"Don't you feel it?"
Who was this honky kidding? Good thing the Dutchman wasn't drinking. That boy had to be nuttier than Fabienne's old man was the day he flew off Easter Cliff. Then again, there was a definite chill in the air.
"You're shivering. Would you like a sweater?"
Pierre shook his head emphatically. This nigger cutting out of here like a jet engine, man. He skittered toward the doorway. How he would find his way out of the castle was another story, but... Jesus, it was freezing!
"Before you go, I'd like to pay you for your trouble," the Dutchman said. He reached into the pocket of his smoking jacket and pulled out two hundred-dollar bills. Tentatively, Pierre accepted them. He screamed once, and they dropped fluttering to the floor. They were like slabs of ice. The Dutchman cocked his head, amused, as Pierre bolted down the corridors of the castle.
He rubbed the gooseflesh on his arms as he barreled down one dark hallway after another. His breath came in ghostly clouds. He'd seen movies of people breathing in the cold, their breath misty and white, but this was the Caribbean. Nobody was cold here. That was the deal, wasn't it, God? No money, but no icicles either. Oh, Lordie, he should never have stolen the Jeep. He should never have come to the castle. Him what looks on the golden boy of Devil's Mountain... Mother, he was going to lose his mind, just like old Soubise. Once he got out of this hellhole, he was going to lock himself up in his room for five days with a gallon of Potts Rum, just to make sure he wouldn't, in his madness, go sailing off to outer space.
Far off, he heard the distant creaking of a door. That had to be the front entrance. He remembered the front door to the castle, two huge, medieval slabs bolted together with iron, overlooking a bridge across the castle's moat.
When he reached it, the door stood open. Pierre gasped at the sight outside. An ice storm was blowing with the strength of a hurricane, the shriveled palm trees bent over at 90-degree angles. Their leaves crackled and slapped together, pointing like the fingers of banshees down Devil's Mountain.
"Oh, Lord, no," Pierre whispered. His eyes moistened. He felt the tears harden to ice on his skin. He stepped onto the bridge, squatting low against the terrible wind that seemed to come from the castle looming behind him. A gust of hail pulled up the thin fabric of his shirt and lashed at his back like bullets.
Somewhere down there was the Jeep, but the ice storm was too thick to see beyond his nose. Somewhere was...
Someone was coming.
He could make out a dim outline against the soupy hail. Whoever it was had spotted him.
"Pierre," the voice called. It sounded oddly cheerful.
"Here! I'm here!" He tried to run forward, but his legs had grown stiff and numb, and he tumbled onto his stomach. Oh, so tired. He tried to push himself up from the ground. His fingers popped at the knuckles. The skin on his hands cracked. The blood froze into brown crystals. "Over here," he rasped. The man was running. He would find him.
Pierre closed his eyes to the wind. He would never open them again.
"Pierre?" Remo said, feeling for a pulse in the black man's neck. There was none. He turned over the body. It was soaked with perspiration. Pierre must have been running for some time in the sweltering afternoon heat. Maybe his heart had given out.
He picked up one of Pierre's hands. The skin had been bleeding, and the knuckles were snapped. Was he tortured? Then he saw the fingernails. That was funny. The skin beneath them was blue.
Blue? He looked over Pierre's corpse again, noticing the dry, cracked skin, the sores around the eyes, the blue flesh beneath the fingernails. It was insane.
It was ninety degrees out here. The palms drooped sullenly from the heat. The wispy grass was dry and patched with brown.
And Pierre LeFevre had frozen to death.
?Twelve
Inside the castle, the Dutchman bowed low to his visitor. Chiun returned the bow.
"I am honored with your presence," the young man said. "All my life have I waited to meet you."
"It saddens me to meet you," the old Oriental said. "Your work is most promising. This meeting brings me no joy."
"Why?"
"You know why. I have come to kill you," Chiun said.
"And I was born to kill you, Master of Sinanju."
The two men nodded again to each other, and the Dutchman led Chiun to an airy, well-furnished room bounded on three sides by immense French windows that led to wide balconies where orchids of every color grew. "This is the only comfortable room in the castle," the Dutchman said. "I thought perhaps we could talk for a moment before beginning. I have wanted to ask you many questions over the years." The pale eyes were searching and humble.
"You may ask, but I cannot in a few moments teach you the true way. Not after you have spent a lifetime embracing falsehood," Chiun said simply.
"The Master Nuihc was not false!" The Dutchman rose angrily, his cheeks aflame. "He saved me from disaster."
"So he could lead you into a dark tunnel from which there is no escape, and even more certain disaster."
"That's enough!" In a high corner of the room, a painted lamp exploded into sparkles of glass. Chiun watched it break and splinter, untouched. He looked at the Dutchman.
"You were wise to come alone," the young man said.
"This concerns me and you. Not my son."
The Dutchman's face was dark with fury. "Your son! In the same way that Remo is your son, so was Nuihc a father to me. You destroyed that father."
"He was an evil force that sought only personal gain. Nuihc cared nothing..."
There was an agitated knock on the door. Sanchez burst in, gesturing wildly.
"What?" the Dutchman growled. "He is here?"
The mute pointed toward an eastern-facing window. Chiun stepped over to it. On the path below, Remo was climbing up Devil's Mountain.
"No," Chiun called. "Go back, Remo!"
Remo looked up, making no acknowledgment that he had seen Chiun, then continued his march up the hill.
The Dutchman's jaw worked nervously. "He has come to help you," he said, amazed.
"Go away. I don't want you. I told you I was finished with you, white thing."
Remo didn't answer.
"Do not open the gates to him. Send him away," Chiun pleaded. "He has no part in this. Leave him alone."
"He is a true son," the Dutchman said, his voice heavy with sadness. "Clearly you have tried to turn him from you to keep him from danger. But he would die for you. And so he will."
The drawbridge lowered over the fetid, murky green water of the moat. As the enormous oak doors opened, Remo glimpsed a double file of beautiful women standing at attention inside.
"Hello, ladies," he said pleasantly. The girls devoured him with their eyes.
At the end of the line, the mute came forward and led him up a long, curving staircase to the room where Chiun waited with the Dutchman. Remo and the Dutchman stood looking at each other.