When She Was Bad

10

Most people think of patience as a virtue. He has the patience of Job, they say, the patience of a saint. But then, most people were fools. It never occurred to them that Hitler was patient, too. Or Ted Bundy-no one was more patient than Ted Bundy stalking a coed.

Except possibly for himself, thought Max. After his failed coup in the attic yesterday, he had retreated into co-consciousness, waiting for Lyssy to fall asleep. It had taken a little longer than Max had planned-nearly thirty hours-but what were thirty hours to a man who’d sat out nearly three years of double incarceration, self-imprisoned in an imprisoned body?

The first thing he’d realized upon opening his eyes was that he was alone in bed-the girl was gone. Then, scrambling around for his leg and clothes, he realized that she’d taken the.38 with her. Quickly he’d retrieved the other gun, the longer-barreled black automatic, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise when he peered through the shutters next to the front door and saw Lily talking to a little Mexican-looking guy.

Because when the man turned to leave, Max had to take his shot from where he stood, some twenty, twenty-five yards away-a difficult enough shot with the longer-barreled nine millimeter, and probably impossible with the snubnosed revolver.

Now he stooped to snatch up the.38 she had dropped. “Naughty, naughty,” he said in his own voice, stuffing the gun into his back pocket with a piratical grin. “Like the man said, either we hang together, or…”

He raised his hand over his head and a few inches to the side, holding on to the rope of an imaginary noose, then cocked his head and made a terrible gurgling sound deep in his throat. “Well, you get the idea.”

But his cleverness was wasted on the girl. Quivering, she backed away, fists clenched at her sides, tears welling in her big doe eyes. Suddenly, instinctually, he loathed her for her weakness and uncertainty, for the aura of victimhood she had gathered around her like a cloak.

Even worse, from a strictly practical standpoint, she was all but useless to him in this particular incarnation. He didn’t need another victim-there were plenty of victims out there-but rather an ally. Lilith, he thought, I need Lilith.

He decided to take a try at it, arranging his features in a deadly scowl and advancing on the retreating girl. “Where is she?” he demanded.

“I–I don’t know what you mean.” Still backing away, her hands spread helplessly.

“Then you’d better figure it out pretty goddamn quick, before I reach down your fucking throat and pull your lungs out through that lying mouth. Now where is she?”

“Who-where is who?” Her back fetched up against a giant, uncaring redwood.

“Lilith. I want Lilith. Come on dowwwn, Lilith!” Chanting now as he closed the ground between them, dragging his right leg behind him like the original Mummy, until his face was only inches from hers. “Get me Lilith or I will fucking kill you,” he said evenly, his voice coldly menacing, not at all heated. “Get me Lilith or you will fucking die.”