Feline Savior

left arm. She gasped as she felt searing pain that left a burning ache.

  "You imbecile," Mandy snarled, "I want her alive!" As Differel turned to close the door, she looked into the room and saw Mandy point at a female guard, who stared back at her in sheer terror. She screamed in agony as she burst into flames, but in moments she was incinerated to a small pile of fine ash.

  Thoroughly terrorized, Differel slammed the door shut in the face of another guard and threw the bolt as he pounded against it. Turning, she ran for the other side of the room, to the door that led into the nursery, threw herself inside, and slammed and locked it. Dashing to the far wall, she pulled the changing bed out of the way and kicked at a section of wall. A panel flew open and banged against the edge of the wall, and she darted through into the circular stairwell beyond. Turning, she reached back into the room and pulled the bed back into place before closing and latching the panel, just as the room's door crashed open.

  She crouched on a stone step in the pitch darkness and listened. She couldn't hear anything through the thick wall, but the panel was thinner and she could just barely make out the sound of people running around inside the room beyond.

  At one point she heard Mandy bellow, "Where is she?!"

  "She's not here!" one of the guards replied.

  "She must be, she cannot have disappeared!"

  "She must have gone out the hall door. She may be trying to get to the troops."

  "Then after her, before she reaches them!" And she heard footsteps race away.

  Sighing, relief sapped her strength and she sat down. Reaching out, she felt along the wall and found a switch. When she turned it on, a series of lights came on around, above, and below her. She knew the stairwell was designed like the others in the wings, except it was supposed to be a secret. It could only be accessed by kick-panels in certain rooms on all three floors, the nursery being one of them. It was to be used in emergencies to evacuate the family, either to the helipad on the roof or the basement shelter. However, though well maintained, she doubted it had been recently used. She had found it by accident, in of all places the intelligence room on the ground floor, and had spent a considerable amount of time exploring it. She knew where all the panels were, and she doubted Mandy or any of the regular staff knew of it.

  I should be safe, at least for a short while.

  She winced at a sharp pain in her arm, and she examined the wound. It was a deep gash and it bled profusely. She gripped her sleeve and pulled, ripping it off the shoulder. Taking her handkerchief, she folded it into a square pad and laid it over the wound, hissing at how tender it felt. She then wrapped the sleeve around her arm and tied it off, to hold the handkerchief in place, gritting her teeth and squeezing out tears from the pain. It hurt like bloody blazes, but it had to be done if she didn't want to bleed to death.

  With that finished, she took stock of her situation. She couldn't hide in the stairwell, not even for a short while. Mandy was bound to find her sooner than later, and there was no guarantee she could get to Aelfraed when he returned. Even if she could, she doubted he could protect her. If Mandy was willing to go as far as she had, she probably wouldn't stop at anything.

  But where can I go? She had to think clearly, no matter how scared or angry she was; she couldn't run around willy-nilly, she had to have a plan.

  To the roof and the helicopter? She shook her head. First of all, she didn't know how to fly it; secondly, it probably had already taken off with evacuees; and thirdly, even if it hadn't, she doubted she could trust the pilot. There was a chance he might not be compromised, but she couldn't take the risk.

  Then where? Somewhere in the house? No, there was no place that Mandy didn't know about, except the stairwell, and no place she couldn't get to, including the stairwell.

  Perhaps I could get to the troops guarding the house? But she didn't know where they were. Her best bet was to make for the parking lot, but there was no guarantee anybody was still there; chances were good she would be picked up by one of Mandy's guards first, and she couldn't discount the possibility that her aunt's "distraction" was itself dangerous.

  No, I have to get out of the house. There were many places to hide on the estate grounds, and it was large enough that it would take a search party some time to locate her even with a concerted effort, but that would also put her farther from rescue. She could try to get off the grounds and make for a village or a farm, but there were only a few places through the perimeter security wall, and she suspect Mandy would have all of them well guarded. That wasn't actually the problem; there was a tunnel only she knew about, that led from the keep dungeon under the wall to a spot about a hundred feet beyond the tank traps. The problem was that the land around the estate was pretty empty. The closest village she knew of was Denver to the northeast, but she had no idea how to get there except to follow the road, and no doubt Mandy would have people watching it. If she struck out across country, she might walk for a day or more before encountering a house or farm.

  No, it has to be someplace on the grounds, and I know where, but I won't go there to hide. This has got to qualify as the kind of emergency Father told me about, so it's as good a time as any to see what's in that sarcophagus.

  Fortunately, during her explorations of the stairwell, she had found a tunnel that ran across the width of the grounds to the dungeon below the motte-and-bailey. She could hide out there until nightfall, and then make for the mausoleum in the dark.

  Of course, I may be giving Mandy too much credit.

  But she couldn't believe her Aunt wouldn't have planned her coup d'etat well, covering all possible contingencies. Even if she had depended upon surprise and her niece's weakness and naivete, she would have had to account for possible mishaps, delays, and unforeseen events.

  Besides, it's probably better to over-estimate her than not.

  Meanwhile, she should be making her own plans. She had to assume Mandy would find her soon, but she could delay it longer by creating her own diversion. Also, there was a way she might be able to tip the scales in her favor. He father once showed her an emergency call button under his desk. If he were ever attacked in his office, or couldn't get out of the house, that button would send a signal to alert Aelfraed of his danger. Whether he could do anything to help her was a different question, but it was worth a try, and she could kill two birds with one stone.

  I might find a gun there, and I really need one.

  She descended the stairs to the ground floor. In addition to the intelligence center, the panels led into the cloakroom of the conference room and the safe in her father's office. Going through the former two would be too risky, and she knew the safe door had a handle on the inside allowing it to be opened, probably as a precaution against a family or staff child locking itself inside. She opened the panel and pushed aside a box of files to crawl through. She turned on the overhead light and looked around. Her father had kept guns there, but she saw they had been removed. Going to the safe door, she turned the handle; the clack of the tumblers giving way and the bolt pulling back startled her, but if anyone was in the office it was too late to evade them. She pushed the door open, and breathed a sigh of relief when she found the room empty. Hurrying to the desk, she felt for the button, found it, and pushed it. Then she pulled open the drawers and rifled through them, but found no gun. Disappointed, she was about to turn away when she found her father's lighter sitting on the desk. She snatched it up before she ran for a window. She didn't know why, it couldn't possibly be of any use to her, but she grabbed it anyways and slipped it into her shirt pocket.

  Metal shutters still covered the window, and for a moment her heart sank; she had forgotten about those, but then she saw the palm reader sitting in the frame. The first week after the funeral, security had taken a recording of her palms to analyze their print patterns for programming into the security systems. Technically, she should be able to open the shutters, unless Mandy had erased her prints.

  It's worth a try, though.

&n
bsp; She put her right hand against the reader and a laser scanned its surface. For an agonizing moment she waited, but then the shutters slid up inside the wall. She grinned in relief; apparently, Mandy didn't think of everything after all. She unlocked the window and threw it open, then ran back for the stairwell. She left the door and the panel open behind her and didn't bother to move the box back into place or turn off the light; she wanted Mandy to believe she had gotten out of the house that way. Then she rushed down the stairs into the sublevels below the house.

  The uppermost was the basement, with the infirmary, the security block with its armored holding cells and interrogation rooms, and additional staff amenities. Below that was an old dungeon from the manor's Tudor and Elizabethan days. It contained rooms for special investigations, a morgue with an autopsy room, utility rooms, and storage areas. The bottommost was a catacomb used to store ordinance, old records, and valuables in specially designed vaults. The stairwell terminated at that level, with a disguised stone door giving access, but in the concrete floor of the landing was a loose slab that covered the entrance to the tunnel. She had found that by accident, too, as she found most of the things she discovered about her own manor; at least, those things no one else seemed to know. She sometimes wondered if that was on purpose, or if so many things had been forgotten that the only way to learn about them was by rediscovery.

  She felt around the slab's edge for the hidden grip, and then pulled it up with both hands. It was counterweighted, so she had no trouble lifting it. It was also hinged in the center, so as half of it tilted up, the other tilted down into a shaft carved out of native rock. A wrought iron ladder, decades, possibly centuries old, was bolted into the shaft's wall. She knelt and peered over the edge. She once estimated it was at least a dozen feet deep, but as far as she could tell, nothing had changed. Turning around, she crawled backwards and placed her feet on the rungs. She started down, and when her head dropped below the lip of the shaft, she pushed on the slab and eased it closed, plunging herself into total darkness.

  She finished her descent, then took out her father's lighter and flipped it on. Using its light, she looked for the opening of the tunnel, and when she found it she approached and stepped into it. Taking a deep breath, she extinguished the lighter and placed it back in her pocket, and started down its length with no hesitation, using her hands to feel along the walls. Even though she couldn't see a thing, she had no fear of taking that route because she had traveled it several times before. As such, she didn't have to worry about cave-ins blocking the way, or holes in the floor. Like the shaft, it was carved from solid rock, and while the walls were rough, a path had been smoothed out of the floor. However, she had noted from before that the rock was hard and strong, with no evidence of crumbling or cracks. She had no idea who could have excavated it or when, except that it was probably one of her ancestors. She was just grateful it existed. She knew it would take her an hour or more to reach the motte-and-bailey, but once there she could hide and rest until nightfall. She just hoped that it did not turn out to be a fool's errand, or she was as good as dead.

  Differel squeezed through the partially opened gate and ran around the headstones to the mausoleum in the far corner, with Mr. Mistoffelees leading the way. She paused in front of it and took a moment to bow her head, closing her eyes.

  "Dear God, Thy Will be done, but please, let my father's words be true, and grant me easy access." She was now in the Almighty's hands.

  She opened her eyes