City of Night

at least partly responsible for his death, so on the very day of my creation, I was in violation of my program. My program is flawed. If my program is flawed, what else might I do that I’m not supposed to do, what else, what else, what else?”
    Carson glanced at Michael.
    He had been leaning casually against the counter by the cooktop. He was standing tall now, his hands hanging loose at his sides.
    “Pastor Kenny,” Lulana said, taking one of his hands in both of hers, “you’ve been under a terrible stress, tryin’ to raise funds for the church remodel on top of all your other duties—”
    “—five weddings in one month,” Evangeline added. Holding the Mason jar with an oven mitt, she poured warm milk into a glass. “And three funerals besides.”
    Carson eased her chair back from the table as Lulana said, “And all of this work you’ve had to do without the comfort of a wife. It’s no surprise you’re exhausted and distressed.”
    Spooning sugar into the milk, Evangeline said, “Our own Uncle Absalom worked himself to the bone without the comfort of a wife, and one day he started seeing fairies.”
    “By which she means not homosexuals,” Lulana assured Laffite, “but the little creatures with wings.”
    Carson rose from her chair and took a step away from the table as Evangeline, adding several drops of vanilla extract to the milk, said, “Seeing fairies was nothing to be ashamed about. Uncle Absalom just needed some rest, some tender care, and he was fine, never saw fairies again.”
    “I’m not supposed to kill people, but by the very fact of my existence, I killed Kenny Laffite,” said Kenny Laffite, “and I really want to kill more.”
    “That’s just weariness talking,” Lulana assured him, and patted his hand. “Crazy weariness, that’s all, Pastor Kenny. You don’t want to kill anyone.”
    “I do,” he disagreed. He closed his eyes and hung his head. “And now if my program is flawed, maybe I will. I want to kill all of you, and maybe I will.”
    Michael blocked Evangeline from carrying the glass of milk to the table.
    Executing a smooth cross-body draw of the Desert Eagle from the scabbard on her left hip, gripping it in two hands, Carson said, “Lulana, you said when we first came that you stopped by to bring Pastor Laffite two pies.”
    Lulana’s molasses-brown eyes were huge and focused on the golden gun. “Carson O’Connor, this is an overreaction not worthy of you. This poor—”
    “Lulana,” Carson interrupted with the slightest edge in her voice, “why don’t you get one of those pies out of the refrigerator and cut some for all of us.”
    With his head still hung, with his chin on his chest and eyes closed, Laffite said, “My program’s breaking down. I can feel it happening… sort of a slow-motion stroke. Lines of installed code falling out, falling off, like a long row of electrified birds dropping off a power line.”
    Evangeline Antoine said, “Sister, maybe that pie would be a good idea.”
    As Lulana, on further consideration, pushed her chair away from the table and got to her feet, Michael’s cell phone rang.
    Laffite raised his head but did not open his eyes. The rapid eye movement behind his closed lids was that of a man experiencing vivid dreams.
    Michael’s phone rang again, and Carson said, “Don’t let it go to voice mail.”
    As Lulana moved not toward the refrigerator but instead toward her sister and out of the line of fire, Laffite said, “How odd that this should be happening to an Alpha.”
    Carson heard Michael giving the address of the parsonage to the caller.
    As his eyes continued to roll and twitch under his lids, Laffite said, “ ‘The thing which I greatly feared is come upon me.’”
    “Job three, verse twenty-five,” said Lulana.
    “ ‘Fear came upon me,’” Laffite continued, “ ‘and trembling, which made all my bones to shake.’”
    “Job four, verse fourteen,” said Evangeline.
    To reach either the door to the back porch or the door to the hallway, the sisters would have had to pass into the line of fire. They huddled together in the safest corner of the kitchen that they could find.
    Having concluded his phone call, Michael positioned himself to Carson’s left, between Laffite and the sisters, his own .50 Magnum in a two-hand grip.
    “ ‘Gather me the people together,’” said Laffite, “ ‘and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they shall live