“Winter is an expert with it. Not adequate or even good, but an expert,” Victoria said with pride. “It’s a deadly art, and rare. Its very unexpectedness is something of an advantage in, well… awkward situations. Like when intruders come into your house. I took lessons when she was an infant, then I taught her, in private. She was a quick study. She’s considerably better at it than I am, now. It’s amazing, the things you can learn while you’re young.”
Winter ripped the steel through the air with a hissing sound, then held the point at my chest, at my heart, putting enough pressure on it to break the skin. A few drops of blood rolled down my chest. She was balanced on both feet, arm cocked, ready to thrust the slender steel deep into the machinery I hold so dear. For ten seconds she held me poised on the brink of eternity, then she smiled and stepped back, eyes still on mine, full of murky secrets.
So that was what Jeri had seen earlier. If she hadn’t surrendered in the hallway, Winter could have killed me in an instant, then her. I didn’t know how well Jeri’s judo would hold up against an expert swordsman, or woman.
For the first time I noticed the logo on Winter’s T-shirt. It said ITHACA across the front, amid pastel renderings of maple leaves that had gone to russet and gold. I must have stared, because she glanced down at it and smiled. “Like it? I bought it there.” She pirouetted and showed it to Kayla. “What do you think, girlie? Nice?”
Kayla’s face went pale.
Winter turned to me again. “Ithaca’s okay, kinda quiet though, and some houses over there have rats.”
She pulled her shirt off and dropped it on the floor. Her nipples were erect, looking as hard as rubber erasers. She lifted her breasts an inch. “Like them?” she whispered. There was a faint serpent’s hiss in her voice that perfectly matched that cobra image I’d had of her days ago. Her eyes just stared. She had the blink rate of a cobra, too.
“Terrific,” I said. “Very Talbot Mundy.”
She didn’t have any idea what I was talking about. She smiled. “Things don’t change, do they? You’re still an idiot. You say stupid things.”
“You’re a real piece of work, kid.”
“Go ahead, check me out. You wanted to, that day outside in the yard. And later, inside, after you left Gramma’s. I could tell. Do you like my titties?”
I glanced over at Victoria. Amused, she said, “Maybe I should give her a good spanking.”
Winter giggled. “She told me what you said. You’re so funny.” She thrust her chest out and spun in a circle.
“Miranda,” I said softly.
For a moment she didn’t move, then the smile returned. “You think you know so much, but you don’t know anything. Pretty soon you’ll be a genius.”
“She was your daughter.”
“You don’t know anything, pops. You’ll find out.”
She was a living nightmare, a gargoyle of a child. And I could’ve killed her for calling me pops, the twerp.
She put her shirt back on. She and Victoria left the room, leaving the door open. I wondered if a yell would carry outside the house. Probably not, and making them madder or more psychotic than they already were didn’t seem worth the risk. Maybe later.
Kayla gave me a hopeless look.
“We’ll get out of this,” I said.
She didn’t say anything. She didn’t believe me. Nothing changed in her eyes.
I heard wood sliding on concrete outside the door. Victoria and Winter backed in dragging one end of a wide plank. Jeri was duct taped to the board with her hands over her head, ankles held together by loops of duct tape around the bottom end of the board. It was an awkward mode of transportation. I doubted they could get her across town that way. I figured Jeri had given them trouble, a reason to have rendered her so helpless. Maybe they’d propped her up somewhere and left her, like in a closet. She was gagged with duct tape over a rag in her mouth, topless like Kayla, wearing only the jade-green panties she’d purchased at the mall in Myrtle Beach.
So much nudity. These two sociopaths were into intimidation, vulnerability, humiliation. Or maybe they liked it for its own sake—I couldn’t tell after Winter’s little display moments ago. Insanity is its own incomprehensible carnival, but it’s probably not a good idea to ask the psychos questions, especially if you think you might not like the answers.
Jeri stared at me with furious eyes as they dragged her to a spot four feet to Kayla’s right. They lifted her upright and leaned her against the wall. Winter got a stepladder, climbed up, and looped the center portion of a long nylon rope twice around one of Jeri’s wrists, then proceeded to tie neat, solid square knots, one after another, forming an impregnable lattice well beyond the reach of Jeri’s fingers. After doing the same to Jeri’s other wrist, she ran the free ends of the ropes up through an eye hook, took up the slack and secured the ropes by twisting them and tying it all into a figure eight knot with an extra twist, forming a huge blocky knot that wouldn’t pass back through the eye hook. As a final touch, she set fire to the ends of the ropes with a barbecue lighter, allowing the nylon to burn briefly before blowing it out. The liquid nylon cooled, forming tough scabs that would make the knot impossible to untie—if anyone managed to somehow reach them, which wasn’t likely. Finally, Winter tied Jeri’s wrists together using the same figure eight knot that held my wrists, and Kayla’s. The kid was great with knots, just terrific.
When Winter was done, Victoria ripped the gag
