all moved back, and Seth went berserk, smashing and pounding and cursing, until the back of the car was unrecognizable.
He finally jolted the lock loose. They wrenched the trunk open.
A puffy red child’s ski jacket lay there. No Rachel. Connor smelled urine. He put his hand on the carpeting under the coat, felt around.
Yes, there it was. Dampness. Pee.
“Baby piss,” he said. “They put her in the trunk. They put a three-year-old into the fucking trunk of a fucking car.”
There were about three seconds of appalled silence. Sean broke it. “Let’s move,” he said harshly. “Let’s go hunt. I need to kill something. Now.”
“Right on,” Seth growled.
A ragged burst of gunfire came from the direction of the mansion.
They took off running again.
He would recognize Rachel’s screaming anywhere. It would cut throught any kind of noise, a gun fight, an air raid, even the roaring and ringing of his ears. Val followed the sound, lurching forward in an unsteady, limping run fueled by unmixed adrenaline. He left a trail of blood behind him, but he didn’t care. If his blood supply lasted long enough to kill András, that was all he asked of it.
He lost the sound and stopped, straining to hear her again. The wounds throbbed and burned, all of them, the old ones and the new. There was a burning hole in his chest. Every panting breath hurt. Broken ribs, from the bullets that had punched into the Kevlar.
He rounded a corner. The shrill, faraway wail crescendoed. He launched himself forward again. Blood ran from the gouge in his hip, down his leg, into his boot. His foot squelched with every step.
The layout of the place was coming back. The sound seemed to come from above him, though it could be an aural illusion. He ran toward the grand staircase and took the steps three at a time, driven by terror. He would hang on as long as he could for Tamar’s sake, but he knew what his body could and could not do, wounded as he was. He knew that feeling: the faintness, the cold, the nasty tingle.
He had only minutes before his body failed him.
He stopped at the top to listen, guts sinking at the silence. There it was, a squeak, quickly cut off—to the left. He stumbled down the corridor toward the sound, abandoning all effort at stealth.
András rounded the corner, clutching a writhing, squirming Rachel under one arm, brandishing his gun with the other hand.
He stopped cold when he saw Val, jerking Rachel up so that she shielded his chest, neck and head.
Val dove for the nearest doorway as András opened fire on him, tearing the rotten door loose from its antique, rusty hinges. He pitched forward into the stifling darkness. Bullets crashed into walls, the floor, sending splinters and shards of wood, tile, and stucco flying.
At the first moment of silence, Val called out over the ringing in his ears. “It’s over, András. They’re dead. Put her down.”
“Who’s dead?” András demanded.
“Everyone,” Val said. “Dead, or else running. Didn’t you hear the guns?”
András paused. He had heard them, and not known what to make of them. “I’ll judge when it’s over, dickhead,” András growled, but there was uncertainty in his voice.
Rachel let loose with another piercing ultrahigh shriek that rattled all the molecules in his body. Val heard a slap, muffled cursing. “Shut up, you squeaking brat, or I’ll—”
His words were obscured by another shriek, more ear-shattering than the last. Val lunged for the door, peered around the frame.
Zing, a bullet flicked past his ear, ruffling his hair. He jerked back, having ascertained that Rachel’s squirming body still shielded all the good target points. Merde. Trapped, like a fucking rat in a cage. He couldn’t return fire, couldn’t give chase. He was useless.
“I’ve got the gun to her head,” said András, his voice taunting. “Throw your guns out into the corridor, and step out of the room with your hands before you. We’re going to talk to the boss.”
“He’s dead,” Val said wearily.
“Of course he is,” András crooned. “And this screaming little darling will be, too. It can’t be too soon for me.”
“It’s all over. Novak is dead. They’re all dead,” Val repeated.
“Really? If the boss is dead, what reason is there for me not to kill her right now? Or better yet, I could shoot something off her, a hand, a foot. It would be a pleasure, after the trouble she’s given me. At this range, I could probably blow her leg right off at the knee. Shall we see? Should I try it?”
“No,” Val said swiftly. “Don’t.”
“No? You don’t like that idea? Then throw out your guns, fuckhead. Now.”
The gun stocks were sticky with his drying blood. Val peeled them loose from his hand, the Beretta and the SIG he’d gleaned from the dead PSS agents.
“Did you hear what I said, you cocksucking man whore?” András’s voice sharpened with tension. “On the count of five, she loses a foot. One. Two. Three—”
Val let the guns drop. They clattered onto the tiles.
“Kick them out into the corridor,” András directed, pitching his voice over Rachel’s shrieks. “Then put out your hands.”
Val kicked the guns. They slid over the tiles with a clatter.
His hands were dripping blood. He held them out the door, fingers splayed wide, turning them to show that they were empty.
“Step out, and put them on top of your head.”
Val walked slowly out into the corridor, lifted his arms, placed his hands on his head.
András’s arm was clasped around Rachel’s waist, in a cruelly tight grip. Rachel kept struggling, undaunted.
Val wanted to applaud. The child did her mother proud. He stared at András, balancing like a tightrope walker suspended over a boiling lava pit. Blood trickled down his arm, slow and hot and ticklish.
Checkmate. Three steps back. Detached. Floating. Wait for it.
Rachel flailed, flopped, shrieked. András had to struggle to hold her. “Get down on your knees,” he growled. “Stay still, you little shit, or I’ll peel you like a grape.”
Val sank slowly to his knees. Waiting, watching for his opening. Widening out his senses, softening. Wait for it. Wait.
András adjusted his grip, lifting her higher. Rachel flung herself forward against his face, almost as if she were kissing him. Suddenly András yanked her away from his face and flung her to the ground. A red bite wound flamed on his cheek. Broken skin. Blood
Now!
Val
