Ella caught her breath as it seemed that the harpy might accidentally rip Tappani's back open as she slipped a step.
There was no more time to deliberate. It was act now or lose everything. With a snarl, Ella rushed up the stairs, the katana flashing toward Ocypete's vulnerable legs. Ocypete kicked out at her. Ella slashed but pulled back at the last moment to avoid cutting into Tappani. There was a patter of five hard shapes falling to the wood as Ocypete's claws fell away from her suddenly shortened foot. The harpy let out a shriek that nearly deafened Ella. She threw Tappani away from her and into Ella's arms. Ella had to swing her sword aside to avoid impaling the former angel. She went flying backward down the stairs with Tappani on top of her. Above them, the door slammed behind the retreating monster.
"Ella, are you okay?"
"Ugh." What little breath she had was being squashed out of her by Tappani's weight. "Get off!"
"What? Oh!" The former angel rolled off her, and Ella drew in a deep, breath of wonderful air. But there was no time to catch her breath. Ocypete was upstairs with the hostages. Groaning, Ella rolled over and staggered to her feet. At least, she hadn't lost her grip on the katana. With her left hand, she grabbed the stair rail and started pulling herself up.
No, wait! Was Tappani all right? She looked behind her. The perfect, handsome face looked up at her. "Are you okay?" she asked. There was blood on his face, on his shoulder where she'd stabbed him.
"Yes. I'm good. Go on. We've got to catch her."
Ella turned and headed for the door once more.
"It's locked," she said after she tried the handle. Of course, it was locked. Ocypete wasn't going to leave them an easy exit. "Stand back." Behind her, she heard Tappani back down a couple of steps. There still wasn't much room on the landing as she took the katana in both hands and stabbed hard into the wood around the lock. Gaea's sword sliced through the oak as if it were soft cheese. It took just a couple of jabs before the lock and door were in two disconnected pieces. With a kick, Ella slammed the door open and rushed into the hall.
Ocypete, of course, was nowhere in sight.
Ella glanced up and down the hall. A trail of bloody footprints led toward the front of the house.
"We've got to find and kill the harpy," Tappani said.
"I've got to get the hostages out of here first."
"What hostages? I thought we and the harpies were the only ones here."
"The woman who owns this house is here and maybe three of her staff. We've got to get them out."
"No, we've got to send the last harpy back to the Dreaming. Kill her first, and then see to any survivors."
Ella turned to look at him. Logically, she knew he was right. If Ocypete got away, she could do a lot more damage than killing the four innocents in this house. But that didn't make any difference. In the struggle between her heart and her brain, her heart always won. These women were real, here and now, and she couldn't sacrifice them on the chance it would help her stop Ocypete.
Ella shook her head. "We get the hostages out of here first, then deal with the harpy." Tappani opened his mouth to protest, and she turned her back on him and headed down the hall.
"How will you find them?" he demanded. "This is a big house, and there are at least three outbuildings. I saw them on my way in here."
"Because this is Gaea's world. And, now that we're connected again, I know what the Earth Mother knows. At least, I know as much as my poor mortal head can hold. But if I concentrate, I can see the layout of this house."
"What about the harpy? Can you see her?"
"That's a little harder. I can't tell exactly where Ocypete is."
Now that she was reconnected to Gaea, she had a map of the interior of the house in her head. Since Gaea was the Earth Mother, she knew the location of everything on the planet, and her avatars had access to as much of that information as they could hold. Unfortunately, it seemed that humans and the goddess had quite different concepts of time, so it was almost impossible to get a fix on living, or even moving objects, and that included the harpy who was now sneaking around somewhere in the house. Lizzie first, she thought. She could find her way to the room where the old woman was being held. Once they freed Lizzie, maybe she could help them find the other three prisoners.
The stairs leading up from the wine cellar emerged between the kitchen and dining room. The kitchen, on their left, was immaculate. Gleaming stainless steel counter tops fit over spotless white cabinets. There were no dishes out, no mess, no trash. The harpies must have realized that their hostages were going to need food, at least until they were ready to become food for the bird-bitches. They must have let the cook come in here to do her job.
Just past the kitchen was a hallway that ran across the back of the atrium—or what had once been a hallway. Now, the wall was a mass of rubble and broken glass. The only way to get from this side of the house to the other would be to go around through the living room on the east side, or go out into the central atrium. They had to do one or the other to get to the northwest corner where Lizzie's master bedroom was located. If Lizzie even still alive. Ella didn't know, but she was determined to find out. The gallant old woman was not going to be harpy meat if she had any say in the matter.
The house was built in a square with the entrance and garage at the far south side, next to the kitchen and dining room. There was a small apartment behind the garage. Ella supposed it had belonged to the cook and chauffeur. A bedroom next to it was probably where the maids slept. But there was no longer a way to reach those rooms from this side of the house. Ella just hoped that the staff was being kept near Lizzie.
The polished maple floors were pitted and scratched with claw marks. Fresh gouges and bloody footprints led toward the front of the house. Where was Ocypete? Was she waiting for them? Or was she on the run? Either way, Ella was determined to get to Lizzie first. She'd deal with the harpy later.
"This way," she said to Tappani.
Cautiously, she moved toward the front of the house. There was a door opening from the dining room to the atrium. In the doorway to the dining room, she stopped to look at the destruction. It was a large room, about thirty feet long by twenty wide. What had once been a big glass-topped dining table and a dozen chairs was now a pile of kindling and glass fragments that glittered in the afternoon light. Ella felt a warm breeze wash across her. It was hard to smell anything over the stink of the harpy vomit that coated her, but she thought she caught the scent of chlorinated water. Mentally, she checked Gaea's map. Yes, there was a swimming pool in the atrium.
Gaea's sword hummed in her hand as they stepped through the open sliding doors onto the flagstone of the atrium. To her right, Ella could see in through the glass interior wall into the living room at the east side of the square. Harpy central, she thought. The girls had been nesting there. It was hard even to imagine what kind of furniture had once made up the mess of stuffing, splinters, and bird excrement. Two mahogany pedestals stood near the window. One pedestal still held a curving Chihuly polyvitro vase of blue and green glass. The other was surrounded by blue and green fragments.
There was fresh harpy blood here and more filth, but Ella couldn't detect any kind of a clear trail. She thought there was more blood toward the living room nest. There was no time to be sure, no more time to be careful. With long strides, Ella crossed the atrium. She entered the sleeping wing on the west side of the house, walking through the hole where the sliding doors had been. Tappani was right behind her. They hurried down the hall, heading for the smooth, solid teak double doors at the end that led to Lizzie's master suite. The doors were intact and locked. Ella felt a brief pang of regret as she sliced through the beautiful, fine grained wood around the lock, but saving the inhabitants of the house was more important that trying to preserve the beauty of the doors.
Ella kicked open the double doors and burst into the room. She heard gasp fr
om Lizzie but had no time to look at her. Ella's eyes scanned the room, looking for Ocypete. It would be just like her to leave the old woman as bait in a trap; but no, the room was empty but for the three of them.
"Get yourself out of here, girl!" Lizzie commanded. "Those filthy creatures will be back any second."
"There's only one left," Ella told her, "and if Ocypete shows up, she won't be around for long." She held Gaea's sword in two hands and felt the katana humming in agreement. "We've come to get you out of here, and your staff, too, if any of them are left alive."
"And kill the harpy," Tappani put in.
"After," Ella snapped. She was beginning to understand how Tappani's stubborn insistence on doing what he thought was most important had got him busted in the Courts of Heaven.
"The girls are in the next room down the hall," Lizzie said. She, too, appeared to see the wisdom of ignoring Tappani. "I'm not sure where my cook, Rosa, is. She must be still alive because I've been eating her cooking all along."
"Not too far away," Ella said. "The harpies haven't touched the kitchen, so I assume they're holding her near there."
"She and Roger have—had—the little apartment behind the kitchen. They could be keeping her there."
Damn! That meant they had to go back through the kitchen to try to reach the cook's room. At