Robert Masello - Blood and Ice

She crawled onto the snow, gasping for breath, only her green eyes, wide with terror, visible under the tightly drawn hood.

“Stand up!” Michael said. “The ice!” There was snow on her coat, snow on her mittens, snow on her boots. With the back of his hand, he brushed as much of it away as he could, then quickly steadied her on her feet.

“The rope,” Michael said. “I need the rope.”

But it was cinched so tightly around her, he could not get it free. Michael dropped his head back over the rim-the sled had slipped farther down, and was tilted at an even-more-precarious angle- and stretched his good arm out as far as he could. “Stand on top of the sled,” he said, “and try to grab my hand.”

Sinclair could barely move without the sled sliding again, its blades grating on the ice. He swept his goggles and ski mask off, then, after carefully unfastening his sword belt, held it out and let it fall.

“Quickly,” Michael said, “before it drops any more!”

Sinclair gingerly stepped off the back runner, and onto the hard orange shell. With his arms extended like an acrobat's, he inched closer, his boots squeaking on the slick surface of the shell. He reached up and put his gloved hand into Michael's. Their eyes met.

“Hang on!” Michael said, but Sinclair's weight on the front of the sled was too much, and with a sickening crunch it started to give way.

“Don't let go!” Michael begged, though he himself was being drawn over the rim. The breath in his throat was as raw as a blowtorch, and the ice and snow under his arm started to crumble.

A fine white powder drifted down into the crevasse.

“I've got you!” Michael insisted, but as he stared into Sinclair's face, a few flakes of falling ice wafted down onto the young lieutenant's moustache, then his cheeks, and a look of confusion crept across his features. He started to speak, but a pale frost crackled across his lips, draining them of all color. His tongue became a stick of wood. A glassy sheen rippled across his jaws, then raced down his neck so fast and so hard that his body went rigid, and his fingers loosed their grasp.

The sled made a grinding noise and dropped another foot or two.

“Sinclair!” Michael said, but the only thing that still looked alive in him were his eyes, and then they, too, were marbled over by a tide of ice. His body managed to stay upright for only another moment before the sled suddenly broke free and plunged, prow first, toward the bottom of the blue crevasse. There was a terrible screech and clatter, and finally a shattering crash, as if a crystal chandelier were exploding into a thousand tinkling pieces. Echoes welled up from the jagged walls, but the chasm was too deep for Michael to see any sign of Sinclair, or the wreckage.

When the reverberations died, Michael called his name. Several times. But there was no sound other than the whisper of the wind finding its way into the freezing canyon.

He raised his arm, numb and aching, out of the hole, and rolled over onto his back. His lungs felt as if they would burst. Eleanor was standing where he had left her, her back to the wind and her arms wrapped around herself. Her head was down, the hood of her coat drawn tight around her face-nothing of her skin exposed to the elements.

“Is he gone?” she said, her voice barely audible from under the hood.

“Yes,” he said. “He's gone.”

The hood nodded solemnly. “And I must not even cry.”

Michael clambered to his feet.

“My tears,” she said, “might turn to ice.”

He went to her, and put an arm around her waist. She was suddenly so weak he felt she might have fallen to the snow herself. Perhaps willingly. As he gently guided her around the edge of the crevasse-now and forever an unmarked grave-she paused, and under her breath said something he could not make out. He did not ask what it was-it wasn't for him to know-nor did he see what she had pressed to her lips, before she let it fall into the blue chasm. But when it twirled down, glinting gold and ivory, he knew.

With the polar sun hanging lifelessly above them, they picked their way back through the ragged field of frozen seracs.

December 29, 2:45 a.m.

When the cabin lights flickered on and the pilot announced that they should prepare for landing, Michael downed the last of his Scotch and looked out the window.

Even at that hour, Miami was ablaze with long, sparkling grids of light that only stopped at the black shore of the ocean.

The flight attendant took his plastic cup and empty bottle. The guy who'd been sleeping in the aisle seat roused himself, and stowed away the laptop he hadn't worked on for hours. He'd told Michael he was a “resource specialist,” whatever that meant, for some American company building a telecom network in Chile.

Michael hadn't slept a wink-in days. Even now, all he could think of was what lay in the hold of the plane.

The guy on the aisle said, “What are we? Only four hours late?”

Michael nodded. Every extra hour, every delay, had been excruciating.

At least clearing customs in the middle of the night went faster than usual-until Michael mentioned that he had been traveling with human remains and needed to know where to go to claim them.

“I'm sorry for your loss, sir,” the customs agent said. “Make a left on your way out and report to the international cargo desk. They'll be able to help you.”

At the cargo desk, a kid in a blue uniform, who didn't look like he should be up this late, slowly combed over the NSF forms provided by Murphy and the medical documents drawn up by Charlotte, while Michael struggled not to show his impatience. He knew he had to keep cool and do nothing to draw any attention. The kid called over a more senior employee; the laminated tag hanging around the guy's thick neck identified him as Kurt Curtis. After verifying the paperwork himself, and rechecking Michael's passport and ID, he said, “Sorry for your loss, sir.”

Michael wondered how many more times he would have to hear that.

Curtis picked up the phone, punched a button, then muttered a few words with his back to Michael. He grunted “yeah” three times, then turned around and said, “If you'll follow me, I'll escort you to the cargo transfer station.” Pointing at Michael's duffel bag, he said, “Don't forget to take that.”

Outside, the Miami night hit Michael like a hot, wet towel. Get used to it, he told himself. For Eleanor, life in snowy, sleety Tacoma would be an impossibility. Curtis wedged himself into the driver's seat of the cart, while Michael tossed his duffel into the back and sat beside him. It must have rained in the past hour or two-the tarmac was wet, and there were puddles an inch deep here and there. A taxiing jet blew a foul tornado of even hotter air at them, and the roar of its engine was deafening. Curtis took no notice, but steered the cart past a row of terminals and into a vast open hangar where a van marked MIAMI/DADE COUNTY CORONER was parked. A petite woman in black trousers and a white blouse was leaning against the door, smoking a cigarette. She looked up when Michael grabbed his duffel and got out of the cart. Curtis did a wheelie and left.

“You're Michael Wilde?” she said, dropping the cigarette on the concrete floor. “I'm Maria Ramirez. Erik Danzig's wife.”

Michael extended his hand, and very nearly said he was sorry for her loss.

She looked at him closely, with dark eyes, and said, “Long trip, huh?”

He suspected he looked like crap, and she had just confirmed it. “Yes. It was.” He couldn't keep himself from looking around. Where was the body bag? Had it already been delivered, or was it still in transit somewhere?

“If you're looking for the bag, it's already in the van.”