Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter by A. E. Moorat

Author:A. E. Moorat [Moorat, A. E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781444700268
Publisher: Hodder Paperback
Published: 2010-10-25T05:00:00+00:00

XXV

'I'm on my way, lassie,' screamed Maggie Brown, who rode Henstridge, brother to Helfer, as loyal and as brave a mount as his sibling, and crucially as agile, because Maggie rode Henstridge into the maze and she wasn't slowing down. Not even when she passed the remains of Hudson, the sight of her fallen comrade hitting her like a punch to the ribcage. (As she rode by his body she swore a silent vow of revenge for him.) Not even when they reached the first corner and Henstridge seemed somehow to defy his own huge physicality in order to turn it flawlessly; as angry, Maggie guessed, as she was. As desperate for vengeance as she was.

'I'm on my way!'

Maggie was cursing herself. Cursing Conroy for creating the diversion. Where was Hicks, she wondered? He would be inconsolable, she knew. She thundered along the pathway, around another corner. Here, the hedge had been destroyed. 'Maggie Brown,' came the second scream. The lassie. She was on the move. God, what was she up to? Was she trying to get herself killed?

'Where are you, Your Majesty?' shouted Maggie, urging Henstridge on. She knew the maze well. Heaven knows she'd tracked the two lovebirds through it enough times. Even so, she was wary of taking the wrong turn, leading Henstridge into a dead end, wasting precious seconds.

'Maggie,' came the shout in reply, 'I'm here. I'm here.'

'Well stay there, then,' Maggie called.

'They've taken Albert,' came the response, so desperate and so impassioned that Maggie Brown thought she would take it to her grave.

Above her appeared Vasquez, bow in hand, quiver at her back, making her way across the top of the maze by leaping across the pathways from one hedgetop to the next, neither losing her footing nor breaking stride, fitting an arrow into her bow as she ran, the ice detonating beneath her feet.

'Vasquez,' called Maggie, passing beneath the archer who leapt over the top of her, 'can you see her? Can you see the Queen?'

'I'm on it, sir,' said Vasquez, running the length of a hedgetop then, without pause, jumping to the next.

'I see her,' she called triumphant, 'I see the Queen.' Next, darting along the top of this hedge, she was addressing Victoria, 'Your Majesty, I have your back.'

'No,' screamed Victoria, out of sight, seen only by Vasquez, 'not me. Save Albert.'

'Yes, ma'am,' and Vasquez was on the move again, now in pursuit of the werewolf, leaping across the dividing hedges until she stopped suddenly having found her man.

In a blur of movement she snatched an arrow from the quiver and fitted it to the bow, which she raised, drew back the sinew with which it was strung then took aim, tracking her quarry.

'I have him, sir,' she called, 'permission to fire.'

'Do you have a clear shot?' called Maggie.

Vasquez paused. 'Negative,' she said.

Vasquez used arrows tipped with strychnine. If one of them even grazed the Prince he would be dead within seconds. But the wolf was big.

And Vasquez was good.

The best.

'Take the shot,' commanded Maggie Brown.

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