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I blinked a few times, but Cu and the kids were definitely gone. Vicki ran, slapping barefoot steps to where the quartet had been and waved both arms around wildly. She looked at me, her mouth hanging open.
I couldn’t help myself. I laughed.
The kids were out of danger. I just knew it. Finally a win.
My new friends hadn’t abandoned me in my time of most needy-need.
“Dog?” Katrina was outraged. “What dog!” The witch risked a shuffle to the edge of the pool and peered down at us. “They’re gone,” she cried. She stared at me, and I laughed again, even louder.
“Silana! This has to be Silana’s doing!” Katrina smelled of impending death, but I anticipated it and pushed forward until I crouched defensively between her and Vicki. I aimed both my pistol and machine gun at the Lady, who thought better of her next action and, with a girlish squeak, retreated out of sight.
“Your damnable sister is here?” Bathory evidently knew of Silana.
“I thought I sensed her taint on this Abaddon! Yes!” Katrina fumed, but I still sensed more fear in her. “We should search the grounds. There’s no telling what mischief her minions might be—”
A sound like a thunderclap made me flinch and reverberated inside the temple. Vicki grabbed fistfuls of my tux jacket from behind me.
“What was that?” she gasped.
“We’re getting out of here,” I replied, not really sure what the sound meant either, but I wasn’t letting the distraction go to waste.
I turned, shoulder-holstered my 2011, swapped the machine gun to my left hand and scooped Vicki up with my right. I put the pendant to the test and sprang out of the pool in a bound.
My leap took me and Vicki out of the ceramic basin in such a high arc I howled, and Vicki let out a high-pitched yelp and clutched hard enough that her fingernails almost pierced my flesh through the fabric of my jacket.
I landed hard, but I held Vicki off the ground, so her feet dangled without striking the tile floor.
I turned then and faced off with the Lady and the vampire. The Ringmaster was gone. Cultist bodies formed a macabre patchwork on the temple floor, some wriggling like worms, some deathly still.
Bathory stood gazing at me slack-jawed. We must have mirrored one another in that moment. I was just as astonished by my leap. A rush of exhilaration filled me up to the tips of my flushed cheeks and ears.
With no hesitation this time, I fired a machine gun burst at the slobbering vampire. He side-stepped in a near invisible flash, but I didn’t watch him recover. I scrambled for an exit.
A rumbling sounded from outside in the grand hallway leading from the Olympic pool conservatory, bar and terrace. It shook the floor, and I spun back around. All the electric lights in the temple went out, and the background music fell silent. The flickering of candles still cast macabre shadows in every direction, so we weren’t in complete darkness, but my shoulders tensed. Something was definitely happening.
The Lady turned away from me to face the twin doors along the wall that led to the secret black entrance.
She cried out, “No!”
Waves of water crashed through both doors, crystal clear, frothing and churning as madly as tides pouring onto a stormy beach. The water seemed to flow together from both doors instantly and supernaturally into one wave, and along the edges of the heaving water there were—sparkles.
Mixed in with the roar of the rushing water were the sounds of giggling children.
Katrina didn’t spring from the floor so much as she simply flew straight up into the air and then hovered a couple of stories above the evolving scene.
Bathory the vampire cursed, then rushed to the far end of the chamber and I lost sight of him in the shadows.
I ran away, too, Victoria tucked under my arm like an over-sized football, but as I fled, I risked a short look back.
The magic water scoured through the room, tumbling the squirming or cataleptic bodies of cultists over and over, some pushed outward away from the pool, others dumped roughly into the basin itself, disappearing over the edges as the waters worked to fill the entire temple like a flash flood. It doused candles and candelabras, one after another, and many tables overturned, creating the illusion that darkness was in hot pursuit and trying to swallow me and Vicki.
I punched through the huge curtains into the helicopter hangar where lights still shone brightly with electric power. The large, luxury helicopter sat on its landing pad, not a person anywhere in sight. That surprised me. I’d seen more than a few of the cultists stagger into the hangar to get away.
Down a short hallway to the immediate right was an open door that answered that question. All the same, I kept an eye open as we made our way deeper into the hangar. The ceiling was at least three stories above us and marked by only a few lights, so it was pretty dark that far up. In contrast, the room at our level was well lit by a series of wall lamps just higher than my head, all surrounding the helicopter in a wide circle.
It wasn’t my plan to pilot the helicopter if that’s what you’re thinking. I didn’t have pilot training, but I had other ideas.
“Search for switches or buttons, some sort of control panel,” I said to Vicki.
“Okay,” she agreed, and I set her down.
I looked all over. “There’s gotta be a way to get the roof open. An elevator.”
Vicki ran around the dimly lit hangar to one side, and I rushed along the other.
“Here!” Vicki smacked something on a long wall. I imagined a big red button. She was far enough away that even my eyes couldn’t see what she manipulated in the shadows.
A gurgling sound made me turn. Waters seeped into the hangar from under the curtains. I sprang toward Vicki, and my feet caught extra air for a second before I landed, then I burst into a full run.
Overhead, a sharp metallic crack resounded, mixed in with the rush of the churning waters, and the roof split open to reveal the stars of the night sky.
Unfortunately, a harsh, incredibly loud alarm sounded, buzzing with every foot that the doors opened. A perfect four-four beat that would surely alert the entire Serenity Mere compound, if my gunfire hadn’t already.
From the temple chamber Katrina screamed furiously again. I could only imagine what she faced, but the water was keeping her occupied. I couldn’t sense her emotions from that distance.
Water continued to pour inside the hangar, but not in a torrent. Not yet.
“I think this one starts the elevator,” Vicki offered. She pointed at a black lever with a t-shaped handle.
I nodded at her, then eyebrow'd the lever.
She immediately pushed the handle up—and small spotlights hidden under a series of metal hoods snapped on all around the perimeter of the circular landing pad.
I grabbed Vicki by the wrist. “Come on!”
As I ran, I couldn’t help but notice the slappity-slap of Vicki’s feet as she barely kept from being dragged behind me. My boots hardly made a whisper as I sprinted for the helicopter and the center of the landing pad. The Lady’s pendant was doing its job.
The two of us reached the blue and black helicopter, then leaned against it for cover and support. Vicki tried to catch her breath.
We stared back toward the tall, curtained entrance—and the Lady burst through them. She flew straight in, up, spun around one-eighty in a swirl of her skirts, then motioned with both hands at a wave of water that pursued the witch.
The air in the tall chamber dropped to a bone-chill, and a large section of the water froze solid as it formed a wave at least eight feet high and a dozen across. Yet, despite Katrina’s spell, more of the water kept coming.
A prerecorded voice filled the hangar: “Warning. The elevator will begin ascension in thirty seconds. Please stand clear of the landing area.”
The Lady turned and fled from the sparkling wave as it crashed around the frozen pillar she’d created in its midst, reformed, and then continued pursuit. She spotted me and Vicki, lit up as we were by the spotlights on the landing pad.
I aimed my machine gun her way but didn’t waste the ammo. The distance was too great, and I knew she was too fast. But I wanted to warn her off—and it worked.
The Lady glared at us for just a second and then looked into the night sky through the now almost completely open hangar doors. She flew away, up and through the opening, so lightning fast and at an angle so steep it defied every natural law I’d ever learned.
The laughter of a hundred children bounced in the hangar, and it made me look back at the curtains. The animated water fell flat and spread evenly on the hangar floor in a shrinking layer. Countless white lights pulled away from that tide and coalesced into a glowing sphere, the ball hovering and sparkling in front of the curtains. Then the tiny lights retreated out of sight, puffing apart the heavy drapery as if hit by a gale force blast.
The laughter went with them.
Of course, Vicki’s childhood fascination with faeries went into overdrive. “Oh, my—those weren’t. Those couldn’t be... Could they?”
I grinned. “I’ll find out for you.”
Above us loomed the rusty moon, half-visible through the open roof. It hadn’t reached its zenith, but the bloody sheen of it made the hairs on my neck stand up all the same.
Katrina’s silhouette flew across that moonlight and then she halted and hovered. She reached up with both hands to her face, and her white mask fluttered like a dying butterfly down toward Vicki and me, bouncing lightly off the helicopter until it landed face-up on the platform.
“This isn’t over, Abaddon,” Katrina screamed. She flew up and away, then vanished northwest.
“Mother Mary,” Vicki prayed and crossed herself.
I was about to respond, but another prerecorded warning interrupted. “The landing pad is now ascending. Please watch your step and keep clear of the edges.” A jolt shook the floor beneath us as the entire platform began to rise.
Vicki’s hands squeezed one of my own, and I looked down into her eyes. They were wet with tears. “How? How, Lochlan?” she asked in a shaky voice.
I cocked my head and grinned. “How what?”
“How did you find me? How—did you do all of this?”
“Your breadcrumb, dork,” I answered.
Vicki laughed, her relief obvious, and she squeezed my hand tighter.
“And then I just followed this.” I tapped my nose with an index finger and stared at the floor of the elevator as it steadily made its way up to ground level. “I had some help.”
As the floor continued to rise ever upward, Vicki reached up to my face with both hands and touched my wolf mask. “Take this off,” she demanded.
I’d forgotten about the stupid mask during all the violence, and was genuinely shocked it was still in place. “Oh, right.” I allowed Vicki to push the mask up away from my nose and eyes. “I guess Halloween is over with.” I’d worked all night to try to hide my identity, but nobody would see my face where we were. It didn’t matter more than Vicki anyway, right then, right there.
“It is you,” Vicki said as I helped peel the mask off.
“Yes, yes, it’s me,” I agreed for the second time. “What gave me away?”
Vicki smiled. “Are you kidding? I was at your vocal recital, remember? I’d know your voice anywhere, but Ave Maria? Of course, it was you.” But her smile dwindled. “I’d thought I’d lost it. At first. Like completely lost it. These people. These monsters...”
We were only a few meters from the surface. I reached out and gently lifted a lock of Vicki’s hair to reveal all of her face. “Won’t touch you again,” I promised.
I didn’t toss the wolf mask away. Instead, I crumpled it up roughly in both hands and stuffed it into one of my pockets. Then, I unhooked the chain under my neck that kept my cloak attached and allowed it to float to the floor. I yanked the uncomfortable bow tie off my bloody tux shirt too. After that, I turned my back to Vicki and knelt. “Climb on,” I demanded.
She didn’t sound convinced. “I’m not six years old, Lochlan.”
“And you can’t keep up with me. Climb on. I’m gonna run like a mad dog.”
Vicki capitulated and wrapped her arms around my neck and her legs tightly around my waist. I tucked my right arm under one of her thighs to make sure she was secure, and then I stood to my full height.
The landing pad and helicopter came level with the earth, grinding to a halt with a shake and several loud clanks. The whir and grind of the elevator silenced, along with the buzzing alarm and then was replaced with the sound of...sprinklers.
All around me and Vicki was a wide expanse of wet grass glistening in the moonlight.
The golf course. Happily, there wasn’t an army of soldiers or vampires—or the Lady—waiting to greet us. I sighed in relief. “Hold on.”
Vicki patted my chest just below my Adam’s apple, then locked arms around my neck. “Giddy-up!”
I moved forward a little awkwardly at first with Vicki clinging to me and the wet grass sliding under every step, but, as I found my footing and used my left arm for balance, I picked up pace rapidly. The lighted windows of the Serenity Mere estate glowed to the north, no more than fifty yards away.
My feet were light beneath me. That struck me as odd considering how long it had been since I’d last rested. And again, I didn’t make a sound as I ran, other than the flapping of what was left of my tux jacket.
There had to be more to it.
I pushed up hard as I took another step—and put a good three feet between my shoes and the ground, then sailed forward with nothing but air between me and the grass. I landed like a feather and continued running.
“Wow!” Vicki was loud and clear, her head only inches from my right ear. “Are you going to fly, too?”
I laughed and continued running west at a rise of hills outside the golf course perimeter. “I don’t think so, but if you lose your grip, let me know.”
“I’m too scared to let go.”
In a few more yards I crossed a wide, paved set of lanes like I remembered from high school track meets. A running and biking trail, perhaps. I only gave it a cursory glance and kept going.
We reached the edge of the property in no time, but when we did, a new threat sounded.
Barking dogs were somewhere behind us. And getting louder.
“Oh, God,” Vicki said. “Is that a wall? How high are we?”
It was a wall just ahead of us, with a carved stone railing on top, very much like the one I’d leaned on back outside the pool conservatory.
“Yeah. Shouldn’t be a problem. Let me take a look.”
The dogs’ barking grew louder, frantic, and reverberated from both north and east.
“Better hurry,” Vicki warned.
I moved to the railing to peer over the side. There was a lamppost about ten yards from where I stood. Light would have been helpful, but I didn’t want to stand in it and make finding us easier for our pursuers.
In the moonlight, I could make out the bottom of the wall opposite us quite easily. I guessed the drop to be only about two stories. I thought about risking a jump, but I had no way of knowing how hard I’d land, even with the Lady’s ‘gift’ around my neck. Not to mention Vicki on my back.
I had to decide.
“I’m climbing it,” I said.
“Okay.” The dogs were even louder. “They’re coming! Go, go, go!”
I swung one leg over the railing, then the other, then I let go of Vicki so I could use both hands to scale down the side of the stone-bricked embankment. It was a sheer drop. Even if I had to plummet the second half of the climb, we’d survive. But if I broke something in the process...
I almost didn’t notice the noise at first, between the barking of the dogs and my concentration on picking handholds. A snapping—like someone cracking a pencil in half—made me look up, just as I grabbed the side of a brick on the lower part of the railing. Vicki’s grasp on my neck went slack, and she cried out.
“Loch—” She sounded hurt and frightened and then—nothing. Her hold on me failed completely, but I grabbed a pillar under the railing with one hand, then snatched at Vicki with the other—just in time to keep her from falling the two stories to the rough ground below. Something wet and warm was on the back of my neck, and the barking dogs were closing in.
I ran out of choices. I pulled Vicki up to my chest and let go of the railing, my legs out, ready to take the brunt of the impact.
But we landed lightly on the hillside that formed the base of the wall. I stirred up a few dead leaves, but there was no jolt to my bones, no breaking of my heels. I didn’t even have to catch my footing when I landed.
The magic in the Lady’s pendant had saved us from the fall, but I knew something more terrible had already happened.
“Vicki? Vicki! How bad is it?” I could hardly see in the wall’s shadow, now that we were out of the moonlight. I lifted her in both arms. Her head was slumped backward. She didn’t respond.
“Oh, Jesus. Jesus Christ, no!” I spun and ran straight west into the trees with Vicki in my arms, doing my best to shelter her from tree limbs and debris. Dogs must have reached the railing above because the barking became deafening.
I stopped and peered back up at the wall’s summit. Bright flashlights flooded the ground at the base of the wall, and several men shouted at one another, but not in English.
I knelt behind a rise covered by many trees, then held Vicki up just enough so that a beam of moonlight illuminated her.
She had fresh, wet blood all over her head, neck, and right shoulder, and it seeped down into the white t-shirt she wore. I gasped in horror. Vicki was breathing, but barely.
“No! No-no-no! Not now! Not this way,” I yelled.
The men and dogs erupted with a fresh barrage of shouts and barks when I made my presence known.
Tears stung my eyes, as I swung Vicki into a fireman’s carry, then continued to retreat west down the hillside and through the trees, toward Lake Tahoe.
Everything had gone wrong.