Dean Koontz - The Servants of Twilight

Seven months ago, Sandy's wife, Maryann, had given birth to a boy. Troy Franklin Breckenstein. Sandy hoped his son would turn out to be as well-behaved as Joey Scavello.

Then he thought: If I'm going to wish for anything, maybe I'd better wish that I live long enough to see Troy grow up, whether or not he's well-behaved.

When fifteen minutes had passed, Sandy returned to the sales room out front, went to the phone by the candy machine, and called Sherry Ordway at HQ. She had beeped Charlie on his telepage, but he hadn't yet called in.

The rain bounced off the macadam in front of the station, and the street began to disappear under a deep puddle, and the pump jockey finished another tire, and Sandy was jumpier than ever when he called the office a third time.

Sherry said, "Charlie's at the police lab with Henry Rankin, trying to find out if forensics discovered anything about those bodies at the Scavello house that would help him tie them to Grace Spivey."

"That sounds like a long shot."

"I guess it's the best he has," Sherry said.

That was more bad news.

She gave him the number where Charlie could be reached, and he jotted it down in a small notebook he carried.

He dialed the forensics lab, asked for Charlie, and had him on the line right away. He told him about the attack on Miriam Rankin's house, laying it out in more detail than he'd given Sherry Ordway.

Charlie had heard the worst of it from Sherry, but he still sounded shocked and dismayed by how quickly Spivey had located the Scavellos.

"They're both all right?" he asked.

"Dirty and wet, but unhurt," Sandy assured him.

"So we've got a turncoat among us," Charlie said.

"Looks that way. Unless you were followed when you left their house last night."

"I'm sure we weren't. But maybe the car we used had a bug on it."

" Could be."

"But probably not," Charlie said." I hate to admit it, but we've probably got a mole in our operation. Where are you calling from?"

Instead of telling him, Sandy said, "Is Henry Rankin with you? "

"Yeah. Right here. Why? You want to talk to him?"

"No. I just want to know if he can hear this."

"Not your side of it."

"If I tell you where we are, it's got to stay with you. Only you,"

Sandy said. He quickly added: "It's not that I have reason to suspect Henry of being Spivey's plant. I don't. I trust Henry more than most.

The point is, I don't really trust anyone but you. You, me-and Max, because if it was Max, he'd already have snuffed the kid."

"If we do have a bad apple," Charlie said, "it's most likely a secretary or bookkeeper or something like that."

"I know," Sandy said." But I've got a responsibility to the woman and the kid. And my own life's on the line here, too, as long as I'm with them."

"Tell me where you are," Charlie said." I'll keep it to myself, and I'll come alone."

Sandy told him.

"This weather. better give me forty-five minutes," Charlie said.

"We're not going anywhere," Sandy said.

He hung up and went out to the garage to be with the others.

When the rains had first come, yesterday evening, there had been a brief period of lightning, but none in the past twelve hours. Most California storms were much quieter than those in other parts of the country. Lightning was not a common accompaniment of the rains here, and wildly violent electrical storms were rare. But now, with its hills grown dangerously soggy and with the threat of mudslides at hand, with its streets awash, with its coastline hammered by wind-whipped waves almost twice as high as usual, Laguna Beach was suddenly assaulted by fierce bolts of lightning as well. With a crash of accompanying thunder that shook the walls of the building, a cataclysmic bolt stabbed to earth somewhere nearby, and the gray day was briefly, flickeringly bright. With strobelike effect, the light pulsed through the open doors of the garage and through the dirty high-set windows, bringing a moment of frenzied life to the shadows, which twisted and danced for a second or two. Another bolt quickly followed with an even harder clap of thunder, and loose windows rattled in their frames, and then a third bolt smashed down, and the wet macadam in front of the station glistened and flashed with scintillant reflections of nature's bright anger.

Joey had drifted away from his mother, toward the open doors of the garage bays. He winced at the crashes of thunder that followed each lightning strike, but he seemed pretty much unafraid. When the skies calmed for a moment, he looked back at his mother and said, "Wow! God's fireworks, huh, Mom? Isn't that what you said it is?"

"God's fireworks," Christine agreed." Better get away from there."

Another bolt arced across the sky, and the day outside seemed to leap as the murderous current jolted through it. This one was worse than all the others, and the blast from it not only rattled windows and made the walls tremble, but seemed to shake the ground as well, and Sandy even felt it in his teeth.

"Wow!" the boy said.

"Honey, get away from that open door," Christine said.

The boy didn't move, and in the next instant he was silhouetted by a chain of lightning strikes far brighter and more violent than anything yet, so dazzling and shocking in their power that the pump jockey was startled enough to drop a lug wrench. The dog whimpered and tried to hide under the tool rack, and Christine scurried to Joey, grabbed him, and brought him back from the open doorway.

"Aw, Mom, it's pretty," he said.

Sandy tried to imagine what it would be like to be young again, so young that you hadn't yet realized how much there was to fear in this world, so young that the word "cancer" had no definition, so young that you hadn't any real grip on the meaning of death or the inevitability of taxes or the horror of nuclear war or the treacherous nature of the clot-prone human circulatory system. What would it be like to be that young again, so young that you could watch storm lightning with delight, unaware that it might find its way to you and fry your brains in one tenthousandth of a second? Sandy stared at Joey Scavello and frowned.

He felt old, only thirty-two but terribly old.

What bothered him was that he couldn't remember ever having been that young and free of fear, though surely he had been just as innocent of death when he was six. They said that animals lived their lives with no sense of mortality, and it seemed terribly unjust that men didn't have the same luxury. Human beings couldn't escape the knowledge of their death; consciously or subconsciously, it was with them every hour of every day. If Sandy could have had a word with this religious fanatic, this Grace Spivey, he would have wanted to know how she could have such faith in-and devotion for-a God who created human beings only to let them die by one horrible means or another.

He sighed. He was getting morbid, and that wasn't like him.

At this rate he would need more than his usual bottle of beer before bed tonight-like a dozen bottles. Still. he would like to ask Grace Spivey that question.

Shortly before noon, Charlie arrived in Laguna Beach, where he found Sandy, Max, Christine, Joey and the dog waiting for him in the service station.

Joey ran to him, met him just inside the garage doors, shouting, "Hey, Charlie, you shoulda seen the house go boom, just like in a war movie or somethin'! "

Charlie scooped him up and held him." I expected you to be mad at us for slipping up. I thought you'd insist on hiring Magnum again."

"Heck, no," the boy said." Your guys were great. Anyway, how could you've known it was gonna turn into a war movie?"

How indeed?

Charlie carried Joey to the rear of the garage, where the others stood in the shadows between shelves of spare parts and stacks of tires.