Chains of Ice (30 page)

Irving nodded and tried to hide his grin in his cup. “Indeed, I did.”

“I thought I had him under control. Suddenly I didn’t, and he charged. Luckily he charged
me
rather than Charisma and the infant, and I was able to keep his attention until she got over the fence.” John winced and rubbed his posterior. “Bit me right in the ass.”

Irving chortled.

“My mark, the one given to me by the lynx . . . it is fading.” John put his hand to his shoulder. “If the prophecy is right—if I need my true love to maintain my powers—then I suppose it’s a miracle I’ve kept it for this long.”

Irving put his cup down and got serious. “You’ve lost all power? Big power? Little power?”

“I’ve only ever possessed big power.”

Irving said, “Hmm.”

The old guy might be failing physically, but John had to admit he was still sharp as a tack. “All right, I’ve been trying to cultivate subtle powers, too. Genny told me . . .” He cleared his throat. “Genny told me I should work on performing the little things. For instance, tying my shoes. Or pouring tea.”

Irving put an alarmed hand over his teapot. “This is my favorite!”

“I won’t try it right now. I’ve been working on the fine, er, motor skills ever since I left the
rasputye
, but with little success.” John looked down at himself, every bit of him clad at the Big and Tall Shop. “I’m not a delicate kind of guy.”

“So your substantial powers are waning and your subtle powers aren’t trained.”

“The team is handling the problem with its usual spirit—they’re working around it as needed, and laughing at me every chance they get.”

Irving smiled at him. “You’ve built a good team, John Powell.”

“I inherited a good team, Irving Shea. I only wish there were more of them. The Others seem to be spreading like oil on wet asphalt.”

“We can have only seven Chosen.” Irving was firm about that.

“The Others aren’t playing by that rule anymore.”

“We
have
to play by the rules. I’ve broken the rules and we’re paying for it now.” Irving’s voice got old-man wobbly.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. It’s just a suspicion. But I know the truth is here”—Irving rapped the open book with his knuckles—“if only I could find it.”

“The prophecy is in that book?” John leaned forward.

“This book”—Irving waved a hand around—“or one of these.”

John collapsed back into his chair. “Or one of the thousands of books in Rosamund’s library.”

“There, too.” Irving caressed the page, and his eyes lingered on the words. “I was reading about sacrifice. It’s fallen out of fashion in the modern world, but sacrifice in the truest sense is an effective gadget.”

John straightened in his seat. “What kind of sacrifice?”

“Traditionally, the sacrifice of one’s life is the most valuable. To offer your body and soul to be extinguished for a good cause, or to save another’s life, not knowing for sure what awaits you beyond this plane? It erases many faults, expunges many sins.” When Irving looked up, his eyes were sharp and intent. “I mean, obviously if you’re a mass murderer, one moment of sacrifice isn’t going to cut it. But if you’ve made a mistake, a big mistake, I think perhaps that sacrifice might suffice to correct it. Of course, there’s the obvious problem of the possible accompanying pain and torment involved in the passage from one world to the other, not to mention what will occur on the other side. But that’s my problem, isn’t it?”

John tensed. “Planning to sacrifice yourself, Irving?”

“I would if I thought it would do any good.” Irving snorted. “But I’m so old, in the big scheme of things, my life isn’t worth much. Now, about the loss of your powers—is this like that last time you had problems?”

The last time he had problems?
John almost wanted to laugh at Irving’s euphemism . . . but it wasn’t funny. “You mean when five people died? No. When that happened, I didn’t dare examine the circumstances for fear of what I would see. Then I talked to Genny about it, and she said . . . well, she said some scathing things.”

“About Gary, I presume.”

“And me. Since hearing her, I’ve met Gary again—she gave me the courage to look back, and I think . . .”

“You think what happened wasn’t your fault?”

“I’m not trying to shift blame,” John said hastily, “but we shouldn’t have been there in the first place.”

“Gary liked facing impossible odds and succeeding, as he did when his team entered the glacier and he brought back a leather bag full of bones.”

John sat quietly, remembering his struggle against the weight and the force of the melting ice. “I was so close to dying that day. I was lucky.” Or he had thought he was, for he lived, saved everyone’s lives, and had become engaged to Sun Hee. “But without luck, I’m not the equal of a force of nature.”

“Fair enough.” Irving nodded, accepting John’s explanation with seeming ease. “Do you think Gary is behind your problem? Your loss of power?”

John felt off balance. He was trying to explain why he no longer felt at fault in the five deaths which had sent him into exile—and Irving offered no resistance. “You’ve taken my explanation for my failure as if you never doubted it. If you believed in me after we lost five lives on the volcano, why didn’t you make it known when I returned to the Gypsy Travel Agency headquarters?”

“As you know, I’m one of the few people who has never liked Gary. I always saw the tragic flaw in him, that grandiose desire to be the top, the best, the most acclaimed. Not because he valued the best, but because he valued the acclaim.”

“Yes. We all see that fault now.”

Irving continued. “But, John, when the incident happened, I didn’t know you well, and circumstances looked bad.”

“Because everyone knew I had just discovered Sun Hee was sleeping with Gary.” The old grief welled up in John. “I hated the humiliation. Of course I did. And I myself wondered if I’d allowed my team to be killed for some madness of revenge. But then—if I was trying to kill them, why would I carry Gary to safety? Sun Hee was weak, but when Gary seduced her, he knew exactly what he was doing. He’s the one I would have killed.”

“Gary is a troublemaker here, and I’m afraid that his miraculous recovery was not as miraculous as it seemed.”

John had heard Irving’s theory before, that Gary had somehow escaped the coma that held him trapped for so long by making a deal with the devil. “It’s hard to sign in blood on that dotted line when you’ve got no brain waves.”

“Yet he regained consciousness.” Irving sighed. “You should have thrown him into the fire. It would have saved us a lot of trouble now.”

The two men sat in concurrence, quietly sipping their tea.

Irving roused himself. “But the truth is, killing a person to save yourself trouble down the line is foolish. Sometimes that person has an important part to play, and we mere mortals can’t judge the impact one man makes on the world.”

“Genny told me that even if I was guilty, I was sacrificing my life for no good reason when I should be working to make up for whatever horrible things I had done. That’s why I returned.”

“She was a wise woman, your Genny.”

“Yes. I was the one who was stupid.” John confessed, “When I found out she lied to me . . . I should have known she couldn’t be all real. I thought she was interested only in the lynx. And me. It is my destiny to fall for women with ulterior motives.” He hated feeling sour about that, but nothing in the past two and a half years had changed those facts.

“What was her ulterior motive?”

“Don’t be disingenuous, Irving,” John snapped.

Irving looked startled. “I didn’t know I was.”

“She was there because you had sent her to recruit me. She seduced me for your sake, Irving, and the sake of the Gypsy Travel Agency.”

“I didn’t send her,” Irving said flatly.

“Sure.”

“I didn’t send her,” Irving repeated. “The Gypsy Travel Agency didn’t send her. If she wickedly seduced you, it wasn’t for us.”

“But if it wasn’t you . . . ?”

“Then it was for someone else who knew the extent of your powers and believed they could recruit you.”

“The Others? No!”—John slammed his fist on the table—“I don’t believe that of Genny. She wouldn’t do that.”

“Not knowingly, perhaps.”

John stood. He sat. “Her father was a real asshole. Used to work for the Gypsy Travel Agency.”

“I remember Kevin Valente all too well.”

“She told me he was the one who pushed her into the commitment to talk to me. Do you think he would have manipulated her to work, all unknowing, for the Others?” John stood again, and paced around the room, trying to put it all together.

“Kevin Valente was the businessman version of Gary White. He sold out the Gypsy Travel Agency, and for his chance to succeed, I believe he’d sell his own grandmother.”

“Or his own daughter.” John felt sick.

Irving poured himself another cup of tea. “You know, John, if you’ve got a fatal flaw, it’s that you
expect
betrayal. You say she had an ulterior motive for seeking you out. People always have ulterior motives—but most of us just call them
motives
.”

“She could have told me the truth.”

“Is it possible she made the same observation about you that I have? That you expect betrayal and respond accordingly?”

John stopped pacing.

“Genny didn’t tell you all the facts about herself for fear you would reject her. As it turned out, she was justified. I think she simply did whatever she could to stay close to you.” Irving sounded meditative. “Myself, I would have been flattered to know a woman wanted me so much.”

Since John had entered the room, he’d been poleaxed with one truth after another. “I can’t do anything about this. She’s dead.”

“Maybe. But for the past two years, despite the prophecy that the Chosen Ones’ gifts are tied to their connection to their true loves, your powers have been stable. Reliable. Doesn’t that mean she’s alive?”

“She can’t be alive. She came out of the
rasputye
into a blizzard. I spoke to the couple who found her. They said she was dead. Or rather”—John remembered all too clearly—“the wife said Genny was dead, that they cremated her. Why would this woman lie?”

Irving raised his eyebrows.

John answered his own question. “Because Genny asked her to. Because Genny didn’t want me to find her. Because I didn’t believe in her.”

“Women are funny about stuff like that.” Irving rubbed his chest. “Believe me. I know.”

“Even after they said that, I searched for her. For months, I scoured the area looking for any sign of her.”

“Perhaps she was hiding. Perhaps she moved quickly. Perhaps . . . the Others captured her and wreaked their vengeance on her for her failure to recruit you.”

John leaned across the table. “For the love of God, Irving, don’t even imagine that.” Yet now, the idea took hold in John’s head and his fear grew in leaps and bounds. The scratches the lynx had given him ached; he pressed his shoulder and realized they had opened.

Pulling his hand away, he stared in amazement.

Blood and gore stained his palm. “I have to go look for her.” John could scarcely breathe. “If she’s alive, I have to find her at last. And when I do . . . I will dedicate my life to her.”