“You think you can interfere with my business? A forgotten housewife, living alone in the cellar of glorified carpenters? You think I don’t know? I look in on you each time I’m in London. I could snap your neck, and no one would even care.”
He shoved hard, unhooking his fingers, sending her reeling. She collided with a bookshelf, knocking heavy tomes to the floor like apples from a tree. Sabine stooped to pick up a book.
She would throw it at him, she thought, trying to remain practical and defensive; she would use it to deflect him. He grabbed the book before she could get a proper grip, wrenching it free and drawing back to strike her in the head.
Sabine anticipated the blow and ducked just in time, sending him careening into the shelf, dislodging a second harvest of books.
Dryden swore and recovered himself, searching the small office for her. She had scrambled away, ducking behind a chair, searching the legs for a handhold so that she might heave it up. She would chuck it at him. She would—
“Let me tell you what will happen now,” he said. “First, I will kill this dog.”
“No,” Sabine gasped, lunging for Bridget. When she stooped, Dryden grabbed her by a handful of hair and steered her downward, face against wood, to the desk.
Sir Dryden leaned very close to her ear. “You will return home with me to Park Lodge. Won’t your mother be pleased by the visit? You will remain under lock and key until my business with the professor is finished. Then, we will discuss how you learned about it,whatyou know, and what you intended to do with the information. It is an understatement to say that I amshockedto see you here, but I am not disappointed.”
Bridget’s barking had reached deafening levels. The dog was maddened at the sight of her mistress under attack. She would not bite him unless Sabine gave the command, but she barked to bring down the Institute walls.
“Who,” Dryden said over the sound of the dog, “have you told?” He resettled his hand and so his thumb pressed into a soft spot of her neck.
“Go to hell,” Sabine choked.
“You would threaten me? Even now?”
“I will fight you until death,” she said, fumbling her hands along the surface of the desk, feeling for some weapon. She felt a handkerchief... spectacles... the sharp point of a letter opener.Yes!Sabine rejoiced and walked her shaking fingers around the knife-like shape, searching for the handle. She moved slowly, trying not to draw attention; meanwhile her vision swam; she gasped for breath.
“Who knows about the gunpowder?” Dryden repeated.
“No one,” said Sabine, homing her focus on the letter opener. The strange position disrupted her dexterity, and her trembling caused her to fumble it away. She swore and cast around, trying to recover it. Seconds ticked by. Dryden would not be satisfied with pinning her down forever. She let out an exaggerated sob, remembering how this thrilled him. He laughed and increased the pressure on her throat. Sabine saw stars but floundered on. Finally, after an eternity of glacially slow fumbling, she recovered the letter opener and squeezed the handle.
“I said,”growled Dryden, “who knows?”
Taking a moment to gather her strength and consider the arc of her arm and the best target along his tweed-covered leg, Sabine sobbed again.
When he began to laugh, she sucked in a breath and cried out, “Bridget, bite!” The dog let out a ferocious half-growl, half-bark and sprang, fastening her jigsawed mongrel’s teeth into Dryden’s bony hip.
Sabine drove her arm down an instant later, thrusting the letter opener into his opposite thigh. The man shouted, jerked up, and then flailed backward. His hands dropped, and Sabine slid from the desk, sending papers and beakers flying. She bolted through the mess, scrambling for the door. The knob was locked, of course, and she began to shake it, too frantic to see how to unlock a door.
In the next moment she heard footsteps outside the door. Angry voices. Birdall must have gone for help. As she struggled to work the lock on the knob, someone rattled it from the other side. Pounding ensued, a frantic knocking that reverberated through the wood.
“Bridget, come!” Sabine cried, casting a glance over her shoulder. The dog had released Dryden’s thigh and lunged for his jugular, a wiry ball of claws and bared fangs and sharp, feral eyes.
“Bridget, heel!” Sabine cried, trying to be heard over the pounding on the door. “Release, now! Come!”
Dryden pulled the letter opener from his thigh and used it like a dagger against the dog.
“Bridget!”Sabine shrieked, desperate for the dog’s safety. Bridget skittered back and darted to her side, slipping on broken beakers and paper. Sabine turned her attention back to the knob and forced her hands and brain to work a simple lock on a standard door. When at last the bolt slid to the side, she wrenched the door open with a shout.
The sight beyond the open door took her breath away. It registered slowly at first; Bridget’s barking was the only phenomenon that seemed to evolve in real time.
Stoker was there, staggering back from the swinging door, his face torqued in fury and fear. Behind him crowded a small detachment of uniformed policemen. Scientists and students filled in behind the police. The corridor was mobbed with men in blue uniforms and white laboratory smocks.
Bridget barked at them all, squaring her small shoulders and lunging at the closest uniformed officer.
Sabine let her go and she reached for Stoker.
He took her by the shoulders and bent down, looking into her eyes. “Are you badly hurt? Where did he touch you? Your nose is bleeding. Can you breathe?”
“I’m fine,” she said, clutching him to her for a quick, tight hug. His size and strength were like a sharpening stone to her own knife-like will to fight. She felt her dulling strength revive and she gave him a final squeeze and thrust him away.
