Farrell saw him and smiled.
Donna scrambled through the hall to the sitting-room, the automatic smoking in her hands.
‘How many of them are there?’ Julie asked frantically.
‘It’s hard to tell,’ Donna said breathlessly. ‘I think I might have hit one of them.’ She crept towards the shattered front window and peered out.
Stark was no longer lying in the mud.
‘Shit,’ snapped Donna, sinking back down to the floor.
Rain was still driving through the broken window.
‘Oh God,’ gasped Julie, pointing towards the kitchen.
Donna saw it too and her eyes widened in panic.
One of the men had set fire to the kitchen curtains.
Flames were licking hungrily at the material; it was blazing fiercely. She could smell petrol.
‘Put it out,’ she screamed at Julie as another burst of fire from the UZI spattered the cottage.
Donna sucked in a deep breath and headed for the stairs, intent on getting a clearer look at what was going on outside. From a vantage point up high she would be able to see their attackers.
Julie meanwhile was filling a saucepan with water, trying to stay clear of the flaring curtains. Thick black smoke spread through the room, thousands of tiny cinders filling the air like black snow. She coughed as she felt the heat searing the air in her lungs. It made her eyes water but she stayed where she was until the saucepan was full, then tried to douse the flames. One curtain went out, extinguished by the shower of water. Julie tugged hard at the remains of it and pulled it down. The other one continued to burn. She refilled the saucepan, sweat soaking her body despite the cold wind and driving rain blasting through the smashed window.
Ryker loomed at her through the flames and she hurled the water both at him and at the fire.
He grinned. She dropped the saucepan as she saw him raise the pistol and aim at her.
He fired twice and Julie threw herself down as bullets ploughed into the kitchen table. Another hit a vase on the sideboard. It promptly disintegrated in a cloud of dust, pieces spinning in all directions.
He fired again.
Julie rolled over, finally propping herself against the back door, touching the bolts there to reassure herself that it was locked.
She almost screamed when she felt the blows raining against it.
Donna emerged on the landing, momentarily frozen, unsure what to do. She had heard the shots from downstairs, heard Julie’s shouts, but what to do? Go back downstairs or try and get a better shot at one of the bastards from up here?
She chose to move on.
The door to her left was open slightly; she could feel cold air blowing through.
Donna shoved the door open, steadying herself against the frame, the Beretta raised.
Stark was caught completely by surprise.
For one moment he looked as if he was raising his hands in surrender, then he leapt forward.
Donna got off two shots before he crashed into her.
The first missed and blasted a hole in the far wall.
The second caught Stark in the left shoulder. The bullet ripped through his deltoid muscle and pulverized part of the scapula as it exited, the impact enough to spin him almost three hundred and sixty degrees.
He yelled in pain, then crashed into Donna, both of them falling, hitting the floor with a thud that knocked the wind from her.
The Beretta flew from her hand, bounced against the wall and skidded down the stairs.
She reached for the .38 jammed into her waistband, trying to pull it free as Stark grabbed for her throat.
Donna didn’t manage to get her finger around the trigger but she did pull the weapon clear, closing her hand around it and using it as a club.
She drove it into the side of his head as hard as she could, hearing a crack as she smashed his temporal bone.
Stark fell to one side and Donna scrambled out from beneath him. He tottered drunkenly to his feet and reached inside his jacket. She saw his fingers close around the butt of a .45.
Donna fired twice.
From point-blank range the first bullet hit him in the stomach, doubling him up as it punched a hole just to the left of his navel, ploughing through intestines before lodging close to his spine.
The second hit him in the right shoulder, the impact lifting him off his feet and sending him toppling towards the head of the stairs.
He threw out a hand, clutching at empty air, then fell backwards, tumbling head over heels down the steps, finally crashing to a stop at the bottom, where he lay in a spreading pool of blood.
Downstairs, Julie looked across and saw Stark hit the floor, her attention diverted only momentarily from the blows still raining against the door.
She felt sure that, any second, the wood must splinter and the attacker would be inside.
She looked around desperately for something to defend herself with.
The tool box was lying in one corner of the room, close to the cellar hatch.
Jesus, the cellar.
That was it.
She crawled across the floor in the darkness, her body drenched in sweat, her eyes stinging from all the smoke.
She grabbed a hammer from the tool box and crawled back towards the cellar hatch. Lifting it, she peered down into the blackness below, feeling the first rung of a rickety ladder as she dangled her foot into the yawning gap.
She eased herself down a few rungs, praying it wouldn’t collapse under her.
The stench of damp that enveloped her was noxious; she tried to take short breaths. Gripping the hammer in one fist and propping the hatch up with her free hand, she crouched low so that she had about an inch gap through which she could see the back door.
The door was starting to split from its merciless battering.
One of the hinges was coming loose.
Julie gripped the hatch and waited. She almost screamed when she felt something soft touch her face.
A spider the size of her thumbnail dropped past her in the gloom, its legs brushing her cheek.
She gripped the hammer and waited.
The door was practically off its hinges now. One more blow and the attacker would be inside.
Julie swallowed hard, closing her eyes.
There was a final crash and the door, and Ryker, hurtled into the kitchen.
Upstairs, Donna heard the sound of forced entry, her eyes still fixed on the barely moving form of Stark.
Had she turned round quicker, she might have seen Kellerman advancing upon her.
Sixty-Eight
The attacks happened simultaneously.
Kellerman launched himself at Donna.
Ryker crashed into the kitchen, looking for Julie.
Donna heard a grunt as Kellerman grabbed her, pinning her arms by her sides, lifting her off her feet. She could not raise the pistol to use against him.
She found herself looking directly into his face as his arms tightened around her in a bear hug that threatened to crush her ribs.
With horror she realized he was carrying her to the top of the stairs.
Donna twisted in his grip but could not free herself.
She screamed loudly, but it was a bellow of rage not helplessness.
Kellerman grinned at her but the gesture faded instantly as Donna spat in his face, the mucus sliding down his cheek thickly like gelatinous tears. She snaked her head forward and bit hard into his nose, biting down with all her strength, ignoring his shrieks of pain, trying not to gag on the blood that filled her mouth.
He let go of her and staggered back, reaching for his gun.
She ran at him now, driving one foot up, kicking him with all her force between the legs.
He groaned and dropped to his knees, grabbing her other leg and pulling hard enough to send her flying. She hit the floor with a bone-jarring thud and lay there, momentarily dazed. Kellerman leapt on her, his weight pressing down. She jabbed two fingers into his eyes and he screamed and rolled off her, trying to rise to his feet, blinded by her attack. Her stabbing nails had torn his left upper eyelid and blood from the wound dribbled down the side of his face, some of it running across the orb itself, turning one half of his world crimson.
Donna tried to raise the .38, anxious to get a shot at him, but he knocked her hand down and the gun discharged into the floor. The thunderous retort deafened them both momentarily. He struck out again, this time with the back of his hand, catching her a blow across the face which split her top lip and sent her reeling. But she still held the gun and, as Kellerman turned on her, Donna shook her head clear and fired at him.
Luck playing a somewhat greater part in the matter than judgement, the bullet struck him in the calf, tore through the muscles there and exited, spattering the wall behind with blood and pink tissue.
He screamed and almost lost his footing as he made for the stairs.
Donna, her head spinning, tried to follow but he was halfway to the bottom before she managed to get off another shot. The heavy-grain slug powered into the wall inches above Kellerman’s head. He looked up at her, teeth gritted, his face a mask of blood from his injuries.
She saw him stop and slide an arm around Stark’s waist, carrying his companion towards the front door, both of them leaving a trail of blood behind.
Donna tasted her own blood as it ran into her mouth from the cut on her lip.
She tried to follow and almost fell down the stairs, gritting her teeth to prevent herself passing out.
She had to get to Julie.
As Ryker came careering into the kitchen, Julie threw back the cellar hatch and came hurtling forth like a maddened trap-door spider, brandishing the hammer.
So startled was he by this sudden onslaught, Ryker momentarily froze, rooted to the spot.
Julie swung the hammer with all her strength and caught him in the mouth with its gleaming head.
She heard teeth shatter under the impact, saw one of them driven through his top lip. Saw blood burst from the cut.
He reeled backwards, one smashed incisor falling from his bleeding, pulped gums.
Julie struck again, this time catching him just above the right eye, tearing the flesh. The hammer carved through his eyebrow and opened up a cut as deep as the frontal bone it cracked.
Julie spun the weapon, bringing the clawed part down on his hand as he raised his fists in defence.
The metal tore into his flesh, ripping it away, slicing effortlessly through skin and muscles, exposing a portion of the middle-finger knuckle.
Ryker ran for the shattered back door, out into the driving rain and the darkness, which suddenly seemed welcoming.
Julie stood by the back door, rain drenching her, mingling with the tears of rage and fear on her cheeks. She tasted blood and thought that it was Ryker’s, but then realized that her own face was gashed just below the left eye, she guessed by flying glass.
Panting breathlessly, she turned from the door and moved through to the hall, where Donna was trying to make her way down the stairs.
From outside, they both heard the sound of car engines.
Julie, still gripping the bloodied hammer, looked cautiously through the window by the front door.