He whispered, “Water.”
I got another bottle from my pack and touched it to his encrusted lips.
His head jerked. “Use water.”
Of course. You ungrateful bastard out of hell. I poured a trickle onto the cement around his mouth. Rivulets skittered across the hard surface.
“Use the knife,” Walter said.
I froze.
“Abrade it.”
Of course. I put the blade to the mask and scraped, then drizzled water over the abraded cement. “Needs to soak in.” I sat back. “We’ll be needing more water, sooner or later. And supplies from the station. But first I’m going to search.” I thought, I’ll pick up where I left off, down below the drop-off. South of the ridge. If I could remember the ridge, I was damn well sure that Eric and Mike could remember it. “Soon as it’s light enough,” I said, “I’m going to search.” I watched Walter. “What will you do when I leave?”
He held my look. “Don’t worry.”
“Tell me why I shouldn’t.”
He waved a hand.
“Okay, while I wait for it to get light, we’ll talk about what you know. I found the volcano monitor in your pack. Tell me what that means, Walter.”
“Leave it alone.”
“You took it with you to the Inn, you were going to haul it over Minaret Summit, what’s it mean?”
Stony silence.
“Okay, I’ll tell you what I think I know. Night of the evac you went to her office and found it in her safe. I assume it’s not what you expected to find. What were you looking for? Not love letters.”
“Something of hers,” he said. “Something I might want.”
“Well you found something. You took it. What’s it tell you?”
“Leave it alone.”
“I can’t.” I peered at Walter. He was in there somewhere, inside his own stony mask. What does he know? Enough to prove Krom killed Lindsay?
I bent to Krom. “You better help me, Adrian. You better tell me what he knows.”
Nothing, from beneath the mask.
I put the blade to the mask and began to scrape, at the jawline. Water had done its work. The mask was pliable, some kind of thick gray skin. Rhinoceros skin. “Okay, let’s start with what we all know. The monitor was in Lindsay’s safe.” I peeled a length of rhinoceros hide. “She was pissed at you Adrian, wasn’t she? You’re monitoring her volcano, you publicly humiliate her, and she somehow gets hold of your monitor. The two of you, humiliating each other. Some kind of playground game?” I moved the blade back to Krom’s throat where the mask met raw skin, and probed for a new edge. “So you went to her office and demanded she return it and she wouldn’t. That’s why you killed her?”
Krom breathed audibly.
“But you didn’t find it, did you? Because if you had, it wouldn’t have still been in her safe for Walter to find.” The knife slipped in my muddy hand. A bead of blood showed at Krom’s throat. He sucked in his breath and brought his head down. I put the knife aside.
Walter eyed it.
“What brought you to her office, Adrian? This time.” I could not finesse this job; I dug with my fingers. “You saw Walter at the window? And you surprised him and he had the safe open and there was the monitor. But no. If you killed Lindsay for the monitor, you would have killed Walter.” I sat back. The mask bore long grooves, like an animal had clawed at it. “And I still don’t understand — what’s so important about it? Was there something special about the Hot Creek footage?”
Nothing from beneath the mask, not even a plea to get it off.
I looked up. “Walter?”
Walter’s face was savage, not his own.
“You think it’s proof, Walter? You must, because otherwise you wouldn’t have taken it.”
Walter did not deny it.
“What’s it mean?”
“This is not the time.”
“Yes it is. I want to know if you’re looking for revenge.”
Walter’s face was stone cold.
I went down into the pit where I’ve been living lately, wandering in the muck of pain and rage and fear.
Krom brought me out. “Get it off, Cassie.”
“I am.” Damn you, I am. He lay helpless, a broken hooded thing. At my mercy. My great unplumbed depths of mercy. Only it wasn’t mercy that moved me. It was fear. If I don’t act, Walter will take up the knife and use it. I began again, at the jawline. I worked the way I work a dig, carefully removing the layers so as not to disturb what’s underneath. And now there was something new, a new texture just showing through. I had to be careful. Never dig blindly through one horizon of soil to the next. Assess it first. Understand what it is. It was flesh. The new horizon, on close inspection, was pebbly flesh embedded with pumice. Yes, I had nearly reached bottom. I got the bottle and poured more water.
He screamed. Sound like an animal.
I jerked back, spilling water.
His shoulders convulsed, nearly lifting, but his blackened lips pulled back and he bit off the scream.
“Okay,” I said, “no more water.” Without water, the cement was going to harden again. “Let me think.” I took the knife and moved to the door. Where the door must have been. My headlamp lighted a slice of foggy bald landscape. This was a world lost in time and space. We didn’t exist in the real world anymore. We were in purgatory, in limbo. I stared into the ashy fog so hard my eyes ached. Where were they? This was like being back in Lindsay’s office, waiting for the rescuers, hour after hour. But they finally came. There was a good reason it took them so long. If they were down below the drop-off, beyond the ridge, there was a good reason they were still there. Mike was hurt, Eric couldn’t leave him. Eric was probably hurt too. I understood that.
“Give him an injection,” Walter said.
I spun. Walter was fumbling in my first aid kit. I came over and took the vial from him and examined it. Demerol. I read the label. Morphinelike effect. Yes, that’s what I wanted.
I knelt beside Krom. More excavation. I used the knife to slice the arm of the yellow suit at the seam, and skinned it down. I pushed the sweater and shirt up above the bicep and exposed flesh. It was shocking — the sight of his clean naked arm, brown and strong. Tattoo didn’t bother me, though, nor did the waxy hill of scar. Old friends. Circles of hell. Round and round, going down. Sacrifice and survive.
Krom watched me through cemented eyes. Not even a face. He watched me with his head fixed face-backward upon his neck.
I leaned close. “Did you send Mike back out to search?”
Silence.
“Was he scared?”
Krom exhaled, barely a breath. “Are you?”
There was something hard in my chest. A small hard spot, cold and unyielding. This is why we’re here, isn’t it? Stripped raw like the mountain. Lindsay did this, blew her volcano the hell up, taking us to hell and back. Poetic justice. Leaving us here in limbo with Krom. Isn’t it enough for her that he’s lost? The volcano won. Her baby triumphs. All his grand battle plans for naught. He failed. He offered himself up for the tribe and he failed. His goal now shrunk to the merely tactical — survive. Survive and do battle another day, another place. He can’t touch us anymore, Lindsay. Look at him. Big brown Adrian Krom cloaked in gray. Muck all over; must have seeped through his pores to coat him inside. Sleepy-eyed Adrian Krom who strikes with animal grace, lying here cemented and lashed to a litter. Roguish Adrian Krom who cuts a wake with the locals, his charms masked and his face good as gone. Hero Adrian Krom carted up the mountain with his tail between his legs. What more can he do? He can do nothing.
He whispered again.