“Around or through,” J.B. replied. “Anyone any idea whether there’s another way up to the top floor? Jak, you did most of the recce?”
The albino shook his head, his mane of snowy hair blazing like a magnesium flare in the dim light of the long corridor. “Probably back way up there. Could be if went down through kitchen. Risk run into Norman that way.”
J.R had dropped to his knees, peering at the ornate brass lock, head on one side. “Some of these old locks look like they could keep a baron’s fortune safe. But they open up like a baby’s smile to a pick. See what I can do.”
Ryan knew well enough that this wasn’t a job to be rushed. The tiny lock picks that the Armorer carried in one of his capacious pockets would need some delicate handling, probing past the range of tumblers in the heart of the lock, operating by touch alone, ears straining for the fragile sounds.
He sat and leaned back against the wall of the passage, careful not to bump into a tall porcelain jardiniere.
“This going to take long, lover?” Krysty asked, coiling herself with a feline grace beside him.
“Could take fifteen seconds. Could easily take a half hour. Could be that J.B. won’t be able to pick it at all.”
“Then?”
“Shoot the lock off and go in with all guns blazing. Or try Jak’s idea and risk finding another entrance. Don’t much care for the guns-blazing strategy.”
“You think Mildred’s theory about how they regenerate their wounds is right?”
Ryan rubbed at his chin, wondering in passing when he might have another shave, the stubble rasping against the back of his hand. “She’s the doctor, love.”
“It’s somehow in the blood, and that’s why the blood needs refreshing all the time. So the bones and ligaments and other parts that don’t have a blood supply might be a lot more vulnerable to a bullet.”
“Could be.” He grinned. “Course, if it’s right, they’d hardly tell us, would they?”
EVERYONE WAITED in silence, a silence broken only by the faintest metallic scratchings.
Ryan peered down at his chron. “Eight minutes,” he whispered.
J.B. heard and turned toward him, his sallow face glistening with perspiration from the concentrated effort. “You going to time me, partner?”
“Sorry,” Ryan muttered. “How’s it going?”
“Getting there.”
Eleven minutes and forty seconds later the Armorer hissed in triumph. “Yes! Got her.”
“I’ll go first,” Ryan said, unholstering the SIG-Sauer, levering himself upright, aware, as he moved from the sitting position, that his genitals were still sore.
“Sure you can see well enough?”
“Sure, J.B., sure.”
The Armorer folded up the neat pack of lock picks and stashed them in his coat. The door to the attics stood a little way open, and a cold wind filtered down, with the now-familiar stench of rotting earth.
“Ready,” Ryan said. “Don’t have to tell you that we’re all on triple red. That’s shooting first and not bothering to ask any questions. We know what we’re up against and how we agreed to try and take them out. Let’s go.”
THE LOW-ROOFED ROOMS WERE all odd angles and blind corners, cobwebs trailing across the face and mouse-droppings that crunched underfoot.
The dust was so thick that it was possible to move in almost total silence. Ryan led them all up the steep uncarpeted stairs, pausing to try to get his bearings. An occasional oil lamp, the wick trimmed low, threw patches of yellow light among the lakes of dark shadows.
Some of the rooms were empty, while others were piled with heaps of old furniture, chairs covered with rotting brocade and tables with broken legs; tall electric lamps and shelfless cupboards; wind-up gramophone with a large horn, split down its center, and the scattered parts of a child’s toy clockwork railway.
“I don’t feel anyone living up here, lover,” Krysty whispered, “unless the Family give off a different kind of aura to ordinary people.”
“Think they’ve gone? Taken Dean with them on some sort of mission?”
Krysty shook her head, the brilliant red hair curled tight against her skull with the nerve-stretching tension. “Doubt it. Seems much more likely to me that they’ve got the boy hidden someplace else in the house.”
“Cellars?” Doc suggested.
“Could be. Fireblast, but it’s dark as sin up here! Be much worse in the cellars. You got everything all prepared for the lights, J.R?”
“Yeah. Ready-mixed in my pocket. Just hope that it works like you say, Ryan.”
“I’m not saying it’ll definitely work. Saying it should work, is all.”
One of the biggest of the attic rooms had a large double bed in it, with a stained mattress and knotted cords fixed to the four corners of the heavy brass frame. But that was the only chamber on the whole of the top floor that seemed to show any sign of recent habitation.
“Down we go,” Ryan said, turning quickly away from the sight, the memories of his time there too recent and much too painful. Krysty said nothing.
THE DOOR TO THE CELLARS was unlocked. Ryan took the handle and turned it, letting go immediately, wiping his fingers on his pants to try to remove the horrible chill dampness that felt disgustingly stuck to them.
The smell that filtered up seemed to come from the bowels of the land, stinking far worse than anything else around the house. It seemed to grip by the throat, with its overwhelming carrion odor of decay.
“Dark night!” J.B. exclaimed at Ryan’s heels. “Something’s died there, long ago.”
“Bad,” Ryan added, gagging, closing his eye and swallowing hard, breathing through his mouth to try to avoid puking all over the top of the flight of stairs that led into the cellars.
“Maybe I’ll wait here,” Mildred said. “Sorry, but I just don’t think I can face that stench without passing out. It could actually be poisonous, you know.”
Ryan turned to her. “Why don’t you wait here with Krysty and Doc? We need a rear guard. If something goes wrong down there in the pit, then we have to have backup.”
“There’s something down there,” Krysty said, her face as pale as parchment, eyes glittering with an unnatural emerald brightness. “I can feel them.”
“Then we’ll go. Just me, J.B. and Jak. Rest of you stay and chill anything that comes out of here.”
Krysty licked her dry lips. “This is real bad, lover,” she said, voice trembling. “I mean, seriously evil. I’ve never felt anything so potent and wicked as what’s down there, below the good earth.”
“Could we not possibly all wait here? Ambush them as they come out into the hall.” Doc wiped perspiration from his high forehead. “I vow that I feel a greater fear at this moment than I ever did before.”
“Me too, Doc,” Ryan admitted. “But our plan only has a real chance if we can split them. We come up against all four of the Family together, and I reckon we could find ourselves neck deep in big muddy.”
He gave Krysty a quick kiss on the cheek, not wanting to prolong the parting. He glanced at the others, nodded and smiled. Checking that the Armorer and Jak were at his heels, he began to pick his way down into the basement blackness.
There was even less light here than up in the attics. At least there had been a sort of breeze, sliding under the eaves, giving some refreshment from the smell. Down in the cellars of the mansion, the miasmic, cloacal air was quite still.
Ryan took a step at a time, slowly lowering each foot in turn, testing to make sure there was no creaking. The blaster was in his right hand, quizzing the darkness like the flickering tongue of a diamond-back.
His eye was becoming used to the poor light, and he could make out a faint glow somewhere almost directly ahead, at the bottom of the stairs.
And hear the low mutter of voices.
If the members of the Cornelius Family were talking among themselves, then it had to mean they had no idea of the closeness of the ambush.
Jak ghosted to Ryan’s shoulder, tugging at his arm to make him lower his head.
“I see best. Go first?”
Ryan nodded. What the teenager said made very good sense. His pink eyes saw better in poor light than anyone Ryan had ever known. The only catch to the whole plan was the likelihood that the Family could probably see even better than Jak, as well as having their other unnatural, genetically engineered strengths and powers.
Despite the array of ace-on-the-line blasters, the odds weren’t with Ryan and his companions.
Jak’s hair blazed a path for the others to follow as be picked his way through the cellars, taking blind turn after blind turn, moving all the closer to the light and the sound.
Three voicesone a woman, Mary; a younger, stronger voice that had to be Elric; and the other, weaker tone had to be either Thomas or Melmoth, which might mean that only three of the four were within yards of them. Or it might mean, which was worse, that one of the four wasn’t even in the basement region of the big house.