C. Palov - Ark of Fire

“In theory. Assuming I can find a serviceable vehicle.”

Rising up on her tiptoes, Edie leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Here’s hoping the practical application comes off without a hitch.”

Having been issued her orders, she rushed toward the front stoop. The door sat crooked in the jamb; it took some jostling of the knob and a very determined shoulder shove to coerce it open. Ignoring the dust mites, cobwebs, and heavy odor of mildew, she scanned the foyer, her gaze finally alighting on a solitary golf club protruding from a tall metal milk jug. Thinking it as good a weapon as any, she grabbed the eight iron.

She then felt her way down the dark hallway, the light switch producing nothing but a dull click, and soon found herself in a primitive kitchen. The grimy window above the dry sink produced enough light for her see that vermin had had the run of the place. More than one cupboard door was ajar, and containers of boxed food had been ripped open. In an apparent feeding frenzy, a bag of sugar and a box of salt had been torn asunder; a small white pile of each sat on the kitchen counter.

She hurriedly began opening drawers, hoping to find a kitchen knife that had been left behind.

To her dismay, the search turned up nothing more deadly than an ice cream scoop and a rusty can opener.

Seeing an old-fashioned telephone mounted on the wall, she rushed over and grabbed the heavy handset.

Damn. Dead air.

As she hung up the phone, the wood planks near the doorway softly creaked.

“You didn’t really think that someone would abandon the house but leave the phone connected?”

At hearing that slightly accented voice, Edie spun on her heel, the golf club slipping through her fingers and clattering onto the wood floor.

Her heart caught in her throat.

Standing across from her, holding a gun that was aimed at her chest, was Sanchez. Not only were his face and clothes blackened with soot, but blood freely poured from a jagged wound on his upper cheek, the skin having been flayed in the car blast.

Edie stood unmoving. Like a frog in a warming cauldron.

“Hope springs eternal,” she told the unsmiling gunman, striving for a calm she didn’t feel. To keep her hands from noticeably shaking, she reached behind her, gripping the edge of the countertop.

“Where’s your redheaded lover boy?”

“We got separated after the blast,” Edie lied, knowing Sanchez would be out for vengeance, the old “eye for an eye” taking on a whole new level of meaning.

The sound of a car door being slammed echoed across the farmyard.

Sanchez cocked his head, then shrugged. “Can’t start a car with a dead battery. What a bitch, huh?”

As he spoke, Edie inched her hand toward the salt pile that she’d earlier seen on the counter. “Yeah, what a bitch,” she retorted, tossing a handful of salt at the gaping wound on his face.

Rearing his head back, a thunderbolt in reverse, Sanchez loudly bellowed.

Pushing herself away from the counter, Edie charged down the hall toward the open front door.

No sooner did she clear the doorway than she ran headlong into Caedmon. In his right hand he held a small ax; in his left he had what looked to be a long-handled garden hoe.

“Sanchez is in the kitchen!” she breathlessly exclaimed. “And he’s got a gun!”

She saw the muscles in Caedmon’s jaw clench and unclench, saw the feral gleam in his eyes. This was the man who had mercilessly taken out his foe by jamming a nail file into his skull.

Wordlessly, he shoved the ax into his pocket. Then he wrapped his free hand around her upper arm and took off running; Edie could barely keep pace with his long-legged stride.

They’d gone no more than a hundred yards when shots rang out, a half dozen of them in rapid succession. Caedmon dodged toward a large stone outbuilding. Kicking open a wood-planked door, he shoved her inside.

Edie squinted, surprised to see a huge chain with an ominous hook at the end of it dangling from a ceiling beam.

“It looks like some kind of torture chamber.”

“Close enough,” Caedmon muttered, dragging her across the dimly lit room. “It’s an old abattoir.”

“What’s an abattoir?”

“A slaughterhouse.”

CHAPTER 73

The place does have a decidedly charnel house feel to it, Caedmon thought as he hurriedly ushered 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 room, this one with a high-pitched ceiling and an arched window set into the gable. Heavy chains dangled from the rafters. Elaborate cobwebs adorned all four corners. Overhead, a pair of sparrows flew through the broken panes of glass, the abandoned abattoir having evidently become a makeshift aviary. The menacing space would have made a black-robed inquisitor feel right at home.

Quickly, knowing he had but a few moments to set the trap, he shoved Edie toward a rusty metal cart, that being the only piece of “furniture” in the room.

“Get yourself behind the cart. And for God’s sake, don’t move,” he tersely instructed.

Satisfied that she was out of sight, he placed the long-handled garden hoe on the floor near the door, the blade pointing upward. In what he hoped would be Sanchez’s direct path. Then, removing the ax from his pocket, he positioned himself in a dark, cobweb-strewn corner.

Knowing he would have but one chance with the dully honed ax, he waited.

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

In the next instant, Sanchez, looking like a battered chimney sweep, slowly entered the room, gripping a semiautomatic pistol 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.

Caedmon held his breath, hoping that the other man didn’t glance downward, the hoe innocuously set some six feet from his booted right foot.

Tightening his grip on the ax handle, he mentally envisioned the attack. A practice run. Having bowled many a cricket game while at Oxford, he first imagined hurling the ax in a straight-armed delivery. Knowing 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 blade of the hoe.

Then two steps.

One step.

As planned, the instant that Sanchez’s booted foot landed atop the blade, the hoe handle flew upward, hitting him square in the face. Like a child’s top, Sanchez unsteadily wobbled. With the element of surprise now on his side, Caedmon stepped out of the shadows and hurled the ax toward the other man’s chest.

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

Instinctively Sanchez twisted, his arm protectively 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 ax by the handle and yanked the blade out of his arm. His eyes glazed, but still cognizant, he searched the room, a gun in one hand, the bloody ax in the other.

Seeing Caedmon standing in the corner, he narrowed his gaze.