“What?” Stumbling down the room’s length, she registered a flashing red light over the door to the bedroom wing. “What is it?”
“Security breach.” He pushed her shoulders toward the floor and shoved her under a console table. “Someone’s in the castle.”
A tapestry draped over the front enclosed her in a trunk-size space bounded by the stone wall at the back and X-shaped table legs barely visible in the dark. Her legs and arms tangled into a shaking knot as she twisted to face outward, and then a table leg scraped her shoulder blade through the lace dress. Surprisingly sharp, the hurt forced her to hold still and breathe deeply. The fabric covering her hiding spot twitched, and she jerked in time to avoid being bonked by the antique-looking pistol Wulf thrust at her.
“Two shots, not accurate, but it’s got stopping power close-up if anyone reaches in.”
Not again! Fighting the return of the terror she’d felt in the sewer, she bit into her inner lip while she tried to steady her hands enough to accept the pistol. Blood, metallic and foul after the evening’s fruity wine, hit her tongue, reminding her that this wasn’t a dream.
“Don’t move—got that?”
Before she could reply, the cloth dropped into place, leaving her encased in darkness.
Wulf didn’t know when or where the silent alarm had triggered, but anyone who could scale the cliffs or walls was a professional who wouldn’t waste time. Intruders would arrive; whether it was two minutes or two seconds, they were coming. He’d make his stand in the Great Hall with weapons that had served him for centuries. He snatched a Colt .44 pistol from a display cabinet and grabbed a custom Beretta over-under shotgun from a wall rack, then slammed into a niche next to the massive stone mantel, aware that somewhere in his castle a man—or men—hunted him.
Seconds later the bone-penetrating noise and light of a flash-bang grenade signaled the intruders’ arrival, but flash-bangs didn’t disorient him longer than a blink, so they were screwed if they expected him to be blinded or incapacitated.
Boom. His buckshot tore enough holes in the first man to do the job. He brought the shotgun around to a second attacker crouched behind a Louis-whatever chair.
Boom. The fool staggered to his feet with half a face, half a shoulder and a lot of Ivar’s French furniture embedded in him. With three men left, shooting him again would be a waste of ammo, so Wulf lined up his Colt sights on someone else.
A minute later, after French-chair guy lurched into a sideboard filled with lit candles, Wulf knew his calculation had been wrong. He hadn’t foreseen the tapers toppling onto the couch pillows, the velvet bursting into yellow flames faster than a fire log or the stupid ineffectiveness of shooting into a body already burning. Impervious to bullets, fire would outmaneuver him. And far worse, he couldn’t hide Theresa from flames.
He dropped his weapon to rip a wool tapestry from the wall. Next to the cloth, the Crusher hung from pegs. The heft and grip of his flanged mace were still as familiar in his hand as taking a piss.
Uzi ta-ta-ta-ing, a third man popped from the floor, but flying lead didn’t matter while adrenaline flushed Wulf’s body. The roar of his blood and the roar of his battle call united as, running straight at the camo-painted face, he swung the Crusher. The arm-vibrating thwack, the thud of a limp mess dropping—way more fucking satisfying than a trigger pull. Wulf’s chest heaved, demanding oxygen, as he dropped the mace and beat at the flaming couch.
During the shooting and crashing and yelling, Theresa had obeyed Wulf’s order to stay hidden. Through the first whiffs of smoke, she had cowered under the table like a puppy. But by the time the odor coated her tongue and made her scrunch her eyes, she couldn’t continue hiding.
Don’t think about the burns you see after explosions.
Wulf wouldn’t abandon her—she believed in him to her core—but a lifetime of relying on herself didn’t stop because her lover had ordered her to stay put. She had to judge the fire situation for herself, so she lifted the corner of the concealing cloth. On her right Wulf beat at a flaming couch. To the left a man held a candle to a dark-tinted painting of the Madonna until flames licked the Holy Child’s feet. No question, she’d better move her butt.
She crawled the rest of the way out from under the table with the pistol gripped tightly in her hand, until, standing, she could cradle her right wrist with her left hand as she’d been trained.
None of the men noticed her. Her target moved to a painting of The Last Supper like the one hanging in her mother’s dining room.
Bringing her elbows tight to her sides, she pointed both barrels of the heavy pistol at his center of mass and squeezed.
Bamm. This pistol fired at a different stage of the trigger pull than her army Beretta, the whole contraption launching from her hand like a car going seventy into a turnpike pothole.
Her shot missed. She aimed again, but only sent another wild round into a wall somewhere.
“Theresa!” Wulf shouted. “Run, dammit! Run!”
Dropping his candle, the man came at her.
The third trigger squeeze had no result. Don’t panic, she told herself, just pull harder. Then she remembered Wulf’s words—two shots.
Okay, now panic.
She threw the gun at the man and whirled away. But Wulf fought on her right, with vicious moves she didn’t want to approach, and the man was on her left. The long dining table in front of her led to double doors, another way out. After springing to a chair, then to the tabletop, she scattered dishes as she ran.
The fire starter skidded and turned to parallel her, his handgun raised as he ran, but the high-back chairs interrupted his field of fire while she sped for the end of the table.
He got there first. With flames reflecting off the whites of the eyes showing in his balaclava mask, he steadied his weapon and bared his teeth like a horror-movie goaltender.
The creep didn’t know how much she liked charging goalies. She spotted a silver fruit bowl on the tabletop, went for the kick and connected as solidly as she had with anything she’d ever booted in college. The weapon bucked in his hand, and she heard the shot, but the bowl must have distracted him. He missed and then raised his forearms to block her missile. That left his gut unprotected. Sweeping a silver epergne out of her way, she went into a slide like she hadn’t done in a decade, her right knee tucked under and her left foot leading, a spike she’d rocked dozens of times in college.
Thuukk. She connected with his soft lower stomach and the organs at tabletop height. The impact vibrated from her sole through her shin, knee and hip, all the way to her spine, while the man staggered and folded onto himself. Momentum took her off the table, into him and dropped both of them in a tangle to the floor.
He fumbled for her leg even while clutching his balls with one hand and writhing.
“No!” She twisted until her kneecap threatened to pop, but she couldn’t jerk free. “Let go!” On the floor next to her hand, the tall centerpiece beckoned. She cracked it on his arm and rolled away, dragging her throbbing foot and knee, but he clawed after her.
This time she half rolled, half sat and swung the silver club with both hands. She couldn’t hear the hit over Wulf’s shouts, but she saw one of the pointed curlicues decorating the central column embed deep in the man’s eye socket. A fist-size piece of his skull squished inward exactly like a jam-filled doughnut. His grip on her leg went slack.