy’s voice carried, Crey went over to the side of his cell.

“Someone’s coming.”

“I know—the sound of fabric rustling, right?”

“I don’t know.”

From where Lourié was, he couldn’t see anything.

“Well,
I
know. But I don’t know just who it could be. Most likely a woman, and a real important one, at that. Squirt, get into the corner of your cell and curl up in a ball. Don’t look at ’em.”

“No. I have to get a good look too . . .” His voice quavered.

That’s a hell of a kid
, Crey thought to himself.

Now the distinct sound of fabric swishing against the floor reached the captives’ ears. The sound stopped right between the two cells. So tense they felt like their hearts were clotting solid, the two of them looked at the woman.

II

The room that’d been prepared for D was as sumptuous as that of any palace. The ceiling, walls, and floor—none of them made use of rough stone and mortar. All were fashioned of marble and glittered with gold and jewels.

“There’s no antidote for the poison the duke uses. You can only rely on your own constitution. Still, it’s incredible. You won’t even lie down.”

D had taken a seat on the sofa, and he didn’t even put the cool, wet towel Jeanne offered him against his forehead.

“Your body will seem like it’s burning, yet it’s still freezing cold. Severe pain should be racking your muscles and bones without a moment’s respite. No matter how tough the person, most die instantly, and no one’s lasted two days.”

The lovely young lady must’ve seen quite a few deaths.

“Don’t worry about me. Once I’m better, I’ll slay Gilzen. Go back and tell him that. If I don’t get better, then that’s the end of it.”

“I was ordered to see to your needs. I can’t do that.”

“That clown’s gotta have a mess of spies besides you.”

Jeanne turned her blue eyes toward the source of the hoarse voice, which was like that of an entirely different person. It seemed to be coming from the Hunter’s left hand.

“Look, those paintings and sculptures are all alive. Go on, tell me I’m wrong.”

The hoarse challenge was followed by a different voice, this one like iron: “Vigesh’s
Portrait of the Glutton
, Sandberg’s sculpture
Eurydice Trapped in the Underworld
—they’re priceless, aren’t they?”

Jeanne stared at D in astonishment. “You’re quite knowledgeable, aren’t you? Both artists worked exclusively for the duke, creating artwork for this castle. Very few people even know their names.” Jeanne closed her eyes, there was a pause, and then without cadence she began to list those people out of the past: “The duke, his mother, myself, the chamberlain, and—”

“—the Sacred Ancestor, right?” said the hoarse voice.

Jeanne nodded, then got a stunned look on her face. “How do you know that name? Who in the world . . . ?”

“Haven’t you heard? You might be pretty, but you’re a rank amateur.”

Perplexity stained Jeanne’s face as she stared at D’s left hand.

Making a fist, D said, “Don’t worry about it.”

Not quite knowing what she wasn’t supposed to worry about, Jeanne nodded.

“I’m going to get a little sleep,” D said.

Jeanne got a dangerous gleam in her eye. “I’ll stay here with you,” she said.

“That dagger up your sleeve—go ahead and use it if you like,” said the hoarse voice.

Every ounce of blood in Jeanne’s body froze. No matter how he might appear on the surface, the Hunter should’ve been feverishly hot on the surface and freezing cold inside—and even mired in those twin hells, the young man had seen into her heart of hearts.

“But . . . how did you . . .”

Jeanne’s query was tinged with fright. She knew at a glance that the gorgeous young man before her was no ordinary assassin. However, she hadn’t known there was this much to him.

“You’ve had a blood lust wafting from you from the very start,” D said in a low voice. “When there’s some hesitation you can hide it, but a true will to kill always leaks out.”

D already had his eyes closed.

Jeanne ran. With incredible speed the woman advanced about six feet, then leapt. In midair she flipped a hundred and eighty degrees, intending to dodge a counterattack by D. She didn’t hurl her dagger, but rather came drifting down like a flower.

D’s left hand went straight up. Before Jeanne’s eyes could go wide at the tiny mouth in its palm that snapped open, her weapon’s tip—fine as a ray of light—was caught tight between those little teeth. The Hunter’s left hand swung to the right with the grace of a dancer, and Jeanne was thrown in an arc, her shoulder striking the floor. Based on her skill in making that leap, she should’ve been able to land on her feet, but her shock and despair brought about a different conclusion.

Using her other arm to prop her body up, she lifted her head, only to have something jab into the floor right under her nose: the dagger that D’s left hand had spat out.

“For reasons you can imagine, I can’t die just yet. Once I’ve gotten rid of Gilzen, I’ll take you on.”

Jeanne grasped the dagger. Though despair riddled every inch of her, she still burned with the will to fight.

“I won’t allow you to attack the duke. Even if it costs me my life . . .”

“Your
poor imitation
of life?”

That one remark from the hoarse voice made the young woman stop. “What . . . How do you know about that?”

“From Gilzen, who else?” the hoarse voice replied.

Jeanne lifted her upper body, moving as if she’d been mortally wounded. Her shoulders were quaking.

“You can’t kill me or heal me like that,” D said. “Go.”

“No,” she responded in a barely audible tone. Golden hair swayed to either side of her face like seaweed beneath the waves. The young woman didn’t realize what a miracle it was that she’d leveled a weapon at D and yet lived. “Hurry up and get your rest. I’ll kill you later for sure.” She chewed the words over, as if saying them for her own benefit, but D was no longer listening.

Two people were in that vast room weighted heavily with the eddying emotion of a life gambled away. One of them was at the center of that vortex, plagued by it, while the other remained coolly indifferent to the whole matter.

–

Down a stone passageway colored by a dim blue light walked the young woman in her armor. The purple cape flaring out behind her manifested the intensity of her resolve, yet for all that, her footsteps didn’t make a sound. She stopped in front of one in an endless row of cells, and her eyes snapped wide open. The cell was empty. And there was no sign of the boy who should’ve been imprisoned in the one to its left.

“Who did this?” the young woman groaned, investigating the door set in the bars. It was still locked. These doors locked and unlocked in the usual fashion. “They went to the trouble of relocking the door?”

The young woman looked up. There would be a surveillance camera somewhere.

“Play back,” she ordered.

A ten-foot-wide screen of light came into being in the middle of the corridor. It showed an overhead view of the prison.

“Display only these two cells. Just the part where the intruder is present.”

As she said that, the light faded.

“Nothing was recorded?”

The young woman was rooted in place.

There was no malfunction in the computer that controlled the camera. If there had been, the master computer would’ve instantly put a new camera into operation. The intruder had ordered the master computer to erase all data about their activities.

“Did you hear that? The only one who could do something like that . . .”

The young woman’s lovely visage was twisted by a terrible hatred. Hate changes people—Jeanne was the perfect proof of that.