indicated a security breach.
An upstairs window blinked red, a bedroom at the other end of the hall from Mother?s. Some unwitting burglar was about to get the surprise of his life. Nikki would need to make her way to the gun locker in the special anteroom just off the kitchen. At one time there had been a pistol secreted someplace in every room in the house, but with Mother in her current condition it wasn?t safe, and all the firearms had been gathered into two locations, one locker downstairs and another one upstairs.
Nikki would grab a small automatic from the downstairs locker, then teach this burglar a thing or two about?
Another red light blinked to life. A window in a downstairs hall. It cut her off from the gun locker. Shit. A third blinking light. Upstairs bathroom. This wasn?t a burglary.
It was a hit.
Her eyes spun around the library, searching. She saw the cavalry saber under Daddy?s portrait, grabbed it, drew the blade, and tossed the scabbard aside. She swung it side to side, getting a feel for the weight and balance. Her mother?s tutoring sessions flooded back. She reminded herself this wasn?t tournament fencing. She?d be going for kill strikes.
Nikki kicked off her house shoes, peeled off her socks. She jogged down the dark hall toward the gun locker, her bare feet silent on the hardwood floor, eyes scanning the shadows for the intruders. She heard the door from the kitchen creak open, and she shrank into the darkness between a potted palm and a china cabinet. Movement, two figures from the doorway into the hall, their wide forms barely visible in the nearly complete darkness. The lead figure held something out in front of him. A gun.
They tried to move quietly, heavy boots, rainwater dripping from soaked clothing.
Nikki waited for the first intruder to pass her hiding place, then leapt up between them. She kicked the knee of the second man as she thrust the sword into the first. The blade slid deep, and the man grunted, gurgling blood and pitching forward. She spun back on the second man, jammed the heel of her palm into his nose. Cartilage snapped, and warm blood sprayed on her hand. Nikki finished him off by bringing the hilt of the sword down hard on the top of his head.
She felt along the floor for the first man?s dropped gun, couldn?t find it in the dark. Nikki couldn?t spare any more time searching. She forgot the gun, sprinted up the stairs, sword in front of her.
At the landing at the top of the stairs, she found three more. The light was better here, streetlamps leaking in through the big, rain-streaked windows. Wide-bodied toughs, jeans, dark T-shirts. Nikki swung at the first one as they turned to face her, lopping off his gun hand at the wrist. The clenched fist rolled down the stairs, still clutching the revolver. He screamed, stumbled back, holding his arm, blood pulsing out.
She didn?t have time to admire the carnage. The other two were already lifting their pistols.
She swept the sword back, and the blade bit deep between neck and shoulder. He dropped his gun and went down, but the blade lodged fast in bone. Nikki had to let go of the sword. She stepped in close to the final thug, so his shot went past her. She locked on to his wrist, twisted, and he dropped his gun too. She punched him in the gut, then the face. He backed up, pulled a knife, and came at her, thrusting wildly. She dropped to the floor and swept his legs. He landed hard on his back, the air
The attacker with the severed hand darted past her. Nikki went to one knee, pried the knife from the hand of the man whose neck she?d broken. She stood, threw the knife. It flipped end over end, burying itself in the back of the fleeing intruder. He yelled, went stiff for a moment, then tumbled forward and bounced down the stairs before finally landing in a heap at the bottom.
Nikki rushed to her mother?s room, flung the door open. ?Mother? Are you okay??
?I?m fine.? Her mother searched through the top drawer of her dresser. ?I need another pair of knitting needles. My other ones are soiled.?
Nikki looked in the corner of the room. A dead man on his back, a knitting needle driven into each eye, all the way back through the brain. Nikki winced. ?Stay here, Mother. I need to check the rest of the house.?
Halfway down the stairs, she picked up the severed hand and relieved it of the revolver. She checked the load and methodically searched the rest of the mansion. No more intruders.
She went back to her mother?s room, found the eerily calm woman in a rocking chair, a new clean pair of needles clicking away at her scarf.
Althea appeared at the door. She wore a heavy yellow robe, bedroom slippers. ?Miss Nikki, there?s a big mess of dead bodies out here. You want me to call the police or shall I fire up the big basement furnace??
Nikki said, ?Get the furnace going, Althea. I?ll help you put in the bodies when it?s ready.?
She went back to the library, cleaned the sword on her shirt, and put it back on the mantel. ?Thanks for lending me your sword, Daddy.?
