18

Charlie ran for her father, her mind in a horrified whirl, and when Rainbird spoke, she did turn toward him. He was sprawled on his belly, trying to steady the gun with both hands.

Incredibly, he was smiling. “There,” he croaked. “So I can see your eyes. I love you, Charlie.”

And he fired.

The power leaped crazily out of her, totally out of control. On its way to Rainbird, it vaporized the chunk of lead that otherwise would have buried itself in her brain. For a moment it seemed that a high wind was rippling Rainbird’s clothes-and those of Cap behind him-and that nothing else was happening. But it was not just clothes that were rippling; it was the flesh itself, rippling, running like tallow, and then being hurled ofd” bones that were already charring and blackening and flaming.

There was a soundless flashgun sizzle of light that momentarily blinded her; she saw no more but could hear the horses in their stalls, going mad with fear… and she could smell smoke.

The horses! The horses! she thought, groping in the dazzle before her eyes. It was her dream. It was changed, but it was here. And suddenly, momentarily, she was back in the Albany airport, a little girl who had been two inches shorter and ten pounds lighter and ever so much more innocent, a little girl with a shopping bag scavenged from a wastecan, going from phonebooth to phonebooth, shoving at them, the silver cascading out of the coin returns…

She shoved now, almost blindly, groping with her mind for what she needed to do. A ripple ran along the doors of the stalls that formed the L’s long side. The latches fell, smoking, to the board floor one after another, twisted out of shape by the heat.

The back of the stable had blown out in a tangle of smoking timbers and boards as the power passed Cap and Rainbird and bellowed onward, like something shot from a psychic cannon. The splintered shrapnel whistled for sixty yards or more in a widening fan, and those Shop agents who had been standing in its path might as well have been hit with a broadside blast of hot grapeshot. A fellow by the name of Clayton Braddock was nearly decapitated by a whirling slice of barnboard siding. The man next to him was cut in two by a beam that came whirling through the air like a runaway propeller. A third had an ear clipped off” by a smoking chunk of wood and was not aware of it for nearly ten minutes.

The skirmish line of Shop agents dissolved. Those who could not run crawled. Only one man kept his position even momentarily. This was George Sedaka, the man who, in the company of Orv Jamieson, had hijacked Andy’s letters in New Hampshire. Sedaka had only been laying over at the Shop compound before going on to Panama City. The man who had been on Sedaka’s left was now lying on the ground, groaning. The man on Sedaka’s right had been the unfortunate Clayton Braddock.

Sedaka himself was miraculously untouched. Splinters and hot shrapnel had flown all around him. A baling hook, sharp-edged and lethal, had buried itself in the earth less than four inches from his feet. It glowed a dull red.

The back of the stable looked as if half a dozen sticks of dynamite had gone off there. Tumbled, burning beams framed a blackened hole that was perhaps twenty-five feet across. A large compost heap had absorbed the bulk of Charlie’s extraordinary force when it made its explosive exit; it was now in flames, and what remained of the rear of the stable was catching.

Sedaka could hear horses whinnying and screaming inside, could see the lurid red orange gleam of fire as the flames raced into the lofts full of dry hay. It was like looking through a porthole into Sheol.

Sedaka suddenly decided he wanted no more of this.

It was a little heavier than sticking up unarmed mailmen on back-country roads.

George Sedaka reholstered his pistol and took to his heels.

19

She was still groping, unable to grasp all that had happened. “Daddy!” she screamed. “Daddy! Daddy!”

Everything was blurred, ghostly. The air was full of hot, choking smoke and red flashes. The horses were still battering at their stall doors, but now the doors, latchless, were swinging open. Some of the horses, at least, had been able to back out.

Charlie fell to her knees, feeling for her father, and the horses began to flash past, her on their way out, little more than dim, dreamlike shapes. Overhead, a flaming rafter fell in a shower of sparks and ignited the loose hay in one of the lower bays. In the short side of the L, a thirty-gallon drum of tractor gas went up with a dull, coughing roar.

Flying hooves passed within scant inches of Charlie’s head as she crawled with her hands out like a blind thing. Then one of the fleeing horses struck her a glancing blow and she fell backward. One of her hands found a shoe.

“Daddy?” she whimpered. “Daddy?” He was dead. She was sure he was dead. Everything was dead; the world was flame; they had killed her mother and now they had killed her father.

Her sight was beginning to come back, but still everything was dim. Waves of heat pulsed over her. She felt her way up his leg, touched his belt, and then went lightly up his shirt until, her fingers reached a damp, sticky patch. It was spreading. There she paused in horror, and she was unable to make her fingers go on.

“Daddy,” she whispered. “Charlie?” It was no more than a low, husky croak… but it was he. His hand found her face and tugged her weakly. “Come here. Get… get close.”

She came to his side, and now his face swam out of the gray dazzle. The left side of it was pulled down in a grimace; his left eye was badly bloodshot, reminding her of that morning in Hastings Glen when they woke in that motel.

“Daddy, look at this mess,” Charlie groaned, and began to cry.

“No time,” he said. “Listen. Listen, Charlie!”

She bent over him, her tears wetting his face.

“This was coming, Charlie… Don’t waste your tears on me. But-”

“No! No!”

“Charlie, shut up!” he said roughly. “They’re going to want to kill you now. You understand? No… no more games. Gloves off.” He pronounced it “glubs” from the corner of his cruelly twisted mouth. “Don’t let them, Charlie. And don’t let them cover it up. Don’t let them say… just a fire…”

He had raised his head slightly and now lay back, panting. From outside, dim over the hungry crackle of the fire, came the faint and unimportant pop of guns… and once more the scream of horses.

“Daddy, don’t talk… rest…”

“No. Time.” Using his right arm, he was able to get partway up again to comfort her. Blood trickled from both corners of his mouth. “You have got to get away if you can, Charlie.” She wiped the blood away from the hem of her jumper. From behind, the fire baked into her. “Get away if you can. If you have to kill the ones in your way, Charlie, do it. It’s a war. Make them know they’ve been in a war.” His voice was failing now. “You get away if you can, Charlie. Do it for me. Do you understand?”

She nodded…

Overhead, near the back, another rafter let go in a flaming Catherine wheel of orange-yellow sparks. Now the heat rushed out at them as if from an open furnace flue. Sparks lit on her skin and winked out like hungry, biting insects.

“Make it”-he coughed up thick blood and forced the words out-“make it so they can never do anything like this again. Burn it down, Charlie. Burn it all down.”

“Daddy-”

“Go on, now. Before it all goes up.”

“I can’t leave you,” she said in a shaking, helpless voice.

He smiled and pulled her even closer, as if to whisper in her ear. But instead he kissed her. “-love you, Ch-“he said, and died.