“Get your hands off of her.” Johnny's voice came low and with a bite that surprised Kat.He was often stern, but always gentle. But the man who stared at Billy now might cause any stranger to cross the street rather than meet him on the same sidewalk.
“Or what, Johnny? Or you'll kill me? With your bare hands? Wring my neck? I don't think so. I think this time you've ruined enough lives.”
Kat stood with Johnny and Darcy, but the fact that she was the smallest, weakest voice in this particular gathering began to assert itself. She'd never feared much, but the bitterness on Billy's face qualified.
The helicopter was hovering in the distance, waiting.
“I think this time you'll come with me, away from the valley, where you and I can talk through this like reasonable men,” Billy said. “If you refuse, I'll kill her.”
A fresh cut marked Kelly's right cheek. She shut her eyes and bit a trembling lip. “Johnny, please.”
Johnny seemed to be at a loss. He could kill Billy with the flip of a knife. With a pistol he could shoot the redhead right through his fore-head before Billy had time to blink.
But Johnny had left his guns at home. He was now a man of peace.
“I'm sorry,” Kelly cried. “I thought I could talk to them. I'm sorry, Johnny.”
“No.” Johnny walked to the platform's edge, palm extended to urge calm. “You did the right thing.”He dropped to the ground and walked forward.
Darcy broke from Kat's side and ran to the front of the stage. “Stop, Johnny! What is wrong with you, Billy?”
“You are!” he screamed, shaking with rage. “You're what's wrong with me, Darcy.” She thought he might start to cry. “I . . . I can't stop it now.”
Kelly looked like a rag doll in Billy's grip. “Don't listen to him,” she said, but she didn't sound convinced.
It was odd, Kat thought. Kelly had been Johnny's handler, not the kind who would show such weakness. She was in obvious pain. Johnny was staring at her, either so distraught that he didn't know what to do or confused.
Something wasn't right. The realization hit Kat squarely, and she shifted her right foot forward. Something about all of this was terribly wrong, but she couldn't put her finger on it.
“Johnny, be careful.”
Billy looked up at Kat as if she were nothing but a nuisance, then glared at Johnny again.
“I'm going to call the helicopter back, and we're going to go now, all of us. Up to the plateau. And we'll end it there, once and for all.”
“He's going to kill you, Johnny.” Darcy dropped off the stage and strode forward. “Who put you up to this, Billy? What's gotten into you?”
“You did,” he said.
She measured him with a skeptical eye. “Take your glasses off.”
“I'll go,” Johnny said, putting his hand out to back Darcy down.
But she stepped closer to him. “Take them off, Billy. You swore to love me. You swore to follow me, and I'm ordering you to take your glasses off now.”
“No,” the man in the jacket said, as if he were the final authority here. “I spoke to the attorney general before we left, and she made it clear that we can't leave this valley without Johnny. Not this time, Darcy.”
“You heard Kinnard, Billy,” she said.“He's using you.
We
have the power, not him or the bureaucrats back in Washington. But he thinks he can just step in and make the final call. He doesn't want you to remove your glasses because he's afraid I'll talk you out of this madness. And what about you, Kinnard? Why don't you ever show your cards to us? Are you afraid?”
A grin tempted the man's mouth, but he said nothing.
“Take them off, Billy.”
Billy scowled. “You heard Kinnard. Johnny goes with us or Kelly dies.
You can stay, but Johnny goes with us.”
“No,” Kinnard said again. “Darcy comes. She's now a liability.”
“I said I'll go!” Johnny said, pushing past Darcy.
But Darcy wasn't ready to give in. “What is it, Billy?” she demanded, circling to her left. “What's not right here? What's wrong, Kelly?”
She was right, Kat thought again. Something wasn't right. Something about Kelly. What was missing?
“You don't need to cry, honey,” Darcy said. “This is exactly what you need now, to throw your life on the line for the man who you once torturedâ”
“No!” Johnny cried. “Call your helicopter, Billy. We'll settle this away from here. Call it in!”
Kinnard lifted his phone and spoke quietly into it.
Her glasses, Kat thought. Kelly's eyes were bare!
She spoke from behind them. “She isn't wearing glasses, Johnny.”
This time she'd proven more than a nuisance to Billy. He turned his eyes up and stared, and his face immediately registered concern.
“Why isn't she responding?”Kat asked. There had to be an explanation.
“I've seen his eyes, Kat!” Kelly cried.
But in that cry Kat knew that something was very wrong with Kelly. There was no reason for her to defend herself, but she had.
“But have you seen mine?” Darcy demanded.“Why aren't you responding to my voice?”
“You think you own the world?” Billy cried.
But Darcy fixed on Kelly. “Fall to the ground and beg forgiveness for the horror you caused Johnny!”
Kelly's face remained stricken, but she did not react as Kat had seen others react to the voice. She didn't weep or sag at the accusation.
The helicopter started to approach.
“This is completely absurd!” Johnny snapped.
Kelly isn't who Johnny thinks she is,
Kat thought. Her heart was pounding with the certainty of it, spinning back to the times she spent in Johnny's house. She more than anyone here had spent time with both of them, and all along she'd wondered why Kelly remained so distant, so mysterious.
If so, her jealousy had been partly justified.
Kat leaped off the platform, landed on light feet, and ran forward, eyes fixed on Kelly. She sprinted past Johnny right up to Billy, who held Kelly like a puppet with one hand and had the gun pressed to her head with the other.
She was counting on the fact that she was young to save her, but as she neared Billy's crazed stance, she wondered if it would be enough.
“Johnny will help you, Billy. There's no threat here, he just needs to know the truth about Kelly so that he can go with you peacefully. They just want to know if you're being tricked by this man and Kelly and . . .”
She reached up, jerked his sunglasses from his face, and hurled them to one side.
“They just want to know the truth!”
The thumping of the helicopter grew.
“Tell me who she is, Billy,” Darcy said, staring at his frenzied eyes.
“You cannot lie to me. Tell me who she is now.”
A look of terrible anguish gripped Billy's face and distorted it.
Kinnard turned his back and paced away, speaking softly into his phone again. The helicopter's descent stopped.
Tears ran down Darcy's face. “Are you betraying me, Billy?”
Kelly jerked away from Billy with a swing of her arm. She spun back and slapped his face.
Whack!
“You pitiful worm, you can't even be
you
without messing it up!”
“Stop it!” Billy screamed, leveling the gun at her face. Flecks of spittle flew from his mouth and wet his lips. “Don't say that!”
“Go ahead, Billy, kill me. Crucify me. Put a bullet in my head.” She breathed hard. “Be who you are!”
Johnny's face had gone white with shock.
“But you can't kill your own children, can you?”A crooked grin snaked over her mouth. “It would be like killing yourself.”
“Kelly?” Johnny's voice was hardly more than a whisper. Kat wanted to stand up for him, to protect him. But the sickening turn terrified her as much as it did him.
Kelly looked over at Johnny. “You. I should have killed you in the pit.” Then she faced the barrel of Billy's gun.
She reached up and took the weapon out of his hand as if he were a child. Spit to one side. Flipped the gun on end and lifted it into his face.
“I hate you, Billy.”
Billy's shoulders began to shake. He lowered his arms and went limp.
“Should I kill him, Johnny? Should I put Black's author out of his misery?”
Johnny's mouth parted, but his throat was frozen.
“No,” Darcy said. “We'll go.We'll go with you, please just let Billy go.”
Kelly wasn't listening. “I really, really hate you, Billy.”
The detonation sounded like a thunderclap, there on the lawn in Paradise. Kat flinched.
But Billy's head did not move, did not snap back, did not blow into a dozen pieces.
Kelly's, on the other hand, did.
Her chin jerked skyward, exposing her neck as the bullet slammed through her forehead. She collapsed in a heap with her head twisted at an odd angle and her lifeless eyes staring up at the night.
The round hole in her head started to smoke, and as Kat watched, still too stunned to move,Kelly's eyes turned as black as the deepest, darkest pit.
“No.” Johnny sank to his knees, blue eyes leaking tears.
“Hello, ladies and gentlemen.”
Kat jerked her head in Kinnard's direction. But Kinnard was nowhere to be seen.
In his place, twenty yards off, stood a man dressed in a black trench coat, two guns cocked up by his cheeks, grinning wickedly. A thin trail of smoke rose from one gun's barrel and coiled around the rim of a broad black hat.
“Welcome to Paradise,”Marsuvees Black said.
WHEN MARSUVEES Black spoke those so distant but familiar words, a sense of déjà vu swept through Darcy with enough force to knock her back a step.
“Welcome to Paradise.”
With sudden clarity she knew the sum of it all.
However clever Black thought himself, he was proving nowâby orchestrating the events over the last thirteen years, by forcing this showdown tonight in Paradiseâthat evil was utterly predictable.
His very presence proved that the evil spawned from the hearts of men did not walk into the sunset never to return for another go.
Billy had never rid himself of Black, so Black was back, facing him down in the same way, in the same place, wearing the same cocky-gunslinger grin.
But Darcy had also learned tonight that things would not end Black's way. Because the light did exist, and it was swimming around them with more power and brilliance than even Jonathan Frakes, vampire word-smith extraordinaire, could possibly conjure.
Nevertheless, Darcy felt powerless to stop the sharp fingers of fear that raked her spine as she stared at Kinnard, who'd become Black.
Billy hadn't yet turned.He sagged with his arms limp at his sides, eyes closed, tears silently sliding down his cheeks.
She wanted to hold him and tell him that this mess wasn't his fault, even though it was. She wanted to tell him that she was as guilty as he was, but that she'd seen the light and so could he.
And you are the key, Billy. The end of this story is all about you. You have
to shine the light on this man of darkness that you breathed life into when
you were a child.
Black strutted forward in the same black boots Billy had dressed him with thirteen years ago. Pleased with himself. He'd used the pages from a stolen Book of History to write himself as he saw fit, and to write more like himself into existence. For all Darcy knew, Agent Smith was one of Black's characters. He and Muness, who'd manipulated Billy, had been part of the larger plot to draw Billy and her to Washington.
Where they'd been guided by Kinnard.
Who was none other than Black himself.
It had all been perfectly set up, perfectly executed.
“Ain't it great?” he said, spinning two six-shooters in his hands. “Just like old times. We should make us a campfire. A big one like the last time. Have a little song and dance before we cook the goose.”
Katrina Kivi had stepped aside and was staring at Black with huge eyes. Johnny was still on his knees, powerless in the wake of Kelly's betrayal. Both he and Billy had been reduced to shells of themselves.
Darcy could see the similarity between Black's grinning mug and Kinnard's, and how he'd worked his magic to change it. Like a wolf in sheep's clothing, the monks used to say.
“I know,” he said, pacing around them slowly, guns now up by his ears. “You're wondering how deep it all goes. How much of it was actually my doing.”
She refused to engage him with more than her eyes.
“How long I've walked the halls in Washington. How many people I hung from the neck until dead to make this all happen so smoothly.Why I didn't just have Kelly shove a needle through Johnny's eyes while he was asleep in his bed.”
He took a deep breath and sighed long. “So many opportunities to put all three of you in the dirt.”
Billy. It's all about Billy.
Darcy eased closer to Billy, whose eyes were still shut as if he couldn't bear to look at his own creation. This was why he'd been so terrified of coming back to Paradise.
She faced Black. “You could have killed us, but that wouldn't extinguish the light, would it? You can only make what's already dark darker. You need us to extinguish the light. You need him.”
She'd asked it to test Black, and she knew by his slight hesitation that she was right. Billy was indeed the key.
“There is no light in him,” Black said. “And for the record, speaking about the light is now illegal, thanks to you.” He winked.
From the corner of her eye, Darcy saw that some of the three thou-sand had stepped out from their refuge and were watching. She recognized some who lived in the town. Steve and Paula.
Black still didn't seem to have any idea of the trap he'd walked into. He was too enamored with his own darkness to understand the power of the light, and up until an hour ago, she'd been in lockstep with him.