Though still living in a far realm, Ariel allowed Chyna to take her hand and lead her to the stairs.
“We can handle a bunch of damn dogs, kid. Better believe it,” Chyna said, though she was not sure if she believed it herself.
Free of manacles and shackles, no longer carrying a chair on her back, with a stomach full of coffeecake, and with a gloriously empty bladder, she had nothing to think about except the dogs. Halfway up the stairs toward the laundry room, she remembered something that she had seen earlier; it had been puzzling then, but it was clear now and vitally important.
“Wait. Wait here,” she told Ariel, and pressed the girl’s limp hand around the railing.
She plunged back down the stairs, went to the metal cabinets, and pulled open the door behind which she had seen the strange pads trailing black leather straps with chrome-plated buckles. She pulled them out, scattering them on the floor around her, until the cabinet was empty.
They weren’t pads. They were heavily padded garments. A jacket with a dense foam outer layer under a man-made fabric that appeared to be a lot tougher than leather. Especially thick padding around both arms. A pair of bulky chaps featured hard plastic under the padding, body-armor quality; the plastic was segmented and hinged at the knees to allow the wearer flexibility. Another pair of chaps protected the backs of the legs and came with a hard-plastic butt shield, a waist belt, and buckles that connected them to the front chaps.
Behind the garments were gloves and an odd padded helmet with a clear Plexiglas face shield. She also found a vest that was labeled KEVLAR, which looked exactly like the bulletproof garments worn by members of police SWAT teams.
A few small tears marred the garments—and in many places other rips had been sewn shut with black thread as heavy as fishing line. She recognized the same neat stitches that she had seen in the young hitchhiker’s lips and eyelids. Here and there in the padding were unrepaired punctures. Tooth marks.
This was the protective gear that Vess wore when he worked with the Dobermans.
Apparently he layered on enough padding and armor to walk safely through a pride of hungry lions. For a man who liked to take risks, who believed in living life on the edge, he seemed to take excessive precautions when putting his pack of Dobermans through their training sessions.
Vess’s extraordinary safeguards told Chyna everything that she needed to know about the savagery of the dogs.
10
Less than twenty-two hours since the first cry in the Templeton house in Napa. A lifetime. And now toward another midnight and into whatever lay beyond.
Two lamps were aglow in the living room. Chyna no longer cared about keeping the house dark. As soon as she went out the front door and confronted the dogs, there would be no hope of lulling Vess into a false sense of security if he came home early.
According to the mantel clock, it was ten-thirty. Ariel sat in one of the armchairs. She was hugging herself and rocking slowly back and forth, as if suffering from a stomachache, although she made no sound and remained expressionless.
Protective gear designed for Vess was huge on Chyna, and she vacillated between feeling ridiculous and worrying that she would be dangerously impeded by the bulky garb. She had rolled up the bottoms of the chaps and fixed them in place with large safety pins that she’d found in a sewing kit in the laundry room. The belts of the chaps featured loops and long Velcro closures, so she was able to cinch them tight enough to keep them from sliding down over her hips. The cuffs of the padded sleeves were folded back and pinned too, and the Kevlar vest helped to bulk her up, so she wasn’t quite swimming in the jacket. She wore a segmented plastic-armor collar that encircled her neck and prevented the dogs from tearing out her throat. She couldn’t have been more cumbersomely dressed if she’d been cleaning up nuclear waste in a post-meltdown reactor.
Nevertheless, she was vulnerable in places, especially at her feet and ankles. Vess’s training togs included a pair of leather combat boots with steel toes, but they were much too big for her. As protection against attack dogs, her soft Rockports were hardly more effective than bedroom slippers. In order to get to the motor home without being severely bitten, she would have to be quick and aggressive.