He directed his flashlight at the cavern's ceiling, providing a weak cone of illumination from above.
Thankfully, the light didn't quite reach the cavern floor. Annja sank down low. Her free hand plucked up one of the human skulls. Her fingers slipped easily through the empty eyeholes to secure her hold. It wasn't much as weapons went, but she hoped to improve her standing.
Chapter 5
ANNJA LEANED FORWARD, skull in one hand and flashlight in the other, hunkered down in a squatting position.
The six men spread out. Foulard took his own path, but the other five stayed close enough to take comfort in the presence of the light.
"Do you think that really is the Beast of Gévaudan?" one of them asked.
"I don't know, but I heard the creature was a werewolf," another said. "He was supposed to be a guy, Count Vargo, who got cursed by a band of gypsies after he raped one of their daughters."
That was not a werewolf, Annja thought fiercely as she remembered how the great beast looked. It's some kind of mutated species. She pressed against the wall, profiling herself into it.
One of the men came close to her. Annja waited as long as she could, knowing their eyes were adjusting to the darkness. His body language, that sudden shift to square up with her, gave away the fact that he had seen her.
She rose, uncoiling as the viper had done earlier, and swung the skull with all her strength. The aged bone shattered against the man's face, driving him backward.
"There!" one of the men yelled. "Over by Croteau!"
Foulard swung the flashlight in Annja's direction.
Scuttling quickly, flinging away the remnants of the skull, she slid low along the unconscious man. Her partially numbed fingers found the 9 mm pistol lying on the cave floor. She fumbled it into her grip as the flashlight splashed over her and blinded her.
"She has Croteau's gun!"
"Kill her!" Foulard yelled. His pistol barked and spit flame that lit up the angry terror on his face. She recognized the bruises on his face and knew he was the man from the alley.
The wind from the bullet cut the air by Annja's left cheek. If she hadn't already been moving to her right, it would have crashed through her head.
"Lesauvage wants her alive!" someone yelled. "Stop shooting!"
Firing on the fly, Annja put two rounds in Foulard's immediate vicinity. Someone yelped. She'd taken one man out of play.
Annja tried to get her bearings. Maybe they'd used a rope to get down through the sinkhole, and maybe that rope was still there, just waiting. All she had to do was reach it.
Instead, still suffering from partial blindness caused by the bright flashlight beam, she ran into one of the other men in the gloom, unaware that he'd been there. He caught her gun wrist and shoved his own pistol into her cheek below her left eye.
"Move and I'll kill you!" the man shouted.
Immediately, Annja drew her knee up into the man's groin, twisted her head to the left and snapped backward. The pistol barked and the superheated barrel painfully kissed her lips with bruising force.
The detonation temporarily robbed her of her hearing, rendering her partially deaf in addition to the blindness. The man also stripped her borrowed pistol from her fist.
Before her would-be captor recovered, she butted her forehead into his face, breaking his nose and splitting his lips, causing him to stagger back.
Foulard fired again. His bullets ripped into the man who'd held Annja. Crying out in pain, the man dropped to the floor.
Annja was in motion at once, knowing that the bullets had been meant for her. She bent, trying to find one of the lost pistols. Her backpack spilled and something metallic slid free, dropping onto the dust-covered floor.
She skidded to a halt and reached for the necklace. Before she could close her hand on it, Foulard fired three more shots.
Two of the rounds thudded into the dead man and the third struck the metal charm, sending it skidding across the cave floor.
As Annja spun to look at the man, to attempt to read his next move, another figure stepped into the light pool created by Foulard's flashlight.
Savagely, the old man with the walking stick rammed the bottom of his thick staff into the back of Foulard's skull. Crying out in pain, Foulard sagged to the cave floor.
Moving quickly, the old man surprised the remaining men and came out of the darkness. He swung the staff, taking each man's feet from beneath him, then driving the end of his weapon into each man's chest hard enough to take away his breath.
The old man looked at Annja. "Come on, then. It wouldn't do to stay around until they get a second wind."
Despite the fact that an earthquake had occurred and the men had pistols and didn't seem afraid to use them, the old man acted perfectly calm. As if this was something he did every day.
Fisting the charm, Annja stood. The metal caught the glow of the light for an instant, twirling in her grip.
"What is that?" the old man demanded. "What did you find?"
Foulard roared a foul curse and pointed the pistol at them.
"Which way?" Annja yelled. The old man hadn't come from the passageway that led to the sinkhole.
"Here." The old man turned and ran as bullets struck the cave walls.
Almost immediately, the earth quaked again.
Thrusting her arms out in front of her, not understanding how the old man appeared able to see so well in the darkness, Annja located the opening in the wall by feel just in time to keep her face from smashing into it.
For a moment, until they left the glow of the flashlight behind them, the old man was a dimly visible patch of gray ahead of her. Then they twisted around a bend in the tunnel and he vanished.
"Watch your head," he advised.
Annja put a hand over her head in time to ward off the passageway's low ceiling. The rough impact bruised her forearm. How can he see down here?
"Who are those men?" Annja asked.
"I don't know. They were after you."
"What are you doing here?"
"At present, saving you. Unless you want to go back there and get acquainted with those highwaymen."
Highwaymenwas an odd description. Annja thought about that for a moment, but swiftly geared her mind back to self-preservation as a flashlight beam cut through the darkness behind them. Foulard and his companions had evidently rallied.
"Left," the old man called.
Annja didn't respond at once and crashed into the bend of the passageway.
"Aren't you listening?" the old man snapped.
"Yes." Annja recovered and flicked on her flashlight.
The old man stood around the bend. He didn't protect his eyes from the sudden light that sent painful splinters through Annja's.
Satisfied that she was intact, the old man turned and ran with improbable speed. He carried his staff close to his body as if it were an appendage.
Annja followed through the next turn, then the opening of another chamber dawned before them. Low-level light from outside filled the chamber, coming from an entrance in the mountainside.
"I have a truck," the old man said. "Farther down the mountain. Try to keep up."
Try to keep up?Annja couldn't believe he'd said that. Who is this guy? she wondered.
Then he was outside the cave, sprinting down the steep, trembling mountainside as surefootedly as a mountain goat. Annja was hard-pressed to keep up, but she knew despite his boasting that she could have outrun him. If she'd known which way to go.