Krysty had her Smith amp; Wesson 640 drawn, snapping off two bullets at the fleeing figure’s legs, missing both times. She didn’t dare to risk a body or head shot in case she hit Dean, lolling helplessly in Mary’s grip.
“Stop and let him go!”
“Fuck a dead hog, norm slut! Nothing can stop us. Nothing! We’re made to live forever!”
Mary paused at the door to the top floor, fumbling with the handle, screaming in sudden anger and ripping the brass lock out of the frame, throwing it behind her, making Krysty duck as it sliced by her.
“Stand and fight, you cowardly, murderous, raping bitch!” Krysty screamed.
For a moment Mary seemed to hesitate, then she vanished up the last flight of stairs.
Krysty was right at her heels, gripping the short-barreled pistol, knowing she had only two bullets left.
She raced up the stairs, stopping dead when she saw that Mary had turned and laid the boy behind her, standing and waiting for Krysty, beckoning to her.
“I heard you, norm,” she said, smiling gently. “Murderous and raping” She laughed. “Won’t argue there, Krysty. But not cowardly. Oh, no, not cowardly. You want the male child, then come and fight me for him. Beat me and he’s yours. Lose and you die with him.”
Krysty picked her way carefully until she was less than three yards from Mary, noting that she was topped by a couple of inches. And she knew the supernormal power and strength of the whole family.
“Gaia, help me,” she whispered, closing her eyes for a moment. “Grant me again the power of the Earth Mother to fight for good against evil. Give me the power.”
Krysty knew from previous experience that, on rare occasions, she could draw on the secret mutie powers inherited from her mother, Sonja, though to use it always took a terrible toll on her own health.
“Prayers are futile, slut,” Mary hissed. “Pagan superstition. Fight me or die.” She laughed again. “Fight me and die.”
Ryan and J.B. were standing on the second-floor landing when they heard that manic laugh, echoing from room to room throughout the house.
“Up,” Ryan said, leading the way.
Krysty could never tell how the power entered her body, but she could feel it, flooding like liquid fire through the arteries, the veins, along every tiny capillary.
She opened and closed her fingers, rejoicing in the surge of strength.
“Die, bitch,” she said, closing with the vampire.
Mary hadn’t a shred of doubt what the outcome would be. During her unnaturally long life she’d killed, with her bare hands, dozens of times. There was no difference to her in breaking the neck of a full-grown man or a newborn baby. And the redhead would just be another corpse on the road.
Despite the Earth power, Krysty knew that this wasn’t going to be easy. She had to use speed, intelligence and cunning, as well as strength, and the faster and sooner, the better.
As Mary reached for her, ready to drag Krysty into a lethal embrace, she ducked and kicked out as hard as she could with her left leg, remaining perfectly balanced, striking the vampire in the center of her right knee. The chiseled silver point of the elegant boot smashed the delicate joint into shards of splintered bone and torn cartilage.
Mary cried out in pain, thin and high, like a stallion under a thin-bladed gelding knife. She toppled sideways, tripping over the unconscious boy, falling full length on the wooden floor, raising a choking cloud of dust.
She rolled over, sprawling by the legs of a squat, immensely heavy marble-topped table.
Ryan and J.B. were on the top landing when they heard the piercing scream and the thunderous crash.
They stopped for a moment, checking their bearings. “Didn’t sound like Krysty,” J.B. said.
“No,” Ryan agreed.
Krysty took in a long, deep breath, looking at her fallen enemy, feeling no shred of pity. “This is for all the nameless, faceless dead,” she said quietly.
She saw a movement out of the corner of her eye in the filthy attic, but she guessed it was only a rat and ignored it, focusing all her power on the helpless vampire.
Mary was rolling from side to side, clutching her ruined knee, blood seeping from her mouth where she’d bitten through the tip of her tongue.
Krysty finished the job with calm efficiency, picking the spot and kicking out again. The boot cracked into the small of the woman’s back, snapping her spine, cutting the nerve highways to arms and legs. She flopped back helpless on her back, staring up at her slayer.
The red-haired beauty reached for the massive table with her left hand, pulling at it, tilting it effortlessly onto two legs so that it hung over the doomed vampire like a great stone.
“Goodbye,” Krysty said.
Ryan and J.B. arrived at the top of the final flight of stairs, blasters drawn, just in time to see the last act of the murderous drama.
The table tipped over, and the great slab of marble that was its top landed flush on Mary Cornelius’s skull, crushing it to a grue of blood, brains and powdery bone. The noise in the attic was almost indescribable, like a mighty apple being squashed by a giant’s boot heel.
“You used the power, lover,” Ryan said. “Quick, come down before you pass out.”
Krysty shook her head, the fiery hair tumbling loose and free across her shoulders. She smiled at Ryan. “No need. Don’t know why, love, but this time the power came and now it’s gone, and it hasn’t harmed me. I feel terrific.”
“Where’s Dean?” J.B. asked, staring around the dark caverns of the attic.
“Just over there by” Krysty stopped, pointing into a black space. “He was, just before.”
“Well, he’s not now,” Ryan said grimly.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“Norman,” Ryan stated.
The friends were together again, Doc and Mildred recovered from the attack by the woman. With the one-eyed man leading them, they’d gone back through the dining hall, past the kitchen, toward the main front door to the mansion.
“Norman!” Ryan repeated. “Let the boy go and you don’t get hurt.”
The diminutive figure was wearing a flowing dressing gown of lilac silk, belted in tightly at the waist. He was half carrying Dean, who seemed to be coming around from his drugged sleep, and holding a long carving knife to the side of the boy’s throat. The front door was partly open and he stood in the gap, almost completely covered by Dean.
“Steady,” Ryan warned. “Don’t go doing anything foolish that we could all regret.”
“You’ve murdered Mary and Thomas. But Melmoth, out hunting, has escaped you. He’ll take his revenge for his brother and sister.”
Suddenly the funny little man wasn’t funny anymore. There was a lethal glint in his eye and steel in his voice.
Out of the corner of his good eye, Ryan noticed that Jak was no longer with them.
“And Melmoth’ll make me master of the village. So that I can pick and choose anyone that takes my fancy. Power to rule. All power.”
Doc nodded, leaning on his swordstick. “All power corrupts, Master Norman.”
Mildred finished the quote for him. “And absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Norman giggled. “Then I’m ready to be corrupted. Ready as I’ll ever What was ?”
Ryan had spotted something that whirred across the hall, like a venomous dragonfly, something that reflected for a nanosecond the gold light of the oil lamps. It struck Norman on the side of his neck, just below the ear, hissing within inches of Dean’s tousled head.
For anyone else it would have been an absurdly hazardous throw. For Jak Lauren it was easy as hitting a barn door at fifteen paces.
The heavy-bladed knife had hit Norman precisely where it had been aimed, so speedy and silent that the butler still had no idea that he’d been mortally wounded.
“Something swine of stung me Hear raining. Outside the door?”
Blood pattered on the stone flags, smoking in the cool night air. Norman’s grip on Dean had gone, and the boy had slipped away, taking a few faltering steps to Mildred, who had moved quickly to support him.
“Warned you,” Ryan said.
Norman was down on his knees, still with the same almost comical look of surprise on his pinched face. His hand finally touched the taped hilt of the throwing knife that jutted from the severed artery.
“Ah, a knife,” he said slowly. “That was cleverclever of”
And he slid forward gently onto his face, like a swimmer entering deeper water.
“How’s Dean?” Ryan asked, while Jak quickly retrieved his knife, wiping it on the pretty dressing gown.
“Fine Dad.” The voice sounded slurred. “Tired and been sleeping and had double-strange dreams of Can’t remember.”
“I’ll look after him,” Mildred said. “If Grand-daddy Melmoth’s out hunting, we’d best shake the dust of this place off our feet and get moving toward the redoubt.”