The Devil's Breath (43 page)
Read The Devil's Breath Online
Authors: David Gilman
Tags: #Thriller, #Young Adult, #Mystery, #Adventure
The window glided upwards; then the car eased away. Maybe they were just tourists looking for their hotel late at
night, but there were no ski racks on the car, and they didn’t look as though they were into snowball fights for fun.
“Do you know those men?” he asked.
“No. I have never seen them before.”
“Probably nothing,” he said, smiling to reassure her, despite his own sixth sense warning him otherwise.
The night porter shuffled towards the
pension’s
door on the third ring of the bell.
“I can order you a hot drink, if you would like. Before you go?” she said.
“No. Thanks. I’ve gotta get back. Big day tomorrow.”
“Of course. Good luck for that.”
The sallow-faced porter stood waiting silently.
She lowered her voice. “Thank you, Max. If there is anything my family can ever do for you, my father would be honored.” She went up on tiptoe, placed a hand on his shoulder and kissed his cheek. Max’s head bobbed to meet her lips and, uncertain where to put his hands, he fumbled and dropped his snowboard. He felt the heat rising into his neck and face.
The night porter gazed at him in bored pity.
She stepped through the door and smiled again. “Sure you don’t want a drink?”
“No. Honest. Thanks. I’ve … I’ve got ironing to do,” he muttered uselessly.
She said nothing, then nodded and turned, walking farther into the half-lit reception area, as the porter, now with unconcealed disdain, latched and bolted the door in Max’s face.
Cheese teeth and ironing. What a disaster.
The truth was he
did
have ironing, but it had nothing to do with making himself look any less untidy.
Max’s snowboard rested across the two single bed bases in the room he shared with Sayid at the hostel. The mattresses had been shoved to one side on the floor. A towel and a newspaper were spread out beneath the board, and holding the pointed end of the iron downwards, he pressed a stick of wax against the hot surface and dribbled the melting liquid across the board, which was badly scratched from sliding across the road.
The heat opened the board’s pores and allowed the wax to penetrate. Twenty minutes later, when it cooled, he scraped off the excess wax and rubbed hard with the back of a pan cleaner, buffing the surface.
His kit was as ready as it could be. All he had to do now was secure a place in the top three of the wildwater kayak race next morning and he’d be ready for the final in the freestyle snowboarding event.
He checked the alarm clock.
The wake-up call was only three hours away.
Max slumped onto one of the mattresses on the floor, fully dressed. He pulled the duvet over himself and fell sound asleep.
And then—what felt like two minutes later—the alarm clock’s bell clattered him awake.
Copyright © 2007 David Gilman
All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system without the prior written consent of the publisher—or in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, license from the Canadian Copyright Licensing agency—is an infringement of the copyright law.
Doubleday Canada and colophon are trademarks
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication has been applied for.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Published in Canada by Doubleday Canada,
a division of Random House of Canada Limited
Visit Random House of Canada Limited’s website:
www.randomhouse.ca
eISBN: 978-0-307-37592-6
v3.0
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