The String Diaries (34 page)

Károly scowled. ‘I have no desire to be your guinea pig, Benjámin. Try it on the girl first.’

‘As you wish.’ Vass turned towards Hannah.

Gabriel strained against his ropes. ‘You’re a
fool
!’

‘Please don’t interrupt,’ Vass replied.

‘You’re insane if you think it’s going to be as simple as that! You can’t just expect to—’

Tutting with exasperation, Vass pulled the revolver from his waistband, pointed it at Gabriel’s right foot and pulled the trigger. The thunder of the shot rolled through the house. Gabriel spasmed, his back arching. Hannah heard his teeth scrape as he tried to control the pain. The arteries in his neck pulsed, angry red cords.

‘Leave him alone!’ she screamed.

Calmly, Vass aimed the gun at Gabriel’s left foot and shot him again. The Irishman’s boot burst open in a flash of blood and leather. This time he cried out. Hannah heard an answering scream from upstairs.

Oh, Leah. my poor baby. She doesn’t know what’s happening. Two shots; she’ll assume the worst. One bullet for me, one for Gabriel
.

‘I know that won’t kill you,’ Vass said. ‘But I do know it hurts. I asked you not to interrupt. Please don’t do it again.’

Hannah heard another thump from the floor above. She raised her eyes to the ceiling, trying to visualise the room beyond, trying to imagine what would make such a sound. She felt herself beginning to shake. Found she was unable to take a full breath.

In the wheelchair, Károly frowned. ‘I don’t like this, Benjámin.’

‘Then leave,’ Vass whispered. Silently, he placed the syringe on the countertop. He lifted his head, hooded eyes moving over the ceiling.

Near the door to the hall, one of the Vizslas turned in a circle. Its ears twitched.

In the corner, the refrigerator hummed. Coolant trickled through its pipes. Gabriel’s chair squealed under his weight.

A creak from upstairs. Hannah recognised it as the floorboard on the first floor landing, a few feet from the top stair. Vass turned, a half-step. Hannah closed her mouth and forced herself to be still. Something large and heavy clattered down the stairs, ripping pictures from the wall in a cacophony of splintering wood and shattering glass. She heard Leah scream again as the object continued its destructive path, culminating in a hard slap as it met the hardwood floor of the hall.

Both the Vizslas now turned in circles, uttering soft howls.

‘Perhaps you might want to investigate that,’ Sebastien said.

Vass stared at the ex-
signeur
, eyes hard. He gestured at the old man to approach the door.

Sebastien met Hannah’s eyes. She sensed he tried to tell her something important with that look. All her senses screamed at her that opening the door was a bad idea, that he would invite a monster into the room with them. He crossed the kitchen, placed his hand on the knob, opened the door a fraction.

As he peered through the crack, the breath rushed out of him. He turned back to Vass. Shook his head. ‘You thought you were being so clever, didn’t you? You thought you’d send out an invitation to Jakab, offer Hannah as bait, and then you’d come here and wait for him. Your arrogance is utterly breathtaking, Benjámin. It only remains to be seen how many lives you’ve destroyed because of it. You didn’t invite Jakab here. You haven’t set a trap.
You’ve brought him with you
.’

Sebastien threw open the door to the hall. The man Vass had sent to restrain Leah and Éva lay on the floorboards, legs tangled on the stairs. His face was turned towards them. Both of his eyes had haemorrhaged. Dark blood leaked from his skull where it had cracked against the floor.

The pressure building in Hannah’s head was unbearable, a ribbon of pain that ran from ear to ear.

He’s HERE.

Jakab is HERE
.

And while she was trapped in the kitchen, Leah was alone in one of the upstairs rooms. ‘Have some
humanity
,’ she moaned at Vass’s back, tears coursing down her cheeks. ‘Don’t let him take my daughter. Please. Don’t let her think I abandoned her. Not again. Please not again.’

Vass took a step towards the hall, inspecting the human wreckage on the floor. Then he turned and met Hannah’s eyes. He smirked.

‘
Jakab
!’ he shouted. ‘Jakab, listen to me! It seems you got here safely. That’s good. I’m glad about that.’ He laughed in delight. ‘And I like a man who shares my affection for a dramatic entrance. I have what you want. What I promised you. She’s a live one, I’ll admit, but that makes it all the more interesting, doesn’t it? I can’t fault your taste. You know what, Jakab?’ he asked, glancing first at Gabriel and then at the syringe that lay on the counter. ‘I don’t even want anything in return. I’ll set her free, turn her outside, and you can just take her and go.’

He paused, listening for a reply.

Around them, the house waited.

One of the Vizslas dropped its head, snuffled the floorboards, raised it again. The second dog turned, its nose lifted high.

Beside Hannah, Gabriel whispered through gritted teeth. ‘
Look
.’

She turned to him, shocked when she saw the paleness of his face. She recalled the moment at Llyn Gwyr when she had switched on the Discovery’s interior light and discovered how much blood Nate had lost. The memory raked fresh claws at her. Gabriel indicated the windows and Hannah untangled herself from the memory, following his gaze.

Illes strode through the plum orchard towards the house, his auburn tresses flowing unbound behind him. His eyes had darkened to black, and Hannah thought she knew the significance of that. His face was a mask, an approaching death, devoid of colour or emotion. In each hand he carried a gleaming steel pistol. Beside Illes walked a second
Főnök
guard. He carried a pistol of his own, and his eyes were as black as coal.

‘Sebastien, stand back,’ Gabriel hissed.

Illes was already halfway across the orchard. He passed in and out of sight through the trees. Hearing Gabriel’s instruction, Sebastien turned and saw the
Főnök
’s
man. He threw himself against the wall as Illes raised his gun and fired off four quick shots. The glass in the french windows exploded across the kitchen floor, a tidal wash of diamonds. Two rounds slammed into the cupboard beside Vass’s head. Splinters of wood spun across the room. Another round punched through the door of the oven. The fourth destroyed a rack of metal cooking implements.

Vass dropped to the floor. He twisted around, trying to locate his attacker. When he saw the advancing
hosszú életek
, he bellowed, ‘Dogs!’

Frantic, his Eleni lieutenant unclipped the chains from the Vizslas’ collars. The animals surged across the kitchen and leaped through the broken windows, a fluid streak.

Illes appeared at the edge of the orchard. He raised his other pistol and fired off five more shots. Kitchen utensils and wooden cupboards exploded into shrapnel. Vass pressed himself to the floor.

The younger Vizsla reached Illes first. Jaws snapping, it hurled itself at his face. The
Főnök
’s man swatted the animal’s skull with the butt of his gun. The dog tumbled to the grass, convulsing. The second Vizsla changed direction, vaulted the orchard fence and scrambled through the trees.

‘Benjámin!’ The
signeur
, hunched in his wheelchair, sat stranded in the middle of the kitchen. His eyes were wild, chest jerking as it rose and fell. ‘Get me away from the window!’

Vass ignored him, slithering on his stomach across the floor. Blood flowed from his hands where broken glass had sliced them. He overturned the heavy oak table beside Hannah. Ducking behind it, he lifted his revolver over the top and fired three times into the garden.

Thunder cracked in her ears. She strained against the ropes that bound her.

You’ve no more time! You have to free yourself! Come on, Hannah!

ACT!

‘Shoot them!’ Vass roared.

‘
Benjámin
!
’ The signeur was shrieking in fear. ‘Benjámin, as your
signeur
I
command
you!’

On his knees, across the room, Vass’s lieutenant finally found his nerve. He rose into a shooter’s stance and squeezed off a volley of shots. A bullet took Illes’s companion in the heart, punching him backwards in a red spray. Another drilled through Illes’s right arm, tearing out a lump of flesh. The impact spun him around, but he recovered his balance with barely a missed step. Illes raised the pistol in his left hand and returned fire.

Crockery and cupboard doors and glass and ceramic tiles exploded, filling the air with dancing shards and splinters and dust. A bullet opened the Eleni lieutenant’s throat in a dark rain. Two more shredded his torso, pitching him on to the floor. His back arched as blood fountained from him, and his heels scrabbled against the floorboards as if they gloried in the scarlet murals they painted on the wood.

In the garden, Illes ejected the spent clip from his pistol. He tried to reach inside his coat, but his wounded arm prevented him. Instead, he closed his eyes. The muscles of his face slackened.

Vass peered around the side of the table. He saw Illes standing motionless in the garden and flashed his teeth. Lifting his revolver, he aimed it with both hands. The gun bucked, and the sound of his shot tore through the kitchen. Illes staggered backwards. A dark stain appeared in the centre of his cream polo neck, just below his breastbone. He glanced down at it, eyebrows lifting in surprise as it blossomed. He dropped to one knee. His remaining pistol fell from his hand.

Hannah’s eyes found Sebastien’s. The old man stood with his back against the wall, shielded from the french windows by the stove-pipe.

‘Seb. Please, Seb, I can’t get loose. Find Leah. Don’t let Jakab take her. Please don’t let him take her from me.’ She sobbed. Hated herself for it. But she was losing this. How much time had elapsed? How long had Jakab roamed the upper floor of the house?

‘Nobody leaves this room,’ Vass snapped. He broke open the cylinder of his revolver, shook his head at the empty casings. ‘Oh, this just gets better and better.’

Across the kitchen, Sebastien nodded at Hannah, and her heart ached at the compassion she saw in his face. Leaving the safety of his alcove, he strode across the room and into the hall. From his pocket he pulled his short-bladed knife. She cringed when she considered what little protection it offered him. He disappeared up the stairs.

On hands and knees, slipping and sliding in blood, Vass crawled to where his lieutenant had fallen. He snatched up the dead man’s pistol. Wiped it clean. Crabbed back towards the overturned table.

Outside, Illes was still down on one knee. He opened his eyes, picked his pistol from the grass. Lifting his wounded arm, he pulled a spare clip of ammunition from his jacket. He rose to his full height.

Halfway across the kitchen floor, Vass paused beneath the counter that held the stainless steel syringe. Its glass reservoir was undamaged. He reached out a hand and snagged it. The liquid rolled ruby reflections across his face.

Vass grinned, and then he was snatching at the button on his shirt cuff. He rolled up his sleeve. Revealed a fleshy forearm.

‘Benjámin, what are you doing?’ the
signeur
rasped.

Vass found a blue vein in the crook of his arm. ‘I know, I know. You’re dying, and I promised you. I hate breaking promises. But this might be the only chance I get.’

He depressed the plunger on the syringe. Gabriel’s blood swelled up through the needle and flooded into his arm. Grimacing, he pulled it free and tossed the empty vessel across the room.

The
signeur
twisted in his chair, mouth working soundlessly.

Hannah heard a loose floorboard creak above them. She watched Vass crawl back into cover behind the table, holding his plundered pistol close to his chest. He raised his eyes to her, and she saw that his pupils had dilated.

‘Shit, this stuff’s good,’ he said. He opened his mouth wide and bit at the air. His arm twitched and he dropped the pistol.

In the garden, Illes pushed the spare clip into his gun. He took a step towards the house. Then another, raising his weapon.

Vass lifted his hand, examined his fingers. ‘I can feel it flowing through me,’ he murmured. ‘No pain. Just a . . .’ He clenched his fist, opened his fingers and picked up the pistol.

‘Benjámin!’ the
signeur
hissed.

Vass raised the gun in a fluid movement and shot the old man twice. The
signeur’s
head burst like a rotten squash and his wheelchair rocked backwards. Sharp pieces of Károly’s skull slid down the wall behind him.

‘Don’t
interrupt
me like that when I’m
thinking
,’ Vass said. He frowned, looking first at the weapon in his hand and then at the
signeur’s
corpse. Then, noticing Gabriel, he aimed the gun at the Irishman’s face.

Hannah closed her eyes. She couldn’t help Gabriel. The rope that bound her was too tight. She wondered if she could stop herself from screaming if she was hit by the spray from the shot that killed him.

Nothing she could do to intervene. She wouldn’t watch him die in front of her.

So you’ll keep your eyes closed and abandon him too.

She raged at that internal voice even as it shamed her into opening her eyes.

Vass’s pupils vibrated as if powered by tiny springs ‘What’s happening?’ he asked.

‘You’re dying,’ Gabriel replied. ‘You’re a psychotic bastard, you’re dying and it’s going to hurt. You’re going to feel more pain than you ever imagined you could feel. And when it’s over you’re going to wake in hell where it’ll start all over again.’

Vass shivered. His cheek began to twitch. ‘Then I’ll take you with me,’ he said, and pulled the trigger.

Gabriel jerked back in his chair as the blast echoed around the room and Hannah opened her mouth wide and screamed and screamed.