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It was worse than he had suspected. The room had been utterly devastated. Her huge oak desk was on its side halfway across the room from its usual place. Her black leather chair had been shattered. Her bookcases had been torn from the walls and the volumes scattered on the floor. The visitors' chairs had been smashed to kindling. Her wooden file cabinets had been upended and their contents strewn all over the floor and the broken furniture. Worst of all was a light spray of blood, barely visible on the patterned wallpaper, splattered low on the wall behind where her desk and chair normally stood.
Bre
Bre
"Yeoman," it said, sending shivers up his spine, "I'm waiting for you. Come to my room. I'll be waiting, my archer."
It was her voice. Chrysalis, speaking in her almostEnglish accent. He stood still for a moment, but heard no one or nothing move in the darkness.
Bre
The door to Chrysalis's bedroom was open, and as he peered around the jamb he could see that someone had been here before him. The intruder had been searching for something and hadn't bothered to be neat about it. Chrysalis's canopied bed had been pulled apart and its mattress shredded. All her Victorian portraits and elegantly framed antique mirrors had been stripped from the walls and lay in silver slivers scattered about the floor. The crystal decanter that usually stood on the nightstand lay shattered on the floor. A fencing mask sat in its place.
Bre
"You're the Oddity," Bre
"No one you know. Call me Yeoman."
There was another silence, then the Oddity said, "We see. What are you doing here?"
"That's my question."
"We're looking for something."
Bre
"Or what? Shouldn't a threat be in there somewhere?" Bre
"We believe you would try," the Oddity said softly. Bre
"All right." She sighed. "We had nothing to do. with Chrysalis's death. When we heard about it, we came looking for something… some information that Chrysalis was blackmailing us with. We just wanted to recover it before the police found it."
Bre
"Christ," Bre
The new eyes stared at Bre
He never knew if the bullet hit home, because the Oddity charged at him like a fullback blasting for the goal line, and when they collided, it felt as if he'd been smashed by a sack full of bricks.
He twisted away and placed a powerful side kick into the squirming mass that was the Oddity's torso. A feminine hand gabbed him, and it was much, much stronger than his. It pulled at him and he followed it without resistance as it whirled him around and slammed him against the wall hard enough to make his teeth clatter and his back ache.
His gun flew away. He hit the floor, rolled, and grabbed a knickknack stand of solid oak. He swung it with all his strength and caught the Oddity in the side. The stand shattered. His arms quivered with shock and he tried unsuccessfully to shake the numbness from his hands. The Oddity hadn't even budged.
He swung at Bre
He swung again and Bre
Bre
The Oddity howled more in anger than pain. Bre
"Christ," Bre
There was no sense, Bre
"We'll get you, you bastardl" the Oddity cried. His voice was slurred, as if perhaps two people were fighting for control of it. "We'll get youl"
Bre