He gripped the stake with such anger that in a flash, the wood grain felt as if it were embedded in his skin, as if it had always been this way.
“Remember what you told me once?” he asked. “You said, ‘When you’re on the horns—on the horns of a dilemma, that is—find the bull’s-eye. Find it, and drive a stake through it.’”
“You wouldn’t dare!” Bull gave a defiant chuckle. But his eyes betrayed a sudden glint of terror.
“Bull, I can hurt you where you hurt most—”
“You’ll never destroy me, my boy!”
“I will destroy your art.”
“You wouldn’t dare—”
“Wouldn’t I?”
For a moment, neither one of them uttered a word.
Meanwhile, a shadow flickered next to the stone head, which loomed directly over Bull. Michael thought he saw someone—Ash—standing to its side, trying to dislodge it.
Michael locked eyes with her and in that moment, both of them knew what he would have to take over. He would be the one to avenge not only what had happened to her but also what had happened to the slain model.
“Bull, can you imagine Lace, the way I found her that night,” Michael asked, “her eyes open underwater, coming after you?”
Meanwhile, with a subtle gesture of his hand, he hinted to Ash to move over, find a safe spot, somewhere behind the stone shoulder.
She did. He was ready.
Slowly, Michael raised the old man’s stake and calculated his aim. The next few seconds were going to become forever chiseled into his memory.
A deafening shriek flew out of Bull’s throat.
“No! Not my art—”
Startled, Michael came to a halt. Shriller than any siren, that shriek penetrated every pore on his skin. It seemed to make his flesh swell, his bones crumble. For a heartbeat, he lowered the stake.
Meanwhile, Bull rose up to his feet. He stood there, clinging to the crag, arms spread, as if to protect not only his outdoor sculpture but also the scarps around her.
“She’s beautiful,” said Michael. “I’ll be gentle with her. I promise. I will spare her wings.”
Bull dropped down his hands.
“But,” said Michael, now with a threatening tone, “let me test just how deceitful her balance is!”
His arm gave the most violent of thrusts and let go of the wooden stake. What happened next was such a shock that afterwards, he could bring it back only with a wild pounding of his heart.
The stake propelled high in the air, towards the bluff. It bounced off a nipple, hurled up and wedged itself under the sculpted chin, where there was a flaw in the way the head rested on the neck. There, something opened: the beginning of a crack. The stone head gave a shadow of a shiver. Then came a rumbling sound. It was faint at first, so faint that Michael nearly ignored it.
Bull fell to his knees, hands stretched up towards the bruised surface around the nipple.
That was the last thing he did.
Just then—as his lips started stretching over the yellow teeth, and his jaws opened, perhaps to utter a sigh of relief—the stone overhead gave a loud jolt. It toppled over, turning in midair.
Rock collapsing upon rock, sculpted chin bouncing over breast over ribs, temple fragments clobbering the body once or twice, until—crush!—there, amidst the dust, stood the Angel of Death. With a loud rupture, its head came tumbling down upon Bull.
Haunted by discovering the body of a beautiful dancer, Michael re-constructs her murder in a virtual reality model. Can he bring the mystery to life? Can he solve it in time, before the killer turns on the woman he loves, Ash?
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“I felt as though I was in Michael's work environment whenever he was using Virtual Reality. Whether he was displaying Laguna Beach or the Northrop Grumman B -21 Raiders flying overhead, I not only was there but I could feel my heart pounding and my pulse racing…"
~Serenity, HALL OF FAME, TOP 10 REVIEWER
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