Peterson wanted to fire. He wanted to lift his gun from Tina's head and blow that grinning maniac away, but he wavered. The actress had moved close. She'd go for his arm, he was sure. And then Harrigan, down but still dangerous, would be on him. Biaggi too was frozen, his line of fire blocked by Burleson's gibbeted body. The only clear angle would bring him too within Harrigan's reach.
Peck was fainting. But through a gathering white haze he felt a sudden stiffening of the arm holding him. As if shot. Yes, shot, his brain cried out in hope. Biaggi must have shot him. Good, good man. Now he saw pain in Baker's eyes. Anguish. The mouth still grinned cruelly, but the eyes were pleading, wincing, disbelieving. The grin faded and the lips moved. Trying to form words. A great breath . . .
“No!” Abel roared into the face of Duncan Peck. “No, Baker! The darts. You can 't live with the darts, Bayykkerrr! ”
The shout, the desperate plea, shocked Peck out of his swoon. Baker's face! The face was almost melting. Burleson's devastated face fell slowly away, slipping off the war ax with a sucking sound and folding to the floor. Peck felt his own body slip. The grip was easing. The face Peck saw was softer now. Soft and sad. Jared Baker slid weakly to his knees.
Baker knew at once he'd made a mistake. But there was no real choice he could live with. He'd stopped Abel from killing again. He had to. Maybe he could make Tina believe that Burleson had caused his own death by leaping on the ax. Maybe Tanner Burke too. But there would have been no explaining what they would have seen Abel do next. Abel would have cleaved the face of Duncan Peck in half. Baker had to stop that. He would have been shot a half-second later by either of the two men with guns, but that was not his reason. He just had to stop it. But at what cost? Because now his body was like jelly and his mind was a swirl of fog. Abel might have been right. Maybe he couldn't live with so many tranquilizer darts. The first two already had him stumbling. Then Abel took . . . how many more?
He heard Sonnenberg. What was he saying? Say it out loud, Sonnenberg. I can't hear. Charley? Yes. I know. Charley can live. His body works so slowly. But Charley can't help. Sonnenberg? What can Charley do?
Baker felt his body being dragged.
“Charley?”
“abel is asleep” Charley whispered. There was a quality of dull wonder in his voice.
“Charley, can you help me?”
“abel?”
“Never mind Abel. Charley you have to come out.”
“sonnenberg is calling you. sonnenberg says help him. sonnenberg says help mrs. kreskie too. and melanie.”
”I can't Charley. I can't even help myself.”
“sonnenberg says tina can help.”
Now he could hear Tina calling him. And he knew Tanner was with someone. They both were. They were telling the men not to hurt him. To stop dragging him. Baker also
knew that one was dragging Connor Harrigan because he was weak from loss of blood and he couldn't put weight on his leg anymore. But Harrigan wasn't weak. He was pretending. Baker knew that. Maybe Harrigan could help. Sonnenberg? Tina can't help anybody, Sonnenberg. She can't even if I'd let her, you son of a bitch, because of whatever you pumped into her.
He felt the hands let go of his shoulders and his head cracked against the marble floor. Baker barely felt it. Through a half-opened eye he could see he was back in the atrium. Near the steps to the bank. Baker saw Harrigan there, slumped on the bottom step. Sonnenberg too. His face was turned sorrowfully toward the pulpit's base, where Stanley lay curled in a tight ball. Tanner was behind Sonnenberg. She was cradling Tina in her arms.
Peterson stepped through the doors of the bank from inside, his arm splinted with slats broken off a Federal chair. He stopped near Tina. “Hershey's handcuffed to a stair rail,” Baker heard him say. “The woman's dead.”
Melanie. Poor Melanie.
Now Harrigan was saying something. Inside his head. Reach out your right hand, Baker. There's a purse just by your fingers. Feel it? There's a gun in there, lad.
I can't.
“Don't even blink, Harrigan.” It was Biaggi's voice. He stepped toward Harrigan and reached inside his jacket. Connor saw the torn flesh on the back of Biaggi's hands.
“Did someone smash the cookie jar, Michael, while your hands were in it?” Harrigan asked.
He was taunting him, Baker knew. Why?
Biaggi found what he was reaching for. He paused, looked into Harrigan's eyes, and tore it away roughly. It was the Walker Colt. Its hammer raked painfully across Harrigan's ribs.
“Hey, look at this.” Biaggi smiled. “What do you think this is, Harrigan? The OK Coral?”
Biaggi faked a fast draw from his hip, cocking the old Colt and pointing it at Harrigan's forehead. Harrigan cleared his throat and spat full in Biaggi's face.
Biaggi stood frozen by the insult, his eyes flaring. “That, fat man,” he said in quiet rage, “is going to cost you one set of balls.” He lowered his aim to Connor Harrigan's groin. Harrigan threw his arms across his face.
“Connor is about to kill you, Michael.” Duncan Peck reached for the revolver in Biaggi's hand as he spoke. Biaggi hesitated, the force of his angry grip squeezing new blood from his hand.
“Did it strike you as odd, Michael,” Peck asked, “that a man would cover his face when his private parts were threatened?”
Biaggi, flushed, found the cylinder release and looked down the barrel. It was plugged. The shot would have taken his hand off.
“Excellent try, Connor.” Duncan Peck bowed slightly. Harrigan acknowledged the compliment with a nod. Peck took the Walker Colt from Biaggi. “For another thing, Michael, we must learn from Connor what became of our man Graves or of his remains. It wouldn't do to leave him behind, credentials and all. Even then, I suggest you spare Connor's life long enough for him to walk out to the van. You and Douglas have enough dead weight to carry as it is.”
”Christina, help me.”
Baker heard Charley's voice calling her. On his own. He'd never done that before. Wait. Yes, he had. He said so that time in the car, when he spoke about himself and Tina being friends. But Christina? Did he call her Christina?
Baker heard a grunt nearby and a shout of protest from Tanner. It was Harrigan's grunt. Biaggi was kicking him. Trying to get him up. Harrigan was still acting like he couldn't. He just lay there. Why did he let Biaggi kick him?
“Charley? I think I have to call you out. There's no one else, Charley.”
“christina, help me. help me now.”
Baker tried to move his lips to form Charley's name, but they only quivered and sagged against the cold marble. He felt a hand on his face. Plucking out the dart still imbedded there. Now the fingertips were on his eye, pushing back the lid. It was Duncan Peck's hand, Baker saw. And behind Peck someone else was moving. There was a yelp that sounded like a cane-whipped dog and Peck's head turned. Baker couldn't see. But through Peck's fingers he could feel a current of sudden fear. Harrigan must have tried something. This, though, was more than fear. It was terror. Baker strained to look through Duncan Peck's trembling fingers. He saw only a shadow. But it was dancing crazily in the flood of an emergency light, like a giant puppet gone wild.
Peck saw his man Peterson and he saw Baker's daughter, but everything about them was terribly wrong. His brain tried to sort the picture. Moments before, Peterson had been holding the girl, lifting her to her feet. But now the girl was holding him. One hand had taken him by the throat. The fingers seemed buried to their second joint in the flesh around his windpipe. And Peterson, this grown man, was being tossed and flopped like a large stuffed toy. Peck watched his man for what seemed like minutes as his legs flew from under him and his head and trunk slammed again and again on the marble floor. The slats of his splint flew broken through the air. His good arm, once desperately clawing, now flapped as brokenly as the other. His eyes were flat and dead.
The girl could not be doing that, Peck's mind insisted. Then he looked closely at her face. Her eyes were shining, almost bla
ck. The skin of her face seemed stretched across it and her teeth were bared in an animal's snarl. He watched, transfixed, as Baker's daughter threw away the man she'd been smashing to the ground and, grinning, advanced toward him on legs that were straight and strong. He wanted to scream Biaggi's name. Help me, Michael. You'll be rich. Anything will be yours if you'll help me.
Perhaps he managed to shout the name. Because Biaggi had been ducking and weaving past the flail of Peterson's legs, his eyes wide in disbelief, his revolver bobbing in his hand as he sought a clear shot. At last, when Peterson's body crashed to the floor, he had one. Biaggi stepped aside as Tina moved toward Peck, then raised his sights to the back of her skull.
“Watch out.” Peck found his voice. “Watch out for Harrigan.”
Harrigan was scrambling across the floor like a darting spider, ignoring the girl, lunging at Biaggi's gun. Biaggi sidestepped and kicked him. Harrigan took the blow, catching Biaggi's shoe under the wrap of his arm. Biaggi hopped in a frantic attempt to tear himself loose, his own motion preventing his aiming his gun. Harrigan suddenly loosed his hold and snatched at the revolver's barrel while driving Biaggi backward. The pistol flew from Biaggi's hand. Off balance, he reeled into the path of Tina Baker.
Peck saw Biaggi lurching at her. He saw the girl reach one hand sideways to meet him, but the shining eyes stayed locked on his. Wrestle her, Michael. Throw her down. Yes, throw your arms around her neck and crush the life out of her. Yes, Michael. That's good. You have her, Michael.
For a moment, Peck couldn't see the girl. He saw only Biaggi's back and his straining legs. And he saw Connor Harrigan struggling with the Burke woman, pulling her away, turning her face from the girl and Biaggi. Why wasn't Connor helping the girl? And why was Sonnenberg just quietly watching, neither fear nor surprise on his face? Biaggi shrieked. His legs stopped straining and collapsed under him, the point of one shoe beating a tattoo against the hard floor. Now his torso was bucking like Peterson's and the shoulders were in spasm, as if he were a springbok caught in a leopard's jaws. For a hopeful moment Biaggi's head wrenched free, but something snatched it back. The body stiffened once and went limp. Peck watched it slide slowly to the ground once more, revealing the wild, shining eyes of Tina Baker. Peck realized to his horror that those eyes, Michael Biaggi or no, had never left his own. He saw her hands, both drenched with blood, now reaching out for him. Almost petrified, Peck reached to cover his throat. But she wasn't reaching there. The wet hands reached for his head, holding it, caressing it. They felt hot against his temples and they hurt. Between them he could see Connor Harrigan watching. The woman's face was held pressed against his chest. A gun in Harrigan's free hand. Stop her, Harrigan. Shoot her, for God's sake. Connor, please. Don't let this happen.
Peck dimly thought he heard a shot. Oh God, yes. A shot. Oh, good man, Connor. You're such a very good man.
But there was no shot. Just as there was none before when it was her father who gripped him. What Duncan Peck heard this time was the sound of his own skull cracking.
The Garden Court was quiet. Tanner Burke, weeping softly, sat on the floor with her arms around Jared and Tina. They were both in a deep sleep.
Harrigan, his wounded leg dragging, shuffled over to them. His foot struck Tanner's purse where she'd dropped it earlier. With a grunt he bent to pick it up, then offered it to her. Tanner shook her head. Harrigan placed it back on the floor near her knees. Reaching over her, he felt for a pulse at Baker's neck. Then Tina's. They were weak, especially Baker's, but they were steady.
Roger Hershey, freed of his handcuffs, wandered vacantly through the room, wiping blood from exhibits and straightening those that had been disturbed. He picked up Baker's war ax and sat down with it across his lap, wiping it clean with a handkerchief and polishing it with his sleeve.
Sonnenberg was near the pulpit, where Stanley Levy lay dying. He called softly to Roger twice, three times, before Roger put the ax carefully aside and went to him. The two men lifted Stanley and carried him into a better light, where Sonnenberg set about examining his wounds.
Harrigan limped over to Duncan Peck and looked down at him. Peck rested where Tina had released him, in a broken heap against the Diana's pedestal. His legs were splayed, and one of them still twitched. Alive. Harrigan could hear Peck's breath coming in short, bubbling sobs from a head that was oddly misshapen. He studied him for a long moment, hefting his revolver thoughtfully in his hand, then turned and studied the face of Tina Baker. It was soft again. And sweet. A gentle kind of pretty. He felt Sonnenberg watching him. Harrigan raised his eyes, his brow forming a silent question. No words were spoken. No minds were probed. There were only the thoughts of one man understood by another. Sonnenberg nodded. Harrigan nodded back and took several steps toward the body of Douglas Peterson.
Tanner assumed at first that Harrigan was searching him. He unbuttoned Peterson's jacket and began stripping it off. Confusion shone on her face when he folded it neatly in half, then laid it across Peterson's head so that it was covered fully. Confusion turned to disbelief as Harrigan bent to place the muzzle of his gun near where Peterson's temple would have been. Harrigan pulled the trigger.
“No!” she screamed at him. Harrigan turned toward Michael Biaggi and undid his jacket in turn.
“Goddamn you, no,” she screamed again. Her eyes swept the room, searching for help. Hershey had glanced up at the shot's report, but his attention returned at once to Stanley. Sonnenberg's eyes were on Harrigan. His look said he understood what was happening and thought it proper.
“You bastards,” Tanner raged. Frantic, she lunged across the broad chest of Jared Baker and snatched at her purse, fumbling at its clasp. “Harrigan,” she shouted, finding the pistol he'd given her, “Harrigan, you bloody bastard.” She aimed it at his stomach. The weapon seemed huge in her hands.
“Put it down, lass,” he said gently.
“That's enough killing, damn you,” she choked out.
“Yes, Miss Burke,” he answered, motioning her pistol to one side, “I'd say more than enough.” He put away his own weapon and stepped toward Tanner, his hand outstretched. Tanner drew back, hesitating for a long moment, then with a cry of disgust she hurled the gun to the corner farthest from Connor Harrigan. He turned from her. Back toward Michael Biaggi. Once more Tanner screamed helplessly as Harrigan threw the jacket across Biaggi's face and fired almost before it settled. The body bounced once and was still. Tanner, half in shock, fell back sobbing.
Sonnenberg did not look up from his work on Stanley Levy as Harrigan eased to a crouch at his side. Stanley's eyes were open but unseeing. There was no sign of life but for a slight, rhythmic pulse of blood from a gash cut by Burleson's gun barrel. The crueler abdominal wounds were packed with fabric torn from Sonnenberg's heavy coat.
“He's got balls,” Harrigan said softly. ”I have to give him that.”
”I think he'd return the compliment.” Sonnenberg nodded.
“Will he make it?”
“Not entirely,” Sonnenberg answered. Harrigan noted the choice of words but didn't question them. “What of you, Mr. Harrigan? What will you do now?”
“Clean this up, for openers.” Harrigan scanned the carnage. “There are people I can call now that Peck's out of the ball game.”
“What of Jared?”
“Baker walks. When he can, anyway. We had a deal. The kid and Tanner Burke too.”
“He's really quite something, isn't he?”
“Yeah.” Harrigan made a face.
“Although I don't think he'll be much use to either of us for a while.”
“Not to you, anyway,” Harrigan told him. “Get it straight, Doc. That party's over.”
“Perhaps.” Sonnenberg shrugged. “It certainly is as far as Baker himself is concerned. But he'll never serve you, Harrigan. He'll surely never unleash Abel again if he can help it. Perhaps not even to save his life.”
“Maybe.” Harrigan flicked a look toward the one or two lives that Baker
might think were important enough. Sonnenberg followed his glance.
“The daughter won't remember, you know. She'll think it was a dream unless one of you tells her differently. The dream will quickly fade.”
“How did it happen, Doc? The kid's another one, isn't she?”
”A Chimera,” Sonnenberg answered. “Yes. I'm afraid she is.” Sonnenberg craned his head at the sound of a motor outside the glass wall. It was Roger, he knew, bringing his car closer to the window. Roger had already carried the body of Melanie Laver there.
“What happens to her, Doc,” Harrigan pressed, “or don't you know?”
“It's hardly a well-traveled road, Mr. Harrigan,” Sonnenberg reminded him. ”I can know more about the Chimera phenomenon than any man living and still know almost nothing. I know that the potential among human beings is quite common, that in Jared's case the primal Baker had already worked its way close to the surface before the first traumatic stimulus released it, and that the result is two distinct and quite opposite personalities plus the original conglomerate. Certain of the physical and mental capabilities of Abel and Charley, however, were an utter surprise.”
Harrigan gestured toward Stanley. “No matter how it turned out, Stanley here was practice. You must have had some idea of what you were getting.”
Sonnenberg shook his head, running a hand gently over Stanley's cheek. “Stanley would not have prepared me for Abel's strength, to choose just one example. But even that is common. Documented stories abound, such as the mother who looked out her window and saw that the jack of her son's car had slipped while he was working beneath it. She panicked, flew through the door, and lifted the car off him, realizing only later that she'd done something physically impossible. But it clearly wasn't. And isn't.
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