Meanwhile, around her she half heard the killer stacking up the instruments that fulfilled his sick desires. She heard the rattle of bottles and the movement of heavy tools. She fought back the fear.
“ Fight, Jessie. Fight and hang on,” she heard her father's voice from deep within. Her father had taught her to stand up for herself, to be tough and independent; how to hunt and trap, but he had never foreseen the day when she would be in the trap.
She struggled just the same, fighting against hope to regain the strength she would need to slow Matisak down.
She forced her eyes open to the horror before her. Gamble's body still lay where it had fallen in a pool of purple blood, discolored by the lack of light. Matisak was prancing ponylike about the small, crowded space, very much pleased with himself. He was now crouching over his brown valise, staring into two vials of semen; it must not be Gamble's semen. In order for his ruse to work, Teach must use some anonymous supply, likely stolen from a sperm bank. This time, he must even leave the vial along with his tools and case, to further implicate Gamble.
His back to her, she curled her body forward at the waist, and being double-jointed, she brought her tied hands from her back to her front. At the same instant, he sensed her movement, stood and rushed at her, fearing she intended to snatch out the spigot, to destroy a second one, allowing herself to bleed to death very messily in the bargain. She saw his charge, and with her extended fists, she madly and blindly struck out at him, creating of her fists a deadly weapon, as she had been taught at the academy.
The doubled-up fists caught Matisak in the temple, knocking him off balance, his weight grazing her as he lost his footing, tripping over Gamble. This caused her entire body to sway within inches of the gun he had used in killing Gamble, which was left now on a coffee table.
She reached for the gun, but it was just beyond her fingers. She swayed her body with as much power as she could muster, her hand extended toward the gun. Matisak kicked out at the table at the same instant her hand wrapped around the gun. She had it in her grasp. The gun slipped but she caught it by the trigger guard and held on, dangling upside down.
She heard Matisak scrambling about the floor, suddenly afraid of her, but he could not be seen. Did he have another gun? A knife? She tugged with one hand at the gag in her mouth while keeping the gun pointed ahead. As she half freed the gag, she realized that he was coming up from behind her, about to pounce. She swiveled, bringing the gun around and firing, missing him but sending him diving away into the darkness again.
She saw the scalpel gleaming in the night beside the briefcase. Where was he?
She opened fire, exploding the jar of blood she saw on a nearby end table, a jar of her blood.
“ Damn you!” shouted Matisak, and she fired at the sound of his voice, missing him. She tugged at what remained of the gag, freeing herself of it.
“ The sh-shots will bring police, Matisak! You bastard. You'd better run while you have the chance. Go on, run! Run!” Her voice was filled with venom and hatred and the wise use of her academy training which taught that intimidation was half the contest in a confrontation. “Go on, run!”
He did run, and she fired at the black shadow as it pounced on her, ripping the gun from her. She knew he was shot, but not fatally.
She screamed as loudly as she could nonstop, trying desperately to alert someone outside the house, but even the gunshots seemed to have been ignored.
Matisak fell back from her, the gun now in his possession. He brandished the gun in her direction as if he would pull the trigger, but he failed to do so. A quick end would be welcomed, and it would be out of keeping with the vampire's modus operandi. She taunted him to shoot, saying, “Go ahead, shoot! Shoot, you bastard! Kill me, damn you! Kill me!”
But the shot did not come. Matisak stumbled, losing his balance once more, weakened by the shock of the gunshot to his side, staring at his own blood and trembling to see it running from himself.
Matisak passed out.?
THIRTY-ONE
Using her teeth, Jessica tore at the rope holding her in bondage, knowing she hadn't fatally shot Matisak, and that her time was limited. She struggled with her bonds, animal fear motivating her. Unable to get her hands free, she curled toward her ankles where the feeling had gone dead in her feet. She tried to get her weight off the rope, remembering that so long as there was a dead weight on the knot he used, there was no way to free it.
Once she managed to lessen the pull of her body against the rope, it was not hard to remove the noose about her ankles. She was holding tight to the beam where her hands fit through the same groove as had been used to loop the rope. She carefully lowered herself so as not to jar Matisak.
The moment she was on her feet, she crumpled to the floor. She realized only now that she was unable to stand or to walk, that Matisak had severed her Archilles tendons. She knew that unless an operation was performed tonight, she'd lose the use of her legs permanently. Even if she did receive the necessary medical attention, she was certain no one would give her any guarantees she wouldn't need a cane for the rest of her life.
She lay now alongside Gamble's lifeless body, his blood matting her hair. She heard Matisak moan, disturbed from his blackout, coming around slowly.
At her throat bobbed the now heavy, disturbing object that had been the instrument of death used on all of Matisak's previous victims. She had instinctively reached up to it, wanting to tear it away, the same as she might a disgusting leech, but to do so would cause her a further loss of blood, weakness and dizziness.
The bastard so nearby, trying now desperately to come to, had crippled her, possibly for life, but he had also scarred her throat. He had also reached down into her sacred soul deep within her, and he scarred this, too, with the acid of his aberration.
She found the tattered remains of the blouse that Gamble had slit from her with his knife. She clung to it as if it might bring some measure of strength, and then she draped herself with it.
Panting, her fear rose in her like a tangible new organ that somehow took on life and welled up from the pit of her stomach; her fear had balled up within her, creating an enormous lump of palpitating tissue pushing up from her gut, trying to escape through her throat.
“ Get hold of it. Get hold of yourself “ she pleaded with herself, her knuckles going white where she had grabbed onto a coverlet on the couch and squeezed.
The living fear that threatened to overwhelm was fought down, and now she searched for a weapon, anything she might use to defend herself while in her vulnerable state. She looked everywhere for the gun but it had disappeared. Was it somewhere below Matisak's bulk? She feared going near him to investigate. One wrong move and she was certainly dead.
She debated with herself about the relative merits of using a chair, a poker, one of the bastard's power tools- anything that would end the madman's life and the nightmare she found herself in. But all of these choices necessitated dragging herself halfway across the room and back, and she wasn't sure she had the strength, or the time.
Frantic, knowing her time was running out, Jessica's eyes lit on a large, shining portion of broken glass; slick with blood-her blood-it was part of the jar that she'd shattered with a bullet. As if from far away, or looking through the wrong end of a telescope, her brain in a whirr, she watched her hand reach out for the razor's edge of the broken glass. It was hefty, a large portion of a mason jar where the bottom met the side. With this in her hands, she had the wherewithal to kill the killer before he stirred. She need only slash his goddamned jugular.
She put all her effort into crawling toward Matisak now holding firm to the deadly glass. She reached his moaning form and inched along it toward his throat, trying not to disturb him further. As she got into position, within striking distance of his throat, she carefully reached around to lift his head back by the hair in order to expose the throat. It would be a fitting end, she thought, and only what the bastard deserved. She would then watch him bleed to death as he had planned to watch her.
She was about to dig into his jugular as she would a dangerous animal's with the only weapon at her disposal when he suddenly grabbed her wrist, squeezing, trying to make her drop the glass.
She screamed and tore away from him, crawling away from him, feeling like a slug, unable to walk or so much as stand without toppling over; behind her, she heard his laughter as he watched her slithering movements.
