Chains of Ice (9 page)

“My English fails me sometimes. Maybe
bait
is too strong a word. But women like you”—Mariana gestured at Genny—“you bring them.”

Lubochka leaned forward, eye to eye with Mariana. “
Who
does she bring?”

“The ones who seek evil. The ones who seek innocence, who would corrupt you.” Mariana pushed her hair off her forehead. “Of course you had to come here. The crossroads draws you. But I wish you would go home.”

“Well, I’m not going to!” The big cats were waiting.

“Did you not hear me last night?” Lubochka demanded. “I said
no trouble
!”

Back at the inn, Genny had liked Mariana. Now she just thought she was insane. “I mean, if we’re going to be superstitious . . . you did say I would bring luck!”

“I said you would bring change,” Mariana corrected.

“And luck!” Genny reminded her.

“Rasputye could use some change,” Lubochka said.

“The earth shakes when Rasputye changes!” Mariana spread her hands, palms up. “All the elements have lined up!”

“What elements?” Lubochka asked.

“The gifted one has returned. He is angry, like a wounded bear.”

That face in the woods . . . it haunted Genny. The man, whoever he was, had looked at her as if she was a vision . . . or a curse.

“He finds the lonely women, the ones dissatisfied with their lives, and he shows them a new world. And now
you
”—Mariana pointed accusingly at Genny—“you come along. You’re trapped by life.”

“What?” Genny vibrated with outrage.

Mariana continued. “You’re lonely. You seek something new, and he’ll know. You’re
bait
.”

“I am not bait.”

“Go home, Mariana.” Lubochka drew herself up to her full height. “Go home and cook, and from now on, listen to me.
No trouble.
”

Mariana strode down the hill, then turned one last time and said, “I suppose it is your fate, Genesis Valente, to be here now, but you have been warned. Don’t weep when the whole world catches fire and you’re swept up in the blaze!” Before Lubochka or Genny could respond, Mariana leaped like a mountain goat down the hill.

Lubochka shook her head. “Of course she had to have the last word.”

“Is she crazy?” Genny thought she had to be.

“No. Well.” Lubochka waggled her hand back and forth. “Not crazy, for one of her people. They aren’t Russians. Not ethnically. They’re backward. Gullible. They believe in
myths
.”

“Legends,” Genny corrected.

“In English you would call that splitting hairs.”

The rocky trail grew narrower, curved back and forth like a snake, and climbed at such a pitch that Genny puffed with exertion.

Lubochka, of course, did not puff, and she frowned at Genny. “Your application said you were in prime condition.”

“I didn’t practice walking uphill with weight on my back.”

“You’ll know better next time.” Lubochka continued up the mountain. “Mariana is fancied to be the wise woman in her village, blessed with the gift of foresight. For that reason, she was sent away to Moscow and educated. I thought that would connect her to the real world, but apparently such a hope was futile.”

“Apparently.” Genny took care to keep her gasping to a minimum.

“Usually it suits me to use their beliefs. They tell me the Ural lynx has been hiding in the
rasputye
all these years.”

Confused, Genny asked, “In Rasputye? In the town?”

“In
the rasputye
. The crossroads. Don’t you know? That’s what
rasputye
means.”

“I didn’t realize.” No matter how Genny turned the words around in her mind, they didn’t make sense. “Why is that important?”

“Ah. Here we are.” Lubochka stopped abruptly. Waved an arm.

Genny pulled herself up the last few steps, then gaped in awe. She stood beside Lubochka at the top of a cliff, a hundred feet over a broad, snaking riverbed. A sparkling green river wound its way through the sand. Beyond that, the mountains built again, the forest grew green all the way to the Arctic Circle, and in the distance, a series of mighty, jagged rocks protruded from among some of the oldest trees in the world.

“The Ural Mountains. The Great Stone Belt. The spine, and the division, of Mother Russia.” Lubochka’s voice became more accented, more Russian, more proud. “In the streams and in the mines, miners find topaz and beryl. They strip gold from the soil. Here live the reindeer, the sable, the mink, and the hare. And my cats.”

The vista held Genny enthralled. Those jagged rocks were so . . . weird. So out of place. “What are those?” She waved a hand.

“The Seven Devils—seven stones that rise out of the ground like huge male erections.”

Genny chuckled. “Yeah, most men would like to think that.”

Lubochka boomed out a laugh; then her face soured. “Mariana would tell you they’re the doorway to the
rasputye
. Which is one more proof that everyone in this region are fools.”

Remembering Mariana and her weird warning, Genny said, “I can’t argue with that.” The rock oddities fascinated her, drew her gaze like magnets. “The Seven Devils are some kind of igneous intrusions?”

“I don’t know.” Lubochka shrugged. “I’m a wildlife biologist, not a geologist.” She looked impatient and irritated. “Genesis.”

“What?”

“Okay, listen. Really, I think it’s all nonsense. But that man that’s out there, the yeti Brandon worked so hard to frighten you about—” Lubochka stopped.

“What is it?” Genny had not thought this woman could ever be indecisive, but she was dithering now.

“Everyone in Rasputye keeps saying this yeti is one of the Chosen Ones.”

Genny nodded encouragingly.

“Mariana tells me the Chosen Ones bring danger to everyone around them. She’s constantly harping at me, at the rest of the village, that wherever the Chosen are, trouble follows. It’s silliness, but in Rasputye, they
believe
—and she’s a powerful woman. For some reason, she’s decided you’re some kind of Chosen magnet.”

“Because I have a cleft in my chin,” Genny told her helpfully.

Lubochka said something in Russian that sounded incredibly profane.

Genny grinned.

Lubochka did not. “For the sake of this study, for the sake of the cats, don’t give her any reason to think that you are extraordinary in any way.”

“I won’t,” Genny assured her.

“It goes without saying—have nothing to do with the yeti. But I don’t have to say that. You’re a sensible girl. You’ll stay away from that murdering, lustful goat.”

It was Genny’s turn to say nothing. Well, what could she say? That she was only here
because
she’d promised she would talk to the murdering, lustful goat?

“I’m glad we’ve had this talk.” Lubochka pointed down the cliff. “There’s your station.”

Genny looked.

Ten feet down, a gaggle of warped and twisted pines clung to the sheer rock wall. They grew sideways into the air, their branches intertwined; they swayed softly to the unheard music of the breeze rushing up from the riverbed below.

Someone had constructed a ladder, short lengths of heavy board fastened into the stone leading down to the largest trunk. From there, a person—if she was limber, blessed with great balance, and had absolutely no common sense—could crawl out on the tree trunk to a small wooden platform built among the branches. And that person would have an unsurpassed view of the forest floor and the stream that trickled along the flat, winding riverbed below.

“The lynx are nocturnal animals, but right now the females are nursing and caring for their babies and will sometimes, in the early morning or at twilight, bring the kittens out. This is a wonderful chance for you, Genesis, to see the great cats in the wild. Watch for movement. Then take pictures. Lots of pictures.”

Genny lifted her camera from the padded pocket of her backpack. It had been frighteningly expensive, the thing she had splurged on for the trip. “It also takes video.”

“Good!” Lubochka clapped her on the shoulder.

“Go on, then. You aren’t afraid of heights, are you?”

“No.” Not on a normal basis. But this . . . the platform was perhaps four by four and had no rail.

“Good. Brandon will relieve you in ten hours. Until then, watch carefully.” Lubochka clomped off into the forest.

Genny started the precarious climb down to her station.

But she still hadn’t seen a Ural lynx. She had watched until her eyes were dry, with no luck.

Whoever was watching
her
had given her no sign. She knew he stalked her, just as she knew that, in the depths of the forest, the lynx hunted in their established territories. She didn’t have to see to believe. She trusted her instincts. Yet nothing could make her give up.

Although someone manned this site and three others, the big cats had been elusive. Every night, Misha and Lubochka assured the team they had found signs—fresh dung, tufts of hair stuck to a bush. Reggie watched every moment of video taken on the paths where the lynx roamed. Thorsen reminisced about the first year he’d come along on Lubochka’s study, when they went a month without a sighting.

But everyone was edgy. Only Brandon openly grumbled about Genny—as if she herself had promised to bring them luck.

Mariana was right about one thing. Rasputye’s atmosphere worked on a person because someone had been watching Genny.
Was watching right now.

The early-morning breeze ruffled her hair and dove down her neck.

She ducked her head, wrapped her arms around her knees, huddled into her coat, and wished she could relax her tense muscles.

The unexpected, shrill ring of a phone made her jump.

Her phone. In the side pocket of her backpack. It hadn’t rung all week. She had sort of thought she couldn’t get service out here. Sort of
hoped
she couldn’t get service out here. Now the sound was loud, shrill, out of place in this wilderness.

She scrambled for it, silenced the ring, glanced at caller ID and tensed.

Closing her eyes, she braced herself, then answered with modulated serenity. “Hi, how are things in New York?”

“Have you found him yet?” Her father’s voice came through clear, cold, and direct.

“Hello to you, too, Father.”

“Hello. Hello! Is there a problem with the connection?” His voice cut out on the last word.

“Apparently a little problem.” But not enough to break the call. “No, I haven’t found him yet. I’ve only been here a week.”

“These people aren’t going to wait forever.”

“These people? The Gypsy Travel Agency, you mean?”

A pause.

Had
they lost the connection?

Then his voice came through too loud. “Yeah, yeah.”

She held the phone away from her ear, then cautiously brought it back. “You worked for them, and you’ve said a lot of nasty things about them, but you never told me they were tyrants. Surely they understand that I need time to adjust to a new country and a new job—”

“For God’s sake, Genny, would you just go out and find him? How many times have I told you that if you want to get ahead in this world, you need to seize the initiative, go beyond what’s expected, and make them—”

“Sit up and take notice. I know.” She took a breath.

“But I don’t care whether they sit up and take notice. I don’t even really care whether they forgive the school loan. I told you. I can pay it back.”

“And I told you I promised you’d do this small favor for them. How hard can it be? How many John Powells can there be in Russia?”

She decided to give him something to settle him down. “I confirmed it. John Powell is in the area.”

“What are you—” The connection dropped.

For a moment, she heard only crackling and she hoped—

But no. Father was back, still talking. “Go get him!”

“I’m
working
here.”

“You have time off, don’t you?”

“When I’m not observing, I’m studying.”

“Studying what?” He sounded incredulous.

“Lubochka has collected a lot of fascinating material on the Ural lynx for analyzing their movements, their social and feeding habits . . .” Genny’s enthusiasm began to rise. “In the evening, I—”

“What good does it do you to study the Ural lynx?” Through the crackling on the line, Father’s cold tenacity sounded loud and clear. “You’re only there for the summer.”

“I enjoy it.” She clipped off the words.

He must have heard her irritation, for he changed his tactics, became the negotiator, concerned and persuasive. “You just graduated with a business degree. I’d think you would be tired of studying.”

“Of studying business, yes.”

“Look. Finding Powell is not a big deal. It’s merely a favor.”

“It seems to be a very big deal.”
Such a big deal you can’t even ask me how I am.
“I intend to take care of the matter. Trust me, Father, I don’t lie or make deals I don’t intend to keep.”
Nor do I steal.

Perhaps he heard her unspoken thought. More likely he decided he had made his point. Or maybe he had somewhere to go, because he said, “Okay, let me know when you make contact and how negotiations go. I’d like to give them good news as soon as possible.”

“I know.”

“Enjoy your graduation present!”

“I will. I am.”

But the connection was dead.

How like him to make sure he reminded her that he had given her this trip, and cut her off before she could remind him in turn that she was paying for it by doing this “favor” for him.

Her father wasn’t worth all the angst and anguish. She knew it. But her mother had never cared about her. Her grandparents were dead. He was her father, and she wanted one person to care about her, if only he knew how . . .

According to her college roommate, it wasn’t Genny’s fault her family was a failure. According to Chloe, parents were the grown-ups, and they were supposed to act responsibly. A mother wasn’t supposed to give birth to a child and wander away when that child got inconvenient. A father wasn’t supposed to use his child to repair his financial fortunes.

Genny knew all that was true, too.

Chloe said it was a tribute to Genny’s strength of character that she had turned out to be a well-adjusted human. Chloe said Genny should talk to a therapist, move beyond the childhood fear of being alone, and stop letting her father use her.

Sitting here, miserable in the Russian wilderness, with nothing to distract her . . . well, she had to face the fact Kevin Valente seemed incapable of loving her. Incapable of maturity, for that matter.

Genny wondered what Chloe would say about this creepy sensation of being watched. Probably that the eyes she’d seen beside the road hadn’t been real and that the long hours alone or Mariana’s dire warnings were preying on her nerves. Certainly no one would tell her that her dreams were coming true and John Powell was watching her with the intention of dragging her to his hut for days and nights of sex.

She shrugged her shoulders, trying to rid herself of the sense of being observed—and a movement far below caught her attention. Some creature prowled low to the ground, its hind end lifted and its gaze intent.

Probably a sable. Every time Genny had seen movement down there and thought she had spotted the lynx, she’d always been disappointed . . .

But no matter how discouraging she tried to be, her heart thumped with anticipation.

Maybe this was it.

She got up on her knees. Groped for the camera. Hung the strap around her neck. Lifted it to her eyes. She adjusted the lens, zooming in on the animal that slipped from tree stump to rock.

This creature looked large and moved like a . . . like a cat.

She focused, and there it was—a Ural lynx stalking its prey along the riverbed.

She had it.
She had it!

The creature slipped from rock to fallen log—beautiful, sleek, brown and black and gold.

Genny shot photos in a frenzy, video first, then stills.

The lynx moved in and out of sight under the cover of brush.

Genny crawled back and forth on her platform, straining to keep the animal in sight.

The cat pounced on some small creature, looking so much like a house cat that Genny’s eyes filled with pleasurable tears. Sliding face-first out along the heaviest branch, she extended one leg onto the branch on the next tree, and snapped the best photos of her life. When the cat continued down the riverbed, prey in her mouth, and vanished beneath the cover of the brush, Genny adjusted herself in small increments to hang over the clear space. She held the camera in one hand and waited for the lynx to reappear.

It did. She madly clicked the shutter.

And while she exulted in the beauty of the elusive animal, a gust of wind caught her, yanking the tree away from under her extended leg—and she dangled a hundred feet in the air, one elbow curled over one branch and a knee hooked over another branch.

The camera fell from her hand, catching at the end of the strap and jerking her neck, making the whole tree dip.

She froze, her muscles rigid; the trees swayed in the breeze.

Pine needles dropped in a shower into her hair, onto her face, and she watched in horror as they twirled down, landed on hard gray rocks that protruded from the cliff thirty feet down, then tumbled all the way to the ground.

“Oh, God.” She prayed automatically, fervently, fearing death for so many reasons. “Oh, God. Please, God.” She swung her free hand onto the branch. The ridged bark dug into her palm.

The wind blew harder, whipping the trees from side to side.

She swayed like a fragile, out-of-season Christmas ornament ready to fall. She hitched herself up. Paused and tightened her grip. Hitched herself up again.

The breeze rippled through the treetops below. The forest bent like dancers, dipping and swaying to a deadly rhythm.

Always before, she had loved the music of the wind in the branches, but now the notes grew louder, more threatening.

Would they be the last thing she ever heard?

A deep male voice said, “Give me your hand.” She started, glanced up to the platform, and there he was, the yeti, the madman, the lover, the bearded beast of Brandon’s warnings—and her savior.

Then the wind slammed into the trees, shaking her loose.

And she fell.