Ice

by Linda Howard

  Gabriel couldn’t swing again because Darwin was inside his reach, so he shifted his hands apart on the limb and used it like a bar, making short, hard jabs with the ends and lightning-fast moves to block the wild punches Darwin was throwing, beating at Gabriel with the pistol. The flashlight Darwin had dropped had rolled to the side, pointing away from them, so they weren’t much more than a massive shadow. Gabriel was taller, more muscular, but Darwin was still riding a meth high and was impervious to pain. He landed a solid kick behind Gabriel’s knee and Gabriel went down, but he dragged Darwin with him.

  Where was Niki? Lolly realized she could no longer see the woman and she looked around wildly, half-expecting Niki to leap out of the darkness at her, or rush to Darwin’s defense, but … no Niki. Either she’d seized the opportunity to run, or she was biding her time, looking for an opening to either shoot Gabriel or bash him in the head. Lolly couldn’t tell which of the rolling, cursing, grunting men on the ground was Gabriel and which was Darwin, so likely Niki couldn’t either.

  Abruptly Lolly realized that she was too far away to help Gabriel if Niki attacked. Without letting herself think about how likely she was to get hurt or killed for her efforts, she copied Gabriel and felt around on the ground until she found a stick of her own, a broken limb that had fallen recently enough that it hadn’t rotted yet. It wasn’t as hefty as Gabriel’s limb, but it was better than nothing. No longer worried about remaining quiet, Lolly rushed toward the fight.

  Where was Niki?

  Lolly grabbed the fallen flashlight and frantically shone it around, trying to spot the woman. If she was there, she was hidden behind a tree or a bush. She could be behind them, to the left, the right, anywhere … even on the way back to the house. Lolly had seen only the two weapons, but that didn’t mean there weren’t more—belatedly she realized that the fact that Darwin was trying to hit Gabriel with the pistol instead of just shooting him meant that he’d fired all the bullets in the gun and didn’t have any more, at least not with him.

  Was Niki out of bullets, too? Was she running after more, or simply running? No way to tell. Lolly darted a quick glance at the fight. Darwin had torn Gabriel’s knit cap off and was trying to head butt him in the face. Quick as lightning, she darted in and slapped Darwin in the face with her stick, which wasn’t big enough to stop him but did briefly pull his attention to her. Gabriel seized that brief moment of inattention to punch Darwin in the face with his gloved fist. The sound was sickening, but Darwin didn’t seem to even notice.

  Gabriel was bigger, more muscular; he should have been able to take Darwin down in a matter of seconds, Lolly thought, then remembered how crazed meth could make people. She’d read reports of meth users who had been shot several times by the police and who not only didn’t go down, but kept attacking. Darwin fought like a man possessed, sounds of maniacal rage growling in his throat like an animal.

  She had never seen a real fight before, just the Hollywood staged version, never realized how much dirtier and noisier it was. This wasn’t standing toe-to-toe and slugging it out, this was kicking and punching and gouging and anything else the two combatants could do to hurt each other. There were grunts and curses, the sickening thuds of gloved fists against flesh, the icy ground crunching beneath them. Their heavy winter coats prevented any significant damage to their bodies, prolonging the fight and increasing the odds that Darwin might land a lucky punch.

  Maybe she could help. Lolly eased closer, raising her stick so she was ready to strike if the chance presented itself, but holding on to the flashlight handicapped her because she had only one free hand to hold the stick. She couldn’t worry about Niki; the woman was either there or she wasn’t. All she could do now, Lolly thought, was help Gabriel in any way she could.

  The grappling men rolled almost out of the light, and when they stopped Darwin was on top. He drew back his hand and something was in it. Lolly didn’t hesitate, didn’t try to identify what he held; she simply leapt forward, swinging the stick with all her might, and began trying to beat the hell out of the man who’d tried to rape her. She dropped the flashlight, gripped the stick with both hands, and hit him again and again, on the head, the shoulders, anywhere she could reach.

  With a howl he launched himself off Gabriel, straight for her. She staggered back, sick terror blooming in her stomach, her chest. Her feet went out from under her and she went down, Darwin on top of her and his hands fumbling for her throat. He began squeezing.

  Then he was gone, lifted off her as if he were a child. Gabriel’s expression was cold and fierce as he hammered his big right fist over and over into Darwin’s face. Darwin was too stunned by the blows to fight back; he threw his arms across his face to protect himself and began sobbing. “Don’t hurt me, man, don’t hurt me,” he pleaded. “I ain’t done nothing to you, have I? Huh? What’d I do?”

  Lolly struggled to a sitting position, staring at him in disbelief. He’d changed from enraged animal to pathetic loser in the space of a few seconds.

  “Shut the fuck up,” Gabriel snarled, breathing hard. He wrenched Darwin’s arms behind his back, shoving them high, and looked around for something to secure them. “Get the laces from his boots,” he said to Lolly.

  She didn’t want to get anywhere near Darwin, didn’t want to touch him in any way, but she made herself half-crawl to where Gabriel held him, taking care to stay to the side so he couldn’t kick her in the face. Gingerly she began picking at the leather lacings. They were wet and hard to handle, and she had to use both hands.

  Gabriel’s head swiveled as he looked around. He was still breathing hard and fast, and his expression … he was really pissed, to put it mildly. “Where did the other one go?” he asked Lolly. There was a savage note in his tone.

  “I don’t know,” she replied. She was doing some hard breathing herself, and she paused a moment to take a few deep breaths. “She turned off her flashlight, and I guess she ran. I haven’t seen her since then.”

  Gabriel turned his attention back to a weeping Darwin. He wrenched Darwin’s arms harder and higher, putting agonizing strain on the shoulder sockets. “Do you have more ammo or weapons back at the house?”

  “No,” Darwin said, shaking his head. “I swear, we don’t. Buddy, please, you’re tearing my arms out of my shoulders!”

  “I’m not your fucking buddy,” Gabriel said. “And if you lie to me, I will tear your arms off and beat you to death with them, got it?”

  “I’m not lying!” Darwin shrieked. Snot was running from both sides of his nose, dripping in his mouth. “Niki and me, we just have the two guns and what bullets are in them. That’s usually enough. Ow! Ow! Stop, please stop!”

  Usually enough. Lolly wondered how many other homes he and Niki had invaded, how many women he’d hurt, raped, murdered.

  Deep in the forest, there was a sudden crack as sharp as a gunshot, followed by a crash and a thud. For a moment of sheer panic Lolly thought Darwin had been lying and Niki did have another weapon, but then she realized what had happened: limbs were beginning to give way under the weight of the ice.

  “What the hell was that?” Darwin asked, a new fear in his quavering voice.

  Neither Lolly nor Gabriel bothered to tell him what was happening.

  “Now what?” she asked, looking up at Gabriel before returning her attention to Darwin’s boot laces. They didn’t know where Niki was; Darwin was unarmed, would shortly be secured, but it wasn’t as if they could call the sheriff and have their prisoner collected and jailed within a matter of minutes. She didn’t want to spend the night in the same house with him, not even if Gabriel hog-tied and gagged him, and she didn’t think they could manage to get him down the mountain tonight. With limbs already beginning to come down, it was too dangerous to go anywhere tonight.

  Gabriel opened his mouth to answer and Darwin suddenly threw himself backward in a convulsive movement that knocked Gabriel off balance, and wrenched his arms free from Gabriel’s grasp.

  With an inh
uman roar he went for Lolly. Crouched down the way she was, she didn’t have a chance to run. He knocked her flat; she was hit with a force that knocked the breath out of her, and banged her head hard on the frozen earth. She heard a ripping sound as she slid across the rough, icy ground, then he was on her and trying for her throat again.

  Gabriel recovered his balance and launched himself forward, both hands grabbing Darwin by his coat collar and slinging him off Lolly. Darwin surged to his feet, came at them again. Gabriel pivoted, planted his foot, and smashed his elbow backward into Darwin’s face. There was a sickening crunch, and Darwin was suddenly boneless, his body oddly slack as he slumped to the ground. His eyes were open and staring, and twin black trickles of blood leaked from his nostrils.

  Gabriel spared him only the briefest glance. “He’s dead.” His tone didn’t reveal a shred of regret. The elbow to the nose, smashing it and driving bone fragments into the brain, hadn’t been an accident.

  Deep in the forest, another limb gave up its life with a sharp crack, and crashed down. Hard on the heels of it came another one, this one much closer.

  Lolly was still on the ground, her eyes huge dark pools in a stark white face as she stared up at him. He leaned down and caught her arm, pulled her to her feet. “We have to go back to the house,” he said. “We can’t walk out now, not with limbs already coming down.”

  Solemnly she nodded, but she asked, “What about Niki? That’s her name,” she explained in a vague tone. She gestured at the body on the ground. “His name is Darwin. Was Darwin.” A faint note of satisfaction leaked into her voice. Looking around, as if searching for the missing woman, she added, “She might be at the house.”

  “Maybe,” Gabriel said grimly. “If she is, I’ll handle it. From what this asshole said, they’re out of ammo. If she didn’t go back to the house, if she’s out here somewhere … she can freeze to death, for all I care.”

  Still Lolly just stood there, and he gentled his tone. “Lolly, we don’t have a choice.” He bent and collected the flashlight Lolly had dropped, as well as Darwin’s empty pistol. The pistol he slipped into his front pants pocket. His own flashlight was still secured in his coat pocket; he’d use the other one as long as the battery held out, because who knew how long they’d be in the house before the road was clear? If the electricity at the house hadn’t already gone out, it would soon.

  “I know,” she said, her voice subdued.

  God, he was cold. His knit cap was gone and the damn miserable rain had formed ice crystals in his hair. Not even his good cold weather gear could keep his body warm when he was losing so much heat through his uncovered head. He shivered convulsively, but forced himself to concentrate. He could see that Lolly’s pants were dark with moisture from mid-thigh down, moisture that would leach all of her body heat away, too. They had to get dry. They had to get warm. The exertion of the fight had warmed him while it was happening, but now the letdown was leaving him even colder, and Lolly would be in worse shape because she had neither his muscle mass nor the experience in handling the aftermath of an adrenaline burn.

  He turned her toward the house, his arm behind her back, urging her forward. “Are you cold?” he asked, though of course she was.

  “I was,” she said. She sounded exhausted. He’d expected that; it was normal. “I don’t think I am now, though. But I can’t feel my feet.”

  He shuddered again, his body trying to generate some heat, and suddenly he noticed that Lolly wasn’t shivering. Shit, that wasn’t good. She was hanging in there now, but he had to get her to the house in a hurry.

  He left Darwin’s body where it was; the only other option was to carry it out, and he had to devote what energy he had left to getting himself and Lolly out of these damn woods and back up the mountain to the house.

  Cautiously they worked their way back to the pavement. They’d have to stay on the weedy edge where they’d have at least marginal footing, which meant they would be beneath the dangerous and increasingly ice-coated trees that leaned over the road, but they really had no choice because the road was the fastest way up. Whether they stayed in the woods or went by the road, they had to face the possibility of being crushed by a falling limb, so the less time they spent under the trees, the better. He kept his arm around Lolly, pushing himself as well as her. She didn’t know how close to the edge he was skating, how much of an effort it was for him to walk, and he wanted to keep it that way. She’d been a trouper so far, but who knew where her breaking point was? He didn’t think she’d give up, but now wasn’t the time to find out.

  He made his voice purposely steady and without emotion. “Earlier today, before I got to the house … did Darwin hurt you?”

  He expected an immediate “No” that he wouldn’t believe, or a painful “Yes” that would make him want to go back to the body and kill the man all over again, but Lolly hesitated before answering. “He tried. He almost—” Her voice broke and she stumbled.

  Gabriel stopped, pulling her to a halt, and he turned the flashlight so he could see her expression. Her face was white and pinched with cold. The poncho had torn, and ice crystals had formed on her hair, just as they had on his. But her gaze was steadier now, even if her lips were blue. He cupped her face in the gloved hand that wasn’t holding the flashlight. “He won’t hurt you now.”

  Her answer was a nod, and in spite of the dire circumstances, it was relief that changed her expression. “Yeah, I know. You killed his ass.” She paused, then added, “Thanks. Good job.”

  He almost laughed. Reassured, he started them walking again. She was going to be okay. Lollipop was turning out to be a pretty tough cookie. He continued to steady her as they walked up the hill, one slow, cautious step at a time. He stayed alert, watching and listening for the woman—Niki—but all he could hear was wind and the straining limbs of old, ice-covered trees.

  Chapter Nine

  Niki struggled to her feet. When that man had just appeared out of the darkness like a demon or something and attacked Darwin, her instinct for self-preservation had kicked in and she’d run like hell, without even a single thought about helping Darwin. She’d been looking over her shoulder instead of paying attention to where she was going, and she’d stepped in a shallow dip. Her feet had immediately gone out from under her, and she fell hard on her back, hard enough that she had lain there for a minute, too stunned to move.

  When she’d been able to roll to a sitting position she’d just sat there on the frozen ground, watching Darwin and the man as they fought. She was out of bullets, so she couldn’t do shit to help Darwin. The best thing she could do, she thought, was take care of number one; it wasn’t as if Darwin would have been rushing to her aid, if the situation were reversed.

  She couldn’t see all that much, because of the trees and the way the flashlight had rolled when Darwin dropped it, but as she watched the fight she thought maybe Darwin would get hurt. The son of a bitch who’d rescued Lorelei was a big guy. She also thought that maybe Darwin would win the fight, because he was a lot stronger than he looked and he fought dirty. This was one of those wait-and-see situations, though she didn’t want to wait too long. If things started looking bad for Darwin, she’d be better off taking care of herself. She had to get back to the house, get the ice they’d left on the coffee table … she needed some now, right now. It would make her feel a lot better, get rid of this crawling, antsy feeling.

  But she must have knocked herself silly when she fell, because she was a little dizzy. It wouldn’t be smart to head out too soon and fall again, really hurt herself. She’d sit there for another minute or so, see what happened to Darwin. Maybe she’d get to watch him kill the big dude.

  So she sat very still, even though the ground was so cold the sensation went through her clothes like a sharp knife, even though her ass got wet, and she watched as Lorelei Helton came rushing out of the darkness, a stick raised high, and hit Darwin in the head with it. It didn’t slow him down much, but it distracted him, and suddenly Niki k
new this wasn’t going to end well for Darwin. Two against one just wasn’t fair.

  Then Lorelei began beating at Darwin with the stick, over and over, whap whap whap. He’d had the big man down, but he let Lorelei get to him, and he rushed at her. Niki closed her eyes in disgust. Darwin never could plan worth a damn. That left the big man free, which was so damn stupid, and then of course the fight was over and Darwin was whining in that way that got on her nerves so bad. All she could do was shake her head. She couldn’t help him, she had nothing except an empty pistol. Darwin was on his own in this, the stupid shit.

  Her head felt better, the dizziness had subsided. Silently, while they were preoccupied with Darwin, she got to her feet and began easing away. The sound of renewed struggle made her stop and look again, and she saw the big man smash his elbow into Darwin’s face, saw the way Darwin just sort of went down like an empty skin sack, and she knew he was dead. She’d seen enough dead people to recognize how they flopped, as if their bones had all of a sudden turned mushy.

  She never had been able to depend on the dick-head, and now he’d gone and gotten himself killed.

  Carefully, as silently as possible, she worked her way out of the woods. Twice there were really loud cracks and it scared the crap out of her until she figured out what had happened. Limbs were breaking off the damn trees. All around her, tree limbs were drooping under the weight of the ice; one of them could come down on her, at any time. This shit was creepy.

  When she reached the road, she was so relieved to be out of those damn woods that she forgot about the ice and tried to run. Her feet immediately went out from under her and she went down hard on her knees. The pain was excruciating. Niki ground out a few cuss words as she slowly stood. She remained bent over for a moment, rubbing her knees, until she thought she could walk again. This time she eased to the shoulder—what there was of it—where she had better traction, and continued uphill at a much slower pace.