There was a shout of pain from the landing above them and the sound of running feet, fading into the distance.
J.B. had pumped another round under the hammer, and he stood still, eyes raking the dining room ahead of him, turning to peer into the dim light of the stairs above.
“Think that’s it,” he said.
“Looks that way,” Ryan agreed, his good eye turning from side to side as he carefully reloaded the five spent rounds into the big automatic. “Scared the rest off.”
“By the Three Kennedys! I had no idea that you were about to release those miniature arrows, John Barrymore! My beloved Le Mat remains unfired.”
“If you’d been a little closer you could have taken them all out with a single round, Doc,” the little man said. “But you weren’t, so you didn’t.”
“That way.” Ryan pointed across the dining room toward the rear of the building. “Can’t take any more time.”
DESPITE KRYSTY’S and Mildred’s efforts, Dean had insisted on moving closer to the back door of the ville. The new burst of firing and shouts had driven him close to panic.
“Dad’s getting chilled in there, and we sit out here with our thumbs up our asses!” he hissed at Krysty.
“Give it another ten minutes. Nothing happens, then we’ll go in. All right?”
The boy nodded. “Sure hope we won’t be too bastard late, Krysty. There’s some bad things going down in there!”
Chapter Thirty-Five
“I think this would do well for you. Oh, yes, I think it will.”
Emma’s arms were bruised from Sharpe’s steely grip, and there was a dark swelling on her right cheek where he’d casually backhanded her for refusing to come with him into the dank, dark rear part of the building.
She had briefly seen the occupants of the four cages: the pathetic stickie and the poor mad old scabbie, the crazed twins and the tall young man. Only the last of them had taken any notice of the baron and his hapless victim. He had moved slowly to the front of his foul-smelling cage, bare feet brushing through the urine-soaked straw, skinny fingers grasping at the rusting iron bars, eyes staring wildly.
“The stone will lie deep in the water, and the water shall become dry dust,” he said loudly.
Emma’s golden eyes opened wide, staring at the man. “You have something of the power,” she said quietly.
“Power is knowledge and I have little of that. I know that the nuke walls will crumble and the wind carry sightless death around the world to blight the pasture and the animals and people.”
Sharpe had pulled her away with a snort of disgust. “His life is measured in hours. Yes, it is. Why feed a midget when you can have a giant chained to your table?”
Now they stood in front of the last cage in line.
It stood in almost total darkness, its stained concrete floor swept bare, the heavy metal door hanging open.
“At least let me die in the light,” she begged.
“No, here is where you’ll stay. If you give me what I need, then I might allow you to be imprisoned within the house. But not yet. The iron fist comes first and then the glove of velvet, my dear little Emma.”
“There is so much death here.” She shuddered in his hands. “Dear God, so much death.”
Sharpe smiled at her, the torchlight dancing off his cold milky eyes. “So right, doomie. Think of being imprisoned here. At the end of the world. Sentenced to endless misery. Perhaps I might die in some accident and then you would be forgotten. Oh, yes, such neglect. It has happened before. I have sometimes quite forgotten about my pets through listening to my own private voices, and they have not been fed or watered. One wretch bit off his own hand and drank his own blood to sustain life.” He threw back his head and laughed loudly, the echoes quickly fading, muffled by the oppressive weight of the thick walls and ceiling.
The baron gazed proudly at the empty cage, nodding to himself as he anticipated the pleasure of seeing Emma locked away inside it.