Tempting Fate (80 page)

“What the Devil…?” Heinz cried out, startled by the swiftness of Ragoczy’s movements. It was impossible that Friedel, big, hale Friedel, who was a head taller than the foreigner, should be lying at the man’s feet.

From the taproom came a lusty, stomping chorus, words and melody alike blurred by beer and distance. One of the voices was particularly loud, a steam-whistle sort of tenor that blasted away at the song as if trying to get the best of it.

“Friedel!” the one whose name Ragoczy did not know shouted, coming near the fallen figure. He stared in disbelief, then turned toward the intruder. “You had no reason to do this.”

“You killed my daughter,” Ragoczy said with utmost certainty.

“No man does this to us!” Heinz declared, glowering at the lone figure in black, nodding to his three comrades. He did not realize that Friedel was dead. “You don’t attack
us
with impunity.” He squared his shoulders and motioned to his companions. “That’s no way to treat those willing to help you battle those murdering Spartacists.” As he spoke, he saw with satisfaction that the other three were positioned to block the foreigner’s escape. “He never did anything to you. Spartacists killed your daughter.”

Ragoczy responded with deceptive calm. “You lie.”

“Never!” Romuald said, a jeering note underlying his denial.

“I saw you!”
Ragoczy said softly, venomously. “I saw you all.”

Heinz gave a short, unconvincing laugh. “And where were you then? You’ve been confused.”

“I was trying to reach her,” Ragoczy answered, and his body tingled with the memory of that futile run he had made.

“Very touching. And for that you knock Friedel put.” His bluster was more emphatic as he gained ground. The foreigner was small, though from the look of him he had some strength. It would not be difficult to subdue him.

“No, not knocked out,” Ragoczy told them with terrible satisfaction. “He’s dead. As you will all be.”

Romuald was the only one of the four who faltered at this announcement, and he did not hesitate for long. He was closest to the body, and smelled the odor of relaxing sphincters. For an instant he thought it could be possible that Friedel was dead, but the idea was dismissed as quickly as it arose. Friedel had shit himself, that was all, and once they had beaten the foreigner, they would tease Friedel for this mishap.

The crowd in the taproom had launched into yet another song, this one accompanied by great thumpings and hangings as the men drummed their steins on the tables to emphasize the powerful three-quarter beat of the verse.

“Is he armed?” Romuald asked as his sole note of caution. “If he’s got a knife or a pistol…”

“I? Use weapons on the likes of you?” Ragoczy inquired, one brow raised. “I leave that to your sort of scum.” It was deliberately provoking, the taunting attitude he took. Grief vied with fury within him, robbing him of his incisive judgment. He had the measure of these men now, and it was the final curb on his rage, for they had to
know
what was happening to them, and why. His full might gathered strength in his sinews and blood.

Heinz and Vincenz had stiffened at his contemptuous tone, but the man whose name was unknown to Ragoczy said to the others, “If he’s unarmed, we can take him—easy!”

“Don’t let him out of here,” Romuald added, his voice unnaturally high with excitement.

There was a general motion of agreement, and the four men ranged a bit wider; Ragoczy maneuvered into the center of the half-circle they formed. One of the men chuckled, and the others hushed him.

“You had no right to kill her,” Ragoczy said to the men, and saw nothing in their faces but joyous hatred and lust for aggression. Recognizing this, remembering it from other faces in Babylon, in Rome, in China, he had no compunction about revenging Laisha, for he had gone beyond that now, as he faced the four men. There was, in an isolated, sane part of his mind, the forlorn hope that one of them might show remorse or contrition for her death and the part he had played in it. Nothing of that was apparent as the four began to close in on him, ready for the fight, eager for it. Ragoczy reached out one hand, to prepare himself.

“He’s having second thoughts, and we haven’t touched him yet,” Romuald gloated as he closed in on Ragoczy’s left side.

Ragoczy did not deny it, knowing that they would believe their own lie. He let Heinz come within arm’s length, then seized him, lifting him over his head as Heinz kicked and squawked in surprise. There was the beginning of a protest on his lips as Ragoczy swung him with deceptive lazy ease into the wall behind him.

“What’s going…?” Vincenz shouted, taking one involuntary step aside, ducking the determined swipe of Heinz’s foot.

Now Heinz was screaming, and the other three men, incited by the sound; rushed forward to restrain Ragoczy. He paid them little heed, even when one of them clambered onto his back and tried to reach around his head to gouge out his eyes with his thumbs. Ragoczy continued to turn, careless of his own safety now that his wrath was consuming him. He carried Heinz with the momentum his weight gave him, slamming the howling man into Vincenz with such force that Vincenz swore and staggered back, narrowly avoiding colliding with Romuald. The man holding him from behind broke his grip.

“Stop him!” the man whose name Ragoczy did not know cried out, watching for an opening that he could use to advantage. He did not join Vincenz and Romuald in their impulsive rush at the foreigner, but held back, waiting.

Heinz shrieked as Ragoczy released him, to send him hurtling through the air, one of his flailing arms crashing into the kerosene lantern, which swung wildly, then went out, extinguished by its own fuel. Heinz slammed into the banister by the stairs, accompanied by the sound of breakage that was not entirely from the wood. He coughed once, then was still.

With the room dark, Ragoczy had an immeasurable advantage. He looked at Heinz and was satisfied to see blood spreading around him; in the close heat of the little room, there was not much difference between the hot blood and the hot air. Ragoczy let his senses expand, searching out those others in the room by their breathing, their pulse, their terror. The intensity of their fear lent him force, and he welcomed it as he had not done in more than three thousand years. The nearest man was Romuald, who was tugging off his belt, preparing to use it as a whip. Ragoczy leaped at him.

“What?” Romuald began as two small, astonishingly powerful hands fixed themselves in his shoulder, one above and one below the joint.

“Romuald?” Vincenz shouted, groping in the dark toward the sound of the scuffle.

A horrible yell filled the room as Romuald’s arm was drawn back, farther back, back and up, until, with a tearing, sucking sound, the shoulder shattered and bone pressed out through skin and cloth. Ragoczy strained one last time and pulled the arm from Romuald’s body, then stood back as blood fountained from the destruction of his side. Romuald’s skin was clammy with shock, and he shuddered, twitched, and vomited before losing consciousness.

Vincenz had listened to the rending of flesh with awe, and had been unable to move for several seconds. Then he had reached for one of the chairs and slammed it on the floor, getting himself a serviceable club with a splintered end. He rushed forward, in the direction he thought Ragoczy must be, all the while shouting to the other man, “A chair leg! Use a chair leg!” He brandished the club before him, and was almost upon Ragoczy when he tripped over Romuald’s outflung foot. With a cry he threw himself forward, bringing his weapon down as he tried to regain his balance.

An instant too late Ragoczy saw his danger, and twisted to avoid the chair leg, but the club smashed into Ragoczy’s forehead, over his right eye, with such force that if he had been a man like those he fought, he would have been severely concussed. As it was, his vision blurred and pain rolled through his head and down his limbs as he strove to reach Vincenz before the man could bludgeon him again.

“Hold him, Vincenz!” the other man shouted, busy with his own task.

There was no response from Vincenz, who dodged Ragoczy’s arm once, escaping the backhanded blow before grappling with him, as much for balance as to gain a fighting advantage. They swayed together, shoes slipping in blood; then, without warning, Ragoczy fell back, as his own blood ran into his eye. He wiped it away impatiently as he spun around toward Vincenz just as the club descended on his back. He lurched with the blow and bent under it even as he ran at Vincenz, his shoulder low enough to catch him at the waist.

It was not as easy to lift Vincenz as it had been to lift Heinz. The man was heavier, and Ragoczy was still fighting dizziness from the cudgeling to his head and back. His wrath grew, and he bent the man as he raised him, pressing his neck to the side with such force that there was a snapping sound, as if a tree limb had broken, and Vincenz sighed once as his head drooped. He was dead before Ragoczy dropped him.

The last man had been a bit more cautious, and he had unwound the wires holding the back slats of the broken chair together. When he had a good-sized length of it, he started toward Ragoczy. He heard Vincenz fall, and was on the alert, bringing the wire up and reaching out to find the foreigner. He brushed past him, and pivoted toward him, dropping the loop of wire in the area he thought Ragoczy’s head should be, and jerked.

Before the wire drew taut, Ragoczy knew his danger. If his neck was broken, as Vincenz’s had been, he would die the true death, as surely as anyone. It was a seductive possibility, and as the wire bit into his skin, he almost abandoned himself to it. The rest were dead and his vow was nearly fulfilled. To be rid of the anguish of life tempted him. But the man who held him now was the man who had killed Laisha, and he, of all of them, would have to pay the price. He felt his blood soaking the roll-top collar, and there was a ringing in his head that banished thought.

In the taproom, someone was making a speech, his emphatic phrases being greeted with cheers and hoots whenever he paused for breath and drink.

Ragoczy let himself sag against his assailant, then, bracing himself, he kicked back sharply, catching the man in the shin with a clean, hard impact that snapped bone. The man gasped, but did not release his hold on the wire, which was biting deeply into Ragoczy’s flesh. Ragoczy brought his heel down on the man’s foot, this time on the other side, and smashed through shoe and foot, all the while trying to get his hands on those of the other man, knowing that if he could, he could pry them open and break free. He kicked out one more time, and the tension of the wire lessened. There was a rush of pain through him as blood welled around the wire, but Ragoczy forced himself to ignore it. In ten minutes he would have to rest, but there was enough time left to deal with the last man. He seized the man’s hands, bent from the waist, and sent the man tumbling over him to land near Vincenz. The man was moaning, thrashing feebly, his venom-filled eyes searching the darkness for Ragoczy.

“I almost had you,” the man said, his voice ragged.

“Yes.”

“You shit-faced dog!” the man burst out, reaching for Ragoczy one last time.

With the end of his rage, Ragoczy kicked at the man, catching him at the sternum, watching the life go out of the man’s eyes as he saw again the butt of his rifle smash Laisha’s face.

They were singing a wailing, sentimental song in the taproom when Ragoczy stumbled into the courtyard behind the tavern. He was weak, now that his fury was gone and there was only agony left. He staggered toward the passageway, overwhelmed with the reek of death that clung to him. His fingers told him that the bruise over his eye was a bad one, and his neck burned where the wire had been. Without warning, his legs buckled, and he collapsed against the wall, sliding down to the flagging in a nearfaint.

The courtyard was quiet when he came to himself again. There was no noise in the tavern, and all the lights in the surrounding buildings were out. Ragoczy got to his hands and knees and began to crawl toward the street, his mind full of Laisha when it was full of anything at all.

Text of a telegram from Madelaine de Montalia to Irina Ohchenov.

Peshawar

September 28, 1926

Madame Ohchenov:

Have message stop grateful for news stop will depart within the week and should be in Paris by Nov I stop will advise time and place of arrival stop rely on Roger for additional information stop am very concerned stop.

de Montalia

3

Gudrun Ostneige folded her hands in her lap and let Konrad Natter continue his tirade uninterrupted. She put her mind on other things, such as the birds she had seen whisk past the windows a few minutes before.

“It is shameful enough that a woman of your standing should prefer the company of her social inferiors, but when you seek out foreigners instead of your own countrymen for your favors, it goes beyond anything tolerable. If I had not been told of this, I would not have believed it.” His face was flushed and he paced the length of the dining room with a great deal of energy.

“
Who
told you these things?” Gudrun asked, knowing someone in her household had to have gossiped about her.

“Someone who cares for your reputation more than you do, Frau Ostneige. You can be sure of that. You said that you have not taken a lover, but that Hungarian from up the hill has been seen here late at night, and you have always been up on those nights he was on your grounds.” Natter stopped and folded his arms. “Do you deny that?”

“He’s not Hungarian,” was all she could think to say.

“The point is, he is not Deutscher, and that is all that matters. Bastard Russian or Slav, it means nothing. Your tastes are appalling, if you seek out men such as this Ragoczy fellow.” He gave this last pronouncement with a great deal of satisfaction.

“You cannot blame me for that,” Gudrun said as she got to her feet. “No, it is my turn now, Herr Natter. You have assumed you have a right to dictate to me how I must live, which is not the case.”