Bugsy took her good arm and lifted. She seemed lighter than Ellen. Less substantial. The Lady of Pain turned her head as if no terrible injuries had disfigured her. Her expression was frank and evaluating. Bugsy turned with her, and saw what she saw.
Bodies. Dozens of them. Men in the tattered uniforms of soldiers or the white smocks of nurse attendants. Children lying flat on the ground to avoid the violence all around them, or already dead. And beyond them, in the ruins of the Red House, Bubbles and Monster trading terrible blows.
With every strike that Monster landed, Bubbles grew, and with every exploding bubble that detonated against Monster, the creature became larger, its claws and penis waving in the African air. Each incapable of harming the other, and both wreaking terrible damage all around them. Monster howled at the moon above them.
It struck Bugsy that both the combatants were white, and the dead around them black.
“You do not know the pain I have carried,” the Lady of Pain said. He thought at first she was looking at the dead, but when he followed her gaze, it was on the charred remnant of Nick’s fedora. She turned to look at him. Cameo’s good eye narrowed. The burned one was too damaged to close. “With every healing gesture, I have carried the pain. Do you understand what I am saying? They call me an ace, and all that I have been given is pain.”
Ellen, Bugsy thought. This isn’t the Lady of Pain, whatever the voice sounds like. I’m talking to Ellen.
“Please,” Bugsy said. “Could you just heal-”
“This is no day for healing. This is a day for the ending of things,” the Lady of Pain said. “Tom Weathers has killed me. Let him take the pain that I carried.”
Something came out of her, a bolt of light that was not light, a heat that froze. The air between the Lady of Pain and the monster writhed and shuddered. Bugsy felt the hair on his arms and the back of his neck rise.
And a world of hurt enveloped Tom Weathers.
It was as if he were being wrenched apart and crushed and suffocated and burned alive. All at once. As if it were happening to each and every nerve ending in his body. Every atom.
He struck out. The pain only grew, impossibly grew. It began to eat at his mind like flame at paper.
“Here’s what’s happening,” Mark said, his words clear through the horrific all-consuming agony. “One of those eggs you broke so cavalierly has been put back together again. Sort of. Just long enough to pay you back for all the pain you caused others. With that pain.”
Tom tried to say something. He could only scream. Even in his unimaginable torment he knew that Meadows felt every bit of it, as strongly as he did. Yet the old hippie spoke as serenely as ever a martyr did through flames.
“Remember Dolores Michel, Tom?” he asked. “Our Lady of Pain? She couldn’t just take on herself the pain of others. She could also give that pain back.”
The Radical tried to raise a final fist of defiance. But that emotion crisped and burned to ash as well.
And in that agony, he died.
The quiet seemed unnatural. Noel became aware of the whimpers and cries from the wounded. The medal gleamed against Cameo’s chest, her hands still clutched around it.
But the demon was gone. There was a form lying on the ground. Noel got to his feet and tottered toward the body. He had to draw the gun with his left hand. The wound in his shoulder had left his right arm useless.
Shock brought him to a stop. Instead of a powerfully built man in his forties there was an emaciated figure with long grey hair and a beard like the remnants of a torn spiderweb. Blood streaked the body, drawing the insects. Noel holstered his gun and laid two fingers at the base of the man’s throat. There was a threadlike pulse. “He’s not dead,” he said. “Even after all that, the bastard Weathers is still not dead.”
“He is,” came Bugsy’s voice from over his shoulder. “That’s Mark Meadows.”
Michelle bubbled away the last of the Red House, swearing as she went. When she emerged from the rubble, the monster had vanished. The gunshots had died away too, as had the explosions.
She brushed away ash and cinders as she picked her way through the debris. Bugsy, Rusty, and Lilith stood grouped around a man lying on the ground. Bugsy was naked. She didn’t see Cameo or Gardener anywhere and that scared her.
“He should be killed,” Lilith was saying, with the matter-of-fact air of a person discussing whether to take the bus or a taxi.
The man on the ground was slight in build, almost emaciated. His face was lined and there was a shock of grey-blond hair on his head. A long, thin, scraggly beard covered what looked like a weak chin. He looked about the same age as Michelle’s father.
“But that ain’t Tom Weathers,” Rusty said, confused. “I dunno who that guy is, but he’s some other fella. And he ain’t that demon thing neither.”
“Yes and no,” said Bugsy. “He’s Mark Meadows. His ace is to turn into other people when he takes drugs, and he’s been on a really long, lousy trip. He’s the guy the Radical, I don’t know… hijacked, I guess.”
Rusty shook his head. “He’s just lying there. Doesn’t seem right to kill someone that helpless.”
Lilith rolled her silver eyes. “However it happened, it could happen again. Weathers is too dangerous to be allowed to live. And the only way to kill Weathers is to kill Meadows. They’re one and the same.”
“Well, not exactly,” Bugsy said, “but killing him is still the smart move. Even if he’s not Weathers now, he might turn back into Weathers when he wakes up.”
“I’ll do it,” said Lilith. “What’s one more death in the midst of
…” She gestured at the carnage around them.
Michelle stepped closer. She wondered again how Niobe could have fallen in love with this man. “There’s been enough killing here.”
“This is Tom Weathers,” Lilith said. “I will not allow him to simply walk away.”
“You don’t get to choose,” said Michelle. “You’re an assassin. You murder people in cold blood for money. And as far as I can tell, you feel no remorse for what you’ve done. That makes you a sociopath. You can cut the crusts off it all day long and you’ll never make that anything but a shit sandwich. Yes, I’ve killed people too, but I’ve never killed anyone who wasn’t trying to kill me. I’ve never killed anyone in cold blood. I’ve never befriended someone so I could sneak in their room later and slit their throat. And just so we’re clear, I have never felt good about killing anyone, even when the choice was me or them. You can’t wash off what you’ve done with tea and crumpets and pretty clothes, Noel. That’s the biggest difference between us. There isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t mourn and regret what I’ve done.”
“I had no idea you were the only one among us who possessed such moral clarity and purity,” said Lilith. “By all means hug that close, Bubbles. As for Weathers… do whatever you want. It’s on your heads.” She walked away into the darkness.
Then Meadows groaned and opened his eyes. He sat up and looked up at them, dazed.
“Time to shit or get off the pot,” said Bugsy. “He fucking killed Cameo. In Paris he killed Garou and the owl guy and a bunch of security. He almost killed Klaus. If it weren’t for him and the Nshombos, Gardener would be alive. And how many more? Hundreds? Thousands? Mark Meadows may not be Tom Weathers, but he created him.”
“I did,” Mark Meadows said softly. There were tears in his big blue eyes.
“Seriously,” Michelle told him. “Don’t contribute.”
“If things were reversed,” Bugsy went on, “if it was us sitting there crying, Weathers would be peeling our brains open, scooping out the innards, and pissing down our necks while he laughed his ass off. He would have killed all of us as soon as look at us.”
“Yes,” said Michelle, “and if we kill him now, we might as well be Weathers. If we kill him now, it will be revenge, pure and simple.”
“Fine with me,” Bugsy snapped back. “What do you suggest, Bubbles?”
“Mercy,” she said. She looked at Rusty. He was holding his arm, which hung at an odd angle. Tears ran down his cheeks, leaving streaks of brown. His pain was naked and raw. So was Bugsy’s. And Michelle had no power to fix that. “Rusty,” she said, “how do you vote?”
36
