It wasn’t over — not by a long shot. A hunchback shambled free, face as wizened as ancient bark and, cackling, he raised a crossbow. Finally came the worst of all — a broad, fit individual who once might have caught a lady’s eye. That was before the surgery.
They had taken his lips away, and part of his jaw. The teeth were exposed all the way from ear to ear, and every single one had been impossibly sharpened. Drake suddenly wished for all the world that he had saved a mag of bullets for this terrible circus of horrors.
Dantanion shrieked for an attack, then joined his horrendous sideshow. Drake dodged a mace, bent low and, ignoring his attacker’s nakedness, drove a fist into the muscled abdomen. The mace swung around, missing his body. The second mace-swinger converged on him. Drake skipped back, then dived in, giving them little room. Well-placed punches sent them staggering. Alicia fought the man dressed as a skeleton, took his spear away and fell backward, allowing him to jump after her and impale himself. She then scrambled free, and leapt at Dantanion himself.
Dahl assessed the worst horror of them all, wondering where a weakness might lie, then turned to ward off two of the spider creatures. The four found themselves suddenly beset, surrounded, and unable to defend against every blow and thrust and sharpened edge. Mai then descended, kicking and killing two spider creatures and maiming a third in one leap; and with her she brought the villagers.
Curtis and Desiree still had bullets. Anica and Marco used guns as clubs and scrapped for their very lives. Brynn wielded a knife, stabbing and evading, cutting and nipping aside, the school teacher was fighting for her friends, her village, their very existence. Others came too, mourning their dead, but seeing their killers, their terrorizers, found courage in unity.
Drake caught a mace just below the ball, yanked its wielder off his feet, then slammed the ball itself into the skull of the other man, having to leap upward in the process. Both giants fell hard, bleeding. Mai took out the final spider and then launched a flurry against the hunchback. Dahl engaged the man whose exposed teeth inspired terror, slamming stiff arms and fists into the fleshy part of his body. A strike at the face produced blood only on Dahl’s knuckles.
Alicia pushed Dantanion back and back, toward the rear wall. The man appeared to have no fighting prowess at all, and she pursued him only to put him out of action, giving him no chance of escape. His face grew bloody, his left arm hung limply. Still he stood and still he glared with purpose. In the end, the wall halted his retreat; he stood laughing.
“The end is upon us.”
Alicia flexed her bruised fists. “Stand still and take it. We’re in a hurry.”
“Did you not hear me?”
“Something about the end is upon us.” She walked closer.
“No. before that. I said I would bring it all crashing down upon us. And I meant it. Literally.”
Alicia put it all together in a split instant; the fastest her mind had ever worked. Suddenly it was all forgotten — Dantanion, the horror show, the surviving cannibals.
Suddenly it no longer mattered.
“Drake!” she screamed. “Run! Just fucking run!”
Dantanion reached behind him to the wall, pressed a button and watched a compartment slide open. Inside, a red button glowed. With pleasure, reverence and a sad prayer he pressed it.
The house that was built on the side of a mountain exploded.
CHAPTER FORTY FOUR
Stunning bravery elevated the next few minutes, and stunning, sickening evil marred them. Drake grabbed an embattled Dahl by the shoulders, tore him away from the sideshow freak, and pushed him toward the rear of the house. Alicia spun and ran, catching hold of Mai and dragging the shocked woman along with her as Dantanion ran screaming toward the windows. Kenzie leaped over fallen foes, screaming like she never had at all of the villagers, urging them to run as if flesh-eating demons were at their heels.
And all this before a single explosion.
Then it happened. Dantanion sank to his knees beside the windows and the valley view, smiling in contentment, the robe settling around him. A blast like thunder shattered the air apart, rocked the house. A second and then a third followed and then came the most terrible groaning sound. More timed explosions, two below and two above, and then the great three-story chateau began to pull free of its moorings. Pure terror laced the air like hellfire. Dantanion had lured them into this trap knowing full well that he could never lose. Drake found Alicia and Mai, still pushing Dahl, and raced as one unit, running nowhere but never giving up.
A part of the ceiling fell in, rubble collapsing to Drake’s side. Dantanion’s horrors came after them, still battling. A spear flashed past Dahl’s head and struck a villager, taking him down and making him tumble away, already dead. The Swede slowed, turned and met his aggressor’s assault. The man with exposed teeth struck him full on, but Dahl didn’t wilt. He head-butted and kicked out and still ran with Drake, wrestling as he moved. Drake slowed and traded punches with another as Mai found two fleeing guards and fought to best them. Alicia helped, snapping teeth from one’s mouth with her boot, sending him flying.
As they fought, as they fled, the chateau shuddered deep in its foundations. Moorings set deep in stone began to pull free. The floor tilted, and so did the view from the windows. Debris slid into Drake’s feet, pushing him back. He fought it. The house juddered again, slid a little more. Glass smashed in every window and the frames buckled. Huge shards and planks of wood tumbled down the mountain. A screaming gush of icy wind blasted inside.
Drake leapt over the debris and let it slide into the far wall. Another sickening, fundamental lurch and they felt the entire structure pulling away from the mountain, growing more unstable with each judder. Dahl sent elbow after elbow into his attacker’s face, targeting the exposed teeth and ignoring when his arm began to bleed and then his flesh began to tear off in tatters. Blood flowed, but teeth broke too, and one came away in the Swede’s arm. He ignored it as they came up against the far wall.
“It’s not the mountain wall!” Brynn cried. “C’mon!”
What she was thinking Drake didn’t know, but understood that a corridor ran behind this wall and probably alongside the face of the mountain. They ran for the door, lurching once more as the floor swayed and then grew rapidly skew-whiff. A villager fell over and began to slide. Mai caught him and dragged him up. Alicia caught her and pulled her along. Brynn reached the open door and hung on to the frame.
More structural shrieks. Drake saw the empty windows tilting, the view down now terrifying, the bottom of the valley almost visible as sunrise flashed over the mountains. He saw the madman, Dantanion, sliding straight toward the new drop and smiling, robe billowing. He grabbed the shoulder of the man who fought Dahl, a part of the human chain. Below him two more people held on — Curtis and Anica.
Brynn struggled through the door and then more villagers. Arms reached back inside to help pull the weaker folk through. Mai and Alicia helped the chain along. A chunk of masonry fell from above, followed by a bank of wiring, sparks flying from the exposed ends. A waft of flame traveled the length of the cabling. Drake punched Dahl’s opponent in the neck and felt the strength fall away from him.
Oh, shit. Why’d you have to do that?
He staggered to one knee. Drake used the right thigh to jump over, dragging Curtis and Anica along too. Dahl reached out and took hold of Drake’s arm. A scream sounded, hollow and terrifying, and another villager lost their grip of the door frame just as the house seemed to bounce. Bolts fought their anchorage, as the weight pulling against them began to prove too much.
“Drake.” Alicia reached out for Dahl and him, her expression hopeless. “There’s nowhere to go.”