Heathen/Nemesis

She saw him stop and slide an arm around Stark’s waist, carrying his companion towards the front door, both of them leaving a trail of blood behind.

Donna tasted her own blood as it ran into her mouth from the cut on her lip.

She tried to follow and almost fell down the stairs, gritting her teeth to prevent herself passing out.

She had to get to Julie.

As Ryker came careering into the kitchen, Julie threw back the cellar hatch and came hurtling forth like a maddened trap-door spider, brandishing the hammer.

So startled was he by this sudden onslaught, Ryker momentarily froze, rooted to the spot.

Julie swung the hammer with all her strength and caught him in the mouth with its gleaming head.

She heard teeth shatter under the impact, saw one of them driven through his top lip. Saw blood burst from the cut.

He reeled backwards, one smashed incisor falling from his bleeding, pulped gums.

Julie struck again, this time catching him just above the right eye, tearing the flesh. The hammer carved through his eyebrow and opened up a cut as deep as the frontal bone it cracked.

Julie spun the weapon, bringing the clawed part down on his hand as he raised his fists in defence.

The metal tore into his flesh, ripping it away, slicing effortlessly through skin and muscles, exposing a portion of the middle-finger knuckle.

Ryker ran for the shattered back door, out into the driving rain and the darkness, which suddenly seemed welcoming.

Julie stood by the back door, rain drenching her, mingling with the tears of rage and fear on her cheeks. She tasted blood and thought that it was Ryker’s, but then realized that her own face was gashed just below the left eye, she guessed by flying glass.

Panting breathlessly, she turned from the door and moved through to the hall, where Donna was trying to make her way down the stairs.

From outside, they both heard the sound of car engines.

Julie, still gripping the bloodied hammer, looked cautiously through the window by the front door.

She saw two cars disappearing down the dirt track, away from the cottage, their tail-lights gradually swallowed by the gloom and the relentless downpour.

‘Donna,’ she gasped.

Donna said nothing; she just dropped to her knees, the .38 still gripped in her fist, face bruised, her lip bleeding.

Julie dropped the hammer and found she was sobbing uncontrollably. She was standing in a pool of blood.

Sixty-Nine

It wasn’t a matter of if they would return; it was merely a question of when.

Donna sat at the sitting-room window, the Beretta on the sill in front of her. On the coffee table to her right lay the .38 and the .357. All had been reloaded.

On the sofa behind her Julie was sleeping fitfully, a blanket covering her, her face pale and drawn, dark rings beneath her eyes. The cuts on her hands and arms had been cleaned and bathed, then covered with plaster. She’d been fortunate to escape more serious injury from the flying glass.

Donna herself touched her lip tentatively with one finger, feeling how it had swollen. There was a dark bruise surrounding it; she hoped that the discoloration wouldn’t last too long. Her sides ached when she inhaled, and when she moved too quickly she felt a sharp pain in her lumbar region. As the night wore on it began to diminish. There were more bruises on her arms and legs, and some on her shoulders.

The house had been cleaned as well as was possible. The broken windows had been boarded up with pieces of wood from the attic. Donna had re-attached the back door to its frame as well, while Julie mopped up the blood in the hallway - although she finally passed out during the task. Donna had helped her onto the sofa, woken her gently but then realized that she was becoming hysterical. She had been forced to slap her face to quieten her. Tears had followed, both women understandably shaken by their ordeal, by the knowledge of how close to death they had come.

And of how close they might come again.

Donna felt herself dozing and sat upright, shaking her head free of the crushing tiredness that threatened to envelope her. Another fifteen minutes and she would wake Julie. They had agreed to keep the vigil between them. One would watch for two hours while the other slept.

Donna reached out to touch the butt of the automatic, as if the feel of the cold steel would somehow shock her from her lethargy.

How easy it would be to surrender now, she thought, not only to sleep but also to the demands of these men. How easy to give them the book they sought, to be done with the entire affair.

And just walk away?

Donna knew that was impossible. Even if she did tell them the whereabouts of the Grimoire, there was no way they were going to spare her or Julie. Too much damage had been done; she knew too much about them now. They would have to kill her.

As they had done her husband?

She still didn’t know for sure if Chris had been murdered. The police had been convinced it was a genuine accident that took his life

(and that of his mistress)

but after what she’d been through, after what she had discovered, Donna could not believe that men willing to kill for the possession of a book had not taken the life of the man she’d loved.

Once loved? Before his affair?

She administered a mental rebuke. She and her sister had almost been killed only hours earlier and all she could think about, it seemed, was her dead husband’s infidelity.

No one can be trusted.

How prophetic had been those words he’d written. How apt. How irritatingly, fittingly, fucking appropriate. She gritted her teeth in anger and pain.

And frustration?

No. She would not give in to these men. She would not let them have the Grimoire.

She wanted it. Not because she needed it, but because she was determined no one else should have it. It was like a prize. This hunt for the book had become a contest and Donna intended winning.

Life and death.

Win or lose.

There was no turning back now, even if she wanted to.

Life or death.

She looked at the guns.

Seventy

‘Farrell, he’s dying.’

‘What do you want me to do about it?’

‘Help him.’

Brian Kellerman looked down at Frank Stark, then at Farrell.