White Devil Mountain (25 page)

“The wound’s no great problem, but the pain won’t subside. Unless Duke Gilzen lifts his curse, there’s nothing that can be done.”

“So that formless man is here to comfort her, then? He must be her beau.”

As Lilia extended her thumb, the gesture for boyfriend in some regions, the doctor applied a sterile pad to her naked back.

“Stop moving around. And I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Vera said reprovingly. But as she leveled that reproach, she couldn’t help but admit to herself that the woman who sat there with her thumb up was the only reason she and Jeanne were still alive.

It had been a horrifying split second—the faceless creature’s gun had pierced Lilia’s heart, and ignoring her as she staggered, it had drawn the longsword from its hip as it bore down on them. Vera had felt the wings of death brush her. But their foe was knocked thirty feet down the corridor, where it slammed into a stone pillar. Look as she might, Vera had seen no one there but the other two women.

III

“Get into her room,” a masculine voice from midair had urged them. “Hurry. I’m going to reorganize the area.”

And before their very eyes a stone wall the width of the corridor lowered from the ceiling, cutting the faceless figure off from the three women.

Thirty minutes had passed since they’d followed those directions, and nothing had happened. Apparently the faceless figure had left.

Securing her ample bosom once more in a bra and donning her beloved combat gear, Lilia stretched her shoulders. The bones creaked.

“I’m fine now. Doctor, that was an interesting experience, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yes,” she had to confess.

Naturally, Vera had never treated a Noble or a pseudo-Noble—one who’d been bitten but not turned—before. Even though the Huntress’s heart had narrowly escaped injury, what seemed to be a kind of heat ray had blasted right through the woman—yet to the doctor’s amazement, the Huntress was still breathing normally. And Vera could hardly believe that Lilia’s wound had half closed by the time she put her clothes back on. If this was what a pseudo-Noble was like, she couldn’t begin to imagine the regenerative abilities of the Nobility. That a primitive thing like a wooden stake could destroy them was like something out of a nightmare.

“Even if we’d left it alone it would’ve healed, but you have my thanks anyway, Doctor.”

Lilia smiled at her, seeming no different than she’d been before—or, if anything, far more cheerful.

She’s been bitten by a Noble?
The only things that kept Vera from questioning that were the ferocity of the unearthly aura she’d seen earlier when Lilia had faced the featureless opponent and the white scarf wound around Lilia’s neck.

“What’ll become of you?” Vera said, giving voice to the question that had arisen while she was looking at the Huntress. It was a question that’d been posed by the families, friends, and lovers of countless victims of the Nobility.

Lilia smiled thinly. “It’s a little late to be asking that, isn’t it. You know full well.”

“You don’t have a problem with becoming a Noble?” Vera asked, unwilling to let the issue rest.

“There’s nothing I can do about it. Oh, Doctor, in the interest of medical science, I’ll tell you all about what it’s like being a victim of the Nobility. Think of it as my last bit of humanity, if you will. First, for the physical stuff—well, it’s a strange feeling. You feel lethargic, and yet it’s like you’re in prime shape—like a really powerful motor that’s not firing on all cylinders, if you can understand that.”

“More or less, I suppose.”

Lilia’s smile broadened. Incisors peeked disturbingly from the corners of her vermilion lips. A chill raced down Vera’s spine.

“Great,” Lilia said with an impassive nod. “Next, for the psychological effects: well, first of all, there’s this respect and fear toward the one who bit you. Like the sort of feelings a servant has toward the master of the house.”

In her heart, Vera sighed with grief.

“But is that your will? It’s not the Noble forcing his consciousness onto you?”

“It’s completely me. Come on, don’t make that face. I’m not sad about it at all. I’m filled with so much more power than before, I tremble at the thought of it.”

“Oh, Lilia—you’ll go on to attack humans!”

“Stop it!” Lilia exclaimed, but her words were no more than meaningless sound waves to Vera. This woman professed joy at being made a servant of the Nobility—and she had given medical aid to such a creature. If she could, right on this very spot, she’d see to it that—

“Doctor, don’t get any funny ideas, okay?”

“Huh?” Vera thought the woman had her pegged.

“Doctor,” Lilia said, her eyes burning red. Making no effort to disguise her naked supernatural aura, she took Vera’s hand. The Huntress’s grip was so cold that the doctor felt numbness before she experienced any pain.

“Stop. I didn’t do anything.”

“The victim of a victim becomes just like them,” Lilia said, her breath brushing the doctor’s throat.

“Don’t!”

The lady doctor was paralyzed by the greatest fear known to mankind. Becoming a Noble—that meant devolving into a demon that roamed the night in search of living human blood. This was no nightmare. It was reality, and less than two inches from her.

“Doctor . . .”

Something hard touched the nape of her neck. It slowly poked into her. In two spots.

“Stop!”

Vera shook from head to toe.

A tiny scream rose near her ear—and moved off.

“What happened?” asked a masculine voice. It was that of the man without form.

“I don’t know—look,” said Lilia.

“But that’s—” The man’s voice was tense. “Your right hand exploded. Who did that to you? Never mind. I know.”

Know what?

Vera’s shaking didn’t seem likely to stop. She trembled with a speed so far beyond the normal range it had injured the Huntress, but she hadn’t even noticed.

“Calm down,” the man’s voice said. “You’re an incredibly dangerous woman, it seems. There’s still work that we would have you do. We won’t harm you.”

Vera felt her tremors abating. She opened her eyes.

Lilia was slumped against the wall, gazing at her. Her left hand held her right arm, which was missing its hand from the wrist down. No blood flowed from it. The stub was charred black. Gazing at Vera, she gave her a look that seemed to say,
Not too shabby.
Hers wasn’t a very grave injury.

“What—what did I do?”

“I’ll tell you later. In the meantime, you can continue your doctoring.”

Vera shook her head. She was terribly weary. “I’ve already done all I can for her.”

“This is another case. Come with me,” said the man’s voice.

“But I can’t even see you!”

“You can hear me, though.”

Ultimately, Vera had no choice but to comply. Following the voice’s directions, she left Jeanne’s quarters and advanced down the corridor. Her terror of running into that faceless creature was beyond the pale, but fortunately she didn’t encounter it in her travels. She asked what it was, but got no reply.

“Here.”

She stood before a stone door. She didn’t have long to wait before it opened. The smell of disinfectant struck her. Stepping into a room the color of a cloudy day, Vera gasped out loud and froze in her tracks.

–

Lourié was at the bottom of the hole, surveying his surroundings. It felt like he’d fallen more than a thousand yards, but he couldn’t be sure. Halfway down it’d become too much trouble to keep track of the distance. As he fell, he wondered what kind of scientific technology the castle was equipped with. For instance, the pit that he was falling into obviously had to be some mode of transportation. But it was so primitive. Yet the way the mountain had been transformed into a castle in the blink of an eye seemed a feat that would be impossible without otherworldly technology. There was a tremendous gap between the two—and try as he might, the boy could find no way to bridge it.

I’ve slowed down all of a sudden
, he thought, and at that moment there was a light impact on the soles of his shoes, then his body rose slowly. He realized he’d sunk into something soft, and was now rising from the recoil.

“How primitive,” he said, in spite of himself.

It was the same principle as dropping something onto a sack of feathers. The thought of the bottom half of the pit—a thousand yards’ worth of feathers—nearly made Lourié laugh. The boy’s heart didn’t lack for courage.

When he stopped rising, he found an iron door set in the wall before him. He pushed against it, and it opened easily. Stone corridors just like the others continued on the other side. All he could do was press forward. He was worried about his father—and Vera, Lilia, and Dust. Dr. Vera was kind. Lilia talked tough, but she wasn’t a bad person. There was something about Dust that reminded him of his father. And he wouldn’t abandon any of them.
Don’t turn your back on what needs to be done.
That was the one principle his father had impressed upon him.

“What’s this?”

He was nearly out of breath when he halted.

A change had come over the smooth walls, floor, and ceiling of the corridor. Horrible cracks that took the boy’s breath away ran through everything, leaving the rock beneath exposed and tilting the floor up ahead of him. He climbed a fairly steep ascent to the top of a rise.