“Or do old people simply make easier targets?”
“My dear Miss Brennan. Would you rather that your flesh contribute to the advancement of chosen beings or be consumed by maggots?”
Anger welled, overrode fear.
“You egotistical, demented prick.”
“Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman. Be he alive or be he dead, I'll grind his bones to make my bread.”
At a distance, the skeleton moaned, cackled.
I was confronted by madness! Who was this man? How did I know him?
I began inching along the wall, holding the scalpel behind me with my right hand, feeling with my left. I'd taken a half dozen steps when a powerful beam shot out of the dark, blinding me like a possum on a backyard fence. I threw up an arm.
“Going somewhere, Miss Brennan?”
In the backglow I could see his lower face, lips drawn back in murderous rage.
Stay away from him!
I pivoted to run, tripped, and fell. As I scrabbled to right myself, the shadow sprang, closed the gap, and a hand reached out and grabbed my ankle. My feet went out from under me again, and my knees cracked against alluvium. The scalpel flew into darkness.
“You goddamn treacherous cow!”
The golden voice was now sizzling with fury.
I kicked out but couldn't break his grip. His fingers were like steel clamping through my jeans.
Never more afraid in my life, I gouged my elbows into the earth, trying to hitch myself forward, kicking out with my free leg. Suddenly, his full weight was on me. A knee pinned my back, and a hand pressed my face into the ground. Dirt and debris filled my nose, my mouth.
I thrashed wildly, kicking and clawing to get out from under him. He'd dropped his flash and it lay on the ground, lighting us like some writhing, two-headed beast. As long as I could move, he would not get that garrote wire around my throat.
My hand touched something jagged and hard, and my fingers closed around it. I twisted my torso and struck out blindly.
I heard the soft thunk of rock against bone, then the metallic clink of steel on granite.
“Bitch!”
He slammed his fist into my right ear. Lightning exploded in my head.
He released his grasp, fumbled to retrieve the gun. I jerked an elbow backward and caught him along the border of his jaw. His teeth cracked and his head flew back.
A shriek like that of a wounded animal.
I pushed with all my strength and his knee slipped off my back. In less than a second I scrambled to my knees and crawled toward the flashlight. He regained his balance and we dived at the same time. I got it.
I swung as hard as I could and connected with his temple. A thump, a grunt, and he fell backward. Clicking off the beam, I lunged toward the trees and crouched behind a pine.
I didn't move. I didn't blink. I tried to reason.
Dead calm, broken only by his panting. Seconds passed. Or maybe it was hours. I felt dizzy from the blow to my head, couldn't track time or space or distance.
Where was he?
A voice from near the ground. “I have found the gun, Miss Brennan.”
A single shot exploded in the stillness.
“But we both know I don't need it now that that cur of yours is out of the way.”
His voice came to me as though under water.
“I'm going to make you pay for this. Really pay.”
I heard him rise.
“I have a necklace I want to show you.”
I inhaled deeply, trying to clear my head. He was coming at me with the garrote.
Out of the corner of my eye, a glimmer. I turned. Three slivers of light were bobbing toward me. Or was I hallucinating?
“Freeze!” A gravelly female voice.
“Drop it!” Male.
“Stop!” A different male voice.
