39
Kellen saw her, Mara Philippi, standing astride Carson Lennex’s bound body, dressed in her mottled black-and-brown fashion hoodie, her hair in a jaunty ponytail and her face… Her face was bruised, battered, swollen. Her blue eyes were angry—and satisfied. She held a cigarette between two fingers, a pistol in both hands, and smoke spiraled into the air.
The Librarian, in person.
On the floor beneath her, a handcuffed Carson Lennex writhed in agony.
Unsurprised, Mara looked up at Kellen. “I’m not surprised he couldn’t kill you.”
In a smooth motion, Kellen fired her gun.
Mara dived to the side, landed on the coffee table.
Kellen followed the motion, fired again, saw Mara jerk sideways as the bullet smacked her shoulder.
Successful strike, but no blood. The hoodie she wore was body armor.
Mara rolled off the table and fired.
The slug hit Kellen right above the heart.
The Kevlar vest took the impact, but the sheer force drove Kellen backward against the stair railing. She felt the crack of her sternum. Blinding pain, can’t breathe, can’t breathe, can’t breathe. She missed her footing, tumbled down the rest of the stairs. Her pistol broke free of her fingers, then disappeared over the edge. Kellen came to rest with her spine on the last three treads, one arm caught in the banister and one foot on the floor.
I can’t see. I can’t see. I can’t breathe. Mara is here. I am going to die.
But she didn’t die. When the swirling red motes of agony cleared from her vision, Mara stood with one foot on either side of Kellen’s legs. She looked like a high school cheerleader, smiled like a shark, and she held her own pistol pointed at Kellen’s head. “You wore Kevlar. You’re so goddamn smart. But you didn’t know I was the Librarian, did you? You thought it was him.” She pointed.
Kellen lifted her head, and through the fog of pain, she saw Nils Brooks sprawled facedown in the entry, unconscious and bleeding. Dead? Not yet, but unless something changed, none of them were long for this world.
She saw something else. She saw her beloved Glock 21 SF lying on the floor on the side of the stairs.
Oh yeah. Things were about to get interesting.
Mara kicked at Kellen’s thigh.
Kellen groaned, struggled feebly, grasping at her chest, her ribs…grasping her one accessible weapon and holding it concealed in her palm.
“We are so much alike. But I’m perky and you’re grim, and you thought that made you tougher. You thought your war experience made you smarter. But I was always one step ahead of you. I knew you’d finally figure it out. I knew you’d show up, and I knew I’d get to kill you.” Arms straight, Mara lifted her pistol.
Kellen rammed the tactical flashlight, jagged side first, into the thin material over Mara’s knee.
Mara stumbled, tripped on Kellen’s leg, fell sideways.
Kellen yanked her arm free, rolled down the steps, jagged ice crystals of pain tearing into her chest, and reached for her pistol.
Mara rolled, too, with a gymnast’s speed and grace.
Kellen’s fingertips touched the pistol’s grip.
Mara stomped on Kellen’s hand.
Kellen screamed. Lifted her hand and looked. Her little finger stuck out sideways.
Mara kicked her in the head, slamming her flat onto the floor.
Kellen couldn’t hear. Couldn’t see. This was it; the oblivion she feared. She would be bound to that hospital bed until they mercifully let her die…
With a gasp, she was conscious again. She opened her eyes. She could see nothing but Mara’s face leaning close, Mara’s eyes gleaming with vindictiveness, the barrel of Mara’s pistol pointed right between her eyes.
In that moment, something happened in Kellen’s brain.
Everything shifted.
A light came on.
An old film played in skips and jumps.
Behind Mara, around Mara, she saw a park, trees bare of leaves, openmouthed pedestrians running. Mara…was no longer Mara. She was a man with a thin, familiar face who spoke with an Italian accent. He held a Beretta Pico and he—
Mara said, “I don’t have time to cut your hands off, but breaking your fingers with my heel was almost better.”
Kellen blinked. “One finger,” she said. Or did she? She didn’t have breath. Maybe only her lips moved…
Kellen was here in Carson Lennex’s suite. With Mara. Mara was pointing her pistol at Kellen’s forehead and—
The man’s name was Ettore Fontana and he said, “You’ll never interfere with me again.”
Mara’s voice intruded on the past. “I’m going to finish what someone else started.” Taking her time, drawing out Kellen’s anguish, she cocked the pistol. Deliberately, she pressed the cold metal to Kellen’s forehead.
Out of the corners of her eyes, Kellen saw a man running toward them, roaring in fury and anguish. She knew him.
Max. It was her Max. He had to make it. He had to. She loved him so much! Then—
The present day rushed back in, but everything was blurred, overlapped.
She was in the bustling city park.
She was in the penthouse suite.
Max was moving in slow motion. He wasn’t going to make it—
Max was moving in slow motion. He wasn’t going to make it—