Nikki is more or less passed out on codeine by the time I get her back to the house.  There's a Range Rover with Virginia plates that I'm pretty sure wasn't there when I left, parked in front of the house.  The lights are all off in the front half of the house, but the smell hits my nose the moment I open the door.  It's a rich, horrible, meat-and-shit smell, and the foyer is full of it.  I can see shiny spots on the floor and tangled lumps that look vaguely human, and I'm glad the lights are off.  There's just enough light leaking down the hall that leads to the kitchen to get me across the foyer and up the steps.  I can't think about what--or who--is lying terribly inert there, or what I'll do when the inevitable moment of finding out comes.

I don't want to throw up.  I don't want to have to.  But I won't think about that for now.

Nikki is shambling along beside me in a way that says I don't have to carry her, but there's still nobody home right now.  I get her upstairs, acting as a crutch for her injured leg, and into her bed as carefully as I can.

The floor groans downstairs.  So someone here is alive.  I fade out of Nikki's room, leaving the light on in there and the hall light off, and slip down the hall into the bathroom, avoiding the creaks the whole time.  Someone's coming up the stairs; judging by the tread it's Doctor Edward.  He and Nikki have been here long enough that I've gotten used to the way they walk.  He's moving slowly and carefully, and he goes into Nikki's room and says, "Poppet," with a guarded sort of voice.  Then he says, "Hey," and then nothing; he's realized she's asleep.  I slip silently past the door while he's in there, then equally silently to my room.

Oh, right, everything's still knocked over.  That's okay.  I dig through the closet and change clothes--everything I have is cold and wet and dirty, after all.  That done, I explore the house quickly, back to front.  I account for all of my cats.  Doctor Edward is still upstairs with Nikki, and he's turned on some lights so I can see.  One of the dead people is Martin, like Nikki said.  The other two are men I don't know.  Martin's throat has been ripped out; one of the unfamiliar men has been ripped open like roadkill.  I try to hold it in, but still manage to barf in the ballroom.  Dammit, it's going to be hard to get that out of the parquet.  Lucky there wasn't much in my stomach.

Gray is still AWOL.  I avoid Doctor Edward, who doesn't seem inclined to look for me anyway.  He stays upstairs for almost ninety minutes, and I don't care what he's up to.  I focus on the dead body closest to the ballroom.  After staring at it until my gorge goes down, I'm able to bring myself to touch it, and then my mind goes away a bit.  I don't lose time, but I feel distant.  I'm not dragging a dead man, I'm dragging something that needs to go out the back door.  It doesn't matter what it is.  It doesn't matter if it's wearing shoes and a Rolex.  Oh, crud, I shouldn't have thought that, I'm gonna--no, I'm not.  I hork up half a mouthful of bile, and then swallow instead of spitting.  I am not throwing up any more, it's no fun.  I drag the dead guy through the kitchen to the back door, then roll him out into the snow.  Right after I've done that, I think of the Range Rover, and have to go outside and dig in the dead guy's pockets for his keys, hoping all the time that the other one wasn't the driver, because he's much messier.  Thankfully, he wasn't.  I pocket the keys for a rainy day.  I've always liked Range Rovers.

Martin's next, or the Corpse Formerly Known As Martin, technically.  No, nothing terrible here, just some organic matter I don't need lying about the place.  He's lighter than the first guy, or maybe the blood trail has lubricated the floor, whichever, and out he goes into the snowy backyard as well.  The snow is piled almost three feet deep behind the house, so it's easy to roll them out of sight and out of mind.

The last one is the hardest. He's the one who's torn open.  He's not so heavy, either.  I try not to look at him. His eyes are open, and so is the bottom half of his torso, and things are kind of spilling out and dragging and snagging in the irregularities in the parquet.  I can feel the hair on the backs of his hands as I drag him by them and I think he's wearing Hugo Boss, both the suit and the cologne.  Eww, eww, EWWTHIS IS THE MOST HORRIBLE THING I'VE EVER DONE. 

This does it, I'm never having company again.

Then it's done, the three dead people in the foyer are outside in the snow where I (and more importantly, Ian) can't see them for now, and Doctor Edward hasn't made an appearance.  That's a good thing; I don't want to talk to him.  It sounds like Nikki is awake though; I can hear them talking up there.  I let them talk, and wet-mop the foyer, ballroom, dining room and kitchen.  It's a ten-minute job, not sanitary by any means, but the worst puddles of blood are replaced by a slightly creepy sort of dingy look and that's an improvement.  It isn't until now that I wonder if I haven't possibly disturbed an important crime scene and destroyed irreplaceable forensic evidence.  Oh, well, it wouldn't be the first time--I took a shower after I got raped, too.  So they'll lock me up as an accessory.  The thought doesn't bother me all that much, to be honest.  At least the floor is clean. 

I haven't eaten in hours and what I'd really like is a grilled cheese sandwich, but I go to the attic first, and dig around up there until I find the old leg brace I wore after my accident.  I put together a little care package for Nikki, take it in there to them, and help re-wrap her leg.

It's also time Doctor Edward knew that I know he's not really a doctor.  I don't know what he is, and the only reason I'm not taking a heavy object to his head is that even though he was obviously here to keep me docile for Ian, he wasn't here when our cars were auctioned off.  Heaven help Dr. Zheng if I ever see him and am holding a red-hot poker, though.  "I have some observations," I tell him.  "My foyer is covered in blood.  I was thinking about it, and it occurred to me that polite guests don't go splattering blood all over the house if they can help it, so I don't have to be polite either.  I could be a lot ruder in fact--"

"Martin's dead, Lexi," Doctor Edward says.  "And two other hardcases, who came here to kill me and Nikki, apparently."

"Something to do with the AMA, perhaps?  A little hazing?"  He ignores my stupid joke.  "It's such a nice foyer without all the blood.  I take it you know how to clean up messes like that?  Protein gets out protein, and so forth?"  I don't give him a chance to answer.  "Then it's settled.  You came up here as Ian's friend, so you'll clean the mess up."

Doctor Edward frowns.  "Why me? What about Nikki?" 

"Oh, you've been making her do everything, and now she's hurt.  It's your turn to do some work.  I'll pay you, if you want.  I don't know if I have any money but I can surely pay you in homemade bread, and that'll have to do." 

He's all business.  "That's fine.  Let's deal with the matter at hand now."

"What matter?  Oh, that's right, the evil chiclet formerly known as Gray.  We have to deal with the Gray matter!"  I laugh.  God, I'm an idiot.  "Yes, what do we want to do about her?"

"Nikki has an idea or two," he says.

"So do I.  If you see a string tied to something, or a bucket where it shouldn't be, don't touch it.  And don't go in the attic until I say it's okay.  What next?  Shall I run around nailing the doors and windows shut?"  No one's particularly amused by that, either.  I go downstairs, make a quick grilled cheese sandwich, and then spend an hour or two preparing my house for unwanted company.  I hope Ren's watching.  My father, too.  They'll be proud.

I'm in the kitchen when I hear the front door open, and low voices from up there.  Nikki's is almost inaudible; Gray seems to be shouting in comparison, though they're both talking at normal registers.  I've got a stock pot full of water boiling on the stove, and I take it off the eye and start walking down the back hall.  It's heavy, and I walk carefully so I don't slosh any of it around.

When I reach the TV room, I hear Eddie yell, "Poppet, get away from her!" and there's a loud BAM, a gunshot.  I'm startled; somehow it just didn't occur to me that someone would have a gun.

I rush a little bit, spilling some water on my hands, and I can hear Nikki and Gray scuffling in the foyer as I'm picking my way through the mess I left on the floor between the TV room and the library.  When I get there, Gray's back is to me and Nikki's on the floor with a big knife that she's presumably just failed to cut Gray with.  No one sees me until I dump the water over Gray's head.

She shrieks in surprise, and just in case the scalding isn't enough, I hit her over the head with the pot as well.

Gray actually smacks it out of my hands.  I was kind of hoping she'd be curled up in an agonized fetal position on the floor, but to be honest I doubted she really would be.

"I changed my mind," she says, her voice hot with anger and that stupid Italian accent gone for good.  "Kerry can follow you."

Nikki's voice is tiny with fear.  "Oh, God...Lexi, run!"

I'm already taking big, taunting steps backward into the library. Oh, yes, I've done this before, I've done it now, I've pulled the dragon's tail, just like the time Cygnet beaned Molly's older brother with a rotten peach, only this time there aren't any parents around to stop the beating before someone gets something worse than a split lip and a black eye.  I run, full tilt, and Gray is half a step behind me.

That's okay, though.  Through the library, ten big steps, and then I hook a sharp right into the TV room. I jump as I cross the threshold, because I dumped a bottle of liquid laundry detergent on the floor there.  Will Gray notice it?  A gasp of surprise and a heavy, wet thud from directly behind me suggests that she did not.

That gives me time to get the door to the hall of mirrors open.  Shadowy reflections dance around me as I charge down it to the top of the basement stairs, then pause briefly to pick up the apples I left there, two late-season Granny Smiths, lovely and about to go to waste. 

I throw the first one at Gray's head as soon as she steps into the hall of mirrors.  In the dark, maybe still rattled by the fall, she doesn't even see it coming, and the apple bounces off of her blue-smeared forehead with a satisfying pop, breaking into chunks upon impact.  "Touche, pussycat!" I yell.

Gray roars in anger.  I don't think I've ever heard a woman roar before.  It's more than a little bit scary, and I run down the steps without throwing the second apple.  The stairs moan threateningly and the old banister puts splinters in my hand, but they can be dealt with if I live long enough to find them hurtful.  My boots skid on the concrete floor as I turn and make for the storage room.  I reach the doorway as Gray reaches the bottom of the steps, and turn around to watch death charge me.  If she gets her hands on me, she's going to tear me to bits, I can tell by the look in her eyes.  Why can't I stop grinning?