Two Graves

43

PROCTOR WHEELED BACK TO TRISTRAM, WHO WAS SITTING on his bed, white-faced. “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll lock you in. You’ll be safe in this room.” He stepped out, locked the door securely, and then raced down the stone corridor, flattening himself against the wall just before the hallway opened on to the nearest sub-basement room.

He took out his .45, racked a round into the chamber, flicked on the laser sights. Then he took a moment to clear his head, get a feel for the tactical situation. He pushed away all surprise, all pain from his bruised ribs, all speculation about how the youth could have gotten in—and focused on the problem at hand.

The killer meant to lure him out into the sub-basement proper. Alban wanted him to follow. Just as clearly, that was the course of action he must take. There was no other. He could not allow the young man—now inside the security of the house—any freedom of action. He had to track him down. Alban meant to ambush him—he was sure of that. So he had to be unpredictable. He had to develop a strategy.

And he had to understand why Alban hadn’t killed him outright, when he’d clearly had the chance.

All these thoughts occurred in a split second.

Eyeing the ground, Proctor looked for traces of Alban’s passing, but was unable to tease out the youth’s marks from the welter of fresh footprints in the dust. He took a deep breath and, after a moment, spun around the corner and covered the room with his weapon. A single, naked lightbulb, hanging from a wire that ran the length of the sub-basement, illuminated the room, casting deep shadows. Cases along the walls displayed a motley collection of stuffed reptiles.

The room appeared to be empty.

With a quick movement he darted across the floor and took cover behind an old case that lay on its side, rusting halberds spilling out. From that vantage point he scoured the room as best he could. He did not need to hurry. The killer wasn’t trying to escape—the killer was stalking him just as surely as he was stalking the killer.

After ascertaining that the room was empty, Proctor darted to the far end and flattened himself against the archway that led into the next chamber, back in the direction of the staircase leading upward. This was filled with shelving, not just along the wall but also running across the middle, loaded with glass bottles in different colors, filled with strange and bizarre objects, dried insects, lizards, seeds, liquids and powders. There were many places to hide among those complicated rows of shelves, many places in which to set up an ambush.

A pity, what he would have to do.

Proctor carried a Beretta Px4 Storm with a 9 + 1 magazine, but he always carried two extra twenty-round magazines on his person: fifty rounds in all. He had a phobia of running out of ammunition. It had never happened to him, and it never would.

He slipped out the ten-round magazine, inserted one of the twenties. It significantly increased the weight of the weapon, but it was necessary for what he was about to do.

Unpredictable…

Suddenly Proctor surged under the archway, firing repeatedly into the rows of shelves as he sprinted down the length of the room, shooting ahead first to one side and then to the other. The result was a roar of sound and a chaotic storm of glass as the expanding rounds tore through multiple rows of shelves, fragmenting as they went, blowing the shelving to smithereens. The noise in the confined space was deafening. Anyone hiding among the shelves would be, at the very least, blinded by flying glass and quite possibly struck by fragmenting bullets. Such a person would be unable to return fire accurately.

Proctor continued running into the next chamber, maintaining a withering fire, blowing hundreds of glass bottles into glittering showers as he ran.

The twenty rounds carried him through to a third chamber, a smaller space filled with cases of stuffed birds. Here, the magazine empty, he took cover behind a heavy oaken case that projected from one wall. Crouching, he held his breath and listened with great intensity.

The residual sounds from the shoot-up echoed through the sub-basement: liquids draining, glass falling, an occasional crash. The stone floor behind him was now covered with thousands of glass shards. Nobody could walk over it—nobody—without making a sound. If the killer were behind him, he would not be able to follow without making his presence known.

Still he waited. Gradually the after-sounds of destruction died away, leaving the monotonous drip, drip of liquids and a foul compound odor of alcohol, formaldehyde, dead animals, and dried insects.

He knew that the next room was also stuffed with display cases, offering many hiding areas. The cases, he recalled, were loaded with ancient tools and antique devices. Proctor had no idea why Enoch Leng had assembled these bizarre collections, nor did he care. All he knew was that—most likely in one of the ancient rooms ahead—his adversary was also waiting.

Proctor waited a very long time. Often success came from simply outwaiting one’s adversary. Eventually they would move. And then, bang.

But this time, silence reigned. The adversary did not show himself.

While it was possible the killer was in one of the rooms he’d already passed through, dead or gravely wounded, Proctor somehow doubted it. His gut told him that Alban was in one of the rooms that lay ahead.

Waiting.

Proctor removed the empty magazine and inserted the second twenty-round box. In that moment he heard the crunch of a footfall on glass.

Spinning, astonished the killer was behind him, he quickly moved to a more defensible position in an alcove against the mortared wall.

He waited again, listening intently. The entire floor of the previous room was covered with shattered glass. It was not possible to move without making noise—or was it?

Ever so slowly, he crept up to the edge of the stone arch, listening. But there was no more sound. Could it have been something falling onto the glass?

The uncertainty began to eat away at Proctor. He had to see, to find out. In a burst of speed, he launched himself back through the archway, racing down the center of the room, again firing to the left and right. He saw a flash of movement to his far right, behind a row of shattered bottles, and he fired at it repeatedly through the shelves before taking cover in an alcove along the far wall.

Pressing himself into the space, he listened again. He must have hit the killer, or at least sprayed him with flying glass. He would be injured, perhaps blinded, frightened, disoriented.

… Or was this just wishful thinking?

Another loud crunch of glass, an unmistakable footfall.

Bursting from the alcove, Proctor ran, firing again in the direction of the sound, through the already-broken bottles, sending up a kaleidoscopic spray of glittering shards, additional shelves crashing down, beakers spraying their contents. But as he raked the area from where the sound had come, he realized there was nobody. Nothing. He kept running until he reached the far end of the chamber, taking cover in a corner, staring wildly about.

Abruptly, a pebble arced through the air, hit the lightbulb, and the room was plunged into darkness. Proctor immediately fired in the direction from which the pebble had been launched, the light from the adjacent room streaming in and providing a little illumination.

He lowered the gun, breathing hard. How many rounds did he have left? He normally kept count, but this time he had lost track. He’d fired twenty, plus at least fifteen more. Which left perhaps five in this magazine and ten in the final magazine.

His nightmare—running out of ammo—was starting to come true.

As he crouched in the black corner, he realized his strategy had been a failure. He was dealing with an adversary of tremendous foresight and skill.

He would need a new strategy. The killer probably expected him to continue on, to keep probing, searching, as he had been doing. So instead he would now turn around and retrace his steps. He would force the killer to come to him.

Creeping along the wall, he reached the doorway to the next room. Light streamed through from its single bulb. This room, too, had been full of bottles, and the floor was covered with glass. He now faced the same problem he had posed his adversary. He could not move without making noise.

Maybe. Crouching, he slipped off his shoes. Keeping low, he inched around the archway into the next room in his stockinged feet, keeping to the deep shadows behind the shattered cases. Slowly, slowly he moved, in complete silence, ignoring the broken glass that cut into the soles of his feet. Between each step he paused, listening.

He heard a brief intake of breath, to his right, behind a massive row of broken shelves. Unmistakable. The killer must also be moving in stockinged feet.

Did the killer see him? Impossible to know.

Unpredictable—that’s what he had to keep in mind.

He erupted into sudden, furious motion, running straight at the long, tall row of shelves, slamming into them and heaving them over, the shelving falling against the next row and the next, like dominoes, the already-broken and shot-up frames crashing down like a house of cards, trapping the person within in a storm of broken glass, chemicals, specimens, and twisted shelving.

As he stepped back, he felt a sudden blow to his arm and his .45 went flying. He spun, swinging his fist around, but the black figure had already flitted aside, slamming him in the ribs and sending him sprawling onto the glass.

Proctor rolled and was up in one swift motion, the jagged neck of a broken beaker in his hand. The killer jumped back, picking up his own piece of jagged glass. They circled each other warily.

Proctor, an expert with a knife, lunged, but the killer skipped aside and slashed at him, cutting his forearm. Proctor swept back and managed to rip the killer’s shirt, but the killer once again—with supernatural speed—turned and avoided the main thrust.

Never in his life had Proctor seen anyone move so fast or anticipate so well. He advanced on the killer, slashing again and again, forcing him to retreat but scoring no hits. The killer backed against a table, dropped his shard of glass, and picked up a heavy retort. Proctor pressed his advantage, advancing and slashing. But then suddenly, as if from nowhere, the killer—who feinted back again as if once again in retreat—twisted around in the most extraordinary movement and slammed the retort against the side of Proctor’s head, the heavy glass shattering and sending Proctor to the floor, dazed.

In a flash the killer was on top of Proctor, pinning him, the jagged glass of the retort pressed into his throat, right up against his carotid artery, with just enough pressure to cut the skin but go no deeper.

Proctor, dazed, stupefied in shock and pain, could not believe he had been bested. It did not seem possible. And yet he had been defeated—at the very thing he was most skilled in.

“Go ahead,” he said hoarsely. “Finish it.”

The killer laughed, exposing gleaming white teeth. “You know perfectly well that if I wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead. Oh, no. You have a message to deliver to your master. And I have a brother who needs… attending to.”

As he spoke, a long arm snaked out and removed the key to Tristram’s room from Proctor’s pocket.

“And now, good night.”

A sudden, stunning blow to the side of Proctor’s head caused the world to shut down in darkness.