White Devil Mountain (4 page)

That one icy blow showed just how sharp she was.

Quaking from head to toe, Baska fell silent. He was like an active volcano given human form. His anger bubbled like lava.

“Sooner or later, he’s going to explode,” Lilia said, shrugging her shoulders.

“Hurry up!” the woman he’d called “Doc” ordered, walking out into the room. The villagers in front of her cleared a path.

Clucking his tongue, the indignant Baska left.

Right in front of the doctor was the dwindling back of a figure in black. As D walked toward the bat-wing doors, the doctor called out to him, “Just a moment, please.” Realizing he wasn’t going to stop, she increased the length of her strides and went after him. “Won’t you hear me out? I’m Vera. I’m the village doctor,” she told him. “You have such good looks—could it be you’re the man they call D?”

D pushed against the doors. A heavily wrinkled hand grabbed his shoulder.

“If you are, listen to what I have to say. I was hired by the Sacred Ancestor to do a certain job.”

D turned around fluidly.

Vera was frozen—partly due to astonishment at his speed, but the rapture on her face said the real reason was something else. D was right there in front of her.

“What was it?” the dashing figure in black inquired. That alone seemed like it would suffice to make even the most tight-lipped person tell all. And no one would’ve blamed them. The young man was that gorgeous.

“What was . . .” Vera began, repeating him as if suffering from some sort of dementia.

At that point, they heard someone say, “Don’t tell him.”

A split second after D stepped to one side, the swinging doors opened. It was one of the men the Hunter had met with in the mayor’s office—Director Marquis.

“What are you . . .” Vera began, the bewilderment showing in every inch of her as she gazed at the face of the tall, thin old man.

“You mustn’t tell him. I came out here looking to somehow keep him from leaving, and now I’ve found my ace in the hole. D, if you want to hear what the doctor has to say, I need you to agree to go up the mountain.”

Now it was Dr. Vera who was at her wits’ end.

“No matter how handsome you may be, that won’t work on Vera. It may be three years since I last saw her, but that doesn’t change the fact she’s my daughter,” the old man said boastfully, but then a hint of anxiety suddenly crept into his expression. It spread across his entire face in the blink of an eye.

Taking his eyes off his daughter, the director looked at D. He then hurriedly tried to look away—but it was too late. In a heartbeat, both father and daughter were captives of his beauty.

“What was it?” D asked once more.

“It was . . .” Vera began.

Something whistled through the air. It looked as if it went in through one of D’s temples, out the other, then ripped right through the bat-wing doors.

“Don’t tell him!” Lilia cried, her left hand still poised from throwing the dart as her right hand reached for the sword on her back. “If he won’t agree to go into the mountains, that leaves me in a bind. Because I was hired on condition of getting him to go along with me. So, that being the case, I’m in your corner.”

“That’s how it is, then,” Director Marquis said, shaking his head. It was like waking from a dream. Or from a nightmare of unearthly beauty. “How about it, D? We don’t have to stand around here jabbering. Would you care to discuss this in the private room in the back? Lilia and Vera, you two come along, too.”

“Sorry, but I have an urgent patient to tend to,” said Vera.

“It’ll have to wait. This is the top priority. You can’t be a widow playing country doctor for the rest of your life. I’ll bring you back to the Capital with me.”

“Another ace in the hole.” The doctor shrugged her shoulders. Lowering her voice, she continued, “I’m sick and tired of living out in the sticks, tending to a bunch of filthy farmers. Take me with you. But not right now.” Glancing at the bat-wing doors, she said, “Baska’s back. See you later, Dad.”

And with that she left, shaking her head from side to side.

The old archaeologist kept his eyes diverted from the Hunter as he asked, “Okay, D—what’s it going to be?” Though he spoke rather triumphantly, he couldn’t imagine what the future would hold.

Assorted Traveling Companions

chapter 2

I

Y
ou need to tell me what the cargo was,” said D.

“That again? I’ll say no more about it. You’ll have to be content with my daughter’s secret.”

Something glittered and zipped in front of the director’s eyes. He shut his arrogant mouth. All the old man’s achievements as a scholar, his fairly good points as a person, and even his position in the Capital burned away like mist before that pale blade. Not that the man hadn’t been through tough situations before. Excavations always involved problems with landowners and villagers, and the thugs they hired could be set off with a single boast, so he’d actually engaged in gunfights with pistol in hand. He also considered himself to have a good deal of nerve. But now all of that bravado came crashing down, just like the glory of the Nobility. The blade in the old man’s field of view wasn’t the same sort of weapon that he’d wielded in those battles. Even Lilia, his professed ally, couldn’t so much as move a muscle.

“Answer me,” D said.

Marquis didn’t think he’d be able to reply. His fear was so great, it choked his throat. Yet from it issued the words: “A coffin.” And they came the instant he heard D’s voice.

“A coffin?” D asked, taking a step forward. Though he could no longer see the blade, the director moved too. The unlikely pair crossed the barroom and stepped out onto the planks of the wooden sidewalk. Walking down to the end of the building, they turned to the left. Just before the Hunter did so, he said, “Stay out of this.”

That one icy remark made Lilia, who’d finally started after him, halt in her tracks. “Don’t be such a spoilsport, D.” There was something coquettish about her tone. “The fact is, I’m plenty curious about the cargo myself. You might’ve been called to this village, but I came here after hearing rumors about what that plane was carrying. See, this is the only route up the mountain.”

“What sort of rumors?”

“Let me join up and I’ll tell you.”

“If they’ve hired you, we’ll find out sooner or later, I reckon.”

The sudden hoarseness of D’s voice made Lilia’s eyes widen. They shifted strangely to D’s left hand.

“You—you can talk out of your left hand?”

“Heh heh heh, so the jig is up?”

“You make that voice on purpose? I think you need a third party’s opinion on the matter. It’s crude, and it sounds like some country bumpkin—just the worst!”

“My sentiments exactly,” said D.

“Excuse me?” said the hoarse voice, but since both came from D, Lilia’s eyes bugged again.

“The mayor and the director of whatever-it-was say you’ll see what the cargo is as soon as you reach the aircraft,” said the woman. “That’s kind of obvious, isn’t it? But I want to know
now
.”

“You’d be betraying your employer,” D told her.

“No problem. This clown’s half-unconscious. He won’t even remember I was here—”

Suddenly the girl tore open the right side of her combat vest.

“My goodness!” the hoarse voice remarked with admiration at the full breast that glistened in the moonlight.

“—but if he does remember anything, this’ll throw him off track.”

“Whose coffin is it?” D asked. He sounded as if he’d completely forgotten Lilia was there.

“Duke Gilzen’s.”

The director’s reply drew a gasp. Lilia’s eyes were drawn to D’s left hand. From it, a groan of a voice had croaked Duke Gilzen’s name. “This is too dangerous. What do you say to passing on this one? Did I hear you right, mister? What you say and what you do are completely at odds!”

This time there was no reply.

As if there’d been no place for Lilia here from the very start, D and Director Marquis continued talking.

“The coffin was unearthed from ancient ruins about two hundred miles north of this village. It was made of stone, and devoid of any Noble title, name, or any other description. That in itself was rare, but then all the defenses around the coffin completely defied common sense.” As if even the memory itself were a curse, Marquis shuddered three times, but D’s blade would brook no silence from him. The director continued. “There was no trace of any of the defenses Nobles set about their coffins. Not only that, but it even had a heavy chain wound five times around it. As if to guard against anyone getting out. That’s all well and good—though no similar cases have been unearthed, if the chains were put there by humans, the reason for their actions is understandable. However, the following had been carved into the coffin’s lid with some sort of blade:
The demon Duke Gilzen. Buried in the grave he truly deserves in the manner he has earned by Grand Duke Brubeck and his brave compatriots.
This Noble was sealed away by other Nobles. That, too, has precedent. Relations weren’t necessarily cordial between all Nobles. However, the one ironclad rule among the Nobility was broken by those who buried him. No matter how loathsome their sworn enemy might be, Nobles always interred fellow Nobility in a fitting grave. But the grave we found Duke Gilzen in was—”

“—a wretched little grave marked with a bare stone. What’s more, it was buried ten thousand feet beneath one corner of a vast and sprawling ruin.” At that point, the hoarse voice sounded just like D’s.

“You knew about that?” the director said, staring at D in amazement.

A few seconds passed, and then the hoarse voice said, “A coarse stone grave that couldn’t be described as Noble, set deep in the earth. Actually, just as was carved into the coffin in that dead language, it probably was the only fitting grave for the coffin’s occupant, a Noble so abhorred by his fellow Nobility. Now I finally see. I know why that shudder passed through you, D. The devil Gilzen—the person in that coffin was feared by all the Nobility.”

D pulled back his sword—or that’s how it appeared to the director. Astonished, he blinked his eyes. There’d been no blade there at all. It had been returned to its sheath by the time they’d left the bar. The only reason he’d continued to perceive a sword pointed at his eye was because of the weird killing lust he sensed from D.

The aged director still hadn’t completely roused from its effects when a voice like a cold, still winter’s night filled his ear, saying, “I’ll take the job,” while another, hoarse one seemed to curse, “No, don’t!” or words to that effect.

The aged director’s brain was confused as to what to do until Lilia’s voice returned him to reason, saying, “Then it’s decided, Mr. Director.”

“That it is. We’re counting on you, D. Your job is to locate the coffin and bring it back down safely.”

“And what if its occupant has awakened?”

“You must take him alive.”

“You get no promise of that, where Duke Gilzen is concerned.”

If he were to bring up the matter of his daughter Vera, he knew that would be effective—and yet, he couldn’t do it. The old man nodded. “Understood. In that case, I shall leave it to your best judgment. Nevertheless, I want you to make the utmost effort to bring his body back down here.”

“I can’t do that, either.”

“Why not?”

“The effect bringing Gilzen down here would have would be clear enough. But I can’t allow that. The only Noble cursed by the Nobility must be destroyed in obscurity.”

These must’ve been D’s words. Could it be that D feared the man called Gilzen?

Before the aged director, the hem of the Hunter’s coat flared out.

“There’s some gear I need you to get. Come with me.”

The three of them walked off. Straight ahead lay their destination, which wasn’t the most fitting place in the world for the Hunter—a general store.

–

Leaving the director to settle the bill, D went to the hotel and got a room. Lilia left, indignant, going off in pursuit of the director. Now that D had taken the job, she’d been told that her services were no longer needed. By this point, she was undoubtedly embroiled in relentless, passionate negotiations in some room in the town hall.

“A snow-covered mountain? That’s the worst environment for you! And up against Duke Gilzen, of all people. Let’s pass on this one.”

His left hand had practically been foaming at the mouth ever since he’d stepped into the room, but D replied, “I can’t do that.” His tone was tranquil as always, yet carried a strength. It could probably be called determination. “This job is in my blood. I can’t run or hide from it.”

“The one who put it there took it upon himself to do so. You don’t have to take responsibility for this.”

“If I don’t, who will?”

The left hand fell silent.

“The offer came just as I was about to head into the northern Frontier. They wanted someone to rescue the crew and cargo of an aircraft that’d crashed in the snowy mountains. If there were no survivors, they asked that I bring back the cargo alone. True, dhampirs are impervious to the cold. But even given that, it wasn’t the sort of job I should take.”

“You mean to say the devil made you do it?”

“The cargo was Gilzen’s coffin—it’s safe to say his will might’ve put us in motion.”

“You seem pretty calm about that. And there’s nothing you hate more than being made to act on someone else’s wishes.”

“If Gilzen rises again, what will become of the world?”

D opened his left hand. Ripples spread across the surface of his palm, and a human face appeared. Covered with wrinkles that could be those of the very young or the very old, nevertheless it had eyes swimming with vitality as it gave him a wry grin. “Ruin,” it said.