Marcus recognized that face and he recognized that blond hair.
He tossed his food aside. Victoria and Elizabeth, I’m coming for you, he thought, and God help anyone who stands in my way.
*
For a man who prided himself on his analytical abilities, Marcus’s mind was blank as he sped down the estate road. Then one inconsequential thought crept in that almost made him laugh. It involved that sweet man, Javier, and his old car. He would try not to wreck it.
Through the windshield the castle loomed large.
He saw the rifle on the ramparts and began to weave. As he cut the wheel to the left, a bullet pierced the right side of the windshield where his head would have been. His view was blighted by spidered glass, but he saw a large barn to his left and floored the gas pedal. He heard rapid-fire pops coming from above. Another round caught the car roof as he braked to a skidding stop behind the safety of the barn.
He grabbed the shotgun and got out of the car, making his way around the barn until he had what he thought was a protected line of sight to the castle entrance. It turned out not to be as protected as he hoped, because the rooftop shooter fired and chipped some stone from the barn wall, just to his right. His own shot didn’t require much skill. He simply pointed toward the roof and let the buckshot do the rest. It plinked the upper walls and crenellations and sent the shooter ducking for cover.
He started running.
The massive main door was festooned with ancient iron hardware. He made it there without catching more fire, and racked another shell into the chamber of the Benelli. The motion was agony for his injured left shoulder.
The huge door creaked open.
A rifle barrel poked out, then an arm, and a shoulder.
Marcus was hoping the next thing he saw was blond hair, but the shooter’s hair was brown.
When Marcus pulled the trigger, the brown turned red.
He racked the gun again, grimaced, and stepped over the body into the entrance hall.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a threatening shape, but it was a silver suit of armor with a lance. The afternoon was bright, and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness of the hall. There were large dimly lit rooms to his right and left and a sweeping stone staircase ahead.
He heard a voice he recognized.
“I am going to come downstairs, Mr. Handler. I am not armed. I would appreciate not being shot. Are you going to shoot me?”
Marcus called back, “Let me have the girls and no one else needs to get hurt.”
Ferrol appeared at the top of the stairs holding his hands in the air. Marcus was struck by how calm he appeared in the face of blood spreading across the yellow and black tiles of his hall, and having a shotgun pointed at him. Either he always wore a sports coat at home, or he was a cool enough customer who’d gotten himself properly attired for a guest after the alarm was raised.
Ferrol took a couple more stairs and said, “Please put the gun down. Would you like some coffee? We can sit and talk. You might be interested to hear what I have to say.”
The room to his left appeared to be a library.
There was a flicker of movement and Marcus yelled, “Tell the man on my left that he’s got three seconds to throw down his weapon or I’ll shoot you.”
“You in the library! Do as he says!” Ferrol shouted.
A pistol slid over the tiles.
Then he heard Ferrol shout, “Don’t shoot him!”
Marcus was about to say that he wasn’t going to shoot if the man showed himself, but Ferrol wasn’t talking to him.
He was talking to the blond man who shot Marcus in the head.
*
One moment it was pitch black and the next moment it was phosphorous white. Everything was pure and luminous in every direction he turned his head.
He tried to focus through the worst pain he’d ever felt. When he tried to close his right eye, the pain got worse and the whiteness persisted. When he closed his left eye, things got black again. Confused, he tried to reach for his face but his arms were tethered at his sides.
His voice was his own but it was so thin and dry he didn’t recognize it. “Help. Help me.”
A small face appeared over him.
Then another face.
“Uncle Marcus!”
“Am I alive?” he heard himself ask.
“What a silly question,” Victoria said.
“Did you come to rescue us?” Elizabeth asked.
“If I did, I didn’t do a very good job. Where am I?”
“Don’t you know?” Victoria said.
“I can’t remember.”
“You’re with us,” Victoria said. “On the spaceship.”
38
Marcus used his good eye to look around the white room, and painfully craned his neck to see what was behind him. There were cameras at each corner of the square chamber.
Elizabeth’s head reappeared over him. “What happened to your head?” she asked.
“I wish I knew.”
“Does it hurt?”
“I’m afraid it does.”
“Bad Gray Man told us to give you water,” she said. “Would you like some?”
“Yes, please.”
“Vicky, bring it here,” she told her sister.
Elizabeth placed a straw in his mouth and he sucked at it hard.
“Thank you. Who is Bad Gray Man?”
“He’s the new one. He wasn’t here when we were here before. Gray Woman and Gray Man are gone.”
Victoria said, “He’s really mean. He shouts at us. He won’t play with us. He just brings us food and then leaves.” She began to cry. “We don’t want to be back on the spaceship. We want to be with Granny Leonora and Grandpa Armando.”
“I must have come to find you,” Marcus said, struggling to remember, the pain in his head unbearable. “Are you all right?”
“We’re not having any more nosebleeds,” Elizabeth said. “I suppose that’s good.”
“Could you undo these straps on my wrists?” he asked.
Elizabeth shook her head. “Bad Gray Man told
