The Edinburgh Dead - Brian Ruckley [128]
Ruthven struggled to get past Quire to the doorway, trying to barge him aside. Quire fell backwards, out into the passage, Ruthven on top of him. The barrel came down and broke against the frame of the door, erupting into its constituent parts and releasing a great gush of stinking liquid and the corpse it contained.
Ruthven flailed atop Quire. The lamp went from his hand and burst against the wall of the passage, its oil taking light and burning over the bricks.
Quire cried out and threw Ruthven off him. The naked man was flinging aside the sundered staves of the barrel, dragging at the corpse that had fallen from it, all to clear a path out and into the passageway.
Ruthven rolled and ran for the stairs. Quire went after him, a stride or two behind, his useless pistol still clutched in his right hand. The dancing light of the burning oil picked out the blade of Ruthven’s discarded cane-sword, lying on the ground at the foot of the stairs. Quire snatched it up, and paused, just for a moment, to look back. The creature came out into the passageway, stepping over the outstretched leg of the corpse. As it did so, the vile slick of fluid that had vomited out of the barrel reached the patch of flame-crowned oil.
Quire threw his arm across his face as blinding light and a great fiery howl burst forth. A shooting sheet of flame raced back into the room, flooded around the naked man. Who ignored it entirely and ran at Quire.
Quire sprinted up the stairs into the hallway. He could hear Ruthven pounding up the main stairs.
“Ruthven,” he shouted, but his voice was all but drowned out by a booming explosion down in the cellar that shook the floor and almost made him lose his footing. A blast of hot air and flaming embers blew out of the mouth of the stairwell, and he backed away.
The hulking form of his pursuer came reeling out into the hall, patches of thick, burning ooze adhering to its back. It crashed into the opposite wall. It was between Quire and the kitchens. He might have been able to reach the massive front door of the house, but if it was locked, or if he was slow in getting it open, he would be pinned there. He followed Ruthven, up into the heights.
To the very top of the stairs, beneath the glass ceiling of the skylight and the starry sky beyond it. Ruthven threw himself at Quire, rushing from a room off to one side, pinning his sword arm against him, scrabbling for a hold around his neck. Trying, Quire realised at once, to throw or tumble him back down the steps into the path of the creature he could hear thundering up behind him.
It was a desperate last hope on Ruthven’s part, for strong as he was, he was no match to Quire’s solid bulk and breadth. Quire cracked his pistol against the side of Ruthven’s head, opening up a messy gash across his temple. He raked a heel down the man’s shin and as he wailed, Quire shrugged, lifted and turned him about. He hit him again in the head, and Ruthven’s hands came loose. Quire threw him off, and back into the arms of the naked brute that came rushing up to catch him.
Quire backed up, sword at the ready, thinking for a moment that he would now face the two of them, and no doubt die. But the dead man was not saving Ruthven. It seized him by his upper arms, and held him up high as it advanced, and shook him. Terribly, like a furious child punishing a rag doll. Ruthven’s head flailed about. He screamed. He was swung against the wall, once, twice.
The naked monster, its back still afire here and there, the stink of its skin and flesh burning filling the air, looked at Quire and advanced on him. It still held Ruthven with one hand, holding him up as easily as if he were weightless. Ruthven hung limp and unmoving in that grip, his feet dragging over the floorboards. But his eyes were open, and alive, and Quire saw the horror and terror in them.
Quire edged himself backwards along the landing. He had never in his life used a rapier, such as that he now held, but he had