It was Will’s voice, coming from somewhere down below, and he was frightened.
There was no time to think or call for help. A flood of adrenaline released my frozen limbs, and I flew down the spiral stairs, caroming off the stone walls and clinging to the handrail to keep myself from falling. When a gust of cold air rushed up to meet me, I gave a panicked gasp and redoubled my pace. The cold air had to mean that the door to the coastal path had been opened—someone was taking Will into the storm.
I leapt down the final few stairs, skidded on the rain-covered floor, and made for the open door. The wind was so strong that I staggered sideways as I dashed outside, and the lashing rain made it difficult to see. I curled an arm around my forehead to protect my eyes and glimpsed, in a searing blaze of lightning, a tall, thin figure striding far ahead of me, toward the overlook. He was dragging Will and Rob behind him.
His strength was terrifying. My boys were big for their age, but he pulled them along as if they were rag dolls. When they stumbled, he yanked them up without stopping and moved on.
Abaddon, I thought, and the thought transformed my fear into cold fury. I bowed my head against the driving rain and pounded after him.
The sunken path had become a shallow, rushing stream, but I kept running in spite of the treacherous footing, peering ahead as best I could each time a lightning bolt ripped through the darkness, until I saw the shadowy figure come to a halt. He’d reached the overlook.
With one flick of his wrist, he could have thrown Will and Rob over the cliff, but instead he hauled them up and dumped them on the Slaughter Stone. There they lay, stunned and panting, while Abaddon made the sign of the cross over them. He stared down at them briefly, then spun on his heel, strode to the cliff ’s edge, and raised his arms, as if in supplication to the sea.
I flung myself behind the boulders bordering the path and clambered over them until I was crouching on a bed of rocky debris a few feet above the Slaughter Stone. My questing hand soon closed over a smooth stone. It was the same size as a cricket ball. When Abaddon swung about to face my sons, I stood and hurled the stone at him with all my might.
Abaddon’s head jerked. He dropped to the ground as if his bones had turned to dust.
I slid down onto the Slaughter Stone and pulled Will and Rob to me. They were barefoot and wearing their pajamas.
“I’m here, my babies,” I gasped. “Mummy’s here.” A sob silenced me as their arms tightened around my neck, but I blinked away my tears, lowered the boys gently onto the overlook, and climbed down after them. A quick inspection told me they were shaken but unscathed.
“He hurt Andrew!” cried Will.
“He’s a bad man!” Rob shouted angrily.
“I know he is,” I said, kissing them all over their beautiful, outraged faces.
“Did you kill him?” Rob asked, craning his neck to peer at the motionless body.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “That’s why you have to run back to the castle as fast as you can. Don’t stop for anything. Run to the castle and get Damian. Can you do that for Mummy?”
Before the boys could answer, I saw Abaddon stir.
“Go!” I screamed, and pushed them toward the castle. “Run!”
They took off, the soles of their bare feet flashing white as they splashed down the path, lit by chains and forks and ghostly sheets of lightning. I prayed that the path’s high banks would keep them safe until they reached the castle, then picked up another rock, larger and more jagged than the first, and stepped toward Abaddon. He could have me if he could take me, but he would not touch my sons.
I was less than five yards away from him when he slowly raised one arm to point at me. There was a brief, bright pop of light, and something smacked into my shoulder, spun me around, and knocked me off my feet.
Time seemed to stop, and my senses seemed to sharpen. As I lay facedown and trembling, I could hear each separate raindrop, each shifting pebble, each curling wave that crashed against the cliffs. I could also hear the slow tread of approaching footsteps.
I tried to push myself to my knees, but my left arm was useless, so I rolled onto my back to confront him. A face loomed above me, pale as milk against the lightning-slashed sky, with eyes as black and empty as holes in a coal seam. He raised his arm a second time, to point at me.
The very air seemed to shudder. A thunderbolt screamed from the heart of a cloud. There was a blinding burst of light and then a deafening explosion. Shards of rock peppered my face, a numbing grayness closed in around me, and all was silence.
Twenty-two
I was floating dreamlessly in deep clouds of sleep. Something was wrong with my left arm, but it was not of any great importance. The light annoyed me, though. It was too bright, too insistent. It tugged at the frayed edge of memory, reminding me of something that had happened—a blinding flash, a thunderclap, a pair of eyes as black as the pits of hell.