Cethlenn heard the Step-Mother's angry footsteps and Sharon's short, light ones clipping across the floor. She heard the door slam so hard the walls shook. She was alone in the house with the Father.
She heard him storm from the front room back to the den. There was a long, silent pause. Mixin' himself a drink, Cethlenn thought. Goin' to feed his anger with a wee drop of the uisge-beatha, no doubt. And then he'll go ragin' through the house until he finds us—and we're in trouble when he does, and sure.
As if he'd heard her thoughts, the Father bellowed, "I know you're in here somewhere, Amanda! You can come down here right now and spare yourself a lot of trouble. Or I can come find you. I will find you. And when I do, I'll break your skinny, ugly little neck."
:You need to go, Cethlenn,: Alice urged. :You have to do what he says. He's our father and we have to obey him.:
Cethlenn shook her head. :And if I do what he says, he'll break our neck without having to work to find us first.:
Abbey said fearfully, :Daddy wouldn't hurt us, not really. Would he?:
Cethlenn cocked an eyebrow at Abbey. :Why don't you ask Anne about that?:
:I can't,: Abbey replied uncertainly. :Anne's gone.:
:Not back into the Unformed Planes, please all the gods!: Cethlenn felt her pulse race and her breath quicken in dismay at that thought.
Abbey answered slowly. :I don't think so, Cethlenn. We could feel that she was there, before, even though we didn't let ourselves know about each other. But now there is nothing where she was but an empty place. I think after Alice yelled at her, she went away.:
In the pit of Cethlenn's stomach, something twisted. :Alice. What—did you say to her?: the witch asked Alice. Now that she knew to feel for the emptiness, the place where Anne should have been nagged like a newly missing tooth.
Alice donned her most self-righteous expression and said, :I told her the truth—that she was awful and evil and that we didn't need her or want her here.:
And by all the gods, the child had the gall to look smug—as if she'd done something grand. :Oh, no! Alice, Anne is a part of you! You can't just get rid of her! You can't!:
Alice crossed her arms and glowered at Cethlenn. :She did those—things—with our father. Nasty, wicked, sinful things. She was a bad, bad girl. Our father said so, and he is our father so he must be right.:
Cethlenn reacted without thinking. :Your father is a vicious brute who ought to be flayed and drawn and quartered and hung, then burned for good measure,: she snapped.
Alice looked shocked. Her mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. Her white cheeks flushed momentarily red, and angry tears filled her eyes. :I'll—I'll—I'll tell on you!: Alice finally sputtered. She flickered out of sight.
:Oh, dear,: Cethlenn told Abbey, with a twinge of guilt. :I shouldn't have said that to her.:
Abbey glared at her. :You shouldn't have said it to me, either. I don't believe he's as bad as you and Anne say. Anne was crazy, and I'm glad she's gone.:
Abbey followed her sister.
Cethlenn heard the Father coming up the stairs. No time left to find the children and retract her ill-thought statements. Apologies would have to take second place to survival. She hurriedly jumped off the bed, and noticed as she did that it was wet and dirty where she had lain on it. A beating would be the least she got if the Father caught her. She frowned and slipped out by her secret window escape. As soon as she pulled the window shut, she dropped to the roof below. Instead of running to the tree and climbing down to the ground this time, though, she stayed put, hugging the side of the house and listening to the Father as he rampaged through her room and then started searching for her through the rest of the house.
There was a drain spout that went right alongside one of the attic windows. Cethlenn was sure she could climb it. It had fastenings about every two feet that would serve as hand and footholds. It connected along the edge of the roof where she stood and soared to the attic window on the third story without going near any other windows.
The attic wasn't the safest place—the Father would certainly check there for her—but he probably wouldn't check more than once. If she climbed up after she heard him moving around in there, she should be able to buy some time. Perhaps the Step-Mother and Sharon would be home by then. He wouldn't do anything really brutal with them home, surely.
Cethlenn wasn't certain, but the attic plan seemed reasonable in theory. So she scooted down next to the spout and sat with her head pressed against the wood siding, listening for the sounds of the Father's footsteps ascending the stairs above her. Finally, she heard him crashing upward.
She stilled, waiting, and at last she was rewarded with his racket as he clattered back down the uncarpeted stairs. Cethlenn wiped her suddenly-damp palms on her shirt, eased her slender frame onto the gutter, and found the first tiny handhold. Almost afraid to breathe, she began the long ascent.
* * *
When Mel picked her up, Belinda flung herself into his car and said, without preamble, "Straight by my hotel—I have something special I need to pick up to finish this job. Then we'll go out and get your kid."
Mel gaped at his employee. Apparently he hadn't thought she'd have sustained any real damage. "You look awful. How did you get all those bruises on your face?"
"I walked into a door." She pulled down the passenger-side visor and looked in the mirror long enough to assess the most recent damage to her appearance, and bit her lip in dismay.
"Not really," he replied, as if he half believed her.
"No," she agreed. "Not really. But I don't want to talk about it." She glanced out at the passing scenery, then over at the speedometer. "Can't you drive any faster? God, you drive like the old coot who used to be my partner."
Mel frowned, disapprovingly. "I'm already going seventy, Belinda. I would just as soon not get pulled over right now. A cop might ask questions, once he gets a look at you, especially if he sees our guns. What are you in such a hurry for?"
She grimaced. "I have an appointment. Move it, okay? If I don't get to my appointment, you won't get your kid."
Neither of them said anything until they arrived at Belinda's hotel. As they pulled into the parking lot, Belinda swore. "Dammit, she took my keys and my fake I.D. I don't think I can get the clerk to give me another key without some identification."
Mel shrugged as if it didn't matter. "Have you done anything to the door or the lock since last night?"
Belinda rolled her eyes. "Oh, yeah, Mel. I installed a bomb so that the first person who opened the door would be blown away. The room is probably coated with Maid-Kibbles by now."
He sighed elaborately. "Hey, I was just asking. If you haven't done anything fancy to the locks, I can still get in."
She decided not to employ any more sarcasm on him; it was obviously wasted effort. "I haven't. Lead on, Macduff."
Mel did as promised. Once in the room, Belinda went to the dresser, crouched with her back to it, and lifted a corner of the heavy furniture a few inches off the floor. "Grab the case," she panted.
Mel, eyebrows well into his hairline, pulled the thinline briefcase out of the tiny space. "Nice hiding place. I haven't seen that one."
Belinda twitched her shoulders in dismissal, then nodded at the case. "That's an expensive toy. I didn't want it to walk off without me." She dropped the dresser, grabbed a bright red excuse for a skirt from a hanger, and with that in one hand and her little case in the other, headed for the door.
"May I ask—"
Belinda cut the question off. "It's a gun."
Mel looked puzzled. "To fit in that case, it couldn't be much of a gun."
Belinda climbed back into the passenger seat of the car. Mel slipped in. As they backed out of the parking space, she said, "You want specifics? Fine by me." She briefly opened the case to reveal a long, streamlined handgun and a loose scope packed in padded velvet. "It's an XP-100; a single-shot bolt-action handgun that comes tapped and drilled for scope mounting. I use a 12-powe
r quick-mount scope on mine. It shoots a fifty-grain .221 Remington Fireball with a muzzle velocity of about 2650 feet per second. The velocity is still about 1150 feet per second at 300 yards. It delivers an impact over 400 foot/pounds at a hundred yards, and 130 foot/pounds at three hundred yards. It's machine polished, with a hand-carved conforming rosewood handgrip to make it pretty and easy to hold and not look so obvious on x-rays, and a bull-barrel to limit recoil. Best of all, at three-hundred yards, its point-of-aim is only thirteen inches above its target." She gave him a nasty little smile. "Feel better now?"
He only looked bored. "All of that babble means something to you?"
She snarled. "Yeah. It means this is a real nice gun if you want to kill somebody with one bullet from a long way off, but you don't want to drag a rifle around for everybody to see."
"Oh," Mel said, dismissively. "It's an assassination gun."
"It's an assassination gun," Belinda agreed. "An expensive one. I'm about to get my money's worth out of it."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
By the gods, I had no idea the ground was so far away. A mere strip of wooden ledge was all that separated Cethlenn from the plant beds and pine bark far below. Och, I'd forgotten how I hated the heights. So, I end up here, in this wee bit of trouble, like a stranded chick and the snake comin'.
And speaking o' which, I wonder what the bloody bastard's doin' now.
She heard the Father thundering around the lower floors, a bear deprived of his meal—a beast deprived of its prey.
She got eight inches of clearance before the attic window refused to budge further. Amanda was a thin child—Cethlenn could be grateful for that. She squeezed herself through the narrow space and into the cramped confines of the attic.
Boxes and other menacing shapes hulked in the gloom. Cethlenn felt among them, fingers probing for shelter. Her eyes refused to adjust—the darkness wrapped around her like a living cloak. Every breath sounded loud to her; every creak in the floor seemed to scream betrayal to the Father below. And always, it seemed that eyes watched from just over her shoulder.
She found a trunk, half empty, with old dresses and blankets in it. With a muttered prayer of thanks to the gods of her past, Cethlenn clambered in, pulled scratchy, dusty cloth over her head, and went to sleep.
* * *
Belinda snapped the sight onto the silver handgun and loaded the single cartridge into the chamber. There was a smooth click as the bolt slid home. She thumbed the safety, then laid the gun on her lap, pointed towards the passenger door.
"I want you to drive down to the other side of the horse stables you'll see on the left," she said to Mel as neutrally as possible. She didn't look at him. She began cutting narrow strips of cloth from her red skirt and tying them together. "Wait for me just down from the intersection. As soon as I'm done with this, I'll hike through the woods and take you to pick up your kid."
"Is she around here somewhere?" Mel asked, unable to conceal his avarice.
"General vicinity," Belinda told him. She knew what he wanted, and she tried to summon up the appropriate wariness—then the wariness melted into her overall exhaustion. I'm getting paranoid. Mel's been waiting for this TK kid for a long time. It's only natural he should want to know where she is. He won't double-cross me—not after I've done so much for him. And not with all the dirt I have on him. She smiled at her employer and said slowly, "Sorry I snapped at you. I'm edgy, Mel. I'll feel better when we get the girl and get the hell out of North Carolina. This place is driving me up the wall. I feel like every Billy-Bob G.I. jerk in this state is trying to get in the way of my job."
He nodded, his own smile, thin-lipped and unpleasant. "Don't worry about it, Belinda. I understand."
Belinda got out of the car and watched Mel drive off in the direction she'd indicated. Then she walked well into the woods, tied the red strips around a tree, and paced off two hundred and fifty yards to one side of that point, keeping a clear line of fire in mind. Belinda checked her watch—only fifteen minutes more until Mac Lynn would walk into her sights.
* * *
Lianne got out of the police car and breathed a sigh of relief. It was over. The cops had found the information in her kidnapper's purse very helpful—they'd traced the aliases back to Berkeley, California, and a woman named Belinda Ciucci, an ex-cop whose record ran to such interesting charges as grand-theft auto, kidnapping, and murder. They'd located her hotel room and staked it out; the woman was going to return to find company waiting. The policemen would be by the apartment later for more information; until they arrived, Lianne had been instructed to take it easy.
Those were pretty much the same instructions the nurse in the E.R. had sent her home with. Her three broken ribs weren't misaligned—and how she'd lucked out there, she had no idea, what with all the twisting and turning and bumping around. The swelling in her face would have to go down before a doctor could tell how much work her nose and cheekbone fractures were going to require—if any. She didn't have any dangerous injuries, only ones that hurt. The folks in the E.R. had been sympathetic and encouraging. They'd given her scrips for an antibiotic and a painkiller, told her to put ice on all the swollen places, and to avoid any further excitement. She'd called her principal—and verified that, yes, she was in the emergency room and she wasn't faking all this and that, yes, the police were involved, and that she was the victim of something they could not specify. She could only imagine what stories would spread around the teachers' lounge in her absence—everything from rape by her racecar boyfriend to kidnapping by terrorists.
Certainly nice to know I have both medical and legal backing for taking a day or two off. I don't think I could face a class anytime soon. Soon as I let Mac know I'm all right, I'm going to lie down, take my pills, and sleep for the rest of the day.
Lianne felt around inside her mailbox for the spare key taped there, and walked across the quad.
When she put the key into the lock, she realized the door hadn't been locked in the first place. She walked in, ready to take off if anything seemed out of the ordinary. The place was a disaster—Lianne vaguely remembered how it got that way. It was dark inside. She moved quietly through the living room down to the hall and opened all three doors soundlessly. The rooms were undisturbed and nothing was missing. No one was hiding in any of the corners or under the bed. In spite of the mess in the living room, the apartment felt safe and peaceful again. Lianne breathed a sigh of relief. Thank God for small blessings, she thought, and headed to the kitchen to fix herself a cup of hot tea to go with her pills.
She noticed a piece of paper taped to the kitchen entryway. She pulled it down and stared at it. It was writing that looked vaguely Arabic or Hebraic or—Her brows knit in puzzlement. Not that—and not anything else she'd ever seen, either. There were lines that were clearly a map to somewhere, but the directions on it weren't anything she could decipher.
With the map in hand, she walked into the kitchen—
Or at least, she intended to. As she stepped across the threshold, her skin tingled and smoke and mist swirled around her. For an instant, she felt nothing under her feet at all. She screamed—and finished the step she had started into the kitchen.
Mac, you scum-sucking worm, what did you do?
She wasn't in the kitchen anymore. The smoke was even thicker here, blown by an intermittent breeze. She landed on her hands and knees in wet, tenacious mud, and caught her breath as her ribs reminded her of their injuries. She looked up at the soaring, sad remains of what had been an ancient forest. The massive ruins of burned trees towered over her, and a few unbelievably beautiful survivors in front of her made her heart ache for the lost glory. I wish I could have seen this place before the fire, she thought, surprising herself with the strength of that wish. It must have been heavenly.
She pulled the note she'd carried out of the mud, and looked at it gloomily. It was muddied and torn. She considered tossing it out, then decided against it. Probably Mac's shopping list, written in elvish,
she thought. But about the time I throw it out, it will be important.
Lianne heard the quick, faint pounding of horse's hooves, steadily growing louder as she listened. After a moment, she saw a fair-haired man galloping toward her astride a huge chestnut horse. It was an elf—which meant this arrival of burned forest to the middle of her kitchen was Mac's doing.
I knew it. Lianne felt a bit smug at how calmly she was taking all this. I'm getting very rational about facing all these little episodes. Becoming quite the survivor. She licked her dry lips and told her queasy stomach that this was just business as usual. At least, she thought it was business as usual. Or else I've gone round the bend entirely, and I'll wake up in a charming little padded room wearing an I-love-me jacket. She maintained her relaxed facade as the elf reined in his horse in front of her and rested one hand on the butt of a small machine gun, the kind she saw terrorists in news-shots toting.
Lackey, Mercedes - Serrated Edge 04 - When The Bough Breaks Page 27