Tom Hyman

by Jupiter's Daughter

  Now all she had to do was drop herself down on top of them.

  Then she was going to find Mommy, and she and Mommy were going to get out of this awful place.

  With her hands and teeth she ripped the mattress apart and made a big pile of the stuffing over by the window. She threw the mattress ticking over the loose down and feathers, then maneuvered the table across the floor until she had it centered over the pile. For good measure, she ripped the curtains from the window and dumped those on top of the table, along with the towels from the bathroom.

  She was about to throw the sheets onto the pile as well when another idea occurred to her. She ripped a narrow strip from one end of a sheet, threaded it through the metal loop on the base of the flashlight, knotted it, and draped it around her neck.

  Genny fetched the box of matches she had taken from the basement repair shop, then cranked the casement window open as far as it would turn. A chilly breeze blew into the room. She struck one of the matches against the side of the box and held the flame against the ticking. It went out. She tried three more. The fourth one worked. The ticking smoldered for a few seconds and then caught. A dense cloud of smoke began to darken the room.

  Genny pulled the bed back into place over the hole. The longer it took them to find it, the better, she decided. She crawled under the bed, swung around, and stuck her legs down into the hole.

  She turned on the flashlight and braced herself on the edge with both hands. She took one last look at the smoking pile of mattress ticking.

  The mattress cover had caught, and orange flames were spreading rapidly across its surface and licking at the underside of the table.

  Genny eased herself down until she was entirely through the hole, clinging to the edge of the floor by her fingers. Then she let go.

  Half a dozen dogs milled around Katrina, snapping and growling.

  Repeatedly she tried to get to her feet, but each time the dogs pulled her back down. Her screams continued, but they were losing volume.

  Stewart could not understand why no one had come out to rescue her. He slid the safety catch on the pistol and pressed the button to roll the window down the inch or two he needed to stick the barrel out.

  Nothing happened. Katrina had taken the key. Without the ignition on, he couldn’t open the windows. He looked down. One dog remained by the door, baring his teeth at him.

  Stewart took a chance and opened the door a crack. The Doberman immediately pressed his muzzle through and twisted his head sideways, trying to widen the crack. Stewart placed the pistol against the dog’s head and pulled the trigger.

  The explosion rocked the car and filled the interior with the acrid stink of gunpowder. The dog was gone. Stewart’s head rang.

  He opened the door further and tried to aim at the dogs mauling Katrina. At this range he couldn’t shoot without risking hitting her.

  He fired two shots over their heads anyway, hoping to panic them into a retreat. The dogs jumped at the noise, then continued their attack.

  Her screams had subsided to a choked, sobbing wail. Stewart couldn’t stand it. He got out of the car and ran over to her. He dropped to his knees and quickly shot two of the dogs at pointblank range. He aimed at a third, but another dog clamped his jaws on Stewart’s right arm and pulled it down.

  Stewart transferred the pistol to his left hand and shot the dog in the chest. More dogs came toward him. Katrina rose to her hands and knees and tried to crawl away. Her fur coat, except for a sleeve and part of the back, had been ripped off. A low gurgling moan escaped her mouth; then she was silent. One of the dogs seized the back of her neck between its jaws and pinned her down on the grass. Stewart shot the dog in the head from behind. The animal yelped and collapsed.

  Katrina didn’t get up.

  Stewart ran back to the car. He jammed his fist against the horn and held it there. He could see people at many of the windows, but still no one would come out.

  Two more dogs ran over to Katrina’s inert form. Stewart opened the car door and fired at them. Neither bullet hit, but both animals bounded off, yipping loudly.

  He counted the dead dogs. At least five. He could see five or six more lurking in the shadows behind the portico, uncertain as to their duty.

  He jumped back out of the car and ran over and knelt down by Katrina.

  She was unconscious but still breathing. The flesh of her face and neck showed puncture wounds and long gashes.

  Blood was oozing out of her from a dozen places.

  Stewart picked up a large shred of the fur coat and felt in its pocket for the key to the car. Four of the dogs came out from the shadows of the portico and moved toward him. Instead of lunging at him like the others, they were showing a little caution—and some cleverness as well. They spread out, like a hunting party, and began creeping toward him, ears back and bellies low to the ground, from four widely separated directions. He saw a fifth dog emerge at a trot from behind the portico and circle around behind the car.

  Stewart grabbed two other pieces of the coat from the driveway, looking for the second pocket. He found it, but the key was not in that one, either. It must have fallen out.

  He stood up, walked a few paces toward one of the advancing dogs, stopped, took careful aim, and pulled the trigger.

  Instead of the explosion of a departing bullet, all he heard was the dull metallic click of the firing pin striking an empty chamber.

  Genny landed feetfirst on the pillow, then rolled over onto her side.

  She stood up, completely unhurt, pulled the flashlight from her neck, and shined it around the floor. The sword was where she had left it.

  She picked it up and started down the passageway.

  She covered the length of the upper level as fast as her little legs would carry her, stopping a few seconds to hold her nose against each door, hoping to catch a trace of her mother’s scent.

  She reached the end of the passage and ran down the narrow stairs to the next level below. Whatever thin traces of her mother’s presence remained in the air, they were being rapidly overwhelmed by other, newer scents. The sounds of running feet seemed to reverberate everywhere through the ceilings, walls, and floor. And she could hear loud voices now, coming from different parts of the castle. They’ve found the fire, she thought.

  On the lower floor, she stopped to hoist herself up the wall and look through one of the peepholes. Lights were on. She could see the backs of women at one of the windows, watching something outside. Mommy was not among them.

  Genny reached the steps leading to the basement and stopped.

  Someone was coming up. She could hear heavy footsteps and see the fleeting shaft of a flashlight beam. She fled back up the stairs to the upper floor and retreated across the top level all the way to the corner. There she stopped.

  The ceiling of the passageway beyond the corner was on fire.

  It had already burned through the floor above and was eating its way rapidly along the ancient, dust-dry timbers and planks. While she watched, a chunk of burning wood fell on the pillow and quilt she had thrown down through the hole. The bedding burst quickly into flame.

  Genny ran back down the stairs to the floor below. At the corner she switched off her flashlight and listened. The man who had come up from the basement was advancing slowly along the passageway, sweeping the dark with the beam of his flashlight.

  Genny ducked her head back just before the light caught her.

  She was trapped, now, between this man and the fire in the passage above. She knelt down, turned out the flashlight, gripped the sword firmly with both hands, and waited for him.

  Anne tried to keep her spirits up with anger, but she could feel her strength rapidly ebbing. She shifted from one foot to the other and tried to pretend that she was going for a walk, but so close were the pointed tips of the spikes that even that minimal amount of movement brought them sharp against her flesh.

  She tried using the pain by pressing her knees against the tips so that the sting
of their points could stimulate her fatigued muscles. But that tactic was no longer working. Her legs were beginning to burn from the stress.

  She found that if she put her arms down straight at her sides and moved them slightly back until she could wrap each hand around a spike at about mid-thigh level, she could temporarily take some of the weight off her feet.

  But it was only a matter of a little more time before her legs would refuse to hold her upright.

  Stewart turned and ran for the car, then stopped. One of the Alsatians had planted itself directly in front of the opened door.

  The dog’s eyes were fixed on him. Its lips were drawn back, exposing its long rows of incisors in a mock grin. A guttural snarl issued from its throat.

  The other dogs were patiently encircling him. He felt mesmerized, watching them. They spread out and approached him obliquely, trotting back and forth in a zigzag pattern to narrow the gaps between them so he could not slip through.

  He knelt down, one eye on the dogs, and ejected the empty clip from the pistol’s grip. He laid the pistol and clip on the ground while he fumbled for the box of extra bullets in his pocket. His kneeling emboldened the dogs. They approached at a trot. He tore the box open, snatched up a handful of bullets, and started forcing them into the clip. Several spilled to the ground. He couldn’t see what he was doing. He managed to get three in the clip. The dogs were getting too close.

  He pulled off his coat, grabbed the pistol and the clip, and ran.

  The lawn sloped directly to the vineyards and the trees beyond.

  If he could make it to the trees, he could climb up out of their reach.

  He ran as he had not run since he was a little boy—with the full-out abandon of despair. He strained to force his limbs to move faster than they had ever moved. The rush of energy bore him, weightless, over the ground.

  He knew the dogs were right behind him, but he couldn’t hear them. His ears were filled with the sound of his feet hitting the earth and the noise of his heart pounding under his ribs. The trees, faintly illuminated by the castle’s spotlights, looked a long way off. He tried to jam the clip into the pistol on the run, but couldn’t manage it.

  The lawn darkened beneath his feet and came to an end. He was in the vineyard now, rushing between rows of vines. The trees at last were getting close.

  A sudden tug at his sleeve. The clip slipped from his hand and fell.

  He tried to increase his pace. His lungs sucked in the air in loud, gasping gulps.

  He thought of a fox hunt long ago in Leesburg, Virginia; the owner of a pharmaceuticals company had a big horse farm there.

  He remembered the fox zigzagging across the field, a reddish blur in the morning light, the hounds of death baying on its tail.

  Teeth snapped at his left hand. He felt a momentary sting and then nothing. Two were running abreast of him now. He could hear them slapping against the branches of the vines on each side of him along the narrow path. He threw the pistol at one and heard the weapon thud into the soft vineyard soil.

  The dogs were closing in, snapping hungrily at his heels, his arms. He wanted to slow down before his lungs burst, but the trees were still so far away.

  A heavy weight crashed against his back. A momentary sensation of a warm breath on his neck, of claws digging into his shoulders. Jaws captured a pants leg. He tried to shake them off and keep straight on for the trees, but the sudden tug threw him off stride.

  He pitched forward, between the rows of vines, and the dogs crowded over him, whimpering in their eagerness. He could smell them, hear them, see them, feel them. They were at his neck, his chest, his arms, his legs.

  He flailed and screamed. He felt the weight and pressure of the bites, the warm release of his blood.

  His heart hammered mightily. His senses felt so sharp. He glimpsed the stars in the sky brighter and bigger than he had ever seen them.

  And behind the spots of light around the castle walls he saw a bright red fire burning.

  He remembered fireworks on the Fourth of July when he was a boy—how the vivid noise and color, building to a crescendo, had once stirred his soul—God, so long ago.

  His last thoughts were of his daughter, Genny. His heart filled with a bitter sorrow. He would never know now what would become of her. His heir, his flesh and blood, and he had failed her, just as his father had failed him.

  Genny could still hear someone in the passageway. A flashlight beam shined down the narrow passage and splashed against the wall right next to her. Once, she heard him come almost to the corner, then turn back.

  A long time seemed to pass. People were running and shouting all through the castle. Genny could hear the fire crackling above her.

  The air in the passageway was getting hot.

  She expected to hear fire sirens and fire engines coming up the driveway, but none did.

  She began to feel afraid. She had to find Mommy. She peeked around the corner. It was dark. The man had gone. She stood up, turned on the flashlight, and started back along the passageway.

  She reached the far end and was about to start down the steps to the cellar when she heard him coming back up. He was shouting in German.

  Someone was with him. Genny caught a whiff of the baroness’s perfume.

  Then she heard her voice.

  She turned and headed back around the corner. The sword fell from her hands and clanked on the passage floor. She scooped it up and continued.

  At the stairs to the upper floor she paused. She didn’t want to go back up. The fire was getting loud and hot. Smoke was billowing down the stairs.

  She trained the flashlight on one of the big crossbeams over her head.

  If she could get up there, they might not see her. She let the flashlight hang from her neck on its ribbon of torn sheeting and tried to decide what to do about the sword. She couldn’t carry it, because she needed all her fingers free to climb the wall.

  The man and the baroness were getting closer. Genny could smell the peculiar odor of the drug that the woman had injected in her earlier.

  The baroness must be bringing it to inject her again.

  Genny slipped the ribbon of sheet off over her neck, twisted it around the hilt of the sword, then draped the whole affair back over her neck, positioning it so the flashlight hung down in front and the sword down in back. The weight of the sword immediately pulled the ribbon up tight against her throat, but that was just as well, since it brought the flashlight into a better position for her to see.

  She braced hands and feet against the walls and started up. She managed the first few feet quickly, keeping herself in place by dint of sheer strength; then she couldn’t find a toehold. She slid a foot up repeatedly, groping in the dim light for some slight depression in the stone surface.

  A piece of the wall under one foot crumbled away beneath her, and she fell. The sword twisted around and wedged itself between the walls, nearly choking her on the ribbon as she fell past it. The ribbon tore loose and the flashlight bounced against the wall, hit the floor, and went out. The sword followed, clanking down in the dark, narrowly missing her leg.

  Genny felt around frantically for the flashlight, found it, but couldn’t get it to come back on again. The baroness and the man were very close. They had stopped talking. They must have heard her fall.

  No time to find the sword. She braced her hands and feet against the walls again and started up. This time she found footholds all the way.

  A red glow from the fire above filtered down the stairs through a swirling haze of smoke at one end of the passage. In the other direction, the beams from the two flashlights played along the walls.

  Genny stopped. She could see the crossbeam now. She was just about level with it, but it was well to one side and out of her reach.

  Both of them came around the corner and passed directly under her. The baroness was holding something that looked like a pistol.

  They hesitated when they reached the stairs. Then the baroness squeezed p
ast the man and started up. From the top she shouted something in an alarmed voice. The man turned and retreated back along the passage. The baroness came quickly down the steps and hurried to catch up to him.

  Genny felt her foot slip. She pressed it harder against the stone.

  The baroness saw the sword and stopped directly underneath her.

  After a moment’s hesitation she kicked it to one side.

  The rock under Genny’s foot came loose and crashed to the floor.

  The baroness whirled around. She pointed the flashlight upward and caught Genny in its beam. Genny let herself drop. The moment she hit the floor she recovered her balance and ran toward the stairs. The smoke and heat coming down from above were too strong for her to go any further.

  The baroness hurried toward her, pointing the pistol and talking soothingly. Genny felt something sting her left shoulder. She slapped against the spot reflexively and felt the shaft of a tiny dart. She jerked it out quickly and threw it to the floor.

  The baroness stood in the passage, ten feet away, shining the beam in Genny’s eyes and waiting.

  Genny put her head down and lunged forward. She struck the baroness in the legs and knocked her off balance, but as she tried to squeeze past her in the narrow space, the baroness smashed the butt of her tranquilizer pistol on her head and knocked her down. Before Genny could recover, the baroness delivered a hard kick directly against her chin. The little girl howled with pain and rolled over onto her stomach. She took two more blows against the back of her head.

  Before the baroness could land a third, Genny scrambled to her hands and knees and crawled back toward the stairs. The tranquilizer dart, despite the speed with which she had removed it, was making her groggy.

  She reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped. She looked behind her. The baroness had put down her flashlight and was kneeling on the floor, reloading the tranquilizer gun.

  Genny came running back. In the dim light she could make out the silhouette of the jagged piece of rock that had fallen from the wall.