Bathed In Blood

“Okay, Csilla,” Annja said, “show me what’s got you so upset.” She extended her hand palm up in a sweeping gesture, the universal “after you” sign, and then followed Csilla as she hurried over the edge of the drop and pointed downward at a spot a few feet to their left.

Annja nodded and then set the case on the ground next to her. She flipped open the catch and pulled out a handheld spotlight. The light used only a single thirty-five watt HID bulb, but it generated a fifteen million candlepower light beam that was twenty-eight hundred feet long. If there was something out there, this light would find it.

She hit the switch on the top of the rig and the beam of light leaped into existence, throwing back the darkness. The brush lining the edge of the drop jumped into view, seeming larger than life in the cold light of the spot.

Csilla nodded and pointed again, more emphatically this time.

“Siet! Siet!”

Annja didn’t need to understand Hungarian to understand.

Hurry.

She did as she was told, pointing the spotlight in the direction Csilla was suggesting. Annja began to sweep the beam across the rocky slope below them.

At first she didn’t see anything but the jagged shale for which the region was known, but then she caught sight of a flash of white against the harsh gray of the stone. Slowly, carefully, she swung the beam back and found the object a second time.

It was a human hand.

Female, judging by the size and shape.

It thrust up from the slope as if it were waving to them. The hand was attached to a forearm—thank heavens!—and the arm presumably to the rest of the body, though she couldn’t see the latter. The woman was hidden by a depression in the slope.

“Hello? Can you hear me?” Annja shouted.

Silence.

She might be too injured to shout back.

“Hold on!” she called out. “I’m coming down after you!”

She thrust the spotlight into her companion’s hand and ran over to the rear of her SUV. She grabbed her climbing bag and carried it over to Csilla, who was keeping the light on the hand.

“Were you traveling together?” Annja asked as she pulled several pieces of gear, including a nylon climbing rope, out of the bag. “Did she fall?”

Csilla shook her head, but Annja wasn’t sure whether the woman didn’t understand what Annja was saying or didn’t know what had happened.

Annja pulled on a headlamp and switched it on, then grabbed the gear she’d pulled out. She looked around for a suitable spot to anchor her rope, finally selecting a tree that stood near the edge of the drop. Hurrying over, she pushed on it for a moment, testing its strength, before deciding it would do. Using a couple of slings and some carabiners, she quickly rigged an anchor and then fed the rope through it, tying the two loose ends together. She gave the rope—and the anchor—a good tug to double-check, then coiled the rope and tossed it over the edge.

She pulled on her climber’s harness, secured a locking carabiner to the front and then clipped on to the rope.

“I’m going down. Keep that light on her,” Annja said. Then she pointed at herself and down the slope in an effort to make her companion understand.

Csilla nodded.

Letting the rope play out between her hands, Annja began backing down the incline. The footing was loose, and therefore treacherous. Annja wouldn’t be able to get the other woman out of there if she cut herself on the shale while climbing down.

Slow and steady, Annja, she reminded herself. Slow and steady.

As she moved downward she began to edge sideways, angling toward the spot where the floodlight was shining. She called out several times, hoping for a reaction, but she didn’t get anything in return. That wasn’t a good sign; the woman was either too injured to respond or past the point of help. Annja hoped for the former.

An experienced climber, Annja was able to descend the hundred feet or so in less than ten minutes. She called out as she drew close.

“My name’s Annja. Can you hear me?”

No response.

Annja carefully maneuvered herself over to the lip of the depression and looked down.

The woman lay facedown on the hard stone about two feet below Annja’s present position, her long dark hair hiding her features. She was nude, which meant she probably hadn’t been Csilla’s traveling companion...and her injuries likely weren’t accidental.

The woman lay unmoving and didn’t respond to Annja’s repeated calls. Her skin was extremely pale—blood loss?—and the woman didn’t appear to be breathing.

The fall down the rocky slope had cut her body in several places, but there was very little blood around the wounds, leading Annja to believe the woman had been killed elsewhere and dumped here. Whoever was responsible must have expected the body to fall all the way to the bottom of the slope.

Fate, however, had intervened.

The woman’s arm had become wedged in the cleft between two rocks, arresting her fall and holding her body in place against the slope. If her arm hadn’t gotten stuck, her body would have been hidden from view and wild animals would’ve likely gotten to her remains long before anyone chanced upon them.

Someone would have gotten away with murder.

Getting the body out of there wasn’t going to be easy, especially on her own, but Annja had to try. She could take the time to go back to Čachtice and look for some help, but the woman’s weight might finally pull her arm free from the rocks while Annja was gone.

If that happened, the effort to recover the body would be considerably more difficult, never mind expensive.

No, if she was going to do something, now was the time to do it.

The question was, how?

The depression in which the woman’s body rested was filled with loose rocks and debris. The footing was going to be treacherous, and it would be all too easy to step on the wrong piece of loose rock and send the body sliding free.

What she needed to do was get to a point below the body and work her way up toward it. That way, if the body slipped, she’d be in a position to do something about it.

Annja climbed back up the slope a few feet and then moved a couple of yards to her right, far enough that her actions wouldn’t have any impact on the body’s position. She rappelled downslope about ten feet and then began searching for a suitable place to put an anchor. When she found it, a narrow cleft in the rock, she used a spring-loaded cam device attached to a sling to anchor the rope. She gave the anchor a tug to test it and then clipped the rope into it with another carabiner.

The wind had picked up since the sun had set, and the temperature was starting to drop. Annja could feel her hands tingle from the cold.

Get moving, she told herself. You don’t have all night.

With the anchor in place, she moved confidently to her left, picking her way across the rock face until she was directly below the body. She could see it on the slope above her, just a few feet overhead.

Annja climbed upward.

She moved as carefully as possible until she could kneel next to the woman’s body. She glanced around, hoping to find a spot where she could place another anchor, but all the debris made it difficult. Annja reached out and put her hand on the woman’s forehead. Her skin was deathly pale and icy cold to the touch, but to Annja’s astonishment she thought she felt some movement. The woman’s arm was stretched out by her side, and when Annja glanced at it, she saw one of the fingers twitch.

The woman was still alive!

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