Chains of Ice (22 page)

. . . and by the emotions that visibly held him captive: pain, fury, and—oh God—guilt. He had guilt written on his face and in the lines of his body, and that, more than anything, convinced her he told the truth.

I let her burn to death.

He was crazy. Everyone said he was crazy. Crazy because he’d killed his wife? Or crazy because he could do the deed?

She didn’t know. Genny only knew he believed she had betrayed him . . . as his wife had betrayed him.

She took a step back.

John watched cynically. “Are you frightened now, Genesis? Do you understand now what events you’ve set in motion by coming here?”

“That’s what Mariana said all those weeks ago. That I was setting events in motion . . .” The memory of Mariana’s prescient warning frightened her almost more than John’s ferocity. In an intuitive leap, Genny realized what had driven Mariana to warn her . . . and to hate John. “You slept with her, didn’t you?”

For the first time since she’d walked into the cabin and caught him with the photo in his hands, he looked almost normal: confused and wary. “Who?”

“Mariana. You slept with her.”

He hesitated, then shrugged as if it no longer mattered. “She was the first. She was the one who suggested I use her. Why?”

“That’s why she’s so angry. After you’d taught her the meaning of pleasure, you left her alone. And no one knows what you two did. And you don’t care enough to even remember.”

He nodded as if the idea made sense. “That could be true, although why she would be angry, I don’t know. When I dropped her at the inn, she told me she cared nothing about me.”

“You believed her?” Genny laughed scornfully. “John, you’re a fool.”

“I know.” He stared at Genny. “Oh, I know.” He turned his head in an attitude of listening. “What’s that noise?”

At first Genny heard nothing. Then she recognized the distant, threatening rumble, and almost wept with frustration at her own thoughtlessness. “That’s what I was trying to tell you. It’s a mob. From Rasputye. They’re coming for you!”

“Right.” He seemed unsurprised. He caught her wrist. “Come on.”

“What do you mean,
come on
? I’m not going with you. Not after what you said, what you believe!” She twisted her arm in his grip.

“You are going with me, I assure you. I would not dream of leaving you behind to face that mob.” He observed her fright with a distant gratification. “Not even if you deserve that.”

She fought him. “I won’t go!”

“They’ll run you through with their pitchforks, pierce your organs, watch you die.” John pulled her behind him. “Then like a pack of coyotes they’ll tear you apart, limb from limb.”

She stumbled after him, out the front door and into the forest.

“No one would ever find your body. The people of Rasputye know how to make a person disappear.”

He no longer had to pull her. She was convinced. She followed feverishly, down a narrow path and through the trees.

He kept her behind him, protecting her from the branches and the brush, yet maintaining a fast, steady pace. They ran across an open meadow. They dodged through an area that had been clear-cut. They moved so quickly, Genny could barely breathe.

Yet still she heard the mob behind them. Once John led her up a rise. Stopping, he looked back.

She stood, hands on her knees, gasping for air.

His mouth grew tight and grim.

Turning, she saw a curl of gray smoke rising into the air, and at first she didn’t understand.

Then she did. “Your cabin.” And, “My camera!”

“That’s what you’re worried about? Your camera?” He snorted.

“You’re right.” She relaxed. “Lubochka has the photos of the lynx, and I know she’ll protect them with her life.”

John viewed Genny the way he might view a zoo exhibit. “You are a very odd woman. Come on.” Taking her arm again, he started down the trail.

“No.” She set her heels. “Is there somewhere I can hide? I’m slowing you down; I can’t go any farther. . . . And listen! They’re gaining on us.”

He didn’t argue. Leaning over, he picked her up in a fireman’s hold and ran.

He ran smoothly, a man trained to use as little energy as possible for physical endeavors.

Still, the bouncing made her sick, and she cried out, “John, this is foolish. Where are we going?”

“We’re going into the
rasputye
,” he said.

“What do you mean?” She lifted her head, got her elbows under her on his back. “How do we get into the
rasputye
?”

He stopped abruptly, leaned down, put her on her feet, and pointed up. “There. The doorway is up there.”

They were standing at the foot of the fourth of the Seven Devils, the immense stone formations that lifted themselves out of the forest to tower hundreds of feet in the air. Genny remembered what Lubochka had said about the legend surrounding these formations, but at the time Genny hadn’t understood. Now she looked straight up at the black-hued, shiny, jagged stone structures and said, “You’re kidding.”

“Climb.” John pushed her up to the rock and put her hands on the holds. “Climb!”

She’d never done any rock climbing at the gym. But she’d watched. There had always been ropes and safety harnesses involved. If she fell here . . . “Do you even know if this will work?”

“You mean, have I been into the
rasputye
before?”

“Yes!”

“No.” He lifted a finger. “But listen.”

She did. She heard shouting, dogs barking, and close at hand, someone thrashing through the brush.

“You can stay if you want. But the villagers are not going to spare you. If anything, they hate you more than they fear me.” His eyes were that bleached blue of anger. “But if you go up, I can follow you, catch you if you slip.”

I let my wife burn to death.

“Yes, but
will
you catch me?”

“You’ll have to find out.” He pushed her up toward the first handhold. “Now climb.”

She did.

As long as Genny lived, she would remember the look of the granite under her hands, streaked by nature and smoothed by time. Embedded in the black monolith were glittering vertical lines of gray, gold and brown crystal.

When they passed out of the forest, climbing above the trees, she was panting from exertion. Another ten minutes, and she couldn’t stand it anymore. She stopped, took a fortifying breath, and looked down. She could no longer see the ground—only the canopy of the forest waving at her as the wind passed over the treetops.

The higher they climbed, the more the wind blew, whistling eerily.

She looked up. This was the core of some long-vanished mountain, the tallest of them all—a monolith of mythic proportions that pierced the sky and sliced the clouds to shreds.

“Go on.” John showed his military training with his calm voice and steady hand on her back. “It’s not much farther.”

“Much farther where?” She looked up again. They were headed nowhere but
up
.

“You’ll see when we get there.”

They’d told her he was crazy, and had she believed them?
Nooo
. Now she had let him push her up a rock in the middle of the Ural Mountains toward some otherworldly place that didn’t exist.

What would happen when they got to the top? Would he want them to jump like star-crossed lovers to their deaths? Or would he simply kill her as he had killed his wife?

She stopped. Closed her eyes.

He hadn’t done it, had he? He’d been trying to frighten her . . .

And done a good job of it. Fear welled up in her. “I don’t want to go any farther.”

“You’ve got no choice. Look down.”

She heard a shout from below, and opened her eyes and saw Brandon climbing up out of the forest, his gaze fixed on them.

She had feared, suspected, denied that John was crazy.

Now, seeing Brandon’s wild eyes and the way he waved a pistol, she knew what real madness looked like.

With a gasp of terror, she started climbing as fast as she could.

But they had no cover here. He could kill them if he chose.

“It’s all right.” John climbed with her, slightly below and to the left. “He’d have to be a crack shot to hit us at this distance with that pistol.”

True to his prediction, the sound of a shot rang out. Genny ducked as rock chips showered onto them. Another shot. Another. She didn’t understand where they were going; she only knew every upward effort depleted her energy while each bullet increased her need to
hurry
. One shot hit to the right of them. One hit below. The others landed somewhere, she didn’t know where. She only knew she flinched with each report. But she and John were untouched.

Brandon shouted, infuriated by his failure and by their lead, and he climbed faster, better than she could.

Genny tried to speed up. But her palms were sweating, and when she hurried, her foot slipped; her heart stopped.

John sounded so composed. “Don’t rush. We’re going to make it.”

She didn’t dare not believe him.

Yet every time she glanced up, the rock structure seemed to grow taller—and nowhere did she see a way to escape. The slow, steady conviction that she was facing death grew in her.

She didn’t want to die. And she couldn’t stand knowing John believed the worst of her. “You have to listen to me.”

“No, I don’t.” His voice cooled.

“Please, John, I didn’t do anything so terribly wrong.” She jumped when he put his hand on her bottom.

He steadied her. “Do you see that shelf off to the right?”

She did. Cut into the rock, or maybe part of the natural formation, was a five-foot-wide, twenty-foot-long space with a flat floor, three open sides, and the thrust of rock up on one side.

“Get up on it,” John instructed. “Quickly. Brandon has almost caught us.”

She scooted to the side until she could pull herself up onto her stomach. “You’re bigger than he is.”

“Are you sure he used all his bullets?”

Of course she wasn’t sure.

“You have to remember to count,” John said. “Our biggest problem is that one of the Others got to him. He’s on drugs. Or demon possessed. Or both.” He shoved her hard.

She crawled all the way onto the splintered, glassy surface, scooted out of the way, and offered her hand to him.

He reached for it.

Below them, Brandon shouted in triumph.

John jerked, then suddenly slid down and out of sight.

Genny screamed. She heard a smack that sounded like John’s foot against a soft surface.

Brandon groaned.

John appeared again, his face grim. “Back up. Against the rock.” This time he was halfway onto the shelf when Brandon again grabbed his foot and yanked.

John kicked.

Genny sprang forward, caught John’s arm, and helped drag him onto the flat surface.

“Get back!” John shouted at her. Then Brandon proved John’s intuition was right.

Brandon leaped so lightly onto the rock, his eyes glittering with malice and fearless disregard for danger. He was clearly drugged. Bending his head down, he shrieked with fury and charged at John.

With the grace of a bullfighter, John stepped aside and let him pass, then ran after him and shoved.

Like a loose-limbed clown, Brandon tumbled over the edge.

Genny gasped and listened, expecting to hear the yell of a dead man. Instead, she heard an oomph, as if Brandon had had the breath knocked out of him, and silence.