The pain in Marty’s torn leg, which the room had so skillfully dulled, now raged up again. He needed support from Carys to make his way down the first flight of stairs. They made the descent together, his hand, bloody from touching the wound, marking their passage on the wall.
Halfway down the second flight of stairs, the cacophony from the cellar stopped.
They stood still, waiting for Breer’s next move. From below there came a thin creak as the Razor-Eater pushed the cellar door wide. Other than the dim light from the kitchen, which had several corners to round before it reached the hallway, there was nothing to illuminate the scene. Hunter and prey, both camouflaged by darkness, hung on to this tenuous moment, neither knowing if the next would bring catastrophe. Carys left Marty behind and slipped down the remaining steps to the bottom of the stairs. Her feet were all but silent on the carpetless stairs, but after the sense deprivation of Mamoulian’s room Marty heard her every heartbeat.
Nothing moved in the hallway; she beckoned Marty down after her. The passageway was still, and apparently empty. Breer was near, she knew: but where? He was large and cumbersome: hiding places would be difficult to find. Perhaps, she prayed, he hadn’t escaped after all, merely given up, exhausted. She stepped forward.
Without warning, the Razor-Eater emerged from the door of the front room, roaring. The carving knife descended in a swooping stroke. She succeeded in sidestepping the blow, but in doing so all but lost her balance. It was Marty’s hand that caught her arm, and dragged her out of the way of Breer’s second slash. The force of the Razor-Eater’s charge propelled him past her. He slammed against the front door; the glass rattled.
“Out!” Marty said, seeing the way clear along the passage. But this time Carys had no intention of running. There was a time for running and a time for confrontation; she might never have another opportunity to thank Breer for his many humiliations. She shrugged Marty’s hold off and took the wooden club she still carried in a two-handed grasp.
The Razor-Eater had righted himself, the knife still in his hand, and now he took a raging step toward her. She preempted his attack, however. She raised the plank and ran at him, delivering a blow to the side of his head. His neck, already fractured by his fall, snapped. The nails in the plank pierced his skull, and she was obliged to relinquish her weapon, leaving it fixed like a fifth limb to the side of Breer’s head. He fell to his knees. His twitching hand dropped the knife while the other scrabbled for the plank and wrenched it from his head. She was glad of the darkness; the slosh of blood and the tattoo his feet beat on the bare boards were more than enough to appall. He knelt upright for several moments, then pitched forward, pressing the cutlery in his belly all the way home.
She was satisfied. This time, when Marty pulled at her, she went with him.
As they made their way along the corridor there was a sharp rapping on the wall. They stopped. What now? More possessing spirits?
“What is it?” he asked.
The rapping ceased, then began again, this time accompanied by a voice.
“Be quiet, will you? There’s people trying to sleep in here.”
“Next door,” she said. The thought of their complaints struck her as funny, and by the time they’d made their way out of the house, past the wreckage of the cellar door and Breer’s cooling camomile, they were both laughing.
They slipped away down the darkened alleyway behind the house to the car, where they sat for several minutes, tears and laughter coming on them in alternating waves; two mad people, the Calibanese might have guessed; or else adulterers, amused by a night of adventures.