Dean Koontz - The Servants of Twilight

Sandy had told him that the woman and the boy were all right, and of course he believed Sandy, but his stomach finally unknotted only now that he saw them with his own eyes. The wave of relief that washed through him was a physical and not just emotional force, and he was reminded-though he didn't need reminding-of just how important these two people had become to him in such a short period of time.

They were a miserable-looking group, pretty much dried out by now, but rumpled and mud-streaked, hair lank and matted.

Max and Sandy looked rough, angry, and dangerous, the kind of men who cleared out a bar just by walking into it.

It was a tribute to Christine's beauty, and an indication of its depth, that she looked almost as good now as when she was scrubbed and fresh and neatly groomed. Charlie remembered how it had felt to hold her, last night in the kitchen of Miriam Rankin's little house, just before he'd gone home, and he wanted to hold her again, felt a warm melting need to hold her, but in front of his men he could do nothing but put Joey down, take her hand in both of his, and say, "Thank God you're all right."

Her lower lip quivered. For a moment she looked as if she would lean against him and cry. But she kept control of herself and said, "I keep telling myself it's just a nightmare. but I can't wake up."

Max said, "We ought to get them out of here now, out of Laguna."

"I agree," Charlie said." I'll take them right now, in my car.

After we've left, you two call the office, tell Sherry where you are, and have a car sent out. Go back up the hill to Miriam's house-"

"There's not anything left of it," Sandy said.

"That was one hell of a blast," Max confirmed." The van mustve been packed wall to wall with explosives."

"There might not be anything left of the house," Charlie said, "but the cops and fire department are still up there. Sherry's been checking into it with the Laguna Beach police, and I talked with heron the phone, coming down here. Report to the cops, help them any way you can, and find out what they've come up with."

"Did they find the guy in the alley, the one I shot?" Max asked.

"Nope," Charlie said." He got away."

"He'd have tove crawled. I shot him in the leg."

"Then he crawled," Charlie said." Or there was a third man around who helped him escape."

"Third?" Sandy said.

"Yeah," Charlie said." Sherry says the second man stayed with the van all the way into the house."

"Jesus."

"They are kamikazes," Christine said shakily.

"There mustn't have been anything left of him but a lot of little pieces," Max said and would have said more, but Charlie stopped him by nodding toward the boy, who was listening, mouth agape.

They were silent, contemplating the van driver's violent demise. The rain on the roof was like the solemn drums in a funeral cortege.

Then the mechanic switched on a power wrench, and all of them jumped at the sudden, clangorous noise.

When the mechanic switched the wrench off, Charlie looked at Christine and said, "Okay, let's get out of here."

Suspiciously studying everything that moved in the rainbattered day, Max and Sandy accompanied them to the gray Mercedes in front of the service station. Christine sat up front with Charlie, and Joey got in back with Chewbacca.

Sitting behind the steering wheel, speaking to Sandy and Max through the open window, Charlie said, "You did a damned fine job." "Almost lost them," Sandy said, turning aside the praise.

"Point is-you didn't," Charlie said." And you're safe, too."

If another of his men had died so soon after the deaths of Pete and Frank, he wasn't sure how he could have handled it. From here on, only he would know where Christine and Joey were.

His men would be working on the case, trying to link the Church of the Twilight to these murders and attempted murders, but only he would know the whereabouts of their clients until Grace Spivey was somehow stopped.

That way, the old woman's spies wouldn't be able to find Christine and Joey, and Charlie wouldn't have to worry about losing another man. His own life was the only one he would be risking.

He put up his window, locked all the doors with the master switch, and drove away from the service station.

Laguna was actually a lovely, warm, clean, vital beach town, but today it seemed drab, cloaked in rain and gray mist and mud. It made Charlie think of graveyards, and it seemed to close in around them like the descending lid of a coffin. He breathed a bit easier when they were out of town, heading north on the Pacific Coast Highway.

Christine turned and looked at Joey, who was sitting quietly in the back of the car. Brandy. no, Chewbacca was lying on the seat, his big furry head in the boy's lap. Joey was listlessly petting the dog and staring out the window at the ocean, which was choppy and wind-tossed in front of a dense wall of ash-gray fog moving shoreward from half a mile out. His face was almost expressionless, almost blank, but not quite. There was a subtle expression, something she had never seen on his face before, and she couldn't read it. What was he thinking? Feeling? She had already asked him twice if he was all right, and he had said he was. She didn't want to nag him, but she was worried.

She wasn't merely concerned about his physical safety, although that fear gnawed at her. She was also worried about his mental condition. If he did survive Grace Spivey's demented crusade against him, what emotional scars would he carry with him for the rest of his life? It was impossible that he would come through these experiences unmarked.

There would have to be psychological consequences.

Now he continued to stroke the dog's head but in a hypnotic fashion, as if not fully aware that the animal was there with him, and he stared at the ocean beyond the window.

Charlie said, "The police want me to bring you in for more questioning

" "The hell with them," Christine said.

"They're more inclined to help now-"

"It took all these deaths to get their attention."

"Don't write them off. Sure, we'll do a betterjob of protecting you than they can, and we might turn up something that'll help them nail Grace Spivey for all this. But now that they've got a homicide investigation under way, they'll do most of the work leading up to the indictments and convictions. They'll be the ones to stop her."

"I don't trust the cops," she said flatly." Spivey probably has people planted there."

"She can't have infiltrated every police force in the country.

She doesn't have that many followers."

"Not every police force," Christine said." Just those in the towns where she carries on her fund raising and seeks out her converts."

"The Laguna Beach police want to talk to you, too, of course, about what happened this morning."

"To hell with them, too. Even if none of them belongs to the Church of the TWilight, Spivey might be expecting me to show up at police headquarters; she might have people watching, waiting to cut us down the minute we step out of the car." She had a sudden terrible thought and said: "You're not taking us to any police station, are you?"

"No," he said." I only said they want to talk to you. I didn't say I thought it was a good idea."

She sagged back against the seat." Are there any good ideas?"

"Got to keep your chin up."

"I mean, what're we going to do now? We have no clothes, nothing but what we've got on our backs. My purse and credit cards. That's not much. We've got nowhere to stay. We don't dare go to our friends or anywhere else we're known. They've got us on the run like a couple of wild animals."

"It's not quite that bad," he said." Hunted animals don't have the luxury of fleeing in a Mercedes Benz."

She appreciated his attempt to make her smile, but she couldn't find the will to do so.