Stumbling, Ilona conveyed Ethan’s message as best she could. Lukacs grinned all the time she was speaking, his eyes fastened on Ilona’s face, as though he was sizing her up. Then the grin vanished and was replaced by a look that might have turned sugar sour.
In the next second, he whispered something to the wolf and let slip its leash. It bayed as it bounded forward, and in two leaps it was on Ethan, its jaws open, its fangs exposed ready to shear through his neck.
Ethan shot it once through the head and a second time as its body reared up, striking it through the chest. Still moving, it crashed to a halt on the stairs directly in front of Ethan, its eyes lifeless now, its tongue lolling, red and wet, from the corner of its dripping mouth.
Ethan had never learnt how to fight a wolf. But during police training he’d been given a day’s instruction on what to do when a fighting dog attacked, or how to handle a man with a pit bull terrier on a leash. There had been a simple rule: don’t look at the owner, keep your eye on the hand holding the leash. And that’s what Ethan had done.
Calmly, he turned to Ilona.
‘Tell him the next bullet is for him. If he lets us go, the only victim here will be the wolf. If not, he can only blame himself.’
Killing the wolf went to Ethan’s head. He had come within half a second of having his throat torn out, and here he was, alive and holding a gun in his right hand. He almost grinned at the absurdity and thrill of it. Without thinking, he started down the steps, keeping the Beretta pointed at Lukacs. The cartridge still held eighteen bullets. Knowing that gave added edge to his confidence.
He was halfway down when he heard a cry behind him, followed by a second. He swivelled and saw that the two men who’d been standing on the stairs above them had hurried down and grabbed Sarah and Ilona. They had knives in their hands, and were holding them to their captives’ throats. Lukacs shouted something from below, his voice angry.
‘Put the gun down, Ethan, or he says they will kill me and hurt Sarah.’
Ilona’s voice was weak with fear. Next to her, Sarah had passed out. Ethan looked round desperately. They were trapped. Even if Ilona could break free and make a run for it with him, Sarah would still be here.
‘Ilona,’ he started. ‘Tell him I’ll drop the gun if he lets you go first. You’re only a guide, you have no other connection to this.’
She shook her head.
‘They will rape me first. And after that…?’
He saw her slump, as though she too had passed out. The man holding her grabbed her more tightly, trying to redistribute her weight. His knife dangled in front of her throat. A light bounced back from its blade. The knife moved.
Ethan saw the blood before the movement, or at least that was how it seemed to him afterwards. Suddenly, there was a lot of blood. An artery pumped a bright red stream into the air. Blood splashed on the floor and on a heraldic shield. Flecks streaked the face of an ancestral portrait. There was no sound, as if this was a silent film suddenly brought into a world of colour.
After the spurt of blood, he saw the man’s hands loosen their hold, then saw him jerk back, leaving Ilona upright, her bloodied hunting knife still clutched in her right hand.
Have you ever used a knife like that before? It’s an ugly-looking thing. You could spit an ox with it…
She had taken it from the long pocket on the outside of her trousers, the knife with the eight-inch blade, and she had slumped, making her attacker move off balance, before striking up into his groin, and again up and up until she met bone, then sideways. Ilona had hunted from the age of seven, she’d last been in the forest two weeks before. This was the first time she’d killed a human being. As yet, she felt no pang of conscience.
A couple of feet away, the other man kept a tight hold on Sarah. He had a knife like his brother, the first man, and he’d killed several human beings with it, including a child and two women. Despite this, he was nervous. He was under strict instructions not to harm the woman he was holding; she was important to Egon, she could be stripped and played with, but she was never to be hurt. Only Egon could do that, by himself or with Lukacs’ help. He decided she was too feeble now to run away, so he dropped her and turned, intending to take revenge for his brother, who was bleeding his life out across the stairs.
He unsheathed his knife, a World War One bayonet, and faced up to Ilona. He was much bigger than her, but not that much older. His feet were braced for a quick lunge that would disable her knife hand and throw her off balance. He felt agitated by his brother’s death, but counted slowly, rocking now on the balls of his feet, narrowing his eyes, letting his breath come slowly, calming himself, easing himself into the first move, getting ready to spring and thrust. Ilona held her ground, but she knew he would overpower her the moment he jumped. She had hunted, but she had never been a fighter.
He bent his knees for the leap. Ethan shot him, two taps in the temple. More blood on the stairs, red streams of it on Sarah, her hair flecked with it, his great bulk swaying, twisting, crashing to the ground.
‘Ask him where Aehrenthal is,’ Ethan told Ilona. She was still shaking. Ethan was grim. His voice showed no pity. Something about Sarah had lit a fire in him: her condition, the way Aehrenthal and his men had taken a beautiful, intelligent woman and reduced her to a cowering shadow of herself. He’d dealt with rape victims many times in his career, women of all ages, even children; but something had been done to Sarah that seemed singular to him, and forlorn, as though she had lost herself in the process, or had become another thing, a used thing.
Ilona could not deny him. Controlling her voice, she put the question to Lukacs. He did not laugh this time. He bided his time, as though a less flippant answer was called for. At last, he grunted out several sentences. Ilona nodded.
‘He says this man Aehrenthal’s not here, that you’re wasting your time. He also says that if you want to leave here alive, you have to drop your gun, and I have to put my knife down. He says you have stepped into deep waters. Waters you will drown in. He says you must leave Sarah here with him, if he lets you go. She knows too much, he says.’
‘Tell him he must understand that I didn’t come this far just to leave Sarah behind. I will use the gun again, tell him that.’
Ethan wondered how many more staff Aehrenthal kept at the castle, and asked himself how long it would be before someone else came running, drawn by the gunfire.
Calling his remaining companions to his side, Lukacs started up the stairway. He snarled and said something clipped in Hungarian.
‘He says he has raped your woman a dozen times before, and now he intends to rape her in front of your eyes before he kills you.’
Ethan kept a close eye on Lukacs. Was he hoping that he and his friends would intimidate Ethan and the two women, that they would just back off?
Lukacs had other thoughts in his mind. The last thing Ethan expected was for a man of his bulk and slow-wittedness to move so quickly. Before Ethan had a chance to react, Lukacs threw himself up the stairs, tearing past Ethan, who fired late and wide, and hurling himself onto Sarah. He grabbed her round the neck, leaving her arms free, turning her to face Ethan and serve as a shield. She seemed like a child next to him. As he held her, he shouted at Ilona, and she translated rapidly in a broken voice.
‘He says he will kill her, that he’ll break her neck. If you don’t put the gun down he won’t hesitate to do it. He means it, Ethan — he’ll kill her if you don’t throw the gun away.’
But Lukacs didn’t kill her. He didn’t get the chance. Sarah killed him instead, easily and almost instantly. The long bayonet had been dropped right next to her hand, and she had taken it into her possession, weighing it against death. As Lukacs took hold of her, and while he was barking out threats to Ilona, Sarah grasped the knife in two hands and rammed it upwards into his naked throat, and harder again past his chin, and again in a gesture of utter contempt so that the blade pierced through his brain and exited at the back of his skull. Like an ox at slaughter, his legs gave way and he fell to the steps an inhuman thing, past all cruelty. The two men who’d entered with Lukacs hadn’t the stomach to attack, but fled precipitately back into the castle.