“This is just the start,” Edgar said, almost giggly with excitement. “I’ve got ten C4 charges set all over the hotel, conveniently close to the gas mains. Disconnected the sprinkler system, too.” His eyes were wide and manic. I could barely stand to look at him. “This whole place is crumbling! Isn’t it wonderful?” He was totally consumed by his delusion, far worse than when I had seen him last. All vestiges of sanity, of humanity, were gone. “It’s ‘The Fall of the House of Usher,’ the greatest of the prophet’s stories, coupled with the greatest of his poems. ‘By the mystical magical tolling of the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells!’ ”
It was getting hot back here. The fire outside was superheating the ballroom. Smoke inundated this dark, narrow passage behind the cathedral as well, making it difficult to speak or breathe.
He pushed a button and I heard another explosion. This one was farther away, but I was certain it was still inside the hotel. Maybe the casino. Maybe the spa. No telling how many people would be hurt or killed.
“It’s not too late for you,” he said breathlessly. “You could be Madeline to my Roderick. You could join us, Susan, join Rachel and Ginny and me. We’ll unite as comrades in the Golden Age.”
I thought fast. “I’d like that.”
“This can be the Day of Ascension for all of us, a passage from this virulent world to one of-” In the midst of his rapture, he loosened his grip on my neck and body. And that was all the invitation I needed. Mustering my strength, I bodychecked him against the cathedral. His head slammed back against a wooden beam. While he was momentarily stunned, I knocked the detonator out of his hand.
“No!” he screamed, but he was much too late to stop me. I scooped the detonator off the floor and shoved it into my pocket, then raised my fist to deliver a knockout blow to his solar plexus.
And he raised a gun. My gun.
“You don’t deserve to ascend,” he said bitterly, blinking from the pain, blood dripping down the side of his head. “You will die right here in this miserable world where you belong.”
He fired.
O’Bannon swore, but it wasn’t productive, because no one could possibly hear him. What the hell had happened? There’d been an explosion, and seconds later the whole ballroom was on fire. Within moments the front doors were congested and blocked. Bedlam ensued. Rabid partygoers were punching, screaming, crying, reeling, desperate to get away from the flames. Smoke billowed through the enclosed area, making it difficult to see or breathe. The air was thinning. Without an alternative exit, they’d all suffocate, maybe even before they burned.
Fighting his way through the mass hysteria, O’Bannon got to a side door-led to the kitchen, if he wasn’t mistaken. There was a crowd around, trying unsuccessfully to open it. Seemed to be locked from the other side. Well, he had the cure for that.
“Stand back,” he bellowed. He pulled out his weapon and fired three times at the lock mechanism.
Good thing it wasn’t chained, or even that might not have worked. As it was, the bullets weakened it enough that he could kick the door open. As soon as he did, the crowd surged through it, coughing, crying, gasping for air. But they had a way out. At least until that one was blocked.
A second explosion rocked the room. My God, he wondered, where did that one go off? How the hell did he stop this?
And what happened to Susan?
Last he’d seen of her, she’d headed behind that fake cathedral. She hadn’t emerged, at least not that he’d seen.
He scanned the still-packed room. No sign of her, and he couldn’t believe she’d just leave, not in the midst of all this chaos.
There was only one reason she would be back there while this turmoil was raging.
Cautiously, gun still in hand, he made his way toward the cathedral.
The bullet missed, at least in the sense that it didn’t kill me on the spot. It seared my right arm, creating a fierce burning pain that brought sudden tears to my eyes and gave me a bad case of the shakes.
“I hate this,” he said, and to my astonishment I saw that he had tears in his eyes as well. “The brutality of it. Firearms. This is not the way it should be. Why are you making me do this, Susan? Why?”
He lifted his arm and I could see that he was going to shoot again, going to shoot to kill this time, from a distance so short he couldn’t possibly miss.
I’m sorry, Rachel, I thought. I failed you. Just as I’ve always failed you.
“Susan! Duck!”
I recognized O’Bannon’s voice, but even if I hadn’t I would’ve obeyed. A bullet whizzed over my head and struck near Edgar-but not near enough. Edgar gritted his teeth, shifted his aim and fired, not once but three times. I heard a grunt that told me one of the slugs had made contact, followed by the sickening thud of a body hitting the floor.
“Nooo!” I screamed. I rushed forward while Edgar’s attention was focused on his new victim, tackling him under his gun arm. He fell back against the façade. The gun went flying. In this darkness, there was no way of knowing where it had gone. I punched Edgar again and again and again and he didn’t resist. I didn’t give him a chance. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to beat him senseless.
When I was sure he wasn’t going to get up again, I ran to the chief.
The bullet had caught him in the lower stomach, below his vest. It didn’t look as if it would be fatal if he got help in time. But I knew that stomach wounds were the most painful an officer could suffer.
He was shaking, too stricken to speak. I told him not to try, then called for immediate medical assistance. I assumed the ambulances were already converging, given the conflagration outside. I gave them O’Bannon’s location.
“You’re going to be okay,” I told him, and hoped he believed it. “Just stay put. Don’t try to move.”
I wanted to remain with him, but I couldn’t. Rachel was still up there, and the other girls. Every additional second they spent upside down in those things could be fatal.
I realized Edgar must’ve used the scaffolding to get the bodies up into those bells. So I would do the same to get them down.
By the time I ran through the cathedral door again, the ballroom was perhaps half empty, which was a damn good thing, because the flames were spreading fast. At least a third of the room was already ablaze. The air was thick with dense black smoke. Everyone was coughing and choking, black stains under their noses and mouths. I was finding it hard to breathe myself. But I put that out of my head. I had to get to Rachel.
The scaffolding levels were maybe seven feet apart. Edgar had no doubt used a ladder, but he hadn’t left that behind for me, so I just vaulted it. Up on the first level, I found round steel pylons, buckets of mortar, tools, signs of a barely completed construction process. I leaped up, grabbing the edge of the next level, my bullet-creased arm aching, and swung myself around. On the next riser, I was level with the bells.
Up close, I saw that Rachel was tied tightly across her entire body, ensuring that she couldn’t move or escape. But the other three girls were only bound at the feet, just enough to keep them on the clappers. Why hadn’t they escaped? Was it possible they’d let Abbott put them up there?
Rachel’s eyes were open, but I couldn’t gauge how conscious she was, hanging upside down for so long, her head thumping against the bell, that incredible noise shattering her eardrums. The side of her head closest to me was bleeding-not a good sign.
“Rachel!” I shouted. No reaction of any kind.
There was a narrow catwalk on the front of the cathedral, probably to give the workmen access to the bell chambers. With a cautious, tentative step, I edged off the riser onto the catwalk. From there, I was able to reach out and grab the edge of the bell.