“She didn't do anything,” Evelyn protested.
“Did the boys in Lindley's cabin? Did you ever say, ‘They didn't do anything’? No, you said it was a good thing. Alice is an annoying little thief. And she's a witness. Do you want me to let her go so we can watch her testify against us?”
“You can do it,” Evelyn said. “You know how.”
“I taught you to shoot. But you don't mind if I kill her?” he asked.
Evelyn nodded. “Please.”
Louis aimed the gun at Alice, who pressed herself against Natasha, and squeezed the bag tighter to her chest.
Natasha held her tight, protectively. “Alice never even heard of Gizmo until she came here and we told her. She's as innocent as Gizmo was.”
“Collateral damage,” Louis said.
“Like those teenage boys at the lake,” Ward said. “Like Trey. You killed Trey, didn't you? And that hacker you hired. And Thumper?”
“Yes, I did. Now shut the fuck up.” He turned to his wife. “Are you going to take this gun and shoot her?” he demanded.
“No,” Evelyn said. “I won't do it. I can't, Louis.”
Louis winced, opened his eyes, and seemed to be weighing something for several seconds.
“I let you live in the trailer, because you promised you'd do whatever it took to help me pay back the bastards who killed Gizmo. Against my better judgment, I didn't use the torch on you, didn't fill you with spray foam. This is my reward?”
“You know I love you, Louis. I've proved that. But I can't and I-”
As she spoke, Louis turned the muzzle from Alice and fired. The bullet passed through the base of Evelyn's neck, ending her words, and punched a large hole in the window behind her. The thick double panes of glass around the hole formed a spiderweb of tiny cracks around it.
Evelyn looked at Louis, bewildered, and collapsed. Natasha screamed out, and Louis stood, aiming the gun at her.
“You bastard!” Ward yelled.
Louis waved the gun. “I ask her to do one little thing and she refuses. In all this time she's never done anything but sit back and keep her hands clean. She never loved Gizmo. She never loved anybody but herself. Totally selfish.”
“Let me help her,” Natasha demanded, straightening.
“She's beyond help,” Louis said, unloading the gun and putting it back down on the table. “I think we should get this finished.”
He picked up his knife and came into the den with blood streaming down his arm, dripping off his fingers.
Ward sprang from the chair and grabbed the poker. He raised it up like a major league batter and moved toward Louis. Blood dripped rapidly to the stone floor, the rug. Crouching, Louis held the knife in his left hand. Except for his hair, his bright teeth, and steel-blue eyes, the coating of ash totally obscured his features.
Louis pounced like a cat and was on Ward so fast he didn't have time to swing the poker. The knife passed through Ward's left shoulder, striking the bone as it went through the tissue.
Louis sprang back, balancing and waving the blade in a figure eight. Ward swung the poker, missing by a foot.
Natasha lunged from the couch and jumped on Louis's back, wrapping her arms around his neck and applying pressure.
Without so much as swaying, Louis snapped his head back and connected with Natasha's forehead, with a sound like a hammer striking a coconut. She collapsed behind him in a heap.
Despite the weakness in his shoulder, Ward raised the poker and swung again, stepping into the blow to close with Louis. Louis seemed to vanish as he ducked the poker's wide arc, moved in, and swung his blade, opening Ward's shirt and releasing a gout of blood through the sliced fabric. Ward dropped the poker as he fell backward against the fireplace. His right arm on the stone mantel for balance, Ward felt the prototype against his hand and gripped it.
Meeting Louis's eyes, and drawing strength from the victorious smile on the killer's lips, he mustered all of his strength and threw the car as hard as he could.
When the prototype hit Louis an edge found a bright blue eye.
Louis bent and cursed, putting the back of his knife hand against the damaged eye for a second before he looked back up at Ward with a bloody, orbless socket.
Ward was aware of Louis lunging, and he felt a new pressure high in his chest as the blade entered.
Ward, no longer able to stand, slid down the front of the fireplace.
Louis looked at Ward and fixed him with one-eyed unbridled rage. The knife in his hand flipped to change position, the back edge of the blade resting against his forearm, preparing to finish his opponent.
Ward put his hands reflexively to his stomach, and felt something warm and substantial, and knew he was holding in part of his intestines. He could feel hot blood running down across his groin and he couldn't catch his breath.
Louis looked at Ward's wound, and said, “Don't die yet.”
Louis turned.
On the couch, Alice had drawn her legs up, holding her knees, the tote bag trapped against her. Ward couldn't hear the screams, just the odd sound of wind, like a hurricane, rushing through his mind.
Below Louis, a stunned Natasha raised herself up on one arm. Louis grabbed her hair with his bloody right hand, and looked at Ward, who was trying in vain to get to his feet.
“Watch,” Louis hollered, placing the blade pointing down at the base of her neck just behind her collarbone.
“No!” Ward yelled, his eyes locking on his wife's. They were wide open in terror, but as he watched they closed once, then opened and she smiled weakly at him. Her final expression was one of acceptance, and sadness, but there was no fear there.
And behind Natasha he saw Alice looking into her tote like a woman searching for a tube of lipstick.
“This is for Gizmo,” Louis said.
Ward was aware of the first notes of Louis's laughter.
He saw the muscles in Louis's arm tighten, but Ward managed to lunge and grab the end of the blade with his right hand, squeezing as hard as he could.
Ward felt the pressure of the blade biting into the meat and tissue, wedging into bone as Louis pushed down.
Ward looked up and met Louis's amused gaze.
He felt the blade moving down, the tip penetrating Natasha's neck, and he squeezed harder. The knife seemed to rise for an instant. Ward pulled the blade toward him. Louis gritted his teeth and snarled as he muscled the blade back to Natasha's neck.
Ward was blinded by a bright flash, and an aura around Louis's form. The killer's features evaporated. Louis released the knife. As Louis/Todd fell sideways, Ward saw a small gun in Alice's hand, a thin plume of smoke rising from its barrel.
Ward raised his hand and saw that the knife was still there, wedged fast, covered in his own blood.
Washed with a feeling of well- being as he fell backward, Ward was filled with the sensation of floating, and he realized that, even though he hadn't felt himself connecting with the floor, he was on his back looking up at the light fixture.
Sound faded, and Ward's head was filled with a continuous dull tone like that of a struck gong. As he stared at the dimming ceiling, Natasha suddenly loomed over him, a thin line on her neck oozing blood in a wide ribbon. She was crying and he could feel the pressure of her hands, first on his cheeks, and then on his violated abdomen.
He couldn't hear what she was saying, because just over her left shoulder he saw a golden circle growing, and from within it, Barney's smiling face.
Barney's hands seemed to reach through his mother's shoulder, and Ward's hands rose to take them. The child's hands were as warm and real as they had been before he died. Ward's own hands were now bloodless, the right one undamaged as Barney pulled his father up from where he was lying.
As Ward rose, he turned his head to look down on Natasha's back, her head turned down over a body he recognized as his own. The physical Ward McCarty was splayed on the floor beneath her, seemingly floating in a rapidly expanding pool of blood that looked like black water.