One last touchup.

Somewhere nearby, she had the sudden sense of . . . something awful.

She couldn't pinpoint it.

It felt all-surrounding, as if the mirror's reflexiveness threw off her instincts, her fight-or-flight response.

"Fine," said Peach. "Be that way, b.i.t.c.h."

Tweed blushed, warm from the insult but also reacting to something else. There was something very wrong here, a thing more terrible for being undefined and out of reach.

An image of Dex waiting in the corridor came to her. She had to get back to him. She had to be sure he was all right.

Tweed stuffed her lipstick in her purse, then glanced over. Bowser McPhee, staring at her, was fingering the s.l.u.t's lobebag, tugging it down, down, down, not intending to stop, not being stopped by his new lover. It slipped lower, then fell to the floor, sweet aroused girlflesh hanging there naked and exposed.

The sight thrilled Tweed.

She was dumbstruck, frozen where she stood, wanting to be with Dex right now, wanting just as much to stay and watch, maybe even partake in the events unfolding before her.

This is crazy, thought Tweed. This is way past crazy and I oughta move, go, get out.

Right now!

Dex stood there in the hallway spooked.

Why hadn't they headed for a more heavily trafficked area, instead of these out-of-the-way restrooms?

He could stand to go himself, but the frosted gla.s.s door with BOYS etched on it was dark and foreboding. He would have to snake a hand inside it to turn on the lights.

Why were the lights off anyway?

It was a trap. Gerber Waddell waited inside, knife dripping. If Dex held really still, he could probably hear drops of blood hitting the tile floor.

Besides, what if Tweed emerged, missed him, went off by herself to look for him? She would be attacked for sure, and Dex would live his life knowing that his negligence had led to her death.

No. He would wait here. His bladder could wait too. No matter that it was spooky here and there were far too many shadows oozing up out of the age-old grime where wall met floor. No matter that things gleamed in those shadows.

He had his moves down.

He just needed to be vigilant.

Ah but what if the mad janitor was in the girls' room right now, holding his hand over Tweed's mouth and readying his blade for her throat?

Dex felt like bursting in.

But no. No sound other than a flush came from inside. No scuffles. His ears were attuned to the slightest noise, even imagined ones.

I can't trust my senses, he thought.

But there's stuff you know your mind is making up, and there's no mistaking the real thing when it happens.

Yeah, but by then it'll be too late.

It's the girls' room, he kept telling himself. The girls' room.

No boys allowed.

Only pervies would be interested in sneaking in. And he was no pervy. Dexter Poindexter was a straight arrow, and always would be.

It was good to be a straight arrow in a world that was falling apart. His parents said so. They told him they were proud of him for it.

Just be on the alert, he thought. Be ready to fend off attack, darting out from any doorway or any secret snap-back-able portion of any wall. Steer clear of walls.

And try not to p.i.s.s your G.o.dd.a.m.n pants.

Explain that to the tuxedo rental place.

He laughed. Here his life was in danger, and he was worried about being embarra.s.sed in the face of some dumb-a.s.s clerk.

Dex checked his watch.

What was taking her so long?

Something snapped in the distance. His ears went up. Was it close by? Had it come from the restroom?

20. A White Knight Felled.

Delia Gaskin slipped into her third janitor suit. There were two clean ones left, lying before her on a folding chair in the backways.

The thought of trying to tug a soiled pair of coveralls back on over her legs and up her torso appalled her. The stench of gore-soaked denim, the clammy feel of it as it slid over skin, nearly turned her stomach. At night's end, she would fling them all into the bas.e.m.e.nt furnace. That would happen soon after Gerber Waddell had been thrust into the frenzied ma.s.ses to be scapegoated and futtered.

Ahead of her hung two floating rectangles of light, innerlit jellyfish exhibits in a darkened aquarium. She recognized them as belonging to the ground floor restrooms in the school's northeast sector. Fluorescent light bled out of one-way mirrors above the restroom sinks, casting short swatches of light into back corridors, the wood here gone to mold, dust, and disrepair.

Each restroom was viewable from an alcove, a four-foot recess from the backways to the surface of the mirror. On Delia's first pa.s.s through this area, she had chanced upon a folding chair leaning against the alcove wall, CORUNDUM HIGH SCHOOL stenciled in white on the back.

d.a.m.ned janitor had been a guilty little b.u.g.g.e.r after all, breaking legions of laws by being in the backways for other than upkeep (and precious little of that there had been), w.a.n.king off no doubt to flashes of girlflesh. Delia hadn't yet checked the showers in the girls' gym, but she was willing to bet that Gerber the perv had a peephole and a folding chair there as well.

She turned into the first alcove, hoping for victims. Bingo! Three of them. A girl and a guy going at it hot and heavy, right up against the sinks. And Tweed Megrim, pooching out her lips as she painted them.

Delia gripped the handle of her carving knife. This kill would be easy. A quick swing of the mirror panel and a lunge.

She told herself she ought to wrap things up soon. Have the janitor snuffed, comfort Brest and Trilby, free the rest.

But she liked setting the superior little snots a-scurrying.

She loved to terrify them, reducing smug instructors to fear and quivering, slashing the life out of yet another wretch and watching the river of panicked ants roil and boil and jump its banks, a seethe of insectual panic that empowered her after years of powerlessness and scorn.

She reached for the mirror's catch.

Behind her a voice spoke up.

Or rather it sang.

Delia nearly leaped back in fright. She bit down upon a scream. Blood pounded in her brain. As she turned, she had the wherewithal to conceal the carving knife at her side.

"Wait now," he sang, "just wait now."

There stood Matthew Megrim, history teacher and daddy to the b.i.t.c.h who'd been slated to die tonight. By chance, Delia had spared this man's daughter, though now she was preparing to strike the unlucky girl down in the restroom.

"h.e.l.lo, Mr. Megrim," she said.

All the teachers used first names with each other and with the staff. But the staff, herself included, were expected to use t.i.tles when they addressed the faculty. It made her feel small. Tonight, she felt bigger.

Her greeting sounded a tad sardonic.

"A question," he sang. "I have a question."

Seniors loved this man, whose history lessons were always spontaneous and sung. To Delia, it seemed an affectation.

This sad sack's past had dealt him an unknown blow, one that drove him into this vocal refuge. His singing voice was smooth and beautiful. It would be a shame to silence it, but she clearly had no choice.

He was wary. Would he think she was the designated slasher? For an instant. Then he would realize that a mere nurse had no business in the backways.

In an instant he would run. Or more likely, he would stand and defend his little girl. Either way, she had to regain the advantage.

"Matthew," she said in sultry tones.

"What're you doing back here?" he sang, his notes and rich delivery starting to falter as he registered her words and her manner of speaking.

Her free left hand flew to her s.e.xlobe and s.n.a.t.c.hed off the bag. Her head tilted at a bold come-hither angle.

With thoughts of love did Delia light her eyes. But deep inside, an impulse traveled from head to hand. Her right arm rose, the steel blade as rigid as her guile was soft.

He saw it. Saw what she hid.

Observant b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

The teacher's resolve was swift. He tried to leap at her, to seize her attacking wrist.

But he bobbled. The forbidden sight of the nurse's s.e.xlobe threw him.

It was enough. The honed blade sheared through his moving fingers, no stop, no averting as it swept up to cut where his shoulder met his neck.

They danced a brutal ballet.

His death leap threatened to hurl them both against the mirror. The kids, frightened off by the report, would slip out of her grasp.

She spun their axis about, even as she swept the knife across his throat. He pitched forward and she slithered behind him, gripping his hair, letting go the knife, and yanking him backward with all her might.

Matthew's neckslit grinned open.

But Delia had succeeded in slowing him to a dull soundless thud against the gla.s.s. A gush of blood sheened down his daughter's face as she put the finishing touches on her lips and headed past the necking couple.

A death wheeze burbled from Matthew Megrim's throat: melodic, rhythmic, optimistic even in the grip of excruciating pain. The poor f.u.c.k had once more saved his child, who walked oblivious out of the girls' room, flouncing away from death for the second time this evening.

Delia let his corpse collapse and retrieved the knife from where it had fallen. Not sharp enough for the neckers.

She recovered her blue chiffon lobebag and slipped it back on. From the gym bag lying beside the folding chair she drew a thick rubber mallet. Hefted it. She would stun 'em and drag 'em off to the machine shop for fun and games.

No time to waste.

Kitty b.u.t.tweiler's memory demanded far more honoring. Love by death stolen away could never be regained. But by G.o.d, that love could be revered, and she was determined to revere it.

There was nothing like human skin split widea"down to muscle, organ, bone, and marrowa"to rouse the blood and focus the attention.

Delia unlatched the mirror and swung it open.

The l.u.s.t bunnies, Bowser and Peach, an odd pair, separated their kissy lips and arched back to check out the noise, the cool draft, the sudden disorientation.

Delia reached over the sink, a perfect swing to her arm, and smacked the bare-lobed s.l.u.t first. The fallen Peach pinned her mate, which made it a breeze to lay open his forehead. He fell silent, inert, as she had done before him.

The girl first, then the boy, Delia drew up into the alcove beside the dead teacher. With wraps of twine, she secured their wrists behind their backs.

The going was rough, the way tight.

But foot by foot, Delia dragged them along the backways, fired by thoughts of the machine shop and its possibilities for mayhem.

The restroom door swung shut behind Tweed, a rush, then a catch, slowing a foot from closure.

Dex wasn't there.

Then he emerged from the shadows. She ran to him, let him gather her into a bear hug.

"I was afraid for you," he said.

"Me too, for you," she said. "It was awful."

From the restroom came a boy's voice, lonely, hurt, and anxious. His yelps of pleasure sounded like pain.

Dex tensed.