The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [573]
“Put down the gun, Thursday!”
“Spikey, I’m frightened!”
“Cindy, I want to see both your hands!”
“Drop the gun, Thursday!”
We had reached an impasse. As I stood there with Spike pointing a gun at my head and with me pointing a gun at Cindy’s, I realized this was quite possibly the worst situation to be in. If I lowered my gun, Cindy would kill me. If I didn’t lower my gun, Spike would kill me. If I killed Cindy, Spike would kill me. Try as I might, I couldn’t think of a scenario that didn’t end in my own death. Tricky, to say the least. And it was then that the grand piano fell on her.
I’d never heard a piano falling thirty feet onto concrete before, but it was exactly as I imagined. A sort of musical concussion that reverberated around the street. As chance would have it, the piano—a Steinway baby, I learned later—missed us all. It was the stool that hit Cindy and she went down like a sack of coal. One look at her and we both knew it was bad. A serious head wound and a badly broken neck.
It was a time of mixed emotions for Spike. Grief and shock at the accident but also realization that I had been right—still clasped in Cindy’s hand was a silenced .38 revolver.
“No!” yelled Spike, placing his hand gently upon her pale cheek. “Not again!”
Cindy groaned weakly as the policeman who had been dealing with St. Zvlkx rushed up with two paramedics at his side.
“You should have told me,” Spike muttered, refusing to look at me, his powerful shoulders quivering slightly as tears rolled down his cheeks.
“I’m so sorry, Spike.”
He didn’t reply but moved aside so the paramedics could try to stabilize her.
“Who is she?” asked the policeman. “In fact, who are you two?”
“SpecOps,” we said in unison, producing our badges.
“And this is Cindy Stoker,” said Spike sadly, “the assassin known as the Windowmaker—and my wife.”
35.
What Thursday Did Next
Kainian Government to Fund “Anti-Smite Shield”
Mr. Yorrick Kaine yesterday announced plans to set up a defensive network to counter the growing threat of God’s wrath unto His creations. Specific details of the “Anti-Smite Shield” are still classed top secret, but defense experts and top theologians have both agreed that a system might be in place within five years. Kaine’s followers point to the smiting of the small town of Oswestry with a “rain of cleansing fire” last October and the Rutland plague of toads. “Both Oswestry and Rutland are wake-up calls to our nation,” said Mr. Kaine. “They may have been sinful, but ultimate retribution without due process of law is something that I will not tolerate. In today’s modern world where the accepted definition of sin has become blurred, we need to protect ourselves against an overzealous deity keen to promote an outdated set of rules. It is for this reason that we are investing in Anti-Smite technology.” The £14 billion contract will be awarded exclusively to Goliath Weapons, Inc.
Article in The Mole, July 1988
The news networks had a field day. The death of St. Zvlkx so soon after his resurrection raised a few eyebrows, but the Windowmaker’s somewhat bizarre accident while “on assignment” became a sensation, supplanting even the upcoming SuperHoop from the front pages. Incredibly, despite severe internal injuries and a devastating head wound, she didn’t die. She was taken to St. Septyk’s Hospital, where they battled to stabilize her. Not from any great sense of moral duty, you understand, but for the fact that she could finger the sixty-seven or sixty-eight clients who had paid her to carry out her foul trade, and this was a prize the prosecutors were keen to claim. Within an hour of her coming out of surgery, three attempts by underworld bosses had been made to silence her for good. She was moved to the secure ward at the Kingsdown Home for the Criminally Insane, and there she stayed, comatose, attached to a ventilator.
“Spike was right. I should have told him earlier,” I said to Gran, “or tipped off the authorities or something!”
Granny Next was feeling a lot better today. Although greatly enfeebled