Valhalla Rising by Clive Cussler Page B

stab her, and started to back away from him. He moved toward her and she could see the white teeth beneath the red mustache as his lips widened in a malevolent grin. His eyes had the smug gleam of an animal who has his quarry trapped and helpless. Her panic turned to terror, her heart began to pound, her breath to come in gasps. Her legs felt weak and they tottered beneath her. Her long hair streaked across her eyes and face, and the tears involuntarily began to flow.
    His arms reached out, the hands like claws, and clutched her. She screamed, a high shrill cry that reverberated in the small storeroom with its steel bulkheads. She tore out of his grasp and spun around. It was as if he deliberately let her go so he could play with her as a cat toys with a mouse before devouring it. Unable to resist, she began to feel faint, and crumpled to the deck, crouched in one corner of the storeroom, shuddering uncontrollably.
    She could only stare at him through huge, glazed blue eyes as he stepped slowly toward her. He bent over, took her under the arms and lifted her up in one effortless motion. The cold, murderous expression had been replaced by a leer of lust. As if in slow motion, he pressed his lips against hers. Her eyes flew wide and she tried to scream again, but all that came out were muffled sobs. Then he pulled back and grinned again.
    “Yes,” he said, in a voice that was hard and indifferent. “Scream all you wish. No one can hear you above the storm outside. I like it when a woman screams. I find it exhilarating.”
    He lifted her off the floor as if she weighed no more than a mannequin stuffed with foam. Then he pinned her against a bulkhead and his hands began to move over her body, crudely, roughly, bruising her skin. Numb with terror, Kelly went limp and cried the age-old woman’s cry.
    “Please, you’re hurting me.”
    His huge hands moved up to her throat and locked around it. “I promise,” he said, with the emotion of a block of ice. “Death will come quick and painless.”
    He began to squeeze, and a black cloud fell over Kelly’s eyes. “No, please,” she pleaded, her voice becoming little more than a rasping whisper.
    “Sweet dreams, dear heart.”
    Then a voice behind him said, “Your technique for romancing women leaves a lot to be desired.”
    The red-haired killer released Kelly’s throat and spun around in a movement as quick as a cat’s. A shadowy figure was standing in the doorway, one outstretched hand casually resting on the door latch, his face dark and silhouetted by the light behind him in the passageway. Quickly, the killer whipped into a martial-arts position, his hands poised in the air, and launched his foot at the intruder.
    Unknown to the killer and Kelly, Pitt had heard the screams and silently opened the door, then stood there for a few brief seconds, appraising the situation and devising contingency tactics. There was no time to go for help. The girl would be dead before anyone arrived to back him up. He immediately sensed this was a dangerous man who was no stranger to killing. Men such as this had to have a concrete reason for coldly murdering a defenseless woman. He braced himself for the attack he knew would come.
    In a violent corkscrew motion, he twisted out of the doorway into the passageway as the killer’s leg and foot sliced through the air. The intended blow missed Pitt’s head by an inch and impacted on the frame of the door. The ankle bone broke cleanly with an audible crack.
    Any other man would have writhed in agony. Not this one, not this hunk thick with muscle and trained to ignore pain. The killer glanced up and down the passageway to make sure Pitt was alone and had no help, and then he came forward, arms and hands moving rhythmically in martial-arts motions. Then he leaped toward his prey, hands chopping the air like axes.
    Pitt stood as if frozen, feigning fear, until the last microsecond. Then he dropped to the deck and rolled toward his assailant,