Dean Koontz - City of Night

Lulana first thought that they had almost intruded on Pastor Kenny in the act of offering consolation to a remorseful or even bereaved member of his flock.

Then the eerie cry came again, and through the screen door, Lulana glimpsed a wailing figure erupt from the living-room archway into the downstairs hall. In spite of the shadows, she could discern that the tormented man was not an anguished sinner or a grieving parishioner but was the minister himself.

“Pastor Kenny?” said Evangeline.

Drawn by his name, the churchman hurried along the hall, toward them, flailing at the air as if batting away mosquitoes.

He did not open the door to them, but peered through the screen with the expression of a man who had seen, and only moments ago fled, the devil.

“I did it, didn’t I?” he said, breathless and anguished. “Yes. Yes, I did. I did it just by being. Just by being, I did it. Just by being Pastor Kenny Laffite, I did it, I did. I did it, I did.”

Something about the rhythm and repetition of his words reminded Lulana of those children’s books by Dr. Seuss, with which she had felt afflicted as a child. “Pastor Kenny, what’s wrong?”

After a moment of consideration, Lulana said, “Sister, I believe we are needed here.”

Evangeline said, “I have no doubt of it, dear.”

Although uninvited, Lulana opened the screen door, entered the parsonage, and held the door for her sister.

From the back of the house came the minister’s voice: “What will I do? What, what will I do? Anything, anything — that’s what I’ll do.”

As squat and sturdy as a tugboat, her formidable bosom cleaving air like a prow cleaves water, Lulana sailed along the hallway, and Evangeline, like a stately tall-masted ship, followed in her wake.

In the kitchen, the minister stood at the sink, vigorously washing his hands. “Thou shall not, shall not, shall not , but I did. Shall not , but did.”

Lulana opened the refrigerator and found room for both pies. “Evangeline, we have more nervous here than God made grass. Maybe it won’t be needed, but best have some warm milk ready.”

“You leave that to me, dear.”

“Thank you, sister.”

Clouds of steam rose from the sink. Lulana saw that under the rushing water, the minister’s hands were fiery red.

“Pastor Kenny, you’re about to half scald yourself.”

“Just by being, I am. I am what I am. I am what I did. I did it, I did.”

The faucet was so hot that Lulana had to wrap a dishtowel around her hand to turn it off.

Pastor Kenny tried to turn it on again.

She gently slapped his hand, as she might affectionately warn a child not to repeat a misbehavior. “Now, Pastor Kenny, you dry off and come sit at the table.”

Without using the towel, the minister turned from the sink but also away from the table. On wobbly legs, drizzling water from his red hands, he headed toward the refrigerator.

He wailed and groaned, as they first heard him when they had been standing on the front porch.

Beside the refrigerator, a knife rack hung on the wall. Lulana believed Pastor Kenny to be a good man, a man of God, and she had no fear of him, but under the circumstances, it seemed a good idea to steer him away from knives.

With a wad of paper towels, Evangeline followed them, mopping the water off the floor.

Taking the minister by one arm, guiding him as best she could, Lulana said, “Pastor Kenny, you’re much distressed, you’re altogether beside yourself. You need to sit down and let out some nervous, let in some peace.”

Although he appeared to be so stricken that he could hardly stay on his feet, the minister circled the table with her once and then half again before she could get him into a chair.

He sobbed but didn’t weep. This was terror, not grief.

Already, Evangeline had found a large pot, which she filled with hot water at the sink.

The minister fisted his hands against his chest, rocked back and forth in his chair, his voice wrenched by misery. “So sudden, all of a sudden, I realized just what I am, what I did, what trouble I’m in, such trouble .”

“We’re here now, Pastor Kenny. When you share your troubles, they weigh less on you. You share them with me and Evangeline, and your troubles will weigh a third of what they do now.”

Evangeline had put the pot of water on the cooktop and turned up the gas flame. Now she got a carton of milk from the refrigerator.

“You share your troubles with God, why, then they just float off your shoulders, no weight to them at all. Surely I don’t need to tell you, of all people, how they’ll float.”

Having unclenched his hands and raised them before his face, he stared at them in horror. “Thou shall not, shall not, not, not, NOT! ”

His breath did not smell of alcohol. She was loath to think that he might have inhaled something less wholesome than God’s sweet air, but if the reverend was a cokehead, she supposed it was better to find out now than after Esther’s teeth were fixed and the courtship had begun.

“We’re given more shalls than shall-nots,” Lulana said, striving to break through to him. “But there are enough shall-nots that I need you to be more specific. Shall not what, Pastor Kenny?”

“Kill,” he said, and shuddered.

Lulana looked at her sister. Evangeline, milk carton in hand, raised her eyebrows.

“I did it, I did it. I did it, I did.”

“Pastor Kenny,” Lulana said, “I know you to be a gentle man, and kind. Whatever you think you’ve done, I’m sure it’s not so terrible as you believe.”

He lowered his hands. At last he looked at her. “I killed him.”

“Who would that be?” Lulana asked.

“I never had a chance,” the troubled man whispered. “He never had a chance. Neither of us had a chance.”

Evangeline found a Mason jar into which she began to pour the milk from the carton.

“He’s dead,” said the minister.

“Who?” Lulana persisted.

“He’s dead, and I’m dead. I was dead from the start.”

In Lulana’s cell phone were stored the many numbers of a large family, plus those of an even larger family of friends. Although Mr. Aubrey — Aubrey Picou, her employer — had been finding his way to redemption faster than he realized (if slower than Lulana wished), he nonetheless remained a man with a scaly past that might one day snap back and bite him; therefore, in her directory were the office, mobile, and home numbers for Michael Maddison, in case Mr. Aubrey ever needed a policeman to give him a fair hearing. Now she keyed in Michael’s name, got his cell number, and called it.

In the windowless Victorian drawing room beyond the two vault doors, Erika circled the immense glass case, studying every detail. At first it had resembled a big jewel box, which it still did; but now it also seemed like a coffin, though an oversized and highly unconventional one.

She had no reason to believe that it contained a body. At the center of the case, the shape shrouded by the amber liquid — or gas — had no discernible limbs or features. It was just a dark mass without detail; it might have been anything.

If the case in fact contained a body, the specimen was large: about seven and a half feet long, more than three feet wide.

She examined the ornate ormolu frame under which the panels of glass were joined, searching for seams that might indicate concealed hinges. She could not find any. If the top of the box was a lid, it operated on some principle that eluded her.

When she rapped a knuckle against the glass, the sound suggested a thickness of at least one inch.

She noticed that under the glass, directly below the spot where her knuckle struck it, the amberness — whatever its nature — dimpled as water dimples when a stone drops into it. The dimple bloomed sapphire blue, resolved into a ring, and receded across the surface; the amber hue was reestablished in its wake.