Death Mask

are trying to do is kill your own creation! What you are trying to do is no less than abortion!”

Sissy said, gently, “Let the little girl go. She hasn’t done anything to you.”

“Oh, no? Why should she live, while I die? I’m one of God’s children, too.”

“Ah, but you’re not. You never were, and you never will be.”

“Get out of my way,” said Red Mask. He began to push Victoria toward them, so that they had to back off. “Today, I get justice. Today, I get revenge. Today, I get the respect that I deserve.”

“You don’t deserve any respect, you bastard,” Trevor told him. “You’re nothing but a butcher.”

Sissy said, “That’s truer than my son knows. You are a butcher. In fact, you’re — ”

“Shut up!” Red Mask roared at her. “Shut the fuck up! One more word from any of you and I’ll cut this kid’s throat right in front of you!”

He kept advancing along the corridor with Victoria in front of him, and they kept backing away, although Deputy kept snarling and pulling at his leash. Out of the side of his mouth, Detective Bellman murmured to Frank, “I could get a head shot, Frank. Right between the eyes.”

But Frank said, “No. No way. I don’t think even that would kill him. And he would only have to fall wrong, and — ” He made a slicing gesture across his Adam’s apple.

They retreated all the way along the corridor until they reached the elevators.

Molly said, “Please — if I promise not to come after you — ”

“Oh, you won’t be coming after me. I can guarantee that.”

“I’ll do anything you want. Just let her go, I’m begging you.”

Red Mask pushed the button for the left-hand elevator. The doors opened, and they saw that there was no elevator car there, only an empty shaft with greasy steel cables. A warm draft was blowing softly down it, whistling a sad, reflective tune.

“You want me to let your daughter go?” said Red Mask, hoarsely. “Sure, I’ll let your daughter go.”

Oh my God, thought Sissy. The card. The girl falling down the well, like Alice in Wonderland. The card predicted it. He’s going to drop her down the elevator shaft.

“No!” screamed Molly, but Red Mask forced Victoria right to the very edge of the elevator shaft, still holding the knife against her throat.

“Let her go, you bastard!” Trevor yelled at him, but Red Mask slid the knife across Victoria’s throat and drew a thin line of blood.

“I told you! Didn’t I tell you? Shut the fuck up! One more word from any of you, and it’s down she goes!”

Victoria made a pathetic squealing noise, but Red Mask snarled at her, “That goes for you, too, my darling. Not a word.”

Then he said, “Molly created me. Molly can destroy me. Now, I can’t have somebody walking the world who has the power to destroy me, can I? But no creation has the power to destroy his creator, does he? — even me? I can’t destroy you, Molly, any more than you can destroy God. There’s only one person who can destroy you, Molly, and that’s you.

“So this is the choice. If you jump down this shaft here, Molly, your lovely young daughter will be spared. If you don’t, then it’s down she goes, and I won’t spare the rest of you, either.”

“You’re crazy!” Trevor screamed at him. “You’re completely and utterly crazy!”

Red Mask pushed Victoria until she was leaning even further over the elevator shaft. “I warned you! One more word and it’s down she goes!”

Molly stepped forward, with her head held high and both fists tightly clenched.

Trevor said, “No, Molly — No, you can’t!”

But Molly walked right up to Red Mask and stood in front of him and said, “If that’s what it’s going to take to save my daughter — all right, I’ll do it.”

Red Mask stared at her with his slitted eyes. His expression was unreadable, like a painted wooden figure by a desolate highway, far from anyplace at all.

He took a step back from the open elevator shaft. “There it is,” he told her. “That’s the way down. I have to tell you, this is almost like a religious experience. The fear. The elation.”

Molly went right up to the edge of the elevator shaft. Her hair was ruffled by the updraft. Victoria was staring at her, appalled, but Red Mask was holding the knife so close to her throat that she couldn’t cry out.

But it was then that Frank sprinted forward, dropping Deputy’s leash as he did so. He collided with Molly, pushing her past the open elevator shaft, and straight into Victoria and Red Mask. At the same time, Deputy bounded up at Red Mask and sank his teeth into his arm.

Red Mask fell backward, dropping his knife. Frank shouted, “Grab her!” and Molly wrapped her arms around Victoria. Frank twisted himself sideways so that both of them could roll clear.

Red Mask picked up his knife and furiously stabbed at Deputy until the dog released his grip on his arm and limped off to the far side of the reception area, bloody and whining. Red Mask clambered to his feet.

“Do you think that’s going to spare you?” he spat. “Do you think that any of you are going to leave this building alive? You’re going to be chopped liver, all of you.”

Frank ducked and feinted, but Red Mask kept advancing on him, lunging at him with his knife. He cut the back of Frank’s right hand, and blood sprayed across the floor, and then he stabbed him in the left forearm, and the shoulder.

Red Mask raised his knife high above his head and was just about to plunge it into Frank’s chest, when Frank seized the lapels of Red Mask’s coat and deliberately fell backward into the open elevator shaft. They both disappeared like a conjuring trick.

“Oh my God!” Sissy cried out. She hurried to the elevator shaft, with Detective Bellman and Trevor close behind her.

Both Red Mask and Frank were dangling from one of the steel cables in the center of the shaft. Red Mask must have snatched at the cable with his left hand, and then dropped his knife so that he could grip it with his right hand, too. Frank was hanging beside him, still holding tightly onto the front of his coat.

“Hold on!” shouted Detective Bellman. “Hold on, I’ll see if I can find a stepladder or something!”

Sissy called out, “Frank! Frank! See if you can climb down the wire!”

“Can’t let go, Sissy. Sorry.”

“Frank, you have to try! I don’t want to lose you again!”

“You never lost me. You never will. Go get Jane.”

“Let go of my coat!” Red Mask roared at him. “Let go of my coat!”

“Get Jane!” Frank insisted. Red Mask’s lapel started to tear off, and he lurched another six inches downward.

Sissy turned around and said, “Jane — come here, quick!”

Jane Becker came up and stood beside her. “What do you want me to do?”

“Call him!”

“I can’t!”

“Then I will,” said Sissy. “Red Mask! Can you hear me?”

Red Mask managed to turn his head so that he could see her.

“There’s somebody here who has something to say to you, Red Mask!”

Red Mask grunted with effort, but said nothing.

Jane Becker reached into the back pocket of her jeans and pulled out the postcard of Butcher Buck. “You see this?” she called out, in a shrill, unsteady voice. “This is you.”

“Tell him!” said Frank. “For God’s sake, just tell him!”

“You were never a real person! You never existed! I invented you!”

As preternaturally strong as he was, Red Mask’s hands were beginning to slide down the elevator cable, leaving a dark smear of blood.