for me?" The hand shook her like a rag doll. Lights flashed across her vision. "Well, my pecker's got a thing or two to say to you, so you just sit still and let him have his say."
He threw her to the ground. Her head slammed into the floorboards. Stunned, she lay in the middle of a spinning vortex, struggling to remain conscious. Footsteps rustled in the straw nearby, but she couldn't remember who they belonged to.
Lucidity broke through the haze like a sunbeam. She pushed herself into a sitting position even though it felt as though someone had piled a load of bricks onto her back. The nearby shuffling continued. It had to be Fodor Glava. He was going to rape her and kill her. She needed her crucifix, but where was it? Frantic, she crawled away from the sound, hoping to find the figurine or some sort of weapon. Her time was almost up; at any moment, she would feel the grip of cold fingers somewhere on her body, and then it would be too late.
"Damn fool."
Why was he speaking to her again? Why did his voice sound strange? She turned her head.
Cora stood in the doorway, her rifle trained on Fodor Glava. A storm lantern hung from her belt, bathing her in an orange halo.
"Cora!" In that moment, Victoria could have hugged her.
"Hush up," Cora said, keeping her gaze to the man standing in the shadows. "You there. Just what do you think you're doing?"
"Cora Oglesby," he replied. "About time you showed up. Your girl here ain't much sport."
"She ain't my girl. She's just a lost lamb showed up on my doorstep."
"Awful keen on protecting her, ain't you?"
Cora stepped toward him. "Ain't nothing special. I just happen to like shooting wolves is all. You're the feller calls himself Fodor Glava, I presume?"
"Naturally," he replied with a bow. "Sure is nice to see you again."
"You can stick the act where the sun don't shine," Cora said. "I know you ain't him because I done him in four years past."
The man laughed. "You can't never kill what's dead."
"Seems to me I been doing just that for more years than I've got fingers and toes. So either I've earned my keep shamming folk all this time, or you ain't got a clue what you is." Cora closed one eye and sighted down the rifle's barrel. "Care to call my bluff?"
For once, the man didn't reply.
"That's what I thought," Cora said, "but now that we know who you ain't, I want to know who you are and why you go about calling yourself Glava."
"His blood is in me, so why shouldn't I?" he said. "I've just as much a claim to it as he did now."
Cora cocked her head to one side. "Ain't that odd? He never so much as gave you a mention when I was running him through. Could be he had other things on his mind. Still, I reckon he might have said something about making a dimwit of a disciple."
"I was his ace in the hole, see? His backup gun if you managed to whip him. He had it all figured out."
"Except for the part where I've got you on the business end of my gun," Cora said. "How are you supposed to get your revenge now or whatever you was planning to do?"
"I got my ways," he replied.
"Ain't going to do you much good if they ain't coming by in the next few minutes." Cora glanced down at Victoria. "Get up, girl."
Victoria scrambled to her feet and hurried over to her, keeping an eye on the man. "Yes?"
"Here." Cora shoved the rifle into her hands. "Keep this on him."
The weight of the gun was almost too much for her. Hoisting it with difficulty, she pointed the barrel at the blue eyes. "What will you do?"
"Get my answer," Cora said. She untied the lantern from her belt and lifted it. "Now, let's see who you really are."
"He is a demon," said a new voice. "That is all you need to know."
Cora's head turned so quickly Victoria heard her neck bones pop. "Who in tarnation are you?" the hunter asked.
"You only need to know what I am," the woman replied.
Victoria glanced over her shoulder at the speaker, and a chill ran down her spine. The silhouette of a woman stood in the doorway, eyes gleaming red in the night.