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WHEN THERE IS no sound for the brain to register it , to keep the nerves active, the electric i had becos He and Michael walked a few dozen yards behind Zark, ould occasionally hold up his hand for them to re the air, his headfrom side to side to catch any trace of sound

They had left the sledge when the light beyond flickered and vanished They had covered more than a hundred yards on foot and still there was no break in the blackness ahead Virga felt his flesh crawling; fear had filled his mouth with the taste of blood Beside him, Michael moved as quietly as a shadow

Zark held up his hand, crouched, and listened Virga could hear nothing Around them the rocks and upturned ice chunks were ominous e enough to hide a building; they were large enough to conceal any nuress In fact, Virga suddenly had the feeling of being observed, though he thrust it aside as a fancy of his fearful ilistening ice, nothing more

Zark rose to his feet

There was the sound of ht the sound had come from Zark but when the hunter turned his head violently to the left, Virga realized there was a round even as the shot echoed back and forth, off blue ice and jagged stone Ice kicked up less than a foot to Zark&039;s left and theHe reached out and with one hand wrenched Virga up, dragging hilazed rock Another shot rang out Sparks exploded over Michael&039;s head In anotheron his stomach, had reached them He worked his way into a crevice so his entire body was protected "Onein behind us We&039;ll have to worry about the man on the left first; the other bastard won&039;t be within range for awildly, scattered ice chips "Ha!" Zark shouted, then lowered his voice "That cocksucker can&039;t get us, but he&039;s pinning us here for the man behind" He eased up over the rock and positioned his rifle so the barrel was fir

The e fla over their heads and on toward the Pole

"All right," Zark said softly "Once ain from the man&039;s rifle Before it had vanished Zark had it pinpointed Even as the bullet hit rock in front of hier His rifle bucked Then he whirled about, firing at the fur-cladon the rocks behind them The man, twenty feet aas thrown backward and fell, open-mouthed, into a cluster of ice and rock His rifle clattered down and slid, spinning, onto the ground a few feet froa

Zark waited, his eyes narrowed and his senses throbbing He said, "That&039;s it," and stood up He reached beneath his furs and felt for the kerosene lalass was cracked but no fuel had escaped

"You knew they were there," Michael said

"I knew they were there I had to offer et And that bastard nearly blew hed abruptly at the expressions on Virga and Michael&039;s faces "You can&039;t shoot a man if you can&039;t see hiet - the muzzle flash You care to stroll over there? I&039;ll show you the hole at his heart"

"I&039;ll take your word for it"

"I thought you would All right We&039;re all in one piece Holy Man, if you&039;ll pick up our friend&039;s rifle and carry it along we can move on It won&039;t bite Good Just strap it across your shoulder"

They a thought he saw black shadows sliding around theun, a pistol, long ago and then only at paper targets He understood very little about firear across his shoulder Its weight reassured him

No one spoke Snow crunched dryly beneath their boots Around theers of rock swept up toward the sky; here skeletal blue ice, phantom faces, watched thea looked from side to side as Michael watched the rear

Like an aniame, Zark stopped Michael stepped beside hiave way to a new sh-roofed prefab structure The walls and roof were coated with ice There ide doors, like those of an aircraft hangar, that opened outward The doors were cracked and there was a diht of the prefab structure was a thin-spired radio tower Beyond that an ice pathway led off into a new burst of rock

Motioning for the others to remain silent, Zark paused for a moment He took the kerosene lamp from around his waist and relit it Then he tied the lath ahead of hiht across snow pitted bystructure and carefully, quietly, pulled at one of the doors until they could slip through Ice along the door seam cracked

He stood on the threshold and shined the lantern inside There was an unmarked black helicopter amid rows of stacked crates At the far side of the structure was a small room, lit by three kerosene la static of a transceiver Zark took the lantern from the rifle muzzle and walked beneath the fan of helicopter rotors toward the radio rooa&039;s eyes were so accustomed to darkness that, once inside the room, he squinted A chair stood before the transceiver and there was a small table with a coffeepot and a cup

Zark touched the pot "Still war across the hangar floor Zark pushed roughly past the two men and stood in the radio room doorith his rifle upraised Beyond hi out into the snow Zark&039;s weapon barked hollowly The man cried out before he fell

Michael reached him first He rolled the body over and saw that the bullet had torn away the top of the aunt and terror-struck It was no one he had ever seen before "Do you recognize hia over his shoulder

"No"

"The bastardbehind a pile of crates," Zark said "That was the radio operator"

"Killing hi to his feet For the first tiaze "He could have told us where to find Baal"

Zark was startled by the fierceness in Michael&039;s face He regained his co beneath his thick furs "Shit!" he said "If he&039;s one of the men who destroyed that Eskimo settlement he deserved to die! I don&039;t ask questions of dead men!"

"It seems towith your trigger finger"

The hunter&039;s face darkened His hands curled into fists and he started to step forward

"Baal is still here," Virga said sharply "There&039;s no need for argument If the helicopter and radio operator were still needed then Baal is here"

Zark looked at Virga for a few seconds and then back at Michael "He&039;s right So back off"

The anger drained visibly from Michael He seemed displeased that he had shown any eht If he&039;s here we&039;ll find hiestured toward the path that led away into the forbidding rocks He started up it, one no more than a hundred feet when Zark held up a hand for them to stop The hand trembled

Ahead there was a e ice blocks supported a roof glazed with snow Corridors wound off in all directions It was a sprawling, nightmarish structure that see labyrinth of ice-walled tunnels

But it was not the structure itself that had stopped Zark He had thrust his lantern forward; the light glared off the ice on both sides of the pathway Now he stared wild-eyed past the light, unable towas buried in the ice

It was a sa to the marrow He dared not look but was forced to all the sa forward, the breath ragged between his teeth He held the lantern against the ice The yellow light showed clearly the open eyes, the gaping dark-spattered ht showed bodies to the right, bodies to the left The ice was filled with corpses of children, frozen like butterflies under glass The a felt weak and sick; he staggered backward before Michael turned and caught hi his e

Revenge

Virga shook his head violently to clear it

"Christ!" Zark breathed hoarsely, putting a hand against the ice to steady hiers had covered a glaring pair of eyes "Christ!"

"I told you," Michael said, still with a grip on Virga&039;s arm, "to prepare yourself for this The ancient cults of Baal sacrificed children and buried their bodies in the walls of dwellings as a pagan protection from harm I told you to be ready"

Zark shook his head in disbelief He couldn&039;t tear his eyes away fro in his experience Caught off balance, his senses reeled

"We o on!" Michael said "They&039;re dead and beyond help" He took the lantern fro the pathway, then stopped to wait for the a was quietly sick He wiped his face and then went on

They entered the ice corridors The lantern threw a solitary splash of light on the prefab floor and glimmered froed from the bodies and kept to the center They continued on, reaching countless dead ends and retracing their steps through one death-littered hall after another The corridors wound in circles, split into twos and threes, ended in empty vaultlike rooms The deterrim with each blank wall they reached And on and on they searched, avoiding the ih a hundred ain They would be lost forever, searching, and no man would find their frozen corpses even in a thousand years Virga felt that the walls were closing in, the corridors steadily narrowing until the frozen fingers would reach fro the; he feared for his sanity I can&039;t go on, he said to hio on

And then the corridor turned sharply to the right and there was so roo in clouds fro in darkness Michael held his arely twisted mouth He wore a heavy coat of dark fur His hands rested along the arms of the chair

Baal said softly, "So You&039;ve foundpast Michael and raising his rifle to fire point-blank "I&039;ve found you!"