The vipers were all in the pit. Now the conversation could get even more interesting, And incriminating.
The problem was that everyone in the room was facing away from Quinn other than Elaine Pratt. He shifted position only slightly, and she did a double take and stared directly at him.
Quinn drew a deep breath and stepped into the room.
Chancellor Schueller and the others were momentarily frozen by surprise. They were in that slight lurch of time that provided opportunity.
Quinn knew this had to be fast.
It was something everyone knew.
There was a rush toward the door. The flustered academicians bumped into each other. In the confusion, from somewhere near his desk Schueller produced a sawed-off shotgun.
He swung the shotgun around and fired it before it had completed its arc.
Leading the charge into the den, Quinn was aware of Fedderman making a grunting sound behind him.
Quinn had only a few seconds. He took a shot at Rory Schueller, grazing his leg, as Schueller slipped through the French doors out into the night. Behind him there were blood spatters on the threshold, and on the paving bricks beyond the door.
Yelling for Pearl and Fedderman to stay in the house and secure the others, Quinn stepped out onto the veranda and followed the blood of the thing Daniel Danielle had spawned.
The monster wouldn’t escape this time.
The tornado moving in the night was Quinn.
84
Beyond the low stone wall bordering the veranda, Quinn stopped and looked quickly in all directions. There was enough moonlight for him to see the large stretch of ground that sloped gradually toward the campus, and off to his left more mown lawn leading toward the woods bordering the county road. The only cover other than the trees was a small storage shed, probably where a riding mower and gardening equipment were kept.
The shed. It was much closer than the trees. Schueller might be in it or behind it.
The way he was running, his wound must be slight. He might even have doubled back and be in or near the house, behind Quinn.
Perspiration like ice water trickled down Quinn’s spine.
He was turning back to glance at the house when motion in the corner of his vision caught his eye. His head snapped around in time for him to see Schueller break from the cover of the storage shed and bolt for the woods. He was carrying the shotgun in his right hand.
Schueller was beyond range of Quinn’s handgun, and he knew it. Even if Quinn stood still and fired a perfectly aimed round, it would dig into the ground well behind the fleeing killer.
Quinn began to run. He was like a mountain gaining momentum, slow off the mark, but picking up speed.
Schueller had a good lead, and he was running fast despite his wounded leg. Certainly faster than the older and heavier Quinn.
But could he keep running?
He stopped suddenly and whirled. The shotgun he was carrying interfered with his running rhythm and slowed him down, and he had a better use for it. He fired it toward Quinn, who paid it no attention. The shotgun didn’t have nearly the range of his pistol.
Quinn watched Schueller toss the gun aside. He recalled that it was a double-barreled model, good for only two shots without a reload.
A mistake, not waiting for me to come within range. You’re rattled.
Schueller settled into a swift pace toward the trees. Quinn took an angle that would cause them to meet a hundred feet or so before the trees, and tried to breathe evenly so he wouldn’t get winded so fast. He knew that behind him someone had surely called in the state police, but they wouldn’t get here soon enough. All Schueller had to do was reach the county road and flag down a motorist, or make his way to some unsuspecting homeowner who had a car, and that would be the end of the chase.
And maybe the homeowner.
Quinn felt pain creeping into his thighs, and a burning in his lungs. A slight ache began in his right side that he knew would soon become a stitch and double him over.
He swallowed the pain and lengthened his stride.
Gradually, inexorably, he began to gain ground.
Schueller glanced over his shoulder and saw that Quinn was getting closer. He spun momentarily so he was running backward, grinned, and waved at Quinn. Then he turned back around and picked up speed.
Quinn matched him stride for stride, and then some.
When the trees loomed ahead of them, Schueller was within pistol range, but still too far away for accuracy. He would soon be lost in the cover of the woods.
Every step was agony for Quinn. He cocked the hammer of his revolver, then stopped running and planted his feet. Unable to steady himself, he didn’t hold out much hope for what he was about to try. Gripping the gun with both hands, he laid out a pattern of shots in the direction of Schueller just before Schueller was swallowed by the sheltering darkness of the trees. Quickly Quinn reloaded and fired another pattern of shots into the shadows.
His chest heaving, he trudged toward the woods.
In the shadowed silence of the trees, Quinn glanced around and saw what looked like blood on some of the undergrowth. Felt it and found it damp.
Schueller’s blood.
But he couldn’t determine direction.
Within a few minutes Quinn heard an engine whine and turn over. Then another. He recognized the sound immediately and remembered the small twin-engine plane parked on the edge of the airstrip.
He charged into the undergrowth and dry leaves, toward the sound of the aircraft engines.
Now the engines were roaring. Quinn could imagine the small plane taxiing, bumping across the grass. It wouldn’t need much speed or distance to become airborne.
He broke from the trees just in time to see the plane picking up speed down the airstrip, moving away from him. He stopped and stood still, sighted in on the small aircraft, and fired the remaining two shots in his revolver.
They seemed to have no effect on the plane.
And then they did.
Something was preventing the plane from taking off. It slowed, sat still for a moment, and then the left motor roared louder and it turned around near the far end of the grass runway to return the way it had come.
Both engines howled, and the aircraft came at Quinn, earthbound but picking up speed at an alarming rate. He fumbled to reload his revolver as he side-shuffled toward the woods.
He barely made it into the safety of the trees. He was safe.
But Schueller wouldn’t or couldn’t stop or veer the plane. The aircraft made the edge of the woods, slammed a wing into a tree, spun, and rocked to a halt, facing away from Quinn. One engine was mangled, its three-bladed propeller twisted and stopped. The other engine was still roaring, its propeller whirling. Quinn found himself in a hurricane of littered wind.
He squinted into the gale of the prop wash and saw Schueller half climb, half fall out of the cockpit. The plane’s left wing was sheared off at the engine nacelle. Schueller staggered as if drunk, stopped, and stood between Quinn and the whirling propeller, leaning back slightly and letting the prop wash help support him. He was injured from the crash, or one of Quinn’s bullets had found him. Blood flowed from a wound in the side of his head, black in the dappled moonlight. More blood ran down his arms, which were hanging limply at his sides, raised slightly and tremulously in the rush of air.
