They jumped to their feet.
Alice leveled the Tanfoglio at the closest and squeezed off three quick shots, while tracking where the second man moved. The first went down in a heap, the bullets ripping into his chest.
She whirled to her left, stalking toward the second, now concealed behind the entrance to the dining room. She marched openly toward him. It didn’t matter to her if he shot her or not. In her present state, that would barely slow her down.
The man’s eyes were wide with fear as he lunged into the dining room entrance, braced himself in a combat stance and fired his gun at her.
She cried out as the bullet punched into her left shoulder just below the clavicle and slammed her to the floor. Blood spurted briefly from the wound. Even as she lay there, she could feel the healing begin.
Buscaglia’s henchman straightened from his combat stance and stood in the doorway, watching her with a smirk. He moved to stand over her, covering her with his automatic. “All of the talk I’ve heard, all of the stories, they were all bullshit, weren’t they? You can be hurt just like anyone else.” Despite his bravado, the quaver in his heavy Italian accent gave him away.
Alice clenched her teeth and locked her gaze with his. “You profess to know God, but by your deeds you deny Him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed.”
Alice snatched his wrist with her left hand and twisted it back, moving his gun away from her. She rose to her feet and straightened up, the Tanfoglio still at her side. The healing tissue in her shoulder pushed the slug to the surface. She saw his gaze drop to the wound, watched him follow the bullet as it tumbled to the carpeted floor.
His jaw went slack and he paled. He swallowed thickly as he looked down at her.
“You cannot hurt me, boy. I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness but will have the Light of life.”
She rammed the end of the suppressor into his chest and jerked the Tanfoglio’s trigger three times. The slugs ripped through him, burst out his back and slammed into the ceiling.
As the man sagged to the floor dead, Alice looked across the room. Buscaglia stood in the bedroom doorway, one hand on the door, one on the frame. He was pale and slack-jawed.
Alice lowered the Tanfoglio and stalked toward him.
“I should remind you, Sister Jacobine, His Holiness will be most displeased should you harm His Cardinal Secretary of State.”
“I shall have to learn to live with his displeasure, then, shan’t I?” Alice clenched her hand around the butt of the Tanfoglio as she closed the distance between them.
Buscaglia, to his credit, did not cower and did not start to babble. He merely stood in place, seemingly confident that his position in the Pope’s hierarchy would protect him. Or so it seemed.
As she stopped in front of him, she gestured with the Tanfoglio. “I bring you greetings from His Holiness.”
She watched the drawn, pale expression on his face turn to utter fear. He knew.
What would he have done differently if he had known today was his last day on earth?
He backed away, hands held out before him. “Sister, let us be reasonable. You cannot kill me. Not here. Not now. His Holiness would not permit it.”
He snatched up a vase from the side table next to the door and flung it at her.
She batted it away and it shattered against the door frame. She heard the crunch when she stepped on the jumble of broken pieces as she crossed the threshold into the bedroom. Her gaze locked with his.
“It would raise too many questions, require too many explanations,” Buscaglia said, grabbing for any excuse he could think of.
She stalked toward him, her eyes full of fury.
He scrambled back, grabbed his briefcase and swung it at her.
She slapped it aside and thrust her straightened fingers into the bundle of nerves at his shoulder.
The briefcase thumped to the floor, his fingers unable to hold it any longer. His arm hung useless at his side.
Panic flitted across his face. With his good arm, he flung a pillow at her.
She dodged.
“Please, I beg you! There is no need for violence!” He backed past the chair beside the open sliding glass door onto the private balcony, grabbed his shirt from the chair and flung it at her.
She watched it flutter to the floor.
“No need for violence?” She spit the words through her clenched teeth and stepped closer.
He backed out onto the balcony.
“You are quite correct, Cardinal Secretary,” she said. “Perhaps we merely need a resumption of the fear of the Lord.”
He rushed forward and tried to slide the door closed.
She gripped the edge of the door, stopping it cold and slammed the butt of the Tanfoglio into his face.
“The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer;” Alice recited.
Blood burst from his broken nose. He staggered back against the balcony railing.
“My God, my rock,”
She stepped close to him. Her hand clutched his throat.
“...in whom I take refuge,”
He leaned back. Close to tipping over.
“...my shield and the horn of my salvation,”
She let the Tanfoglio clatter to the floor of the balcony. Gripped his belt. Shoved.
“...my stronghold and my refuge;”
He teetered on the top of the rail.
“...my savior.”
Their eyes met one final time.
“You save me from violence.”
She dropped her hand from his throat, gripping his shirt to hold him in place.
“I call upon the Lord,”
She saw relief wash over his face. “Thank God. Sister, for a moment, I thought...”
“...who is worthy to be praised,”
With a snarl, she shoved with both hands against the middle of his chest.
“And I am saved from my enemies.”
His eyes went wide with horror, as he tumbled out into the twenty-nine-story abyss.
Then he was gone, with
