No one answered.
Philip's strength and speed made him arrogant; at least I thought so. Dominick fought with more than guns and shovels. He knew about us. He had touched and absorbed all the antiques and personal possessions at Edward's, their secrets spilled on the floor like aged wine. What we feared. How we died. He knew these things.
"Philip, come away from the banister," I begged.
Before he could answer me, Dom's first shot rang out. Long and loud, like dynamite. The entire left side of Philip's throat exploded, spraying near-black blood across the hallway. The next shot sounded almost instantaneously. It missed.
"You like games?" a deep voice echoed up. "How was that?"
Philip collapsed on the carpet, awake but stunned, his perfect mouth twisting in surprise. Running footsteps pounded up the stairs. Dominick's shadow grew large on the wall.
I panicked.
More through instinct than intent, I tried pushing my thoughts inside his mind, and I emanated pictures of Culker's death, Maggie drinking from the drifter near Blue Jack's, the tattoo artist sinking into Union Bay. I tried to force every ugly, violent image I could summon straight into Dominick's head, past his wall, past his mental block, into his consciousness. And I got through.
He screamed.
I fired out with memories of ripped throats and dead bodies with staring eyes… and I could feel that my forced invasion hurt him. I tried to hurt him more.
I still couldn't see him, but listened to him scream while I imagined my fingernails clawing, scratching, tearing at his brain… all my attention focused on his sound until it softened to a whimper.
Then I let him go and came back to myself-but only because I was certain he was down, and because I had to help Philip.
Turning quickly, I stumbled at the sight of an empty carpet. Philip had disappeared.
"Philip?"
"Don't move."
Dominick's sweating, gasping form stood at the top of the stairs. I was stunned to see him on his feet after what I'd just done to him. He looked dirty and smelled of stale perspiration. Greasy, outgrown black hair hung around his glazed eyes. He pointed a.357 revolver at me. Without waiting for him to fire, I bolted for the bedroom and paused just inside. He blurred across the threshold, his arm stick-straight, pointing the gun rapidly to the right, then the left. I slammed the door behind us and bolted it.
Focusing hard, I sent my impressions of this room-all the treasures in this small piece of the world-flooding into him. These mental attacks were exhausting me, but this was all I had. Images of lace fans, silver combs, perfume bottles, and cream satin soaked into his brain like water through sand. I was hoping to lose him in the images of Maggie's soft possessions, blinding him to everything else, so even if he gained coherence he might not know what was true or created.
He only had four bullets left in the gun.
"Aren't you tired?" I whispered. "Why don't you sleep?"
He fired twice more, the gun wavering in his hands. Maybe I could overwhelm him enough to make him drop it. His legs trembled.
"Close your eyes, Dom. Look at yourself in the darkness. You're alone. You have no one, not even Wade anymore." I dropped my voice even lower and whispered, "And you're so tired. Just close your eyes."
It was difficult to invade his mind, speak to him, and try to gauge the distance between us at the same time.
With a strength of will greater than my own, he gathered his thoughts and tried to force me out. Rage replaced his confusion, and he pointed the gun right at me. I saw my shoulder explode before hearing the shot or even realizing what had happened. It didn't hurt much, not like real pain, but the floor rushed up anyway.
His hand buried itself in the back of my hair, lifting me. Through the haze I tried to focus psychically again, but he smashed the gun handle into my jaw.
"You do that again and I'll end this right here," he whispered.
Rancid breath drifted into my nostrils. Why didn't he, then? Holding me by the neck with one hand, he opened the door and dragged me back into the hallway, to the banister.
"Call out to your friend," he said.
"No."
"Do it now!"
"I don't care what you do."
Jerking me back, he shoved the gun in his jeans and pulled a machete from a sheath under his jacket.
"Get out here now," he yelled to Philip. "Or her head flies down the stairs by itself."
My gift was useless, as Maggie's had been. Dominick's vision of reality had shifted so far from sanity that he viewed us as all the world's evil. If he could just erase us, everything else would fall neatly into place. Poor thing.
Looking up at his unshaven face, I said, "No matter what you do to me, he's never going to let you out of here."
"Shut up. You're the center of all this."
"I'm nothing."
"That's bullshit. Who's the guy with you?"
"His shirt's lying on Maggie's bed. Why don't you go in and touch it?"
That twisted his mouth into anger, and he let go of my hair long enough to slap me. Fool. I hit the floor, and my foot shot out to crack his kneecap. The pop reminded me of the sound from an overshaken champagne bottle.
He grunted and buckled. My left shoulder didn't work at all, but I kicked out again at his cheekbone and then tried to scramble away.
An iron grip clasped my ankle, and then somehow he was up over the top of me, snarling and using his weight. Steel glinted off ceiling lights. The blade was coming down.
Just like Maggie.
But it never connected. As though he could fly, his body floated upward. For a moment I thought I was already dead or hallucinating. Then Philip's bare arms shifted into view as he finished raising Dominick and threw him against the hallway wall.
Relief flooded my brain until I got a good look at Philip. The recently opened veins of his throat had closed off, but his chest and shoulders were covered in blood. Our regenerative powers work quickly, but how much life force had he lost first?
Dominick bounced off the wall and landed with a gasp. Dropping the machete, he grabbed the gun again.
"Shoot me," Philip hissed.
The dark ex-cop aimed for his neck and fired again, but Philip jumped up to catch the bullet square in the chest. "You're empty. I've been counting."
Anybody-anybody but Dom-would have slobbered and groveled and begged. Maybe he knew we possessed no mercy. Maybe he was just more like us than I cared to admit. But he grasped the machete again and said, "Then come and get me."
His right leg wouldn't hold him. I must have shattered his kneecap. The whole scene reminded me of this T-shirt Edward once gave me, depicting a hawk swooping down on a cartoon mouse with its tiny middle finger up. The caption read, "Last Great Act of Defiance."
Dominick wasn't a mouse-far from it. But he was already dead, and I'm sure he knew it.
Philip moved so fast nobody even got cut. He slapped the machete out of Dominick's hand and then grabbed him, lifting him into the air. Stepping forward, Philip threw his heavy burden over the banister.
"Just kill him," I whispered. "You promised you wouldn't do this."
A dull thud sounded from below as Dominick hit the floor. Philip hopped over the banister himself, and I moved up to see him land in a comfortable crouch. Dominick tried crawling on one elbow toward the front door.
Something in my voice must have gotten through to Philip. He could have kept this horror show going another hour, but he didn't. After breaking a leg off one of the living room chairs, he walked over and rammed it through Dominick's broad back, into his heart, as a peasant would stake a wounded vampire. The broken, crawling form on the floor didn't even cry out. It just stopped moving.
I turned away from the railing and went downstairs, feeling no relief now, no sense of triumph, only a dim ache that hadn't quite registered yet. My handsome, blood-covered friend stumbled about the room, staring at his mangled victim. Maybe no mortal had ever fought back like that before.