Donna Joy Usher - Chanel 02 - Goons 'n' Roses (18 page)

I’m not alone,’ I said. ‘Hang on.’ I stuck the end of the torch in my mouth, unzipped the small bag at my waist and plucked the box knife from its depths. Martine held her hands out while I sawed through her bindings.

‘Go start on the others,’ she said, reaching into her own bag, ‘I’ll do my legs.’

Big H was in the next room. I cut his hands and let him pull his own Duct tape off while I freed his legs. ‘What are you doing here?’ he whispered.

‘Saving your arse.’ I was starting to get a little cocky. I couldn’t believe I was going to pull this off.

Martine had freed Mum and was starting on Trent by the time I’d finished with Big H. I hugged Mum and then, holding her hand, led her back to the stairs.

When we were all assembled there I whispered, ‘I’ll go first. Form a line and keep in contact. Trent you come last and close the door when we’re all out.’ Praying I would head in the right direction I turned out my torch and went up the stairs, straining up against the trap door.

For one terrifying second I thought it was locked, but then the door lifted slowly, heavy on my back. I grabbed the edge and gently lowered it down to the floor as I emerged from the hole. I could feel Mum’s small hand holding onto the waist band of my pants. I moved slowly away from the stairs, giving them time to emerge from the dungeon, and me time to find the hallway.

‘Stop,’ Trent whispered when he was free.

And then I heard the last sound I wanted to hear. The floor above us creaked as somebody moved across it.

‘I want to have a word with my sister,’ Hillary said from the top of the stairs. ‘Riley, come and help me open the door.’

Oh shit.

I shuffled as quickly as I could towards the hall with my conga-line behind me. If we could just get around the corner before they got down the stairs. If we could just get out the back door before they realised we were gone.

But of course we couldn’t and we didn’t and I had only just found the corridor when Hillary barked, ‘I can’t see a bloody thing. Turn a light on.’

A single, naked bulb flickered on, illuminating the open trap door in the floor. ‘Who left the bloody door open,’ Hillary said and then she saw us, half in the hall, half in the foyer and she screamed.

The floor above exploded with the sound of running feet and I turned and sprinted for the back door. We might have made it too, if the circus group, responding to the cry, hadn’t come charging through the kitchen and down the hallway.

‘Stop,’ I yelled. ‘Go back.’ I threw my arm in the direction I was running but the clowns weren’t having any of that running-away shit. They had waited an awfully long time to seek their revenge and they weren’t going to stop till it was nigh.

‘Ah fuck,’ I said, as Ruffles raced past me on his unicycle.

Sammy had three batons now. They were a blur as he juggled them and ran at the same time. Melvin had his cane pointed straight ahead like a fencing sword and his hat wedged firmly on his head. His cape flowed out behind him as he seemed to glide down the corridor.

I dived into a side door just in time to avoid being squashed by Rocky. His shoulders scraped the walls on each side as he charged, roaring towards the melee. Banjo brought up the rear, his stilts clumping on the floor as he waved his baseball bat in the air.

‘Made some new friends?’ Mum said, turning back towards the fight.

‘You know me,’ I said nonchalantly. ‘I’m a little chatty cat.’ It was a pretty good effort because I felt anything but nonchalant. I was absolutely terrified, but there was no
way
I was letting the clowns go it alone.

The fight was in full swing by the time I got back. I paused for a second, viewing the chaos before I launched myself into its midst. Sammy was using his juggling batons to stop anyone getting close enough to grab him. When they tried, he snatched a baton out of the air with lightning quick hands and smacked them on the head.

Banjo sparred with Riley. You would have thought his stilts would have slowed him down, but he was as nimble as a ninja as he punched and blocked. He executed a perfect shin kick to Riley’s head, made all the more effective because it wasn’t his shin that made contact, it was his stilt. Riley’s head whipped to the side and he staggered a few steps. Banjo followed with a kick to the stomach and Riley flew backwards, knocking into Vladimir before crashing to the floor.

Vladimir roared and turned towards Banjo, pulling his gun out of his jacket. Out of nowhere, Melvin appeared behind Vladimir and smacked him over the back with his cane; the slender willow of the shaft acting as a whip. Vladimir roared and turned towards Melvin, but Melvin was no longer there.

‘Don’t use your guns,’ Hillary shrieked. She was right. Lucky for us they were just as likely to shoot one of their own. It took away their main advantage and levelled the playing field.

I saw Boris put his gun away and grab Sammy from behind. He lifted one thick arm to punch the clown, but suddenly, Boris wasn’t standing on the ground. He was suspended in the air, his legs waving wildly as Rocky smacked him into the wall. I heard wood creak and then break as Rocky roared and shoved Boris right through the wall. It was a good thing he was wearing a neck brace.

I was starting to think this would be a shoe-in but there was a shout from the front and then more men rushed into the room.

Stupid me.

I had thought the men we had met were the only ones we had to worry about. But all along there had been hints of other people in the background working to thwart us.

When Mum had been kidnapped, there had been at least two other people involved. And there had to have been people watching us come and go from the hotel. How else would they have known when it was safe to dump Tommy’s body in my room? How else would Sergeant Turner have known exactly where to find me?

It was just my luck to time my rescue mission for the moment the rest of the Mafia were due to turn up. They swarmed into the room, joining the fight and suddenly, we were outnumbered.

Melvin dropped his cane and grabbed his hat off his head. He reached into its depths and pulled out a huge, hairy spider. Its legs were as thick as my little finger and as I launched myself into the fight I saw him flick his wrist and propel the spider through the air to land on one of the newcomers’ faces. The man shrieked and threw his arms out, flailing around as he tried to dislodge the spider.

‘South American Birdeater,’ Crafty said to me as he raced past. He had a baton in his hand which he used to club the struggling man on the head. He scooped the spider up and placed it gently in his pocket before moving onto his next victim.

Martine and Mickey were going for it hammer-and-tongs. Mickey threw a right hook at Martine but she blocked it and followed up with an uppercut to his chin. His head jerked back and she kicked her leg out in a wide arc, sweeping his feet out from under him. He bellowed in surprise as went down in a jumble of limbs. Martine knelt over him, flicked back her hair with both hands – Miss Piggy style, and proceeded to slam Mickey’s head into the floor.

Boo Boo was next to me, wrestling with a tall, thin man I’d never seen before. The man was supple and flexible and even though Boo Boo was bending him into poses that should have been agonising, it seemed to have no effect on the man.

‘Chanel,’ Crafty called, throwing me a wooden baton when I looked in his direction.

I immediately put it to good use, cracking the man over the back of his head. He slid to the floor where he lay twitching. Boo Boo clapped his hands together and blew a raspberry.

I spun around just as Riley pulled a knife out of his pocket and flicked it open. He stabbed at Banjo with it. The clown jumped nimbly out of the way, but Riley stuck out a foot and hooked one of the stilts. Banjo tottered to the side but before Riley could take advantage of it I kicked him in the back of the knees and thumped him over the head with the baton. He crashed to the floor and Banjo stepped onto him; his stilts crushing into Riley’s ribs. What with the car accident and now this, Riley was having a pretty rough day.

I looked around for Mum. She was fighting with Hillary – the two of them venting years of childhood rivalry as they clawed and scratched at each other. Mum looked safe enough for now but next to them Trent was wrestling with Boris.

As I watched, Boris grabbed Trent’s hand and twisted it ruthlessly, before slamming his elbow down onto the outer side of Trent’s arm. I heard a crunching pop that made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end as Trent cried out in pain. Boris whipped a knife out of his pocket and flicked the blade out, shoving the tip at Trent’s chest. Trent grabbed Boris’s wrist, but in pain, and with only one good arm, he was having trouble holding the knife at bay. I jumped onto Boris’s back. Clinging to him with my legs and wrapping my arms around his throat in an imitation of a choke hold I’d seen the fighters in the UFC use. I squeezed my arms as tightly as I could, trying to cut off the blood supply to his brain.

Mum’s hands were around Hillary’s throat. She was squeezing and shaking and it would have been quite effective if Hillary hadn’t been doing the same to her. They looked like two rag dolls trying to strangle each other. Mum let go with one hand and grabbed a handful of Hillary’s hair. I heard a rip and Hillary let out a scream and let go of Mum’s throat. A clump of blonde hair was tangled in Mum’s fingers as she punched her sister in the face.

My choke hold didn’t appear to be anything more than annoying to Boris. He reached back with his spare hand and grabbed my shirt. There was a tearing sound as he hauled me off and threw me into a wall. Pain exploded in my head and I slid down the wall and lay stunned on the ground.

I crawled to my knees, favouring my left arm, and climbed unsteadily to my feet. Trent was still holding off the knife, but he was shaking and a bead of sweat dribbled down his face.

I threw myself at Boris’s arm. It was like hitting a beam of steel. I grabbed his elbow and hung off it, trying to use my weight to pull the blade away from Trent. Effortlessly Boris plucked me off and flung me back into the wall. With only one arm to defend himself, Trent didn’t stand a chance.

Ignoring the pain in my arm from my last collision with the wall, I darted over to Crafty and yelled, ‘Spider.’ He plucked the huge, hairy arachnid out of his pocket and dumped it into the palm of my hand. I could feel the hair on its legs grazing my skin as it walked slowly over my palm towards my arm.

‘Eeeeeeeeeekkkkk,’ I squealed as I darted back to Boris. The knife was almost at Trent’s chest. Mum’s face was a frozen mask of horror as she watched the deadly struggle. She fought to be free of Hillary’s clasping hands, but Hillary, also watching Boris and Trent, hung on with grave determination, a manic laugh bubbling out of her.

As the tip of the knife penetrated Trent’s skin, I pulled back the collar on Boris’s shirt and shoved the spider inside. I could see it scrabbling around underneath the fabric and Boris let out a high-pitched shriek, dropping the knife so that he could bat at the spider. Trent staggered to the side, panting as he held his wounded arm close to his body.

Melvin was pulling rabbits out of his hat, faster than I could count them and throwing them at the Mafia. He was a deft shot and even though being hit in the face by a flying rabbit was not deadly, it was a huge distraction. The rest of the clowns were using this to their advantage as they darted amongst the men, putting their batons to good use.

Boris danced around, frisking himself as he tried to catch the spider. Rocky lumbered towards him, watching him with a perplexed look on his face. Then he shrugged and whirled around like a discus thrower, sweeping his arm into Boris’s torso. He lifted him clear into the air and tossed him across the room and into the staircase. Boris slammed into the balustrade, smashing the handrail and landing in a pile of jumbled limbs. He slithered down a few stairs and lay still. I was hoping the spider was still three-dimensional.

All of a sudden it appeared there were more of us than them and I had just finished thinking, ‘We’re going to win,’ when I heard Barney Stilton’s slimy voice yell, ‘Stop.’

There was silence, except for Hillary’s throaty laugh.

I had forgotten about Barney. I hadn’t seen him at all in the fight. But he was here now, and he was holding onto Mum with a gun pressed to her temple.

Her eyes were huge as she stared at me. I could see her mouthing, ‘Run,’ but there was no way I was going to be able to live with myself if I let that creepy bastard shoot her in the head.

Boris lifted his head and sat up, bracing himself with one arm against what was left of the balustrade. He staggered to his feet and shook his shirt away from his body. The huge spider fell to the floor and crawled towards the wall. Boris looked at it and shuddered before walking down the last few stairs. He grabbed hold of Trent’s shoulder and pushed him towards the hole in the floor. Trent stared at Mum with a helpless look as he disappeared down the stairs and into the dungeon.

The rest of the Mafia drew their guns and pointed them at us. I saw the clowns dropping their weapons and putting their hands into the air.

Rocky looked around, a confused expression on his face. ‘No more fight?’ he said.

‘It’s over buddy,’ Sammy replied, his voice heavy with dread.

We were all going to die, and we knew it.

Big H was the next down the stairs. He, too, looked at Mum. His eyes were full of horror and I found myself wondering if there had ever been anything between the two of them. It’s ridiculous what garbage pops into your head at the most inappropriate times.

Martine was still kneeling on Mickey, her hand curled into his dark hair. She looked like she was considering smashing his head into the ground one more time. But then she sighed and climbed off him.

Hillary shoved her in the back, pushing her towards the stairs. Martine shot a venom-filled look at her and said, ‘Just thought you should know – Tess is prettier than you.’

‘Kill her,’ Hillary hissed at Mickey.

‘With pleasure,’ he clambered to his feet and pulled out his gun.