He heard shouting from the east side of the house. One voice the second man and then a crashing sound that was probably someone exiting the CO2 filled passage very quickly through the nearest available opening which would be the service door into the courtyard. Good. That was one. He reached the ground floor and stopped.
Luther was in the corridor 12 ft from the base of the main stairs and he was facing Cade and he had a hunting knife in his hand. not a weapon someone had brought specifically. The estate had a full sporting equipment room off the main hall, and Luther knew this house the way Cade knew the mechanical room. He'd armed himself with what was available. Cade stopped.
Luther looked at him. His face was doing something difficult. Not the controlled competence of the man who'd walked through the estate for 11 years, but something fractured and uneven. a man who had made a calculation a long time ago and was only now fully understanding the cost of it. You triggered the suppression system, Luther said.
The alarm was still going. He had to raise his voice. Your partner's in the courtyard, Cade said in a foot and a half of snow with no gear. He can handle himself. Maybe.
How about you? Luther looked at the knife in his hand like he was slightly surprised to see it there. I'm not going to use this. I know, Cade said. And he meant it not because he trusted Luther, but because of the way Luther was holding it.
Grip too loose, arm not positioned. A man who'd picked up something sharp because it was available, not because he'd planned to use it. I need those documents, Luther said. Transfer authorizations. Octavia's digital signatures on share transfer orders.
If I have those, you go to the people you've been working with and you give them what they need to force the company sale, Cade said. And they let you walk away. Luther said nothing. Or they let you think they let you walk away, Cade said, which isn't the same thing. Luther's jaw tightened.
You've been in this house for 11 years. Cade said, "You know where those documents are better than I do. If you could have gotten them without Octavia's cooperation, you would have gotten them 3 days ago when you cut the generator and expected her to evacuate." He kept his voice level, not taunting, just factual. You need her authorization, a physical signature or a biometric confirmation or something she has to personally provide.
That's why you're still here. Luther said nothing for a long moment. The alarm continued overhead. She's not giving you anything, Cade said. And the beacon's active.
There are emergency services on route who are going to reach this property the moment the storm breaks. He waited. What's the move, Luther? The knife hand dropped. Not all the way, not surrender.
Exactly. but dropped. The grip changed. The forearm relaxed. Cade moved.
He didn't go for the knife. Going for the weapon was what people did in movies. What he did was step hard to Luther's left side, the knife side, and drive his right shoulder into Luther's chest. And because Luther's weight was already back, and his stance had already compromised itself the moment his arm dropped, the result was Luther going into the wall and then onto the floor with a sound like something heavy falling from a height. The knife slid across the corridor stone and stopped 5 ft away.
Cade put his knee on Luther's chest and one hand on Luther's collar and looked at the man's face from 18 in away. Luther had the look of someone who had arrived at the end of a very long road and found it was exactly as bad as Fodier. Don't get up, Cade said. Luther didn't get up. The alarm stopped 6 seconds later.
Automatic cut off timed and the house went to a different kind of quiet. The kind that comes after loud things, where the silence feels thick. Cade heard footsteps from the upper corridor. Then the library door three knocks. Pause two.
Then Octavia's voice. Cade. Down here, he called. Stay at the top of the stairs. I heard the alarm cut.
I heard something fall. Pause. Are you hurt? He looked at his hand. The right one from the current two fingers slightly burned.
The skin already doing something angry. His shoulder from earlier was a steady complaint. The cut on his palm was holding, but the tape was half off. " I'm fine," he said, which was partially true. He looked down at Luther. "
The sporting room," Cade said. " What's in there?" Luther looked at the ceiling. " There are straps in the sporting room," Cade said. " Hackstraps, gear tethers.
You're going to come with me, and I'm going to put you somewhere you stay until the rescue teams arrive." He got off Luther's chest and stood and picked up the knife from the floor and put it in the back of his waistband. Or you can make this harder and we can do it the other way. Your choice. Luther made his choice.
Cade put him in the equipment room on the sublevel, the same room where he'd first found Luther the night before, which struck him as fitting and used two pack straps from the sporting room to secure him to the shelving unit bolted to the wall. Not cruel, not comfortable. He locked the door on the way out. Octavia was at the bottom of the main stairs when he came back through the corridor. She looked at his right hand immediately the burned fingers and then at his face.
You're actually hurt, she said. Relatively. That's not an answer. I've been worse. He looked at her.
Luther secure. The other one went out through the courtyard. He's not coming back through that snow. He exhaled slowly. It's over.
She looked at him for a long moment. The composure she'd been wearing since the previous night, that careful, managed exterior, had thinned considerably since the last 2 hours. Not collapsed, just thinned, like something that had been holding a shape under pressure and had finally been allowed to ease. " You didn't have a weapon," she said. " I had the house."