A Castle in the Clouds

by Kerstin Gier

  “Oh my God, Sophie, you’re bleeding.” That was Tristan.

  “Pierre’s my friend.” Perhaps it was the shock, but for a moment I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten here or where Tristan had suddenly appeared from. All I knew was that I’d managed to stagger back into the ski cellar and pick Dasha up. I’d heard Pierre and the Ludwigs ranting and raving in the coal cellar behind the fire door, and wondered whether a door like that was bulletproof as well as fireproof. And how long it would take them to climb up the coal chute.

  No matter. I was exhausted. If only I hadn’t been in so much pain I would have fallen asleep already.

  “I’m so sorry. I would have been here sooner but that stupid Ella girl came running after me and made a scene. She wouldn’t leave me alone.” As he spoke, Tristan was trying frantically to examine me, but without much success. It was too dark, for one thing, and for another thing he wasn’t a doctor. He was a … hmm, what was he exactly? “And then just as I was about to head down the stairs into the laundry room I saw a guy with a pistol … So I came in through the ski cellar, and I saw the trail of blood and followed it. Where were you headed?”

  I had no idea. I must have just started walking without knowing where I was going, and now here we were standing beside the half-moon fir tree, halfway to the stables. Perhaps I’d instinctively wanted to crawl in underneath the tree and hide, like the twin boys I’d looked after on my first day on childcare duty. What were their names again?

  “Ashley and Jeremy. Or something like that. All their clothes were white.” It was weird—my voice sounded completely different from normal. As if it was coming from somewhere outside of me and didn’t belong to me anymore. “All white! Can you imagine? Perhaps they’re going to be dentists when they grow up. Or chefs. Though that ruins your character.”

  “Oh my God, Sophie! How much blood have you lost?” Tristan seemed to be trying to destroy his shirt. He’d pulled it out of his trousers and was now tearing at it with all his might, cursing as he did so.

  The music in the ballroom grew more energetic.

  Why was the orchestra still playing, actually? Shouldn’t everyone be running around calling Dasha’s name by now? And perhaps my name too from time to time? “Why are they still in there dancing with Gretchen while I have to lock the kidnappers in the coal cellar?” I looked up at Tristan. “Did you forget to raise the alarm, Tristan?”

  “No! I told my grandpa. And Monsieur Rocher the concierge. Help is on its way. Monsieur Rocher called the police straightaway, but I didn’t want to wait. I wanted to get back to you. And if Ella hadn’t delayed me…”

  “You should have told Ben. I told you to tell him.” By now I couldn’t manage anything more than a mumble. “But it doesn’t matter,” I murmured. “I just want to sleep. And so does Dasha. Though she just did this really weird twitching thing. It must be nice and cozy under the fir tree, you can come with us if you like. No one will find us there. As long as we don’t giggle.” I stared at the tree. “But the snow’s a bit deep. You don’t have a shovel with you, by any chance?” I closed my eyes. Maybe I could sleep standing up. I just had to make sure I didn’t drop Dasha. I had to hold onto her very, very tightly.

  “Sophie! Don’t fall asleep!” Tristan had finally succeeded in ripping his shirt into pieces and now he wrapped one of the strips around my upper arm. The sharp pain took my breath away for a moment. “Come on, you’ve made it this far. We can’t give up now. We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “You go on without me. You can take Dasha and the diamond, I’ll stay here and sleep for a bit. And I’ll come and find you when I’m … back to normal.”

  Tristan shook me gently. “You have to pull yourself together,” he said. And then he kissed me. Quite fiercely, almost desperately. He took my head in both his hands and pressed his lips against mine.

  The effect was similar to that of Old Stucky’s brother-in-law’s pear brandy. The kiss burned itself into my body and filled me with new warmth.

  “I’ve been wanting to do that ever since the first time I saw you,” he whispered as he let me go.

  “Okay! Okay! I’m awake!” I exclaimed. And it was true. I’d never been more awake in my life. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Yes—the sooner, the better.” Tristan smiled, relieved. “If I can follow the trail of blood, other people can, too.”

  And a voice I’d never heard before replied: “Quite right.”

  You had to be kidding me. I was starting to get well and truly sick of this.

  “Stay right where you are. Either of you move a muscle and I’ll shoot.” From behind the nearest snowdrift, a figure had emerged from the shadows and now stepped into the light. Well, to say “light” was a bit generous, but the moon had risen by now and together with the Christmas lights in the half-moon fir tree it was just about bright enough to see the man standing in front of us. He was a stranger, of medium height, and wearing black leather gloves—which for some reason scared me more than the pistol he had trained on us. It too was fitted with a silencer. Perhaps Mr. Ludwig had bought a double pack of them to save money.

  With his other hand, the man was holding a phone to his ear. “I’ve got them. Down by the parking lot, where that big tree is. You were right; they’re not alone. They’ve got this boy in a tux with them. Right now? Here? Okay.” He slipped the phone into his pocket.

  Right here and now what? Was he going to shoot us?

  “Listen, I don’t know how much money they’ve offered you but whatever it is, I can offer you more,” said Tristan.

  “Yes—we’ve got the necklace. The real one,” I added. If I’d had my hands free I would have ripped my uniform off and dazzled him with the Nadezhda Diamond.

  “You rich people are all the same when you’re in trouble. I know when someone’s trying to make a fool of me.” The man took a step toward us, and now we could see his face more clearly. He looked so … ordinary. “Sorry, but I’ve got a reputation to keep up. I’m the hit man on this job.” And without a moment’s hesitation he aimed the gun straight at Tristan’s head. “Nothing personal, kiddo.”

  “Listen,” Tristan began—and then suddenly everything happened at once.

  The killer’s gloved finger was on the trigger when, out of nowhere, a ski came flying through the air and hit him in the back of the head. With a wild yell, somebody came running at our attacker from behind and shoved him hard.

  It took me a second to realize this somebody was Ben, and another to realize that the gun had actually gone off. The bullet had grazed Tristan’s ear. Judging by his cursing, it must have hurt like hell.

  Ludwig’s hit man didn’t fall over, but staggered forward toward the fir tree, still with the gun in his hand. If he turned around now, it was all over. I hugged Dasha closer to me, knowing I couldn’t hold on to her much longer. Damn it, why couldn’t luck be on our side for once? I really did feel we’d earned it.

  The killer had steadied himself by now. He straightened up under the tree, turned around—and suddenly a gust of wind must have blown through the snow-laden branches, though strangely enough I wasn’t aware of any breeze. The branches trembled and a huge chunk of snow slipped off and landed on the man, who fell to his knees. But that wasn’t all. Now more and more of the branches had started drooping toward the ground, and suddenly all the snow that had collected in the needles of the enormous tree slid off at the same time and fell to the ground. It collapsed onto the man like an avalanche, completely burying him. You couldn’t even see the top of his head.

  Ben, Tristan, and I stumbled backward, staring in disbelief at the huge mound of snow.

  “He won’t be getting out of there anytime soon,” said Ben with great satisfaction. He lifted Dasha out of my arms, which by now were starting to seize up. “Oh my God, you’re bleeding!”

  I knew I should answer him, but I just couldn’t get the words out. Tristan came to my rescue.

  “You’ve only just realized that? I thought you’d f
ound us by following the trail of Sophie’s blood.” Tristan was clutching his ear. Blood dripped through his fingers onto the snow. “Oh, great, now I’m bleeding, too. Damn it, I don’t understand how there can be hit men with guns running around all over the place and nobody doing anything about it! Why hasn’t anyone come to help us?”

  “I came,” said Ben, rather indignantly. “Just in time to stop you getting shot, actually, you ungrateful bastard. And I would’ve come sooner if I’d had even the slightest idea what was going on here.” He looked around and took a deep breath. “Christ, nobody knew you were out here! Everyone thought you were in the basement; they all went down there. Monsieur Rocher took his walking stick, and my uncle took a stapler.”

  “Oh, brilliant,” said Tristan.

  “And I would’ve gone down there, too, if I hadn’t run into this girl who told me to come out to the half-moon fir tree,” said Ben. “She must be one of the kitchen temps, though I’ve never seen her before.”

  “How interesting,” said Tristan sarcastically, but the sarcasm died in his throat all of a sudden as we heard the sound of footsteps. It was them.

  They were walking toward us from the forecourt, crunching across the snow without even trying to be quiet.

  “There’s the fir tree.” That was Mrs. Ludwig. And then Pierre, panting: “That’s handy—now we won’t have so far to walk to the car.” Mr. Ludwig said nothing; he was probably too busy stroking his gun.

  If the paths hadn’t been obscured by massive snowdrifts, we would have seen them coming. But they would have seen us, too. At least this way we had a chance.

  “We should split up,” Ben whispered. “You go that way, Tristan, and they’ll follow your trail of blood, and Sophie and I will take Dasha to the stables. Let the blood drip.”

  To my astonishment, Tristan nodded and slipped away, bent double, along the circular path that Old Stucky had cleared yesterday. I didn’t think it was the best idea—the path led straight into the deserted woods—but Ben was already ushering me toward the stables. I could run a bit faster now that I didn’t have to carry Dasha, but because I only had one shoe on and my shoulder was killing me, it was still a struggle. And though we tried not to make any noise, the snow crunched beneath our feet. (I only crunched on every second footstep, because of my missing shoe.) At last, however, we made it to the stables, and Ben flung open the door and almost pushed me inside. How he was managing to carry Dasha one-handed was a mystery to me—it looked like he had a giant doll clamped firmly under one arm. Still, she was better off with Ben than with the Ludwigs.

  As he closed the door, I freed Dasha from his iron grip and checked to make sure she was still breathing. She was. She was surprisingly unscathed, actually, although she had a bit of blood from my wound smeared on her cheek and we’d lost the sable hat somewhere along the way. And her little feet were icy cold.

  Jesty and Vesty snorted happily. They were standing together in a large stall, poking their heads out curiously over the partition. I surveyed the stables. There were plenty of hiding places here: the hayloft at the top of the steep staircase; the tack room full of nooks and crannies; and all the chests, crates, blankets, and feed bags piled up along the walls. But what good was the best hiding place against a gun that could shoot through a crate, a plank of wood—a horse, even? Nevertheless, I laid Dasha down on a chest in the far corner of the stables and covered her with a horse blanket. Then I looked around for a weapon. A pitchfork was no match for a gun, of course, but it was better than nothing.

  In the meantime, Ben had opened the door to the stall—I had no idea what he was planning. Perhaps he was going to ride one of the horses straight at the Ludwigs and trample them underfoot.

  Standing there by the door in his tuxedo, with his tousled hair and fierce expression and a metal sign in his hand that read NO SMOKING IN THE STABLES, he was the most wonderful sight I’d ever seen.

  “Do you think Tristan will be able to lure them off the scent?” he asked. “Things are going to get pretty hairy now he’s got all three of them on his tail.”

  “Since when did you care about Tristan?”

  “I don’t. I hate him,” said Ben. “But unfortunately I can’t kill him because he saved your life.”

  I couldn’t help grinning. That was possibly a bit of an exaggeration. But by persuading me to jump out of the window, Tristan had at least saved me from getting a reputation as the world’s most irresponsible babysitter. Technically, all the other stuff had only happened because he’d rescued me.

  “I should have been the one to come and save you,” said Ben despairingly. “And instead I spent the whole time arguing with you, telling you there was no kidnapper and you were crazy to think there was.”

  This was true.

  Ben looked at me earnestly. “What I was going to say to you before, but I freaked out … I … Sophie, I’ve fallen in love with you. You’re the funniest, cleverest, bravest, and most wonderful girl I’ve ever met. And just now, when Monsieur Rocher told me you were in danger, I regretted not telling you that. Because I was afraid I’d never get another chance.”

  My eyes filled with tears. I would have liked to throw down my pitchfork, run over to Ben, and kiss him.

  But I couldn’t, because now we heard footsteps outside. And somebody muttering instructions.

  “It was nice knowing you,” I said under my breath, not knowing whether my voice would carry to where Ben stood. But he heard me.

  “I’m sorry it took me so long to find you,” he replied, also in a whisper.

  Just in time to die with me, I thought.

  Then there was a knock at the stable door. A very polite, civilized knock. “Sophie? Are you in there, my dear?” It was crazy, but Mr. Ludwig’s voice still sounded like that of a sweet little old man. Was he alone? Who was with him? Pierre or his wife? Or had the hit man finally managed to extricate himself from the pile of snow?

  “If you weren’t so stubborn, Sophie, you’d be fast asleep on the bed in the Panorama Suite right now,” said Mr. Ludwig jovially. “True, you’d have got in trouble for raiding the minibar and drinking yourself into a stupor while little Dasha ran away and hid, the way she’s done once before, but that would have been a small price to pay compared to what’s going to happen to you now.”

  At last, it was all starting to make sense! The day Don and Dasha had gone missing, it was the Ludwigs who’d drugged them and hidden them in the music room so that tonight, when they kidnapped Dasha for real, everyone would think she’d just run off to play hide-and-seek. It wouldn’t even occur to people that she could have been kidnapped, because they’d all assume she was hiding somewhere just like she had before. And they’d have found me, the drunken babysitter, lying asleep in the corner of the Panorama Suite. The Ludwigs would have bought themselves plenty of time to escape.

  A plan as simple as it was evil. And they would have pulled it off, too, if the thriller writer hadn’t happened to start researching the grand hotel kidnapper and mentioned it to me.

  What was it Tristan’s grandpa had said? Coincidences are all part of God’s plan?

  Ben and I exchanged a glance. He’d obviously made the connection, too, because he gave me an apologetic smile.

  “Don’t you think it’s time you gave up?” asked Mr. Ludwig softly. “You’re not going to achieve anything by being so obstinate. Why make things difficult for yourself? Just give us the child, and nothing will happen to you.”

  Ben shook his head silently, and Jesty snorted.

  “Think of the child,” said Mr. Ludwig. “Think of what you’ve put the poor little thing through.”

  I’d gone through pretty much the entire spectrum of human emotions by this time, but this terrible rage, this righteous anger that I felt now, was new. This was all so incredibly unfair. I didn’t want to die yet. Not without having had my first kiss with Ben. And a second kiss, and a third one …

  “And I think you’d better give up, Mr. Ludwig, or whatever your real n
ame is,” I called. “The police are on their way, and we’ve told them everything. You should get out of here while you still can.”

  Mr. Ludwig laughed out loud. “Very well then—we’ll have to do this hard way.” I heard two oddly muffled thuds, and it took me a second to realize they were gunshots. Mr. Ludwig was shooting through the lock. Then the stable door flew open. “What a shame you didn’t take the opportunity to escape through the back door,” he remarked. “Too late now.”

  In the tack room, I remembered now, there was another way in and out of the stables that we’d completely forgotten about. The realization gripped me like an icy fist. Then Mr. Ludwig burst in through the door and Ben ran at him with a wild shout—the same wild shout as when he’d attacked the hit man. Only this time he was engaged in a hopeless battle against a pistol, and he was armed only with a NO SMOKING sign. I spun around, but it was too late. Mrs. Ludwig was standing behind me, and the last thing I saw was her lunging toward me with a needle in her hand.

  27

  When I woke up, the first thing I saw was a wall full of books. And then Monsieur Rocher’s kind face.

  “Am I dead?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Oh, no. Although there are people who imagine heaven is a library.”

  I realized now what a stupid question it was. The wound on my shoulder was throbbing, my foot hurt, and I was still wearing my chambermaid’s uniform, though one of the sleeves was missing. I was comfortably ensconced on a pile of velvet cushions in one of the big upholstered window seats in the hotel library. Outside the window it was dark, so it must still be nighttime. The curtains had been half drawn, probably to give me some privacy, but I could hear voices, laughter, and the clink of glasses, as if there was still a party going on somewhere. It sounded as though the corridors, the foyer, and the bar were all full of people.

  Someone had tended to my wound, and there was a white dressing on my upper arm. The wound had bled so much that I could hardly believe all it needed was this little bandage.