Chains of Ice

by Christina Dodd

  Ah. A sign. A man like him believed in signs.

  He smiled at Dina, a farewell smile.

  She shook her head, started walking rapidly toward the mansion.

  But Irving ignored her. He turned toward the door, and as Gary walked past he called, “Gary!”

  Gary came back, stuck his head in. “Do you need something, Irving?” He looked so normal, so composed, not at all like a man who had made a deal with the devil.

  “I was wondering”—Irving left his walker behind, tottered toward the door—“if you could help me down the stairs.”

  John stood in the basement of the Arthur W. Nelson Fine Arts Library antiquities department, speaking to Rosamund about the possible routes a lone woman might take to cross Asia, when his cell phone rang. He glanced at the caller, answered, and listened to the frantic voice on the other side.

  As the blood drained from his face, Rosamund asked urgently, “What is it?”John shut the phone. “It’s Irving. He fell down the stairs. He’s not expected to live.”

  Chapter 45

  The guard let Gary into the building, then walked him to the elevator and used his key to call it. When Gary stepped inside, the guard pushed the button for the forty-fifth floor, then stepped out as the door shut.

  Gary shot right up, no stops, then walked out and took a corner to the next elevator. Another guard, another key, another forty-five floors, no stops. Another floor. Another corner.No guard this time. No one else on this floor.

  He stepped inside the waiting elevator, straightened his tie, and pressed the lone, unmarked button.

  He didn’t know how high he climbed. He only knew his heart was thumping, his hands were sweating, and his usual bold confidence plunged as the elevator rose.

  How had he, Gary White, famed team leader for the Chosen Ones, arrived at this moment?

  Oh. That’s right. John Powell had put him into a living death. The bastard.

  And Osgood had rescued him from his coma. Revived him, given him mobility, speech, escape from the nursing home, from the smell of antiseptic, from the eternal, measured drip of the IV. For that, Gary owed Osgood everything: loyalty, service, success . . . and that success had eluded him. In two and a half years, he’d done nothing to impress Osgood.

  The elevator opened. He walked through the empty foyer to the tall, wide door. Knocked.

  His knuckles barely made a sound against the solid wood.

  Nothing happened. He heard nothing, saw nothing.

  He put his hand on the doorknob, took a breath, turned it, swung it open.

  “Come in, Gary.” Osgood’s quiet, Southern-tinged voice grated Gary’s nerves into fine shreds.

  Gary strode into the office.

  It was large. The walls were gray. The carpet was thick. The room was empty except for a vast, almost clean, gray metal desk. A puddle of light shone on its surface, right in front of the shadowy figure in the chair—and Gary found himself transfixed by the man’s soft, veined, aged hands, so busily using a fountain pen and sorting papers. Hands that looked as if they belonged to a polite, pampered older gentleman.

  Gary knew better.

  “Shut the door behind you,” Osgood said.

  Gary shut the door.

  The silence that followed was broken only by the scratch of the pen.

  Osgood was a shadow behind the light: not tall, not handsome, with no distinguishing characteristics at all. The casual onlooker on the street wouldn’t even notice him. That was Osgood’s strength. That, and the fact that before he had invited the devil into his soul, he had been a ruthless, immoral, uncaring businessman.

  That kind of possession made for a precise and evil melding of man and demon.

  In New York State and all up and down the East Coast, Osgood controlled the gambling, the prostitution, the liquor, the drugs, the clubs. If corruption existed, he had a hand in it.

  Now Osgood put down his pen and folded his hands on top of the papers. “Gary White. What have you done for me lately?”

  Gary felt the exultation rise in him. At last, he had something substantial to report. “I pushed Irving Shea down the stairs.”

  Osgood didn’t stir a muscle. He simply stared at Gary. Maybe he hadn’t heard. Maybe he was incredulous.

  Gary didn’t blame him. What an unexpected boon!

  So Gary repeated, “I pushed the old bastard down the stairs,” and this time he allowed himself a charming smile and a voice full of pride.

  “I heard you.” Osgood’s voice was curiously neutral. “How did this fortuitous event come about?”

  “He asked me to help him down the stairs.” Gary laughed at the memory. “He’s so old, it was nothing to get him to the top and give him a push. He tumbled right down.”

  Another pause. “Did he yell?”

  “Nope. Just went over and over and over. But when he was at the bottom, I yelled enough for the both of us.” Osgood’s lack of response was starting to bug Gary. “He’s got a broken hip for sure, a concussion, maybe a broken back.”

  “When you got down to him—I assume you ran down to him?”

  “Yes! In case anybody had seen it, and I babbled all the necessary horror and concern.”

  Osgood disregarded Gary’s acting skills. “When you went down to him, was he conscious?”

  “Yes, and in so much pain.” It did Gary’s heart good to remember.

  “Did he say anything?”

  “No, I’m safe. He couldn’t speak.”

  “Did he look at you? Did he smile?”

  Gary froze. How had Osgood known that? “Yeah, he smiled. Brain damage, I figure.”

  “You fool.” Osgood rose from behind his desk.

  Gary had always thought Osgood’s constant eerie calm was the most frightening thing he’d ever seen.

  He was wrong.

  Because he’d never seen him in a rage before.

  Osgood paced toward him, and his eyes glowed—actually glowed—blue and virulent. “The old man suckered you.”

  Gary backed up. “No, he didn’t! What do you mean?”

  “The one thing, the one thing that would hand the Chosen Ones an advantage in this battle is the willing sacrifice of a life.”

  “Come on. A willing sacrifice wouldn’t make that much diff—” Gary realized the foolishness of telling the devil himself how eternal laws worked. “Besides, Irving didn’t know what I was going to do.”

  “He didn’t? Really? Didn’t he always dislike you? Hasn’t he suspected you since your resurrection? And he asked you to help him down the stairs?” Osgood’s face came nearer. He was merely a bald, middle-aged man of slight build. Innocuous. Except for the blue flames burning in the depths of his eyes. “What does that say to you, Gary?”

  Gary had never heard his name spoken in quite that tone. “He’s senile.”

  “He set you up. He made of himself a willing sacrifice.” Osgood took Gary’s chin in his hand.

  His touch set off a sound in Gary’s brain.

  Drip.

  Then another sound.

  Drip.

  And another.

  Drip.

  Gary knew that sound. He had lived with that sound for four long years.

  It was the endless, measured splash of an IV. “No!” he shrieked and writhed, trying to get away.

  “Why not?” Osgood controlled him effortlessly. “We made a deal. I would perform a miracle. You would rise from your coma and walk and talk and be my creature for the rest of my life. You would serve me with all your heart and soul.”

  “I have! I am!”

  “Yet although you live in the same house as the Chosen Ones, you don’t lead them, because you clumsily tried to get them killed once too often. You don’t bring me information, because they don’t trust you. Now you tell me you pushed Irving Shea down the stairs, exactly as he set you up to do.” Osgood squeezed Gary’s face so hard Gary felt veins explode under his skin. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t put you back in a coma right now.” />
  In a rush, Gary said, “John Powell—I’m blocking his power.”

  The office grew quiet.

  Osgood’s eyes narrowed. The blue flames flickered.

  Gary prayed to a deity he no longer served.

  Then—

  “Better.” Osgood caressed Gary’s chin, and lightly slapped his cheek.

  The dripping stopped.

  Gary almost collapsed in relief.

  Osgood walked back to his desk. He seated himself again, leaned back. In his calm, emotionless voice, with eyes empty of necromancy, he asked, “How are you blocking John Powell?”

  Gary settled on the most straightforward story he could tell. “When the Gypsy Travel Agency tested me, they decided I was a powerful mind reader. But I always knew there was more to me. Before John Powell tried to kill me, I was practicing with throwing thoughts. I put a couple of people into comas myself.”

  “And aren’t we proud of ourselves,” Osgood mocked.

  Gary wanted to snap at him. Instead, he took a long breath and reminded himself that he had trickles of sweat easing down his ribs from his fear of this man—this creature. “When John took my leadership position in the team, I wondered how best to hurt him—and serve you, of course. I thought if I could gain control of his powers, he’d be afraid to lead them into danger for fear he’d kill them like he killed his wife and his friends.”

  Osgood nodded thoughtfully. “Good. Undermine his confidence in himself and their confidence in him.”

  “Exactly.”

  “How’s it working?”

  “Like a dream. He tries to send out one of those big power waves—hold up a falling tree—and I block him. Or I don’t. The Chosen don’t trust his power to be there when it’s needed. He doesn’t trust it, either.” Gary loved what he was doing to John. “The team still praises his strategies, but they know they can’t depend on him.”

  “Good work. You can walk the city streets for another day.” Osgood picked up his pen and started to write again.

  “Why don’t you just let me kill him?”

  The pen paused. “The rules of the game don’t allow that.”

  “We . . . that is, you blew up the Gypsy Travel Agency and killed them all.”

  “Not quite all, although at the time I had great hopes . . .” That imperturbable voice showed signs of stress. “But that was apparently not so much a victory for me, as I had dared to imagine, but part of some eternal plan to show the Chosen Ones they had wandered off course.”

  “I thought we were destroying them once and for all.” Then Gary cowered, thinking he had overstepped the bounds.

  “If we handle this correctly, we are.” Osgood’s calm was back in place. The pen proceeded to its task.

  Gary lingered for a moment, terrified to leave, terrified to stay. At last, he decided he had been dismissed, and sidled toward the door.

  With cool disinterest, Osgood said, “Don’t make me angry again. I would hate to have to return you to that slow, helpless, humiliating descent into hell.”

  Gary nodded, a single dip of the head. He reached for the doorknob.

  Osgood spoke, freezing Gary in place. “Do you remember that leather pouch you brought back from the glacier in Chile?”

  In a panic, Gary cast his mind back. Glacier. Chile. Which team had that been?

  Amina hanging on him in adoration. Sun Hee preferring John to him. The glacier melting around them, taking out the cave that contained only a leather sack . . . Gary had been so disappointed. “The sack with the bones inside?” He couldn’t keep his disdain from his voice.

  “That’s the one. It has become an object of interest.” Osgood wrote with meticulous care. “Bring it to me.”

  “It’s a relic. What if it blew up in the explosion of the Gypsy Travel Agency?”

  Osgood looked up. “There is more than one sack. Any of them will do.”

  “B-but I don’t know how many or where to start . . . ?”

  Osgood stared, heavy lidded.

  Gary felt a shock go down his spine. “I’ll find it. Or them. I’ll get them.”

  “You’ll know you have all the sacks when the contents can be used to construct a whole skeletal hand.”

  “Right. I’ll find it.” Gary corrected himself again. “Them.”

  “Soon.”

  “Very soon.” Gary wrenched the door open and fled toward the elevator.

  Behind him, the door closed with a soft, controlled click.

  Chapter 46

  Genesis Valente stood on the street at the bottom of the long flight of stairs looking up at Irving Shea’s mansion and the massive door that led inside.

  She didn’t want to do this, didn’t want to take the chance of seeing John Powell.But she had no choice. She owed the Gypsy Travel Agency, had no other way to pay them back, so she hefted her backpack onto her shoulder, climbed the stairs, and rang the doorbell.

  At once, the tall door swung open.

  A young woman stood there, dyed black hair cut short on one side, long on the other, pale skin and red lips.

  She smelled like the earth; her aura glittered like diamonds.

  She drew her talent from the earth, from the stones.

  Genny tried not to draw in her scent, not to see her gift. But that was impossible. Ever since her sojourn in the rasputye, she had seen, smelled, felt the truth of the people she met. It was almost as if she had been given a gift . . . a gift she didn’t want.

  The young woman’s black, kohl-lined eyes were red rimmed; she had been crying. “What do you know?” she asked. No, not asked . . . demanded.

  “I know I’m looking for Irving Shea,” Genny said cautiously.

  Those vulnerable eyes filled with tears, and they freely ran down the girl’s cheeks. “He’s not here.”

  “Maybe I should come back at a better time . . .” Genny started to back away.

  The girl wiped at her face, smearing her makeup. “He’s in the hospital.”

  Genny halted. “Oh, no. What happened?”

  “He fell down the stairs. His hip is broken and maybe his back. He’s in surgery now, but . . .” The girl bit her lips to contain their trembling.

  Genny was not the same woman who had gone to Russia over two years before. The time she had spent in Asia, the Philippines, Australia and the Pacific Islands had changed her. She had survived a blinding snowstorm, learned to fight in a revolution, used her business skills to start a wildlife rescue organization. She had looked back on her life in New York and Russia, at the relationships she had formed, and resolved never to be taken in again.

  But this woman made her heart melt. Genny stepped inside the great entry hall, dropped her backpack, and put her arm around her. “I’m so sorry. I’ve met Irving Shea, and this is a grievous blow.”

  “He’s always been there for us, you know? Lately he’s been sort of shaky, but sharp as a tack. We never thought he’d take a tumble.” Charisma pulled half a dozen tissues out of her pocket and noisily blew her nose.

  “I’ll get out of your way as soon as I can, then.” Genny unzipped her backpack and fumbled inside. “I’m Geneva Bianchi, and I came to—”

  The girl stopped crying and stared. “You’re . . . Geneva? You’re Genesis? You’re Genny?”

  Genny knew she had introduced herself with her new name, Geneva Bianchi, the name on her passport, the name she’d paid for in Hong Kong.

  Yet this person had immediately leaped to the right conclusions.

  The girl flung her arms around Genny’s neck. “Of course you are! Why didn’t I realize it at once?” Her bracelets jingled in Genny’s ears, and it seemed they spoke a language.

  “I’m sorry. Do we know each other?” Nothing about this girl was familiar, but then, business school was two and a half years ago, and since then, Genny had done almost nothing to remind herself of that time.

  “No. No! I’m Charisma Fangorn. I’m one of the Chosen.” Charisma jingled her bracelets in Genny’s face. “I listen to the sto
nes. I hear the earth sing.”

  “Yeah. I know.” Genny hated knowing that the girl was gifted, and how.

  She wanted to return the inner sense that the rasputye had given her . . . but it seemed customer service was closed. “What does that have to do with me?”

  “I know you.” Charisma jumped up and down, her short pleated skirt jumping, her strappy sandals doing a jig. “I know you! You’re John’s true love!”

  A middle-aged butler hurried toward them and shut the door. “Miss Charisma, this isn’t appropriate. Please take your guest into the library.”

  Genny reached into her backpack again. “No. Wait. Really, I can’t stay. I simply wanted to give you—”

  “McKenna, do you know who this is?” Miss Charisma kept one arm tightly around Genny’s shoulders. “This is Genesis Valente!”

  “Ah. Mr. John’s young lady.” A smile broke across McKenna’s austere face.

  Mr. John’s young lady? Genny was not that. She had never been that.

  McKenna continued. “A most propitious arrival, Miss Genesis. Welcome, indeed. May I take your coat and backpack?” He placed a hand on her collar.

  She shrugged him off. “No, I’m not staying. I just dropped by to give you something.”

  “To Mr. John, no doubt. But I fear he’s not here right now.” McKenna’s voice grew scratchy, as if he fought unwanted emotion.

  John’s not here. The tension in Genny’s shoulders relaxed.

  “He’s at the hospital awaiting word of the surgery.” McKenna glanced at the old-fashioned dial phone on the entry table as if willing it to ring.

  “McKenna got to Irving’s side first.” Charisma patted his chest.

  “What Mr. Irving was doing moving around without his walker, I do not know. When he recovers, I shall give him a stern talking-to.” McKenna’s dour appearance was belied by the moisture in his eyes. But he recovered immediately. “You two will want to make your introductions in the library. Make yourselves comfortable. I’ll let the other Chosen know. Well, there’s only Miss Jacqueline. Mr. Caleb, Miss Isabelle, and Mr. Samuel are away on a mission; and of course, young Aleksandr is in class. Nevertheless, Miss Genny, you’ll meet them all soon enough.”