“Where did they go?”
The tramp pointed with long filthy fingernails. “Down there…down there.”
Sarah Miller straightened and looked toward Owen Walker’s flat. Something cold and sour settled in the pit of her stomach: She had led the killers directly to Owen.
They were going to kill him, and she would be responsible.
37
Pressed against the cold stone wall, Sarah could hear them torturing him.
One of them was talking. A foul-voiced man, his words bitter, twisted, full of loathing and amusement. And then there was a choking gasp, high-pitched, rasping, followed by the sound of someone giggling.
They were torturing him for the same reason they had killed his aunt. For the bag. For the sword.
She risked a quick glimpse inside through the broken window. One man was blocking her view, close enough to touch, but over his shoulder she could clearly see the skinhead standing in the background. She couldn’t see Owen or the man with the foul voice, but she could hear the questions and the blows.
The front door gave to her gentle push.
The sounds were clearer now, Owen’s choked sobs, the skinhead’s giggling, and the small man’s bitter voice.
“…Sarah Miller.”
Shocked, she stopped, hearing her own name mentioned. How did they know her? Unless…unless…Realization washed over her in an icy wave: These were the same men who had phoned her in her office, the same men who had butchered her family.
Propelled by pure rage, Sarah was moving before she was even conscious of it. It was as if time had slowed to a series of images, frozen snapshots:
…the small man turning toward her, pliers in his hand.
…one of the youths lunging for her.
…the shock of recognition on Owen Walker’s face.
And then the small man jabbed her in the chest with the blunt end of the pliers. The pain took her breath away and she crashed to the floor, lungs struggling for breath. She hit a chair and toppled sideways, and the steel-toe-capped boot, which had been coming for her head, struck her shoulder, numbing her entire arm, spinning her around in a half circle on the floor, rolling right over the familiar Tesco bag.
“ALIVE,” ELLIOT snapped. “I want her alive.” He grinned. Suddenly everything was going to work out. He could trade Miller to his employer and make everything right again. He watched the skinhead strike at Miller again, catching her high on the thigh with his steel-toe-capped boot. The youth was moving in for another savage kick when Miller rolled over, pulling a roll of newspaper from a bag on the floor, scattering loose pages across the room.
The bag.
Elliot raised his arm to point, but by then Miller had come up on one knee, holding the newspaper tightly in both hands. She lunged straight ahead, catching the skinhead in the groin. Even before he saw the newspaper turn red with blood, Elliot knew what it concealed.
THE BROKEN Sword punched through the soft flesh, destroying tissue, muscles, and the delicate inner organs. Blood spurted, sizzling where it soaked into the newspaper, hissing when it touched the metal. Sarah jerked the ancient weapon upward, the rusty edge of the sword—dull and blunt—neatly shredding flesh, eviscerating the youth.
Somewhere the distant call of a hunting horn, somewhere the faintest clash of metal off metal, the song of the sword.
Sarah jerked the sword free. The youth swayed, ashen-faced, eyes wide and shocked, mouth open, both hands pressed against the gaping wound in the pit of his stomach. Stepping forward, still holding the sword in a two-handed grip, the woman brought it down in a short chopping motion, catching him below the line of the jaw. There was surprisingly little blood when the head tumbled away from the body.
The hunters were closer, their horns shrilling, the baying of the hounds louder.
Sarah Miller leapt over the butchered body and raised the sword above her head in both hands. The sword struck the lightbulb, plunging the room into darkness, sparks and tendrils of white fire curling down the blade.
Elliot and Skinner turned and ran, racing out into the night as the light of a police car appeared, bathing both men in blue and white. They vaulted the car and ran down the road, with the car in pursuit.
Through the broken window, Sarah watched the police car take off after the men and she knew they would be back soon. She turned to Owen. “I have to get out of here. Can you take me?” She hauled the confused Owen to his feet.
“You killed him. You killed him,” Owen said quietly. “Stabbed him, then cut his head off. You killed a man.”
“Two, actually. I’ll explain later. We’re in tremendous danger.”
Owen felt sick to his stomach, and the pain in his head was so intense that he knew if he moved, he was going to throw up. “It’s going to be all right. I’ll tell the police you did it to rescue me. That’s why you came back, isn’t it?”
Sarah nodded, feeling her head throb and pound with the movement. “I couldn’t leave you to them. I saw what they did to my family…and to Judith.”
“These men were talking about my aunt saying…saying…” He suddenly remembered what they had been saying. “They said she was dead,” he whispered hoarsely.
Sarah reached out and squeezed Owen’s hand. She was trying to breathe through her mouth; the stench in the apartment from the dead body was appalling, a mixture of excrement, urine, and blood. “Your aunt is dead, Owen. These men killed her. They butchered her for the bag with the sword I gave to you. She wouldn’t give it to them, wouldn’t tell them where it was. She was strong, so strong, right to the very end. She asked me to get the bag and the sword to you, and she told me to tell you that she was sorry.”
“Sorry?”
“I think she knew this would bring you nothing but trouble.” Sarah looked at him, staring into his eyes. “I think you should take the bag and sword and hide them away somewhere safe. Then I think you should do exactly the same. These people have killed before; they killed my family, they killed your aunt Judith, they were prepared to kill you today. Go away. Hide until these people are in custody. We have to go. Now.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know,” she said tiredly. “It has something to do with the sword.”
“What sword?”
She raised the length of metal in her hand. Much of the rust had flaked away, revealing shining metal beneath. “This is Dyrnwyn.”
Owen reached out and touched the metal with the tip of his finger. A spark snapped between the two, and he jerked his hand back. “But minutes ago, when you stabbed…I could have sworn the sword was whole and complete.”
Sarah shook her head. “The sword is broken.” She turned her head suddenly, the movement sending the room spinning. “Can you hear anything?”
“Nothing. What is it?”
“I thought…I thought I heard horns. Hunting horns.”
38
Reaction hit them only when they were well away from the flat, Skinner driving hard, clutching the steering wheel in a white-knuckled grip. Suddenly the skinhead swerved to the side of the road, pushed open the door, leaned his head out, and vomited.
Elliot swallowed hard and turned away, wiping his sleeve across his watering eyes and nose.
Skinner slammed the door. His breath was coming in great heaving gasps, and he pounded the steering wheel. “I’ll kill her. I’ll fucking kill her.” They had evaded the cops, but the skinhead knew he was going to have to ditch his beloved van. He was sure the cops had made it. He turned to Elliot. “Just who the fuck is she? I thought she was a nobody, a nothing. You told me she was a nobody,” he said accusingly.
“She is a nobody,” Elliot said tiredly.
“This nobody’s killed two of my people. She killed Karl!”
“I know. I know. Find a phone box. I need to call someone.”
“You’ve got a cell, use it,” Skinner snapped. “This is all your fucking fault,” he added.
Elliot’s hand closed over Skinner’s throat, slen
der fingers squeezing, long manicured fingernails leaving half-moons in the pale flesh. Before Skinner could react, the small man produced the pliers and closed the ends—gently—around the skinhead’s protruding tongue. “Don’t you ever speak to me like that again!” He squeezed the pliers for emphasis. “Now be a good little boy and do as you’re told.”
VYVIENNE HAD been in the Astral, the Otherworld, when the skinhead had been killed.
With an ease born of long practice, she interpreted the spots and lines of vibrating colors. She was able to visualize what was happening and pinpoint exactly where they were. The colors screamed out at her: The cobalt blue white of the boy’s terror contrasted sharply with the forest green and midnight blue of Elliot and his two henchmen. The woman noted that Elliot’s bloodlust was tempered with the yellow of sexual arousal. And then the girl appeared, flooding the other colors with her own: cold white, tinged with red and black. Terror. Anger. Then pain.
And then, suddenly, another color had flooded the Otherworld. Bright yellow light blazed, swallowing all the other colors in a flash of bright energy.
The sword had tasted blood.
Again.
Ancient and incredibly powerful pulsations of gold light trembled through the Astral, sending Vyvienne reeling back. For an instant, she had seen directly into the Incarnate World below. She had seen Sarah Miller lift the broken remnant of the sword and plunge it into the boy.
Vyvienne awoke screaming, hands flailing at the yellow fire that washed over her, the wordless howling as the sword sank into the boy’s flesh and devoured his blood and soul.
Ahriman held her protectively, soothing her, allowing her to draw upon a little of his strength. With her head pressed against his chest, he drew up the sheet to cover her naked body so that she would not be able to see the puckered water blisters that were beginning to swell on her flesh.
“What did you see?” he whispered, stroking her temples.
“The Broken Sword. It has killed again. Drunk blood. Energy. Life. Such power…,” she muttered sleepily. “Such power.”
“Where is it?” Ahriman demanded.
“Such power,” Vyvienne mumbled, and fell asleep.
In the bedroom, the phone started ringing.
“SO YOU have failed me again, Mr. Elliot. And lost one of your men too.”
“But how…” There was no possible way that his employer could know. None. Unless, of course, he had someone watching the house.
“You forget, Mr. Elliot, I know everything there is to know about you. I know what you do, and with whom you do it. I know where you go, whom you see…I know everything. Now tell me you have the sword.”
Elliot frowned. If his employer knew everything, then how come he didn’t know whether or not he had the sword? Or was this a trap, to see how much he would reveal? “I don’t have the sword,” he admitted. “Miller ripped up one of my men and then attacked us. We barely got out with our lives.”
“Is she still in the flat with the American?”
“As far as I know.”
“Then go back and get them both. I want them alive. Not necessarily unharmed, but I want them alive. And get me that sword. Don’t fail me again, Mr. Elliot, or there will be severe consequences,” he added, and hung up.
“WE’VE GOT to go back,” he said to Skinner, climbing back into the van.
“No fucking way am I going back!”
Elliot ignored him. From under the seat, he pulled out a length of heavy chain and dropped it in Skinner’s lap. Then he pulled out a lump hammer. In the reflected streetlights, his smile was ghastly. “All we have to do is deliver them alive. Condition doesn’t really matter.”
The skinhead smiled and nodded in understanding. Without a word, he turned the van around.
He was going to enjoy breaking Sarah Miller’s kneecaps.
39
Where will you go?”
Owen shook his head. “I don’t know.”
The couple stood in the shadows, watching for any movement on the quiet road. With the exception of a filthy white-haired tramp huddled in a doorway, the street seemed deserted.
Owen pulled out his car keys and crossed the street to the badly parked seven-year-old Honda Civic. Sarah hurried after him, clutching Judith Walker’s bag in one hand, the Broken Sword in the other. Owen had the car running by the time she reached it.
Inside, they breathed a collective sigh of relief.
“Drop me at the nearest police station,” Sarah said tiredly.
“Are you sure you won’t change your mind?”
“There’s no point in running. The longer I run, the more convinced they’ll be that I’m guilty.” She stopped suddenly. “And I am guilty.”
“Self-defense,” Owen snapped.
“I’m not sure the police will see it that way.”
Sarah looked out the window. So much had happened in the last two days, so many incomprehensible things. She wondered if she’d ever get rid of the stench of death. She felt it permanently affixed to her clothes and embedded in her skin, a noxious mixture of gas and excrement, the metallic odor of blood, and another indefinable smell: the stink of fear.
She had killed a man.
Her second today.
She lifted the rusted lump of metal and turned it over in her red-stained hands. She assumed the staining on her hands was rust; however, she suspected otherwise. There was a part of her, in the deep recesses of her mind, that believed the sword was oozing blood.
“Sarah?”
Dyrnwyn, the Sword That Is Broken.
“Sarah?”
She remembered its weight in her hands, the perfect balance as she thrust it, the sword a natural extension of her arm. In the moment when the sword had sunk into the body and fed on the boy, she had felt…satiated. She remembered the flush of heat and warmth that flowed through her body.
“Sarah?”
She realized that Owen was talking. “I still think I should come with you to the police. Once I explain the circumstances…”
Sarah turned and caught his face in both hands, her fingers leaving red streaks on his olive skin. “Listen to me. The police already suspect me of killing my own family. They know I was in the house with your aunt this afternoon. I’m sure they think I killed her too,” she added bitterly. “Now they’ve got a body on the train and another here. They’re going to lock me up forever, and I am not dragging you into this. You don’t even know me.” There were huge tears in her eyes, and she was finding it hard to breathe.
Owen carefully eased her hands away from his face. He squeezed her fingers until they hurt and the pain registered. “I am coming with you to the police,” he said firmly. “They’ll believe me.”
“How?” she demanded.
“I’ll make them. I’ll tell them the truth.”
“What truth?” She laughed shakily.
They drove in silence for a few minutes. At a light, Owen turned to her, asking in earnest, “Aren’t you interested in the men behind this? The men who attacked me tonight—” His voice broke suddenly. “The men who killed my aunt. Aren’t you interested in seeing them brought to justice?”
Sarah stared straight ahead, refusing to allow any more tears. “These men killed my entire family. I want to see them rot, I want justice…but I know there’s nothing I can do. These people have killed and will kill again, and I’m certain they’re hunting us now.”
“But why?”
Sarah Miller lifted the remains of the sword off her lap. “For this.”
“A broken antique?”
Sarah shook her head. “More than that. Much more.”
“But what is it?”
“I’m not sure yet,” she murmured. Then she shook her head. “It’s old…no, older than old, it’s ancient. And deadly.”
40
Skinner leaned across the steering wheel. “There they are. In the red Civic.”
“I see them,” Elliot muttered. The car was pulling out of Scarsdale Villas onto Ear
ls Court Road. “Damn,” he swore softly. “I was hoping to catch them in the house or some quiet backstreet, where their screams wouldn’t attract too much attention.”
“What do I do?” Skinner asked.
“Fall in behind them. We’ll move in at the first opportunity.” He lifted the hammer and allowed the heavy head to slap into his cupped palm. Alive, his employer had said, but not necessarily unharmed.
“I THINK there’s a van following us.”
Sarah resisted the temptation to look. “How can you tell?”
“We’re doing just under thirty. Everyone else on the road is going at least fifty, but the van is keeping pace with us.”
“Make a couple of turns. See if they follow us,” Sarah suggested. Her fingers closed around the hilt of the sword, drawing strength from the oxidized metal.
Without signaling, Owen immediately turned to the left. The car between them and the van stopped sharply, tires screeching, the stunned driver simultaneously hitting brake and horn. At the bottom of the street, Owen turned right, then right again. At the top of the road, he turned left, back onto Earls Court Road.
“We’ve lost them,” Sarah breathed.
As they pulled back out into traffic, the van slipped in two cars behind them.
“No, we haven’t,” Owen said.
“HE’S MADE us!” Skinner snapped.
Elliot nodded. “Pull up next to him. Force them off the road.”
“In the middle of the city?”
“Do it.” Elliot was gambling that no one would want to get involved. With the cell phone revolution, there had developed a collective apathy that suggested people would get involved only to the extent of tapping in the numbers to call the police. They could boast guiltlessly about doing the right thing, while staying physically un-involved, safely cocooned in their own cars.
The Thirteen Hallows Page 13