Страница 76 из 91
He made a sound that was almost a whimper, and flicked the switch on the flashlight. It took a moment for his pupils to constrict in the sudden glare, and a much longer moment for his mind to register the horror of what the light revealed.
And then Woerma
There was someone up ahead.
He flashed his beam at the figure blocking his path. He saw the waxy face, the cape, the clothes, the lank hair, the twin pools of madness where the eyes should be. And he knew. Here was the master of the house.
Woerma
"Let me pass!" he said and directed the beam onto the cross in his right hand, confident that he held an effective weapon. "In the name of God, in the name of Jesus Christ, in the name of all that is holy, let me pass!"
Instead of retreating, the figure moved forward, closer to Woerma
His eyes... oh, God, his eyes... Woerma
Dear God, if you are my God, don't desert me!
Unseen, a hand slipped through the dark and snatched the cross from Woerma
Woerma
TWENTY-SEVEN
Magda drifted slowly back to consciousness, drawn by rough prodding at her clothing and by a painful pressure in her right hand. She opened her eyes. The stars were out. There was a dark shadow over her, pulling and pulling at her hand.
Where was she? And why did her head hurt so?
Images flashed through her mind—Gle
Gle
With a groan she sat up, causing whoever was pulling at her to scream in terror and run back toward the village. When the vertigo that rocked and spun the world about her subsided, she lifted her hand to the tender, swollen area near her right temple and winced in pain when she touched it.
She also became aware of a throbbing in her right ring finger. The flesh around her mother's wedding band was cut and swollen. Whoever had been leaning over her must have been trying to pull it off her finger! One of the villagers! He had probably thought her dead and had been terrified when she had moved.
Magda rose to her feet and again the world began to spin and tilt. When the ground had steadied, when her nausea had faded away and the roaring in her ears had dimmed to a steady thrum, she began to walk. Every step she took caused a stab of pain in her head but she kept going, crossing to the far side of the path and pushing into the brush. A half-moon drifted in a cloud-streaked sky. It hadn't been out before. How long had she been unconscious? She had to get to Gle
He's still alive, she told herself. He has to be! It was the only way she could imagine him. Yet how could he live? How could anyone survive all those bullets... and that fall into the gorge...?
Magda began to sob, as much for Gle
It's not fair!
She came to the rubble fall at the end of the gorge and paused to glare across the rising mist that filled it. Could you hate a stone building? She hated the keep. It held nothing but evil. Had she possessed the power she would have willed it to tumble into Hell, taking everyone inside—Yes! Even Papa!—with it.
But the keep floated, silent and implacable, on its sea of fog, lit from within, dark and glowering without, ignoring her.
She prepared to descend into the gorge as she had two nights ago. Two nights ... it seemed like an age. The fog was right up to the rim, making the descent even more dangerous. It was insane to risk her life trying to find Gle
As she began to swing her legs over the edge she heard some pebbles slide and bounce down the slope beneath her. At first she thought her weight had dislodged a clump of dirt from the edge. But an instant later she heard it again. She stopped and listened. There was another sound, too—labored breathing. Someone was climbing up through the fog!
Frightened, Magda backed away from the edge and waited in the brush, ready to run. She held her breath as she saw a hand rise out of the fog and claw the soft earth at the gorge's rim, followed by another hand, followed by a head. Magda instantly recognized the shape of that head.
"Gle
He did not seem to hear, but continued struggling to pull himself over the edge. Magda ran to him. Gripping him under both arms and calling on reserves of strength she never knew she possessed, she pulled him up onto level ground where he lay face down, panting and groaning. She knelt over him, helpless and confused.
"Oh, Gle
You should be dead! she thought but held back the words. If she didn't say it, maybe it wouldn't happen. But his clothing was soaked with blood oozing from dozens of mortal wounds. That he was still breathing was a miracle. That he had managed to pull himself out of the gorge was beyond belief! Yet here he was, prostrate before her ... alive. If he had lasted this long, perhaps...
"I'll get a doctor!" Another stupid remark—a reflex. There was no doctor anywhere in the Dinu Pass. "I'll get Iuliu and Lidia! They'll help me get you back to the—"
Gle
"Go to my room," he said in a weak, dry, tortured voice. The odor of blood was fresh on his breath. He's bleeding inside!
"I'll take you there as soon as I get Iuliu—" But would Iuliu help?
His fingers plucked at her sleeve. "Listen to me! Get the case ... you saw it yesterday ... the one with the blade in it."
"That's not going to help you now! You need medical care!"