“...The only way to the house is this path...” Plus innumerable paths for horses. Was it a slip? Or just the usual imprecise way people talked? No doubt what she meant was that this was the only footpath. Which of course was what they would be expected to use.
Nick decided to be extra careful where he put his feet. As for whatever may be hidden behind the trees, he would have to rely on the darkness and those same trees to keep him from presenting too obvious a target. He jabbed the cane in front of him like a blind man. Even Mirella seemed to be having some difficulty in finding her way.
“It’s even darker than usual tonight,” she murmured. “Because it’s later, I suppose.” And she squeezed his fingers lightly.
A gnarled tree loomed up squarely in their path. To the left of it was a narrow track and then another tree with sprawling roots; to its right there was a space, a clump of thick bush, then another space. Mirella paused hesitantly.
“I think it must be the center track,” she said thoughtfully. “Not that it makes much difference — they all go in the same general direction. But only one of them is the real path, and we may as well take that. Wait here for a moment.” She pressed his hand. “I will take a look on this side — we should be able to see their light from here.” She glided away from him in the darkness and he could hear the soft rustle of leaves and the crackle of tiny twigs beneath her feet.
Then there was silence. He waited.
After a minute her voice came back to him as clearly as if she had been standing beside him. It sounded puzzled.
“I see nothing,” she called. “I cannot understand it. I know we should be able to see the light by now. Nicholas, you take the other path — the one to the right — while I look a little further up this one. But don’t go far, please. And talk to me, so that I don’t lose you.”
“All right,” he said. “I’ll take a look.” He heard the rustle of leaves again and shuffled his feet where he stood so that she might think he was moving. “But be careful, now.” And you too, Carter, he told himself.
He heard a little laugh. “Of what? We are bound to find the way before too long.”
“If not,” he said cheerfully, starting to follow her and leaving the other tracks severely alone, “we can always give up the whole thing and go back into town. I’m sure we’ll find something to do there.”
A little chuckle floated back to him, and then a gasp as her foot struck something and she stumbled. He pushed aside a low-hanging branch and saw a dim shape pitching forward and trying to regain balance by thrusting out its leg and clutching at the nearest tree. The muted rustle of twigs suddenly became a cracking, tearing sound, and even as he leapt forward to grab her falling figure she screamed “No— No— Rufus! Oh, my God! Help!” Nick’s fingers had no more than touched the softness of her stockinged ankle when the ankle was gone and he was groping uselessly at the edge of a jagged pit and he heard an awful thudding sound. Mirella started screaming like a soul in hell and then the scream became an awful bubbling sound that suddenly stopped and left nothing but the rustle of leaves and the sound of falling twigs.
He fell to his knees and groped at the blackness in front of him. He knew without having to think about it that there was nothing he could do and that it was insane for him to stay in this dark, hideous place for one moment longer, but he had to see; he had to know for sure. The pencil flashlight came out of his pocket and jabbed its light into the pit below.
Mirella lay face downward six feet below, her arms outstretched, her hands still clutching broken twigs, her thick black hair tossed to one side... But it was wrong to say that she was lying down. Her lovely, twisted body hung inches above the floor of the dreadful pit, impaled on two wickedly pointed spikes that protruded from her back. One had thrust its way through her abdomen; the other through her lungs. The pit was lined with spikes; she had needed only two.
He knew for sure. She was dead, and horribly dead. It had been quick, but she had felt it. God, how she had felt it! He doused the tiny fight and heard her terrified scream echoing in his ears. Its sound was so overwhelming that he almost missed the other sound. He heard the distant rustling only when he saw the will-o’-the-wisp flicker of a light coming through the trees beyond the pit. A deep voice called out — “Mirella? Mirella?”
Nick thrust the flashlight into his pocket and pulled off his shoes. Right pocket, one; left pocket, the other. He backed silently away from the pit and melted into the cover of a tangled thicket. A second light flicked on and came slowly toward the death hole. It struck him that one animal scream was very much like another, especially from a distance. And all the flickering lights were coming from afar. Perhaps the hunters did not know which victim they had so cruelly caught. Again he waited, his mind thrusting painful questions at him. Had she known where she was leading him, and had she made a terrible mistake — for her? Or had these fiends made use of her, played some awful trick, forcing her to innocently fall into a frightful trap they’d meant for him?
The flickering lights came closer. He imagined her lovely, living body in his mind and felt its passionate embrace, and a wave of agony washed over him.
“Goodbye, Mirella,” he whispered to the night, and raised his cane.
The poisonous sliver flew silently through the air toward the nearest of the lights. The light arced downward, and he heard a startled curse. A patch of blackness swayed and fell. Nick fired again. A muffled gasp. The second light blinked out.
For a few moments there was nothing but the darkness and the silence, and then the woods became alive with lights and sounds.
Nick’s instinct screamed to him to run back down the path to the waiting car and get the hell away, but his mind told him to wait. He let the next light dip into the pit before he fired again, and heard an unfamiliar, grating voice cry out: “Oh! God! It is Mirella in the pit! Why do you fools lie there staring...?” The voice broke off, and when it came again it was a whisper packed with maniacal hatred. “The swine. The swine. The swine. Get him! You, you! To the road. He cannot be far away.”
Oh, I’m not far away, Nick thought grimly, and he fired. The grating voice ended in a satisfying scream. Voices babbled, and shushed themselves, and drifted apart in the darkness carrying their small lights with them.
Nick crouched back in his thicket and followed the moving lights with his poison-dart cane as if he were a customer at a shooting gallery. Ping-pssst! Another light went out.
A machine gun chattered in the night, raking the trees too goddamn close to where he was. He darted down the path in his stockinged feet and fired once more. No cry, no falling fight. He cursed and aimed again. Pow! A yelp. Good. He moved further down the path and brushed against a broken bough. A yell of triumph, damn their souls! and a shot ripped past his ear. The second tore through the cloth on his shoulder and left a searing pain. He ran for several zigzag yards and threw himself down flat, holding in his mind the memory of where their shots had come from.
Silence again. No flickering lights. Then footsteps crackling over twigs. He fired in their direction and enjoyed the gargling sound that followed. More rustling footsteps and a whispered consultation. His fingers itched to reach for Wilhelmina, to pump her explosive venom at them and make them feel his hatred, but he made himself sidle quietly down the rough path with his silent killer at the ready. One shot from him, and they would have him. But the stinging darts would not give him away.
Footsteps followed close behind him. He froze into the shadows and let two dark figures come toward him, jabbing their flashlights into the air for seconds and then dousing them. One, he saw, was holding the machine gun and the other a revolver. Miraculously, the stabbing flashlights missed him. The two men passed within inches and the one nearest to him brushed his sleeve and then stopped several feet away and swung around toward Nick with a whisper to his comrade. The second man turned and they both came back toward him with their weapons raised.