not afford to be squeamish.
She waited till Novak’s knee was bent to ninety degrees, presenting an ideal target. Then she took a deep breath, gathered her strength and jabbed her heel hard into the soft skin at the side of the joint, dragging another bubbling, coughing attempt at a scream from Novak’s blood-filled mouth. Alix aimed one more kick with her shoe’s pointed toe at Novak’s temple, putting her down again and leaving her flat out on the floor, barely conscious and hardly able to breathe.
Keeping half an eye on Novak, knowing that she could still be a deadly threat as long as there was breath in her body and a pulse, however faint, in her veins, Alix kicked off her shoes and pulled off her hold-ups. She grabbed hold of Novak’s wrists, and while Novak was still too stunned to resist passed one of the holdups around them in a figure-of-eight pattern. Next, she pulled both ends hard, till the nylon stocking dug into the flesh of Novak’s wrists, and knotted them tight. She repeated the same process with Novak’s ankles, provoking more muffled moans as she pulled the legs straight and worked the devastated knee joints.
Novak was immobilized. Now Alix needed some means of making her talk. She scrabbled through her evening bag, looking for something that could inflict pain: even a metal nail file, jabbed under an eye, would do. She found an even better option: a small bottle of eau de parfum spray. But that was only half of what Alix had in mind. Novak’s bag had fallen from her hand. Alix opened it. Sure enough, she kept a packet of cigarettes and a lighter there. Alix removed the lighter. Then, with it in one hand and the perfume in the other, she returned to Novak’s prone, twitching body.
Alix knelt down astride Novak’s chest, with her knees digging into her upper arms on either side. She looked down at Novak’s eyes. They were open but still unfocused. Alix slapped the side of Novak’s face and saw the other woman blink several times as she tried to focus her sight and gather her wits.
‘Watch,’ said Alix.
She pressed down the top of the scent bottle, spraying it above Novak’s head. Then she flicked the lighter and lifted it towards the cloud of perfume. It caught fire, turning into a jet of flame. Alix placed the lighter down on the floor. Then she used her now empty hand to brush away the hair from Novak’s forehead. It was a strangely tender gesture, but its purpose could not have been more brutal. Alix lowered the scent bottle till the flame was touching the skin that she had just exposed. She forced herself to leave it there for a couple of seconds, long enough to make Novak screw her eyes shut and make another high-pitched gurgling sound.
Time was passing. The unknown danger was drawing closer. Alix leaned down and hissed in Novak’s ear. ‘In case you were wondering, I’m not too scared or too soft to burn what’s left of your face. They’ll be able to fix the nose … eventually. But burns … that’s much tougher.’
Alix could see the effort of concentration it took Novak to produce a mushy, slurring response that was so indistinct that Alix had to stop and think before she could distinguish the three words: ‘Screw you, bitch.’
‘I’m in a hurry. I’m not going to give you any chances. You wouldn’t give me any. Just tell me: what’s going to happen? Why are they all in danger?’
Novak twisted her lips into a defiant smile, her scarlet lipstick now invisible beneath the thick coating of her even richer, thicker red blood. ‘Too late. Can’t stop it,’ she said.
Alix picked up the lighter again, drew another flame from the scent bottle, and held it against Novak’s left cheek, waiting fully five seconds till the nauseating smell of burnt hair and grilling skin filled her nostrils. The horror of what she was doing was so great and so real that it all but overpowered her will.
‘I won’t stop,’ Alix said, almost to persuade herself as much as Novak. And as the words left her mouth she saw a sudden flicker in Novak’s eyes and a twitch at the corner of her mouth as Novak detected the first signs of weakness.
‘Yes, you will,’ she mumbled.
‘Eat it,’ Alix said, and this time she ran the flame across the raw flesh and bone of Novak’s nose and then left it licking at