Hunt Beyond the Frozen Fire

by Gabriel Hunt

  “Damn it,” Gabriel muttered, struggling to shake off the effects of the blow. “Not that good.”

  Millie shrugged. “Sorry,” he said again.

  Gabriel moved cautiously to his right and Millie mirrored him, circling. Gabriel spoke low, between clenched teeth. “Play it like you’re big but slow. That will buy us a little time, at least.”

  Millie nodded and took a couple of wide, bearlike swipes at Gabriel who danced back out of his reach. Millie raised his foot to kick Gabriel in the knee and Gabriel took two swift and agile steps up the stone, pushing off and landing behind Millie as the big man’s foot slammed into the wall above the drainage hole. A cascade of dust and grit sifted down from between the bloodstained stones. Millie limped backward, selling the pain in his leg like it was the Brooklyn Bridge.

  Gabriel leapt onto Millie from behind, clinging to his back and Millie slammed him backward against the wall.

  “I’m gonna throw you,” Millie said. “You ready?”

  “No,” Gabriel said. “But go ahead.”

  Before Gabriel could catch his breath, Millie peeled him off and tossed him through the air. He landed hard against the opposite wall and slid down. Seconds later, Millie grabbed Gabriel by his shoulders and hauled him back to his feet.

  “You ever watch pro wrestling when you were a kid?” Millie whispered.

  “Not so much,” Gabriel said, swinging at the side of Millie’s head. The big man jerked under the impact more convincingly this time. “But my sense was those guys used a padded mat.”

  “Not always,” Millie said, and flung him across the pit, where he crashed into the wall above the drainage hole for the second time. Gabriel felt the impact in his spine. He also felt one of the stones in the wall shift behind him, knocked loose by the successive impacts. He was struck with a sudden idea.

  He lunged back at Millie and wrapped an arm around his neck, pulling Millie’s ear down close.

  “Throw me against the wall by that hole again,” Gabriel whispered. “As hard as you can.”

  Millie did as instructed and Gabriel felt the loose stone shift again. One more blow and it might come free.

  “Throw a kick,” Gabriel whispered. “Use the same leg as before and really play up that you’re hurt.”

  “Got it,” Millie said.

  He swung wide with a stiff kick, missing Gabriel by a mile and knocking the loose stone out of the wall. Gabriel threw a kick of his own, striking Millie in his supposedly injured leg. Millie howled and went down on one knee. The loose stone was about the size and shape of a cobblestone, and it was heavy when Gabriel hefted it.

  Millie was right: the women wouldn’t believe that Gabriel could best a man of Millie’s size and strength bare-handed. And if the women thought they were sham ming, they might well take it out on Rue and Velda.

  “Sorry, Millie,” he whispered, positioning himself so his body was blocking the queen’s view. “I owe you an aspirin.” And he brought the stone down, the muscles in his arms wrenching tight as he checked his swing just before connecting. The stone still hit, with a crack that carried all the way back up to where the women were waiting to hear it. Millie dropped as if he’d been shot.

  Gabriel let the stone fall to the ground and raised his arms, breathing heavily. Were they cheering up there? It sounded like it. Then he saw something raining down on his upturned face. Flower petals. He turned back to where Millie lay, crumpled and unmoving. He was struck with the sudden fear that maybe he really had hurt his friend. He dropped to a crouch beside him. There wasn’t any blood that he could see, but—

  Millie’s eyes cracked open narrowly. “Just like the pros,” he whispered, and grinned. He closed his eyes again.

  Gabriel felt a flood of relief as he stood again. But it was short-lived. An instant later, he felt a sharp jab in his chest, like a nasty hornet sting. His fingers flew to the source of the pain and found a colorful feathered dart protruding from his left pectoral muscle. He pulled the dart out and flung it away but before it hit the ground, the world around him went liquid and untrustworthy. Black and red shapes swirled around him and he unceremoniously followed the dart to the floor.

  Chapter 20

  Consciousness came to Gabriel in stages, like a shadowy striptease. First there was an awareness of a sound, a nearly subliminal hum just above the very bottom range of his hearing. Then a hazy sense of firelight flickering through his closed eyelids. A lush, sultry aroma not unlike crushed frangipani; and underneath the cloak of sweetness, an odor distressingly sharp and electrical, like ozone. Gabriel stirred, tried to stretch but couldn’t. When he opened his eyes, he discovered he was bound naked and spread-eagled on a pile of furs. Each limb was tied to a thick stake driven deep into the dirt floor, allowing perhaps a three-inch range of movement in his arms and only slightly more in his legs. Off to his right and level with his chest, there was a fifth stake, but instead of anchoring a part of his body, this stake was tied to a rope stretching straight up and across the dim, distant ceiling.

  Gabriel strained and stretched his neck, evaluating his surroundings. As he appeared to be in a high-ceilinged room, it had to be another chamber inside the large central building—nothing else in the village was nearly that tall. By craning his neck, he could just make out, behind him, a triangular doorway draped with tanned skins. Past his feet, a pit of glowing coals burned sullenly in the center of the room, raising the already high temperature, and past that was an odd wooden structure. An enormous tree trunk had been split in half and the halves—each the size of a good-sized canoe—hollowed out to form two long chutes that were propped up in a steep V-shape on a wooden scaffold. The rope tied to the fifth stake approached the chutes across the ceiling and then branched when it got to them, one end running down the middle of each. Above this, a large circular hole in the ceiling let in a shaft of reddish light. What ever lay beneath the shaft of light, where the angled chutes intersected, was hidden behind an elaborately woven screen decorated with more of the white blossoms that had rained down on Gabriel in the pit and decorated the queen’s bath. Whoever owned the floral concession around here was making out like a bandit, Gabriel thought.

  Movement at the top of the chutes drew Gabriel’s eye and he squinted, trying to make out what was going on. The rope was twitching, almost as if it were attached to something inside the chutes that was squirming or struggling to get out.

  He turned back at the sound of footsteps behind him. Queen Uta stood beside his head, towering over him with her strong legs planted wide and her fists clenched. She had on a minimal outfit of fur, one strip across her breasts and a minimally broader one around her waist. Her platinum hair had been brushed loose, flowing nearly to her hips.

  “I see that you are awake, Gabriel Hunt,” she said. “And that you are prepared to perform your sacred duty.”

  Gabriel was mortified to find that she was right. Even tied down as he was and with no shortage of other things on his mind, Gabriel was responding to the sight of her sleek, oiled and barely dressed body much as Millie had when they’d first encountered her. He wished he had on at least the few strips of barkcloth their captors had allowed them then, to conceal his reaction, but the stripped-off kilt lay in a pile by his feet.

  “I’d be better able to perform my sacred duty,” he said, “if I weren’t tied up like this. Why not at least release one of my hands? Wouldn’t you like me to touch you?”

  She smiled and crouched down beside him, caressing his bare chest.

  “Yes, Gabriel Hunt, I would like you to touch me,” she said. “But I cannot free your hands, not even one, because I cannot be sure that would be how you would use it.”

  “Are you afraid I will hurt you?” Gabriel said.

  “Hurt me?” She shook her head. “This is not my worry. I cannot allow you to kill yourself, not before you give me a child.” She slid a slim stone knife out from a strap of leather she wore around one leg. She set it on the floor beside the fifth stake.

&nb
sp; “Kill myself?” Gabriel frowned at the knife. “Why would I do that?”

  “It is a shame that you cannot ask your predecessor, Dr. Silver, this question.” She leaned in close. “But I am afraid his answer died with him.”

  Gabriel felt a cold elevator plunge in his gut. From the far side of the room, he heard an anguished, muffled cry and then a rhythmic pounding, as of a fist beating against a wooden door. He looked toward the scaffolding with its V-shaped construction on top and saw that the right-hand chute was rocking. And even muffled, he recognized the voice.

  Velda.

  “What have you done with her?” Gabriel said. The left-hand chute showed signs of movement as well. “Are they both here? The women who came with me?”

  The queen stood, her eyes narrowing.

  “Why do you care?” she asked. “Were they your lovers?”

  “They’re members of my team,” Gabriel said. “I’m responsible for them. Like you are for your people.”

  “You are responsible for them no more,” she said. “They are in their place and have their duty. You have responsibility for only one woman now.” She ran her hands up over her glistening golden flanks and taut belly.

  The muffled shouts grew louder on the far side of the room.

  “Your women are blessed,” the queen said. “They have the privilege to become brides of Unterg. Their sacrifice assures a strong healthy daughter.” She reached out to touch the fifth rope. “At the exact moment when the seed of child is put into my body, I cut this rope. The brides go to their destiny, and my daughter comes into hers.”

  “What destiny?” Gabriel said, his throat constricting as he spoke.

  “Unterg is a jealous god,” the queen said. “We must make him satisfied or he will give me a sick son instead of a strong daughter.”

  Gabriel strained against the ropes holding him down. “You can’t do this,” he said. “I won’t let you.”

  “Enough,” Uta said. “It is time. First, we ask the blessings of my ancestors.”

  She stepped out of Gabriel’s sight for a moment and returned with a woven basket in her arms. Setting it down, she drew from its depths an intricate oval headdress studded with crimson feathers and carnivore teeth that looked razor sharp. She placed it reverently on her head. “We must both wear the sacred objects of my ancestors. This is the crown of my grandmother’s grandmother. And for you, the crown of my grandfather’s grandfather.” She bent over the basket again. As she did this, Gabriel turned his attention to the stone knife lying on the dirt floor. It was a good six inches out of his grasp. He struggled to reach it, all the muscles in his arm stretching to their limit, but there was no way.

  The queen turned back, a flat, dark cap of some sort held between her hands. This was no primitive construction of tooth and bone and feathers—it was a man’s hat, somewhat battered and faded. From the back, it looked like it had once been part of a military uniform. “My grandfather’s grandfather was the first father of our tribe. You have a great honor, Gabriel Hunt, to wear his articles.”

  She bent over him and set the cap on his head, then stood to admire it. Gabriel shook it off onto the ground beside him and saw her face twist with anger. “You will wear it,” she said in a tone of cold command. “You will not cast it off!”

  Gabriel turned his head, curious to see if he could figure out where the cap originally came from. Maybe whoever had flown that ancient plane…?

  His jaw dropped open in speechless astonishment when he saw the tarnished metal insignia above the black patent leather bill.

  An eagle.

  Clutching a swastika between its claws.

  Chapter 21

  Queen Uta snatched the Nazi cap up off the ground and cradled it to her chest. She brushed it off gently and replaced it on Gabriel’s head, pulling it down firmly so the fit was tight. Then she strode purposefully across the room to the woven screen. “You will obey me,” she said. “You will obey, or your people will suffer the wrath of Unterg.”

  She reached out and folded back the screen.

  At the base of the two wooden chutes a spidery, jointed metal framework held up a round machine shaped like a fat, riveted steel onion. A verdigris-covered nozzle protruded from the bottom while above the top of the machine a giant concave lens perhaps six feet in diameter was suspended in metal clamps. The space between the lens and the top of the device seemed to shimmer and crawl with distorted waves like heat coming off summer asphalt. Looking at the shimmer made Ga-briel’s eyes ache and his head throb almost instantly.

  The hum that had been buzzing softly in Gabriel’s ears since he came to was louder now.

  And at the base of the two wooden chutes, trussed hand and foot and gagged, were Rue and Velda, each woman struggling furiously against her bonds. The chutes were angled directly at the shimmering space under the lens and would have deposited them there if it hadn’t been for the rope descending from the ceiling and looped tightly around their wrists.

  The machine was giving off a pulsing red glow that amplified the reddish light coming down from above.

  Across its side, the metal onion bore the same stiff-winged eagle-and-swastika design as the military cap Gabriel had on. Slightly off center beneath the Nazi insignia were faint red letters: UNTERG. To the right of these letters, Gabriel could barely make out the ghost of three more, faded nearly to invisibility. An A…what might have been an N…and the last nothing but a fragment of a curve that could have belonged to an O, a C or a G. If you didn’t speak German, you might puzzle over the word, but Gabriel did speak German and had no difficulty guessing what it had been. Untergang. It was a word with several meanings, none of them good.

  Ruin. Extinction. Doom.

  “Witness,” the queen said, “Unterg’s power.”

  She picked up a loose stone from the ground and carefully threw it into the shimmering space between the lens and the top of the machine. There was a blinding flash and the ozone smell sharpened until it was almost overwhelming. The stone was gone without a trace. Velda began to shout again behind her gag, and this time Rue joined her.

  “Let them go,” Gabriel said, struggling but unable to get free.

  The queen shook her head. “They must be given to Unterg,” she said. “It is the only way to assure a healthy daughter.”

  “But you said if I didn’t obey my people would feel Unterg’s wrath—now you’re saying they’ll be given to Unterg even if I do obey.”

  “Oh,” Uta said, “I did not mean these two. I meant your people. You are American, you said. Is it not so? I meant I will spare the people of America—for a time—if you obey. If not…”

  She turned a dial on a control panel at the base of the machine, near the nozzle. A metal cover slid open and Gabriel saw an old-fashioned display flip through a series of numerals with a loud clatter, like a mechanical sign in a train station. The whirling digits finally came to a stop and Gabriel strained to read them from across the room.

  3853N7702W

  Coordinates—38 degrees, 53 minutes North, 77 degrees, 02 minutes West.

  The coordinates for Washington, D.C.

  The nozzle at the base of the machine dropped an additional six inches with a loud clank, exposing a box like section at its base. A black button ringed with red protruded from its side.

  “Through the earth’s core,” Uta said, “through the belly of your land and up from beneath, Unterg’s power will stream death upon your people. It was for this—to establish Unterg’s throne, and from it to stab at the depraved and greedy heart of America—that the first fathers came to this land some sixty-six cycles past.” A downcast look came over her face. “But Unterg took our fathers, one by one, before they could complete their task. When the last among them lay dying, he passed his duty to his queen. She passed it to my grandmother, who passed it to my mother, and my mother passed it to me, as I will pass it to my daughter and she to hers: to trigger Unterg’s wrath when the command comes from afar, from Defuror, Unterg’s emi
ssary on earth.”

  Gabriel winced. “Der Fuehrer,” he said.

  “Yes,” Uta said, “Defuror. We are to await his instruction—as we have awaited it with patience and reverence and humility for cycle upon cycle, generation upon generation. We are told to wait, and we wait; we are prepared to wait until the end of time. Unless,” she said pointedly, “a queen shall have no heir. In this event, the last queen must trigger Unterg’s wrath before she passes. And a queen may so trigger it sooner, if she believes her breeding of an heir is at stake.” She tapped the black button gently with a forefinger. “I shall, Gabriel Hunt. I shall trigger it, if you refuse to give me a daughter. I shall trigger it before your eyes and a thousand times a thousand of your kinsmen shall die, their blood upon your head.”

  Gabriel tried to picture Lawrence Silver lying where Gabriel lay now, a frightened old man, a survivor of the camps, held prisoner once more by captors in Nazi regalia, being forced into complicity with a murderous plan left over from the Third Reich. With no prospect for escape, no way of knowing his daughter was on her way with help. Gabriel could understand why, when the opportunity arose, the man had seized it and chosen to end his life.

  Gabriel would be given no such opportunity.

  The queen came forward, walking slowly toward where he lay. “I shall do all this,” she said, “all these deeds of blood and calamity, I shall reave your world till none are left to cry for mercy; with no remorse shall I do these things, unless you give me what I require.”

  She lifted one hand to her hip and drew open the knot holding the fur wrap closed around her waist. It fell to the ground, leaving her bare beneath. Then she did the same with the fur top she wore, releasing her heavy breasts. The decorations of polished bone had been removed and in their place, hanging from the points of her engorged nipples, were circlets of tarnished metal. As she came closer, Gabriel recognized them as the lightning-bolt epaulets from an SS uniform.