“Where is he?”
“Dominic will come out in his own good time.”
“Goddamn you,” Lily cried as her grip tightened around the poker.
She saw the attack too late. She heard the growl, the clatter of claws across wood, and she glanced sideways as twin streaks of black flew at her. The impact sent her crashing to the floor and the poker fell from her hands with a loud thud. Jaws closed around her arm. She screamed as teeth ripped into flesh.
“Balan! Bakou! Release.”
It was not Edwina’s voice that issued the command, but another: the voice of Lily’s nightmares. The dogs released her and backed away, leaving her stunned and bleeding. She tried to push herself up, but her left hand was floppy and useless, the tendons torn by powerful jaws. With a groan, she rolled onto her side and saw her own blood pooling on the floor. And beyond that pool of blood, she saw the shoes of a man walking toward her. Her breathing now coming in sobs, she pushed herself up to a sitting position. He halted by the fireplace and stood backlit by the flames, like a dark figure emerging from the inferno. He gazed down at her.
“Somehow, you always manage to do it, Lily,” he said. “You’re always the one causing me trouble.”
She scrabbled backward in retreat, but her shoulders bumped up against a chair and she could move no farther. Frozen in place, she stared up at Dominic, at the man he had become. He still had the same golden hair, the same striking blue eyes. But he had grown taller, his shoulders broader, and the once-angelic face had acquired sharp, cruel angles.
“Twelve years ago,” he said, “you killed me. Now I’m going to return the favor.”
“You have to watch her,” said Edwina. “She’s quick.”
“Didn’t I tell you that, Mother?”
Lily’s gaze snapped to Edwina, then back to Dominic.
Dominic saw her look of shock and said, “Who else would a fifteen-year-old boy turn to when he’s in trouble? When he’s climbed out of a flooded car with nothing but the clothes on his back? I had to stay dead and out of sight, or you would have turned the police on me. You took away all my options, Lily. Except one.”
“It was months before my letter reached her. Didn’t I always say she’d come for me? And your parents never believed it.”
Edwina reached out to caress her son’s face. “But you knew I would.
He smiled. “You always keep your promises.”
“I kept this one, too, didn’t I? I delivered her. You just needed to be patient and finish your training.”
Lily stared at Edwina. “But you’re with the Mephisto Foundation.”
“And I knew how to use them,” said Edwina. “I knew just how to entice them into the game. You think this is all about you, Lily, but it’s really about
“I don’t think it’s necessary,” said Dominic. “This building’s as dry as a tinderbox. All it takes is a spark to set it off.”
Lily shook her head. “You’re killing them all…”
“That’s always been the idea,” said Edwina. “They’ll sleep right through it.”
“Not nearly as much fun as killing Joyce O’Donnell,” said Dominic. “But at least you’re awake to enjoy it, Lily.” He picked up the poker and shoved the tip deep into the flames. “Convenient thing about fire. How completely it consumes flesh, leaving nothing but charred bone. No one will ever know what your death was really like, because they’ll never see the cuts. The sear marks. They’ll think you simply perished like the others, in your sleep. An unlucky accident, which only my mother will manage to survive. They’ll never know that you screamed for hours before you died.” He pulled the poker from the fire.
Lily stumbled to her feet, blood streaming down her hand. She lunged toward the door, but before she could reach it, the two Dobermans darted in front of her. She froze, staring at their bared teeth.
Hands closed around her arms as Edwina dragged Lily backward, toward the fireplace. Shrieking, Lily whirled around and flailed out blindly. She felt the satisfaction of her fist thudding into Edwina’s cheek.
It was the dogs that again brought her down, both of them hurling themselves at her back, sending her sprawling.
“Release!” Dominic ordered.
The dogs backed off. Edwina, clutching her bruised face, aimed a punishing kick at Lily’s ribs, and Lily rolled away, in too much agony even to draw a breath. Through a haze of pain, she saw Dominic’s shoes move closer. She felt Edwina grasp her wrists and pin them against the floor. She looked up, into Dominic’s face, into eyes that reflected the fire’s glow like burning coals.
“Welcome to Hell,” he said. In his hand was the hot poker.
Lily twisted, screaming, as she tried to wrench free, but Edwina’s grasp was too powerful. As Dominic lowered the poker, she turned away, cheek pressed to the floor, eyes closed against the pain to come.
The explosion sprayed warmth across her face. She heard Edwina give a gasp, heard the poker thud to the floor. And suddenly Lily’s hands were free.
She opened her eyes to see the two Dobermans sprinting across the room toward Jane Rizzoli. Jane raised her weapon and fired again. One of the dogs dropped, but the other was already in the air, flying like a black rocket. Jane got off one last shot, just as the dog slammed into her. Her gun tumbled and slid away as they both went down, Jane grappling at the wounded Doberman.
“No,” Edwina moaned. She was on her knees beside her fallen son, cradling his face, stroking back his hair. “You can’t die! You’re the
Lily struggled to sit up, and the room tilted around her. By the glow of the ravenous flames, she saw Edwina rise like an avenging angel to her feet. She saw the woman reach down and pick up Jane’s fallen gun.
The room spun even more crazily as Lily staggered to her feet. The whirl of images refused to remain still. The flames. Edwina. The spreading pool of Dominic’s blood, glistening in the firelight.
And the poker.
The dog gave a last convulsive twitch and Jane shoved it aside. The carcass, tongue lolling, flopped onto the floor. Only then did Jane focus on Edwina standing over her, on the weapon gleaming in Edwina’s hands.
“It all ends here. Tonight,” said Edwina. “You. And Mephisto.” Edwina raised the gun, the muscles of her arm pulling taut as she squeezed the grip. Her attention was fixed so completely on Jane that she did not see her own death hurtling toward her head.
The poker slammed into Edwina’s skull, and Lily felt the crack of crushing bone, transmitted straight to her hand through wrought iron. Edwina dropped to the floor without uttering a sound. Lily lost her grip, and the falling poker clanged as it hit wood. She stared down at what she had just done. At Edwina’s head, the skull caved in. At the blood, flowing like a black river. And suddenly the room darkened, and her legs wobbled out from beneath her. She slid to the floor, landing on her rump. She dropped her head in her lap and could feel nothing: no pain, no sensation at all in her limbs. She was floating disembodied on the edge of blackness.
“Lily.” Jane touched her shoulder. “Lily, you’re bleeding. Let me see your arm.”
She gasped in a breath. The room brightened. Slowly she raised her head and focused on Jane’s face. “I killed her,” she murmured.
“Just don’t look at her, okay? Come on, let’s move you to the couch.” Jane reached down to help Lily to her feet. She froze, her fingers suddenly taut around Lily’s arm.
Lily heard the whispers, too, and her blood turned to ice in her veins. She stared at Dominic and saw that his eyes were open and aware. His lips moved, the words so soft she could barely hear what he was saying.
“Not…not…”
Jane bent over him to listen. Lily did not dare move any closer, fearful that Dominic would suddenly spring up at her, like a cobra. They could kill him again and again, but he’d always come back. He’d never die.
The fire glowed in the reflecting pool of spreading blood, as though the flames themselves were seeping across the floor, an expanding inferno with Dominic at its source.
