Screaming with maniac rage she used her bodyweight to push the blade closer until it wavered barely and inch above his throat. From his prone position he kneed her hard in the ass, the blade she held dragging along his face as she flew over his head, landing face first into the cement. He rolled and got to his feet, only to realize that Pru was already up. Her face was bloody and distorted with rage as she swung at him with the wand and followed up with the blade.
John sidestepped and sidestepped again. Staying on the defensive he maneuvered himself closer to the wall rack that held blades of all varieties. He snatched up a knife long enough to be a short sword and a machete and with Pru's next swing he met her blade for blade and drove her back.
"Forgetting, aren't you," he grunted as he parried, "I was a knight for well over three hundred years." Long unpracticed moves came almost unconsciously as he met her blade to wand. "I spent all most all of my time in combat or fending off assassins, bitch. Did you think that I would just stand here and let you take another son?"
Unseen by either of them, Isabelle had quietly entered the basement and was moving quietly along the wall, headed for the collection of keys. Cullen was at least consistent with his manic obsession for everything being in its own place. While John and the woman he was fighting were across the room by the two smaller back rooms, Isabelle tried to move as quietly as she could, not drawing attention to herself. Reaching the collection of keys she hesitated for a minute. She had never been in that particular set of locks and she didn't know for sure what was what. Guessing, she grabbed three keys that looked like they could be manacle keys and on her hands and knees, slid across the floor to where Finn lay.
Finn lay on the floor. He had heard his father come down the stairs and Pru's conversation with him although not much of it registered. He was far past the point of tears and felt empty. Ian had been screaming. Simon must be dead. From the noise upstairs that had filtered down, there had been a fight. His father was here, Isabelle was here, Ian was not, God, was he dead too? Isabelle reeked of Simon's blood, even at this distance. Simon, his heart wailed, Simon. Their connection had been severed earlier but that didn't stop his repeated attempts to reach out for him. He could see Isabelle working the locks on his ankles, trying what looked like different keys to get them open. Did it really matter, he wondered. Did he really want to live if Simon was gone?
Even he jumped at the scream and the explosion that roared in his ears, leaving them ringing and his face and body hurting as they were peppered with small rocks and pieces of debris. He could smell smoke. One foot free, and then two as he could hear his father and Prudence screaming at each other. The wall in between the two smaller rooms had been completely destroyed and the floor to the upstairs bedroom was half gone, with some of the furniture smashed to bits on the basement floor. He could smell smoke and hear the crackle of flames.
Coughing hard, Isabelle scooted up to his right wrist and began fumbling at the lock. A second later she screamed as she was grabbed by an unseen force and flung across the room, into the shelves where the collection of Cullen's skulls had been kept. Several of the shelves were on fire, having been covered with burning candles that had been knocked about. When Isabelle hit them they collapsed into a pile of smoldering lumber, Isabelle at the bottom.
Rage seized Finn, absolute rage. Prudence would kill them all and by God he was going to take her with him. He began to work at the loosening left manacle furiously. Pru and his father were grappling now and close enough that he could almost touch them. Prudence was backing up, step by step. Gauging the distance carefully, Finn lashed out with both free legs, wrapping them around Prudence's knees, knocking her over and sideways to the floor, half on top of him, half beside him. Using his lower body as leverage he pulled again, and the twisted spike that had cemented the manacle in place pulled out of the floor.
Seizing the opportunity John lunged in bodily with the knife, simultaneously stabbing and being stabbed. Finn twisted his wrist and holding the twisted metal spike precariously in his hand lashed out viciously at her. John's blade had passed through her chest, narrowly missing Finn's leg; the spike caught her in the back of her head, the bloody point erupting from her face.
Rolling her body off of his Finn screamed at his father, "Get Isabelle!" He rolled up on his knees and grabbed for the key that still lay on the floor. He could barely hear himself over the roar of the flames. His father hesitated. "I've got the key, go!" he screamed.
Holding his side, John stayed on all fours as he crawled to where Isabelle lay. The room was rapidly filling with smoke now. There was only about three feet of clear air near the floor. The rest of the room was lost in billows of flame and black smoke. Ignoring the agony in his side he used both hands on the burning boards to get enough of them off that he could drag her out. She was dead weight as he crossed the few feet to the stairs. Glancing back to Finn he was just in time to see the beam supporting the ceiling come crashing down, creating a wall of debris and flame between them. Dropping Isabelle he tried to cross the barrier of flames and was driven back by the intense heat and smoke. Again and again he tried, screaming Finn's name, his lungs on fire from the acrid smoke. Hands grabbed him from behind and he fought them as they struggled to drag him backward. His last conscious thought was one of absolute agony; he had never had a chance to tell Finn that he loved him.
