Stones of Fire

73

The place does have a decided charnel-house feel to it, Cædmon thought as he hurried Edie across the abattoir.

Hopefully not a harbinger of things to come.

Shouldering open a rickety door, he motioned Edie through. A second later they emerged into another dimly lit space, this one with a high-pitched ceiling and an arched window set into the gable. More heavy chains dangled from rafters, more hooks on the walls. Elaborate cobwebs adorned all four corners. Overhead, a pair of sparrows flew out through the broken window. The menacing space would have made a black-robed inquisitor feel right at home.

Quickly, knowing he had only a few moments to set the trap, he shoved Edie towards a rusty metal cart, the only object of any size in the room.

‘Get yourself behind the cart. And for God’s sake, don’t move.’

Satisfied that she was out of sight, he placed the rake on the floor near the door, the prongs pointing up in what he hoped would be Sanchez’s direct path. Then, removing the axe from his pocket, he positioned himself in a dark cobweb-strewn corner.

Knowing he would have just one chance with the dull axe, he waited.

A few moments passed in tense silence. Then, as though scripted, the door to the cavernous room creaked open.

Sanchez, looking like a battered chimney sweep, slowly entered the room, pistol gripped in his right hand. A powerful weapon, it could blow a man’s head clean off his shoulders. Two steps into the room, Sanchez came to a standstill, scanning for the slightest hint of movement.

Don’t move, Edie. For the love of God, don’t even think about moving.

Cædmon held his breath, hoping that the other man didn’t glance down, the rake some six feet from his booted right foot.

Tightening his grip on the axe handle, he mentally pictured the attack. A practice run. Having bowled many an over while at Oxford, he first imagined hurling the axe using a straight-armed delivery. Thinking he wouldn’t get the desired height, he replayed the scenario in his mind’s eye, this time with bent elbow.

He spared a quick sideways glance at the cart, relieved to see that Edie had faded into the shadows. His gaze then ricocheted back to Sanchez, who had taken a tentative step forward.

He calculated the other man to be three steps from the upturned prongs of the rake.

Then two steps.

One step.

As planned, the instant that Sanchez’s booted foot landed on the prongs, the rake handle flew up, hitting him square in the face. Like a child’s top, Sanchez wobbled. The element of surprise now on his side, Cædmon stepped out of the shadows and hurled the axe towards the other man’s chest.

A dust-laden beam of light from the window glinted off the spinning blade.

Instinctively Sanchez twisted, his arm shielding his heart, parrying the blow as best he could.

The dull blade caught him on the right bicep, slicing deep. But not deep enough. Sanchez grunted as he grasped the axe by its handle, yanking the blade out of his arm. His eyes glazed but still alert, he searched the room, gun in one hand, the bloody axe in the other.

Seeing Cædmon standing in the corner, his gaze narrowed.

Slowly, in no apparent hurry to kill his quarry, Sanchez aimed the powerful pistol at a point somewhere in the middle of Cædmon’s head.

There being nothing he could do to stop the bullet, Cædmon defiantly stood his ground.

Smiling, Sanchez pulled the trigger.

There was a dull click.

The smile vanishing from his lips, Sanchez pulled the trigger a second time. Again, the only sound was the hollow click of the firing pin.

He was out of ammunition.

With a muttered oath, Sanchez dropped the gun. Then, in a blur, he was on Cædmon, swinging his arm, the axe blade aimed at his belly, the man clearly of a mind to eviscerate him. Cædmon leapt sideways, the blade missing him by a scant inch.

Out of the corner of his eye, Cædmon saw Edie lurch to her feet.

‘You bastard!’ she screamed. Wild-eyed, she grabbed a chain from a nearby wall hook and began swinging it over her head like a medieval mace.

Endowed with enviably quick reflexes, Sanchez pivoted in Edie’s direction.

Which is when Cædmon lifted his left foot off the ground, ramming his welly into Sanchez’s kidneys. The well-aimed kick propelled the other man several feet, his head smashing into the wall. The axe slipped through his fingers, falling to the floor. Not giving his foe time to recover, Cædmon rushed forward. Placing one hand at the back of Sanchez’s skull and the other against his spine, he rammed the brute’s head against the metal cart.

The walls of the abattoir shook with the impact.

Sanchez, a stunned, owl-like expression on his face, rolled into a fetal ball. A moment later, he opened his lips. To speak or scream, Cædmon knew not. The only thing emitted from his gaping mouth was a bright red trickle of blood. A second later his body shook with a mighty spasm, his feet jerking convulsively. Cædmon suspected that the man’s brain battled on, still sending flight-or-fight messages to his limbs, refusing to accept the inevitable, refusing to lie down and die.

Edie turned her head, unable to watch Sanchez in his death throes.

A few seconds later Cædmon placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

‘He’s gone. Where to, I can’t say. Although I suspect he will be refused entry to heaven.’

Edie glanced at the sprawled corpse. Deprived of that animating spirit called the soul, bulging muscles were flaccid, eyes open wide in a ghoulish stare.

‘I need to get out of here.’ Pushing him aside, Edie staggered towards the door.

Going down on his knee, Cædmon quickly searched Sanchez’s pockets then followed Edie out of the abattoir.

Silently they stared at the wrecked farm. On the wet breeze Cædmon smelt rotted wood. In the distance a dilapidated shutter rattled against an equally dilapidated window frame.

‘Now what?’

‘No idea,’ he told her.

‘Couldn’t you have come up with something more positive?’

‘Sorry. My brain is a bit mashed.’ He showed her the mobile he had discovered in Sanchez’s coat pocket.

‘Do you think MacFarlane will give chase?’

Cædmon thought about this for only a second before shaking his head. ‘He has the Ark. That’s all he cares about.’