Slowly, heavily, every step taking all his strength, Eric climbed the stairs to where Myca waited for him — the crow in one hand and her deadly gun in the other. He didn't even know what he was going to do when he reached her, only that if she shot him again this body would fail him, and his soul... he didn't know what would become of his soul. But he could guess the kind of fate that awaited Sarah with Top Dollar, and he would willingly risk his body and his soul — his hopes of reaching Shelly and anything else he had — to save her.

(Wait. Be still.)

Eric paused below Myca, obeying that unspoken command, half leaning on one of the corner posts, panting from his exertions. Exhaustion etched his face as he looked up at her, but an intense determination challenged the gun she pointed at him.

She glanced down at the crow, quiet in her delicate grasp, and smiled triumphantly. "This is all the power you ever had. Now, it is mine." She looked at Eric, helpless and unarmed, like a sacrificial victim before her, and she dropped her eyelids in sensual regret.

"Pity there is not more time... for us." Then she lifted her gun, aiming straight for Eric's eyes. And still he didn't move; he just stood there slumped against the post, watching her through a damp tangle of hair, his grey eyes dark with hatred.

But the crow had not been waiting without reason or purpose. It had taken nearly every bit of its supernatural power to keep it and Eric "alive" and to finally begin healing them. Even so, neither of them were restored to anything like their full strength yet, and so they had to wait until the last possible moment to act and Myca relaxed her hold on the crow, just enough...

It was a big bird and a strong one when it had to be, and now it had to be as never before in its existence. It hated this woman, and knew well how to make its attack. A crow's ancient instinct is to go for the eyes... and Myca's eyes were only inches away from its wicked beak.

With that, the crow dug its claws fiercely into her flesh and buffeted her mercilessly with its powerful wings, stabbing at her face again and again with a two-inch long beak, which was as hard as iron and as sharp as one of her own knives.

Her screams shocked every one of them that could hear — except Eric. He knew what this woman had done to Sarah and sensed through his link with the crow what she'd planned to do to her, and his only emotion as he watched the crow destroy her was regret that he wasn't the one doing it.

In a cold rage he watched her stagger blindly, breaking through the rotted railing. Her flailing hands found the old bell-rope, and she clung there swaying for a moment, tipping the sweet-voiced bell above them to ring her death-knell. And then she fell, still screaming, to her doom in the shadows below, and he wasted even less pity on her than she'd shown Sarah. 

Now there was only Top Dollar... and Top Dollar had Sarah. But he was strong again — strong enough, at least, for this. If he wasn't already too late.