”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 some
thing. 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 fin
gers 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 black. 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 Ha
rr
i
gan.”
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, catch
ing 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 Bi
aggi backward. The pistol flew from Biaggi's hand. Off bal
ance, 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 qui
etly 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 va
cantly 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 bro
ken 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 Sonnen
berg watching him. Harrigan raised his eyes, his brow form
ing a silent question. No words were spoken. No minds were
probed. There were only the thoughts of one man under
stood by another. Sonnenberg nodded. Harrigan nodded
back and took several steps toward the body of Douglas Pe
terson.
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 cov
ered 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 un
derstood 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 boun
c
ed 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 car
nage. “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, Har
rigan. 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. Son
nenberg 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 out
side 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?”