John Sandford - Mind prey

And she stepped straight into him and struck.

She rammed the nail into the space below his breastbone, trying to angle it into his heart, looking at his eyes as she struck.

And she screamed, "Grace, Grace…"

The shack's outside door was half-open; Lucas kicked it the rest of the way, Del flattened against the outer wall, sweeping the fallen-down mudroom just inside.

Sherrill was on the other side of the house, watching the back. Lucas went through first, through the mudroom, following the sights of the.45, his thumb-knuckle white in the lower rim of his circle of vision.

The shack smelled of wood rot, and dim light shifted in through dirty windows. A broken-legged table crouched in the kitchen beyond the mudroom, and tracks were etched in the dirt of the floor, heading into the interior. There was an open door to the left, hung with cobwebs; another on the other side, showing a down-slanting wall: and from there, a light, and a man's voice shouting.

Del, just behind, slapping him on the shoulder: "Go."

Lucas went straight ahead, scrabbling along in a half-crouch, while Del covered the doorway. Lucas did a peek at the door, looking down the stairs, and a woman screamed, "Grace, Grace…"

When Andi Manette struck with the nail, Mail's eyes widened and his mouth opened in surprise and pain, and he jerked forward, turning away. Grace struck at his right eye and missed as he turned his head, the point of the needle skidding across the bridge of his nose, burying itself an inch deep in his left eye.

He screamed, pulled back, and Andi shouted, "Grace, run." Grace ran, and Mail flailed at her and the girl was batted off her feet, lurching into the pile of tumble-down shelving on the back wall of the tiny cellar. She scrambled to her feet and tried for the stairs, and Andi saw the shotgun coming around and she pulled the nail out and struck again, felt it skid along his ribs. The shotgun stopped in its track and Mail hit her in the face with an elbow and she fell, and saw her daughter's legs flying up the stairs. Mail fired the shotgun, a flash and a blast like thunder, straight up, into the ceiling, either by accident or simply to startle, to slow down whoever was up the stairs. He turned, and Andi saw his good eye fix on her-the other eye was a blotch of blood and she felt a thrill of satisfaction-and the barrel of the gun came around and opened at her face. They stood just for a second that way, Mail's face contorting. She could see his hand working on the trigger, but nothing was happening, and she rolled out of the line of fire.

Lucas started down the stairs in a crouch, heard the man scream and a girl, a scarecrow, hair on end, blood on her face, ran to the stairs and started up, stopped when she saw Lucas. A shotgun went off, the blast like a physical blow; plaster sprayed around them, and Lucas fell sideways, tried to catch himself.

There wasn't much pain when Andi Manette stuck him, but Mail knew he'd been hurt. He pulled back, tried to get some space, but Manette clung to him and then the girl was there. He saw the hand coming up, the thin, steel glitter between her fingers, and turned his head. The needle slashed at him, hurt more than Manette's knife, or whatever it was. There was a black flash-was that possible?-in his left eye, and he wrenched away, spasmodically pulling at the trigger. The shotgun went off, the barrel not more than a foot from his ear, deafening him.

As dust and plaster rained on them from the ceiling, Manette struck again; she was screaming and he saw the girl running for the stairs. He swung at her; he felt no impact, but saw the girl go down. Everything was moving at a berserker's speed, like a movie cut too often, clips of this and that too fast for his brain to process… but he looked for Manette, his betrayer, found her at his feet.

Her mouth was open, she was screaming, and he pointed the barrel at her mouth and pulled the trigger. The trigger pulled back slackly, without tension. Nothing happened. He pulled it again, and again, saw the girl screaming on the stairs, Davenport falling, a gun in his hand.

Mail ran.

He ran behind the furnace, into the old rat's nest coal bin, up the coal chute to the rotten wooden door at the top. He knocked the door open with the stock of the gun and a shaft of light hit him full in the face.

Del was at the top of the stairs, frozen by the blast, his gun pointing down past Lucas. Lucas twisted, falling, struck the scarecrow girl, knocking her sideways, and staggering, caught himself on the post at the bottom of the stairs, his gun sweeping the room, looking for the face, the target.

"Grace," Andi screamed, and screaming again, "Run, Grace…"

Then a man was there with a gun, a large man in a suit, shouting at her, then another man, a man who looked like a tramp, with another gun, maneuvering toward the cell. She shrank away, but heard, through the pain and fear, the single word, "Where?"

She pointed toward the furnace; and as she pointed, a shaft of sunlight broke into the room, from behind the furnace. Del was at another door, looking down, then back at him, and Lucas took three leaping steps across the room, past the furnace into a small wooden-sided room. Light poured through a hatchlike door in the foundation.

Andi heard the gunshots, the quick bite of a pistol, the deeper boom of the twelve-gauge…

On the grass, outside, on his knees, Mail looked left and brought the gun up. This time, he pumped the slide, saw an empty shell flip out to the right. That's why it hadn't fired. In the chaos in the basement, he'd forgotten to pump it.

But there were more cops here: he heard a man's voice, screaming, and more shouting in the basement. A chopper roar picked up, and the chopper slipped from behind the house, six feet off the ground, hovering,

Sherrill ran around the side of the house.

They saw each other at the same instant. Sherrill's pistol was up and a single shot plucked at Mail's coat. Mail returned the shot, firing once, and Sherrill went down, her legs knocked from beneath her. The helicopter came in like a giant locust, and he pointed the shotgun at the black-visored pilot behind the glass, pulled the trigger; again, nothing happened. Cursing, he pumped the gun, and as the chopper pilot roared two feet over head, he ran beneath the machine, past Sherrill, to the corner of the house.

Cops coming up the track. Three cars at least.

He turned and sprinted thirty yards across the yard toward the corn field, vaulted the fence, and submerged in the deep green leaves.

Sherrill was on the ground, screaming, the chopper thirty yards away, the pilot gesturing frantically, when Lucas crawled up the coal chute. Lucas turned and saw Mail vault a barbed-wire fence into the corn field; he vanished in an instant.

A sheriffs car slewed sideways in the yard as Lucas ran to Sherrill, put his hand on her back: "Hit?"

"My legs, man, my legs, it hurts so fuckin' bad, it just fuckin' burns…"

Del was out now, and Lucas waved at the pilot, pulling her down, then ran to the uniformed deputy, who stood by the fender of his car, a shotgun on his hip.

"He's in the cornfield-he's right in there," Lucas shouted over the blast of the chopper blades. Grass and bits of weed whipped past them as the chopper settled. "Get a couple guys on the road, and get in those hayfields. Cut him off, cut him off…"

The deputy nodded and ran back to the other cars. Lucas went back to Sherrill. Del was kneeling over her, had ripped open her pants leg. Sherrill had taken a solid hit on the inside of her left leg between her knee and her hip; bright red arterial blood was pulsing into the wound.

"Bleeding bad," Del said; his voice was cool, distant. He pulled off his jacket, ripped off a sleeve, and pressed it into the wound.

"Hold it there," Lucas said to Del. "I'll carry her."