Ready or not, the game was on.  Lexi vanished again, with instructions for us to stay in the foyer or library. Eddie helped me out of the kitchen, and we sat on the steps facing the front door.  We heard her moving furniture from time to time, and singing to herself.  "Where is she?" Eddie asked me after forty-five minutes had passed.  He had smoked five cigarettes during that time, one after the other.

"Lexi?"

"No.  The other one."  His voice was drained of emotion; I hadn't realized that the uncertain waiting was wearing on him.  God knew what else was bothering him.

"I don't know.  She followed Lexi and I underground, and was still down there when we came out.  And I broke her leg.  She probably killed herself to fix it.  It'll take her at least an hour to come back, maybe three.  Then she has to find her way out, and get up here.  She could come any minute."

There was nothing else to talk about, so I explained the strange underground tunnels, cars, and house to Eddie, who didn't have any response except to pace and smoke.

We waited there for two hours.  At two in the morning there was a knock at the door, and there was little doubt as to who it was.

"I could plug her right now, through the door," Eddie said.

"Let her in," I told Eddie.  I was still sitting on the steps.  He looked at me like I was crazy.  "Better to know where she is," I said.  "If you shoot her she won't let you get close next time."

"You're the general," he said, and opened the door.  Taiisha looked from Eddie to me, then came inside.  I could tell that she'd borrowed time; there was blood on her clothes, and her leg was no longer broken.

"Keeping warm?" she asked.  Her eyes went to the cast on my leg and my thickly wrapped foot.  "You didn't fix your..." She looked confused, then annoyed.  "Still being foolish," she said.  "Look at me, Kerry."

I did.  Her commanding voice still tugged at me whether I wanted it to or not.

"This is what's going to happen.  You die first.  Then you come back, or I'll send Edward and the snipwit after you.  Then maybe more of your friends.  The girl with the green hair, maybe?"

My mouth dropped open.  How did she know about Liz?  It wasn't my imagination.  She'd been following me since before I ran away...

Taiisha used that distraction to come at me, knife in hand.  She knocked Eddie to the floor as she went, and was halfway across the foyer before I even realized she was coming.   I barely parried her blade, taking an involuntary step back onto the steps and as I did that my leg went boneless.  The cast kept my knee from folding but the leg skidded out from under me.  Sheer agony, but also sheer luck.  Falling dropped me under Taiisha's second attack.

I knew I had a chance of beating Taiisha while she was still awkward from coming back…if I could stand up!  She could move now, but not as well as she'd be able to move with another several hours of rest.  Taiisha had rushed herself, and that might be our only chance.  I squirmed and rolled to the side, away from the steps, avoiding a series of stomps.

I heard Eddie yelling, "Poppet, get away from her!" from the front door, which he had closed as soon as he got to his feet.  He fired a shot at the ceiling.

Taiisha paused to look up at him.  "Not your turn yet!" she laughed.  When she turned away, I swung my sword like an axe into her ankle.  I missed the tendon I was hoping to cut.  She jumped back with a chuckle of respect and a relatively harmless vent in the side of her boot.  "Can't turn my back on you any more, Kerry, can I?"

That was when Lexi came out of nowhere and upended a ten-quart pot of boiling water on Taiisha's head.  The assassin shrieked in surprise as the water scalded her.  Lexi banged her on the head with the empty pot, and then it was knocked out of her hands by Taiisha's blindly lashing arm.  Steam was rising from Taiisha's hair, clothes, and the puddle around her.  Her piercing gray eyes found Lexi.

"I changed my mind," Taiisha said.  "Kerry can follow you."

"Oh, God...Lexi, run!"

Grinning like a cornered suicide bomber, Lexi was already taking big, taunting steps backward into the library.  When Taiisha took a step in her direction, she bolted.

Eddie was laughing, but it was hollow, not his normal belly-shaking laugh.  "What the hell was that?" he gasped.

"Why did Lexi do that?  Taiisha'll kill her if she catches her!"

He didn't stop grinning.  "I'm not so sure she'll ever catch her."

I pushed myself up the wall and listened to the pursuit through the house, but I couldn't tell what was happening.  There were several seconds of complete silence, and then a crash that shook the whole house from the basement.  Someone ran up the stairs after that, and I tensed, thinking that Taiisha had killed Lexi and was coming back, but then I heard Lexi yelling strangely--it sounded like she was rapping, actually.  Why was she rapping?  Her voice faded out--she was running through the back of the house, and judging by the sound Taiisha was close behind her.

There were more clattering, banging sounds, and then a house-rattling explosion from the kitchen.  Metal clanging followed immediately; the antique stove had blown its top.  More metal crashed around, and then dishes rattled, one after the other, as though they were being flung to the floor one at a time.  I started to push myself away from the wall.  Eddie put his hand on my shoulder.  "Wait," he said.

"Lexi--"

"Just wait."  He was right; in the next instant the chase was headed upstairs.  Then someone fell down the stairs, and ran back up again.  I heard a cat yowl, from Lexi's room, and then silence.  Less than a minute later, there was a loud wood-on-wood clattering--the ladder from the attic, coming down--and Lexi came from the direction of Eddie's room, jumped down to the first landing, and ran back up the steps toward her own room.  Taiisha was a few steps behind her.  She paused long enough to throw a shovel at Lexi--it stuck in the steps, like a javelin--and then continued chasing her.  She was covered with flour, and bleeding.  "Lexi didn't look hurt," Eddie said.

"Shit," I replied.  I wondered belatedly where Taiisha had gotten the shovel from.  "She's going to catch her sooner or later."  I tried to go up the stairs, and Eddie held my arm.  "Let me go!" I shouted.

"Wait," he said again.  Now he was holding both of my arms.  I pulled; he held tighter.

I could have slipped loose, but I was off-balance now.  If I got free I'd just fall.  "She's going to die if we don't help!"

Eddie nodded.  There were more tumbling noises, a door slamming, and then another tremendous crash from the kitchen.  The floor shook again.  "Now," he said, pulling me along.  He was headed for the kitchen.

When we got there, we found Lexi sitting on top of the refrigerator, which was lying on its side and blocking the door of the secret staircase shut.  Not only was the fridge on its side, but flour, oil, and broken dishes were scattered everywhere.  It looked like a restaurant had exploded.  I limped to the kitchen table and leaned heavily on it.

"Freak-a-me, freak-a-you," Lexi said, and sighed.  "Turn off the stove, please," she added.  There was a burner hissing.  Eddie shut it off.

A series of bangs erupted from the blocked door.  "Is she trapped?" I asked.

Lexi nodded.

"Get away from the door, Lexi.  How are you doing, Nikki?" Eddie asked.

"I don't think I can walk."

"Get outside to the car, both of you.  I'll come for you when this is over."

"No--"

"You can't move, Poppet.  She'll kill you," he said matter-of-factly.

"That doesn't matter!"

"Why? You come back from the dead too?" he snapped, looking me in the eyes.  The door shook under another assault from Taiisha.

I opened my mouth, but didn't say anything.  Couldn't.

He looked back at me for a long moment.  If he realized that he was right, he didn't say anything.  "You told me what to do, Nikki," he said.  "Let me handle it."

He was right.  I had to let him do this.  "When she dies," I said, "we have an hour.  Maybe less.  Before she comes back."

"Plenty of time.  Now go."

Taiisha could clearly hear us.  "I am not finished, Kerry!"  The next kick cracked the door.  She was going to be free in seconds.

"Not yet you aren't," Eddie said in a low voice, training his gun on the door.

"That's too bad," Lexi said.  "I liked that door."  She got up and calmly unplugged the toaster.

The door exploded into fragments; Taiisha had been systematically weakening the entire top half until one last kick all but shattered it.  She leapt out and onto the fridge, crouching there for half a second.  All of us froze at the sight of her, even Lexi.  Taiisha's face was powdered a sick, flayed white, matte in patches and shiny where blood and pus had soaked through the flour that coated her from head to waist.  Cat-claw scratches on her forehead and cheeks stood out in deep red strokes, and her left eyelid had been ripped down the middle.  Some of her hair and shirt had been burned off, and the skin beneath was angry red and blistered. Only the abject hatred in her gray eyes looked even remotely human.  For several seconds, she was the only thing that moved.  Then she slammed Eddie aside with her forearm and came straight across the kitchen after me. 

I stepped away from the table and fell.  I rolled onto my back and raised my sword, and Taiisha slapped it away.  Taiisha pulled me up by the hair, drew her arm back, and then Lexi swung the toaster by its cord like a mace.  The cheerful chromed appliance connected with Taiisha's abused face.

The hand in my hair released.  I dropped to the floor and swept Taiisha's feet with my injured leg.  It hurt terribly, but Taiisha went down.  Lexi took another swing with the toaster.  Taiisha caught it and took it away.

I started to crawl toward my sword, and Taiisha hit me in the head with the toaster.  I saw stars.  "Get up!" she yelled, hitting me across the back with it each time she yelled.  "Up! Up! Up!"  She sounded insane.  I had never heard her sound like she was out of control before.

I curled into a half-ball with my arms across my face, and both my hands were grabbed.  It was Lexi, dragging me away from Taiisha.  Taiisha hit her with the toaster then, spinning it in an overhand-underhand figure eight and knocking her flat on her back. 

Eddie's gun roared.  I saw the exit wound blossom on Taiisha's white-smeared lapel like a bloody corsage. 

Taiisha spun mid-step, dropped the dented appliance, lost her balance, and fell to one knee.  She pushed herself back up immediately.  "Can't turn my back...on either of you." she snarled.

Blood streamed down her face from a gashed forehead, but Lexi was still conscious.  She seized my hands again and pulled me away from Taiisha with a fierce yank.  Taiisha turned too late to stop her but kicked my shot leg in passing nonetheless.  I nearly passed out from the pain.  Taiisha lunged after Lexi, who was escaping into the dining room, and Eddie shot her again.  She dropped to her knees with a bullet in her stomach.  As soon as it looked like she was going to stand upright again, he shot her in the back.  She dropped to a crouch, eyes on the floor, hands clenching and unclenching.  If she had any limits, she'd reached one of them.

Eddie walked up to her and put his gun to the back of her head.

"Eddie--"

"Trust me," he said, not looking at me, and blew her brains out.  Taiisha flopped to the floor with half her face gone.

Lexi came out of the dining room, and sat down on the floor next to me with her chin on her hands.  "That's about the second grossest thing I've ever seen," she said.  Her voice was strange.  Not shocked or horrified, just strange.  Flat.  It reminded me of a voice in an old black-and-white movie.  "No more red meat for you, Mister Doctor Edward Sharp."  She made no effort to wipe away the blood streaming down her face.  Everyone was panting.

I crawled to the wall so I could push myself upright.  "We have to do it now," I said.  Looking at Eddie, I realized that I should have done it.  The violence didn't suit Eddie or Lexi.  Eddie hadn't ever killed before, judging by his drawn expression.  I had wished I could upset him in the past, but now he was upset, and it didn't make me happy.  "I'm sorry," I said.  "I should've--"

He cut me off with an almost irritated wave of his hand and a "tsk."

A cat padded into the kitchen.  It was Malice.  The black cat beelined for Lexi, sniffed her foot, and then butted her head into her owner's hand.  "I want some hot chocolate," Lexi said, petting her cat.  Her voice was regaining some of its color.  "It's a dark night."

"Hot chocolate and murder," Eddie said with an attempt at a grin.  "What a Saturday night."

"Leave her alone," I said absently.  "I saw a woodchipper somewhere.  That's what we need."

"It's a stump grinder," Lexi said as she pushed herself to her feet.  "It's at Sir William's.  And we have to go back there anyway.  We can put her in the Range Rover."

"The Ravens' car?" Eddie asked.

"No, stupidhead, it's a truck.  Land Rover doesn't build cars."  She found a kettle in the disaster area that had been the kitchen and started to fill it.  Then she stopped, realizing that the stove was torn apart.  Lexi gave a tremulous sigh, put the kettle down, and started fussing with the burners.  She was muttering under her breath.  I'd never heard her mutter before.

Eddie had left to bundle Taiisha's body into the truck, and I followed him as best I could.  "Lexi's not right," I said.

"I know."  He sounded annoyed; he wasn't right, either.  I felt like I ought to be taking more of a leadership role, because I wasn't as rattled by the murder, but I didn't know what Eddie had in mind exactly, and he wouldn't tell me.  "Find one of her pills," he said.

"I'm not going to do that," I said.

"It'll calm her down, dammit.  She's going to have a nervous breakdown otherwise."  I glared at Eddie.  "Don't look at me like that.  I know you like her, and she's doing better than she has been--better than most people involved want her to be doing, by the way--but this shit is running right up against what set her off in the first place.  She's the last person in the world who needs to be dumped into this kind of goddamn...charnel house.  So if you don't want to drug her, find the pills for me, and I'll do it.  Just one--hell, half of one--in her hot chocolate, and that way she'll still be sane in the morning.  Okay?"

I didn't have anything else to say, so I nodded and went back into the house.  I sat in the dining room and closed my eyes.  Was I really free?  I was still afraid to wish for it.  I heard Lexi on the phone with the person she called Sir William, promising him over sixteen trillion francs, probably for helping me after I'd been shot.

"How are you going to pay him?" I asked.

"Imaginary money," Lexi said.  "Most people don't take it, but we have an agreement, an accord as it were.  It's good business, really."  She hung her head suddenly.  "I have so much to do," she said, "and now there's a mess to be cleaned up."  Lexi snatched an intact plate off of the counter and hurled it to the floor.  She started muttering again, and I couldn't understand anything she said, something about things that didn't need to be in her house any more.  She grabbed another one, and another, and after she broke the third one I saw that she was crying.  "I should just burn this house to the ground and start over again," she said.  "Myself, too."  She looked my way but didn't seem to see me.  "I wish I could see the right ghosts," she whined.  "All the wrong ones keep showing up."  Lexi's face went instantly from petulance to madness, so quickly it made me take a step back, and she grabbed another plate to throw on the floor.

I was frozen, startled by what I saw in her eyes; Eddie stepped past me and grabbed the plate out of her hand.  He took her by the shoulders and tried to pull her away from the counter, and she pushed against him.

"You don't understand!" she wailed.  "You don't understand, they can't be here any more, I don't want them here and if they don't go on the floor they'll go out the window!"  She struggled free from Eddie and managed to throw another plate on the floor.  I caught her by the wrists, and she struggled against me.  "They're not allowed in my goddamn house any more!" she screamed. 

"Lexi--"

"No more!  No more no more no more!"  She was pulling hard against me.  I used her momentum against her and got her twisted away from the counter.  She kept fighting me until Eddie offered her a glass of laced milk.  She took it, and I didn't complain.

"Was she right about the stump grinder?" Eddie asked.  He had picked up the phone, which she hadn't hung up.

"I think so.  I was a bit fucked up." 

He put the phone to his ear and put on his friendliest voice.  "William?  No, she's fine, Nikki and I are taking care of her.  Yes, the young woman you met earlier.  I'm Eddie, we haven't met."  He listened for a moment.  "It's been a strange evening.  Listen, I need to ask a favor of you, and I'm willing to pay for the privilege."

"In real money," I whispered.  Eddie frowned at me.  "Just tell him."