And then, in the corner, passed out on the floor—Hilda.
Meanwhile, Roger watched Dark from fifty yards away. The shot couldn’t be easier. But he had to wait. Sometimes Roger didn’t understand his wife’s ideas—not completely. He believed in her, he believed in the power of the cards, but he didn’t understand why she had to make things so complicated sometimes. Roger thought they should have taken the money from Green and gone somewhere they could live cheaply. Instead they’d spent most of the past two weeks apart, traveling all over the country, killing and arranging. Killing and arranging.
And now he was perched in a small cave across a rocky plain from the lighthouse, rifle in hand—waiting for the final kill.
Roger’s side still hurt from where Dark had slashed him. He’d managed to give it a quick field dressing, but his battered body needed rest. Sometimes when he closed his eyes, he could hear tiny explosions, and he imagined it was his veins, bursting from the stress of the past few weeks. The past few years, really.
But Abdulia had assured him it would be over by nightfall. And then they’d be together. Finally at peace, after the torment and grief both had endured.
Roger was eager for it to finally be over.
The light was so intense Knack was starting to go blind. Sensory overload. God, this tape. This is worse than hand torture. All he wanted to do was blink. If he ever got out of this, that’s what he’d do—just spend a day blinking. Or maybe just close his eyes, tape them shut for a few days, let the moisture slowly resoak his eyeballs . . .
How did this crazy tarot lady expect him to “observe” if he couldn’t see?
Then, out of the corner of his eye: a blur. Outside the window.
Dark leaped through one of the open spaces between the metal bars. As he landed he drew his Glock 22. Pointed it at Abdulia’s chest.
“On your knees, hands behind your head.”
He quickly scanned the room. Where was Roger? Probably downstairs in the watch room with a gun, waiting for Dark to use the front entrance.
Obediently, Abdulia knelt down in front of Dark. “Go ahead,” she said. “Bring me death.”
Dark kept his pistol aimed at her heart, one eye on the winding staircase on the side of the room. “So this is what you wanted all along? You should have called me ten days ago. You could have saved yourself a lot of trouble.”
Abdulia smiled. “You know it had to be this way. Actions mean nothing unless you have the will to surrender everything. Including one’s own life. And you are my dark knight. Death riding proud on a white horse.”
“You think I’m Death?”
“Why else would our paths have crossed?” Abdulia asked. “The moment I saw your face . . . oh, the moment I heard your name, Steve Dark, I knew it was fate. I knew you would follow us to the end. You would never give up. Never surrender.”
Dark nodded in the direction of Hilda—still unconscious on the floor.
“So why involve her? She has nothing to do with this.”
“She has everything to do with this,” Abdulia said. “You sought her counsel, and you spent all night in her shop. I was there. I watched you enter that evening. I watched you leave, blinking in the morning. Hilda brought you into the world of the tarot, and I knew she would draw you here to fulfill your destiny.”
So that hadn’t been paranoia—or Graysmith—at Venice Beach that night. Abdulia had started watching him from that moment. Johnny Knack here had snapped his photo in Philadelphia, bringing him to the killers’ attention.
Dark glanced over at the bound reporter.
“And you have Knack here to watch me kill you?”
“The world needs to know what it means to embrace your fate. They will study my example and learn.”
“You didn’t need me here for this,” Dark said. “You could have had your husband do it. He’s killed a lot of people—he’s very good at it.”
“He would never hurt me. Roger loves me too much. But you’re different, Steve Dark. When you stepped into our path, I read all about you. You’re a born killer. Your life was meant to intersect with ours.”
Dark’s fingers tensed. He’d been here before—at the brink. Once again he was standing in front of a psycho responsible for the deaths of people he cared about. Once again, he held the weapon. He heard Sqweegel’s voice taunting him:
It’s no fun unless you’re fighting. So come on. Fight! The world will be watching!
“Do it,” Abdulia cooed. “Slay the monster, Dark. Collect your accolades. Your medals. Your honors. Isn’t this what you’ve wanted all along? To prove yourself to your colleagues that you’re not damaged goods? That you can do this on your own? That this is what you were meant to do with your life? So do it!”
Dark came to his senses. This was not Sqweegel. This was some fucked-up chick who believed that tarot cards were commanding her to kill. She had a killer soldier for a husband, who followed her every command. The Maestros were not monsters of his blackest nightmares; they were just psychotic people who needed to be taken off the playing field. Dark lowered his weapon.
“You think that following the cards will give you some kind of peace, is that it, Abdulia?” Dark asked.
“Fate wants me to die. For allowing my son, Zachary, to perish. I am as guilty as everyone else—the nurse, the priest, as well as the greedy, the vain, the pompous. You have a daughter. Surely you must understand the punishment I deserve.”
“You’re wrong,” Dark said. “Can’t you see that? You and Roger are in bondage, just like in the Devil card. You could easily take the shackles off, but you choose to be enslaved. It doesn’t have to be that way.”
Abdulia’s eyes widened. Blood rushed to her cheeks. Her face seemed to explode with sheer rage.
“DON’T YOU SPEAK OF THE CARDS TO ME!”
“You know I’m right.”
“YOU MUST BRING ME DEATH!”
“No,” Dark said. “You’re going to jail.”
Abdulia charged at him suddenly, attempting something Dark had seen before: suicide via cop. But Dark quickly sidestepped, taking the cuffs from his belt, and caught Abdulia by her arm. She screamed and struggled wildly as he brought both arms behind her back. There would be no Death card. There would be a trial. There would be a verdict, delivered by a jury of her peers. There would be a sentence. There’s your fate.
In the middle of the struggle, Dark caught a look from Knack. Flicking his open eyes to the window. Urgent. Quick. Look!
Two seconds later, the windows exploded.
chapter 89
When Roger Maestro saw Dark squeezing a pair of handcuffs around his wife’s wrists, he was momentarily stunned. He didn’t know what to do.
Abdulia had told him she would force Dark to kill himself. Dark would become the Death card, just like Jeb Paulson had been forced to embody the Fool card. Otherwise, Hilda would die. The journalist, too. And a man like Steve Dark wouldn’t allow any more innocent victims to die.
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 b
e 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.
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