Wings of Fire - Charles Todd [129]
Rutledge, expecting it, dodged, but not quite fast enough. His head, jerked back by Cormac’s stiff forearm, hit the wall with a loud crack, and as light flashed behind his eyes, Cor-mac moved in to follow up with a blow that had the full force of his shoulder behind it.
Rutledge felt his knees buckle and his senses reel under the impact. He was nearly unconscious, Hamish fiercely yelling at him to hold on, when the third and final blow brought down a pall of blackness.
27
He awoke to block nothingness, lashed out in the primeval primeval fear of blindness, and realized suddenly that the lamp had been taken away and he was alone. A flash of lightning told him that he was in Stephen’s room, where Cormac had left him. He moved gingerly, and everything worked.
Shaking his head to clear it, Rutledge felt a wave of dizziness that threatened to send him back to his knees. Using the table’s edge to pull himself to his feet, he leaned on his hands for precious seconds, willing himself into full control of his senses again. The amazing thing, he told himself, dazed still, was that he was alive.
Rutledge stumbled across the room and in the next flash of light, saw his way through the door. Thunder rattled the windows behind him.
The passage was black but there was still a lamp in the drawing room to guide him down the stairs. He ran across the hall and looked through its door.
The portrait was there, but Cormac had gone.
Where had the man hidden his car? Or had he come by boat, as Rutledge had anticipated. It was the most silent, the most secretive means of coming and going unseen. But was it still there? The boat?
Swearing as the rising wind caught the big door when he opened it, Rutledge went out into the night, down the steps, towards the strand. Ahead of him was Cormac, moving through the darkness. Which meant that he, Rutledge, couldn’t have been unconscious very long.
Rutledge called out to him, shouting his name.
Cormac turned and lifted an arm mockingly.
“He wants you to come after him! That’s why he didna’ finish it in the house!” Hamish exclaimed. “Will you no’ stop and think, man!”
Rutledge said nothing, his eyes straining to follow the figure ahead of him. But Cormac was no longer taking the path to the beach; he’d veered off towards the headland, picking up his pace. Swearing again, Rutledge plowed on, the wind tearing at his face and his coat, pushing him sideways. His head seemed to split open with the pounding pace he’d set, but he clenched his teeth and ignored it.
At the headland, where it curved to its highest point, Cormac turned. In the lightning, his pale hair blowing in the wind, his shirt white against the black clouds beyond, he seemed to glow with malevolence.
“Lucifer—!” Hamish warned.
Rutledge saved his breath and ran on until he was within a few yards of the other man.
“The way it will look,” Cormac yelled, “you broke under the strain tonight. Unable to sleep, disoriented, you came out here to the headland to watch the storm, and in a wild moment of self-doubt, you went over the edge. Thunder brought back the guns, and guilt, and all the nightmares.”
“Did you kill Olivia? Or did she choose her own death?”
“Ah, Olivia. She mesmerizes you as Rosamund mesmerized me. I meant what I told her the weekend before. That I wouldn’t hesitate to tell London that she and Nicholas were lovers. The Lucifer poems created quite a stir. And I had the feeling another collection was coming out. That she hadn’t finished with me. I wasn’t sure I could ruin O. A. Manning, but I knew how to kill Olivia Marlowe.”
“How did she answer you?”
“She laughed in my face and said that she might welcome the darkness, if it brought me harm. And promised to burn any new poems. She’s been a sword in my flesh since I was twelve. We’ve been bound together like lovers, by the bonds of a mutual fear. But the tide’s turning and I have to go.” Then he said very distinctly, “They were not quite dead when I slipped into the house that night. I think she must have known I was there—”
The wind was