Charles watched two large boys, nearly man size, perched on the rail of a porch, keeping to the shadows, dark as crows and watching, waiting, moving their lips in unison. And now Charles realized they were counting off her shots.

The next rock fell short of the mark. Mallory fired an empty gun. They were almost at the end of the road when the bird boys flew from the porch rail and ran forward with rocks in their hands.

“On your right,” said Charles.

She watched them for a moment and then threw the gun at the boy in the lead, clipping his head and drawing blood. The other boy stopped for a moment to look at his friend, who was sinking to the ground, blood dripping on his shirt from the head wound.

“Take Riker,” she snapped, “and keep going.” Mallory went after the boy who was still standing and holding a rock in his hand. She grabbed one of his arms and broke it over her raised leg. Charles heard the bone snap. She walked away from the boy, and left him screaming as they continued to walk, shouldering Riker between them, facing forward, both tall and taking long strides, matched horses in tandem. Charles had never felt so perfectly in tune with Mallory.

The flames were all around them now. The older men were gone, faded away in the heat. And now the younger men and a scattering of women drifted back to the edge of the road. And last, the boys, with their violent eyes and hairless bodies, took flight and entered one of the buildings.

A gunshot rang out from the upper window. Mallory talked to him across Riker’s body. “Most people can’t shoot worth a damn. These bastards couldn’t hit a moving target to save their lives.”

“I thought these people were all issued hunting rifles at birth.” Charles looked up to see the long metal barrel protruding from the window on the second floor.

Another shot kicked up the dust in front of them. “Well, that’s an improvement,” said Mallory, in a cool critique of the shooter.

Charles caught the flight of a bottle with a fiery rag in its neck sailing through the window next to the shooter’s. The interior was lit up with a burst of flames. And there were no more shots from the upper floor. He looked around for Augusta, but she was nowhere in sight.

They walked steadily, never slowing the pace. People were walking along with them but keeping their distance. He wondered why. Mallory had no weapon now.

“They don’t know what to do,” said Mallory. “They’re pure reaction. Don’t look at them.”

Finally, they were at the top of the paved road, within steps of the dirt path that led through the windbreak of trees and into Dayborn, where electric lights were burning instead of torches and buildings. The energy of the mob had petered out to nothing, to wandering figures without direction.

Charles looked to Mallory and Riker. They might survive this after all.

Ah, but now a man stepped into the street, flanked by two teenage boys. Malcolm’s suit of lights sparked with a million independent fires. He was holding a rifle in his arms. Two more men joined them. One carried a baseball bat, and the other man held a rock in each hand.

The sheriff kept his eyes to the road ahead. The headlights of the car picked out the details of trees and shrubs along the way, but the moon had gone into the clouds, and everything beyond the scope of the beams was utter darkness. At the turn for the road to Owltown, he saw the flames and stopped the car, yelling, “Get out!” Lilith opened her mouth to speak.

He was faster, saying, “This is my personal business, Lilith. It may not be all that legal. Now you don’t want to spend your vacation days in court, do you? Witnessing against me?”

And though he did not believe he would live to face Guy Beaudare with the tragic news of Lilith’s death, he could imagine the man’s pain at losing his only child. All too well, he remembered the agony of losing young Kathy Shelley.

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.