Chapter 16 - The Kraken Gate
I was across the room in an instant, poker in my hand, snatched from the fireplace. That and my night gown were all that I had to defend myself. My heart was hammering in my ribcage. I stood at the door for a moment, straining to hear more. The servant’s quarters were in the basement. There was only Mrs. Underhill. I couldn’t afford more staff, nor could I afford to lose the one I had.
Should I descend by the main stairs or the servant’s ones to the rear of the house? Why did I rent such a large property? Somewhere smaller and I would have been moments away from Mrs. Underhill.
I crossed to the back of the property, faint starlight my only guide. The darkness was even more profound in the cramped stairwell. I tried to remember whether any of the treads creaked, but I’d only investigated the stairs once, shortly after moving in. I reached the basement level without making any noise. I paused, hoping to hear something, get some clue as to whereabouts of my housekeeper or the intruder. There was nothing. I eased the door open and padded through, poker held high. The stone-paved floor was cold on my feet. At the far end of the corridor was a reception room which served as a sitting room and dining area both, its door was wide open. The meagrest smear of half-light was faintly visible. Better than nothing. My eyes had adjusted a little. To my left was a storage room, to my right was the scullery. Ahead, and still on the right, was a small washroom, and opposite that was the door to the housekeeper’s bedroom. It stood ajar.
I nudged the door further open with my foot and stood for a while, waiting for my eyes to adapt further. I could vaguely sense a lighter area that might have been sheets on Mrs. Underhill’s bed. I gave up hoping to see more and advanced through the door instead, holding one hand out for where I thought the bed post would be. I hissed as I stubbed my toe on something that proved to be an overturned chair, but then my hand touched the bed. A short way along, my hands discovered a body and a warm slickness that could only be blood. A lot of blood.
I couldn’t tell where the blood was coming from, but I was certain now that it was Mrs. Underhill. I located her face and held my hand over her mouth. No breath. At her neck there was no pulse. She was gone, but her attacker was still in the house. I could see and hear nothing, but I had never been surer of myself.
This wasn’t the work of a misguided thief, driven to kill when discovered. I may have been paranoid about what had happened in the park, perhaps that had been an accident, but this was different. Someone had broken into my home, and it wasn’t an overzealous buyer on the hunt for a conveniently located town house. The killer was stealthily searching the place for me. Now I would turn the tables. My breathing steadied and my heart-rate began to drop. I’m going to make this bastard pay!
Checking my grip on the poker, I moved back out into the corridor and nudged the washroom door open with my toe, standing well back. I stood stock-still and stared into the darkness until I was sure it was empty. Then I inspected the reception room, still moving on the balls of my feet. A settle to my left and a large ceiling-height cupboard against the right-hand wall cast the darkest shadows.
A draught drew my attention to the window that was set into the front wall of the house. It was below street level, but beyond it was the tiny space, really no more than a rectangular well topped with iron railings that separated this house from the pavement. I noticed the broken glass at the same time as I trod on a sliver. This was where the intruder had broken in. I cursed silently and gingerly picked the glass from the sole of my foot. Now I was bleeding. Not much. Not as much as Mrs. Underhill had bled, I thought, grimly.
Satisfied that the basement was clear, I tracked back along the corridor and took the main set of steps, opposite the ones I had come down. My foot daubed a new smear of blood on every other step. In moments I was in the main hallway on the ground floor. There was more light than there had been in a basement which allowed me to move quickly through the rooms, pulling the full-height curtains back and checking behind items of furniture. The door to the kitchen at the back of the house was locked, so that was one less area to search. I mounted the stairs to the first floor where both the spare rooms were clear. I was just checking the bathroom when I heard a noise I recognised, the creak of the wardrobe door in my bedroom.
A handful of light footsteps took me back across the hall. My heart-rate was up again, so I breathed deeply, steeling myself for what I would find, and stepped back into my room. With the heavy curtains drawn there was almost no light…like being back in the basement. Real darkness often has a unique, eerie quality to it; it’s not like black paint on a canvas. Your brain does something strange, knowing that you are looking at a volume, a volume whose edges are uncertain, it gives that volume tangible pressure that pushes and pulses at your vision. It’s very disorientating, and it calls out to the primeval fears of our ancestors. Knowing that I was being hunted didn’t help.
Come on Connie, you’ve done plenty of night exercises with the marines. The dark is nothing new.
I could vaguely sense the objects in my room, but this was mostly because I knew the contents and where they were, rather than because they were in the least bit illuminated. I stood still again, unhurried, watching the darkness and straining my eyes until I was certain that there was no one standing near me, or in the open areas of the floor.
Security work is largely about risk management. You assess the threats and take necessary precautions. The sensible precaution in a situation like this would have been to make a tactical retreat and obtain some backup. Well, I was angry now, so that second part simply wasn’t going to happen. While I was off, summoning reinforcements, my housekeeper’s murderer would disappear into the night. Unacceptable. I briefly considered going to fetch a lamp, but I didn’t do that either. I knew where the intruder was and I had a suspicion that he, or she, knew that I was close by. It was time to dance.
With a roar, I dropped the poker and launched myself at where I knew the wardrobe to be. I got my hands behind it and heaved it towards me with all of my strength until it toppled across the bed. It was an ungainly item from a previous age when furniture was valued as much for its ability to prop up the beams of a poorly built tenement as it was for its storage capacity. It came down with a crash, the bed collapsing under its weight which was a good thing, because that was the next most likely hiding place for the attacker. I was searching for the discarded poker when the back of the wardrobe exploded.
Splinters of wood flew as the intruder fought their way free. Sadly, the rear panel of the cabinet was flimsy in comparison with the rest of the structure. I caught a glimpse of grey metal and the silver crescent that was the top of a machete emerging from the shattered wood. That’s when I decided my attacker was a Nallian. Nallians do love their machetes, especially their Parzatz Special Forces. I scrabbled for the poker, intending to stove his head in before he could fight clear of the wardrobe. I was too slow. By the time I had the poker in my hand, the intruder was out and coming at me.
Everyone learned Souficla in the marines. I had been pretty good at the time, but that was seven years ago. I did my exercises when I could, but without sparring sessions, I’d had plenty of time to get rusty. It’s all well and good knowing the Nine Golden Principles, and being able to move through all the shapes, but it’s bloody hard to twist an opponent’s neck off if you can’t even see your own hands in front of your face. I hoped that the lack of light was as much of a disadvantage to my attacker as it was to me. So I stopped trying to rely on my eyesight alone. Instead, I switched into a lower, instinctive mode called juudimeht in Souficla, which crudely translates as, ‘all that’s available’. Top graded Souficla students learn to harness juudimeht in a variety of exercises requiring sparring with each of the senses removed in turn. The trick is to strengthen the senses that humans have marginalised in favour of eyesight. I’d seen the best proponents use echolocation whilst blindfolded, fighting with astonishing precision. It wasn’t something I’d mastered, but I would have to raise my game now.
I heard the Nallian grunt as he lunged at me. I heard the rustle of the clothing on his right shoulder as he raised his arm, likely with blade in hand. I smelled the man’s urgency, his sweat. To wait for him to bring the machete down on me and try to defend with the poker would have been a mistake. Passive. No energy. No finger-guard on the poker. I dove towards his legs instead and bowled them out from under him. He crashed into the dressing table, and the mirror made a noise like rain as it burst into a thousand shards, spilling across the floor.
Scrabbling, as the assassin tried to get up. Suddenly I saw a hint of light reflected from the goggles he was wearing; like navigator ones but bulkier. I’d seen such things before, but only once. Hugely expensive, Nallian night-vision goggles used by their feared shock-troops. Impossible to get hold of in Emberly. They used some kind of phosphorescent coating to enhance what little light there was. So…advantage to my assailant, damn the gods!
The attacker struck again. This time I did parry with the poker because I was already retreating from the bedroom. My last advantage was that I was smaller, should be nimbler than him. I needed more space to work with. Besides that, I decided that my already bleeding feet would not fare well on a floor littered with broken mirror. The attacker was quick. He followed me though the door in a trice, but he couldn’t do that with his machete raised, so I struck, hitting him on the head.
No effect. A susurration of fabric as his blade arm swept upwards again. I spun away, but he was following fast. I tried to sidestep him to his left, but he caught my arm and used our combined trajectories to spin me around him. Damn it! He’s well trained too! I careened towards the banister, heading for the stairwell. I managed to correct my course slightly to avoid the drop to the ground floor but crashed shoulder-first into the newel post. Winded, I turned and immediately had to parry again as the machete swept towards my neck. I managed to turn it up, above me and stamped on my attacker’s knee. That made him grunt, but it was weak and didn’t cripple him as I had hoped. For my troubles I took a punch in the face that floored me and raised a gavotte of stars in my vision. The fire iron rolled from my outstretched hand and bounced down the stairs.
The machete came slicing down, but the swing was misjudged, or perhaps the goggles weren’t as good as all that. It chopped into the banister handrail with a heavy thunk. I heard surprise as the killer failed to dislodge it at the first attempt. No second invitation necessary. I kicked up between his legs and struck his ‘persuaders’, and that’s where the law of unintended consequences got me. My opponent’s knees buckled, and he dropped onto me, letting go of his blade. His weight pinned me to the floor. His hot breath rasped in my ear. I tried to head-butt him without success. In the next instant he’d recovered enough to get a grip around my throat.
He was strong. The stars resumed their merry dance around the inside of my brain. My death was moments away. I bucked but couldn’t throw him. I grabbed hold of his wrists and tried to tear them from my windpipe but he was too strong. My vision was now bright with exploding lights. I beat ineffectually at his arms and face but my strength was failing. At last, my flailing hands hit the newel post at the top of the stairs and I understood that the last chance to save myself had arrived.
Taking a firm grip on the newel post, I ignored the convulsing of my air-deprived lungs and hurled the last of my strength into a lunge, pulling on the banister and curling my legs up as hard as I could. The attacker rocked over my head towards the top of the stairs. I heaved harder, pulling myself over the topmost tread and suddenly the two of us were tumbling down the stairs. I felt the grip on my throat loosen and, as my choked body gasped for air, I grabbed my assailant’s lapels. I came down on top of him, my knee crushing something that I hoped was vital. My back and head hit the wall and ricocheted left and down, following the curve of the stairs. The killer came after me because he had no choice; my hands were still gripping his coat but now it was my turn to get crushed between him and the steps. Something sharp dug into my ribs, his elbow perhaps, and shock of it caused me to let go. Now his momentum, as he bounced off me, carried him into the wall at the bottom of the next flight where I landed on him a final time as we came to rest.
I struggled to breathe. My throat felt as though it was on fire and I was gagging. I knew I had to move soon before this monster recovered. I slid off him and bumped down a few more steps until I was on the ground floor where my hand closed unexpectedly on the poker. I climbed back up and prepared to deliver the killing blow. The veil of darkness had lifted slightly; Meniah had risen into the midnight sky. The killer was wearing a heavy, black, three-quarter length coat of Nallian origin. One of his arms was outstretched and other was curled tidily in his lap as though he’d sat down for a nap. One foot draped down the stairs and the other was folded under him. The night-vision goggles had been dislodged and sat aslant his face. It was clear that I would have no need of the poker. The assassin’s neck was broken.
Comments
Post a Comment