Blood Trust - Eric van Lustbader [158]
Liridona was in the back room, caged like an animal, on her hands and knees because there was no room to stand. Alli rattled the door, but it was padlocked.
“Edon sent me,” she said to the terrified girl. “Where’s the key?”
When Liridona failed to answer, Alli shouted, “Stand back!” Then she shot off the padlock, opened the door, and brought Liridona out.
“Do you speak English?”
When Liridona nodded, she said, “My name is Alli. Edon sent me.”
“Edon is alive?”
“Alive and well,” Alli assured her. “Now it’s time to get you out of here.”
“But how?”
A good question. Thatë said there was only one entrance. But Vasily was there and the guards would be clogging the entrance, putting out the fire. What to do?
“Where do the guards sleep?”
“We’re not allowed to go—”
“Quickly, now!” Alli commanded her out of her terror-induced stupor. “Show me the way!”
Liridona stumbled down the hall, Alli at her back, guarding her like a lion with its cub.
* * *
JACK, COVERED in blood, heaved the attack dog’s corpse off him and rose shakily to his feet.
“Are you all right?” Annika said.
“I should be asking you that.” He brushed by her into the room. “Good God.”
Arian Xhafa was on the floor, his naked back a mass of bleeding wounds. His fingers were curling and uncurling spastically and he was trying to get up on his hands and knees.
Jack walked toward him. “What the hell did you do to him?”
“What he did to me.” Annika was right beside him.
He watched Xhafa crawling his way toward the chair.
“Only worse.”
“Only worse,” she affirmed.
Jack glanced at her. “Is it over now?”
Her carnelian eyes were hard and, also, he thought, a bit sad.
“You know better than that.”
Behind her, Xhafa, hands on the chair’s arms, pulled himself up.
“I only counted five guards,” he said. “And where is the Syrian?”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Xhafa’s right hand slide beneath the chair’s cushion. In an instant, he had whipped around, a 9mm in his hand. Pushing Annika, Jack squeezed off two shots. One passed through Xhafa’s neck, the second took off the back of his head.
Annika did not turn around. Instead, she stared into Jack’s eyes. “All that work,” she said, “for nothing.”
Was she serious or being facetious? That was the thing about Annika. You could never be sure.
* * *
LIRIDONA LED Alli into a warren of well-furnished, almost opulent rooms. She crossed the floor and opened one of the windows. This was the side where the ivy grew thick against the wall.
Liridona, at her shoulder, looked wide-eyed. “What are you doing?”
“Getting out of here.”
“I can’t.” Liridona shook her head wildly. “I’m afraid of heights.”
“We have no choice. This is the only way out.”
Liridona shrank back. “No.”
“Look.” Alli pointed to the streetlight that rose up at the rear corner of the house. “All we have to do is get over there and it will give us an easy way down.”
“I can’t. Please.”
“I won’t let you die here.” Alli grabbed her. “Put your arms around me.” She felt the girl’s rail-thin body as she climbed onto her back. “Now when I swing out, wrap your legs around me, too.”
Holding on to the window sash, Alli put one leg over the sill, and grabbed for the nearest vine before realizing that their combined weight was too much for her.
Then she felt Emma close beside her.
“Use your fingers and your toes.”
Alli nodded. Quickly, she untied her boots, kicked them off, and dropped them out the window. Then she swung her leg out again, this time using her toes as well as her fingers to hold on to the ivy where the vines were thickest.
Behind her, Liridona sounded like she was praying. Across they went, moving laterally, hand over hand toward the streetlight. After three handholds, Alli could feel the weight trying to drag them off the vine. Then she heard a brief ripping, as