Ruby Red Death

Fifteen

Carter was about to bolt for the courtyard between the old, unused stables and the house, when the stables went up. It wasn’t a huge explosion, but it was quickly followed by fire that lit up the whole area.

The guard who had been in the courtyard careened around the corner.

Carter fired twice at the middle of the big, bulky body with the revolver. It kicked solidly against the heel of his palm and the man took two more steps toward him.

He was bent slightly at the waist and raising his gun as he advanced. His breath was very loud, but he seemed to be smiling; his lips were drawn back flat, exposing his teeth, and his face was wrinkled like a wadded-up piece of wastepaper.

Carter fired again and the man twisted sideways, bending sharply now, and his gun exploded into the ground. He fell limply, disjointedly, like a big sack of rags rolling onto its side. There was no longer the illusion of a smile on his face; he looked surprised and slightly stupid. That was all.

One wing of the house went up, and then the rest of the perimeter’s buildings also exploded.

It was like daylight now, and Carter could hear firing coming from the jungle. That would be Lorena and Otto wading their way through the perimeter guards.

Suddenly a female scream pierced the chaos of sound around him, and Carter looked up. The old stable master was wrenching the rifle away from Verna. The scream was her slipping from the edge of the roof.

Carter unslung the rifle and got off two fast rounds. The old man grabbed his middle and disappeared through the hole in the roof.

Carter ran around the building and spotted Verna at once. She lay on her back, her arms and legs sprawled like those of a broken doll. He knew she was dead even before he saw the staring look of her eyes. She wasn’t pretty anymore, she wasn’t anything. The exquisitely sculptured head was like the relief on an old Roman coin: distant, cold, remote.

He turned and headed for the main house.

Halfway there, a guard ran from one of the rear doors. He was holding his hands up, palms out. “Don’t go in, don’t go in!” he shouted.

Carter shot him and leaped over the body. He ran around the wide veranda until he reached the part of the house that was not in flames. He was about to kick open one of the doors, when Otto von Krumm and one of Buck Waters’s locals rounded the corner in front of him.

Otto didn’t mince words. “How many did you get so far?”

“Four,” Carter replied.

“We got three coming out the side, and one was crunched jumping from a third-floor window,” Otto grunted.

“That should leave three, besides Bolivar and Grossman. What about the servants?”

“They scattered. I don’t know if they all made it. We let them through.”

“Where’s Lorena?” Carter barked.

Otto paused for only an instant. “She went in the front, just shooting her way inside. I couldn’t stop her.”

“I didn’t figure you could. Stay out here, make sure no one gets through.”

Without waiting for a reply, Carter kicked the door open and burst through it into the smoky interior. He found himself in the enormous kitchen.

Half by sight, half by feel, he found a hand towel and soaked it under the tap. When it was wrapped securely around his face, he hit the small dining room and went on into a sitting room.

The deeper he went, the greater was the smoke. As yet, he had seen no flames on the inside, but they would be in the bedroom areas on the upper story.

He had to kick the door of the great room several times before he could get it open. When he did, he saw the body that had been sprawled against it.

The files and papers that had been spread on the long table were now scattered across the floor. He saw no sign of the two leather cases.

Halfway up the stairs he saw another guard sprawled. He was cut almost in half, with his rifle still slung over his shoulder.

There wasn’t a sound now except the crackling of flames on the floors above Carter.

Suddenly there was a single shot. It was quickly followed by a staccato burst from an automatic rifle.

Carter took the stairs two at a time. Halfway up, the last guard appeared at the top of the stairs.

Carter raised the rifle, but before he could fire, the man toppled forward. The Killmaster stepped aside and the body rolled past him, trailing a path of blood down the stairs.

Carter leaped to the landing and shouted: “Lorena... Lorena, where are you!”

A door opened behind him and he dived for the floor. He rolled up against the wood-paneled wall as the hall filled with the staccato roar of a submachine gun. The wood a foot from his face chipped away as though a buzz saw were chewing it.

He rolled away to avoid the splinters and return the fire. Two shots from the automatic rifle and it clicked empty.

Carter cursed and pawed for the revolver in his belt. It was gone, lost when he had hit the floor.

The shooter had heard, too, and was now running toward him. Carter rolled in the smoke, avoiding the bullets.

The man lost Carter in the smoky darkness just long enough for the Killmaster to reach up and grab him. He got the gun arm with one hand, spun around, and brought it over his shoulder. He got the other hand on his wrist and yanked. The man had to either come up or risk a broken elbow.

He took the risk.

Carter heard the bone crack and the machine pistol clattered down the stairs.

The man hit the floor and came right back up to his feet.

The smoke cleared just enough then for Carter to see.

It was Umberto Grossman.

“Good!” he roared. “Before this place falls in on us, I will have the joy of killing you!”

Grossman was fast, like lightning, and deadly, even with one broken arm and his lungs full of smoke.

He came in from Carter’s right, went from high to low, and suddenly appeared on the Killmaster’s left, his own good side. A swift, blurring chop came at Carter’s neck from the man’s healthy right arm.

Carter blocked it, but caught a kick in his left side that sent him reeling. He bounced off the wall and started to turn. Something chopped him across the neck. Carter spun, reaching.

The room turned end over end. He landed hard on his shoulders, breath gusting out in a rush. A shoe heel drove viciously at his throat, and he was barely alert enough to roll dizzily away from it. The second try caught him on the side of the jaw. Red lights flashed on and off, on and off.

Grunting, the Killmaster pawed at the floor and came up, shaking his head, trying to push the red spots out of his eyes. The knife edge of a calloused palm lanced into his throat. He swayed on his knees, sucking through the bright, hard agony that wouldn’t let the air pass. The face floating over him was out of focus, hazy, leering at him, full of pure evil.

Carter wobbled up and stuck a fist at it, felt the hand snap around his wrist, felt himself yanked off-balance and knew something painful was on its way. But the hand slipped off. The face moved back, jerked back. Carter spat, pumped a gulp of head-clearing air into his chest.

Grossman was on his knees, reaching up with his one good arm to get a madwoman off his back.

Lorena was riding him, her legs around his middle. One hand clenched his hair, the claws of her other hand dug into his eyes. Her fingers already dripped with blood as she ripped frantically at his face.

Grossman screamed in pain and tried to unseat her.

Chin pulled in, gasping, Carter moved forward as the mist in front of his own eyes cleared. “Lorena!” he cried. “Let him go, I’ve got him!”

He got his fingers twisted into the man’s jacket. Screaming in pain, Grossman struck out with his good hand and arm, but it was useless with his blinded eyes.

Lorena dropped away.

Carter pulled him off the floor, held him in midair, and wrapped his other hand around the man’s ankle. Then he turned slowly and hammered Grossman’s head against the wall. Plaster cracked. Dust geysered. Carter swung him back for another stroke, and another, shaking and ruining the wall. Finally Grossman stopped screaming. Carter dropped him into the dusty pile of plaster.

The Killmaster didn’t need to check. Umberto Grossman was dead. He found the revolver and waddled his way through the smoke.

“Lorena...?” he shouted, stumbling down the hall. “Lorena!”

He had planted the explosive on the roof. It was gone, or at least most of it, and the flames were eating their way downward. If there had been a high wind, the house would have already been devoured. As it was, on such a calm night and with the lack of wind, it was moving slowly.

Slowly, Carter thought as he slammed door after door open, but surely.

“Lorena!”

Still no answer.

Suddenly he burst through the last door in the wing and found them.

It was a sight out of hell.

Bolivar was on a satin-covered settee. He sat, slightly hunched over, his hands clasped over his middle. Blood oozed in waves through his fingers. His eyes were bright, alert. He even looked up as Carter entered the room.

A few feet in front of him, Lorena was on her knees, much in the same position as Bolivar, her hands clasped over her middle.

Carter was frozen in time and space.

They were talking, actually seemed to be chatting.

Between them on the floor, scattered like so many pieces of pretty glass, was a fortune in gemstones.

Slowly, through the shock and the smoke filling his mind and the room, Carter heard the conversation.

“Your brother,” Bolivar was saying, “is an evil man. You were a child, a baby. To raise you with revenge all these years was a waste.”

“No,” Lorena replied calmly, “every minute was worth it... for this.”

Carter could believe neither his eyes nor his ears.

“And what have you gained?” Bolivar gasped, his life pumping out from between his fingers. “Your family baubles back?”

“No... no, no, no,” Lorena whispered. “I’ve gained more, much more. I’ve been able to shoot you in the belly and watch you die, very slowly.”

Bolivar shook his head, coughed blood, and looked up at Carter. “Who are you... Odessa?”

“Does it matter?” Carter replied, amazed at himself with the flames creeping around them all that he could be so calm.

“He’s just a man,” Lorena said, “a hired hand, a conduit to get me to you.”

For the first time since Carter had met him, Bolivar laughed out loud. Blood poured from his mouth and there was a hacking sound, but still he laughed.

And then suddenly he stopped.

He removed one hand from his punctured belly and waved it at the floor.

“Then take your payment, man. Gather them up!” He laughed some more.

Carter ignored him. He turned to Lorena and tried to lift her to her feet. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

“No!” she cried.

“Yes!” Carter screamed at her, fighting the fury of her resistance.

“No! I want to watch him die!”

“Don’t be a fool,” Carter hissed. “He’s a dead man. You’ve got the revenge you came for.”

“No. Not yet.”

“Yes!” Carter cried, yanking her to her feet. “He’s an old man. He’s dying and he knows it and he doesn’t care.”

Another laugh from the near-dead man on the settee. “We’re all dead, or waiting to die. What’s the difference? Leave her. But take the jewels. They’ll only be found by ignorant Indians.”

Carter’s mind was glazing over, like his eyes. He found it impossible to breathe.

Lorena had wrenched herself from his grasp. She was on her hands and knees on the floor. He stumbled toward her, but she managed to elude his grasp.

“There!” she cried, suddenly coming back to her feet with her hands cupped beneath his chin. “Look!”

Carter looked down. In her cupped hands were several diamonds, glittering even in the thickening smoke.

And in their center was the enormous symbol of a lost world, a dead monarchy.

The Heartstone.

“We have it!” she said.

“Yeah,” Carter replied, seeing the madness in her eyes that he had always known was there but had never admitted. “Now, we go.”

She shoved the stones into Carter’s pocket and turned back to face Bolivar. “He’s still dying.”

Carter pulled the revolver from his belt, aimed, and put a slug right between Bolivar’s eyes.

“Not now he isn’t.”

He slung Lorena over his shoulder and ran out into the hall and down the stairs.