Obscured amongst leaveless tree branches was the mouth of a great sewer pipe.
It made as much sense as anything could at this moment, before this bizarre sewer pipe in freezing cold. Paul walked toward the cement mouth of the pipe, then stopped—
—then ducked back around the side of the embankment.
A sound had issued from the pipe, he felt sure of it.
And a moment later, he knew he hadn’t been hearing things. He hunkered down, one eye peeking beyond his cover…
A figure emerged from the exit or entrance or whatever it was.
Bags of some sort seemed slung across the figure’s back. The figure was bald, Paul saw in the dim light, though he appeared youthful, strong, a spring in the step. But what struck Paul even more immediately was that the figure wore only a pair of jeans. No shoes and no shirt, though, in this killer cold. Paul watched, deflecting his breath…
The man disappeared down a thin divide in the trees, then reemerged a minute later, minus the bags he’d been toting. He was whistling. He paused a moment on the pavement, and in that moment Paul noticed something else:
A sparse pendant about the man’s neck, and at its end, laying between well-developed pectorals, hung a shiny, dark-purple gemstone.
Then the shirtless figure reentered the sewer pipe and disappeared.
Paul stepped into the narrow divide between the trees.
A scratch of a trail descended; leafless branches threatened to claw Paul’s face. The footpath wound down further, then opened into a large dell encloaked by trees. Paul noticed steam…
He couldn’t see much, but he could see enough. A faint stench drifted up in the biting cold air.
A pit had been dug out of the dell, and the pit was full of large, stuffed, plastic garbage bags. And the two bags nearest the top…wafted steam.
Paul climbed down.
His fingers, like cold prongs of stone, tore open the uppermost bag.
Paul gazed down.
Focused.
Then gasped.
His feet took him briskly back up the
