Fate Worse Than Dragons, A by John Moore

Author:John Moore [Moore, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781531807306
Amazon: 1531807305
Publisher: Audible Studios on Brilliance Audio
Published: 2016-08-16T00:00:00+00:00

I need a plan, decided Gloria. It didn’t take her long to come up with one. Her first step was to grab a candleholder off the table, smash a pane out of one of the French doors leading to the balcony, and feel around the outside of the lock to see if there was a key, or perhaps an outside latch. There wasn’t, of course. She was on the third floor. She could think of no reason why anyone would want to lock a balcony door from the outside. But she checked it anyway, because architects do many weird things, and she would have felt like a damn fool if she broke down the door only to find that she could have opened it with a key.

Okay, so the door to the outside was locked, and the door to the inside was also locked. She felt over the frames on both doors, and under the carpet in front of each, in case someone had hidden a spare key. She didn’t find one, and didn’t expect to, but, of course, she had to check first. Fine, she thought. No surprises there. She examined the hinges. Both doors had them on the inside—could she pry them out with a teaspoon? No, the pins were covered with decorative knobs that needed a special tool to remove. Could she force the knobs off? Eventually, but she saw no need to be subtle. There was a quicker way. She looked at the table.

She carefully set the teapot, one cup, and a plate of finger sandwiches on the floor, in a corner of the room. She then flipped off the tablecloth, watching with no small amount of satisfaction as the rest of the Count’s expensive china hit the floor. The carpet prevented it from shattering, but there were enough chips, cracks, and broken handles to make the set useless. Beneath the cloth, the table was made of ornately wrought iron, with a round marble top. It was heavy. Very heavy. It was perfect.

It was so heavy she had to crouch beneath it and put one shoulder under the edge to tip it over. It went over with a resounding thunk. Chips of marble flew off the edge. She hesitated a bit, listening carefully at the door, wondering if the noise had attracted attention. No one came in. So now all she had to do was roll the table against the door. Once, and the door bent. Most of the glass panes cracked. Twice, three times, and the wood frame splintered around the lock. The glass shattered and fell out with little tinkly sounds. Once, twice more, and the table broke through the door.

Cold wind whipped the curtains when she pulled the door back and stepped through. She found herself standing on a narrow balcony with a railing of wrought iron, facing a long stretch of open lawn. Behind it lay cultivated fields, now brown, with the remains of the harvest left on them, and beyond those a dark wall of forest.

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