HE ANNOUNCED HE LOVED her, then put them in the worst imaginable circumstances, worse than waiting to die under the Kirk River. Here she was, walking backward on a solid catwalk high over the pressroom with a madman’s gun aimed at her heart. Every step felt as if it would send her plummeting over the edge of something, so that she would fall the thirty feet or so to the concrete floor below, making a one-point landing on her head, smashing her brain to jelly.
At that, it might be better than letting Nelson kill her, which he assuredly would, as soon as they got to the other end of the catwalk. For all his promises he wasn’t going to let her live, especially now that he had the valuable Mr. Trotter.
And the valuable Mr. Trotter was no help, either, talking to her all the time. “Watch the rivet, Regina, about a third of the way there, Regina, chin up, Regina, remember to run like hell when you get through the door on the other side, Regina.” Where did all this Regina stuff come from? In the last minutes of her life, when this arrogant and enigmatic bastard she’d lost her heart to had finally said he loved her; when she could use a little tenderness before this nut killed them both; it would be all right to use the pet name. In fact, it was rapidly becoming her last wish—to hear him call her Bash one more time.
Though Allan was doing all the talking—the only sounds in the whole pressroom were the humming of the motors of the presses on standby (and why weren’t they running? she wondered. It was way past time to roll on Worldwatch) and the sound of Allan’s voice—he wasn’t talking exclusively to her. He was keeping quite a flow of comments addressed to the Reverend Mr. Nelson. Evidently, Mr. Nelson was getting sick of it, or maybe stung by it. He began to answer back.
Allan said, “That’s the Old Testament God you work for, right? The one who got mad and slew anybody who crossed him. The New Testament is a little heavier in the Free Will department.”
Nelson mumbled something.
Regina wondered how Allan could calmly put his knees down on the pebbled-metal surface of the catwalk without any trace of pain showing in his voice. “Speak up,” he snapped. “I can’t hear you.”
“The Lord,” Nelson announced, “is moving and working among us this very day.”
“Of course he is, but you’re the best. You’ve got him working for the Russians, the most vicious bunch of sinners in the history of mankind.”
For the first time, Regina saw a look of insanity on Nelson’s face. “You don’t understand the Plan! They were working for me!”
Allan stopped and looked up at Nelson over his shoulder. “For you,” he said. “For you. My apologies. I wasn’t aware of your promotion.”
“What are you talking about? Keep moving.”
Allan stayed where he was. Regina could see Nelson’s hand tightening on the gun.
“We were talking,” Allan said, “about the Lord working for the Russians. You come back with the announcement that they’re working for you. Here I was thinking you were simply Azrael, the Angel of Death—”
Nelson’s eyes opened wide. “How did you know that?”
Allan ignored him. “—but now it turns out you’re God Almighty Himself. If I’d known, I would have worn a cleaner shirt. What are you? The Second Son, or the Second Coming?”
“You mock because you don’t understand. God works through me!
“Bullshit works through you. You kill because you like to, pal, and you’ve come up with the Azrael stuff because your conscience is a coward and needs an out.”
Regina was looking at the gun. Nelson’s hand was clasped so tightly around it, it trembled, but he didn’t fire it or get it in position. It was as if Allan had struck a high-voltage wire in him.
“In fact, if you didn’t have that goddam gun, I’d get up and bash your eyes shut. Do you hear me? Bash! Your eyes! Shut! Now!”
Just as he said now, a bell rang. For a crazy second, she thought it was her brain letting her know Allan’s message for her, that he had been calling her Regina to get her ready to be called Bash when it counted. That he had a plan, and he wanted her eyes shut when it went into effect.
As she squeezed her eyes closed, she realized what the bell was—it was the warning bell before the presses started up. Just as the bell ended, just before the huge machines would roar to life like waking dragons, Regina heard the crack of bone on bone, followed by grunts and a man’s scream. She opened her eyes just in time to see Nelson and Allan go over the railing of the catwalk. Regina opened her mouth to scream. The effort made her lungs hurt, but she could hear nothing in the roar of the presses. Then there was a tearing sound, like a million sails ripping in a hurricane, and the room was filled with a blizzard of torn paper that flew at her, sliced at her. She covered her eyes again, but not before she saw that among the white pieces of flying magazine stock, there were some that were wet, and bright red with blood.