down his fingers and soaked into the carpet.
'The smart thing to do would have been to shoot me before we even attacked.'
There was that tone of contempt again. I thought of James B. Grant and I knew that Mac was right.
Norton tried to interrupt but I waved for silence.
'I know that,' I said. 'But unlike you I try to avoid killing people.'
He laughed again. 'Tell that to the guy at the foot of the stairs with half a head. You're a killer, kid. Stone cold. You just don't want to admit it. Your problem, Nine Lives, is that you never want to do anything. You wanted to leave Petts here to die…'
'He's dead anyway.'
'Not the fucking point and you know it,' he shouted. 'You want me out of the way but you can't pluck up the courage to challenge me like a man so you wait for someone else to take me out of the picture. And when that doesn't happen you figure, screw it, what've I got to lose, and you just fucking shoot me. And then, to add insult to fucking injury, you shoot me in the bloody arms! What's the matter, bullet to the head too fucking easy?'
'Don't tempt me.'
'Oh piss off. Like you've got the guts to finish me off.' He leaned forward. 'Come on then,' he whispered. 'Pick up the gun. It's right there. Still loaded. One bullet and it's all over. Come on. Finish what you started. Show me you've got the backbone to be leader. Prove it to me. Come on. Look me in the eye when you pull the trigger. Come on!'
Without thinking about it I reached behind me, picked up the gun and pressed the muzzle against his forehead. I pressed hard. God, I wanted to kill him. I mean really, really wanted to kill him. I wanted to watch him die screaming. I wanted to laugh in his dying eyes and spit on his corpse. I actually smiled as I began to squeeze the trigger.
And then I saw the look of triumph in his eyes.
'Maybe you're right,' I said. 'Maybe I am a coward, maybe I was afraid. But I wasn't afraid of you, Mac. Not really. I was afraid of becoming like you.'
I threw the gun aside. Mac laughed in my face, soundlessly.
'Face it Lee, you'll never be like me. You haven't got the balls.'
I heard a tiny metallic ping.
'Lee!' shouted Norton in alarm.
I felt something pressing itself against my stomach. I looked down and saw Mac's left hand holding a grenade. The pin was on the floor beside us.
I looked up. Mac was smiling.
'I'm holding down the lever, Lee. When I let go the chemical fuse starts and then nothing can stop it exploding seven seconds later. Reckon you can wrestle the grenade off me and throw it out the window in that time?'
I stared into his eyes as I reached down and wrapped my hand around his. There was little strength in his fingers; his shattered shoulder saw to that. As long as I kept squeezing he couldn't release the lever. We were at an impasse.
'You don't have to die here, you know,' I said. 'We can still get out of this, take you back to school, try and patch you up.'
'And then what?'
'You leave. Just go.'
Again with the laughing.
'Spineless wanker. You shot me in cold blood and there's no fixing that. At least have the integrity to live with it. I'm never leaving this room and you know it. But I can make sure you never do either.'
I don't know how long we'd have sat there if Cheshire hadn't intervened.
He walked over to us, casual as can be, and then rammed his rifle butt into Mac's shoulder wound. He screamed and jerked in agony, and I slipped the grenade from his grasp. I picked up the pin and re-inserted it.
I think I'd been hyperventilating because I had a huge head rush as I stood up. Cheshire reached out to steady me until the world stopped spinning.
When Mac stopped screaming he looked up at me and sneered.
'What did I ever do to you, Nine Lives? What do you hate me so fucking much?'
'You made me a killer, Mac.'
'Oh, I see. So basically, I shot myself, yeah?' He shook his head in disbelief. 'Jesus, you are fucked in the head.'
'Can we focus, please,' said Norton, who had tied his arm tight into a sling and appeared to have stopped the bleeding. 'Does anyone actually have a plan to get us out of here?'
'Maybe,' I replied. 'But the silence is bothering me. What can you see out the window?
Cheshire poked his head outside and leapt backwards as bullets ripped into the glass.
'Missed!' he shouted. He turned to me. 'They're covering the window from the tower.'
I walked to the door and knocked on it.
'Anyone out there?' I asked.
There was a pause.
'Um, yeah. Hi,' came the tentative reply. It was a young man's voice.
Norton sniggered and started me giggling. Borderline hysteria.
'Hi yourself. So, you guarding this door to stop us escaping then, yeah?'
'There's three of us and we've got guns.'
'Good to know. The others gone off to the morning sacrifice have they?'
'Got to purify the moat.'
'Great.' I turned back to Norton and Cheshire. 'They're all going to be on the tower for a while, so we've got some time to prepare.'
'Any chance of a cuppa while I'm waiting to die?' said Mac, witheringly.
The morning sacrifice was one of the Blood Hunters' more disturbing rituals. The selected victim was brought to morning worship and blessed by David, then everybody processed up to the tower. David then slit the victim's throat and two acolytes dangled the poor sod over the battlements so they bled into the moat. Fresh blood in the water every morning kept them safe, they reckoned.
Serenaded by singing and screams from the tower I opened Mac's backpack and we got to work. It took about ten minutes or so, but by the time the ritual was finished we were ready. Cheshire had picked Mac up and put him on the sofa. He was still conscious.
'You haven't got a cat in hell's chance,' he said.
I ignored him.
'Hey, Norton,' he went on. 'How long you been planning this little takeover?'
'Since day one.'
'Traitor.'
'What you gonna do, slit my throat, like you did to Williams?'
'Come over here and I'll show you.'
'Enough, already,' I said. 'Does everyone know what they're doing?'
Norton and Cheshire nodded.
'What shall I do, Nine Lives?' gasped Mac, sarcastically.
'Fuck off and die.'
We heard footsteps on the stairs. A group of people coming to talk. Then a voice I recognised.
'Hello in there.' It was their leader, David.
'Morning,' I replied, cheerily. 'Lovely day for a blood sacrifice.'
'Are any of you hurt?'
'Why do you care?'
'We have first class medical facilities. If you open the door I give you my word your wounded will be given the proper treatment.'
'What, no bleeding?'
He laughed. 'Of course there'll be bleeding. Got to be made safe. But we need fresh, clean, healthy blood. So
