Mind Prey

turned, and Andi saw his good eye fix on her—the other eye was a blotch of blood and she felt a thrill of satisfaction—and the barrel of the gun came around and opened at her face. They stood just for a second that way, Mail’s face contorting. She could see his hand working on the trigger, but nothing was happening, and she rolled out of the line of fire.
     
    L UCAS STARTED DOWN the stairs in a crouch, heard the man scream and a girl, a scarecrow, hair on end, blood on her face, ran to the stairs and started up, stopped when she saw Lucas. A shotgun went off, the blast like a physical blow; plaster sprayed around them, and Lucas fell sideways, tried to catch himself.
     
    T HERE WASN’T MUCH pain when Andi Manette stuck him, but Mail knew he’d been hurt. He pulled back, tried to get some space, but Manette clung to him and then the girl was there. He saw the hand coming up, the thin, steel glitter between her fingers, and turned his head. The needle slashed at him, hurt more than Manette’s knife, or whatever it was. There was a black flash—was that possible?—in his left eye, and he wrenched away, spasmodically pulling at the trigger. The shotgun went off, the barrel not more than a foot from his ear, deafening him.
    As dust and plaster rained on them from the ceiling, Manette struck again; she was screaming and he saw the girl running for the stairs. He swung at her; he felt no impact, but saw the girl go down. Everything was moving at a berserker’s speed, like a movie cut too often, clips of this and that too fast for his brain to process…but he looked for Manette, his betrayer, found her at his feet.
    Her mouth was open, she was screaming, and he pointed the barrel at her mouth and pulled the trigger. The trigger pulled back slackly, without tension. Nothing happened. He pulled it again, and again, saw the girl screaming on the stairs, Davenport falling, a gun in his hand.
    Mail ran.
    He ran behind the furnace, into the old rat’s nest coal bin, up the coal chute to the rotten wooden door at the top. He knocked the door open with the stock of the gun and a shaft of light hit him full in the face.
     
    D EL WAS AT the top of the stairs, frozen by the blast, his gun pointing down past Lucas. Lucas twisted, falling, struck the scarecrow girl, knocking her sideways, and staggering, caught himself on the post at the bottom of the stairs, his gun sweeping the room, looking for the face, the target.
     
    “G RACE,” A NDI SCREAMED, and screaming again, “Run, Grace…”
    Then a man was there with a gun, a large man in a suit, shouting at her, then another man, a man who looked like a tramp, with another gun, maneuvering toward the cell. She shrank away, but heard, through the pain and fear, the single word, “Where?”
    She pointed toward the furnace; and as she pointed, a shaft of sunlight broke into the room, from behind the furnace. Del was at another door, looking down, then back at him, and Lucas took three leaping steps across the room, past the furnace into a small wooden-sided room. Light poured through a hatchlike door in the foundation.
    Andi heard the gunshots, the quick bite of a pistol, the deeper boom of the twelve-gauge…
     
    O N THE GRASS, outside, on his knees, Mail looked left and brought the gun up. This time, he pumped the slide, saw an empty shell flip out to the right. That’s why it hadn’t fired. In the chaos in the basement, he’d forgotten to pump it.
    But there were more cops here: he heard a man’s voice, screaming, and more shouting in the basement. A chopper roar picked up, and the chopper slipped from behind the house, six feet off the ground, hovering.
    Sherrill ran around the side of the house.
    They saw each other at the same instant. Sherrill’s pistol was up and a single shot plucked at Mail’s coat. Mail returned the shot, firing once, and Sherrill went down, her legs knocked from beneath her. The helicopter came in like a giant locust, and he pointed the shotgun at the black-visored pilot behind the glass, pulled the trigger; again, nothing happened. Cursing, he pumped the gun, and as the chopper pilot roared two feet overhead, he ran beneath the machine, past Sherrill, to the corner of the house.
    Cops coming up the track. Three cars at least.
    He turned and sprinted thirty yards across the yard toward the cornfield, vaulted the fence, and submerged in the deep green leaves.
     
    S HERRILL WAS ON the ground, screaming, the chopper thirty yards away,