Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

Davila is nuts.

Outside, he fetched his ice crampons from where he’d left them just outside the door. He was so angry his gloved hands shook, and the crampons slithered from his grasp to the icy walk with a cheery metallic jingle. Damn, damn, damn. For a split second, he thought about just kicking the things into the pool steaming quietly in the darkness to his right.

Stop. Instead, he gathered them up again and carefully toed in first the right boot and then the left.

No way I’m leaving him. That’s just crazy , he thought, cinching the crampons down tight. Just flat-out nuts.

And yet… A prickle at the back of his mind, the almost tangible sense of one thin talon on a gnarled green forefinger working its way through a chink in a door he resolutely kept bolted and locked up. And yet he would do the same to you, John. If you couldn’t go on…

No. He pushed back on that malicious imp of self-doubt. No, Davila wouldn’t. Oh, Davila would sacrifice for Helen; he might even lay down his life for her. But a choice between maybe saving Helen or leaving a comrade to die more likely than not, or—even crazier—leave him and hope he made his way to help…would Davila choose a hope over a certainty?

Never.

Except, maybe…