by Farris, John
The heat from the fire seemed more intense. Thick tears welled from the corners of Gwyneth's eyes; her face had broken out with what she thought were beads of perspiration. Gwyn was stifling. She tore apart the high collar of the blouse, got up and snatched a napkin from the dining table. Shaking dreadfully, she pressed the linen napkin to her face. It came away crimson.
Gwyn screamed. Through a heat haze she saw Robin turn and walk idly away from her. His mind seemed to be on other things. Gwyn stared at the backs of her hands. She was bleeding from almost every pore, tiny perfect bubbles of blood merging, flowing. She smelled of wrack and weed, of the strong salty sea; she felt the running of a fatal tide through her disappearing skin.
Gwyn stumbled after Robin, coughing, no longer able to see him clearly. The tears she wept were tears of blood binding her lashes like glue. Gwyn flowed weightlessly on a rolling wave, spilled on the carpet. She got up gagging and lifted one slow foot, coughed another billowing wave and caught it perfectly, rode sensationally but without effort toward an unforeseen shore.
Robin looked up from his reverie when he heard pounding at the door.
"Gwyn!"
"Go away," he said, but not loudly enough to be heard through the solid oak door.
The room was stinking. He needed air.
The windows were casement-type, twenty inches wide. He opened three of them. Snow blew in, stinging his face.
Better.
All the doors in the house were solid oak and two inches thick. They'd had to get an ax. They were chopping now.
No place for him to go except into the bedroom, and from there into the bathroom. Two more doors. But they had their ax. It wouldn't take them long. Then what?
Robin shivered and breathed deeply. Night and cold and wind-driven snow. Snow was piling up on the inside ledge, flickering across the carpet. He saw big flakes melting on Gwyneth. She was all red where the white had been.
Chopping. The iron-hard wood. Resisting the blade of the ax. They couldn't hurt him. Nothing could ever hurt him.
Little by little the ax winning.
In another half minute the door would be split in two, and he just didn't want to talk to them about Gwyneth. That was over with. What was there to tell? It would be boring.
But he found the snow exhilarating. The frigid night challenged him.
Robin moved quickly to the bar and picked up an almost full quart of Wild Turkey bourbon. He put it inside his jacket for safekeeping. Then he walked to the windows past Gwyneth. The bog in which she lay, limbs twitching in crisis, was spreading hugely on the gold carpet.
He climbed sideways through a window frame, tucking his face below the shoulder to protect it from the brunt of the wind.
The limestone ledge outside was six inches deep, with an icy edge. This side of the house was very close to the swimming lake. He had wondered, last summer, if he could dive from the ledge into the lake. But the water wasn't deep close to shore, and there were all those rocks at the edge of the veranda to think about. He knew he could have made it, but he let Gwyneth talk him back inside. Robin smiled now, remembering the expression on her face, the little drops of sweat that fell from her nose and chin.
Back then it was a lot more fun, being with her.
Robin looked down. He could see a faint glow from lighted windows. Otherwise nothing but the whirlwind, like a spectral white dog chasing its own tail. Sheer stone wall going down, thirty feet or more to the ground.
Going up would be easier. There was a fourth floor, little used, then an attic floor, slate roof not too steep, gables set in all along the roof line, and chimneys: five big chimneys in all. To his left, near the windows, was a well-anchored drain pipe. Little outcroppings of the stone wall went up as far as the copper roof gutter: an inch here, two inches there. Handholds. Everything was very slippery, of course.
But the door had broken at last. Looking in through the windows, Robin saw a gash in the oak panels half as wide as a man, saw a hand reaching to release the lock. Gwyn was almost still, just faintly twitching now, frail as a starved child on all that blotted carpet.
He wondered if he could galvanize her, as he'd galvanized dead animals in the lab, making them jump around. Maybe he could get Gwyn on her feet one last time to greet the door crashers. But it wouldn't fool anybody, even if he succeeded in getting her to do a flip-flop kind of dance. Dead was dead. So let her lie there.
Robin took a deep breath and started climbing up the side of the house, the wind clawing at his back.
When Peter returned to the room at Shadowdown he found the balcony door wide open. The drapes were whipping wildly in the dark, and the room temperature had plummeted.
Gillian was outside clutching the railing, shivering uncontrollably.
She hadn't worn a coat out there. Her hair had frosted. Her eyebrows were a ridge of freezing snow. Peter pried her loose from the railing and carried her in, closed the thermopane door, kicked the heat high, wrapped her in blankets from both beds. She had vomited outside, and some of the mess was frozen like sequins on her sweater.
Gillian clung to him, chattering. He examined her fingers for patches of frostbite and didn't find any, but he knew when her circulation returned to normal she would be in pain. As he held her close one of her ears felt hard as porcelain against his cheek.
"What happened to you, Gil?"
She tried, but she couldn't sound her words. A free hand drummed helplessly against his back. Mindful of hypothermia, Peter laid her down and wrapped her more snugly. In the bathroom he plugged in the courtesy coffee maker. When coffee was ready he supported Gillian with an arm around her waist and made her drink half a cup. Her violent shaking dwindled to random jitters.
"Oww-w-w, my hands, my hands!"
"You could have lost a couple of fingers. How long were you on the balcony? And what the hell were you doing out there without a coat?"
"I lost track of time. I went outside because—cold makes it easier for us to get in touch."
Someone thumped the door of their room and Peter looked around, but it was just another impromptu party traveling up and down the halls. "Come out, come out, whoever you are," a jolly girl said, and someone else laughed. Then the voices faded.
"Did you get through to Robin?" Peter asked Gillian.
Gillian's eyes looked as if she might fly to pieces again.
"Robin's in trouble. He k-killed her, I think."
"What? Killed who?"
"The woman. I don't know who she is. Robin lives with her. Robin bled her out. He did it deliberately. My God. He did it deliberately. Can you get to him? I think he'll die if you don't. I feel him freezing—freezing."
Gillian bent at the waist, hugging herself tightly, crying from the pain in her cold hands, or from the pain she felt for Robin.
"Where is he now?"
"At the house on the lake."
Peter left Gillian crying on the bed. He changed into his snowmobile boots and took the helmet down from a shelf.
"Take me!"
"It's too dangerous, Gillian. Frostbite would be the least of your problems. Lock the door and don't leave this room. I'll be back. If I don't come back stay put until you hear from your father."
"Peter!"
Someone passing by in the hall was trying to sing a lusty German brauhaus song. Another voice picked it up. Peter paused with his hand on the knob for a last look at Gillian. Then he let himself out of the room.
Three revelers were propping up the wall opposite his door, passing a bottle back and forth and trying to sing three-part harmony. They were hairy, husky young men in striped ski sweaters. With them was a snow bunny who wore a bright yellow band on her dark head. She'd made a mistake with the headband, it caught Peter's eye just when she needed an unobserved moment to dip into her shoulder-strap bag. The skiers were not skiers at all, and the party was for him.
Peter didn't hesitate, although he knew it was near to hopeless. The first man off the wall intercepted the arc of the heav
y, high-impact plastic helmet with his chin, and his jawbone snapped in two places. Peter pivoted in the unfamiliar, awkward boots and kicked Hairy Two full in his bulging groin. He had to get to the snow bunny, but she was backing off coolly, some sort of weapon in her hand.
"Jerry!" she barked at Hairy Three, who had come between her and Peter. He dived for the carpet, leaving Peter wide open. Snow bunny fired. Her aim was accurate. The barbs from the Taser struck him in the face. With the circuit closed, a rocketing high-voltage shock pitched him blind against the wall. The electrical current, which could climb rapidly to fifty thousand volts, had disrupted his nervous system and he had no muscular control. As he slumped to the floor, twitching and jumping, he saw her coming closer, thin wires dangling between them. The pain was unendurable.
Turn it off, Peter thought. Off, off! But he was aware of how much she was enjoying it.
Sometimes Robin could hear voices, up there where the snow and wind were wild and haunting. He knew he'd caused a lot of excitement tonight. They'd turned on all the outside floodlights. Dark where he stood above them all, but it was like looking down into a shifting, eerie, golden sea. When the wind slackened briefly and the snow curtains parted he could see bundled figures on the ground. They were still trying to find him with binoculars and handheld spotlights that flickered across the many dormers, parapets and chimneys. But the light never touched him. He was too quick and agile.
For a while the powerful bullhorn voice had pleaded with him. He ignored it. Then, two men had come out from the attic to try to bring him in. The roof was narrowly flat at chimney level, like a catwalk but roughly slated. And always there was the treacherous ice. The men moved nervously and with great caution, not like him. Robin, mildly contemptuous, wasn't in a sporting mood. From his best hiding place within the waist of a figure-eight chimney Robin got around behind a tall man in a blowing trench coat and gave him a shove.
The tall man took the other man with him, a long flailing slide down. One of them, lucky or quick-witted, grabbed and hung on to a copper gutter for a time. Others tried to rescue him, but he was virtually inaccessible and scared stiff. Finally fear got the best of him, or else his fingers froze in their gloves, and he dropped off too. After that the bullhorn voice was angry. Robin laughed quietly to himself, threw down snowballs and dodged the sizzling beams they threw back up at him.
Probably they thought he would get tired, or freeze or something. But the high chimneys provided warmth and adequate shelter. When his fingers became numb he climbed up and thawed them in hot wood smoke. For serious chills the bottle of bourbon he'd brought along was just the thing. It stopped the head-to-toe shakes right away. Unfortunately he'd drunk most of it. There was only a swallow or two left. When the bourbon was gone he sensed that all the fun would be gone too.
Granny Sig helped herself to another glass of Calvados and looked across the second-floor study at Childermass. He was using a walkie-talkie, communicating imperiously with MORG's forward observation post high in the attic. Granny Sig glanced at her watch. It was twenty minutes past nine: Robin had been on the roof for nearly two hours. Outside the temperature had dropped to three degrees below zero, and the wind-chill factor might very well be incalculable.
As Granny Sig saw it, Robin had two choices. He could come in and take his medicine. Or he could stay out there and, inevitably, cavort beyond his means, tumble down and break his neck. All the attention was a blissful narcotic: it inspired him to attempt feats of daring that would confirm his belief in a superhuman prowess. Granny Sig had tried to persuade Childermass to damp all fires, turn off the lights and go to bed. After a while cold and boredom and curiosity might prompt Robin to crawl back inside to find out why he was not the center of attention any more.
Childermass thought that was a lousy idea. Considering the source it had to be lousy. Granny Sig sipped her potent brandy and smiled wryly at Childermass's back.
Well, honey, I'm all you've got right now. But her bravado was, God knows, pathetically hollow. She began to shudder and shake as if in the familiar act of laughter. Instead she produced two large tears, at the outer corner of each eye. They hung there like second sight. Now that Gwyn, Granny Sig's champion and protector, was gone, she had again become unemployable in her profession. If Robin—the wretch—died as well, very likely her life was in real danger. Something had to be done about that, but Granny Sig was at a loss to know what.
She produced more tears, a raining volume. They splashed into her glass.
"What the hell is the matter with you?" Childermass said, walking toward her.
"Just crying the blues, I guess."
"You goddamn Hippy queen. We've got a problem here. Get yourself together."
Granny Sig nodded, then sniveled and sniffed until control and tranquility were restored.
Childermass lifted up his eyes.
"He's like a young goat up there. Sixty feet off the ground in a howling blizzard. Can anyone get through to him? I'd like a professional opinion, care to take a hack at it? What's his mental condition? Is he stable or deteriorating?"
"He's quite insane."
"Don't give me the bad news all at once. What do you mean, insane?"
"Haven't you had a close look at Gwyneth?" Granny Sig said in a fulminating rage. "Don't you realize what he did to her? Given his disposition and unique abilities, still it took concentration. It was an act of premeditated murder. Those two smashed men were pushed off the roof. He's turned into a homicidal maniac."
"Is that treatable? Well, what the hell am I supposed to know! I'm not a psychiatrist. Sane or insane, Robin is still incredibly valuable. I'll leave it to you to deal with him once we get him in."
Ken entered the study. "The cars from Shadowdown are here."
"Where the devil have they been, on the scenic route?"
"Bad roads tonight," Ken said.
"Get 'em up here," Childermass said, and Ken withdrew.
On Childermass's face there was a naked look of anticipation and savage hunger that made Granny Sig feel squeamish and vulnerable, and, when he went all glassy-eyed and groped his aching stump, she wanted to vomit. Didn't, quite. Childermass's breath whistled like doom through his teeth.
"Get me a neat Scotch," he said, eyes on the open door.
He didn't move or speak after that, just stared at the door, waiting. Granny Sig had to put the glass in his hand. They both heard voices. Then Peter Sandza and Gillian Bellaver were brought into the study by a cadre of tough young MORGs.
Peter wasn't standing too well on his own. He looked to be in mild shock. One side of his jaw had been burned by the Taser current. His left arm hung badly. But his eyes were steady as he faced Childermass, and he had his other arm protectively around the frightened girl.
Childermass approached them. For the moment all his attention focused on Gillian. He had a smile for her. That was a kindness she hadn't anticipated; she bit her lip and bowed her head.
Then his eyes slid past her to Peter.
No one else in the room moved or spoke. It was like a wake, for someone who wasn't quite dead yet. Premature feasting would have been tacky. They all watched Childermass for a clue as to how to behave.
Childermass smiled at Peter too: because his smile was so unexpected it seemed ghastly as a gunshot.
"Welcome back, Ace," Childermass said. "Maybe you could give us a hand with something."
Robin was disgruntled. It had all begun to seem pointless to him.
Apparently they didn't want to play anymore. He hadn't heard the bullhorn's urgings for a long time. They'd stopped beaming lights at the roof, trying to illuminate his hideaways. No matter how boldly he exposed himself now, he just couldn't get anyone's attention.
And his feet were cold. He hadn't wanted to think about it, but they were really cold. He couldn't remember when he'd last felt his toes. Toelessness made him a little clumsy, and clumsiness upset him.
"Rob-in!"
Oh, shit. Now who was that?
/> He had to do something to keep from being bored, so he conceived the idea of racing from one end of the long L-shaped roof to the other, just to see how fast he could get there. Skipping over dormers and running that risky high pitch, the icy spine of the roof—probably even a squirrel couldn't do it at night without falling.
Might be fun at that, to fall and fall, float down into a drift for a deep tidy nap. He felt as if he could sleep now, oh really sleep if he—
Later. First he would run. But he had to do something about his feet.
He uncorked the Wild Turkey bottle and drank the last mouthful of bourbon, leaning against a chimney that had been hot earlier, but which now had cooled off. He imagined fires going out one by one down below. They'd had the brilliant idea of trying to freeze him into submission. They wanted him begging at the attic window where he'd had glimpses of faces watching. Let me in, let me in. Like a little kid. I'm thorny. Bullshit. He wasn't going in yet, and when he did he would pick his own window.
"Robin! Robin!"
Fuck off, mister. Or fall off.
No feeling in his feet, the strangest feeling of all. Robin suppressed a giggle and belched instead.
Probably he shouldn't have thrown his shoes away, but he never could have made the vertical climb to the roof in a pair of Guccis. The wool socks had protected his feet for a while, even when they became wet and then stiff as chainmail. Now he had to find another way to warm his turned-off toes.
"Robbbbinnnnnn!"
The man's voice was nearer still, and spookily familiar though distorted by the wind. Wind, shut up! Robin listened. He didn't hear the man again. Well, right now he didn't care to be bothered. Keep coming, Robin thought; see what you get. Walk right on by this chimney and step down. Way down.
Robin set the bottle carefully on the slate behind him (might have missed a drop or two), and laboriously peeled the frozen socks from his feet. He unzipped his pants. He pissed jerkily at first, then produced a satisfying flood backed by the nearly full quart of bourbon he'd drunk during the last two hours. Pissed hard on his frozen feet, which he couldn't distinguish from the pieces of slate he was standing on. Flashlight, its snow-crazed beam just touching him.
