“You think you can really play all the way to the end?” Darcy said, moving closer, closer to Billy. “We were given the power to fight evil, which I now understand means to dispel the darkness.”
“Is that so?” Black's eyes darkened to onyx. He exhaled hot air and it came out like charcoal smoke from a stovepipe. “Do I look like Billy's maker? I think not. I came from him, baby. So go on, dispel him. God knows he deserves it. My precious little sinner.”
This was his play: to accuse Billy, who'd breathed life into him.
But there was more to that fact. It meant that Black was
dependent
on Billy. She didn't see how evil could exist without the humans who chose it.
Steve and Paula had been joined by dozens of others. Perhaps as many as a hundred, stepping out on all sides. The original citizens of Paradise were coming out to see Black again.
He glanced around and chuckled. “It's a happy, happy day.”
“What do you hope to accomplish?”
“Not me, Darcy. Billy. Billy's going to kill Johnny the Baptist.”
Katrina Kivi stepped in front of Johnny and faced Black, shaking but courageous. “I don't know who you think you are, but if you think anyone can just kill Johnny, you obviously don't know him.”
Black grinned wide. “I know. I trained him. Do you want to die as well, little lady?”
She hesitated, then spoke in a very plain voice. “I don't think you're thinking straight.”
They were coming out of the woodwork now, a couple of hundred at least, maybe three. Walking in from all sides in a large collapsing circle.
Johnny took one last look at Kelly, then stood and slowly turned his head, judging what he saw. Suddenly nervous.
“Step back, Katrina.”
“Yes,” Black said.“Move your skinny backside back, Kat, kitty cat. You don't want to get burned.”
She did as she was told, stopping ten paces out, where the first of the circle now stood, watching. Paula, Claude, Steve, KatieâDarcy recognized them all from when she was a child, writing.
Black turned to the circle, arms spread with the six-shooters in each hand. “Thank you. Thank you all for coming. I had hoped for some, but this is too much. Have you all played nicely in my absence?”
“You shouldn't have come back,” Paula said in a tone that could have frozen milk. “We have Johnny.”
“But Johnny isn't who you need,” Black said. “You need Billy, lover. He's the one who gave me life, you know that. And now I'm in his belly.”
Darcy moved then, while Black had his back turned. She took the last two steps up to Billy, put her arms around his waist, and kissed him lightly on his lips.“I'm here, Billy,” she whispered.“It's okay. I'm here, and Johnny's here, and we don't blame you. I love you more now than I did then, you hear me, Billy?”
“No, but I do,” Black said. “How about a kiss for the inner child?”
Darcy ignored him.“Billy, he needs you. You're the one who feeds him and gives him life. I've seen the light and now I know it can wash away all that darkness he put inside of you. Take it, Billy. Let it fill you.”
“Too late, peaches,” Black chuckled. “You've just gotten reacquainted. I've been with him all along. You really think your pathetic kisses will do the trick?”
She kissed him again, deeply this time.
“Take the light, Billy.”
She knew that there was nothing in her display of affection that did any more to heal him than rubbing mud in a blind man's eyes. But she wanted to comfort him and let him feel her love.
“I love you. I will always love you.”
His eyes opened, and she spoke while she had his attention.
“Kill him,” she whispered.
He swallowed.
“In the kingdom of light there is no darkness,” she whispered under her breath so that he could feel the words as much as hear them. “I know that now.”
“Step back . . .” No chuckle from Black this time.
Darcy spoke quickly.“He doesn't know it, because the darkness doesn't understand the light, but if you accept the light, he can't exist.”
It was that simple. She'd spent countless hours fighting her nightmares and all along, victory was as simple as the Word, which was the Light.
“Yours wasn't the only word that became flesh, Billy. Another came and it was the Light.”
He blinked.
“Step back!”
She did when she saw that Black had trained his gun on her. But she spoke loudly now, so that they could all hear her.
“Put an end to him, Billy. Once and for all, put this snake in the grave where he belongs!”
Billy's eyes turned to Black and he began to tremble again. His vocal cords sounded as if they might snap when he spoke, frantic. “Can I write him out like I wrote him in?”
“No more books!” Black said.“Gone. Good while they lasted, but gone.”
“You don't need books of paper! You need the book that's in your heart! Write it!”
“Don't be a fool, boy!” Black snapped. “This is all so much nonsense. All this light-and-darkness brouhaha, please.”
“She's right, Billy,” Johnny said. “You can end this.”
“He can end nothing,” Black screamed, face red and twisted. “You think I'm stupid? This isn't just about our dandy little reunion here, it's about a whole world out there that hates your kind!”
“Because they hated him first,” Johnny said.
“Don't throw that at me! I either take Johnny's head to them or they come in here with bazookas blazing like Billy ordered. I told them to give me fifteen minutes. They know that Darcy crossed over, and I've just informed them that Billy has as well. His last order to level this valley stands. From where I'm sitting, Billy can either kill Johnny like a reasonable little sinner, or he can let the whole valley go up in smoke.”
Darcy's eyes darted to Billy's and she saw they were misted again. “Is that true?”
“Darcy . . .” He began to cry.
“No, shh, no more.” She took his face in her hands and forced him to look at her. “Billy, I need you to listen to me. End Black's life.”
“Kill me,” Johnny said.
“No!” Darcy cried.
Johnny glanced down at Kelly, dead on the ground. Darcy couldn't imagine what kind of emotions must be tearing him up. He looked up.
“Take my life, it's the only way.”
“Don't be ridiculous!”
Johnny eyes darted around at the circle of onlookers. But they remained silentâit wasn't their fight, not this time. The ultimate showdown had started with Billy, and it would end with him.
“There are three thousand people in this valley,” Johnny cried. “I can't have their deaths on my hands! Kill me and he'll call it off.”
But Darcy was ahead of him.
She spun to the three hundred. “Get out!” she screamed, turning to look at them all. “Into the mountains. Run! In that day, flee to the mountains! Run, run.”
Her voice struck them like a battering ram and they ran, like mice for their holes when the lights go bright.
“Run!”
Darcy whirled back to Billy. “
Now
, Billy! Or he'll hunt us down.”
Black was smiling, but a tremble had overtaken his fingers. “It's a big bomb,” he said.
Johnny paced, wringing his fingers. “He's right, they'll never make it out!”He shook his head. “We don't have a choice, Darcy. This is my fate. It's my time.” To Billy: “You have to kill me!”
But Billy was staring at Black, face wrinkled, breathing heavy now. Darcy couldn't tell if he was terrified or enraged. Either way, he was rooted to the ground like a tree rattled by the wind.
“No!”
The cry had come from Kat.
Tears brimmed her eyes. “I can't believe you're arguing over Johnny's life!” She marched up to Billy and stared at him, jaw set. “Now you listen to me. Three weeks ago Johnny showed me the light and it turned my world upside down. I don't know what happened when you were all kids to make this happen, but I don't care. It doesn't matter any more. What does matter is that if you can get rid of the black thing back there, you should!”
She breathed through her nostrils deliberately.
“And you can, just like they told you.Why are you still standing here? Finish him!”
Billy slowly shifted his gaze down to her. Where Darcy had failed to penetrate him using her gift, this one young woman was reaching him.
“Can I?” He sounded not even slightly confident.
“Yes!” she said. “I did!”
“Shut up, you little runt.” The order from Black came out like a bitter growl. “Shut your little hole.”
She spun to the man, fists by her side. “I've seen the opposite of you and now there's nothing you can do to me, so why should I shut up? Why should any of us shut up about the light?”
“Stand back, Kat,” Johnny said, taking a step forward. “This isn't yourâ”
“It is my battle, Johnny. I won't stand by while some monster threatens the truth.”
Johnny spoke quickly, sensing danger. “Of course, but you don't know what he's capable of. Stand back. This is mine!”
“He can't hurt me, Johnny,” she said, looking at him.“Not really. That's why he wants me to shut up.”
“Johnny's right.” This from Billy, who seemed to have been awakened by Kat. He glanced at Black, whose jaw muscles worked slowly, crushing molars. His eyes darted back to Kat. “Please, this isn't your problem.”
A small smile twisted her mouth. “It is now, Billy.” And then, drilling him with a bright stare, “Kill Black.”
Black's left hand flashed. His gun bucked in a big fist.
Boom!
Kat flew backward a full ten feet and landed on her backside, bright stare and smile still on her face. But she was facing the dark sky now, and blood seeped into her white shirt over her heart.
It took three full seconds for Darcy to get her mind going. When she did, it told her that Black had just killed Katrina Kivi.
“No . . .” Johnny stood in a crouch, frozen by horror. His face was wrinkled in the awful realization that Kat was dead. “No . . .” He stumbled over to her and sank to his knees. “Noooooo . . .”
“I'll hunt you down and kill every last one of you,” Black said in his gravelly voice.
“Do it, Billy,” Darcy whispered, trembling with it all. “Kill him!”
Billy tore his stricken eyes from Kat's body and began to cry. He reminded Darcy of a man forced to kill one child to save the rest of the family. Was he so deceived? Even now?
But there was fire in his eyes. The look of rage was so sharp, so visceral, that Darcy shied back a step.
“Do it, Billy,” she said, softly now. Then again: “Do it.”
“Yes, Billy, do me. Please, Papa, do me in. Put a gun to my head and shoot me dead.” Black grinned, but sweat had beaded his upper lip.
“Ahhhhhh!” Billy's mouth gaped, then clamped shut. He growled again through clenched teeth. His whole body was shaking badly, from his head to his knees. But he didn't move. Didn't embrace the light. Didn't finish Black.
“You abused me . . .” he breathed.
“Did I?”
Now in a cry of agony. “You violated me! You kissed me . . . You came in . . .”
Black's grin spread wide. “Yes. And you made me, baby. How about another one?”
With those words, Billy froze. Darcy had never seen the look of such anguish on a face before. She was tempted to run to him and tell him it was okay, he didn't have to do this now.
Johnny jumped to his feet. He leaned into his words, red-faced.
“Kill him!”
Billy's body was coiled like a large spring about to break.
Darcy opened her mouth to stop him.
Billy wrenched his feet from the earth and rushed forward. Right at Black. Before the man whom Billy had spawned could react with more than a blink, Billy grabbed him by his hair with both hands, thrust his head forward, and slammed his mouth onto Black's.
He screamed, a blood-freezing shriek of fury and regret and torment.
Black's lips peeled back as if the force of the scream itself had pushed them off his teeth like a blast of wind.His mouth was open so that Billy's teeth appeared to have locked onto Black's pearly white enamel.
Screaming into his mouth.
And then the scream took shape. Light, beaming from the gaps between their teeth.
Darcy's throat had locked tight. Light was streaming from Billy into Black's mouth, carried by that scream. Which could only mean that Billy himself had embraced the light.
Black dropped the six-shooters in either hand and flung his arms up to break Billy's grip on his hair.
But Billy's grip was iron, and his rage only intensified as he raged against the evil that he himself had given breath to.
Still the light flowed, rushing into Black's mouth, blasting into his throat and his lungs and his belly.
Black began to flail his arms, frantically jerking and pulling to get away from the light. Like a rat desperate to pull away from the trap whose metal jaws had clamped on its head in the middle of the night.
Black was a bigger man by a head, but now that head was locked in Billy's vice, and his legs began to thrash. The light streamed out from the corners of Black's eyeballs first. Then his eyeballs were gone, replaced by cords of light that shot into the night sky. His fingernails cracked, spilling white. Then his skin, cracking to reveal the light that had ravaged the darkness beneath his flesh.
The blazing hot light burned Black to a crisp from the inside out, reducing him to ash that fell away in clumps, leaving only the man's head in Billy's hands.
Still he screamed into Black's gaping teeth.
The headâskull, hair, and fleshâimploded, became black powder, and drifted to the ground. Only Black's teeth stubbornly remained, as if trying to bite back at Billy's teeth in retribution.