Page 106 of The Hunter
This was her chance, it was act or die.
Clenching her teeth against the strain, Millie gave one last powerful yank on her chain, directing all the movement at his turned back. Slack appeared when the other bolt gave.
The plate fell to the floor, and she retrieved it before Dorshaw turned. Aiming it at his head, she threw it with all her strength.
She fell short of her mark. The square plate hit him in the shoulder, drawing a snarl of pain and ripping through his coat, but not debilitating him.
Thinking quickly, Millie rolled the chain toward her, end over end, until she, again, held the plate in her hand.
“You viciousbitch.” Dorshaw lunged for the table, but she moved at the same time, aiming the plate as carefully as she could. She’d always been excellent at this. Once, she’d had to throw a flaming baton at a trapeze artist every night for six nights a week plus matinees.
A scream of rage ripped through her as she let the plate fly. This second throw landed on the side of his head, felling him with a very unmanly sound of alarm. The force of it wrenched Millie’s shoulder painfully, but she didn’t care. Though blood had begun to well from the wound at his temple, Dorshaw’s eyes were still open, and his chest lifting with breath.
“That was for Agnes.” Millie could feel her strength fading, her free arm beginning to tremble under the weight of the heavy chain and plate. He was wounded. Bleeding from his shoulder and head. She was too gone to care, too angry, too afraid, too close to getting herself free. All she had to do was kill him with her next throw, because she knew she only had one left before her energy gave out.
“This is for all those poor mothers and their missing boys.” Summoning a strength she hadn’t known she possessed, she flung the plate again, aiming right between the eyes.
Dorshaw rolled away and the plate landed harmlessly next to him. He seized her chain before she had a chance to pull it back. “I’m going to send your defiled corpse back to your lover,” he threatened, keeping the plate in his hand as he crawled toward her. Blood and dirt muddied the left side of his face, creating a demonic mask. “Your death will not be quick. You will twitch and struggle.”
She was still chained to the wall with one hand. Had no other weapons at her disposal. Once he was in range of her boot, she kicked at him, but his hand snaked out and captured her ankle, which he used to pull himself even closer.
“You will see your blood mingle with the dirt. You’ll watch the demons come for you, and you’ll welcome them if only to escape the horror of my face. If only to flee from the knowledge that it wasI,a monster, who ended you, and that I will systematically assassinate every person who would miss you, until even yourmemoryis dead.”
Millie jerked and struggled, kicked and twisted as furiously as she could. He might be wounded, but he was still so terribly strong. Fueled by pain, and fury, and insanity, he pulled himself up her leg, grasping at her skirts until they tore. His added weight put painful pressure on the shoulder still secured above her head.
Then she saw it. Her last chance. Perhaps no one would ever find her here and she’d die somewhere beneath the ground, but at least she could keep him from her son. From Christopher. At least he wouldn’t have to see her in a puddle of her own blood.
Because she somehow knew that would break what was left of him.
Maybe they would comfort each other, Jakub and Christopher, and remember her fondly. But they’d be alive. She’d make certain of it.
A clamor rang in her ear, the sound of footsteps. An incessant ringing. Suddenly she felt as though she were submerged in water. In a lake of fire and fury. She could only see her enemy. Could only hear his every breath that was a personal offense to her. She could already hear a demon calling her name, and the voice was painfully familiar.
Seizing the chain Dorshaw held in his hand, she used the slack to quickly wrap around his neck and then with a battle cry that would make a banshee proud, she pressed her knee against his throat and pulled the chain tight.
***
Christopher hated the catacombs. The smell reminded him of prison. Moisture and decay mixed with the echoes of the misery and treachery of the past etched into aging stone.
But he would die down here before he left without Millie.
Fear and helplessness was something he’d thought he’d left in the past. But since he’d realized Millie was in the clutches of his enemy, a man arguably as dangerous as himself, he hadn’t been able to expand his ribs enough to take in a real breath.
He’d lost his training. He was no longer just like water. He was a flood. Crashing through the gate of the Hyde Park tunnel, he used a lantern to light his way. The dust and frost had been disturbed by more than a few footprints. It was impossible to tell which ones were fresh.
Forging deeper underground, he sprinted down the tunnel. He could hear the footfalls of Blackwell and his men, but didn’t wait for them. The passageway divided into three, and Argent searched the ground for clues. Fewer footprints here, but none of them belonged to those inconceivably senseless high-heeled boots Millie favored. Thrusting his lantern forward, he paced back and forth, studying every inch.
There. Two thin drag marks leading to the tunnel off to the left. Too small and close together to be made by a cart.
He didn’t let himself think of why she was being dragged. Of what harm might have already befallen her. He couldn’t, or this awful, dark despair would rear up from the void in his soul and choke the life from him.
Steep, crumbling stairs led him down to an underground waterway, from which numerous arched stone tunnels branched. A dozen at least.
“Fuck!” Argent hurled the lantern at a wall. The explosion caused by glass and lantern oil against the stones stopped everyone else in their tracks.
“I sent for Crenshaw to bring his hounds,” Dorian said, coming up behind him and handing him a torch. “But he may be several minutes.”
“We may nothaveminutes,” Argent barked, staring into the oil-fueled flames and feeling his own blood run colder and colder.
