"Why don't I start right now?"
"Listen to me. I want them to see that you're not armed—they'll for sure know I'm not. I want them off guard. So just act mad and like you think I'm crazy."
"I'm sure I can handle that," Carole said.
The roof was three-quarters down when the car stopped. Lacey stood and threw her arms wide.
"Guys! Am I glad to see youl Where the fuck you been hiding?"
The Vichy pair looked at each other, stopped their bikes half a dozen feet behind the car, and sat staring. Both still clutched their pistols.
"Not as glad as we are to see you, little lady," said the red-bearded one on the left. "And I do mean see you."
He gave his buddy's arm a backhand slap and they both laughed.
Lacey heard the car door slam behind her and Carole's voice cry, "Lacey! You put your clothes on right this instant!"
"Who's she?" said the other one who'd twined his salt-and-pepper goatee into a triad of greasy braids.
"Just some lezbo I hooked up with."
Redbeard grinned. "Lezzie action. Awright!"
Braids set his kickstand and got off his bike. Lacey noticed he had PAGANS written across the back of his cutaway. She also noticed the bulge behind his fly. Good. All that blood flowing away from his brain.
"Lezzie, huh?" He took a step toward Carole. "No such thing. She just ain't met the right man yet."
Oh, but she has, Lacey thought.
"Never mind her." Lacey crawled out on the trunk lid and seated herself cross legged, giving the two Vichy a panoramic view. Braids suddenly lost interest in Carole. "I'm the one in need of a little male tail, if you know what I'm saying. Been too damn long since I had a guy to do me right."
"Well then," Redbeard said, getting off his bike. He adjusted the bulge in his pants. "This is your lucky day. You get a double dose."
"Hey, I ain't got nothing against a three-way, but I need one guy to start me off right. You know, get me juiced up. Who's got the biggest dick? I want the best-hung guy first."
"That'll be me," said Redbeard.
Braids snorted. "No fuckin way!"
Here was the tough part. She had to time this just right or the whole situation would go to hell in a heartbeat. Lacey clapped her hands and forced a giggle. "Oh, this is so cool! A cock fight! Show me! Show me! Show me! I'll be the judge! No-no, wait! I'll be the package inspector!"
Laughing, the two men holstered their pistols and began fumbling with their flies. With a shaking hand Lacey reached around, pulled the shotgun from the boot, and fired at Redbeard first. The recoil almost knocked her off the trunk and into the back seat, but the blast took Redbeard full in the chest, slamming him back through a halo of his blood and into his bike. Some of the scattering shot caught Braids in his arm and he spun half around, clawing at his pistol. Lacey regained her balance and her grip on the sawed-off. She quick-pumped another shell into the chamber as she slid off the trunk to the ground, then pulled the trigger, catching Braids in the left side. His shoulder, neck and cheek exploded and he went down in a spray of red.
Lacey pumped one more shell of double-ought shot into each of them— didn't want them talking to anyone—then took their guns. She tossed the shotgun and the new weapons onto the back seat.
"Men," she said, reaching for her clothing. Loathing welled up in her. "No wonder I gave up on them. They're such assholes."
She pulled on the panties and comfy pants first. As she was shrugging the T-shirt over her head she found Carole glaring at her.
"What?"
"You shouldn't have done that."
"Killed them? What was I sup—?"
Carole shook her head. "You shouldn't have called me a lesbian. That wasn't right."
"It was just something to distract them, set little triple-X fantasies spooling through their heads."
Carole slipped back behind the wheel. "Still, just because I've forsworn marriage doesn't mean I'm a lesbian. A vow of chastity means no sex with men or women."
"I know that, Carole." She dropped back into the passenger seat and slammed the door. "Takes one to know one, and my gaydar doesn't so much as beep with you."
Carole glanced at her. "You're . . . ?"
"Yeah."
"Does your uncle know?"
"Sure does. He doesn't like it but he accepts it. Too bad you aren't, Carole. You're kinda cool."
Carole's face reddened as she put the car in gear.
Lacey laughed and gave the nun's shoulder a gentle punch. "Only kidding."
And she was. With the memory of Janey still so fresh and haunting, she couldn't think of being with anyone else. Not yet.
"This isn't going to be a problem for you, is it?"
Carole shook her head. "The convent had its fair share. It was no secret behind the doors. They kept to themselves, and I kept my mouth shut. God will be the final judge."
"I guess I have nothing to worry about then," Lacey said.
She turned and looked back at the two men sprawled in their pooling blood and felt nothing.
"Why don't I feel anything, Carole? You've killed your share of Vichy. Do you—?
"I always got sick afterward—at least when I had to ... do it myself... by hand. But what you just did doesn't bother me so much. Perhaps because it wasn't close work ... or because it was you doing it instead of me. I know they had to die but..." She sighed. "Nothing in my life prepared me for this, Lacey. I was raised to be merciful—I'm a Sister of Mercy, after all—but I don't believe the undead or their collaborators deserve any mercy from us. I've decided to leave that to God. He can decide."
"Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out. Right." Just how Lacey felt.
"Perhaps. Still... I can't ignore the fact that the Vichy are still human beings. No matter what awful things they've done, they're still God's children, and I can't help thinking that if maybe someone had got to them early enough and showed them the grace of God's love, their lives would have been different."
Lacey shook her head. "Sorry. Can't buy that. Some people are just plain evil. They're born bad and they stay bad all their lives. They're like termites, undermining your house. There's no accommodating them, so if you don't want to wake up with your house reduced to sawdust, you exterminate them."
"That's what they are to you? Bugs?"
"Worse. Bugs don't have a choice in how they act."
Lacey knew she hadn't always been like this, but something started dying within her when Janey had gone missing; her parents' empty, bloodstained house had pushed it closer to the grave; Uncle Joe dead with his throat torn open had administered the coup de grace. She couldn't imagine herself feeling anything but murderous loathing for the creatures, human and inhuman, who'd been a part of all that.
Carole hit a switch and the top began to rise.
"Leave it down," Lacey said.
Carole looked at her. "I don't think that's a good idea."
"It is. Think about it. You heard Joe: All the females of childbearing age have been trucked off to farms to be breeders. That leaves nothing for the cowboys between their stud times at the farms. They're horny as all hell. If they see two women in an open car they'll be more likely to ask questions first and shoot later, don't you think?"
"You also said we'd be less likely to run into trouble on the Turnpike."
"That was just a guess. This is based on the fact that these guys—as the two back there on the ground prove—think with their dicks."
Carole closed her eyes for half a minute—Lacey couldn't tell if she was thinking or praying—then hit the roof switch. The top settled back into the boot.
"I hope you're right."
After that, Carole kept the pedal to the metal, hitting one-twenty on the long straightaways through the flatlands by Newark Airport. The still, silent airport streamed past to the left, the equally still railyards to the right. Like running through an industrial graveyard.