Cemetery Dance

Chapter 84

Esteban stepped inside the cell and paused. Which one first? But he was not one to agonize over a decision, and he stepped over the girl's body and strode up to the bloody form of the FBI agent. He in particular deserved to die.But of course, Esteban thought, smiling wryly, he's already dead, or mostly so. It was going to be a mess, and the sound of the pistol in the confined space would leave his ears ringing. He ran through the steps he'd have to follow as he reloaded the magazine. He'd have to bury his own clothes with the bodies and guns — no problems there. Blood was impossible to eradicate these days, what with the powerful chemical tools now at the disposal of crime — scene investigators; but the cellar room itself could be walled up with nothing to show it had ever existed. All the bodies could go in here. Perhaps in the coming days there would be people snooping around here, looking for the FBI agent. He may have even told someone where he was going. But there was no clue he had ever arrived: no car, no boat, nothing.

He slapped the magazine in, racked a round into the chamber, and raised the gun with one hand, the other training the flashlight carefully on the still form.

The blow came from behind, a stunning crack to the back of his head, and then something was on top of him like a monkey, two claw — like hands tearing into his face, one finger snagging the rim of the orbit and then digging into the eye socket, prying at the eyeball itself. He screamed at the explosion of pain, whirling about, trying to fling off his attacker, grappling at it with one hand, the gun in the other hand firing wildly with a tremendous series of booms. The flashlight fell to the ground with a crash and blackness swallowed them.

For a moment his mind, reeling with surprise and pain, staggered in incomprehension. Then he realized: it was the girl. He yelled, bucking and shaking, his free hand flailing blindly at her, but the girl's tight, digging grip didn't slacken and he felt his eyeball pop out of its socket with a wet, sucking sound, the horror and pain such that for a moment he lost all capability for rational thought.

He fell to the ground with a roar, the heavy blow finally loosening her grasp, but as he rolled and tried to bring the gun around he realized there was a second person fighting him now — surely the FBI agent — and the gun was roughly kicked from his grasp. He punched wildly, broke free, and scrambled to his feet and ran, slamming hard against the wall, then feeling desperately along it while the gasps of his assailants seemed to come from everywhere around him.

… The door! He stumbled through it and ran out into the blackness, dazed and disoriented, careening off props and walls and doorways like a pinball, losing his bearings in his pain and panic, crashing and scrambling among the forest of junk in an effort to get away. The girl and the FBI agent — how had they both survived? But as soon as the question occurred to him he knew the answer — and cursed his monumental, colossal stupidity. As he ran, he felt his eyeball — free, hanging by the optical nerve — bouncing with every movement in a swinging arc of pain.

The Browning! He'd forgotten about the second gun. Digging into his waistband, he pulled it out, turned, and fired back in the direction of his pursuers. A moment later his shot was answered by the boom of the Colt and the smack of a heavy — caliber bullet ripping through a prop next to his ear, spraying him with splinters.

Jesus, that was close. He turned and ran, scrambling frantically among the old sets, trying to reorient himself. He could hear their fumbling pursuit. To fire on them again in the dark was only to make himself a target.

He crashed into something and realized he had gotten turned around, somehow, in his desperate attempt to escape. Where the hell was he? What prop was this? A massive plaster wall — the outline of blocks… was it the castle turret? Yes, it had to be! He shoved the gun back into his waistband and scrambled up to the battlements, feeling his way along. A little farther, just a little… The battlement ended and he jumped down to the other side, landing on what felt like a ramp. What was this? He'd expected to find himself by the faux — stone sarcophagus of the Egyptian pharaoh Raneb, but this was something else entirely. Had he gone the other way? His mind reeled as yet again he tried to orient himself amid the endless props, his mind reeling from the pain. He crawled up the ramp, stumbled and fell, and lay on a wooden platform, heaving. Maybe if he just lay there, absolutely silently, they wouldn't find him. But no, that was stupid. They would find him, find him and… Hehad to get out, get to where he could fight them. Or run.

He could hear them in the blackness, moving along the battlements, searching for him.

The sudden reversal of his hopes left him stunned with grief and pain. He had to face it: running was now the only option left to him. Mexico, perhaps; or Indonesia, maybe Somalia. But first he had to get out of this black prison, get his eye attended to. He sat up, feeling a hanging rope brush against his face, grasped it and began to hoist himself up — but then the rope suddenly gave way and he heard a strange rushing sound from above, and then a split second later he realized what he had done, what rope he had pulled, but it was too late and his world abruptly ended with a short sharp shock.

Nora heard a scratching sound, followed by a hiss, and then a wavering yellow light appeared. Pendergast was holding a twisted piece of newspaper, one end afire. The open casing of a bullet lay on the cement floor, from which he had extracted the cordite to start the fire.

"Come and look," he said weakly.

Pendergast held out his hand and Nora took it. She was a mass of pain; all the ribs in her back seemed broken from the force of the gunshots; her concussed head throbbed. Pendergast's bulletproof vest, which the agent had passed her in the darkness of the cell, was an unfamiliar weight beneath her hospital gown. She came around an old section of a medieval castle wall and there, in front of her, was a guillotine, blade down, a body sprawled on the platform; and in the tumbrel below, a fresh head. The head of her captor, one eye wide open in surprise, the other horribly mangled, dangling by a ropy nerve.

"Oh my God…" She put a hand over her mouth.

"Look well," said Pendergast. "That's the man who was responsible for the murder of your husband and Caitlyn Kidd. The man who killed Colin Fearing and Martin Wartek, and who tried to kill you and me."

She gasped. "Why?"

"An almost perfectly choreographed — or should I say storyboarded — drama. We will know the final reason why when we locate a certain document." His voice was so low, so whispery, she could barely make it out. "Right now, we need to call an ambulance. When… when you are done here."

Staring at the scene of horror, she realized that she did, in fact, feel a certain grim catharsis through the curtain of pain. She turned away.

"Seen enough?"

She nodded. "We have to get out of here. You're bleeding — badly."

"Esteban's third bullet missed my vest. I believe it has punctured my left lung." He coughed; flecks of blood came from his mouth.

Using the taper as a light, they slowly, painfully, made their way through the basement, up the stairs, across the shadowy lawn, and to the mansion. There, in the darkened living room, Pendergast helped Nora onto a sofa, then picked up the phone and dialed 911.

And then he collapsed unconscious to the floor, where he lay motionless in a spreading pool of his own blood.