[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
right behind her.
Pleeeeeeease, Mindy pleaded.
Helen started to crawl forward, but Hank s huge hand
grabbed her around the neck. She couldn t move. She
couldn t breathe. She heard him draw back the trigger. He
was so close, Hank couldn t miss if he tried.
This is it, Helen thought. I m dead.
Chapter 28
R
I can t hear, Helen thought. He shot me in the head.
The silence was frightening. She could see people
screaming, but there was no sound. She didn t feel any pain.
Helen knew that was shock. The pain would come later.
Hank had let go of her. She sat up.
Helen felt her face for the sticky spurt of heart-pumped
blood. Nothing. She checked the back of her head for leak-
ing brains. No squishy mass. Both ears were still attached.
There were no gaping gunshot wounds on her arms, legs or
gut.
He didn t kill me, she realized with dazed wonder. Unless
I m dead and don t know it. I could be in hell.
Smoke swirled around her. Helen smelled roasting meat,
but her mind skittered away from that. A million miles away
at the far end of the room, the black velvet curtains flared
into yellow sheets of fire. The coffin was a brimstone bap-
tismal font.
A small fireball ran along the floor like a mouse. Helen
gawked, then gulped like a goldfish. That cleared her ears.
They opened to unearthly sounds: infernal shrieks of panic,
squeals of pain.
Helen heard another shot, and hit the floor. A bullet zinged
DYING TO CALL YOU 241
past her and buried itself in the floor three feet away. Hank
wasn t aiming at her. He was shooting at Mindy.
Aahhhhgh! Mindy s burned lips could no longer make
human sounds. Her body bucked and tossed in the flames.
Hank fired two more shots. Both went wild. One hit near
Mindy s smoking shoulder, the other by her fiery hair.
Another shot, and Mindy s lost-soul wails stopped.
Mindy lay deathly still, tiny flames crackling quietly on
her vinyl catsuit. Helen saw the bullet wound in her forehead,
a red hole like a third eye.
Even in hell, I will never see anything this horrible, Helen
thought.
Hank Asporth had shot his lover. Four of his bullets had
gone wild. But the fifth hit the mark. He had one shot left.
Helen could see Hank lurching through the smoke. His
big body was hunched like a cave creature. His jaw was slack
with shock. His eyes were white and wild in his smoke-
smeared face.
Now he pointed the gun straight at Helen. It was a re-
volver. It looked small in his huge hand, like Det. Lennie
Brisco s little revolver in Law & Order. Helen looked down
the short barrel for a long eternity.
You made me kill her, Hank said. I loved her. She s
dead and it s your fault.
No, Helen said. No, you don t
Hank pulled the trigger. I m never going to sleep with
Phil, she thought. I ll burn in hell because my last thought
was about boffing the hunk next door. She braced herself for
the impact. She heard a loud snap.
Snap? What kind of noise was that?
The gun was empty. Of course. The Law & Order gun was
a five-shot snub-nosed .38, not a six-shot at all. Helen nearly
collapsed with relief.
Hank threw the useless gun into the smoke, then scooped
up Laredo s disk and began a clumsy splay-legged run for the
door.
She couldn t let him get away. Helen started after Hank,
242 Elaine Viets
her own gait wobbly and erratic. She coughed and choked on
the smoke. Her lungs were dead sponges. They wouldn t take
in any air. She pulled her shirt up over her nose and mouth to
help her breathe. That was a little better, but she still couldn t
move with any speed. She could hardly see. The demon
doors were in another dimension. She d never reach them.
You can t let Hank escape with that disk, she told herself.
Laredo bought it with her life. Helen kept slogging through
the smoke-thick air. The demon doors never seemed to get
any closer. A short, furry man ran past her. His hairy back
was on fire.
Then, just like that, she was out and into the long corridor.
She looked for Hank, but he was too far ahead. The air was
better in the hall, but the panicked crowd was more danger-
ous. People pushed her forward. She could not stop. She d be
trampled if she tried. Helen struggled to stay upright.
Suddenly, she felt a stream of deliciously cool air. Was she
near the entrance? No, the fresh air was coming from the tall
window. Ten minutes ago, she d stood there looking down at
a lavish party. Now the portable bars were overturned, and
the food and flowers were trampled. A naked woman floated
face-down in the pool.
A French-rolled brunette shoved Helen so hard her fore-
head hit the wall. I m going to die if I don t get out of here,
she thought. The open window was her quickest way out.
She climbed over the sill and nearly lost her balance. It was
a fifteen-foot drop to the ground. If she was lucky, she d land
in the soft garden. If she wasn t, she d hit the concrete like a
watermelon dropped off a roof. She sat on the sill, hoping
someone would come along below and help her down.
With a whoosh, a fireball exploded down the hall, turning
the panicked pushers and shovers into living torches. The
heat scorched Helen s back. She didn t hesitate any longer.
She dropped straight down.
Helen landed in the mulch-cushioned flower bed and
rolled onto the concrete, knocking her head against a teak
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]