Stones of Fire

72

They’d gone nearly a mile when they came upon an abandoned farmhouse. From its derelict appearance, the house had been vacated years before, there being more than a few missing panes of window glass.

‘Now what?’ Edie asked, glancing around the farmyard, seeing only a jumble of weeds and tall grass.

Cædmon surveyed the area. ‘Search the house for weapons. Knives, scissors, anything you can lay your hands on. I’ll search the outbuildings for a vehicle.’

‘You actually know how to hot-wire a car?’

‘In theory. Assuming I can find one.’

Rising on tiptoe, Edie leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, then, having her orders, rushed towards the front porch. The door being warped, it took some joggling of the knob and a very determined shoulder to coerce it open. Ignoring the dust mites, cobwebs and a heavy odour of mildew, she scanned the hall, her gaze alighting on a solitary golf club protruding from a tall metal milk jug. Thinking it as good a weapon as any, she grabbed the eight iron.

She then felt her way down the dark hallway, the light switch producing nothing but a dull click, and soon found herself in a primitive kitchen. The grimy window above the dry sink shed enough light for her see that vermin had had the run of the place. More than one cupboard door was ajar, containers of boxed food having been ripped open. A bag of sugar and a box of salt had been torn asunder on the kitchen counter.

She hurriedly began opening drawers, hoping to find a kitchen knife. To her dismay, the search turned up nothing more deadly than an ice-cream scoop and a rusty can opener.

Seeing an old-fashioned telephone mounted on the wall, she rushed over and grabbed the heavy handset.

Damn. Dead air.

As she hung up the phone, the floorboards near the doorway creaked.

‘You didn’t really think that someone would abandon the house but leave the phone connected?’

Hearing that accented voice, Edie spun on her heel, the golf club slipping through her fingers, clattering onto the wood floor.

Her heart caught in her throat.

Standing across from her, holding a gun aimed at her chest, was Sanchez. Not only were his face and clothes blackened with soot, but blood poured freely from a jagged wound on his cheek, the skin flayed in the car blast.

Edie stood unmoving. Like a frog in a warming cauldron.

‘Hope springs eternal,’ she told the unsmiling gunman, striving for a calm she didn’t feel. To keep her hands from shaking, she reached behind her, gripping the edge of the worktop.

‘Where’s your red-headed lover boy?’

‘We got separated after the blast,’ Edie lied, knowing Sanchez would be out for vengeance, eye for an eye taking on a whole new meaning.

The sound of a car door being slammed echoed across the farmyard.

Sanchez cocked his ear, then shrugged. ‘Can’t start a car with a dead battery. What a bitch, huh?’

As he spoke, Edie inched her hand towards the salt that she’d earlier seen on the counter. ‘Yeah, what a bitch,’ she retorted, tossing a handful of salt at the gaping wound on his face.

Sanchez bellowed loudly, his head and body twisting in different directions.

Pushing herself away from the counter, Edie charged down the hall towards the open front door.

No sooner did she clear the doorway than she ran headlong into Cædmon. In his right hand he held a small axe, in his left he had what looked like a long-handled garden rake.

‘Sanchez is in the kitchen!’ she breathlessly exclaimed. ‘And he’s got a gun!’

She saw the muscles in Cædmon’s jaw clench and unclench, saw the feral gleam in his eyes. This was a man who had mercilessly taken out a foe by jamming a nail file into his skull.

Wordlessly, he shoved the axe into his anorak pocket then wrapped his free hand around her upper arm and ran, Edie barely able to keep pace with his long-legged stride.

They’d gone no more than a hundred yards when shots rang out, half a dozen in rapid succession. Cædmon dodged towards a large outbuilding. Kicking open a wood-planked door, he shoved her inside.

Edie squinted at a huge chain with an ominous hook at the end of it dangling from a ceiling beam.

‘It looks like some kind of torture chamber.’

‘Close enough,’ Cædmon muttered, dragging her across the dimly lit space. ‘It’s an old abattoir.’

‘What’s an abattoir?’

‘A slaughterhouse.’