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  “This is your idea of a debate, Billy?” Samuel said.

  “That’s right, I am Billy. And if this isn’t a debate, what is? We’re all down here in the dungeons and you’re up there. What does that tell you? It tells you that you’re dead meat.”

  Samuel had expected to confront Black. Why had Billy chosen Steve? “You know the consequences of evil?” Samuel said.

  “Love!” Steve cried, spreading his arms. “I think it all leads to—”

  Steve gasped and went white. He stared at Samuel in shock. Slowly his face twisted, first with anguish and then with horror. He threw his arms to his face, doubled over, and screamed bloody murder.

  The crowd didn’t react. Neither did Samuel at first, he let Steve scream and scream. And then he spoke softly, so that only he and Steve could hear.

  “Steve, meet Billy. Billy, meet yourself.”

  Think of me as the human mirror, Samuel had said. He’d just shown Steve and Billy their own souls.

  And then he released the man.

  Steve’s screaming stopped while he was still bent over. For a moment Steve remained frozen, staring at Samuel from a half crouch. Then his eyes flashed. He stood up slowly. His lips curled back, and his whole body began to vibrate.

  Johnny couldn’t move.

  Steve’s face flushed and the veins stood out on his neck. His jaws snapped wide in a shriek that nearly brought Johnny to his knees. Beyond Steve a dozen crazies rose to their feet. Steve was screaming words, Johnny realized. “It was my choice! I deserved that much. My choice!”

  The man paused to catch his breath and then flung out his arm. “Take him! Take him, take him, take him!”

  Mumbles and grunts swept through the crowd. A bunch of them climbed over their pews and started for the stage.

  Johnny couldn’t move his feet. Steve kept screaming, “Take him, take him, take them!”

  Take them?

  Samuel calmly lifted one hand to the dissenters who rushed the platform.

  “Back,” he said.

  The power of the word hit the auditorium like a thunderclap. Four hundred people staggered back. If they were seated, their heads bent back as if struck by a gale-force wind. If they were standing, or climbing over a pew, or walking for the stage, they were thrown backward into their pews or on their seats.

  Steve had stopped his screaming.

  “I love you, Billy. Do you still know that?”

  Steve fell to his knees, face drooping in anguish. “I’m sorry, I . . .”

  Silence.

  Steve’s lips twisted to a snarl. He jumped to his feet.

  “I hate you! I hate you, Samuel, you sick little puke.” He flung his arm out. “Take them! Take him!”

  Claude was on one knee, staring like a fool.

  A single, unmistakable voice cut across the room. “Stevieeeeeee . . .”

  Black stood at the back, head tilted down, blue eyes flashing.

  Every head turned.

  “Why are you just standing there, Steve? Hmm? I’ve been so good to you and now you turn on me? Am I wretched or vile? I should slit your gut and let you bleed dry.”

  Steve stared, eyes wide with confusion. “I didn’t say—”

  “Do you like our debate, Samuel? I think it’s time for the people to vote.” Black walked down the aisle, fixated on Samuel. Johnny turned to Samuel in a panic. For the first time he saw fear on the boy’s face. Sweat was leaking down his temple and his eyes were wide.

  Just two hours ago he’d thrown off Black’s attacks easily. Had something changed?

  Marsuvees Black stepped up on the stage. “So, you think that throwing around a little love will do the trick, do you? I’ll admit, it’s a tad fascinating, but ultimately boring.”

  He jerked his head to face the people.

  “Thing is, I have the same power. Do you mind if I show you, Samuel? I’d like to show you my power.”He walked to the far edge of the stage, eyes on the congregation. “I think the people would like a little show.”

  Black cocked his head back like a Pez dispenser. His neck doubled back, nearly at a right angle to his shoulders. For a moment he gave them a side profile of the stunning pose.

  Then his whole body turned, upper torso first, followed by hips and legs, like a robot. Black’s round dark mouth faced them like a gaping cannon.

  The air blurred with a white streak. Straight from Black’s open jaw. Then two, then ten, then two dozen white streaks, flying in formation toward Samuel.

  Before they had crossed half the pews, the white objects converged into a cohesive unit. Formed a set of razor-sharp teeth. They were too long and too sharp and too white to be Black’s teeth, but from the corner of his eye Johnny saw that Black’s mouth was bleeding onto his shirt, and he knew that they were his teeth.

  The jaw came to an abrupt halt two inches from Samuel’s nose. It snapped at the air once, paused, then again. Clack, pause, clack.

  The teeth retreated in another sudden flash and snapped back into Black’s jaw. He leveled his head.

  “And?” Samuel said. “The point is?”

  It struck Johnny that this wasn’t Black and Samuel as much as it was Billy and Samuel. Two kids, dueling.

  The smirk on Black’s face faded. He opened his mouth wide, thrust his head forward, and roared at Samuel. His lips stretched as wide as his head and his teeth flashed like a piranha’s.

  Three things came from Black’s throat. A crackling roar that shook the whole building, a heat wave that blasted Samuel, and a black vapor.

  The force of the roar bounced off an invisible shield that enveloped Samuel and rushed past Johnny. He could see it because of the black vapor, like a jet stream in a wind tunnel, and he could feel the heat. Without the shield, a person would probably be burned to a crisp, Johnny thought, cringing behind the boy. Samuel was protecting him.

  The roar lasted at least ten seconds. And then Black’s mouth clamped shut.

  For a moment Billy’s character stared at Samuel, amazed that he hadn’t dislodged a hair, much less damaged him.

  Slowly Samuel lifted his right hand, palm out. Something came from that hand. Johnny couldn’t see it, but Black could.

  His face twisted into an unholy mess of distorted features. For a moment Johnny thought that his face was melting. His lower jaw came loose from its joints and ran a slow circle. Black began to shake so badly that Johnny thought he might come apart.

  Instead, he began to laugh.

  He grabbed at his face and pulled at his flesh and shrieked with laughter, delighted with himself.

  He was seeing himself. Evil loved evil, like Samuel had said.

  Black cocked his head back at a right angle, twisted it to face the church, and let his laughter echo over the auditorium.

  As one the people began to scream. Their faces contorted in fear. They pulled at their hair, and their eyes rolled back into their heads.

  Then they lunged at each other and began tearing at each other’s faces.

  Samuel faced the people and held both hands out like a mime pushing a wall. “No,” he said.

  A barely visible shock wave emanated from him. It rippled through the air and through the people, starting at the first pew and picking up speed as it spread to the very back. As the wave struck them, it cut off their screams. They gasped and were thrown back more forcefully than the first time.

  They collapsed, groaning and sobbing.

  Even though Johnny wasn’t in the wave’s path, he felt its effect. A warm force cut through his muscles like an electric current that charged him with love and desire for more love. He staggered back and dropped to one knee. Tears flooded his eyes, and he knew that Samuel would win this contest.

  Wailing and sorrow and love swallowed the church.

  Black recovered and glared at Samuel in a rage.

  Samuel lowered his arms and everything changed. Instantly. The power that had come from Samuel vanished.

  Claude struggled to his feet, dazed and confuse
d. Then others, like the resurrected dead.

  “The choice is theirs,” Samuel said.

  For an endless moment no one else moved.

  Steve stood on the stage, lost to the world. Claude’s face settled and he breathed heavily through his nostrils. Chris and Peter waited behind him, blinking and waiting. Katie looked like a rag doll.

  A slow smile formed on Black’s face. “The choice is theirs,” he said. Then he thrust his hand out toward Samuel. “Take him!” he said.

  Still no one moved.

  Black stretched his mouth wide, like a snake preparing to swallow a goat, and roared again. Again the building’s foundations shook.

  But this time Samuel didn’t stop it. His body shielded Johnny from most of the shock, but the air around him seemed to shake.

  Claude was ten feet from the stage when Black’s blast hit him. He grunted and rushed forward, eager to reach Samuel now. At least fifty rushed the stage.

  Samuel did not resist. He was either caught off guard or had something planned for the last moment.

  Black’s roar didn’t ease up. His thundering mouth gaped, as long and wide as his face.

  Claude leaped onto the platform.

  “Samuel!” Johnny didn’t wait for a reply. He whirled from the podium and ran.

  He’s just standing there. This isn’t possible!

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Samuel collapse under Claude’s huge body. He disappeared under a sea of flesh.

  A handful of crazies were scrambling over the pews to intercept Johnny.

  Fists pounded flesh behind him as he dove for the entrance below the red Baptismal sign. He reached the brass knob and yanked the door open.

  You’re leaving Samuel. You can’t leave Samuel!

  He turned his head back, just enough to stare into the twisted face of Chris Ingles, just strides away. Johnny bolted.

  He slammed through the rear door, stumbled out to the back porch, and took a hard left, over the steps. The dark lawn met his feet hard. He rolled over the grass and spun back just in time to see a large object fill his vision. It smashed into his head and knocked him on his back.

  He twisted to one side, fighting for breath, but they stood over him now like grim reapers. Then Johnny was screaming. Long vowels that hurt his throat. His mind could barely form thoughts, much less words.

  Hands grabbed at his arms and legs and yanked him roughly from the ground. A big hand pounded down on his forehead, and he heard his screams taper off. Another fist hit his head, and his world began to fade.

  It hurts, he thought.

  And then he didn’t think anything for a while.

  A little later or much later—he didn’t know which—he opened his eyes and it was dark. The musty smell of dishrags filled his nose. He managed to turn on his back. Slowly, like the coming of the tide, he thought some things.

  He thought he was alive. He must be alive because his head was throbbing with pain. He thought he shouldn’t be alive—he wasn’t even sure he wanted to be alive. He thought he might be in the root cellar below Smither’s Saloon.

  He thought Samuel was . . .

  Actually, he didn’t know what Samuel was. Maybe Samuel had opened his mouth at the end there and knocked them all over. Maybe Samuel was dead.

  Johnny closed his eyes and wished he were dead.

  CHAPTER THIRTY - EIGHT

  THE MONASTERY

  Monday night

  BILLY DIPPED his quill into the inkwell, trying to gauge the emotions that ran through him. A drop of sweat fell from his forehead and marked the page by his thumb.

  How would he describe this story? Enthralling, exhilarating to be sure. But there was more. The pen clinked against the glass jar of red ink as he withdrew his hand. An unsteady hand did not suit writing. He swallowed to wet his parched throat.

  He’d been writing in the balcony for hours, barely aware of time, forgetting the fact that Black had driven him from his study. He’d lost himself in the singular objective of pushing this story to the ending for which it begged. The shaking in his hand had started when he heard Samuel’s voice, like an echo in his skull.

  “I love you, Billy.”

  His first instinct had been to search the balcony for the voice. Samuel has escaped! He’s left Paradise and come here to turn me over to David!

  But the voice hadn’t spoken from the balcony. It echoed like a church bell in his mind.

  He’d stared back at the writing book, hands trembling. The story was speaking back to him now, as if he were actually there in Paradise, not just whispering suggestions to his characters, but participating with them.

  The writing no longer focused on Paradise. Samuel had changed that. The boy was trying to destroy the power behind Paradise. He had reached past the people in the church down there and was trying to quiet him!

  But Billy had no intention of being quieted. Paradise was his. His town, his story. No one would throw him out. Not even Samuel and his precious father. Especially not Samuel and his father.

  And the boy had the audacity to say, I love you, Billy, right there, out loud, as if that would gain him favor.

  Wake up, boy! Things don’t revolve around the four rules down here. We make our own rules, and they’re not rules of love. I love you—please! Love was for stories.

  Of course, this was a story. Everything was really a story, penned or thought or acted out at some time by someone.

  Billy brought his trembling fingers to the paper. He could do so much on this page! This was the power of storytelling, that he could tell whatever story he chose.

  A stray thought hit him. Thomas Hunter found the books in a place called the Black Forest. Billy impulsively wrote a sentence in the bottom margin, as much to break the tension as for any other purpose.

  Then the man named Thomas found himself in the Black Forest, where he fell and hit his head and lost his memory.

  Ha. He wondered what that would do.

  Another drop of sweat plopped onto the page. Billy brushed it aside with his little finger and continued writing into Paradise. The tension of the story immediately gripped him again.

  Now let us see about your powers, Samuel. What move will you make now in this chess match of ours?

  Samuel had given up too early.

  The red lines ran jagged from his quivering hand. A nervous hand doesn’t suit good writing, Billy thought again, and then lost himself in the story. His story.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  PARADISE

  Monday night

  FOR THE seventh time in a week, Marsuvees Black stepped out of the trees to meet Marsuvees Black, the character that Billy had written into existence based on him. The black trench coat and Stetson hat, the boots and belt were figments of Billy’s imagination, taken from costumes he’d seen in one of the dungeon rooms, but otherwise Black looked exactly like Marsuvees. In so many ways, he was him.

  In so many ways, he wasn’t him.

  It was odd how the progression of evil worked. It always went from bad to worse, no matter how much mind he’d ever applied to the matter. And in the progression was a line which, if crossed, offered no retreat. He reached that line seven years ago, while he still worked in Vegas, but he’d turned and run into the desert for solitude and repentance.

  This time he’d crossed the line. Now there was no turning back, any fool could see that. The strange thing was, he really didn’t have any ambition to rule the world or wipe out the country or even Las Vegas, that beautiful den of iniquity that spoiled his soul to start with.

  He’d joined Project Showdown because of its fantastic promise to test good against evil in the most unusual way. David Abraham had essentially created an incubator for good in these children, believing that if properly protected, good would prevail.

  His whole life had been a raging battle between good and evil, and as far as he could see, evil, not good, always ended up on top. The pig always returned to its sty; dogs always lapped up their vomit.

&nb
sp; But then he’d found the blank books and discovered the inscription that destined them for the purposes of love. After three months of careful deliberation,Marsuvees could not ignore his one and only conclusion: the books had been found by him, as by David, because he was meant to use them.

  And how? To test good versus evil, naturally. To test the rule of good and evil that had waged eternal war in his own heart. If by their own irrevocable rule the books would lead to the discovery of love, then he would force their hands, so to speak.

  He embraced evil with abandon, knowing that in the end he was really embracing love. Isn’t that what the rule meant? If by his embrace of evil he could produce love, didn’t that make evil itself a kind of good?

  Yes! And a good thing too, because in these last two weeks he’d been once again reminded how much he loved evil. How delicious each terrible, wonderful, delightful act really was.

  Why did evil always feel so good? Because evil was in fact a kind of love. True or not, he swam in the hope that it was more true than all the nonsense thrown his way over the past forty years.

  Marsuvees stared at his fictional counterpart, who stood on the edge of the greenbelt staring at the now-deserted church across town. The charred remains of the old theater smoldered in the waning light off to their left. Marsuvees wasn’t sure what Black had done to Samuel after the meeting, but he knew what had to be done now.

  He walked toward Black. In all honesty, if his gamble paid off and evil did turn out to be a kind of good, then he was obligated to flex the muscle of evil as much as possible, wasn’t he? And he would have no problem doing so.

  In the meantime, there was only one thing that stood in his way.

  “So you came after all,” Black said without turning to him.

  “Was there ever a doubt?”Marsuvees said.

  “I never needed you,” Black said. “I have this under control.”

  Amazing how perfectly Billy had formed the character. Black had developed his own idiosyncrasies in the last week, but most of him came from Billy. Or more accurately, from Billy’s understanding of the monk named Marsuvees Black. Him. The boy was perceptive, rendering him with surprising accuracy—the mischievous grins, the arching eyebrows, the curvature of his fingers, even his accent.