The two women stood in an area roughly twelve feet square. Behind them was the staircase. To the right and left were solid walls; straight ahead, they faced three doors. Beside each stood a candle, helping to light the underground chamber.
She listened, trying to hear over the insistent breathing.
If Dashwood had been right about inanimate objects being given life, then they must be at the very centre of the house. It was, she imagined, like walking around inside a huge chest cavity. The infernal pulsing continued, too. Donna thought she could see undulations in the very umbra itself.
She felt perspiration on her palms, the metal and wood of the gun against her flesh. She shifted it to the other hand and wiped her palm on her jeans. She repeated the action with the other hand.
She could hear no sound behind any of them. Could the basement also deserted, she wondered? But they had seen the smartly dressed man come down here. There was no other way out but through these three doors.
She took a tentative step towards the one on the left, her eyes fixed on it.
The flame of the candle closest wavered, as if disturbed by a breeze. For a second it sputtered but then it flared again. A plume of black smoke rose into the darkness and was absorbed by it.
Donna took a step closer.
Behind her Julie watched, then advanced cautiously, her eyes darting back and forth between the three doors.
Donna was within two feet of the left-hand door.
It was then that the middle door opened.
Light and sound suddenly flooded into the darkened hallway. The figure silhouetted against the sudden explosion of brightness stood motionless, looking first at Julie, then at Donna.
His surprise lasted only seconds.
Peter Farrell reached for his gun.
The movement was smooth and efficient.
Donna raised the .357, steadied herself and fired off two rounds.
The roar as the weapon spat out the high-calibre shells was intolerable in the confined space; both she and Julie were deafened by the thunderous retort. The muzzle-flashes seared white light onto their retinas and the stink of cordite filled the air.
The impact lifted Farrell off his feet. The first bullet struck him in the chest, the second hit him just below the chin.
He was slammed back against the wall, blood spouting from the wound in his throat. For long seconds he stood there, eyes gaping wide, his body twitching.
Donna fired again.
The third shot caught him in the face slightly to the left of his nose. The bullet drilled the eye socket empty, powered through the brain and exploded from the back of his skull, carrying a confetti of pulverized bone and sticky pinkish-red matter with it. Farrell pitched forward, what was left of his head smacking hard against the floor, blood pouring from the remnants of his blasted cranium.
Donna stepped over the body and into the room from which he’d emerged, her ears still ringing.
Julie followed, glancing down at the body as she passed.
The room beyond was large and well lit, particularly the area in the centre. It was there that Donna saw a naked man scramble to his feet, a look of horror on his face as he saw the gun. The woman beneath him, also naked, rolled over and tried to get up but she slipped, screaming in terror.
Donna saw perhaps a dozen men in the room, most dressed in suits. And instead of attacking her and Julie, they were fleeing.
A door at the far end of the room seemed to be their only means of escape. They rushed at it en masse, struggling with each other in their haste to get out.
Donna spun round, the gun levelled.
Dashwood and Parsons stood immobile at the head of a long table.
The Grimoire was on the table in front of them.
There was another thunderous roar of gunfire. Donna hurled herself to the ground as the bullet sang past her, slicing empty air before blasting a hole in the wall.
David Ryker got off two more rounds before Donna managed to return fire.
The room was filled with the massive sounds, thundercracks of noise that threatened to burst the eardrums.
The naked man ran towards Ryker.
He shot him.
Donna looked on in bewilderment as Ryker put two shots into the man’s chest. She saw him hurled backwards by the impact, one shell erupting from his back close to the right scapula. Gobbets of lung tissue sprayed across the room as he fell.
The woman who had been with him went on screaming until Ryker shot her, too, one .45 slug in the head. It smashed in her temple as surely as if she’d been hit with a sledgehammer.
Donna fired and hit Ryker in the shoulder. He dropped his gun and clapped a hand to the wound, feeling jagged bone against his fingertip as his index finger slipped inside the hole.
‘Get the book,’ Donna shouted to Julie, who sprinted across the rapidly emptying room.
The other people who had been in the room had mostly scrambled through the door at the far end.
Julie picked up a chair and hurled it at Dashwood, who raised his arms to shield himself, falling back.
Parsons snatched at the Grimoire, catching Julie across the face with a swipe of his hand. She shouted in pain, feeling her bottom lip split under the impact.
Parsons gripped the book in his gnarled hands.
Donna stood up and fired at him.
The shot caught him in the left arm, tearing through the bicep.
Blood exploded from the wound, thick, dark blood that spattered the wall behind him.
He dropped the book and Julie made a grab for it, knocking it away, sending it skidding across the floor.
Parsons shouted something and leapt after it.
Donna drew a bead on him and fired.
The hammer slammed down on an empty chamber.
She threw the .357 away, pulling at the other shoulder holster, freeing the Beretta.
Parsons shouted in triumph as he reached the book but Donna swung the 92S into position and pumped the trigger.
One, two, three times she fired.
Parsons was hit in the chest and thigh. The third bullet missed and buried itself in the far wall.
Four, five, six.
The room had become like the inside of a cannon barrel, the noise incessant and deafening. Julie screamed but could not hear her own cry.
Parsons had fallen face down on the floor across the naked woman, his body torn and bleeding from the impact of the 9mm bullets. He reached out towards Donna, his fingers gradually twitching less and less.
He lay still.
Smoke hung like a gauze net across the room.
Julie, on her hands and knees, looked around for the Grimoire. Donna could see that the only living people left now were herself, her sister, Ryker, who was slumped against an overturned table holding his smashed shoulder,
