Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Six

“He would have killed me,” Genevieve concluded her account of what had happened to Max as they descended the last flight of narrow, curving stone stairs that led to the cable car staging area. “My mother saved my life.”

Having reached her room only a minute or so after Wagner’s death, Max, his cane long gone, was carrying Emmy, who’d fainted in the wardrobe from, presumably, blood loss. Emmy was conscious again, but the urgent need to escape meant that they couldn’t wait around for her to recover enough to walk reliably. According to Max, Berthe had gone directly from the dungeons to assist Otto in case he should need it, so it was just the four of them. Genevieve had her arm around Lillian, who could walk only a short distance without support and was having trouble negotiating the stairs. The smell of burning was strong now even on the lower floors, and gray wisps of smoke were starting to float along even the most remote hallways and stairwells. The sounds of the fire formed a galvanizing backdrop for all the commotion associated with the aftermath of the explosion: shouts, running feet, crashes and bangs from inside the schloss itself, and, outside, the wail of multiple sirens.

Fire trucks, certainly. Police? Ambulances? Would security even let them up the mountain?

What was there to secure now that all the principals were dead?

“Thank God you were there, Baroness,” Max said. “I was delayed. I would have been too late.”

“It’s not the first time I’ve killed an evil bastard.” Lillian’s voice was grim. “Or the first time I’ve killed for my daughters, for that matter.”

Genevieve’s eyes widened at that, but there was no time for questions. They were at the bottom of the stairs.

Max said, “Through that door. Quickly.”

The door he indicated led outside onto a narrow walkway protected by a parapet. As Genevieve shoved through the door and emerged out into the night, the cold wind whipped at her. They were, she saw, at the very base of the schloss. Looking down was a mistake: the drop was staggering. In front of her, at the end of the vertigo-inducing stone path, the slate roof and open sides of the staging area waited. A cable car was already—

With a sense of shock she realized that the reason she was seeing everything so clearly was because the night was lit up with a pulsating orange glow. And the reason for that was the fire raging in the castle above them. The east turret blazed like a torch against the night-black sky. Hot ashes and glowing red sparks swirled downward on the wind. A rising column of dense smoke bisected the pale face of the moon.

“The moon’s out,” she said to Max, who was right behind her, stepping as carefully as she was along the walkway. The parapet protecting them from falling hundreds of feet was only knee-high. One wrong step, one too-strong gust of wind and it would be easy to topple over.

“Here’s hoping we’ve got our ride home.” Max’s reply confirmed what she’d thought. If they could get off the mountain, now that the moon was out, there was at least a chance that a Lysander might be down there somewhere, waiting.

“Hurry, hurry.” Berthe rushed out of the staging area toward them. Emmy, who’d been carrying Berthe’s coat, tossed it to her. Berthe shoved into it—everyone else wore theirs, and in addition they’d taken the time to bundle Lillian into a pair of Genevieve’s trousers and a sweater; the cable cars were open on the sides and the ride down the mountain would be freezing, with no guarantee about what would be waiting for them at the end—and grabbed Lillian on her other side. Together they were able to hustle her into the staging area at a near run, with Max right behind them.

Above them, the battle to save the schloss raged. The hungry stretch of the flames, the roar and crackle of the fire, the shouts of those fighting it, the whirlwind of heat, the burning smell, and what looked and sounded like a battalion’s worth of soldiers rushing around made for a terrifying and terrifyingly beautiful tableau.

It would take just one sharp-eyed soldier to look around and see a cable car descending the mountain.

“There it is,” Lillian breathed as the end of the platform came into view. Otto, his white hair blowing in the wind that blew through the open-sided structure, bundled to his teeth in a coat and scarf, stood there beckoning them on.

A cable car waited, its sides and top bright blue, attached to the cable by a long metal pincer known as a grip. It held six people, standing room only. There were four cars on this circuit, and whether setting this one in motion would get all of them going Genevieve didn’t know. This close, she could hear the rumbling motor. Only the sounds of the fire had kept it from being heard beyond the staging area.

“Get in.” Otto’s voice was urgent. He stood by a giant lever, ready, she assumed, to throw it as soon as they were on board.

Two bodies sprawled on the floor near one wall. Soldiers: they must have been guarding the cable cars. Otto must have had to kill them. So inured to death was she now that she felt barely a twinge.

Between them, she and Berthe got Lillian into the car, their feet clattering on the metal floor. It felt flimsy, with a series of struts holding up the curved roof and a lot of open air in between. Max, with Emmy’s arm wrapped around his neck, was right behind them.

Genevieve looked back in time to see Otto shove the lever forward. The car lurched and lifted, floating above the platform as it headed toward the edge, its side-located door still open. A small, bright explosion in the general vicinity of the lever—“He blew the mechanism so no one can stop us,” Max explained in response to her alarmed look—was instantly followed by Otto bolting after the now rapidly moving car. His intention was clearly to leap on board before it cleared the platform and launched itself out into the night.

A group of soldiers burst out of the schloss, through the door they’d just exited onto the walkway that led to the staging area, weapons in hand.

Loud shots rent the air as they fired at Otto, the cable car and everyone in it.

“Stop! Stop the car!” they yelled, rushing toward the staging area.

Otto dropped, rolled and came up firing a weapon of his own at the soldiers. Two were cut down immediately, toppling over the parapet with hoarse cries. The others—four—dropped to the ground, sheltering behind the low stone wall.

“Otto! Come on,” Max shouted, depositing Emmy on the floor beside Lillian with more haste than care. They’d all hunkered down below the car’s metal wall when the gunfire had started. Looking back, she saw Otto glance toward them at Max’s shout, then race after the car, snapping off shots behind him as he ran.

Pulling a pistol out of his pocket, using the car’s wall as a shield, Max provided cover fire.

“Stop him! Stop him!” Firing back, the soldiers did a hunched-over run toward the staging area. Like the others, Genevieve was nearly knocked off her feet as the car reached the end of the platform and swung out into space, rising toward the first of the pylons. Otto ran toward the edge of the platform, but it was too late, the cable car was away, he would be left behind—

The soldiers fired relentlessly.

“Jump!” Max bellowed, snapping off more shots before thrusting the gun into his pocket. Otto did, pocketing his own weapon as he hurled himself after the car.

He caught the edge, grabbing on with both hands, his weight tilting the car as his body hung unsupported over the terrifying emptiness below.

Max leaped toward him.

As the gunfire continued, Otto cried out, let go.

Max snatched at him, caught his wrist, held on. The cable car climbed, lurching terrifyingly as it reached the pylon and progressed past it, then started its downward slide.

“Give me your other hand.” Reaching down, Max tried to catch Otto’s flailing hand. When he didn’t succeed, he locked both hands around the one wrist he already held.

Genevieve and Berthe both rushed to help. The cable car was descending now, moving fast, closely following the snow-covered terrain. A last jut of land remained before it would launch out over what looked, to Genevieve’s frightened eyes, like a thousand-meter-deep abyss. Terrified that Otto’s weight would pull Max over the side, Genevieve locked her arms around his hips and held on, hoping that adding her weight to his would make a difference. Berthe leaned over the side, trying to grab hold of any part of Otto that she could.

The sound of shots being fired made Genevieve flinch and Berthe pull back.

“They can’t hit us. We’re too far away now,” Max yelled.

Looking back toward the staging area, Genevieve saw that two soldiers had somehow made it onto the structure’s tile roof. Clearly visible in the orange glow, they were pointing their weapons down. From the direction of the white flashes leaving their muzzles, they weren’t firing at the car but at—she gasped as she realized—the heart-stoppingly slender cable supporting the car.

“They’re trying to shoot through the cable,” she cried.

A steady stream of curses fell from Max’s lips. She could feel his muscles bunch as he strained to haul Otto up and into the car. In only a few meters, they would be launched out over the abyss.

A thud, accompanied by the sudden rocking of the car, made Genevieve glance around. Her heart leaped with fear as she saw a soldier clinging to the other side of the car. He must have slid down to the spit of land, leaped up and grabbed hold as the car passed over him.

She’d no more than registered his presence than she heard a metallic clink and he let go, disappearing from view.

Blinking in incomprehension, she looked down at the floor of the car where the small metal object he’d dropped rolled.

“Grenade!” Berthe shrieked. Genevieve had no time to even register what was happening before Berthe cast herself facedown onto the floor—and a tremendous boom lifted the car and her body.

“Berthe!” Genevieve screamed.

Knocked into violent motion just as it lurched out over the seemingly bottomless abyss, the car tilted terrifyingly. Everyone screamed.

“Jesus Christ, the pincer grip’s come off the cable,” Otto yelled as the car came down again, then went back up the other way.

“Hold on tight,” Max roared over his shoulder. Sick with fear, Genevieve held on to him for dear life as the car rocked up into a wild, out-of-control swing that gained momentum as it came down again. For a seemingly endless moment at the top of the next arc, the car lay almost on its side in the air. Genevieve’s heart shot into her throat as she found herself staring down into the sheer black drop below. If she hadn’t been clinging to Max, she thought she might have fallen out. Emmy and Lillian, wrapped up together, their nails scraping metal as they scrabbled for any handhold they could find, screamed hysterically.

Berthe, still on her stomach, motionless since the explosion of the grenade, slid over the wall and into the void.

“Berthe.” Torn from Genevieve’s throat, it was an agonized cry.

For what felt like an endless moment, Genevieve watched her fall into the bottomless blackness like a bird shot out of the sky.

Vivi. Pierre. The memories slammed into her. Her heart set up an endless shriek. She was paralyzed with horror, hurled back into the past.

“Maman!” The voice was Emmy’s, raised in a terrified cry. Genevieve saw her sister, clinging to a roof strut, trying to keep their mother from sliding over the edge.

“Maman!” The past shattered in an instant. Hurling herself toward them, Genevieve grabbed her mother and the roof strut and held on.

The car swung the other way. She was flung to the floor with Emmy and Lillian. The three of them hung on, clinging together, and then when the car rocked up again, less wildly this time, a compulsive glance down into the vast emptiness below revealed nothing but dark.

Berthe was gone.

Heart pulsing with horror and grief, she said a silent prayer.

Max managed to pull Otto inside. Both men dropped to the floor, Max panting and Otto chalk white even in the gloom. His eyes fluttered. His lips parted, trembled.

The swinging slowed, but the car continued to rock erratically. It was tilted now, unstable, swaying with every gust of wind.

“What just happened?” Emmy’s voice was tight with strain.

“Is this thing going to fall?” Genevieve added. They were all breathing hard. She could feel her mother trembling.

“No,” Max said. But she knew him well enough to know that beneath the strong denial he wasn’t quite so sure.

“The car rose with the force of the explosion, and the pincer grip came off the cable. When we came back down, it caught on the cable again, but it’s not locked on. As long as nothing else goes wrong, we should be all right.” Otto was sweating hard.

A pit opened in Genevieve’s stomach as she registered just how precarious their position really was. Sick with horror over Berthe, terrified that something, anything might cause the car to fall, Genevieve made sure Emmy and Lillian were secure, then crawled carefully toward Max and Otto, who clutched his thigh as blood bubbled up between his fingers.

“Berthe was dead before she fell.” Max’s voice was rough with sympathy as she reached them. He was talking to her alone, Genevieve knew, and she could only imagine what her face must look like. “I’ve seen men fall on grenades before. She was killed the moment it detonated.”

He was pulling his sweater over his head, and it took her a second before she understood that he was stripping off his undershirt.

She realized it was for Otto’s leg as he pulled his sweater back on.

Max ripped the shirt into strips, and she tied them around Otto’s leg. Otto leaned back against the wall and breathed.

No one said anything as the cable car reached another pylon and jerked upward again. The loss of Berthe was too raw, too shocking.

Her heart was heavy with sorrow, her eyes stung with tears but there was no time to grieve.

In the distance she saw the flaming torch that was Eber Schloss blazing bright against the night sky. Even as she watched, the highest, brightest flame, the east turret, broke off, plummeting hundreds of meters down the mountain while trailing fire like the tail of a kite.

Max said, “We can’t ride this thing all the way down. You notice they quit shooting at the cable? For all they know, we might be dead from the grenade, but they’ll want to make sure. They’re going to be waiting for us at the other end. We have to get off right before we reach the next pylon. There’s a hill there. After that, we’re above a drop of hundreds of meters the rest of the way in.” Max turned his head to look at Otto. “Did you park the truck where I told you?”

Otto nodded. Then he said, “Yes.” He sounded as if he was trying to gather his strength.

Max said, “When we reach the hill I was talking about, I’m going to drop you women over the side. There’s a place where it’s only about four meters, and the snow will cushion you. Otto, can you hang from your hands for a minute and drop? We need to be careful not to overbalance the car, but we have to do this fast. This particular spot’s not that big, and if we miss it—well, we can’t miss it.”

⇐ Предыдущая 41 42 43 44 454647 48 49 50 Следующая ⇒