Heathen/Nemesis Page 21

  She eased herself down a few rungs, praying it wouldn’t collapse under her.

  The stench of damp that enveloped her was noxious; she tried to take short breaths. Gripping the hammer in one fist and propping the hatch up with her free hand, she crouched low so that she had about an inch gap through which she could see the back door.

  The door was starting to split from its merciless battering.

  One of the hinges was coming loose.

  Julie gripped the hatch and waited. She almost screamed when she felt something soft touch her face.

  A spider the size of her thumbnail dropped past her in the gloom, its legs brushing her cheek.

  She gripped the hammer and waited.

  The door was practically off its hinges now. One more blow and the attacker would be inside.

  Julie swallowed hard, closing her eyes.

  There was a final crash and the door, and Ryker, hurtled into the kitchen.

  Upstairs, Donna heard the sound of forced entry, her eyes still fixed on the barely moving form of Stark.

  Had she turned round quicker, she might have seen Kellerman advancing upon her.

  Sixty-Eight

  The attacks happened simultaneously.

  Kellerman launched himself at Donna.

  Ryker crashed into the kitchen, looking for Julie.

  Donna heard a grunt as Kellerman grabbed her, pinning her arms by her sides, lifting her off her feet. She could not raise the pistol to use against him.

  She found herself looking directly into his face as his arms tightened around her in a bear hug that threatened to crush her ribs.

  With horror she realized he was carrying her to the top of the stairs.

  Donna twisted in his grip but could not free herself.

  She screamed loudly, but it was a bellow of rage not helplessness.

  Kellerman grinned at her but the gesture faded instantly as Donna spat in his face, the mucus sliding down his cheek thickly like gelatinous tears. She snaked her head forward and bit hard into his nose, biting down with all her strength, ignoring his shrieks of pain, trying not to gag on the blood that filled her mouth.

  He let go of her and staggered back, reaching for his gun.

  She ran at him now, driving one foot up, kicking him with all her force between the legs.

  He groaned and dropped to his knees, grabbing her other leg and pulling hard enough to send her flying. She hit the floor with a bone-jarring thud and lay there, momentarily dazed. Kellerman leapt on her, his weight pressing down. She jabbed two fingers into his eyes and he screamed and rolled off her, trying to rise to his feet, blinded by her attack. Her stabbing nails had torn his left upper eyelid and blood from the wound dribbled down the side of his face, some of it running across the orb itself, turning one half of his world crimson.

  Donna tried to raise the .38, anxious to get a shot at him, but he knocked her hand down and the gun discharged into the floor. The thunderous retort deafened them both momentarily. He struck out again, this time with the back of his hand, catching her a blow across the face which split her top lip and sent her reeling. But she still held the gun and, as Kellerman turned on her, Donna shook her head clear and fired at him.

  Luck playing a somewhat greater part in the matter than judgement, the bullet struck him in the calf, tore through the muscles there and exited, spattering the wall behind with blood and pink tissue.

  He screamed and almost lost his footing as he made for the stairs.

  Donna, her head spinning, tried to follow but he was halfway to the bottom before she managed to get off another shot. The heavy-grain slug powered into the wall inches above Kellerman’s head. He looked up at her, teeth gritted, his face a mask of blood from his injuries.

  She saw him stop and slide an arm around Stark’s waist, carrying his companion towards the front door, both of them leaving a trail of blood behind.

  Donna tasted her own blood as it ran into her mouth from the cut on her lip.

  She tried to follow and almost fell down the stairs, gritting her teeth to prevent herself passing out.

  She had to get to Julie.

  As Ryker came careering into the kitchen, Julie threw back the cellar hatch and came hurtling forth like a maddened trap-door spider, brandishing the hammer.

  So startled was he by this sudden onslaught, Ryker momentarily froze, rooted to the spot.

  Julie swung the hammer with all her strength and caught him in the mouth with its gleaming head.

  She heard teeth shatter under the impact, saw one of them driven through his top lip. Saw blood burst from the cut.

  He reeled backwards, one smashed incisor falling from his bleeding, pulped gums.

  Julie struck again, this time catching him just above the right eye, tearing the flesh. The hammer carved through his eyebrow and opened up a cut as deep as the frontal bone it cracked.

  Julie spun the weapon, bringing the clawed part down on his hand as he raised his fists in defence.

  The metal tore into his flesh, ripping it away, slicing effortlessly through skin and muscles, exposing a portion of the middle-finger knuckle.

  Ryker ran for the shattered back door, out into the driving rain and the darkness, which suddenly seemed welcoming.

  Julie stood by the back door, rain drenching her, mingling with the tears of rage and fear on her cheeks. She tasted blood and thought that it was Ryker’s, but then realized that her own face was gashed just below the left eye, she guessed by flying glass.

  Panting breathlessly, she turned from the door and moved through to the hall, where Donna was trying to make her way down the stairs.

  From outside, they both heard the sound of car engines.

  Julie, still gripping the bloodied hammer, looked cautiously through the window by the front door.

  She saw two cars disappearing down the dirt track, away from the cottage, their tail-lights gradually swallowed by the gloom and the relentless downpour.

  ‘Donna,’ she gasped.

  Donna said nothing; she just dropped to her knees, the .38 still gripped in her fist, face bruised, her lip bleeding.

  Julie dropped the hammer and found she was sobbing uncontrollably. She was standing in a pool of blood.

  Sixty-Nine

  It wasn’t a matter of if they would return; it was merely a question of when.

  Donna sat at the sitting-room window, the Beretta on the sill in front of her. On the coffee table to her right lay the .38 and the .357. All had been reloaded.

  On the sofa behind her Julie was sleeping fitfully, a blanket covering her, her face pale and drawn, dark rings beneath her eyes. The cuts on her hands and arms had been cleaned and bathed, then covered with plaster. She’d been fortunate to escape more serious injury from the flying glass.

  Donna herself touched her lip tentatively with one finger, feeling how it had swollen. There was a dark bruise surrounding it; she hoped that the discoloration wouldn’t last too long. Her sides ached when she inhaled, and when she moved too quickly she felt a sharp pain in her lumbar region. As the night wore on it began to diminish. There were more bruises on her arms and legs, and some on her shoulders.

  The house had been cleaned as well as was possible. The broken windows had been boarded up with pieces of wood from the attic. Donna had re-attached the back door to its frame as well, while Julie mopped up the blood in the hallway - although she finally passed out during the task. Donna had helped her onto the sofa, woken her gently but then realized that she was becoming hysterical. She had been forced to slap her face to quieten her. Tears had followed, both women understandably shaken by their ordeal, by the knowledge of how close to death they had come.

  And of how close they might come again.

  Donna felt herself dozing and sat upright, shaking her head free of the crushing tiredness that threatened to envelope her. Another fifteen minutes and she would wake Julie. They had agreed to keep the vigil between them. One would watch for two hours while the other slept.

/>   Donna reached out to touch the butt of the automatic, as if the feel of the cold steel would somehow shock her from her lethargy.

  How easy it would be to surrender now, she thought, not only to sleep but also to the demands of these men. How easy to give them the book they sought, to be done with the entire affair.

  And just walk away?

  Donna knew that was impossible. Even if she did tell them the whereabouts of the Grimoire, there was no way they were going to spare her or Julie. Too much damage had been done; she knew too much about them now. They would have to kill her.

  As they had done her husband?

  She still didn’t know for sure if Chris had been murdered. The police had been convinced it was a genuine accident that took his life

  (and that of his mistress)

  but after what she’d been through, after what she had discovered, Donna could not believe that men willing to kill for the possession of a book had not taken the life of the man she’d loved.

  Once loved? Before his affair?

  She administered a mental rebuke. She and her sister had almost been killed only hours earlier and all she could think about, it seemed, was her dead husband’s infidelity.

  No one can be trusted.

  How prophetic had been those words he’d written. How apt. How irritatingly, fittingly, fucking appropriate. She gritted her teeth in anger and pain.

  And frustration?

  No. She would not give in to these men. She would not let them have the Grimoire.

  She wanted it. Not because she needed it, but because she was determined no one else should have it. It was like a prize. This hunt for the book had become a contest and Donna intended winning.

  Life and death.

  Win or lose.

  There was no turning back now, even if she wanted to.

  Life or death.

  She looked at the guns.

  Seventy

  ‘Farrell, he’s dying.’

  ‘What do you want me to do about it?’

  ‘Help him.’

  Brian Kellerman looked down at Frank Stark, then at Farrell.

  Stark was lying on his back in the motel room, his shirt open to reveal the bullet wound close to his navel. Blood pumped slowly from the hole, which was tinged black and purple at the edges.

  Kellerman himself looked bad. His nose was little more than a bloodied lump and the bruising around his left eye was so severe he could barely see out of it. He had two or three minor cuts and grazes on his cheeks; they looked as if someone had pulled a fork through the flesh.

  On the other bed in the double room of the Travelodge David Ryker sat, head bowed, hands clapped to both sides of his skull. Every now and then he would spit blood onto the carpet. He had bandaged his cut hand so tightly his fingers were beginning to go numb. He touched his shattered front teeth with his other hand, feeling part of one smashed incisor come free. He spat out enamel and blood.

  Farrell was sitting at the table in the room, thumbing 9mm bullets into two magazines for the UZI. Each held thirty-two rounds.

  Fucking women, he thought, pushing the high calibre shells into the box magazine. Fucking bloody women. They were spoiling everything, those two troublesome cunts. He gritted his teeth, loading the bullets more quickly. Jesus, he’d make them pay. Especially Ward’s wife. That fucking bitch would wish she’d never seen the book or him or anything to do with it. He’d put a bullet in her brain himself. No, he’d put several in. Hold the UZI against the base of her skull and let rip. Blow her fucking head right off. Turn her face and head into confetti. He slammed the full magazine into the weapon and gripped it for a moment, the veins in his temple throbbing angrily.

  On the bed Stark groaned loudly and clapped hands to the wound.

  ‘We’ve got to do something about him,’ snapped Kellerman.

  ‘Have you got any suggestions?’ Farrell wanted to know ‘Do you want to call the ambulance yourself? Why not call the police, while you’re at it? Tell them how he was shot. What he was doing when that crazy mare put three fucking bullets in him. Go on, call them.’ He banged his fist down on the table and glared at Kellerman.

  ‘We’ll have to leave him here,’ said Ryker, probing another loose tooth.

  ‘And when he’s found?’ Kellerman asked. ‘What then?’

  ‘We’ll be long gone,’ Farrell said. ‘There’s nothing to link him to us. We’ll take his ID with us so they won’t be able to identify him.’

  Stark coughed, a sticky flux of phlegm and blood spilling over his lips. The movement made the pain worse and he groaned even more loudly.

  Farrell regarded the man impassively.

  ‘I didn’t expect them to have guns,’ said Kellerman, gazing down at his stricken companion.

  Farrell didn’t answer.

  Ryker got to his feet and wandered into the bathroom. He inspected the damage to his mouth again, wincing as he saw just how much destruction Julie had wrought with the hammer. His lip was torn, a flap of skin hanging uselessly from it. The area between his gashed top lip and his nose was heavily bruised. Blood had congealed on his other front teeth; when he licked his tongue back and forth he could taste the coppery tang. He allowed a long streamer of mucus to hang from his mouth, watching as it struck the white enamel of the sink and trickled slowly into the plughole, leaving a crimson slick behind it.

  ‘So we leave him here?’ Kellerman protested. ‘Just leave him to die . . .’

  ‘Do you want to stay with him?’ hissed Farrell, turning the UZI on Kellerman. ‘Do you?’

  Kellerman looked at the dying man, then stepped away from the bed.

  ‘What about the women? Do we go back there? Try again?’ Ryker asked, returning from the bathroom, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

  Farrell shook his head.

  ‘We follow them. Let them lead us to it. Then we’ll take care of them.’ He stroked the short barrel of the sub-machine gun. His eyes strayed to the telephone. The other two men saw him looking at it.

  ‘What makes you think they’ll try to get it?’ Ryker asked. ‘After what happened tonight they might have had enough.’

  ‘This isn’t over until we’ve got that book. Besides, Ward’s wife will want to get her hands on it. She’s stubborn, like her fucking old man was. She won’t give up now.’

  He looked at the phone again then lifted the receiver, aware that his hand was shaking.

  He dialled the number and waited.

  Seventy-One

  Julie Craig sat at the wheel of the Fiesta, her head bowed. She sucked in a deep breath then looked up, squeezing her eyelids tightly together as if to clear the fuzziness which clouded her vision. But it wasn’t her vision that was affected, she realized; it was her mind. She felt as if someone had wrapped her thoughts in a blanket. Reasoning seemed difficult; actions were a major effort.

  ‘Do you want me to drive?’ Donna asked, looking across at her sister.

  ‘No, it’s okay,’ Julie replied, starting the engine.

  The rain slowed to a fine drizzle which hung over the countryside like a dirty curtain. The yard in front of the house and the dirt track were little more than liquid mud. The rear wheels of the Fiesta spun, trying to gain purchase in the sucking ooze. Finally Julie stepped harder on the accelerator and the vehicle moved off. She flicked on the windscreen wipers. One of them squeaked but neither woman seemed to notice the irritating sound. Both kept their eyes fixed firmly ahead.

  Donna dared not settle herself too comfortably into her seat in case she dozed off. She doubted she’d had more than three hours sleep the previous night, and Julie only a little more. It showed, too; despite their make-up, they both looked pale and wan. Donna had managed to disguise the worst of the bruising on her top lip beneath some foundation cream and a little rouge had given at least some artificial colour to her cheeks, but as she pulled down the sun-visor on the driver’s side and peered into the mirror she realized she looked as tired as she felt.

  Sh
e had no idea how long the drive into Portsmouth would take. Two hours, perhaps less? The road conditions and Julie’s emotional state weren’t going to help. Again Donna asked if she should drive but Julie merely shook her head.

  ‘This man at the waxworks,’ she said. ‘What’s his name? Paxton? Have you ever met him?’

  ‘No, but Chris got on well with him. He helped him a lot with research about the history of the building, how the models are made, that sort of thing.’ She sighed. ‘Chris must have trusted him in order to hide the Grimoire there.’

  No one is to be trusted.

  ‘But he didn’t say whereabouts he hid it?’

  ‘No. I doubt if Paxton knows either,’ Donna said, looking at the piece of paper she’d collected the day before. Beside the address of the waxworks, it also had two phone numbers. One she guessed was the owner’s home number; as it was Sunday, she might well need it. Off season, she doubted if the attraction would be open. It was hardly the weather to attract day-trippers, either.

  ‘So what do we do when we find it?’ Julie asked.

  ‘I wish I knew,’ Donna confessed. ‘Read it?’ She smiled thinly.

  She glanced at the dashboard clock.

  1.56 p.m.

  By the time they reached the outskirts of Portsmouth the rain had practically stopped, but the sky was still slate grey and threatening. There wasn’t much traffic on the roads until they approached the city centre, and then roads became a little more clogged. Julie had cold air blowing into the car in an effort to keep them both alert. The crushing weariness was a formidable enemy, though, and she felt her eyelids drooping as if they’d been weighted.

  ‘I’m going to have to stop for a while, Donna,’ she said finally. ‘I’m practically driving asleep.’

  ‘I know how you feel,’ her sister said, pointing at something up ahead. ‘There’s a café there. Let’s get a coffee.’

  Julie checked the rear-view mirror and prepared to swing the car across the road into a parking space. At the last moment she stopped the manoeuvre and drove on instead.