Stone Angel (14 page)

Sophia shivered and looked around. “So many
people.”

Amanda slowed.

Liam kept a firm grip on her arm, and kept
walking. “Be reasonable, darlin’. Even if your tears would work on
them, you haven’t got enough fluid in you.”

“Why wouldn’t they work?” Amanda asked.

“Your tears freed us because of that one
special ingredient they hold — love. You love us. Don’t you?”
Liam’s blue eyes pleaded for her agreement.

She nodded. “I do. You know I do!”

“That’s why you could free us.” Liam appealed
to Sophia. “Isn’t that right?”

Sophia nodded. “He’s right, Manda. I know he
is. And so do you.”

Amanda reluctantly nodded. She cast another
look at the statues of so many people held prisoner by hate. “I
only pray that sometime soon, justice will be done.”

“It will,” Sophia said with a young woman’s
fervent belief in fairness. “I know it will.”

“I think so, too.” Liam started them toward
the door again. “Now let’s get back to Irving’s house before the
Others realize what happened here.”

“Are you saying you’re not up for another
fight?” Amanda looked at him in concern.

As he took each step, Liam winced, and every
moment, the bruises on his face were darkening to purple. “Darlin’,
I’ll fight for you every day of our lives together … and beyond.”
He moved to Amanda’s side. Wrapping his arm around her waist, he
gingerly pulled her close against him. “Just say you’ll marry
me.”

“Of course she will!” Sophia trilled.

Amanda looked into his blue, blue eyes, and
knew at last she had found her love. “Yes, Liam, of course I
will.”

He kissed her. “Once for luck,” he said, and
opened the front door.

The winter sunshine streamed in … and yet, in
the air, there was a hint of warmth, and they heard the single,
bright call of a bird.

Spring was here. They had survived. And Liam
and Amanda would be together forever … and beyond.

THE SCULPTOR awoke to the cold of the marble
floor against his spine, and a remarkable tiredness. He still held
his hammer … he had been about to break Liam Gallagher to bits when
… when that nurse-bitch had done something … to him…

What had happened
?

In a
flash, the horror of his mutilation came flooding back.
That nurse-bitch had
blinded him
. She’d
shoved an awl into his eye! He reached up.

But his eye was there. He explored with his
free hand. His eye was fine. Whole. Had he dreamed the whole
scene?

No. It had happened, for dried blood crusted
his cheek, and like icy fingers, the first warning of cold fear
slithered up his spine.

Inch by inch, he rolled over. He sat up with
a groan. He hadn’t felt so tired in a long time, since Osgood saved
him from that wasting disease, from his old age.

That horrible fight, and the loss of blood …
that had caused this fatigue.

He used the hammer like a cane to help
himself stand. His joints ached. He must have been unconscious on
the marble floor for hours.

He looked around his workshop, usually so
tidy.

Crimson spattered his white walls, his
pristine worktable. His tools, always so carefully placed, were
scattered everywhere. The wheelchair was overturned, the lap robe
torn.

No, he hadn't been dreaming. It really had
all happened.

Yet his eye was healed, and that must mean …
that must mean Osgood knew what had occurred here.

How? Did
Osgood have spies here?
Was someone watching the
Sculptor
?

He glanced around, but saw no one. He hobbled
over to the hypodermic needle discarded on the floor. Taking his
time — he was so stiff, he had no choice — he leaned over and
picked it up. Hand on his back, he straightened, and sniffed the
narcotic. No wonder he’d gone out like a light. This was a powerful
sedative and pain reliever.

Amanda, the nurse-bitch, was gone, of course.
But somehow she taken the Liam statue and the Sophia statue and
fled with them. To move those two heavy statues, she must have had
help…

A horrible thought occurred to him.

If she hadn’t had help, she must have somehow
transformed them back into their human forms.

Impossible
. Liam
and Sophia were stone. Only the Sculptor had the power to change
them back to flesh and bone.

The Sculptor's power was mighty.

Yet the
fact remained, they
were
gone.

Now fear slid its bitter tentacles into his
mind.

Eric’s corpse was sprawled, face up, blood
drenching his neck and chest, face contorted, eyes blind in death.
How had that happened? Eric was the strongest, most brutal fighter
in the organization. Yet somehow, Liam Gallagher had defeated
him.

Osgood
spoke.
You
humans are so fragile. I shall have to find other tools to
use.

But Osgood wasn’t here
. Not in person. It was worse than that. He was inside the
Sculptor's head … and that cold, clear voice built terror to
another level.

The Sculptor touched his eye. Again.

It really was whole.

The Sculptor swallowed.

Mercy was not a component of Osgood's
character. Yet … why would he have healed the Sculptor if he was
displeased? Aloud, in a grateful tone, the Sculptor said, “Thank
you, Osgood. I’ve tried to be a good servant to you, and I
appreciate you saving my eye.”

But as he spoke, the eye clouded over.

He blinked. He rubbed it. Still cloudy.

He shuffled into the entry, his aching joints
making it hard to move. He wove around the statues — there were so
many, he would have to rearrange them soon — and over to the large,
gild-framed mirror that hung on the wall. He looked at himself —
and staggered back in horror.

Who was that old man in the mirror
?

One eye, the eye that had been pierced, was
cloudy with cataracts. Paper-thin skin, covered with brown age
spots, covered the fragile-looking bones of his face. Then end of
his nose drooped as if it was tired. His neck sagged like a
rooster’s, and his lips had vanished in a cyclone of wrinkles.

Behind him, out of the corner of his good
eye, he saw a hostile movement.

Hammer in hand, he raised his arm and turned,
ready to deflect and return a blow. He stared into the entry, heart
pounding, chest heaving.

But only the statues stood there, frozen and
white.

His body had been withered and broken. Was
his mind failing now, too?

No. No. It wasn’t fair. He deserved better
than this!

He clutched the hammer, ready in his defeat
and fury to beat the stone, to pound the statues to dust.

But when he lifted his hand, the sight of the
bulging blue veins beneath the skin caught him by surprise. He
flexed his fingers; the knuckles bulged with arthritis, and the
nails were thick and yellow.

Old
. He was old
… again.

How had this happened?

Osgood’s
voice again.
Don’t you know
?

Yes. The Sculptor knew. He had been stripped
of his power, returned to the man he was before, and now he faced a
slow decline into senility, pain, indignity and finally death. For
he had failed to keep his end of the deal … with the devil. And
this was his punishment.

Osgood
mocked him.
Is it
?
Is it your
punishment
?
For that was your
fate before we made our bargain. Is this truly all the punishment
you deserve
?

Then the Sculptor heard a noise: the tap of a
foot on the marble floor.

In a panic, he glanced around.

Nothing. There was no one, only a hundred
motionless faces detailed in anguish.

He walked — tottered, really — into the
middle of the entry. “Who’s there?” he called.

A voice behind him muttered … something.

He whirled.

More statues, staring at him accusingly.

Were they closer than before?

He kept his hammer lifted as he turned around
and around, moving slower and slower as he heard more noises: a
word, a groan, the whisper of silk as it moved.

He saw change. Over there, the prostitute was
standing. Closer at hand, the boy had turned his head.

Slower and slower the Sculptor spun. His
joints grew stiffer and stiffer.

The statues around him shrugged and shifted
and mumbled words as if trying them out after a long, winter
freeze.

Slower … slower
.

The plaster turned to dust. The statues
regained their colors: black skin and brown and tan, blonde hair
and brunette and red-head, pink lips and coral and plum, blue jeans
and dress suits and plain t-shirts.

Yet as they came to life, the Sculptor lost
his ability to move. He was locked in place, his hammer upraised,
his eyes stretched wide with fear.

He tried
to scream,
What have you done
? But his mouth wouldn’t move … no sound came
out.

He was frozen, a statue in his own home.

You didn’t think I’d forgive failure, did
you
? Osgood’s laughter
echoed in the Sculptor’s head.

All the statues stared at him, at the
Sculptor, and he realized — he could still see them. He could still
hear them. See the contortions of their faces as they hated him.
Hear the gradually rising babble of their ire as they realized that
at last they were free.

All this time, he had never known if they
were sentient beneath the stone.

They were. Oh, God, he knew they were …
because now he was alive and aware, and unable to move.

All through the moments, the days, the years
of their lives his statues had seen and heard everything, and they
remembered … and they lusted for vengeance.

His former statues stood at a distance, and
started to circle him, around and around, staring at him as if he
were an exhibit for them to view. Slowly at first, then faster and
faster, they appeared and disappeared from his field of vision
while he futilely strained to turn his head, to move his eyes.

No, Osgood, please. I beg you
!

Osgood's
dispassionate voice answered,
They all beg. But we’ve learned not to show mercy,
haven’t we
?

As if by a signal, the statues stopped
circling. In unison, they moved closer.

The room was silent except for their
breathing.

Then the boy, the statue who had grown up
from an adolescent to a man, the one the Sculptor had plastered and
re-plastered, stepped up. He reached out. He took hold of the
Sculptor's hammer and slid it out of his frozen grasp.

In his head, the Sculptor screamed.

And the boy lifted the hammer like a judge’s
gavel, and when it fell, over and over again, Amanda's prayer was
answered.

Justice was done.

ROBBIE WAS hanging around, waiting for his
next assignment, when he saw Liam, Amanda and that little girl,
Sophia, walk out of the Sculptor's mansion and down the street.

Liam was limping. The two girls were
supporting him.

In the slow, deep recesses of his mind,
Robbie wondered when Liam had arrived at the mansion. And where was
the old guy, Irving Shea?

Robbie hoped the Sculptor hadn’t killed him.
Irving had seemed harmless enough.

Robbie never ever understood why the Others
did anything. It was all part of some cosmic plan concocted by
Osgood, and a guy like Robbie wasn’t smart enough to comprehend the
ins and outs of cosmic plans.

But he liked the little kid, Sophia; when she
wasn’t a statue or crying in fear, she had seemed nice. Same thing
about Irving Shea — for an old man, he hadn’t been much trouble.
And Liam had been all gooshy in love with that nurse Amanda…

Robbie frowned.

What was it about Amanda that he was supposed
to remember?

His brow cleared.

Ohhh
. He was
supposed to give her a note from the Sculptor.

He pulled the envelope out of his jacket and
stared at it.

He hoped he wasn’t in trouble. He didn’t like
to be in trouble. He hated when Eric yelled at him and punched him,
although he hadn’t done much lately, not since Robbie had
accidentally punched back and sent Eric through the wall.

Gosh, maybe Robbie should open the note and
read it. That way he’d know if he should run after Amanda and give
it to her.

But the Sculptor had said it was secret.

But he’d also said it was urgent.

So Robbie
sort of
had
to open
it.

So he did.

Amanda, my dear
,
(See? The Sculptor wasn’t such a bad guy. He called Amanda “my
dear.”)
You
have three days to bring Irving to me. Three days, or the statue of
your sister will meet with an unfortunate, fatal
accident
.

Robbie exhaled a sigh of relief.

Amanda had brought Irving to the Sculptor,
and Sophia had not met with an unfortunate, fatal accident. So he
could stop worrying. Everything was okay.

Robbie shoved the note into a garbage can and
slammed the lid.

Crossing his arms over his chest, he smiled
at a little old lady, who took one look at him, did a one-eighty,
and headed back the direction she’d come.

Robbie went back to hanging around and
waiting for his next assignment, glad that his dear old granny’s
favorite saying had been proved right again.