Chapter Thirty-Six

Thomas was perceived as the most powerful of the Family, and he was the prime target for their attack. Ryan leveled the SIG-Sauer and fired five rounds, each bullet striking home at the center of the black-clad chest, as a head shot was chancy in such poor light. A ripple of sound erupted from the Uzi, and the vampire staggered back under the punching force of the 9 mm rounds.
Jak shot three times at the woman, two of his bullets hitting her in the upper arm and shoulder, spinning her. But none of them struck in vital parts.
Elric swung his cloak, extinguishing one of the lights, and darted for the farthest entrance. Ryan hesitated for a moment, then the lithe figure was gone.
Thomas was steadying himself against the wall, blood streaming down his arm over his hand.
"Bastards," he hissed, pointing at them with his unbloodied hand. "You'll all"
Ryan shot him twice more, aiming at the knees, sending the giant figure toppling to the dusty floor. As he fell he staggered in front of Mary, who snatched at her moment. She picked up Dean's unconscious body and ran at the three invaders, knocking Jak out of her way with a backhanded blow that sent him falling to his right, his Colt Python exploding uselessly, the round sparking off a distant wall.
Ryan tried to grab at her, but she was too fast and too strong, seeming hardly affected by her wounds, leaving him gripping a handful of torn black cloth. She elbowed J.B. aside and rushed away along the passage toward the stairs.
"Let her go. Others can take her. Get Thomas. Quick!" Ryan bolstered his warm SIG-Sauer and beckoned to J.B. to hurry and help him.
They'd rehearsed the next few seconds in the bedroom.
J.B. took out the small thermite bomb that was shrouded in a plastic tube. He'd carefully prepared the mixture of one part magnesium to four parts of the powdered barium, all that they had left of the ingredients after their adventures in the jungle. Now he handed it to Ryan, simultaneously reaching for a self-light from another pocket.
He'd primed the bomb by carefully opening a half dozen spare rounds of ammo, and it was ready to fire.
If it worked.
But Thomas Cornelius wasn't prepared to go gently into the good night. He was already trying to sit up, and the cascading flow of blood from his shattered chest was already easing. His eyes were pits of crimson in the dim glow from the last of the lamps, and he hissed furiously at them, groping unsteadily toward Ryan's face with his long right arm.
"Done for now," he crowed. "The boy and all of you are bastard done for."
He threw his head back to laugh, and Ryan seized the moment, jamming the homemade bomb in between the gaping jaws. Thomas reacted by trying to bite off Ryan's fingers, but the one-eyed man was too quick this time.
"Light it," he gasped.
The tiny red-orange flame flickered into life, and J.B. lowered it toward the pinched end of the tube.
For three or four breath-snatching moments, nothing at all happened.
Thomas punched out at Ryan, catching him a glancing blow on the shoulder. The pain was considerable, and the force of it knocked the one-eyed man on his back, the SIG-Sauer jolting from his hand into a shadowed corner of the chamber.
With a maniac roar of triumph the white-skinned vampire reached into his sharp-toothed mouth, ready to pull out whatever it was jammed in there.
And the thermite ignited.
Ryan and J.B. tried to shield their eyes from the dazzling incandescent glow that began to burn, deep between Thomas Cornelius's iron jaws.
"Out!" Ryan yelled, his voice cracking.
The huge man began to thrash around on the floor, arms and legs flailing in the white agony from the thermite. A fearsome bubbling scream surged from his tortured lungs.
The mutie vampire had no chance of removing the bomb from his mouth, his breath sucking the flames and the fumes into his chest.
At the angle of the corridor, right on the heels of J.B. and Jak, Ryan glanced behind him.
It was a scene from the worst imaginings of Hades.
Thomas was rolling around, his back arched in a spine-cracking curve. The thermite had burned its way through his throat, up past the soft palate, attacking the base of the brain and the spinal column. His eyes were melted, and his whole face had fallen into the silver-bright flames. Despite the appalling injury, the man still clung to a fragment of life.
But, even as Ryan stared with horrified fascination at the last throes, the body jerked twice, then lay still, while molten brains and skull dribbled over the floor and the bomb continued its work of totally destroying the man's head.
"Come on, Ryan!" J.B. yelled from the top of the cellar stairs.
"He's done!" Ryan called as he made his way through the basement of the house. "Nobody could rise again from that. I mean nobody."
Despite the promising start to their plan, everything else had gone sorely wrong.
Doc was sitting up, rubbing at a bump on his cheek that was weeping crimson. And Mildred was swaying from side to side, doubled over, clutching her stomach.
"What?" Ryan said.
"Woman was like a fury uncontained, a Valkyrie in strength and glory."
"Where? And where's Krysty?"
Mildred straightened, a thread of vomit trickling down her chin. "Went after Mary. She had Dean in her arms. Went toward the stairs. Go, Ryan!"
"Thomas is dead. Permanent. Elric fled up another passage. Could be loose anywhere in the house. Remember our plan and watch yourselves. Jak, stay with them. J.B., come with me. All take greatest care."
He had used the pause to reload the SIG-Sauer, noticing the Armorer doing the same to the Uzi.
Now they ran together, up the stairs, pausing on the second-floor landing to listen for any sound. But the Cornelius mansion was oddly silent.
"Higher?" J.B. said, panting from the exertion.
"Must be. In the attics. Just hope that we aren't going to be too late."


KRYSTY HAD MANAGED a shot at Mary as the white-haired woman burst up the stairs and out of the cellar door, Dean's unconscious body clasped to her breast. But the genetic mutie had been too quick, blood-filled eyes glaring wildly at her enemies, knocking Doc and Mildred out of the way with a kick and a punch, spitting at Krysty, then running away at inhuman speed toward the big central staircase.
Krysty had her Smith amp; Wesson 640 drawn, snapping off two bullets at the fleeing figure's legs, missing both times. She didn't dare to risk a body or head shot in case she hit Dean, lolling helplessly in Mary's grip.
"Stop and let him go!"
"Fuck a dead hog, norm slut! Nothing can stop us. Nothing! We're made to live forever!"
Mary paused at the door to the top floor, fumbling with the handle, screaming in sudden anger and ripping the brass lock out of the frame, throwing it behind her, making Krysty duck as it sliced by her.
"Stand and fight, you cowardly, murderous, raping bitch!" Krysty screamed.
For a moment Mary seemed to hesitate, then she vanished up the last flight of stairs.
Krysty was right at her heels, gripping the short-barreled pistol, knowing she had only two bullets left.
She raced up the stairs, stopping dead when she saw that Mary had turned and laid the boy behind her, standing and waiting for Krysty, beckoning to her.
"I heard you, norm," she said, smiling gently. "Murderous and raping" She laughed. "Won't argue there, Krysty. But not cowardly. Oh, no, not cowardly. You want the male child, then come and fight me for him. Beat me and he's yours. Lose and you die with him."
Krysty picked her way carefully until she was less than three yards from Mary, noting that she was topped by a couple of inches. And she knew the supernormal power and strength of the whole family.
"Gaia, help me," she whispered, closing her eyes for a moment. "Grant me again the power of the Earth Mother to fight for good against evil. Give me the power."
Krysty knew from previous experience that, on rare occasions, she could draw on the secret mutie powers inherited from her mother, Sonja, though to use it always took a terrible toll on her own health.
"Prayers are futile, slut," Mary hissed. "Pagan superstition. Fight me or die." She laughed again. "Fight me and die."
Ryan and J.B. were standing on the second-floor landing when they heard that manic laugh, echoing from room to room throughout the house.
"Up," Ryan said, leading the way.
Krysty could never tell how the power entered her body, but she could feel it, flooding like liquid fire through the arteries, the veins, along every tiny capillary.
She opened and closed her fingers, rejoicing in the surge of strength.
"Die, bitch," she said, closing with the vampire.
Mary hadn't a shred of doubt what the outcome would be. During her unnaturally long life she'd killed, with her bare hands, dozens of times. There was no difference to her in breaking the neck of a full-grown man or a newborn baby. And the redhead would just be another corpse on the road.
Despite the Earth power, Krysty knew that this wasn't going to be easy. She had to use speed, intelligence and cunning, as well as strength, and the faster and sooner, the better.
As Mary reached for her, ready to drag Krysty into a lethal embrace, she ducked and kicked out as hard as she could with her left leg, remaining perfectly balanced, striking the vampire in the center of her right knee. The chiseled silver point of the elegant boot smashed the delicate joint into shards of splintered bone and torn cartilage.
Mary cried out in pain, thin and high, like a stallion under a thin-bladed gelding knife. She toppled sideways, tripping over the unconscious boy, falling full length on the wooden floor, raising a choking cloud of dust.
She rolled over, sprawling by the legs of a squat, immensely heavy marble-topped table.
Ryan and J.B. were on the top landing when they heard the piercing scream and the thunderous crash.
They stopped for a moment, checking their bearings. "Didn't sound like Krysty," J.B. said.
"No," Ryan agreed.
Krysty took in a long, deep breath, looking at her fallen enemy, feeling no shred of pity. "This is for all the nameless, faceless dead," she said quietly.
She saw a movement out of the corner of her eye in the filthy attic, but she guessed it was only a rat and ignored it, focusing all her power on the helpless vampire.
Mary was rolling from side to side, clutching her ruined knee, blood seeping from her mouth where she'd bitten through the tip of her tongue.
Krysty finished the job with calm efficiency, picking the spot and kicking out again. The boot cracked into the small of the woman's back, snapping her spine, cutting the nerve highways to arms and legs. She flopped back helpless on her back, staring up at her slayer.
The red-haired beauty reached for the massive table with her left hand, pulling at it, tilting it effortlessly onto two legs so that it hung over the doomed vampire like a great stone.
"Goodbye," Krysty said.
Ryan and J.B. arrived at the top of the final flight of stairs, blasters drawn, just in time to see the last act of the murderous drama.
The table tipped over, and the great slab of marble that was its top landed flush on Mary Cornelius's skull, crushing it to a grue of blood, brains and powdery bone. The noise in the attic was almost indescribable, like a mighty apple being squashed by a giant's boot heel.
"You used the power, lover," Ryan said. "Quick, come down before you pass out."
Krysty shook her head, the fiery hair tumbling loose and free across her shoulders. She smiled at Ryan. "No need. Don't know why, love, but this time the power came and now it's gone, and it hasn't harmed me. I feel terrific."
"Where's Dean?" J.B. asked, staring around the dark caverns of the attic.
"Just over there by" Krysty stopped, pointing into a black space. "He was, just before."
"Well, he's not now," Ryan said grimly.