Intensity

As the girl followed a long and winding road farther into her private Elsewhere, her hands relaxed, and the book slipped out of them. It slid off the edge of the chair and thumped to the floor, and all except a whisper of the sound was absorbed by the special walls and ceiling. She was not aware of having dropped the volume, and she sat unmoving.

'I'm your guardian,' Chyna repeated, and wondered vaguely at her choice of words.

She was more afraid for Ariel than for herself, and her heart was racing faster than ever before.

'Your guardian.'

Hot tears blurred Chyna's vision, disabling tears, an indulgence she could not afford. She blinked furiously until her eyes were dry and her vision was clear.

She turned from the locked inner door and angrily pushed open the outer one.

Tatta-tatta-tatta-tatta-tatta?

As she stepped out of the heavy sound-baffling of the vestibule and into the first room in the basement, the rattling pipe seemed louder than she remembered.

Tatta-tatta-tatta?

Perhaps a minute had passed since she'd slid aside the padded panel on the view port.

The son of a bitch bastard freak was still in his shower, naked and defenseless. And now that Chyna knew where Ariel was, she didn't have to worry that the cops would need him to lead them to the girl.

The gun felt good in her hand.

It felt wonderful in her hand.

If she could have freed Ariel and gotten her out of there, she would have done that rather than take the violent option. But she didn't possess a key, and that inner door was not going to be easy to break down.

Tatta-tatta-tatta?

She had only one choice. She went to the cellar stairs.

Blue steel gleaming in her hand.

Even if he finished showering and shut off the water before Chyna was able to reach him, he'd still be naked and defenseless, toweling off, so she would go in there, into the bathroom, and open fire on him point-blank, shoot him down, empty the revolver into him, the first shot right through his fucking heart, then put at least one round in his face, to be sure that he was really done for. Take no chances. No chances at all. Use every round, squeeze the trigger until the hammer click-click-clicked on the expended cartridges in a totally empty cylinder. She could do it. Kill the crazy freak, kill him over and over again, kill him until he stayed killed. She could do it, would do it.

She climbed the steep stairs, treading on wet footprints that she'd left in her descent: Chyna Shepherd no longer hiding, up and out of that hole, untouched, alive, coming out of Narnia forever.

Tatta-tatta-tatta?

Thinking ahead as she moved, Chyna wondered if she should shoot him through the shower curtain-if it was, in fact, a curtain instead of a glass door-because if she didn't shoot him through it, then she would have to hold the revolver in just one hand while she yanked the curtain or the door aside. That would be risky, because a strange and dismaying weakness was creeping into her fingers and into her wrists. Her arms were shaking so badly that already she had to grip the weapon with both hands to prevent herself from dropping it.

Her heart rattling like the copper pipe, scared about the coming confrontation even if the crazy geek was naked and defenseless, Chyna reached the upper landing and entered the laundry room.

She couldn't shoot him through the curtain, because she wouldn't know whether she'd hit him or not. She'd be shooting blind, unable to aim for his chest or head.

Past the dryer and the washer, through the fragrance of laundry detergent, she reached the open door to the kitchen. Crossing the threshold, she belatedly registered the important thing that she had seen on the landing at the head of the cellar stairs: wet shoeprints larger than her own, among her prints, overlapping her prints, where he had stood only a short while ago.

She was already rushing into the kitchen, with too much momentum to halt, and the killer came at her from the right, past the dinette set. He was big, strong, a juggernaut, neither naked nor defenseless, the shower having been a ruse all along.

He was fast, but she was marginally faster. He tried to drive her backward and slam her against the cabinets, but she slid out of the way, raising the revolver, with the muzzle three feet from his face, and she pulled the trigger, and the hammer made a dry, stick-breaking sound as it fell on an empty chamber.

She backed hard into the side of the refrigerator, dislodging the kittens-and-lilies calendar, which clattered to the floor at her feet.

The killer was still rushing at her. She squeezed the trigger, and the revolver clicked again, which made no sense-shit-because the clerk in the service station never had a chance to fire it before he had been blown away by the shotgun. No cartridges should be missing.

This was the first time that she had seen the killer's face. Always before, she'd glimpsed just the back of his head, the top of his skull, the side of his face but from a distance. He was not what she had expected, not moon- faced and pale-lipped and heavy-jawed. He was handsome, with blue eyes that were a beautiful contrast with his dark hair-nothing crazy in his clear eyes-broad clean features, and a nice smile.

Smiling, he continued to come straight at her as she squeezed the trigger a third time, and the hammer fell yet again on an empty chamber. Smiling, he tore the revolver out of her hand with such force that she thought her finger broke before it slipped through the trigger guard, and she squealed in pain.

The killer backed away from her, holding the weapon, his eyes sparkling with excitement. 'What a kick that was.'

Chyna huddled against the side of the refrigerator, tramping on kitten faces.

'I knew it was the same gun,' he said, 'but what if I'd been wrong? I'd have one big hole in my face right now, wouldn't I, little lady?'

Weak and dizzy with terror, she looked around desperately for anything that could be used as a weapon, but there was nothing close at hand.

'One big hole in my face,' he repeated, as if he found that prospect amusing.

One of the cabinets might contain knives, but she had no way of knowing which drawer to check.

'Intense,' he said, smiling at the revolver in his hand.

A pistol lay on the counter across the kitchen, beside the sink, well out of her reach. Chyna couldn't believe this: He had brought a gun of his own, but he hadn't used it, had set it aside, and had gone for her bare-handed instead.

'You're an attractive woman.'

She looked away from the pistol, hoping he hadn't noticed that she'd seen it. But she was fooling herself, and she knew it, because he saw everything, everything.

He pointed the revolver at her. 'You were back there in the service station last night.'

She was gasping for breath, but she didn't seem to be drawing any air. She was breathing too fast and too shallowly, in danger of hyperventilating, and she was furious with herself, furious, because he was so calm.

He said, 'I know you were there, somehow, somewhere, and I know you found this Chief's Special after I left, but for the life of me, I can't figure why you're here.'

Maybe she would be able to get to the pistol before he could stop her. It was a million-to-one chance. Two million, three. Hell, face it, impossible.

From five feet away, aiming the revolver at the bridge of her nose, his voice bubbly with exhilaration, the killer said, 'But even though it was the Asian's piece, I was walking into the mouth of the dragon here. I was lucky just now. Are you?'

Although reaching the pistol was probably impossible, she didn't have any alternatives. Nothing to lose.

With a note of impatience, he said, 'Honey, listen to me, please, I'm talking to you. Do you feel lucky right now? As lucky as I've been?'

Trying not to stare at the pistol, reluctant to look into his too-normal eyes, she gazed down the bore of the revolver and managed to say, 'No,' and she half believed that she heard that single word echoing back to her out of the barrel, No.