Hunt Beyond the Frozen Fire

Chapter 25

“The good news,” Gabriel said, “is that most of the village is over there, meaning there can’t be more than a few people guarding Velda.”

“From what you described,” Millie said, “I’m not surprised. She’s not gonna want a lot of witnesses to what she’s up to—someone might figure out what she’s doing and try to stop her.”

“The bad news,” Gabriel said, “is that I’m sure the ones she’s kept around her—or, what may be more likely, the ones who refused to leave her side—are the diehards, the ones who’ll fight the hardest to protect her.”

“You really think they’ll fight for Velda the way they did for Uta? They never even met her before a day ago.”

“It’s not Velda they’re fighting for,” Gabriel said. “It’s the queen of Kahujiu.”

Millie threw up his hands. “So what do you suggest, boss? We haven’t got any spears, that gun of yours is empty—”

“They might not know that,” Gabriel said.

“Maybe not the locals,” Millie said. “But I’m pretty sure Velda can count to six.”

Gabriel pulled it from his waistband anyway. “She might have forgotten.”

“And I’m limping like Long John Silver. Won’t be much help in a fight.”

“Then we’ll just have to try and take her without a fight, won’t we?” Gabriel said, and stepped through the skull-framed archway, gun held high.

The first room they came to, with the pools and the flickering oil flames, was empty, the surface of the water in each pool still. They passed through to a short corridor and from there could see around the edge of a hanging animal hide into the room where Gabriel had been staked to the floor. The furs were still there, and the stakes, too, and the spherical machine at the far end atop its tall metal frame. Velda was crouched by its base, facing away from the doorway, peering at what looked like the yellowed pages of a notebook lying spread open on the ground. Anika stood beside her, waiting for a command, while two young huntresses, each gripping the wooden shaft of a spear in both hands, flanked them and kept an eye on the entrance.

Gabriel raised his left hand with three fingers extended, then silently curled one inward toward his palm. A second later he curled the next one in, leaving only his index finger sticking out. Millie nodded. Gabriel curled the last finger in. Sweeping the hide to one side, he burst through into the chamber and ran all out toward Velda, leveling his gun at her back. He heard Millie enter behind him and saw the eyes of the two guards widen as they saw him. Six foot seven, muscled like a stevedore, and completely naked except for the splint on his ankle, Millie would have widened the eyes of anyone who saw him coming toward them—but for these two young women, whose lifetime exposure to the male of the species had been limited to the sickly examples in the men’s tent and more recently the elderly Dr. Silver, Millie must have been an imposing sight indeed. That didn’t stop them from lowering their weapons and racing to block Gabriel’s charge—but it did buy him a few seconds, and in that time he was able to cross half the room.

He tucked his head down and somersaulted past as one guard stabbed her spear at the spot where his chest had been. The other darted to intercept him, but he dodged around her and grabbed Velda as she rose to her feet. She was dressed in a crimson gown like garment that crisscrossed over her barely covered breasts, wound around her slender waist and then flowed open to the ground behind her, revealing every inch of her tan, muscular legs. On her head was the feathered headdress.

Gabriel pulled her to him with one arm around her waist. With the other he pressed the barrel of the Colt to her temple. He held her, squirming, as a barrier between him and the guards, both of whom were making tentative stabs in the air with their spears, trying to find an opening that would let them get at him without injuring Velda. He kept angling and re-angling her body to prevent them from getting through, but one darted her blade past Velda’s shoulder, driving it two inches into his. He jerked back, blood flowing down his arm.

“Tell them to drop the spears,” Gabriel said to Anika, “or your new queen dies.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Velda said. “That gun’s got no bullets in it.”

“It’s got one,” Gabriel said, “and one’s enough.”

“You’re lying.”

“You sure?” Gabriel said coldly and pressed the metal harder against her skull.

Velda didn’t answer, but her squirming subsided.

“The spears,” Gabriel said again. Anika said something to the other two in their native tongue, and the young women responded in kind, the tone this time less musical than martial. Gabriel pulled back the hammer of his gun, producing an unmistakable sound that instantly plunged everyone into silence. “The spears,” Gabriel said.

With angry expressions, the women reluctantly bent to obey, laying their spears on the ground. Millie limped over and collected them. Gripping both spears point-upward in one hand, he leaned on them and breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t only stripped them of their weapons; he’d gotten himself a decent walking stick in the bargain.

“Now, tell them to step away,” Gabriel said, and Anika translated. The two huntresses shook their heads, said something angry in protest, but Anika insisted and they backed off. Not very far, though.

“Tell them to leave the building,” Gabriel said. The protests were louder this time and the women refused to budge. “You take them,” he told Anika. “Leave and take them with you.”

Now it was Anika who protested, in her halting English. “I cannot…go. I needs remain with…queen. With Unterg.”

“Velda,” Gabriel said, “order her to go.”

“You won’t shoot me,” Velda said, her courage returning as more time passed without Gabriel pulling the trigger. “Even if you do have a bullet left, you won’t use it on me. I know you well enough to know that.” And with a powerful twist of her torso that tore the thin fabric of her gown open, she wrenched herself free. “Now!” she shouted, ducking and racing back toward the machine. “Get them!”

The two guards leapt forward, one toward Millie, who swung the pair of spears at her legs; the other at Gabriel, who sidestepped out of her path. The one attacking Millie jumped lightly over the spears as he swept them toward her. She rammed into him, overbalancing him and taking him down to the floor. But he turned as he fell and landed on her, his three hundred pounds pinning her to the ground. She clawed and kicked, but had no way to lift him off her. “Sorry, miss,” Millie said gently, in his sonorous voice. “I sure hate to do this to you.” And he brought his forehead down with a swift crack, smacking hard against her brow. She went out like a snuffed candle.

Gabriel, meanwhile, was circling with the other guard, their arms outstretched. She took swipes at his torso, raking him twice, her nails scraping painfully across his chest. He swung the Colt at her but she avoided it nimbly and came in under his arm with a head butt to the sternum. He staggered back a few paces and she followed relentlessly, flailing at him with punches that carried more force than her slight build would have led Gabriel to expect. He shoved her back and shot a glance over his shoulder. Velda was at the machine again, one hand on the dial that set the coordinates. Her other finger hovered near the black button.

“Damn it,” he muttered, and he flipped the gun in his hand, reversing it so he was holding it by the barrel. He swung, feinting left and then bringing his arm down and up hard from under, catching the guard squarely beneath her chin. Her head snapped back, and her whole body went limp. Millie, who’d just made it back up to his knees, caught her as she fell and laid her on the ground beside the other guard.

“Go,” Gabriel said to Anika, and this time the older woman didn’t argue, just slipped out through the doorway, a frightened expression on her face.

Gabriel turned to face Velda. She was kneeling on the ground by the machine, the notebook in one hand. The numbers on the readout by the dial now said 5231N1317E.

The coordinates for Berlin.

“Don’t do it,” Gabriel shouted, launching himself toward her with one arm outstretched. He had a sudden image of himself barreling down the stone stairs in the castle in Transdniestria, Djordji by his side, Fiona Rush bound helpless at the knife thrower’s mercy. That had been bad enough. This was worse—far worse. “Don’t,” he said again, reaching for her, a note of pleading in his voice. “Millions of people could die—”

“Good,” Velda said, and pushed the button.