She fought the terror, and slowly, with infinite care, pulled the gun from her pocket and cocked the trigger. Thomas was counting on her. She could not let him down.
Finally, with a whuff of displaced air, it stopped. The air cleared a trifle. Ninette sucked in the first full breath in several minutes.
I told you, a new mental voice said, smugly.
And at that moment, Ninette knew what Thomas had been trying for. Yes, he had wanted the woman to become a mouse, if she could. He had thought he could trick her, then kill her.
But she, even in her anger, had called him “cat.”
She had not forgotten what he was!
Ninette stifled the warning shriek in her throat and whipped around the corner of the door, shoving it open with her shoulder, revolver at the ready as she had been taught.
She saw Thomas in mid-leap on what seemed to be a helpless mouse.
Except the mouse wasn’t so helpless. And whatever it really was had been expecting him to do just that.
There was another silent explosion of energies, and Thomas was caught by the neck by something strange, dough-like, smelling of rotting loam.
And Ninette did not even think. As she had been taught, she squeezed off the trigger in quick succession, aiming for the center of—whatever it was.
Six explosions shattered the air in the room. Six bullets, just as she and Ailse had loaded them. Blessed Lead. Cold Iron. Silver.
The gun bucked in her hand, but she brought it back to the target each time, each bullet impacting the thing in front of her, a mere eight feet from her, with a force that drove it back a little. Six bullets. Blessed Lead. Cold Iron. Silver.
It dropped Thomas, who wheezed as he scrambled out of the way, and then scuttled behind her. And—whatever it was—began to scream and dissolve. She couldn’t tell which of her bullets had that effect, but when the gun was empty, she backed up as far as she could, and fumbled more bullets out of her pocket, inserting them into the mechanism without taking her eyes off the thing. The reek of gunpowder filled the room, and a waft of smoke made her eyes water.
It was trying to change shape, only it couldn’t settle on one—horribly, the mass was producing an arm, three legs, half a woman’s face in one spot, a man’s eyes in another. And several mouths, all of them open, all of them screaming—
Keep shooting! Thomas shrieked, terror filling him, filling her—as if she wasn’t panicked enough on her own! But her hands knew what to do, even if her mind was gibbering in inchoate fear. She got the bullets into the chamber, dropping two. She raised the gun. She took aim and squeezed the trigger, and six more explosions shattered the gurgling screams. Blessed Lead. Cold Iron. Silver.
“Where’s the head?” she screamed herself, as her hands fumbled more bullets into the hot chambers. “Where’s the heart?”
There—there! Thomas exclaimed, somehow forcing her to see where he was looking. The spot was between two of the mouths, where the dirt-colored skin seemed thicker and smoother. She took aim. Fired.
Five of the six hit; the sixth went wild as the thing convulsed, and the room somehow rocked without moving at all. A thick wave of fetid air hit her in the chest, and knocked her backwards through the door and into the wall of the hallway, Thomas with her. The thing somehow—
The mind couldn’t grasp what it became—it was simultaneously twenty, thirty, maybe fifty different people and animals, and at the same time, it was a towering mud-doll that was all malice, all malignance, all hatred. She cried out and brought up her arm to shield her face, then flung herself sideways, somehow scooping up Thomas and taking him with her.
The wall where she had been was caved in by the force of the silent explosion, channeled through the doorway.
For one moment, it became very, very quiet.
Then—the howling, the mindless, wordless baying began.
She rolled over, dazed. “What . . .”
Get up! Get up! Thomas shrieked in her mind, his words like ice-picks jabbed into her brain. It’s not over yet! Its servants are loose, and without the Troll to control them, all they want is prey!
Prey—and we’re the prey! She struggled to her feet and lurched down the hall after Thomas.
She stopped at the foot of the stairs as he scrambled upwards. But—
They have us cut off from going down! Up! he urged. She followed after him, revolver still clutched in her hand, the other feeling in her pocket for more cartridges. “Will bullets do any good?” she shouted after him, as from below, she heard the howling come nearer and felt the staircase shake under the pounding of feet.
They’d better, came the grim reply.
They reached the top floor, where the servants would have slept—if the servants had been human and needed sleep. Dust was half an inch thick here, and rose in clouds as they ran for the farthest room. They darted inside the door. The howling continued from the stairwell.
The bedstead! Thomas shouted. Make a barricade across the door!
Fear gave her strength she hadn’t realized that she had. She slammed the door shut, then dragged the iron bedframe across the tiny room. jamming it in place across the door.
The howling was on their floor now, and the floor itself shook with the pounding of feet.
She reloaded the gun. Please tell me you sent for help, Thomas begged.
“I sent for help. I just hope the young man Ailse is seeing is not very fascinating.”
Then there was no time. They were at the door.
Without any preamble, they began pounding on it, trying to break it down. The sturdy old oak resisted their efforts for a long time, and Ninette resisted the temptation to either fire through the door, or burst into tears and throw the gun away. Finally, with a splintering sound, a great fist crashed through a door panel.
Ninette began firing, her back to the window.
It’s too high, Thomas said in despair behind her. It’s straight down to the street. I can’t make a drop like that—
If he couldn’t, neither could she.
She fired and reloaded, fired and reloaded. There seemed no end to the things, or else her bullets were having no effect other than to make them angry. Then her hand closed on the last two bullets.
She swore and loaded them, took careful aim, feeling a helpless despair that made her want to howl. This was it; this was—
There was a human shout from the hall, some incomprehensible tangle of syllables.
As Ninette was again knocked off her feet, something opened in front of her on the other side of what was left of the door.
It was a good thing that she was on the floor, because otherwise she would have been sucked into the yawning black vortex rimmed with fire that pulled in what was left of the door, pulled in the splintered fragments from the floor, tore the ragged curtains from the window, and created a hurricane in the room as it devoured the very air. Thomas yowled like a common cat, claws gouging the floor as the vortex sucked at him too. She grabbed him before he lost his grip, and rolled over with him tucked into the hollow of her stomach, curled around him, covered her head with her arms and waited for it all to end.
She thought it would never end, that she would go mad, or all the air would be sucked out of the world, or that they would both die.