Carol O’Connell - Stone Angel

Lilith would have a long life ahead of her, time enough to recover from this insult.

He could see she was gathering a few well-picked angry words, but before she could spit out more than “You can’t – ” he reached past her, opened the door and pushed her out on the road. As he sped off, he watched her in the rearview mirror as she stood up, dusted herself off and stared after his taillights disappearing down the road.

Riker’s head wound continued to bleed and this was the only clue that the man was still alive.

Malcolm raised the rifle. He was pointing it at Charles’s face.

Riker’s body hung limp as dead weight, and perhaps it was a mercy that he was unaware of what was about to happen. Charles listened to the crackle of fire and looked at the angry faces surrounding him. They were all stealing back.

He turned to Mallory. Her face shone in the firelight, and he found some comfort there. Death was surely coming, but he was beyond being frightened anymore. This tiny fragment of a day, standing on a patch of dirt at the end of the gauntlet with Mallory, this was sublime. It was the peak experience of his entire life – only one exquisite moment left.

He wondered what Mallory would do to wreck it for him – that was her nature.

“If you move, Charles, even a hair,” said Malcolm, “I’ll kill you.”

And Charles supposed it was good logic to take out the largest target first, but foolish to underestimate Mallory as the lesser threat. He neglected to enlighten Malcolm, for he had finally come up with a last-minute gift for Mallory. His death might buy her seconds of diversion to run, to live.

“Malcolm, you’re a real moron,” said Mallory, dripping with contempt. “A rank idiot.”

Charles thought this might not be the time for common name-calling. Possibly a more elegant line from -

“I understand the town idiot died,” said Malcolm, smiling behind the rifle sight.

She shook her head in mock wonder. “You keep making the same mistake, Malcolm. You always leave the scene before the job is done. Ira’s still alive. Screwed up again, didn’t you?”

Malcolm lowered the gun, but only a little. Charles was still in the rifle sight.

“Another loose end to lead the sheriff to three more murders.” Her voice was taunting, and now she had a larger audience, as more people came closer, pressing around them.

“Shut up,” said Malcolm, turning the gun on her now. “Just shut up!”

Of course, this was his audience and he couldn’t afford to lose them to a better act, not now.

“Yeah, like you’re going to do your own killing for a change.” Mallory seemed almost bored. “According to the witness, you walked away from my mother’s house before the stoning. You let your brothers do the job. Now you might have gotten away with that murder – if it had gone to trial.”

The spinning red light of the sheriff’s car was barreling down the road from the highway, the siren screaming with urgency. It turned onto the Owltown road at its base and rolled toward them through the streets of flames.

“Get him!” Malcolm screamed.

The crowd moved into the road as the car was slowing. It stopped dead in the morass of arms and legs as bodies crawled over the vehicle like insects. The door was opened and the sheriff was dragged from behind the wheel. Charles saw the blood on one side of the man’s head as the mob lowered him to the ground in front of Malcolm.

The sheriff’s hand was slowly moving to the weapon in his holster. A shout came out of the mob, and Malcolm turned to point the rifle at Jessop while a young boy relieved the man of his pistol.

“I called in for backup,” said the sheriff. “This time, the law will be here before you can run. Give it up, Malcolm.”

“I don’t think so.” Malcolm shook his head. “I don’t hear any more sirens, Tom.”

The boy who held the sheriff’s gun kept his eyes on Malcolm, not quite sure of what was happening, so excited he could not stand still but danced his feet in the dirt.

Charles watched the flaming debris from a bar land on the roof of a store and spread along the shingles. Near the neighboring building, a barrel was in flames. Bright sparks flew over the roofs of other structures. A woman batted live cinders from her hair, and another woman brushed them from her skirts.

“This is the story,” said Malcolm, nodding in Mallory’s direction, but not taking his eyes off the sheriff. “She shot up all these innocent citizens in a wild killing spree, and she had to be put down like a dog. You died in the line of duty, Tom. I hope that’s a comfort.”

He lowered the rifle and pointed one finger at the young man with the sheriff’s gun. “Shoot him, Teddy!”

“Don’t do it, Teddy,” said Mallory to the boy. There was so much authority in her command that the boy lowered the sheriff’s gun and stared at her.

“Malcolm has a gun,” she said, speaking only to the boy. “Don’t you wonder why he doesn’t do his own killing?” She turned to Malcolm. “Why let a kid take the fall? Do it yourself.”

Charles thought this was not her best idea.

Malcolm glared at the boy with the gun. “Kill him now!”

The boy dropped the gun and ran. Malcolm raised the barrel of the rifle. “All right, I will do it myself.”

“No you don’t!” screamed a woman’s voice.

Every head turned to stare up at the deputy standing on the roof of the sheriff’s car. Lilith’s face was shining with sweat, her chest was heaving and her gun was pointing at Malcolm’s head.

“Kill him!” yelled Mallory.

The crowd was silent, watching, waiting.

Malcolm’s face was grim, eyes locked on his target, the sheriff. “Put the gun down, Deputy, or I’ll shoot your boss right now.” He risked a glance at the woman with the gun. “Put it down! Now! Do what I – ”

Lilith let a bullet fly through Malcolm Laurie’s forehead. Bone fragments scattered, and blood sprayed from the hole. There was time for him to register surprise, but only just. An accident of perfect balance kept the body standing for another moment, but he was dead before he toppled forward and hit the ground.

And now they heard the sirens.

A convoy of police cars roared down the road from the highway, perhaps twenty pairs of lights shining in the night. The remains of the crowd scattered, fleeing the brightness of burning Owltown.

Lilith Beaudare climbed down from the roof of the car. She was stiff in her movements. Her body had lost its fluid grace as she walked toward Malcolm’s corpse with slow, halting steps. She stopped to look down at her gun, as though surprised to see it there and wondering who that killing hand might belong to.

Mallory had to call Lilith’s name twice to break her trance, and now they stared at one another. The spinning lights of the sheriff’s car turned their faces blood-red with every revolution. Glowing cinders swirled above them and came back to the earth in a brilliant rain of slow-falling stars.

“Best to take him in the car,” said the sheriff. “That damn chemical plant is still pumping out casualties. We’ll be here all night waiting on an ambulance.”

“No problem with that.” The young state trooper closed his first-aid kit and looked down at his patient. “He’ll be fine in the car. It looks a lot worse than it is.”

But Charles did not believe Riker could look much worse than this without being dead. Every rib had been taped, one arm rested in a makeshift splint, and a good portion of the man’s face was swaddled in heavy bandages.

The trooper helped them settle Riker into the back of the sheriff’s car beside Mallory. She covered him with a blanket, tucking him in like a child. He was semiconscious, opening and closing his eyes.