“But I couldn’t help saying that I saw the tornado. Because I did!”
“And was right,” Jak said.
“Not the point, Jak, dear.”
“Point is, Doc’s right. Escape is number one.”
“I won’t escape from here.”
Her voice had gone flat and distant, making Doc look worriedly at her.
“The others will put their best feet forward, my dear lady. Ryan’s shoulder to the wheel. John Barrymore Dix’s chin out. Mildred with her fist clenched. They are not folk who would allow any harm to come to their companions. I know them a deal better than you do, Miss Emma.”
“And I know what’s going to happen, Doc.”
“Ah, do you now? Do you, indeed?”
Emma stood, her golden eyes moving from the old man to the albino teenager. “I know the most likely future for us all. See it clear as I see this room.”
Jak swung his legs off the bed, uncoiling with the easy grace of a panther, laying his hands on her arms, shaking her gently. “Said not always right. Not always clear. Said that!”
She nodded, tears clustering in her eyes, trickling down her cheeks. “Times I think I know. Other times I know that I know. I see my death, Jak.”
“We all die some time,” Doc offered. “Just a matter of where and when.”
“I shall die within the next two days.”
“No,” Jak said, almost shouting.
“Yes, dear friend,” Emma stated gently. “I see you alive and safe. And Doc the same.”
“Do you see whether we manage to escape from this durance ville?” Doc asked. “And what of Ryan and the others? Do you see their fate?”
Emma shook her head. “No. I think that you and Jak will escape safely, but I can’t make out any details. I see the death of Baron Sharpe.”
Jak let go of her. “What?”
“Oh, yes. My death is linked with his. We go together into the blackness. Almost hand in hand. Perhaps an hour will pass, but not longer.”
Jak suddenly opened his arms and took the young woman, embracing her tightly, his mane of stark white hair mingling with her short black locks.
“Won’t let it happen,” he said.
“I die and then the baron,” she insisted.
“So, I’ll chill him first. Then you won’t die at all.” Jak’s voice was cracked with the tension.
“It doesn’t happen that way, my dear. Oh, Jak, I want to live. I’ve met you and I think I’m falling in love with you. And there could have been some happiness. But it won’t happen.”
Nobody said anything.
“WE WAITING until it’s full dark, lover?” Krysty asked.
Ryan was crouched in deep undergrowth, a hundred paces from the main entrance to the ville. “Mebbe. I know I said it looked like an easy egg to crack, but having been inside, I’m not sure. Might be worth a look around the back.”
J.B. was lying flat on his stomach, glasses pushed up on his forehead, peering through the leafy cover. “That zoo collection sort of place is around the rear. Could be there’s another door for supplies and stuff like that.”
“We all going in, Dad?”
Ryan shook his head. “Probably not, Dean. And don’t pull that miserable face at me.”
“Sorry.”
“Just me and J.B. is all. Best chance of moving fast and quiet. Rest of you wait here and get ready to give us cover when we all come out.”
“If you come out,” Mildred said quietly.
“We’ll do it.”
“Sure, Ryan. Just like you did last time and the time before. But there’s going to be a day coming when you won’t do it. If Emma was here, she’d probably be able to tell you if that day’s coming now.”
“She isn’t and she can’t, love,” J.B. said, turning to Ryan. “Let’s go recce.”
“YES.” THE WORD HISSED out from Ryan. “That’s what we need.”
It was a rear entrance to the ville, a double door, made from wood, about ten feet high, topped with rusting barbed wire. A dirt track wound away from it, toward the north. A single sec man paced slowly up and down in front of the doors, a musket on his shoulder. There was no sign of any other sentry anywhere around.