Whirlwind (Rachel Hatch Book 8)

by L T Ryan

  They crossed the ten feet to the turn where the candle illuminated the far end. Twenty feet away, muted by darkness, they saw Mathias preparing to ascend a wooden staircase towards a double door hatchway at the top.

  "Stop! Police!" Savage shouted. "Let the girls go!"

  Mathias didn't turn. Kyla Green was slumped over his right shoulder, hanging halfway down his back. She craned her neck up and screamed. Marigold was being dragged by the sash she wore around her waist.

  The blonde's pigtails whipped wildly as she twisted and squirmed. She leaned her bodyweight forward and dug her feet into the dirt below, pumping her arms like a sprinter. He tugged the sash, jerking her back towards the stairs.

  "I don't have a shot," Savage said.

  "Me neither. The kids!" Thorpe responded, both men keeping their eyes trained down the front sight of their firearms.

  Hatch stood a half foot back, wishing she had one of her own, wondering if she would've taken the shot. But Kyla's body blocked Mathias's vitals, and the bend of her back covered most of his head. His arm secured her legs at the knees, holding them tightly against his chest.

  He rammed his shoulder into the hatchway door, tried to push it open while keeping his other hand on the scrambling Marigold. He leveled a hard left shoulder into the seam between the two doors and it sprung wide. Wind filled the tunnel.

  Hatch felt the wind’s force pushing her back. The gust dowsed the candle in the back corner. The gray swirling clouds outside provided the only source of light.

  Hatch sprinted forward between the two armed lawmen and ran at Mathias. Mathias ascended the stairwell, dragging Marigold up the steps, kicking and screaming. Hatch was close, nearing the bottom. Her foot hit the first step when Marigold's sash broke. She came hurdling down. Dropping the staff, Hatch caught her and the two fell to the dirt below.

  "I got you," Hatch said. "Stay here."

  Hatch grabbed the staff and got to her feet. Dashing for the stairs, she saw Mathias, silhouetted by the gray swirling clouds above. The winds howled as he slammed both doors shut. Hatch launched at the opening, but just before her right shoulder slammed into the seam between the doors, Mathias slid a board between the outer handles, stopping Hatch's momentum.

  She slammed into it, sending pain down her right arm. She felt the tingle across the old scars, and the rage built inside her like a tempest. The impact knocked her back a few steps.

  Regaining her footing, she pressed her left shoulder hard against the left side door, creating enough of a gap between the two that she could work the staff in between. Savage and Ben rushed to her aid. Thorpe tended to Marigold. Savage climbed up the stairs and put his own weight behind Hatch's.

  "If we could get just enough, we can pop this thing open."

  Hatch worked the staff, pressing hard, trying to add additional leverage, working it like a fulcrum. She pulled the staff while leaning against the door, grunting hard with the exertion. She heard a crack, but it wasn't the door. It was The Shepherd's staff.

  It snapped in two at the midway point. Hatch fell back into Savage, and the two tumbled down the short flight of stairs, landing in a heap on the hard packed dirt below. "The axe. I saw it in the corner of the first room we passed through."

  "I'll get it." Savage retreated into the darkness.

  Hatch eyed the door that had denied her. She took the jagged end of the broken staff, now whittled down eight inches, and jammed it back into the gap. Hatch then reapplied the force of her shoulder to the left door of the hatchway.

  "We've got to go back out the front." Ben took over helping with Marigold as Thorpe took the lead.

  "I'm going to keep working the door." Hatch rammed her left shoulder into the resistant wood blocking her exit. Just as the group was about to pass the bend where the candle had been, Savage appeared in the darkness.

  Savage passed the others and ran to Hatch. The axe she'd seen before was in his hand. Holding the handle at his shoulder near the butt end of the head, he said, "Let me give it a whack."

  Just as Hatch retrieved the broken shard of staff from the gap between the doors, she heard a sound like a massive combine churning the ground above. The dirt walls of the hallway shattered, sending bits and pieces of debris flying and choking the air with dust.

  Before taking a step down, Hatch heard the crack of wood behind her and turned. The two doors ripped free from their hinges and disappeared into a whirl of gray and dirt as churning winds attacked the world outside. Without giving a second thought, Hatch ran for the opening, knowing the distance between there and Mathias was a shorter one than retracing their steps through the cabin and out the front door.

  She ran up the stairs. Savage, showing no hesitation, pursued her. Hatch burst through into the chaos of the swirling world above ground. She turned back to see Savage at the bottom of the stairs, preparing to ascend.

  The wind's force was unlike anything she had ever felt before. As soon as Hatch was above ground, she was down, pressed on all fours as winds lashed out from all directions. Hatch tucked the broken staff into her belt at the small of her back and crawled to the edge of the opening. She reached an arm in to help Savage up just as a loud crack sounded from somewhere close by in the darkness.

  Hatch heard it coming, the snap and crack of branches hitting branches as a thirty-foot tree fell across the opening. She roll out of the way, through soft mud and grass slick with rain. Leaving her alone with the wind and the Twister Man.

  She scanned the darkness and saw his white tunic like a beacon. He was setting a wooden ladder against the roof's edge. Kyla Green, bound at her wrists and ankles, was slumped at his feet.

  The world around her churned, as Hatch set out against the wind to face off with the Twister Man.

  Twenty-Seven

  Hatch's face was peppered with the dirt and debris filling the churning air around her. Head down, she pressed forward. Mathias was up ahead, fighting his own battle against the wind as he attempted to stabilize the ladder against the rooftop. He then bent low, scooping the slumped child up onto his right shoulder. Kyla hung over his back. Her head swinging by the braided rope belt cinched around the Twister Man's waist.

  Mathias gripped the side of the ladder with his left hand, stabilizing it against the rooftop. He planted his sandal on the lowest rung and prepared to climb.

  As Hatch closed the distance, a blur of white appeared from around the front of the cabin. In the tumult, Hatch first thought it was Savage or one of the others. But through the whirling wind, she recognized The Shepherd.

  Hobbling toward Mathias, his hands in front of his face, bracing against the swirling gusts. The going made more difficult without the use of his staff. He staggered his way forward. Mathias stopped his efforts and turned his head toward the Eternal Light's leader. The Shepherd now stood only a few feet from Mathias.

  She heard the boom of his voice as she had heard when he delivered his sermon. Though she could not discern his commands, she could see the pleading desperation in his eyes as he confronted Mathias.

  Hatch was less than ten feet away when a small tree branch struck her from behind. The leafless limb struck the back of her legs, upending her and sweeping her to the muddy ground. Regaining her feet, she watched the two men face off.

  Ahead, Hatch saw Mathias momentarily release the grip of his left hand holding the ladder. Mathias moved toward his front waistline with his freed hand. A split second later, he produced a knife. He held it in front, aimed at The Shepherd. The blade itself was approximately six inches, curving upward at the tip.

  The Shepherd raised his hands, the same pleading look in his eyes, this time begging for his own life. Mathias punched out with the blade. The Eternal Light's leader attempted to block the attack by raising his hands, but the sharp edge found its mark. Mathias retracted the weapon and tucked it back into the front of his tunic. He tightened the belt, holding it in place before continuing his ascent of the wooden ladder. With Kyla on his back, Mathias pressed upward run
g by rung.

  The Shepherd staggered back as Hatch closed the gap. Both of his hands pressed firmly against the left side of his upper chest, his eyes wide with fear. His linens absorbed the red of his blood. The Shepherd dropped to his knees and fell face first into the muddy earth as Hatch reached the base of the ladder.

  Mathias was already halfway up with Kyla a dangling sack of white. Ben's daughter's eyes met Hatch’s as she lifted herself off the rain drenched tunic of her abductor.

  Hatch launched herself upward. She grabbed hold of Mathias's right leg below the knee with both hands. His skin was wet with rain and slick with mud. Hatch's grip worked against the slippery surface of his flesh. Her hands lost their purchase and Hatch slid down to his ankle. With the leather sandal strap wrapped around his foot serving as a backstop, she leaned back and pulled hard.

  Mathias looked under his arm at Hatch while he held firm to the ladder and kicked hard with the leg Hatch so desperately clung to. The worn wooden bottom of his sandal came within inches of Hatch's nose. The flailing foot may have missed its mark, but the violent movement of his right leg worked to free his sandal from his foot.

  Hatch fell back onto the muddy ground next to The Shepherd. The hard wood of The Shepherd's staff still tucked in her belt, stung her lower back. Golf ball sized hail pulverized the landscape. Hatch raised an arm in defense against the attacking ice pellets. She looked around her forearm shield and through the hail to see the sandal-less Mathias climb the final rungs of the ladder to the rooftop.

  Just as Hatch pushed up, a violent whirl of wind ravaged the ground, sliding her across the hail-covered ground and away from the ladder. The winds rolled her to her stomach and continued to push Hatch further from the cabin. She reached to the small of her back and retrieved the broken end of The Shepherd's staff.

  Hatch raised the wooden shard and plunged its jagged end into the upturned ground in front of her. She buried the wood deep and grabbed tight with both hands as winds clawed at her, trying without success to pull her further away from her destination. From Kyla.

  Hatch held her ground against the storm, her knuckles white. The ladder, without Mathias's weight on it, blew from the side of the house and passed over Hatch's prone body. It sailed through the air like a wooden kite. The handcrafted wooden ladder was obliterated when it smashed into the trunk of a nearby tree.

  The winds shifted their direction, enabling Hatch an opportunity to get to her feet. She looked over to where the wind had pushed The Shepherd's body. He was folded against a stack of firewood near the front corner of the cabin. He remained motionless aside from the wind that whipped his blood-soaked tunic.

  Mathias stood wide-legged, bracing himself against the wind, and looked over the edge and down at Hatch. In the distance, another funnel cloud formed. The tail reached down from the angry sky and snaked its way toward the cabin, obliterating everything in its path.

  Hatch locked eyes with Mathias for a moment before he disappeared.

  Twenty-Eight

  The barrage of hail ended, giving way to heavy rains. Water flooded off the pitch of the roof. Hatch stood on the wooden planks of the porch and looked at the rooftop's overhanging edge where the ladder had been only moments before.

  As she looked at the challenge ahead, her mind flashed to the forty-foot tower at the BUD/s obstacle course she had tested herself on earlier in the week. She then remembered Banyan's advice on how to tackle the obstacle's hurdle. The roof's edge was barely within fingertip's reach when Hatch stood on her toes to gauge the jump. She bent her knees low, her muscles pulsing. Hatch sprung upwards, exploding from the wet porch wood. She reached out with both hands while airborne. The tips of her fingers clawed at the wet wood and found purchase on the edge's lip, a wooden gutter that extended two inches along the length of the roof.

  Using the momentum of her jump, Hatch slung her legs outward as she flipped her upper body. Swinging both legs up and over the edge, her waist struck the edge of the roof as her body folded and her legs fell flat against the wood. Just as she pushed herself up, she saw Savage and Thorpe appear on the ground below.

  She met the Hawk’s Landing sheriff's eyes and saw the worry behind them as she pushed herself up. Savage called out to her, but she only saw his mouth move, the words carried away by wind. Hatch turned toward the top and, staying on all fours, climbed her way up.

  Hatch reached the angled slope of the top portion of the roof. Long boards stretched lengthwise from front to back. Hatch took up a wide, low crouch, balancing herself against the wind along the four-foot-wide swath of the center. She faced the rear, where the stone chimney added smoke to the whirling air.

  At the base of the chimney, Hatch saw a horrifying sight. Kyla Green, still bound at the ankles and wrists, lay with her back flattened against the roof boards, twisting and writhing to no avail. Mathias straddled the child at the waist, his knees pinning her tunic to the rooftop a few feet from the chimney stack.

  The same blade used to stab The Shepherd, now coated in his blood, was raised high above Mathias's head. Long arms extended upward into the swirling gray of the smoke injected wind. Both of his large hands were wrapped around the wood handle. He was momentarily still and the blade, through the circling air, hovered above Kyla's chest.

  Hatch ran the length of the level platform and slammed into Mathias's back like a linebacker in an open field tackle. Her right shoulder collided with his spine. The impact from Hatch's body sent Mathias face first into the stone of the chimney. He let out a bone-chilling cry that rose above the wind and the knife fell free from his hands, sliding halfway down the right side of the roof.

  Mathias slumped sideways. Hatch saw blood pour out of the shattered nose of the killer. Stunned by the blow, he tumbled forward and off to the side, following the same path as the knife and coming to a stop a foot above it. He remained face down and unmoving.

  Hatch seized the moment, grabbing Kyla and pulling her away from the unconscious Mathias and over to the front where the ladder had been. She quickly undid the ropes binding the girl's wrist and ankles and crawled along next to Kyla, who scooted on her bottom to the edge. Hatch leaned over the rim where Savage and Thorpe waited on the ground below, holding their arms up to receive her.

  Taking Kyla by her trembling hands, she saw the terror in the girl's face. "It's going to be okay," Hatch said. "They're going to catch you."

  Kyla nodded. Hatch guided her, turning her with her back to the wood line and leading her feet first over the lip of the roof. Hatch lay flat against the roof and, holding the girl by her wrists, lowered her down to Savage, who caught the child in his arms.

  Just before she could make her own descent, Hatch felt a vice-like grip on both of her legs just above the ankles. Before she could react, she was pulled back up to the flattened portion of the roof.

  In a fury of rage, Matthias grabbed Hatch and tossed her like a rag doll. Hatch landed on her back. She felt the wooden shard of The Shepherd's staff still tucked in the back of her waistband. Before she could reach it, Mathias was on top of her, pinning her as he had done Kyla.

  The same strong hands that had hoisted her up and tossed her now gripped around her throat. Hatch slammed down hard with both her forearms against his, trying to break the grip. She bucked her hips and tried to sweep the man off to the side, but he held firm. The howling wind seemed to subside, as the blood and oxygen to Hatch's brain became restricted. She knew she only had seconds before she'd be out cold. Mathias then reached behind his back with his right hand. Hatch saw the glint of the blade as it swept upward.

  Hatch worked her right arm behind her back. The scar that stretched the expanse of it rubbed against the rooftop as she finagled her way under her back. She gripped the end of The Shepherd's staff firmly in her hand.

  Mathias roared like the tempest surrounding him. Just before he brought the blade of the knife down, in one swift move, Hatch extracted the wooden shard and plunged its jagged edge into the center of Mathias's chest c
avity, just below the sternum.

  The curved blade fell from Mathias's hand. His death grip released. Hatch gasped in oxygen as Mathias fell to her side. Hatch gave a half roll, separating herself, then pushed back to her feet.

  Maintaining a wide stance, she now stood at the center of the roof. Mathias slumped against the chimney, his head down, but only for a moment before he pressed himself up to stand.

  He looked down at the wood of the staff buried deep in his chest. Then his eyes rose to meet Hatch's. She saw nothing in them but death. His face twisted in anger as he staggered forward. The deafening roar of the massive funnel closed in on the rear of the cabin.

  Mathias continued his stagger forward, oblivious to the whirlwind behind him, focused on one thing. Hatch.

  She bladed her stance and bent her knees, bringing her hands to a ready position. Before Mathias could close the distance, the rooftop shuddered as the chimney disintegrated, stone and debris flying.

  A large piece hit Mathias at the base of his skull. Hatch saw the look in his eyes shift from rage to nothingness. His hands went to the back of his head, and when they came down again, they were coated in the red of his blood. Mathias's knees buckled, and he fell, sliding down the pitch of the roof and vanishing over the side.

  The winds ravaged the structure and the boards beneath Hatch's feet came loose. She sprinted forward and then jumped, sliding feet first down the roof's slant. She rode her wooden water slide down and over the edge.

  Hatch struck the ground with bent knees, like a Parachute Landing Fall. Then she rolled to her side, the soft, muddy ground absorbing the shock of her landing.

  Hatch popped tall from her roll and prepared for whatever fight was left. She lowered her hands when she saw Mathias lying face down with his arms stretched out. The force of impact from the ground had forced the jagged edge of The Shepherd's staff through his body. The serpentine infinity symbols etched along the wood poked out through his back and were now coated in the dark, thick red of Mathias's blood.