Paige went home at last, expressing some concern about stepping out the door. Dayne locked the door and the deadbolt and the night lock and started closing up for the night. She couldn't see any sense in staying up later. Nothing new was happening on the devil front—the reporters had stopped doing many live spots, and now the commentators were on the air, telling the world what it all meant. She figured she had a better idea than they did of what it meant, so it seemed like a good time to get some sleep.
Besides, she had Sunday off. Two days in a row . . . and for once, she was going to get both of them. She intended to let the answering machine take all her calls. She was going to get some more sleep, and she knew if anyone in the unit called in, the nursing supervisor would call and ask her to come in to work.
She'd just turned off the kitchen lights and was getting ready to run upstairs when her doorbell rang.
"Paige?" she wondered. Paige frequently forgot things . . . like her purse or her house keys or something else equally essential. Dayne turned on the porch light, then peeked through the peephole in the door.
It wasn't Paige. It was a reporter, standing with his back to her on her landing, while a cameraman fiddled with lights and his range.
It was a bit late for reporters, she thought, but she could understand the enthusiasm. Maybe if I talk to this one, the rest will let me sleep in a little tomorrow.
She opened the door and smiled. "Hi. Can I help you?"
The reporter turned, looked over her head, then looked down. A cold smile crossed his face. "Miss Kuttner?" he asked.
"That's right."
He stepped forward, crowding into Dayne's comfort zone. She backed up, and he followed, so that she stood well into her apartment, while he stood just inside the threshold, holding the door wide open.
"Charlie, on me in three . . . two . . . one . . ."
"This is Marty Fisk, live at the home of Dayne Kuttner, the woman who set Hell loose in North Carolina. Miss Kuttner . . ."
"It's Mrs.," she said. "My name is Mrs. Dayne Kuttner."
"Oh." He looked around, his expression slightly nervous, but when Mr. Kuttner didn't appear, he continued. "Mrs. Kuttner. Why did you do this terrible thing?"
She frowned. "Mr. Fisk, is it?" He nodded. "This was no terrible thing. It was—it is—a wonderful thing. I prayed for God to give every soul in Hell a second chance," Dayne told him earnestly. "God listened."
"Miss Kuttner, learned scholars believe that with your prayer—if in fact it was a prayer, though we have no proof of that—you have set into motion the evil events of the Final Days. In fact, well-placed and well-informed ministers equate your role with that of the Harlot of Babylon, and suggest that you might in fact be her."
Dayne felt a cold fire begin to burn in her belly. "They do, do they? Remember what Jesus said. Judge not, that you are not judged, Mr. Fisk," she said.
The cameraman grinned and zoomed in closer on her face.
Fisk took another step into her house, and said, "Even the devil can quote scripture. How long have you been in communication with the devil?" he demanded.
"Mr. Fisk," Dayne said softly, "I did not invite you in my house, and you are both trespassing and unwelcome. Get out, right now."
"Then you admit to being in league with the devil?"
"Mr. Fisk, I prayed for God to have mercy on every soul, and I hope he has mercy on yours, but if you don't get out of my house right this minute, I'm going to send you to Heaven to talk to him tonight."
The cameraman laughed out loud—one short, sharp bark that died away to silence as Fisk turned and faced the camera. "Satan worshippers and death threats, lies and deceit. We're here live in an interview with the notorious Whore of Babylon . . ." He rested a hand on the little earphone in his ear, listening to a question from his base.
Dayne's right hand brushed against a lump in her jeans pocket. She slipped her hand in, and wrapped it around a cold metal canister. She grinned. Pepper gas. She flipped the safety off, and said, "Mr. Fisk?"
"I'll ask her now," he said in response to the question she couldn't hear. He turned, another question on his lips—and Dayne sprayed him in the face.
He gasped and screamed, and she stomped on the arch of his foot, then rammed one knee up between his legs, and when he buckled forward, slammed her elbow into his nose. Then, coughing and with her own eyes watering, she pointed at the cameraman and gasped, "Get him out of here or you're next."
The cameraman grabbed the reporter and dragged him off, and Dayne stepped back into her hallway, locked the door and bolted it, and ran to the kitchen and stuck her head under the tap and ran water in her eyes.
The insides of her eyelids felt like they were going to melt off, her face was on fire inside and out, and she'd breathed the stuff and couldn't stop coughing. The big problem with pepper gas was that it was almost as tough on the person who used it as on the one it was used on.
"Sorry son of a gun," she muttered. "I guess I know how to deal with reporters now."
She stomped up the stairs. "Whore of Babylon."
She kicked the doorframe—it made a satisfying noise. "Who does he think he is?—Whore of Babylon."
She strangled the toothpaste tube and brushed her teeth as if she were murdering them.
"I'll give him the Whore of Babylon."