Chapter Thirty-Four
The breaking glass and burst of automatic gunfire brought Mildred, Krysty and Dean to their feet.
“That was the Uzi,” the boy crowed. “And I think it was Dad’s SIG-Sauer. Sounded like they’re in there and giving them some double-hot tar.”
“On the top floor,” Mildred said, peering out from the bushes toward the ville.
There was a yell that could have been either pain or anger, Krysty reckoned that it sounded like pain.
“Can’t we try and find a way in, Krysty, please? Could be they need help.”
She nodded. “Yeah, Dean. Mebbe they do. But the doors are going to be bolted and guarded. I know it’s not what you want, but we still do what Ryan told us to do.”
“Wait and watch!” His voice was sullen, and he kicked out at a loose pebble.
They all looked up as a single gunshot sounded into the night. But it wasn’t repeated.
IT WASN’T MUCH of a firefight, closer to a massacre.
Ryan went up the final half flight of stairs, as swift and silent as a striking cobra, opening fire on the unsuspecting group of sec men as soon as they were in sight.
J.B. was right behind him, the Uzi snapping out a chain of death along the corridor.
Only one shot was fired in retaliation, and that was merely a postmortem reflex from one of the men as he went down, his finger going into spasm, pulling the trigger of his blaster, the hand-cast bullet breaking a window toward the rear of the house.
Apart from the sudden burst of gunfire, the attack was almost soundless. Only one of the guards even cried out, a single high-pitched scream of agony as a 9 mm round ripped into his groin.
The rest tumbled together, arms flailing, blood fountaining over the floor and the walls and dappling the white-plastered ceiling.
As Ryan and J.B. looked down at the charnel-house scene of writhing corpses and puddled crimson and splintered bones, Doc lumbered up behind them, knees creaking noisily.
“Upon my soul! I have my trusty Le Mat primed and ready and find that the skirmish is over and done.”
“Open the door for Jak,” Ryan said. “Key’s already in the lock there.”
One of the sec men was still alive, trying to get up on hands and knees, carrying three bullet wounds. Ryan leveled the SIG-Sauer at the base of his skull at close range and squeezed the trigger one more time.
“That’s it.”
“Likely to bring us some company,” said J.B. “Looks like a staircase along the end there. Should bring us down somewhere close to the entrance to the baron’s zoo.”
Doc fumbled with the key, before he worked out that it was quicker to holster the Le Mat and lay the sword stick on the carpet, away from the spreading pool of blood, leaving both his hands free to open the door.
As soon as it swung back, Jak was in the doorway, hair tumbling about his shoulders like the spray from a whiter fountain. His red eyes turned to Ryan, ignoring the tangled pile of corpses that lay at this feet.
“Emma? Baron?”
“Seems that he’s taken her down to his collection, Jak. Anything happened we should know about?”
“Saw her own death. Drown in scarlet sea. Before she went down to see Sharpe, told me saw his death. Tongue’s turned silver and broke mirror and vanished in desert.”
Ryan shook his head. “Run that past me again, will you, Jak? I didn’t-”
“No time.”
“Wait. I got your Colt here.”
But the teenager was already on the move, running through the dimly lighted corridor, hair blazing like a flare, calling back to Ryan over his shoulder.
“See you in zoo!”
Doc coughed, stooping to pick up his sword stick. “Should we not follow the young fellow?”
“Yeah,” Ryan said. “We will. Right now.”
IN HIS ANXIETY, Jak took a wrong turn at the bottom of the first flight of stairs, going to the left instead of right, finding himself in a series of abandoned rooms. There was no sign of stairs down to the first floor that would have brought him closer to the mutie collection.