Stone Angel (13 page)

He shrieked, momentarily blinded, and scraped
frantically at his eyes.

She leaped at Eric, swinging the bucket by
the handle. She smacked him in the back.

Enraged, he turned on her.

Liam struggled, still caught in the throes of
the transformation.

He had
to
hurry
.

The Sculptor lunged, grabbing her from
behind.

The Chosen Ones had taught her a few tricks,
and she used one now, letting the Sculptor hold her up as she
jumped and kicked Eric in the stomach.

He doubled over. But he didn’t go down.

“
Fool!”
the Sculptor shrieked. “Get Liam. Get
him
!”

Eric straightened. He gazed at Amanda; his
reptilian eyes promised retribution. He lumbered around to face
Liam.

Liam had grown, stretching Irving’s pants.
His white hair had darkened to black. His shoulders had filled out,
his skin had lost the thin, mottled look of old age.

But he was still bent, still feeble.

“Liam Gallagher.” Eric flexed his massive
hands. “I never thought much of you, but I didn’t think you’d be
dumb enough to betray us. Osgood will have your head for this.”
Pausing, he added, “Or perhaps he’ll have the Sculptor add you to
his office’s current decorations.” Eric gave another one of those
Jabba the Hut laughs, and punched Liam in the jaw.

Amanda struggled as the Sculptor pulled her
close, her back against his front.

Liam held up his weak arms, trying to fend
off Eric’s blows.

But each hit landed with a thud, crushing his
ribs, sending him sprawling on the ground in pain. Eric advanced on
him, stomping his boots against the floor.

The Sculptor's grasp around Amanda's middle
kept getting tighter.

She was out of breath. Her ribs were
cracking. She had to do something. Now! Picking up her feet, she
threw all her weight onto the Sculptor's encircling arms.

He staggered forward, toward the
worktable.

She grabbed the first tool she could find, a
small, pointed awl, and rammed it behind her, over her head.

He jerked away. “You bitch!”

She turned.

He clawed at his face, pulled the awl
free.

Her aim was better than she could have ever
hoped.

Blood ran down his face.

She’d pierced his right eye.

Good. For. Me
.

She looked back at Eric … and at Liam.

Liam’s transformation was finally complete.
But too late.

Eric continued beating him, slamming him over
and over with kicks so vicious Amanda didn’t know how Liam managed
to crawl away. Blood seeped through his t-shirt. His chest heaved
with the effort of breathing through the pain of cracked ribs and
bruised kidneys.

Eric taunted, “Gallagher, you came to be part
of a rescue mission, and look at you. You’ll die here, and so will
your girlfriend.” He went in for another kick.

Liam rallied enough to pull his body up onto
his hands and knees.

Eric watched, relishing each grunt of pain
that escaped Liam’s lips.

Liam took a slow, painful breath and yelled,
“Amanda, get Sophia. And get out of here!”

LEAVE HIM?

Liam meant for Amanda to leave him? Here? In
this museum dedicated to blood, death and eternal stillness? For
Liam, the Sculptor's mansion would be his tomb.

And yet … what choice did she have?

She loved Liam.

But Amanda and Liam were adults. They had
lived, not long, but they had lived. Sophia was a child. She
deserved more than this sterile existence. She deserved the chance
to grow up, to become a young woman and have a life.

For a split second, Amanda looked into Liam’s
swollen, broken face and met his anguished blue gaze.

He nodded imperceptibly. “Go,” he
whispered.

She nodded back. “I love you,” she said.

Eric observed the Sculptor as he staggered,
half-blind, toward his workbench. Eric’s lips curled back from his
teeth. “Girl, you’re in trouble now. The Sculptor will want you
killed for ruining his Osgood-given physique.” He stalked toward
Amanda.

Behind him, Liam groaned as he half-rose.
With a wild Irish war cry, he tackled Eric at the back of the
knees.

The two men went flying. They hit the floor
with a resounding thud.

Liam snapped Eric’s foot sideways.

Eric tried to twist away.

With an audible crack, the ankle broke.

Eric roared in agony.

Pale and gruesome, the Sculptor clutched his
worktable, bent over it. Blood splashed onto the pristine surface,
staining it with red.

Amanda ran to Sophia, to the stone-like
figure that was her sister.

How to move her?

Last night at dinner, Liam had confessed he
had no idea how to unfreeze Sophia. He wasn’t even sure if there
was a way.

Jacqueline had assured them that if they
could bring the statue to the mansion, all the Chosen and
especially Rosamund, with her research skills, would figure it
out.

Yet the plans had involved the two of them,
her and Liam, moving Sophia together. Amanda couldn’t deadlift her
sister. She couldn’t drag her by her outstretched arm. It might
break off. Sophia might shatter into a thousand pieces.

How to…?

The wheelchair!

Amanda turned to grab it, only to find Liam
and Eric struggling on the floor in front of it.

The two men panted, wrestling.

Eric punched at Liam.

Liam kicked at Eric’s broken ankle, and all
the while he kept twisting and turning, rolling away and grabbing
at his own leg.

Amanda looked around the bare room, sought a
way to help him.

But Liam had finally achieved his goal. With
a grunt, he pulled the stainless steel brace from beneath Irving's
sweat pants. He came up underneath Eric’s chin, and fueled by
adrenaline, he stabbed the blunt end into Eric’s throat.

It pierced the skin, broke into the windpipe.
Eric gasped. Turned white. With a final gush of blood, Eric flopped
back, and lay still.

Liam threw the brace onto the ground, leaving
streaks of Eric’s blood on the marble floor. He worked to
disentangle himself from Eric’s limp body.

But with all the swelling and bruising and
bloody gashes, he moved like the old man he had been a few minutes
before.

The Sculptor lifted his head, and in his one
eye shone as much power and malevolence as if he was the devil
himself. “Liam Gallagher, it doesn’t matter how many you kill. I
hold the power here! And before I hand the girls over to Osgood, I
will destroy you.”

Amanda grabbed her bag. Never taking her gaze
from the Sculptor, she scrabbled among the pill bottles. And she
found what she wanted: a narcotic-filled syringe.

“I can’t let you do that. They are mine to
protect.” Liam used the wheelchair to stand. He straightened to his
full height. Looking over at Amanda, he smiled. “Mine to love.”

The Sculptor oozed malice … and a wicked
satisfaction. “The only thing you ever were, was one of the Others.
Now you’re worthless. Look! You’re nothing but another statue for
Osgood’s office.” Pressing his palm forward, the Sculptor released
a bolt of cold blue lightning.

The blaze writhed toward Liam, wrapped him in
its frozen light, freezing him as he struggled.

Amanda stood like a statue herself, too
shocked to move or scream.

Liam had just said he loved her.

And now she was going to lose him and
Sophia?

The Sculptor turned to her in triumph, his
eye socket a bloody, gaping wound in his face. “You see, Amanda.
Evil always wins.” With a hideous smile, the Sculptor walked to his
worktable. He chose his largest hammer. Turning, he strode
purposefully toward Liam.

“No!” Amanda rushed at the Sculptor from the
side.

He flung up one arm as if to brush her
off.

She lunged with the syringe, slamming it into
his neck and pushing the stopper.

For a moment, he wore an expression of
disbelief. He turned his head, breaking off the syringe in place.
While Amanda watched, breathless, he swayed, fighting the drug’s
effect, then fell to the floor, one hand still grasping the
hammer.

He hadn’t got the full dose. But it would
knock him out for a while, hopefully long enough for her to get
Liam and Sophia out.

But how? The Sculptor wouldn’t sleep forever.
And she had two statues and a way to get only one of them out of
the Sculptor’s mansion.

She had a choice: the sister she had raised,
or the man she would love forever.

She wanted to cry in frustration and longing
… but some emotions were too deep for tears. She walked forward to
Liam’s still form.

Although he had fought the deadly lightning,
his face was frozen in a expression, as though he had expected to
die today. Perhaps he had suspected that this would happen, that
she would have to decide who to leave behind.

“Liam. If only I had known.” It was time to
admit to herself that he hadn’t betrayed her. That she had needed
someone to blame other than herself, for her own lack of vigilance.
She had known there was a chance the Others would come eventually,
seeking Sophia’s blossoming power.

But
she
hadn’t
protected
Sophia. And this was her chance to make that right … at the expense
of Liam’s life, and her own heart.

Tears fell now, tears of sorrow and
inevitable goodbye. As she leaned forward to give Liam one last
kiss, she closed her eyes and pressed her cheek to his.

Rather than the warm, living flesh she had
caressed the night before, he was cold, hard stone.

Her tears fell faster, and she whispered, “I
love you, Liam Gallagher. I will love you forever.”

And when someone clutched her arms, she
jumped and screamed.

AMANDA OPENED her eyes, and stared into
Liam’s face.

His blue
eyes twinkled. And he
blinked
.

She was going mad. She was hallucinating.

Yet his hands gripped her upper arms.

And
he
was
changing. He was no longer
rigid, petrified, blank. His skin regained its flesh tones. His
head slowly tilted to the side, and he studied her as if he’d never
seen a woman before.

She couldn’t have pinpointed the moment, but
somehow, Liam became human again, bruised and beaten, but no longer
a statue.

His lips moved. He spoke. “I love you too,
Amanda.”

Amanda gasped. She put her hand to her mouth
to stifle the sound, and gasped again.

He smiled with such pleasure she basked in
the glow. He took her wrist, pulled her hand away from her face,
and leaned forward for a salty kiss. His lips moved against hers.
His words whispered across her skin. “Your tears are magic,
darlin’.”

As his meaning penetrated her mind, she drew
back. “M…my tears? Do you really think…?”

“
I
know
. I felt the
drops on my cheek, warming me, returning me to life.” He kissed her
again, hard and deep and thankful. “Let’s try those tears on
Sophia. ‘Twould be easier than trying to carry her statue out of
here and attempting a transformation. For I fear we haven’t got
much time.” He glanced with satisfaction at the inert figure of the
Sculptor, and nervously looked around for sign of more
Others.

“You’re right.” Amanda tore her gaze away
from Liam. She looked at Sophia, still caught in a magic spell that
trapped her body and her spirit.

“I pray to God your tears are all she needs,”
he said seriously.

For a boy who had been raised in poverty and
hunger, without love or any proof of goodness, his declaration
meant the events of the day had changed him on a bone-deep level.
And Amanda was glad. “I pray that, too.”

Taking her hand, Liam led her over to
Sophia’s statue. Pressing her tear-stained cheek against her
sister’s, Amanda waited for a long, anxious minute. Waited and, as
Liam had said, she prayed.

Nothing happened.

Nothing happened.

Nothing happened.

She leaned back, rubbed her eyes and pressed
the damp to Sophia’s face. “Come on, Sophia,” she whispered. “Come
back to me.”

But her sister was still stone.

At the realization that she was helpless to
bring Sophia back to life, Amanda leaned her forehead against
Sophia’s forehead. Tears gathered under her lids, tears compounded
of loneliness, heartbreak and love. They splashed on to Sophia’s
face.

She heard Liam’s indrawn breath.

And beneath her skin, her sister grew
warm.

Amanda straightened. She hardly dared to
look. She couldn’t wait to look. She gazed into her sister’s face —
and into Sophia’s warm, green eyes.

Sophia blinked. As if testing out the
miracle, she slowly turned her head from one side to the other. She
viewed the workshop with loathing, the bodies on the floor with
fear, then Amanda and Liam with gathering excitement. In an
outburst of youthful exuberance, she flung her arms around Amanda.
“You came back for me!”

“We would have never left you here,” Liam
said.

And Amanda believed him. How could she not?
He had been willing to die so Sophia could live. “You look taller!”
Amanda said.

“You look tired.” Sophia sounded older, more
mature. “What have they been doing to you, Mandy?”

“Nothing.” Compared to the torture Sophia had
endured, Amanda’s trials were insignificant. “Really nothing.
Everything is fine now!”

Crying and hugging, the sisters held each
other.

Liam gently separated them. “Girls! There’s
time enough for a reunion later, when we’re safe.” He herded them
into the entry.