And then, with a strangled cry in his throat, Noah attacked.

TWENTY-SIX

Lear watched, hands behind her back, lifting herself up on the balls of her feet, bouncing with anticipation. When she first saw the fire burst from the ground-floor windows and setting a passing man alight, she let out a happy squeal.

But then, when the Tulip still stood, she clenched her fists and began to curse. “Fucking useless old man. Useless old man,” she said. “Trying to say I killed her, and now look! Look!”

When Bug Man did not move from the couch, she took two long steps, reached down, grabbed the neck of his T-shirt, and dragged him to the window.

“Iff’ burning,” Bug Man said.

“It’s not supposed to burn, it’s supposed to explode! The gas was supposed to explode! The whole thing should be toppling over!”

The TV was on, showing a sea of flashing red lights around the theater, with cutaways to eerie vignettes of cops tackling a naked, raving rock star, or Tasering a man in a business suit carrying a severed arm, the remnants of the lunacy at the premiere.

“Blow up! Blow up, blow up, blow up, blow up!” Lear raged, banging the plate glass with her fists.

As if on command a huge fireball erupted from the windows of the third floor.

“It could still fall, yeah,” Lear said, nodding, reassuring herself. She bent to a tripod-mounted telescope. “Can’t see anything through their dark glass. Are you scared yet, you freaks? Are you wetting yourselves, you freaks?”

Bug Man had had enough, more than enough. He had to get away. He shot a look toward the door. Did she have guards out there? If she died, he went mad … if she was telling the truth about a dead man’s switch … but there wasn’t anything he could do about that, and he could not be here watching all this. He could not be with this crazy witch raving and pounding on the glass like an infuriated ape in a cage.

He stepped back, back, turned, and ran for the door. Locked.

“Really, Bug Man?” Lear asked in a mocking voice. “Really? You think you get to run away?”

“You ’ave to le’ me go,” he pleaded.

She ignored him and crowed wildly as another burst of orange flame billowed out from the base of the Tulip. “It’ll collapse. Has to. The fire will melt the girders, has to, yeah. Damn, I want to see them when it happens.”

“You coul’ talk to them.”

Lear’s eyes lit up. She grinned. “What?”

“I know Burnofsshky’s number. He’ prob’ly there. He worksh late.”

She grabbed Bug Man’s bicep and propelled him to a laptop. “Do it! Do it and I’ll … I’ll get you new teeth. Any color you want.”

Bug Man opened an app, punched in the number, and hit Connect.

Keats rushed at the Twins, hands clawing the air, animal noises coming from him.

Plath shoved Wilkes aside to put herself between Keats and his intended victims. Keats never seemed to notice her. He ran right through her, sending her sprawling.

It was on her back, stunned by the violence of his assault, that Plath—Sadie McLure—saw three security men turn, as if in slow motion, and raise their guns.

BANG! BANGBANG!

Keats twisted, turned, stood …

BANG! BANG!

… fell.

A terrible scream rose from her mouth, echoed by Wilkes as they both fell more than ran toward Keats.

“No, no, no, no, no!” Plath cried.

“You fucking assholes! You murdering assholes!” Wilkes screamed.

Keats lay on his back. Three bullets had struck him in the side of his chest, in his upper arm, in the side of his head. He was not yet dead, eyes glazing, dark blood like ink pumping from him to form a pool on the floor, his mouth working like a beached fish, gasping.

“Oh, God, Noah! Oh, God, Noah!”

He tried to speak but only managed to form a blood bubble. He grunted, the sound of a dying beast. He breathed heavily, looked at Plath, grunted again. He blinked, just one eye, almost as if he was winking. Blood found its way out of his ears, out of his nose.

Plath tried to cradle him in her arms, tried to hold his head, but when she did, a part of his skull came away and she screamed. Wilkes, her own hands red, took Plath’s hand and kept saying, “He’ll be okay, he’ll be okay.”

A siren was screeching, up and down the scale, up and down in Plath’s head, but it was only her own screams.

A cell phone rang.

Plath stared at Noah, his eyes still so blue, his eyes open, his lips no longer the parchment landscape she had seen through biot eyes, now only the lips that had kissed her. They were moving silently.

Plath’s entire body was shaking. She heard nothing, and for a while she saw nothing. The world was lost to her. Only Wilkes’s arms around her connected her to reality.

The sound of a phone ringing. And going to voice mail.

“I hate people who get my hopes up,” Lear said. But she was distracted by a third eruption of flames. This one blew the windows out of half the lower floors. A shower of crystal fell through yellow flames, pursued by billows of smoke.

Bug Man dialed again. This time, the call was answered.

“Kind of a bad time, Anthony,” Burnofsky said.

“Lear wan’ to tal’ to th’ Twinshh,” he said.

“Oh, does she?” Burnofsky said, his voice flat. “A little late for talk, I think. Hey, Anthony?”

“Wha’?”

“I never hated you, Anthony,” Burnofsky said.