Blood Trust - Eric van Lustbader [40]
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ALLI, SHIVERING with the chill rain and the tsunami of adrenaline racing through her, lay in the shelter of the copse of pitch pines, to give Rudy less of a target. There was no use running. He had a gun and she didn’t. The minute she turned tail he would spot her and bring her down. Better to wait here and think of how to avoid being found.
And then, as she heard him rooting around in the fringes of the evergreens, she realized her error. She was thinking like a rat or a mouse—like the prey. She forced herself to forget that Rudy was armed. How would she deal with him? It was up to her, she knew. Even if Jack picked up the voice mail right away, who knew where he was and how fast he could get here? No, she couldn’t—she shouldn’t!—count on him. It was up to her to stop Rudy.
The obtrusion of a root caused her to shift her position. Rolling over, she found herself momentarily looking up into the webbed branches of the pitch pines. That’s when the idea came to her. Rudy was drawing ever nearer. Scrambling to her feet, she grabbed hold of the lowest solid-looking branch and swung up. Though their wood was soft, pitch pines were easy climbs, with plenty of long, spreading branches. Carefully, she moved upward until she sat on a thick, nearly horizontal branch perhaps fifteen feet above the carpet of needles. A quick glance above her head convinced her that there was no point in climbing higher.
Staring at the roughly circular area below her, she waited for Rudy. Not the prey now—the hunter.
Soon enough, she heard him picking his way through the underbrush. He certainly was making no effort to be quiet, and when he came into view she realized why. In his left hand he held the .38 she had lost. His own .38 was in his right. He knew she was unarmed; he had no need to be discreet.
She knew she had to time this right; she wouldn’t have a second chance. She bolstered her courage with the belief that her small size would work in her favor. As he came under her perch, she slid off and fell with legs spread. Landing on his shoulder, she clamped her thighs tight around either side of his head.
He staggered with the shock and the unexpected weight, but instinct took over instantaneously. He raised both weapons, firing them blindly. Alli knocked them sideways, then reached down to his face. The best wound is a new wound, she thought, as she attacked his nostril again, inflicting such pain that he roared and tried to use the .38s as cudgels, battering them blindly against her thighs and hips.
But she had got her grip and wasn’t going to let go. His head raised up in order to lessen the pain, but all this did was give her finger easier access. As she plunged it in all the way, his eyes rolled up, his left knee gave out, and he toppled over. He swung out wildly as he fell, the side of the gun barrel in his right hand slamming into her ribs, knocking the breath out of her. She tumbled off him, lost her hold on his nostril, and fell heavily to the ground.
On hands and knees, bleeding profusely from his nose, Rudy crabbed his way after her. He was almost upon her when she grabbed a broken branch. It was old and rotten, but it would have to do. She swung it in a shallow arc into his left knee. Rudy screamed, grabbing for the agonized joint. Alli snatched up the .38 he had let go of and, reversing it, brought the heavy butt down on his temple once, twice, three times.
It was some moments before she realized that Rudy had stopped moving. She stared down at his ugly face. Blood still oozed from his nose, and a thick dribble of it stained one corner of his mouth. Without thinking, she took his own .38 and lay it beside Conlon’s. The two weapons looked incongruous on their bed of rough, brown needles, as if they were now without will, without a reason to exist. She wished they would dissolve into the earth.
Staring into Rudy