Cautiously, the Trusted Man got to his feet, pointing the Mauser, still with the Spider in the centre of the scope. He stretched his legs and shook off the snow. He arched his back. His vertebrae cracked.
He began his descent. The wind made his eyes water, but he did not close them even for a second. When he was thirty metres or so from the maso, his face paralysed from the cold, he began to feel the waves of heat coming from the Spider’s spiral bonfire. He kept going.
He knew the Spider was not dead. He had not shot to kill. If that had been his intention, he would not have taken so many precautions. He had shot to wound.
The Spider and the Vixen. He wanted to know what connected them.
The Spider’s knee was in a bad way. There was a pool of blood all around it. The black-clad old man was moaning, his face turned towards the Stube. The Trusted Man pressed the barrel of his rifle to the back of his neck.
“Where is she?”
The Spider was about to turn, but the Trusted Man pressed harder, preventing him from doing so.
“The girl. Marlene.”
“There’s no Marlene here.”
“The girl with the sapphires. Where is she?”
The Spider said nothing.
“Hand her over,” the Trusted Man said, “and I’ll spare your life.”
“There’s no Marlene here. There’s just Lissy.”
The Trusted Man frowned. Who was Lissy? What had he missed? “Where?”
“Down there. With my father. And my father’s father.”
The Trusted Man bit his lip. It was so cold that he felt no pain.
The old man was delirious. Or pretending to be.
“I’m only interested in Marlene. Then I’ll let you live.”
“With this leg?”
“Where is she?”
Lying there on the ground, the old man was losing a lot of blood.
“Don’t faint.”
“In the cellar, beneath the Stube, there’s a door. It’s locked.”
This made no sense.
“Have you locked her in?”
“Yes.”
The Trusted Man searched the old man’s pale face. “Did you kill Wegener?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
The old man closed his eyes tight. “Sweet Lissy, little Lissy.”
The Trusted Man moved the barrel of the rifle from the back of the old man’s neck to the mangled knee and pressed down on the wound.
A terrible grimace on his congested face, the old man cried louder, “Sweet Lissy! Little Lissy! Sweet—”
The Trusted Man fired again. The old man screamed. The chanting ceased.
“It makes no sense. It makes no sense.”
The old man turned slowly towards him. Now that the Trusted Man was able to look him in the face, he realised that the old man’s pupils were narrow and his eyes watery. He was under the influence of some drug or other.
“The world teems with mysteries.”
That statement did not make much sense either.
“The key,” the Trusted Man said, on edge now. “You said the door is locked. Give me the key, and I’ll make the pain stop.”
The old man gave it to him. As soon as the Trusted Man’s hand closed over it, the old man grabbed his wrist and pulled the Trusted Man towards him. He did it so quickly that the Trusted Man had no time to react. One moment he was pointing the rifle at the old man, the next he was on the ground, lying on top of him. Eye to eye. The Spider was strong.
“It’s coming,” the old man whispered.
“What is?” the Trusted Man said, surprised.
“The truth.”
The Trusted Man felt the blow in his stomach. The world turned upside down. He hit the wall of the maso. He saw the old man, wounded but still in possession of incredible physical strength, throw himself to the side, hurtle down the creaky wooden steps and plunge into the darkness. He heard a thud and a stifled scream. Getting up, he grabbed and aimed the Mauser in a single gesture.
At nothing.
The old man had vanished into the shadows.
The Trusted Man hesitated.
The Spider was done for. However strong and stoned, no human being could survive the wound he had inflicted. With one knee out of action and haemorrhaging blood, he was a negligible threat. Certainly not an immediate one. He decided to forget about him.
He would not let him live, of course. The Trusted Man never left witnesses. He would kill Marlene then take care of the old man. It would be child’s play following the bloodstains in the snow. First, he had to find the Vixen.
He walked inside.