Dean Koontz - One Door Away From Heaven

Perhaps they realize that he's using their own rope to tie their hands, so to speak, because he's previously denied being ET royalty, but this strategy nevertheless flummoxes them. They continue to be in such awe of his off-world origins and so thrilled to be a part of his mission that they can't long resist him. As much as they might like to deal with him sometimes as the sovereign majesty of a far planet and sometimes as just a ten-year-old boy, they cannot have it both ways. Realizing this, they beam megadata at each other with one of their Spelkenfelter glances, sigh prettily, as only they can sigh, and prepare to provide him with an armed escort.

Although they would prefer that Curtis remain indoors, they reveal a quiet enthusiasm at the prospect of accompanying him now that he's pulled rank on them. After all, as they themselves have said, they are girls who like adventure.

They are dressed this afternoon in carved-leather cowboy boots, blue jeans, and blue-checkered Western shirts with bolo ties. This seems to be a suitable costume for bodyguards, though it lacks the dazzle of low-cut toreador pants, halter tops, and navel opals.

Each of the twins slings a purse over her right shoulder. Each purse contains a 9-mm pistol.

"You stay between us, sweetie," Polly cautions Curtis, which seems an odd form of address if she insists on viewing him as alien royalty, though he sure likes it.

Cass leaves the Fleetwood first, keeping her right hand inside the purse that is slung over her shoulder.

Sister-become follows Cass. Curtis follows the dog, and Polly comes last, right hand firmly on the pistol in her purse, too.

At only a few minutes past three o'clock on a summer afternoon, the day looks more like a winter twilight, and in spite of the warm air, the gray light imposes a chilly impression on everything that it touches, emphasizing the trace of frosty silver in each evergreen needle, plating the lake with a mirage of ice.

Outside, Old Yeller assumes the lead, following her previous route to the juggernaut, though with no pee stops this time.

Few campers are out and about. Having finished battening down for the storm, most are inside.

The radiant girl hasn't returned to the front of the motor home. Curtis can see nothing more than a dim light farther back in the big vehicle, filtered by the tinted windshield, and reflections of pine branches and sullen clouds on the surface of the glass.

Cass intends to knock on the door, but Curtis halts her with a softly spoken "No."

As before, the dog senses not only that a vicious beast of the human variety frequents this motor home, but also that it is, as before, not in residence at this time. Once more, she detects two presences, the first producing both the bitter odor of a soul in despair and the pheromonal stench of a spirit profoundly corrupted. The second is one who, having so long endured fear, is steeped in chronic anxiety, although utterly free of despair.

Curtis infers that the fear-troubled heart is that of the girl whom earlier he saw through the windshield.

The corrupted presence is so unappealing that the dog skins her teeth back from her lips, producing an expression as close to one of disgust as the form of her face allows. If sister-become could pucker her muzzle sufficiently to spit, she would do so.

Curtis can't be certain if the object of this disgust poses a threat. Perhaps it is revealing, however, that this person seems not to be troubled by any of the fear that is a yoke upon the girl.

While the twins, bracketing him, keep a watch on the surrounding campground, Curtis places both hands on the door of the motor home. On the micro level, where will can prevail over matter, he senses a low-voltage electrical circuit and recognizes that it is similar to the alarm-system circuit on the Fleetwood, which the twins engage each night.

Every circuit has a switch. The low-voltage flow is energy, but the switch is mechanical and therefore vulnerable to the power of the will. Curtis has a strong will. The alarm is engaged — and then not.

The door is securely locked. And then unlocked. Quietly, he opens it and peers into the cockpit, which is deserted.

Two steps up, and in.

He hears one of the twins hiss in disapproval, but he doesn't turn back.

A single lamp lights the lounge. One of the sofas has been folded out to form a bed.

She is sitting on the bed, writing rapidly in a journal. One leg is bent, the other stuck straight out in the grip of a steel brace.

The radiant girl.

Intently focused on her composition, she doesn't hear the door open and doesn't at first realize that someone has entered and is standing at the head of the steps.

Sister-become follows Curtis, pushes halfway between his legs to get a clear look at this steel-braced vision.

This movement attracts the girl's attention, and she looks up.

Curtis says, "You shine."

AFTER REVERSING the Camaro into the cover of the trees, Micky stood for a while, leaning against the car, watching the turnoff to the Teelroy farm from a distance of about seventy yards. Three vehicles passed during the next ten minutes, giving her a chance to determine that from this far away she wouldn't be able to discern if Maddoc had come alone in the Durango, even if she could positively identify the vehicle itself. She moved fifty yards farther west.

Less than twenty minutes later, positioned behind a tree, she saw the Durango approaching from the direction of Nun's Lake. When the SUV slowed for the right turn into the Teelroy driveway, Micky could see that the driver was alone: Preston Maddoc.

She hurried east, back the way that she had come, and took up a new position in the shelter of a pine near the Camaro. From here, she couldn't see the front porch of the farmhouse clearly enough to watch Leonard Teelroy greet Maddoc. She was able to see the parked Durango, however; and when it began to move again, she would have time to get into her car, ease out from among the trees, and follow him back to Nun's Lake at such a distance that she wouldn't raise his suspicion.

Her irrational hope had been that he might bring Leilani with him, in which case she would have crept to the farmhouse with the intention of disabling the Durango and with the hope that in the subsequent confusion, she might have an opportunity to spirit the girl away, before Maddoc could know that she had gone.

The irrational hope had not been fulfilled. She could choose between waiting here to follow Maddoc or returning to Nun's Lake to inquire after him — or Jordan Banks — at all three campgrounds.

She feared that if she returned to town, she might not receive accurate information at the campground offices. Or Maddoc could have used a name that she didn't know. Or perhaps he never registered his motor home at any campground, but temporarily parked it in a public place, having no intention of staying in this place overnight. Then, as she went from one registration clerk to the next, in search of him, he might cut short his pursuit of extraterrestrials at the Teelroy farm, hook the Durango to the Prevost, and hit the highway. Returning to Nun's Lake ahead of Maddoc, Micky risked losing him, and even if the risk might be small, she didn't intend to take it.

Given her own brief encounter with Leonard Teelroy, Micky didn't expect Maddoc to spend much time with him. Teelroy was an eccentric, a transparent fraud looking to make a buck, and more than a few slices short of a full loaf. His tale of alien healers wasn't likely to beguile the doom doctor for any length of time, regardless of what had motivated Maddoc to start following the UFO trail more than four and a half years ago.

Yet five minutes passed, then five more, and the SUV remained at the farmhouse.