Death Mask

here. Officer Gillow’s badly hurt. Hurry!”

“ — goddamned elevators are stuck — have to use the stairs — ”

“For Christ’s sake, hurry! And send paramedics, too!”

Frank and Red Mask struggled and grunted and punched at each other. They rolled over and over across the office floor, colliding with desks and chairs. Red Mask still had one knife left, and he repeatedly jabbed it at Frank’s face, trying to put out his eyes.

He succeeded in nicking Frank three or four times on the forehead and once on the bridge of his nose, but Frank had his wrist in too tight a grip for him to succeed in blinding him.

Sissy said to Trevor, “Here — hit him with a chair.” But even though Trevor picked up a stacking chair and circled around the two wrestling men, there were rolling over too rapidly for him to be sure that he would hit Red Mask, and not stun Frank instead.

Red Mask grunted and tried to jab at Frank’s face again. But Frank managed to pin his wrist to the carpet and punch him on the side of the head. He pulled himself upward so that he could press his right knee on Red Mask’s wrist with all of his weight, and at the same time he punched him again and again until Red Mask roared at him in frustration.

“Sissy!” he shouted. “Sissy, your lighter!”

“What?”

“Your lighter! Throw me your lighter!”

Sissy fumbled her lighter out of her purse. Trevor took it from her and tossed it to him. Frank caught it one- handed.

“Frank!” said Sissy.

Frank was sitting astride Red Mask now, but Red Mask was much heavier than Frank, and very strong, and he was gradually forcing Frank to tilt to the right, where his knife blade was still in his hand and sticking upward. One powerful push, and he could force Frank sideways onto the floor, and the point of the knife would be driven straight into his ear.

“No rest for the wicked!” gasped Red Mask. “No mercy for the innocent!”

“Why don’t you save your — ”

“No mercy for you, either! Nothing for you but blood! And more blood!”

There was a moment of supreme struggle, in which both men were pushing against each other to the very limits of their strength. Frank’s teeth were clenched, but Red Mask’s mouth remained a black soulless slit. All the same, he was uttering this high, continuous hiss, like steam pressure building up to danger level.

Red Mask was gripping his left wrist, but Frank gradually managed to lift the cigarette lighter up toward Red Mask’s face.

His voice dropped an octave. “You wouldn’t dare,” he said, hoarsely.

“Oh? You don’t think so?”

“What are you, some kind of a martyr? I burn, you burn. You think any of these people are worth it?”

“You value your life.”

“I was created. I came out of the whiteness. The same way you did. We were like Arctic explorers, lost in the snow, and then one day we just appeared.”

Red Mask coughed. It was the first sign of how much physical strain he was under. “You wouldn’t throw your life away, would you? Just to punish me?”

Frank flicked the lighter and a long blue flame curved out of it.

Molly called, “Frank! Be careful! Frank — remember that you’re only — ”

But Frank gradually forced his hand around until the flame was playing directly on Red Mask’s cheek. Red Mask screamed, and thrashed, and kicked his legs, but Frank kept the flame concentrated on his face. His red skin crinkled like cellophane, and Sissy could hear it crackle.

“Get that off me! Get that off me!”

Red Mask managed to yank his left arm free and immediately started to stab at Frank’s shoulder and sides, screaming all the time. But it was then that his face burst into flame, and then his shoulders, and then his arms.

“Frank!” screamed Sissy. “Oh my God! Frank!”

Frank had caught alight, too. His hair was burning, and within seconds the fire had spread down his back, as if he were wearing a cloak made of waving flames.

Frank and Red Mask then screamed at each other in a terrible chorus of hatred and pain. Then they both exploded. A huge orange fireball rolled across the office, and it was them, rolling over and over. They collided with a central pillar and then they stopped, still blazing so fiercely that Sissy had to raise her hand in front of her face to prevent her cheek from being scorched.

There was a second explosion, and then the whole office was filled with a whirlwind of white ash, which spun around and around and filled the air from floor to ceiling. The whirlwind was furious, but almost silent, and after less than a minute it gradually began to die down.

Sissy and Molly and Trevor stood amongst the softly settling ash. It reminded Sissy of the first Christmas she had spent alone after Frank had been killed. She had walked out into the yard and the snow was falling.

“You did it to me again, Frank,” she whispered. She couldn’t stop her eyes from filling up with tears.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE Roses are Red

Trevor knelt down beside Officer Gillow. The policeman was groaning and coughing, but he was still alive. Sissy knelt down beside him, too, and took hold of his hand, sticky fingered with blood.

“What’s your name, Officer?”

“Herbert, ma’am, but everybody calls me Duke.”

“Well, you’re going to be okay, Duke. I’m a psychic and I can feel it. You’re going to recover, I promise you.”

“You don’t have to lie to me, ma’am.”

“I wouldn’t, and I’m not. But after you’ve gotten yourself well, you’re going to retire from the police department so that you can run your own business. A bakery, maybe, or a restaurant. You’re going to get married and you’re going to have at least five children, all girls.”

Officer Gillow blinked up at her, his face speckled with ash. “Five girls?” he asked her, and a bubble of blood popped between his lips. “Why don’t you just let me die?”

Molly came back from the other side of the office.

“Poor Deputy’s dead.”

Sissy stood up and took hold of her hand and squeezed it. “Deputy did us proud. And remember, he was only made of paint and paper.”

She didn’t have to add that Red Mask and Frank were only made of paint and paper, too. Their ashes were still tumbling across the carpet.

“Only Deputy could have picked up Red Mask’s scent,” she said. “And only Frank could have burned him. Look how many times Red Mask was shot, and it didn’t affect him one bit.”

“We still have another Red Mask to find,” Molly reminded her. “And the police still don’t have any leads at all on the real Red Mask.”

“Well — finding the real one, that’s up to them,” said Sissy. “We can only find the painted ones.”

They heard pattering footsteps and clattering noises from the stairwell, and somebody shouting, “Breaching ram! Bring up that breaching ram!”

“Do you hear that, Duke?” Sissy told Officer Gillow. “Your buddies are coming to get you. You’ll soon be fixed up.”

A loud banging came from the stairwell doors, and then they heard the locks break open. Trevor came up to