Dark Prophecy (34 page)

But if Dark refused to do himself in, Abdulia would bow her head. And then Roger was to shoot him.

Blow his head clean off.

Bringing him Death.

Meanwhile the journalist, Knack, would watch, and then he would tell the world what he saw:

The price for refusing to accept your fate.

The last card, the last death. Finally they could go somewhere in peace. Abdulia had promised him. After this last one, everything would be all right. Balance would be restored at long last.

But Abdulia had never nodded. Instead, she rushed toward Dark, screaming as if she were in mortal pain. What had that son of a bitch said to her? What could he possibly have said to enrage his wife so? Abdulia was the model of calm, of inner peace. She relaxed the rivers of rage in his own heart. None of this made sense. Roger was momentarily numb as he watched Dark wrap his arms around her, cruelly bending her arms until her wrists were joined. This was not supposed to happen. This was not part of the plan. Abdulia had never told him this would even be a possibility.

So Roger Maestro lifted his gun, ignored his aching side, aimed, and fired.

 

 

A second before the windows exploded, Dark grabbed Abdulia by the arm and pulled her hard to the right, throwing them both to the ground. Glass burst and sprayed over their falling bodies. Someone was firing at them—Roger, no doubt. The decorated sniper. Concealing himself on a hill near the ocean, level with the lighthouse, just a like a soldier would position himself. Water at his back, enemies toward the front.

Dark quickly scrambled over to where Hilda lay unconscious. They were all too visible. Roger could have unlimited ammo. He could keep shooting and shooting and shooting—

 

 

Roger let the rifle fall from his shoulder, then picked up his binoculars, focused them. The image made no sense. Dark was down on the ground, over the girl. But so was Abdulia. He blinked, focused again. His wife trembled, like she was cold. It still didn’t make sense. None of this did!

 

 

Knack would never forget the image for as long as he lived—the shots, his abductor screaming, glass bursting out of the frames, his eyes completely
naked and exposed
. Knack’s face jolted, blinking involuntarily, the muscles working so hard that the tape above his left eye ripped free. He jammed it shut, but his right was still open. He couldn’t look away. There was a pile of glass on his lap. The woman was down on the ground, twitching. A small trickle of blood flowed out from the side of her head. Then a
lot
of blood. Knack didn’t want to look. He rolled his eye up, trying to see out in the semi-darkness. Someone was out there with a gun. Someone had just fired into this fucking lighthouse and could do it again, easily, and Knack couldn’t do a thing about it unless he decided to pull his own arm down and choke himself to death first.

 

 

Abdulia cried out. Dark ignored her. He tried to rouse Hilda. What had she been given? He felt her neck for a pulse. Strong and regular. “Hilda,” he whispered. “Come on, wake up. You can do it. You saved me, so now I’m going to save you.”

A faint ringtone went off in the room.

 

 

Roger held the phone to his ear, still watching the lantern room through his binoculars. Come on, answer. Get up. Show me you’re faking.

 

 

Dark had to get Hilda out of this room.

“Come on, Hilda. Wake up. Please.”

 

 

Roger’s wife didn’t answer. Why didn’t she answer the phone? The shot had been easy, but at the last minute Dark had flinched and moved to the right, like he’d had some kind of premonition. Roger was used to moving targets, though. In a fraction of a second he’d compensated, took the shot. He’d hit Dark in the head—didn’t he? He saw the spray of blood. Head wound.

Unless . . .

No.

Not
her.

This was unfair.

This was massively
unfair
.

Roger picked up his rifle, pressed the eyepiece to his socket.

 

 

Abdulia felt faint. She couldn’t move her arms. She heard the phone, wanted so badly to push the green button and talk to Roger one last time. But she wasn’t even sure if she could form the words.

This was not how it was supposed to happen. Dark was a man who slayed monsters. Well, he was supposed to slay her. Roger would see and Dark would be no more. Roger would take his own life, and they’d finally be together again in a better plane of existence, leaving behind their story for the world to study. Others had tried. None of them had her insight.

But it didn’t matter, in the end. While she didn’t expect to be felled by Roger’s bullet, she knew Roger wouldn’t let Dark leave the lighthouse alive. And then they would be together.

As the life ebbed out of her, Abdulia remembered the night she met Roger, and the reading she’d given him. He thought it was silly, at first. She knew he felt differently now. Their lives had been forever transformed by that reading.

She had been waiting for Death for a long, long time.

 

 

Dark quickly carried the unconscious Hilda to the winding stairway leading down to the watch station. The walls were thick; as long as she wasn’t near any of the windows, she’d be safe from Roger’s bullets. He nudged open a supply closet door with his knee, then gently lowered Hilda into it. Out of the line of fire, protected by two sets of walls.

Wait. That wasn’t enough. He stripped out of his own bulletproof vest and covered her chest with it.

Where was Graysmith now? He thought she would have been close enough to hear the rifle fire, but maybe not. Dark took his cell phone out of his pocket and pushed the speed-dial button. The tone rang six times before he gave up. Maybe she was already trying to take Roger out.

Then Dark realized that Knack was still up in the lantern room, completely exposed. Dark closed the closet door, then raced up the winding stairs.

 

 

Roger was a second too late. By the time he’d focused in on the lantern room, Dark had already taken Hilda down below. Fine. He’d use the journalist to draw him out. Dark considered himself a hero. No way he’d let an innocent man die. Placing the rifle to his shoulder, Roger squeezed the trigger.

 

 

Knack screamed. Jesus fuck almighty, the shooting had started again, glass shattering all around him, and yeah, he was crapping in his pants now. He wished he could close both eyes. He knew it was a matter of time before a tiny bead of flying glass sliced open his cornea. The sound, echoing off the metal frame of this room, was horrible. Hands, eyes, ears. Did a journalist have any other tools than these? Brains, too, he supposed. But his brain might be splattering out of the back of his head any second now.

Dark was halfway up the staircase when the bullets rang out and Knack started screaming. He cleared the top and scrambled across the floor. Just as he was about to tackle Knack, two shots slammed into his back, propelling him forward. Dark grunted and stumbled, his shoulder slamming into Knack’s chest and tipping his chair backward. Knack’s screams were the last thing he heard.

chapter 90

It was over.

 

Steve Dark was done.

No head shots this time; he’d put two in the center of gravity. Explode his heart, pop his lungs. Good-bye, hero.

Roger lowered his rifle from his shoulder and began to disassemble it, removing the bolt, lifting the trigger group out of the rifle, separating the barrel and receiver from the stock, removing the gas tube and piston, then packing everything quickly into his case. He liked this rifle, but he would have to destroy it.

That would have to come later. First Roger had to go to the lighthouse and make sure Dark was dead and Knack was still alive. He’d been careful not to hit him, but Dark had slammed into him hard, and for all he knew the guy might have been strangled by his own bindings. If that were the case, no big deal. Roger would retrieve the digital recorder and mail it somewhere. Maybe CNN or
The New York Times
. Some other journalist would be able to piece the story together. Abdulia had been insistent; someone had to tell their tale, or all of this meant nothing. There would be no balance. No peace.

Abdulia.

He thought of her now and nearly lost control of his emotions, but then he quickly pushed the thoughts out of his mind. Because that’s what she would have wanted. It would be difficult to walk into that lighthouse and see her body on the floor, but he steeled himself.
That’s not her anymore. She’s on the next plane of existence, with our baby boy.

And while Roger was still taking air into his lungs, he would honor his wife by continuing her work.

At some point he hoped to be worthy to join them.

Roger remembered their first date, when Abdulia told him that she was a reader.
Go ahead
, he’d joked,
read me
. She did. When the Death card came up, Roger groaned.
Oh great, you’ve just killed me.
Abdulia shook her head no, and explained that this was a fortuitous card. You are my dark knight on a white steed, she explained. Roger liked that.

Now that Abdulia was gone, it was up to Roger to flip the cards. But now he was secure in the knowledge that Abdulia was speaking to him from the afterlife. He would study the tarot, then carry out the orders.

They would tell
him
who to kill.

chapter 91

Knack stared up at the paint-chipped ceiling with one eye, marveling that he hadn’t strangled himself to death. And that was about the only positive thing he could say for himself at this moment.

On top of him was the body of Steve Dark. He could feel the man breathing faintly, but clearly he would be checking out soon. Two bullets to the back—you’re not walking away from that, no sir.

Knack’s arm was still pinned behind him, and clearly broken in a number of places. The pain was unreal, racing up and down his arm in urgent jolts of agony.

There was broken glass everywhere.

And his friggin’ eye was still taped open, no matter how much he wrinkled his face or twisted his jaw or knitted his brow. The exposed eye was driving him insane.

Downstairs, he heard the sound of a door creaking open.

Oh God.

Urgent footsteps up to the lantern room. Knack looked over with his one good eye and saw a tall man, salt-and-pepper hair in a buzz cut, weathered looking. He was carrying a rifle in one hand, a case in the other.

The other killer.

“Please,” Knack said. “Don’t do this.”

“Don’t worry,” the man said. “You’ll live. We want you to tell our story.”

“I will!” Knack squealed. “I promise I will, whatever you want me to say.”

As the man crouched down, Dark pushed himself up off the floor and pulled a knife from the sheath on his boot.

 

 

Graysmith was the one who insisted on Dark wearing Kevlar.

“I spent too much money for it to go to waste. What can it hurt?” Dark had initially objected, worried that it would weigh him down too much. But then Dark considered Roger Maestro’s background, his skill with the gun. Dark would deal with the weight.

“This first,” Graysmith had said, handing him a black button-down shirt, long sleeves. He took it, and was surprised by its weight.

“What is it?” Dark asked.

“Kevlar lining, front and back, nearly invisible. High protection. Can stop a .44 Magnum. Only $12,000 each, but I was able to get a discount.”

Dark had worn the shirt, which felt like chain mail, and then added the vest—which, even though it was slimmed down, added even more pounds. “You got to be kidding me,” Dark had said. But now he was glad he’d worn it. The shirt had displaced the impact of the rifle blasts. The impact still knocked him forward and hurt like holy fuck, but the bullets did not break his skin, nor pierce his lungs or scramble his internal organs.

A pro like Roger Maestro would come to confirm the kill. Dark would be ready for him.

 

 

The moment he was on his feet, Dark stabbed his knife at Roger’s upper pectoral muscles. But Roger grabbed Dark’s wrist and twisted it hard, forcing his fingers open. The knife dropped. Roger grabbed Dark by his Kevlar shirt, pulled him close, then flung him back into the metal framework of the lighthouse windows. Impossibly, there was more glass to be shattered. The impact of Dark’s body shattered it. He slid to the ground, feeling a white-hot blast of pain at the base of his spine.

His Glock. Dark reached around to his back—then remembered. He’d dropped it when he pulled Abdulia to the ground. There it was, a few feet from her body, partially hidden under the rusted base of the old light source.

Roger charged forward.

Placing his palms on the glass-covered floor, Dark slammed his boot into Roger’s knee. The damned thing felt like an iron pole. Such a move would have blown out any normal human being’s knee, or at least given them pause. Roger didn’t even seem to feel it. He picked Dark up again and slammed his body into the metal frame. Again. And again. This was going to turn out like their fight in the Niantic building. Without weapons, Dark had nothing—not against a human slab of concrete like Roger Maestro. Abdulia had been the brains of the outfit. But Roger had gone and blown them out of her skull. All Dark had was one last card to play.

“She had a message for you,” Dark muttered.

Roger stopped the pounding and held him up. “What did you say?”

“As she was dying,” Dark said. “She told me to make sure you understood something.”

“You’re a liar.”

“About Zachary. Your boy.”

“Don’t say his name,” Roger growled. “You don’t have
the right to say his name!
”