Chapter 12 - The Iron Gate
A hand had clamped onto Moreva’s boot from inside the shaft. Mercer, driven by feverish malice and the adrenaline of a dying man, had dragged himself across the cellar floor and up the lower flue, his ruined legs trailing behind him like broken twigs.
"You don't get to leave!" Mercer screamed from the smoky dark, his face a blackened, bleeding mask. "We burn together, Don Moreva!"
Clara didn't hesitate. She grabbed a heavy limestone garden paver resting beside the chute's opening. Grunting with the strain on her swollen stomach, she hoisted the stone and slammed it down directly into the darkness, targeting the iron rungs beneath Moreva's boots.
The stone shattered Mercer’s grip. With a wet gasp and a fading curse, the doctor tumbled backward down the long vertical drop, disappearing into the raging inferno of the sub-cellar.
Moreva hauled himself out of the opening with a violent lunge, rolling onto the dew-soaked lawn just as a tremendous geyser of flame erupted from the chute, painting the midnight sky in violent crimson.
Behind them, the grand Moreva estate was a tower of fire. The neoclassical columns were cracking under intense heat, the stained glass of the upper ballroom bursting outward in showers of sparkling embers.
In the distance, the sirens of local emergency services wailed, still miles away across the valley. But closer, along the estate's tree-lined private avenue, two black tactical SUVs were idling near the wrought-iron perimeter gates.
"Mercenaries," Moreva panted, wiping soot from his eyes. His tuxedo was shredded, his chest tattooed with the marks of his youth exposed beneath torn silk. "They’re covering the only exit road. Waiting to confirm the kill."
"There is no back road," Clara said, trembling from the cold as the wind swept over the hill. She clutched the will against her breast, keeping it dry beneath her apron. "The cliffs drop straight into the river on the north side."
Moreva looked toward the iron gates, then down at the remaining bullets in his magazine. Four rounds left. Against at least six heavily armed contractors.
"Then we don't go around them," Moreva said, his eyes reflecting the blazing ruin of his childhood home. "We go through."
He turned to Clara, taking off his heavy wool overcoat—the only part of his attire untainted by fire—and wrapping it gently around her shoulders. The fabric swallowed her whole, warm and thick against the bitter chill.
"Stay low behind the stone wall until I clear the gatehouse," Moreva commanded, his tone brook no dissent. "When I whistle, you run to the black Audi parked behind their rear vehicle. The keys are magnetic beneath the front bumper."
"Moreva," Clara called out, catching his sleeve before he could slip into the shadows. Her hazel eyes were wide, urgent. "Don't die for a ghost's promise."
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Moreva allowed himself the faintest shadow of a smile—the first she had ever seen on his severe, scarred face.
"I’m not dying for a ghost, Clara," he whispered. "I’m fighting for the living."
