‘Fuck fuck fuck!’ she shouted – pure rage, pure hopelessness, the most defined and lucid moment of her life so close to its end.
The door banged against the wall. Footsteps. She rolled towards the sound and screamed, but the thing stayed silent. The fury tripped over her and struck the ground head first, thrashing like a landed fish for a few seconds as Holly scrambled aside, kicking against it, pushing against the floor until she sat against the wall and the gun was by her side. She grabbed it up and held it in both hands, and then the fury turned to face her.
Sugg. Their chef. A calm, quiet man, he’d spent most of his spare time birdwatching in the mountains above them. Now he looked relatively untouched apart from a terrible bite on his left hand. But Holly knew there was nothing at all human about him, and she shot him in the neck. He fell back, lifted himself again, and she fired into his head. This time he lay still.
Panting as she tried to retain consciousness, Holly realised that the satphone was still ringing in her pocket. ‘Oh Vic, for fuck’s sake,’ she breathed. As she plucked out the phone she heard several sets of running footsteps.
Moira must have released more than three furies.
Holly propped the phone between her knees and aimed along the corridor, back the way she had come. How many bullets?
The first person around the corner was Drake. He paused, took in the situation, then ran on. Moira came behind him, then several more Gaians. They were armed, sweating, grim-faced, and Holly thought they had been in a fight.
She did not lower the gun.
‘Take one more fucking step,’ she said, voice husky with threat.
Drake raised his crossbow and fired in one fluid movement. From behind him three more bolts blurred along the corridor.
Holly did not even have time to close her eyes before the projectiles struck home.
The fury staggered three more steps through the doorway, bolts protruding from her throat and face. Her mouth worked, and a high keening emerged, something like the strange hooting Holly had heard before. The woman who had been Sam – Coldbrook’s accountant, who had famously arrived at their last Halloween bash dressed as Carrie, complete with a drenching of fake blood – fell close enough for Holly to touch.
‘Any more?’ Drake asked.
Holly sat back against the wall and looked at him from under drooping eyelids. ‘Ask Moira,’ she said. And then they came close and she blacked out, allowing unconsciousness to claim her now that, perhaps, she was safe.
When Holly came to, Drake’s wife Paloma was kneeling beside her, tending her wound, frowning in concentration.
Holly hissed in pain and Paloma glanced up, obviously surprised that she was conscious.
‘Sorry,’ the tall woman said.
‘Right.’ Holly looked down at the gun in her hand. The phone between her knees had stopped ringing. She wondered if she was dreaming this, living a moment that never was as she sank deeper towards death.
‘Do I need to take your weapon?’ Drake asked. He was standing beyond Holly’s feet, between her and the huddled shapes of two dead furies.
‘Yeah. Probably. Fucker.’
Paloma grunted, something noncommittal and impatient.
‘I have to . . . apologise,’ Drake said. He squatted in front of her, coming down to her level. ‘Moira was meant to tie you up, that’s all. When she came back to me she was mortified that—’
‘That she thought she’d killed me?’
‘Moira is in awe of you. And a little scared of you.’ Drake shrugged. ‘We all are.’
His wife unfolded a paper sachet and spread something on the knife wound, and Holly screeched at the sudden shattering pain. Paloma held her hand and squeezed softly, and then the pain faded as quickly as it had arrived.
‘It’ll settle soon,’ Paloma said. ‘The wound isn’t too deep, and I don’t think it’s damaged anything important.’
‘Other than me,’ Holly said.