The blood in Kate’s face fled. The presence of the werewolf leader here meant she had gotten past Simon and Malcolm. She swallowed back her fear for the two men. She drew her resolve inward and steadied her wildly beating heart.
Kate threw a crystal vial straight at Gretta’s face. The werewolf quickly lifted an arm and took most of the acid on her leather bracer. The armor began to bubble and dissolve. The alchemist rushed the monster, sword held tight, stabbing straight. Gretta slipped aside and the hardened cuirass turned the blade. A massive arm swung out and bashed Kate. She went flying into the wreckage of the barrels, her head slamming painfully against the edge. Her vision swam. Nausea and vertigo prevented her from rising. Kate let out a strangled gasp as Gretta seized her neck in a clawed hand.
“Give me the key!” came Gretta’s inhuman growl.
Kate wasn’t sure what she heard.
“The key.” The werewolf shook her in anger. “Your father’s key. Where is it?”
“She’s wearing it,” Imogen called out, still sitting in her chair. “Around her neck.”
Gretta ripped the leather bandolier from Kate’s shoulder and tossed it aside. Then she tore open the jacket and blouse and scraped sharp nails across Kate’s soft skin. With a quick snap, the werewolf tore the chain holding the gold key and held it up in front of her animalistic eyes.
Kate still couldn’t grasp why the creature was asking about the key. Or why Imogen was talking to the werewolf. Kate had hardly thought about the key in days. Gretta threw her down hard onto the floor.
The werewolf looked at Imogen. “You know its secret, yes?”
Imogen stared at the hulking monster with amazing clarity, as if she were conversing with a maid. “No. I told the pale man everything I know.”
Kate shoved herself up onto unsteady legs, grabbing her sword, which she had fallen near. The werewolf was starting to turn back just as Kate thrust the sword at Gretta’s side, now unprotected, her armor gaping in spots from splashed acid. Kate was still disoriented and so was her aim. Instead of hitting a vital area, the blade dug deep into the werewolf’s arm, piercing it all the way through to enter the torso. The point glanced off a rib and lodged tight. A single flex of Gretta’s arm snapped the sword in half. The werewolf snarled and Kate knew she wouldn’t be able to avoid the coming blow.
Suddenly, Hogarth smashed his hammer into Gretta’s spine. The beast crashed against the far wall hard enough to leave an imprint in the wooden beams before crumpling to the floor.
Gretta rose and grabbed a heavy barrel. She swung it with the force of a typhoon to club Hogarth, who tried to break the impact with the length of the hammer. His body went airborne and crashed into a wine rack, smashing bottles and spraying red wine. He dropped to the floor and didn’t rise again.
Kate was on one knee, trying to catch her breath. Penny was unconscious, slumped in a corner, blood trickling from her temple. Kate scrambled toward Imogen. Gretta seized her ankle and dragged her back, tossing her across the room. Kate’s breath left her in a rush and the world spun so that bile rose forcefully in her throat.
Kate fought one more time to stagger up on limbs that would not hold her. The room swayed sickeningly and finally she succumbed and lost her tenuous hold on consciousness and slumped to the ground. In her subsequent nightmare, she heard a terrible howl in the distance. Dark shapes streamed around her and out into the night, emptying the house, save the moans and wails of the remaining humans.
Then darkness.
Chapter Twenty-five
Simon staggered into the library, taking in the smashed furniture and gaping hole in the wall. Dead bodies lay on the floor; all the werewolves had returned to human shape. He stumbled over wreckage and pushed through the door to the wine cellar. His rubbery legs carried him down the stairs, where he saw the shattered door.
He pushed inside to a scene of silent destruction. Splintered barrels. Overturned wine racks. Smashed bottles. Pools of dark liquid seeped across the stone floor. His heart twisted when he saw an object draped over the ruin.
Simon knelt and lifted Kate’s bandolier. His hands clenched around it. Blood dripped from the wound in his arm.
“Kate!” he shouted and stood, nearly blacking out. He steadied himself. “Kate, can you hear me? Are you here?”
He climbed over the remnants of crushed barrels, searching for her form amidst the detritus. Then he heard a groan and the tinkling of a rolling bottle. He saw an arm shift from under a pile of wood and straw.
Simon scrambled over and braced himself. He managed to lift heavy oak fixtures and shoved them aside. Hogarth’s face showed bloody and swollen.
“Where is Miss Kate?” the manservant asked.
“I don’t know.” Simon helped the man sit up. “What happened here?”
“It was Gretta, sir. She came, and there was no stopping her. We tried, sir. Miss Kate, Miss Carter, and I fought.”