With a tremendous effort she pulled herself to one side. There was a searing pain in her calf as the knife struck a glancing blow. Without pausing, she tumbled headfirst off the roof of the roomblock. Landing in a pile of sand, she scrambled to her feet and ran into the protective shadow of the first-floor blocks. She was aware that she whimpered as she moved. Her leg throbbed, and she could feel the wet gush of blood running down around her ankle.
From behind came a heavy thump, as of a large body leaping to the ground. She ducked into the doorway of the nearest room, then half ran, half limped through a series of galleries to a small, dark chamber. Clouds had temporarily veiled the moon, but she knew that beyond this chamber lay the central plaza. She knelt in the close darkness, thinking furiously. A rancid smell of blood filled her nostrils: she must have been cut far deeper than she thought.
A brief running patter brought her to her feet. Any minute, and the moon would reappear from behind the clouds. It would be the work of thirty seconds to follow the trail of blood directly to her. And then, the thick smell of blood would be replaced by the wonderful, terrible, scent of flowers.
As if on cue, a ghostly aura crept across the walls of the room as moonlight slanted once again into the city. Nora tensed herself for what would be her final run across the plaza to the retaining wall. Deep down, she was well aware that she could never make it in time. But she could not bear to sit in this room, cornered like a rat, awaiting a brief, brutal end.
She took a deep breath, then another. Then she swivelled to face the doorway leading out of the room.
And froze.
In the far corner, illuminated by the sepulchral moonlight, lay Luigi Bonarotti. His glazed eyes were wide open in a sightless stare. In the dim light, he seemed bathed in an even deeper shadow of blood. Nora took in the outrageous, horrifying details: fingers cut off, unbooted feet torn away, head partially scalped. She fell to her knees and covered her mouth, gagging.
As if from a great distance, she heard the skinwalker moving in the alley behind the roomblocks.
She sat up quickly, her gaze returning to Bonarotti. There, still holstered around his waist, was the monstrous gun.
She leaped for it, fumbled with the catch, and pulled it from the holster. A .44 magnum Super Blackhawk, deadly as hell. She wiped the bloody grip on her jeans, then scurried back against the wall as another footstep sounded, closer.
With terrible speed, the skinwalker appeared in the doorway, thick pelt fluttering. The white spots along its midriff glowed blue in the moonlight, and red angry eyes stared at her from behind the slits in the buckskin mask.
For an instant, it eyed Nora silently. Then, with a low growl, it sprang forward.
In the confines of the small adobe room, the blast of the .44 was deafening. She closed her eyes against the blinding flash, letting her elbows and wrists absorb the mighty kick. There was a frenzied howl. Squeezing her eyes shut, she fired a second time at the sound. Ears ringing, she scrambled in the direction of the doorway, then tripped and fell sprawling out into the central plaza. Quickly, she rolled onto her back and pointed the gun toward the doorway. The skinwalker was framed within it, crouching, arms gripping its midriff. She could hear fluid pattering to the ground as terrible wounds in its chest and stomach overloaded the thick pelt with blood. It straightened, saw her, and leaped with a snarl of rage and hatred. She fired a third time directly into the mask and the force of the massive bullet stopped the figure in mid-air, jerking the head back, whirling the body sharply to one side. Raising herself to one knee, Nora fired again, then again, the mask disintegrating into wet shreds. The smell of blood and cordite filled the air. The skinwalker thrashed heavily in the dust, whirling and jerking in a frenzied dance, bone and matter glowing in the moonlight, small jets of arterial blood rising in an erratic cadence, a low furious cry gurgling in its throat. But still Nora pulled the trigger, again and again and again, the hammer falling on empty chambers with a click that could not be heard above her own cries.
And then, after a long time, came silence. Painfully, Nora raised herself to her feet. She took two steps toward the retaining wall, faltered, stepped forward again. Then she sank back to the ground, laying the gun aside. It was over.
There, at the stone doorstep of the ruined city, she wept silently.
67
AFTER SEVERAL MINUTES, NORA ONCE again rose unsteadily to her feet. The valley of Quivira lay bathed in a faint silver light. Dark jewels winked and played across the dappled surface of the quickly flowing river. Behind her, the bulk of the ancient city watched in stony silence.
Hesitantly, like a sleepwalker, she made her way to the front of the ruin. She went a few paces, then stopped. There, a few feet away from the retaining wall, was Sloane’s body, lying broken and crumpled in the sand. Nora took a step closer. The amber eyes were black and sightless, overlaid with a dull sheen of moonlight. The sand around her was soaked in blood. Nora shuddered, then glanced away, looking automatically for the body of the skinwalker.
It was nowhere to be seen.
A sharp current of fear brought her fully alert once more. She looked around more carefully. There, in the sand half a dozen feet from Sloane, was a large, distorted hollow: a thrashed-out depression, smeared and sprinkled with blood. A silver concho lay in the sand beside it. But there was no skinwalker body. She took an instinctive step back, hand rising to her mouth, eyes searching the dark city. But there was nothing.
She ran to the rope ladder and climbed painfully down, still in shock. Reaching the bottom, she looked around, waiting. There was the medical tent, its beckoning orange glow now extinguished. Nora felt a sob rising in her throat. Looking in the tent would be the most painful thing she could imagine. Still, she had to know for herself if Smithback was dead.
She sprinted through the moonlight toward the camp, angling toward the medical tent, her torn calf protesting at every step. It was worse than she could have ever feared: the inside of the tent had been torn to ribbons, equipment and supplies strewn about, the sleeping bag shredded. There were spatters of blood everywhere. But there was no body.
Sobbing more loudly now, Nora backed away, staggering in the shimmering moonlight. “Damn you!” she cried, turning slowly in the darkness. “God damn you!”
And then she felt a thin, but incredibly strong, arm slide its way over her shoulders and clamp down across her mouth and neck. For a moment, she struggled frantically. Then she went limp, unable to struggle further.
“Hush,” whispered the quiet, gentle voice into her ear.
The grip loosened and Nora turned, her eyes widening in wonder. It was John Beiyoodzin.
“You!” she gasped.
In the moonlight, the old man’s braids seemed to be painted with quicksilver. He touched a finger to his lips. “I have your friend hidden at the far end of the valley.”
“My friend?” Nora said, not understanding.
“Your journalist friend. Smithback.”
“Bill Smithback? He’s alive?”
Beiyoodzin nodded.
Relief and unexpected joy flooded through her, and she gripped Beiyoodzin’s hands with newfound strength. “Look, there’s somebody else still missing. Roscoe Swire, our wrangler—”
Something in Beiyoodzin’s expression stopped her from continuing. “The man who watched your horses,” he said. “He is dead.”