Hickok circled to the right, Geronimo the left with the SAR.
Blade dashed up to the front porch, his socks making no noise on the grass, and bounded onto the steps.
He was a stride from the wooden door when lights went on downstairs.
With a leap he was to the right of the door, his back to the wall, the crimson-soaked Bowies ready.
The doorknob twisted, and a second later an elderly woman in an ankle-length nightgown emerged onto the porch. “Daffodil?” she called.
“Buttercup?”
Blade stepped into the doorway, blocking her retreat. “I’m afraid your dogs were too loud for their own good,” he said softly.
She spun, gazing in horror at his face, awed by his stature. Her right hand covered her mouth.
“Don’t make a peep,” Blade warned.
She didn’t.
She swooned instead.
Blade turned, finding a narrow hall and a series of doors. And two children ten feet away, in their cotton pajamas, gawking.
“It’s a monster!” cried a little girl of about seven.
“It’s a mutant!” stated her brother, who appeared to be two or three years older.
“I’m a friend,” Blade said.
They gaped at the dripping Bowies, screeched, and bolted, fleeing toward stairs at the far end of the hall.
“Mommy!” wailed the girl.
“It’s a mutant!” the boy reiterated in stark terror.
Blade raced after them, overtaking the children at the base of the stairs.
“Stop!” he commanded.
With a thin leg on the bottom step, each child froze, the girl trembling, the boy gasping for air.
“I won’t hurt you,” Blade assured them.
“Damn straight you won’t, mister!” snapped a harsh feminine voice above him.
Blade looked up.
A woman in her thirties was standing on the seventh step, her attractive features set in grim lines, her brown hair in a bun, and a cocked double-barreled shotgun in her hands, pointed at the Warrior’s chest. She was wearing a blue robe. “One twitch and you’re dead!”
“I mean you no harm,” Blade told her.
“Sure you don’t, you son of a bitch!” She glanced at his Bowies, at the blood, and glared into his eyes. “You killed my Momma!”
Blade threw himself to the right.
The blast of the twin barrels was deafening in the confined hallway. The buckshot narrowly missed the children and blew a jagged hole the size of a watermelon in the wall on the opposite side. Both children screamed.
Stepping into the open, Blade raised his right arm as if to throw the Bowie. “Freeze!” he barked.
The woman had snapped the shotgun open and was fumbling in the left pocket in her robe for more shells. She stood still, her brown eyes wide with tears in the corners.
“I didn’t kill your mother,” Blade said. “She fainted on the front porch.
She should be fine.”
“You’re lying!” the woman replied bitterly.
The children were pale, holding hands, like frightened fawns confronted by a snarling cougar.
“Why would I lie?” Blade retorted. “If I wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead. I mean you no harm.”
She straightened slowly, the shotgun sagging, clearly bewildered.
“You’re not going to kill us?”
“All we want is information,” Blade said.
“We?”
A door six feet behind Blade opened, and Hickok walked into the hallway, the AR-15 leveled. He took one look and grinned. “Howdy, folks.
Sorry my pard here didn’t knock, but his manners need workin’ on.” He strolled over to Blade. “I came in through a window,” he said, and glanced at the woman. “You folks really should lock your place up tight at night.
You never know what kind of varmints are runnin’ loose.”
“There’s two of you!” she blurted.
“Three,” stated a voice to her rear.
The woman spun and nearly lost her balance.
Geronimo stood five steps above her, the SAR trained on the small of her back. He smiled pleasantly. “You should consider trimming the limbs on the tree behind your house. One of them comes within inches of your bedroom window.”
“Who the hell are you?” she demanded. “What the hell are you sons of bitches doing in our house?”
“If you don’t mind my sayin’ so, ma’am,” Hickok said indignantly, “that’s no way for a lady to be talkin’ in front of the young’uns.”
The woman’s face became beet red. “Why you…” she blurted.
“You…you…”
“The handle is Hickok, at your service,” the gunman stated, and bowed.
“What are you doing here?”
“First things first,” Blade declared, and looked at Hickok.
“I want you to go get my Commando, and check on the mother. See if you can bring her around.”
“On my way,” Hickok said, taking a stride and looking down at Blade’s feet. “I’ll also fetch your boots and laces. We don’t want to fluster these folks more than we already have.” He moved past the giant to the front door.
The little girl stared at Blade’s feet. “Golly. Those are the biggest feet in the whole world.”
“He must be part mutant,” her older brother speculated.
Geronimo started laughing.
The mother glanced from the Indian to the giant. “Lunatics! We’ve been invaded by lunatics!”
“Where can we talk?” Blade asked. “I want all of us in the same room.”
“There’s the living room,” she suggested.
“Okay. We’ll go to the living room. But first, hand the shotgun to my friend,” Blade directed.
She turned and extended the gun.
“Thank you,” Geronimo said, taking the weapon in his left hand.
“What’s your name?” Blade asked her.
“Eberle. Holly Eberle,” she said, stepping down the stairs and placing a hand on each of her children. “My daughter’s name is Claudia, and my son is Danny. Please don’t hurt us.”
“I’ve already told you that we’re not going to hurt you,” Blade reminded her.
Holly glanced at the Bowies. “Where’d the blood come from?”
Blade frowned and hefted the knives. “I’m afraid we had to kill some of your dogs.”
“Our dogs!” Danny exclaimed, and tried to move toward the front door.
“Stay put!” Holly snapped, gripping his right shoulder. “We don’t want to make these men angry, honey.”
Danny looked up at her. “But mom, they killed our dogs! They killed Buttercup!”
“We didn’t kill all of your dogs,” Blade said, guilt racking him as he beheld the boy’s horrified features. “There was a large brown dog and a small black and white one—”
“That’s Daffodil!” cried Danny. “And the brown one must be Buttercup!”
“Daffodil and Buttercup are okay,” Blade declared. “They don’t have a scratch on them.”
Danny’s accusing brown eyes bored into the Warrior’s. “You swear to God you didn’t hurt them?”
“They’re fine,” Blade reiterated. “You can see for yourself shortly.” He looked at Holly. “Lead the way to the living room.”
Holly and the children edged past the giant cautiously, Claudia gazing at Blade as if he was the worst monster on the face of the planet. “You meanie!” she declared.
Geronimo came down the stairs. “At least Tillers and Hunters don’t have people hating their guts.”
“Check the house,” Blade ordered testily. “Every room, from top to bottom.”
“What do I do about this?” Geronimo asked, wagging the shotgun.
Blade wiped the Bowies on his pants, slid the knives into their sheaths, and took the shotgun.
“I’ll start upstairs,” Geronimo said, and went back up.
“There’s no one else here,” Holly told Blade.