She had lost Mallory in the trees, but that was not a problem. Lilith was running past the point of fatigue. Racing in that comfort zone where she gave up the struggle, doors opened in her mind. She knew where Mallory was headed. They were connected, moving through space in tandem. Lilith paused at the rim of the cemetery. Cass Shelley’s angel towered over every other monument. It was magnificent, poised for flight. She walked around the unfurled wings to the back of the statue, and there she met the angel in the flesh. The statue was twinning. The stark white face of Mallory emerged from the stone folds of the flowing robe, and in the next instant she was gone, and blood dripped from the marble as though the stone had been wounded.
The deputy streaked after her, running across the grass, skirting graves in her path. Mallory was disappearing into the woods beyond the cemetery, her gold hair shining through the leaves and then gone, blotted out by the dense foliage. Lilith screamed into the night, “If you keep running, you’ll lose what blood you got left.”
And now she became unhinged as the sound of laughter came back to her. Lilith ran faster now. The gold hair was in sight again, and she was closing the distance between them. And then Mallory folded and sank to the ground. Lilith was drawing ragged breaths when she came to stand over the fallen body. She drew her gun and held it in a two-handed posture as she had been taught to do.
Mallory groaned. She was bleeding from a wound in her back. Lilith knelt beside her, raising her gun barrel to the sky and freeing one hand to roll the body over. “Who did this to you?”
She was startled by the sight of the gun in Mallory’s hand. In an unreal expansion of time, she watched the trigger finger pulling back in a slow squeeze.
“Back off,” said Mallory, and Lilith did as she was told. But her gun barrel was lowering. “Careful, Rookie.”
Lilith went rigid, her gun still aiming elsewhere. It was not quite a standoff. Mallory would have the edge – if it came to trading shots.
“I wasn’t put on this planet to raise you from scratch,” said Mallory, leaning on one arm. “When will you learn?”
“It cost you a lot of blood to run like that. You’ll die before you clear these woods.”
“What’s that to you, Rookie? It’s not as if you were a real cop.” Mallory was smiling now. “I know the feds recruited you from the state Police.”
“You don’t know – ”
“Don’t I?” Mallory was sitting up now. “Any idiot could’ve worked it out. The feds keep track of every cult in the country. Or they like to think they do.”
“I don’t have any – ”
“And you’re so green. You probably bought that old line about a bright future with the FBI. Am I right? Well, surprise, Rookie. They lied. They do that a lot.”
Mallory was on her feet now, while Lilith remained in a frozen crouch. “The FBI will never take you, and you can’t go back to the state police, can you? They cut your orders. They know you’re cooperating with the feds behind the sheriff’s back. Why should they trust you? Your career is over, Rookie. Or maybe not. You could still salvage this.”
Mallory tilted her head to one side. She had to be in pain, but she seemed not to notice the holes in her body and the streaming blood. Her voice was less sarcastic now. “The last thing you want is the sheriff bringing me in. Even you can see that.”
But all Lilith could see was the blood from the shoulder wound. Mallory paid it no attention, and that was maddening. How much blood could she lose before she -
“Feeling a little sick, Deputy? Maybe you’re thinking about that moment when you get caught, when you have to face the sheriff while he spits on you.” She leaned her body into the conversation, standing easy, with nothing in her face to agree with the bullet wounds in her body, no sign of feeling. So cold.
“Deputy, I’m going to get you out of this mess. When you know what I know, the dirt on the feds, they’ll have to take you in and move you along. I inherited my dossier from a master of dirt collection. Do you want my help or not?”
The deputy gripped her gun tighter as she nodded, rising to a slow stand.
Mallory altered suddenly, every muscle tensing to fire a bullet point-blank into Lilith’s head. The deputy allowed the aim of her gun to drift farther afield, and Mallory eased back to a more relaxed stance.
This woman could kill her; she was sure of that much. The only thing Lilith doubted was herself. Her television image of a cop had died in the first few days at the police academy. The fantasy and the facts of life had warred. Doubt had won. It had moved into her consciousness and followed her everywhere. It was with her now, standing off to one side like a haunt. Could you kill Mallory? it whispered. Could you kill anyone?
No – maybe. She had wanted to be a cop all her life. That was all she was certain of. Now it was all falling apart. And yes, she did feel sick. If it came to trading shots -
“Point the gun toward the ground while we talk,” said Mallory. “It’ll give me less reason to blow your face off.” And now she smiled to say, Nothing personal in that – no hard feelings, okay? “I’m going to put your life back together.” Mallory leveled the gun at her eyes. “Point the gun down.”
Lilith slowly turned the gun barrel toward the ground. It was not fear that made her do it, but logic. Mallory would not play the waiting game, not while she was losing blood. Lilith looked down at the gun in her hand. She would not give it up, no matter what.
She was raising her eyes just as Mallory fired the shot. Lilith believed the world had banged to a close and she was dying. Every muscle in her body was loosening, knees buckling, arms flailing, and before her eyes was the afterimage of a bright flash of powder. She felt the breath of the bullet, the rush of it speeding by her flesh. She had felt the heat of it. But the bullet had missed her. All these deductions were made in only a moment – just a single flying second.
When the ball of fire imprinted on her retina had faded and no longer obscured her view, she was staring at her own Colt revolver in Mallory’s hand – for the second time in one day.
Shit.
Doubt, that old familiar haunt, was standing behind her, laughing at her. So you want to be a cop, Lilith?
“You keep losing this,” said Mallory, holding up the Colt.
Don’t look so tragic, Rookie. You just learned one more valuable lesson – don’t believe anything a suspect tells you.“
“You were never gonna give me the dirt on the feds.”
“No, of course not.”
“So if the sheriff does get you, you’re gonna tell him about the FBI.”
“No, Rookie, I lied about that, too. It’s better if he hears it from you.”
Lilith was coming to grips with the odd and backward ethics of Mallory. There was a code here, but damned if -
“Take the speedloader off your belt and throw it down.”
Lilith unhooked the heavy weight from her belt and dropped it. It rolled to a stop at Mallory’s feet. The woman holstered her own gun and trained the Colt on Lilith as she picked up the speedloader. “You’ll never need this, and it slows you down. Now take off the silly nightstick. And the rest of that garbage, the radio and the flashlight. That’s more dead weight.”
The truncheon was unhooked and fell to the ground at Lilith’s feet, followed by the rest of her gear.
Mallory scrutinized her. “Now you look like a cop instead of a damn amateur.” She dropped the speedloader into the pocket of her blazer, and now she held two revolvers again. “I’m going to do you one more favor – so you won’t have to explain how you lost the gun.” Mallory tossed the.38 Colt into the thick foliage. It was a surprisingly long throw, and Lilith lost track of the flight of gunmetal against the dark trees.