“Please don’t point the gun at me.”
“I’m sorry,” he pointed the gun at his own head instead.
“Morris! Don’t!” she screamed.
He let his arm drop.
“I told you. It’ll be okay.” she assured him, “You’re his father,
Morris. The biology isn’t important. We’ll say he’s adopted. I love
you. And so does he.”
Morris lovingly reached out his arms and started to walk towards
her. He forgot the gun was still in his hand.
Roy could hold his breath no longer. Like a kingfisher in reverse,
he emerged out of the sea and into the air, hurling the heavy antique
gun at the exposed temple of his enemy. Morris fell backwards to the
ground.
Roy jumped out of the pool and snatched the other gun from a
spot next to the dazed Bidden. He called out to the bodyguards
waiting in the wings, “Throw them down or he’s dead.” But before
they could oblige, Roy dropped his own weapon on the grass.
A gurgle from the infant made him turn his head. Ellie was
stretched out luxuriantly on the grass, arms raised sensually above
her head. Blood pumped from her breast onto the baby, dappled and
dizzy in his mother’s own luxuriant nectar.
In an instant Roy was wet with her spirit as well. He held her
head as she shook. She parted her lips, trying to speak.
“What is it my darling?” he cried.
“Roy. The baby…” she whispered.
“Yes, the baby. Our baby. Don’t worry. You’re not going to die,
Ellie.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Listen to me. I won’t let you die.”
“No,” she groaned, “I mean, about the baby.”
Roy shook his head.
She brought her head close to his and whispered, “It’s not yours.”
She tried to smile some echo of an apology, but the clench of her jaw
made it impossible.
Roy saw her pupils dilate, revealing the distorted reflection of his
own face in a curved lake of spreading darkness. Bidden bashed the
back of his head with the butt of the other gun and he fell upon Ellie,
squeezing a final moan from her chest, a faraway echo of all the
others he had fought to conjure.
ABYSSINIA
112
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