"Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak."

~ Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Sunglasses pulls the trigger, but nothing happens. No bang. No wisps of smoke out the end of the barrel.

"Looking for these?" Zandra says. She reaches into her pocket and reveals a fistful of cartridges. "Remember when I wiped the gun clean? It's like they always say. Never give a psychic your hand, or your gun for that matter."

Sunglasses shoves the revolver back into his pocket and heads for the pool table. Zandra leaps from her chair, but she slips and goes to the floor. She keeps the bite of the blade facing away from her, scrambling to get up as Sunglasses grabs a pool cue and breaks it across his knee. He tosses the thinner half aside and charges at Zandra with the jagged end of the wider half.

Zandra gets up in time to raise the lawnmower knife in defense, but it's no match for two-and-a-half feet of pool cue. Sunglasses winds up with the cue and slaps the knuckles on Zandra's hand, forcing her to drop the knife. He swings for a blow to her face, but Zandra shoves the chair into his stomach. Sunglasses falls backward. That buys her a few seconds to get a head start.

The head start dissipates quickly as Zandra limps out of the lounge, so she leaves as much of a mess as she can in her wake. Anything not nailed down on the walls or in the hallway crashes to the floor.

The tactic works at first, catching Sunglasses by surprise. He slips on broken glass and rubs a few shards into his hands, turning his grip red and sloppy against the pool cue.

Zandra retraces her route back toward the wine cellar and tries to recall where the room was with all the weapons mounted to the wall.

I never went there. No idea. I need something with range, something longer than the pool cue. There are shovels in the wine cellar.

Sunglasses gains on Zandra, leaping over the debris and screaming something incoherent. A flash of something out of the corner of Zandra's eye catches her attention as she drags a painting off the wall.

Snapping her head in the direction of the flash, Zandra expects to see someone walking toward her at the turn in the long hallway. Instead, she sees no one up ahead.

Sunglasses screams in a way that nearly rattles the painting back up onto the wall. Zandra twists her head once again, anticipating an injured Sunglasses howling in pain, and once again she's wrong.

Sunglasses is frozen in place, jaws hanging loose.

He didn't scream.

Zandra forges on ahead, turning right at a split in the hallway. The wine cellar isn't far now.

Tell someone a house is haunted, and they'll find ways to make it true. That scream was probably Emile in the freezer again. Lots of pipes and vents in this place to move the sound around.

The heavy, wooden door leading down to the wine cellar slows Zandra down, but only for a moment. She grabs onto the cast-iron handle and pulls. Sunglasses's footsteps aren't far behind.

The door swings open, and Zandra steps down onto the wooden staircase leading into the wine cellar. She catches a glimpse of Sunglasses as she closes the door behind her. To her surprise, Sunglasses doesn't turn right at the split as she did. He hangs a left.

Fuck. He's going to the weapons room. The guns in there must be inert, but there's no way to switch off a medieval battle axe or whatever is in there.

Zandra peers into the darkness of the wine cellar.

Is this really the only door in and out of here? Only one way to find out. I need that shovel.

Zandra hesitates, replaying the route to the front doors of Carey Manor in her mind. There's more than one exit in the house, as the tour showed her, but in the moment she can't remember where they're located.

The master key. Let him into the wine cellar, and then lock him inside.

Zandra pushes the door to the wine cellar back open. She hears a cascade of several heavy somethings crashing to the floor.

He's selected a weapon.

The stairs creak under Zandra's hurried footsteps. She nearly tips her on the way down, but she makes it to the packed dirt of the cellar in one piece. She reaches for the pull cord of the first light dangling from the ceiling. Instead of a gentle tug, Zandra rips the cord downward. It pops free from its housing at the light and coils at her feet.

The wine cellar remains dark as Zandra yanks the cords out one by one, feeling for them with hands raised above her head. It's hard to navigate blind, but the rows of wine casks provide a sense of organization and direction. After popping out a row of cords, she rests against a wine cask and listens for the sound of Carter's breathing.

If he's still breathing.

After the thump-thump of her pulse leaves her head, Zandra can make out Carter's snoring a couple rows over. The floral aroma of the wine she drained out earlier provides another clue for direction.

Zandra runs her hand along the casks for guidance as she makes her way to Carter. She knows she's close when the dirt beneath her feet turns to sticky-sweet mud. The shovel announces its presence by nearly tripping her. Zandra reaches down and lifts the handle of the shovel to her chest. That's when she hears something in the direction of the stairs.

"I know you're down here. You're trapped," Sunglasses says through heaving breaths. Zandra can make out the outline of something long in his hands.

He really did find a battle axe after all.

Sunglasses listens from the top of the stairs for movement. Zandra remains as still and quiet as the wine in the casks.

"I can wait all night, Zandra. I'm not going to prison again. Leaving people alive was my mistake last time. I take care of you, and then I take care of the others," Sunglasses says.

And now I know the rest of his story. Not surprised.

Zandra reaches into her pocket while Sunglasses talks. She palms a cartridge, and then hurls it into the darkness, far away from her and Carter. The metal cartridge reports a crack as it bounces off a cask.

That's not enough to lure Sunglasses off the stairs. He listens for more. Zandra repeats her throw with another cartridge. The second crack is enough convincing for Sunglasses. He clears the stairs and descends into the darkness, battle axe in hand.

The tack of the wine-and-dirt mixture amplifies Zandra's footsteps with a sound like stirring pasta. She opts for gliding through the muck instead of walking. That works to keep her quiet as she carries the shovel, but her shoes are wrapped in mud. With as much stealth as she can muster, she feels her way toward the stairs with her free hand.

Although Zandra ripped the cords out of several lights, she couldn't get to all of them. As her feet step onto the first tread of the stairs, Sunglasses pulls a cord a few rows away. The element of surprise gives Zandra two seconds of grace before Sunglasses bolts her way.

Adrenaline sends Zandra clawing up the stairs. She drops the shovel as she ascends, buying her a precious second at the cost of defending herself later. It pays off. Zandra reaches the door as Sunglasses climbs half the stairs. She turns and slams the door behind her, the head of the axe racing through where she was just standing.

Now in the hallway outside the wine cellar, Zandra throws herself against the door and searches her pocket for the master key.

It's not there. It must have fallen out during the rush up the stairs.

Zandra doesn't have time to panic. As hard as she presses against the door to keep it shut, Sunglasses pushes even hard to make it open. He, his axe, and his labored grunting will be through any moment.

A thought pops into Zandra's mind.

Use his push against him.

Zandra releases herself from the door and twists aside. The door swings open fast, and Sunglasses isn't ready for it. He finds himself laying on his chest halfway through the doorway, cradling the long handle of the axe.

With Sunglasses momentarily stunned, Zandra shoulders the door closed, smashing him with the heavy wood. Sunglasses yelps and pulls back to the stairs. That gives Zandra a chance to get more space between herself and the blade of the axe. She heads down the hallway.

Need to get to the front doors.

The hallway splits in two. She can go straight or take a left down the hallway she turned into an obstacle course. But there's a problem. Zandra looks down.

My shoes are dragging mud all over the place. Too easy to tell where I go.

She slips the shoes off and tosses them aside.

That rules out the obstacle course. Too much broken glass. Hopefully, Sunglasses doesn't make that connection.

The floor cools her hot feet as she runs straight ahead, unsure of where the hallway leads except that there must be a weapons room somewhere.

She never gets a chance to find out. A searing pain in the back of her right calf muscle shows up out of nowhere. Zandra turns to see a line of blood trace her path away from the cellar. The adrenaline masked what happened when Sunglasses came within inches of her.

His axe cored out a piece of my calf.

Combined with her bad left ankle, the fresh wound slows Zandra down considerably. No matter how much she demands both lower limbs work, the best she can manage is a drunkard's wobble. She scans the gaudy decorations around her for something to defend herself with, but in her state all she can do is slump against the wall for balance. A few steps later, and her wobble degrades into a belly crawl.

Zandra can feel Sunglasses's footsteps reverberate through the floor and into her stomach. He presses his shoe into her back. The pressure stops Zandra's crawl and starts her urge to vomit.

"If you talk, I'll make it hurt," Sunglasses says and raises the battle axe over his head. "Just shut up and take it."

I underestimated you, Sunglasses. You're evil. A very, very evil man.

The squishy thunk of metal meeting flesh comes next.