Lola screamed madly, shaking her head from side to side. The killers rheumy eyes snapped toward her, his weapon arm angling at Lola, now, instead.

In that instant Valentina brought the pistol up from under her caftan and blew the distracted temple cats brains back through the grating. Back into the distorted s.p.a.ce from which it had come, in an eruption of dark, foul matter.

The reaction was instantaneous. The a.s.sa.s.sin snapped rigid as if seized by some invisible horror. There was a savage sound of crushing bones and rending flesh, blood and viscera squirting and flinging from the reanimated cadaver, as the grave exacted final justice. His limbs were torn asunder, and his innards began to spew about the room.

"Dios mio-Dios mio-!" Valentina kept shouting over Lolas lunatic screams, more to swallow back her impulse to vomit than out of any fear. For she was beyond fear now, as she wiped at the dark blood that had splattered her. She could only wonder what to do next, half expecting to discover that she and the hysterical woman with her were the only ones left alive.

For now Kiri, too, was dead. Her second offspring, a male, was stillborn.

Valentina reloaded her pistol and looped the sling of the a.s.sa.s.sins crossbow around her neck. She gazed with twisted features at the grisly ruin of the undead killers wretchedly sundered corpse, wondering what manner of death had once claimed this monster.

Then she ran over to the squealing, puling Lola and hit her in the jaw with a roundhouse right that jarred the woman into gaping sensibility.

"Thats right-look at it!" she commanded, seeing Lolas revulsion at the sight of the ravaged a.s.sa.s.sin, whose moment of death had surely been mastication by some monstrous beast. She grabbed Lolas face and turned it toward the temple cat, which lay on its back, half in view, jaws jacked wide, its skull scooped open to reveal bits of some quivering ma.s.s. "You did your part. We did it. Now pick up that child, and lets get out of here before any more of these-things come scuttling in here."

"Gonji said we wait here," Lola whined.

"To h.e.l.l with that swaggering b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" Valentina roared. "I go my own way. Now bring that infant, or I leave you here with the dead souls. Puha-b.i.t.c.h! Move your a.s.s!"

Orozco and Herrmann twirled their blades anxiously, spreading to outflank the confident Polidori. As they engaged him, they were ever wary of the appearance of the temple cat, which could not be far away, bearing the killers suspended death within its shadowy substance.

"Sonofab.i.t.c.h," Orozco fumed. "Dirty sonofa-Milanese-b.i.t.c.h! We know how you died. And now you die again!"

The sergeant launched at the a.s.sa.s.sins half-armored back, but his blade was deflected with a whipping parry. The force knocked Orozco off to the side, his limp rendering him clumsy and slow, further weakening his merely average fencing ability. His only hope was that he might annoy Polidori enough to enable Herrmann to deliver the killing blow-the blade-point in the back which the Italian brigands had proclaimed as his method of dispatch.

If they were right...

But Polidori lived up to his legend: Even the two of them together could not find an opening against this skillful fencer. And his plate-armored back could not be penetrated by anything less than a powerful direct lunge.

Orozco heard the growl of the cat behind him. He whirled down painfully on one knee, barely stopped himself from squeezing off what would have been a wasted pistol shot, as the demon sharply withdrew through the archway into unknown s.p.a.ce with a glimmer of volcanic red eyes.

Herrmann roared with shock and pain. Polidori had plunged his blade into the mans belly. Orozco bellowed with rage and stamped in at Polidoris uncovered back. The valiant Herrmann, knowing his wound to be fatal, still found the courage to grab at the a.s.sa.s.sins blade with both hands, holding it fast in his own guts to buy Orozco time, though he shuddered and fell to his knees, screaming a long, mortal cry. Polidori could not withdraw his saber.

The undead killer lurched sidewise to evade Orozcos lunge. His saber cut through the dead mans arm, withdrawing bloodlessly. Polidori grinned evilly.

Orozco heard the sc.r.a.pe behind him, turned and leveled his pistol. Another a.s.sa.s.sin-Wiemer-stood in the archway, two cats heads appearing at either side of him, then withdrawing at once, as he did, to see the pistol in Orozcos hand.

Outnumbered and terrified, Sergeant Orozco knew he could not win this encounter. The wisdom of retreat sang its life-affirming refrain.

He leapt to a barred window, felt the illusion of cold iron disperse as his arm pa.s.sed through. Polidori retrieved his blade from the body of Herrmann as the sergeant pushed himself through.

Orozco blared in anger and frustration. Then in pain- After falling for what seemed a long time, he struck a dank and clammy stairwell, cracking open his chin, bruising and sc.r.a.ping his arms and face as he tumbled downward in pitch darkness. He hit the bottom of the sub-cellar headfirst, scintillas showering his vision as he slipped into unconsciousness.

Thinking ugly thoughts of cowardice. And of the face of the a.s.sa.s.sin who had retreated to see Orozcos flourished gun.

"Most entries through right and left doorways-at least when youre moving generally upward-seem to lead you diagonally to a lower level." Cardenas was scribbling with charcoal on a tattered piece of cloth as he spoke. The crude tapers light glowed in the towers darkness like a lonely vespers candle.

"Youre learning how this works?" Simon asked him with uncharacteristic interest.

"I think so. Something. Im not sure."

"My little infidel friend will be pleased," the lycanthrope noted. "You can be sure h.e.l.l find some foolish reason for optimism in all this."

"You dont like Gonji very much, do you." Cardenas framed it more as a statement than a question.

"Well, it-" Simon broke off and pondered the solicitors pointed words. "We have our disagreements. He has his heathen notions and wild ideas."

"Hes not an easy person to like, at first. With his arrogance and overbearing and such. Yet..." Cardenas looked up from his calculations. "I think he possesses a depth of goodness, of compa.s.sion, that he finds difficult to express openly. Something in his Far Eastern heritage, I suppose."

"Oui. Do you know where we are now?"

"I think were in one of the fore-towers, near the barbican. The turret should be just above our heads." He peered through a high, barred window. "Nothing but that awful mist on this side."

The a.s.sa.s.sin dropped down from the ceiling and clacked off a quick arbalest shot. The quarrel tore shallowly through Simons ribs, cleaving the s.p.a.ces between them to split on the wall in a spatter of bloodlets and shards of elm wood. The killer drew his blade and descended on the wounded giant.

Cardenas could only stare in horror a moment before setting his taper on the sill and firing an ineffectual gunshot into the a.s.sa.s.sins back.

Simons broadsword rasped out and engaged the opponents blade with furious spark-showering blows, backing him away, though his sword arm was on the pain-wracked side. Then Simon seemed to shrink away from the combat, clutching at himself, gurgling low in his throat as though convulsing.

Cardenas was galvanized, fearing Simon would die and leave him at the mercy of the dreaded a.s.sa.s.sin and its lurking shadow-cat. He leapt onto the back of the undead, pinioning its arms, grimacing against the feel of the clammy, stiffened flesh like one wrestling an enormous beached fish. Cardenas clenched for his life, sprained arm flaring with pain, only half-seeing the eerie transformation Simon was even now undergoing, in his own furious struggle.

Simon emitted a savage snarl and flung away his blade. He saw the temple cat, hanging upside down from the ceiling beam in the murky shadows overhead. It gaped its jaws and dropped. Amazingly, Simon sprang from the floor and caught it in midair, twisting to slam atop it on the mildewed floor.

Cardenas groaned as he struggled to maintain his bear hug about the muscular a.s.sa.s.sins chest, knowing that the moment he released his grip would be followed by the moment of death. He saw the flailing of talons and heard a cracking sound but could not discern its source. The taper-lit darkness roiled with violent shadows and the sounds of deadly struggle.

The undead nemesis lurched Cardenas onto his back. His breath whooshed out, and his tenacious hold was broken.

The murderer rose and clutched at Cardenas throat. The solicitor fought the clamping hand uselessly. Then- A keening yowl. Something monstrous was rising in the darkness. Furred and fanged. Simon. The dead cats broken jaws dangled from one taloned hand. The a.s.sa.s.sin went blank-faced above Cardenas, then turned a ghastly red and began to swell... Something reeking poured out of his mouth to splatter onto Cardenas. He rolled out from under the killer, spitting and wiping himself as he began to heave dryly.

The corpse slammed down onto the stone floor, still swelling, reddening, vibrating. Its flesh began to peel back, and it streamed oily filth from every orifice. Then it suddenly lay p.r.o.ne, death triumphing over the a.s.sa.s.sin a second time, for all time.

"We wouldve-" Cardenas gasped, suddenly realizing what they had witnessed. "We wouldve-had a hard time-boiling him alive in the desert-no?" He emitted a short, mad laugh.

The killer lay still, his bright pink flesh having burst and gone pulpy, eyes now milky white globules.

Cardenas sucked in a breath to espy his companion, standing erect now, in the candle light. "Jesus, Simon, are you all right? I thought-the transformations-they-?"

"Si." Simon clutched at his torn, bleeding side and laughed a guttural laugh, marveling at the revelation. "It seems...it seems the old desert madman was right. The mufti... If I want to badly enough-if I have a great enough need-But dont be quick to tell the samurai. Smug heathen. h.e.l.l take credit for my learning something else I didnt know about myself."

Cardenas winced to look at his state in the cool glow of the taper. "We should find the others. Tell them what weve done. And learned. Can I do anything for you...the wounds?"

Simon looked at him sidelong and smiled coldly, shaking his head.

Cardenas felt the rising gooseflesh to see a mans smile curve the lips of the now slowly receding snout of a golden wolf.

"Ill do this one, Klank."

Luigi Leone stretched his small figure up tall, squaring his shoulders. With a nonchalant sniff, pistol angled to fire, he jumped at the grated window.

There was shocking impact and a noisy clangor as Leone bounced off the rusted iron grillwork and fell back on his behind.

Klank LoPresti brayed a harsh laugh. "Idiot! Well, now we know where one of those barred windows really is. Good work, Leone." He checked over his array of weapons again, lurching his shoulders in his habitual fashion, telling from the din and the touch whether every piece of his noisy armor was strapped in its a.s.signed place. Fully bedecked, LoPresti resembled an armored gorilla, with his bulky upper body mounted on stocky bowed legs. Luigi sometimes called him "Sir Ape."

"At least I dont make as much noise when I fall as you do every time you hiccup," Leone retorted. "You sound like a wagonload of wind-chimes tip-"

"Look out!"

The grating stopped pa.s.sage only one way. The Spanish killer known in life as Fernandez, a renegade from the army, bounded through and aimed his arbalest at Klank. The burly brigand slid out a pistol, c.o.c.ked and fired as he turned sharply to avoid the quarrel. The pistol ball knocked Fernandez back with its impact, but he came on, uninjured.

Leone cried out to see the exploded view of Klanks b.l.o.o.d.y shoulder as he twisted by. His heavy jack had partially deflected the bolt, saving his arm. LoPrestis sword sang out of its scabbard.

"The cat," he whispered in a breath tight with pain. "Watch for the cat."

Klank came to en garde, spanking the confident Fernandezs blade aside and lunging in to find the dead Spaniard offering no resistance: LoPrestis blade-point ripped into his belly without effect.

Fernandez laughed coldly as they clashed and clashed again. Leone watched in abject horror for the temple cat to come into sight, pistols clenched in sweating palms, his good eye bulging. Klank LoPresti drew the Spaniard toward the doorway by which the pair had entered the chamber, drove the a.s.sa.s.sins blade upward with a twisting high parry, pushed in close to the corpses fetid breath, then b.u.t.ted it in the face with his helm and kicked one of its feet out from under it. Fernandez stumbled forward and Klank pounded a sharp elbow to the back of his head that pushed him toward the portal. When Fernandez righted himself and turned to reengage him, LoPresti instead jumped into the air and drop-kicked him magically out of sight, through the archway and into the three-foot drop to the banquet hall the distorted s.p.a.ce could not reveal.

Klank grunted with the pain of his own jangling fall to the rock floor, in reaction. "The cat-watch for the cat," he shouted as he moved warily through the mystical gateway, leaving Luigi alone.

Leone wrenched about to face the snarling temple cat, which took to shadow when it saw the pistols in either hand. Leone cursed and fired one impulsive shot, the ball impacting near enough that the cat scurried away along the wall. But now it was nearer, and Luigi didnt trust his reflexes.

He leapt out through the invisible portal and into the banquet hall, with a ferocious cry designed to warn Klank of his entrance. There he found the st.u.r.dy warrior wrestling with his necromantic a.s.sailant, a dagger stabbing again and again into the creatures revivified flesh.

"Try strangling him!" Klank was screaming. "Your belt-I cant hold him."

Luigi set down his pistol and unbuckled his belt, found an opening, caught Fernandez around the neck, and pulled the belt taut through the clasp. He jammed his foot against the Spaniards back for leverage. Strained. Gurgled with the effort. Klank stabbed and raked. Fernandezs cold hand caught Klank by the face, squeezing and twisting.

The cat appeared through the portal in the dim starlight that lanced down through high windows above the gallery.

Klank shrilled a cry and rolled away, clutching his thigh.

The a.s.sa.s.sin had produced his own knife and driven it home. Luigi ferociously pulled on the belt.

"Christ," Klank was gasping, watching his own blood flow, stanching it desperately. "Hes got to die-somehow hes got to die."

The cat prowled toward them as Leone was knocked backward, his grip lost. Klank held the creature at bay with his dagger, but he could not rise, and the temple cat bounded atop him, snaring the dagger wrist with its powerful jaws.

"Klank!"

A scream from the gallery above them-Lola and Valentina had emerged from a doorway, shocked to view the b.l.o.o.d.y drama.

"Leone-move!" Valentina shrieked, aiming her crossbow.

"Get out of here!" Luigi was screaming. "Cant you see were fighting? Dont you see whats happening here?"

Leone was roaring incoherently and sobbing with rage as he drew his sword and began to hack at Fernandez, who tried to rise from the marble floor. He chopped off a hand above the wrist, then the other arm.

All at once-Fernandezs ear suddenly tore nearly off his head to hang raggedly, leaking dark blood-the valiant LoPresti had shredded one of the familiars ears, its effect mirrored on the a.s.sa.s.sin.

"Die-die-die!" Luigi Leone hacked and slashed at the undying enemy, shredding its body, sending Fernandezs mustached head bouncing toward a corner. But still the monster refused to submit.

A severed hand crawled up behind Leone to grasp his ankle. He screamed and kicked out wildly, trying to dislodge it.

Valentina saw her opening and fired the bolt. It shattered beside the temple cat, which lurched in surprise and snarled up at the women on the gallery. But then it was backing away toward the double door at the far end of the hall, pulling a door open with its teeth.

The rent segments of Fernandez flowed mystically across the floor in the temple cats wake. Luigi gagged to see it, scrabbling on hands and knees toward the body of his amigo. He began weeping uncontrollably.

Valentina saw the loathsome head of Fernandez slide by beneath her. It was the one shed seen before. In the desert. Recognition flashed again. But who? Where?

Lola screamed behind her. Valentina turned and raised a fending hand to see the womans head yanked back sharply by the twining fingers in her long, black hair. Lola struggled madly, the infant wygyll slipping from her cradling arm.

Valentina caught the crying child awkwardly and pulled her pistol at the same time. But there was nothing to aim at. Lola was gone, yanked through a doorway into another hostile s.p.a.ce.

Valentina immediately remembered the cats. Silent, quicksilver killers. She stutter-stepped backward, gliding along the gallery rail, avoiding doorways, bolstered by the wheel-lock pistols deadly promise. Shushing the infant.

It must be hungry, she was thinking.

Then her thoughts turned from hunger to violent death. She fought back her fears, composed a quiet prayer. She could hear Lolas screams echoing in some distant chamber of the magical chaos that had been made of the castle.

When she looked below, Leone, too, was gone. And with him, the segmented body of the a.s.sa.s.sin whose ident.i.ty she knew she should remember.

Ahmed sat sipping his remaining water, observing Gonjis lightning gyrations of the katana. The kata completed, the samurai burned nervous energy by practicing an amazing variety of rapid draws that froze into gleaming, lethal cuts.

He snicked the Sagami back into its scabbard with a crisp, two-handed motion.

"This is ridiculous," Gonji said at last, in frustration. "I wish something would happen."

"Perhaps the others will have something to report," Ahmed proposed encouragingly. "Yet we hear not a sound..."

Gonji exhaled an exasperated breath. "No gatekeeper. No Dark Company. The last thing I expected of this place was that I might die of boredom here."

"Shall we try the gate?"

Gonji shook his head. "Ive had enough of this. Lets retrace our steps and see whether anyone else has discovered anything worthwhile."

Gonji and Ahmed lost their way on the return, stumbling onto the banquet hall, where a scene of stark horror greeted them. Each man they saw was worse off than the last. There were the battered Cardenas and the obviously injured Simon, who leaked blood from a hastily fashioned patch around his ribs and another around his head, where his scalp had been torn open by the cat hed killed.

But worst of all was the ravaged Klank LoPresti, who lay in the gory pool formed by the score of wounds that had carried him into the Dark Lands.

Gonjis hand went to his head in helpless agony. "What-the women-did you leave them alone?"