Dean Koontz - One Door Away From Heaven

THE ALIEN SHAPECHANGER, come to save the world, looked like a nice boy. Although not as dreamy as Haley Joel Osment, he had a sweet face and an appealing sprinkle of freckles.

"In the entire known universe, there are only two species of shapechangers," he earnestly informed her, "and mine is one of them."

"Congratulations," Leilani said.

"Thank you, ma'am."

"Call me Leilani."

He beamed. "Call me. well, you wouldn't be able to pronounce it, considering the way the human tongue works, so just call me Curtis. Anyway, these are also the two most ancient species in the known universe."

"How much of the universe is known?" she asked.

"Some say forty percent, others think closer to sixty."

"Gee, I thought it would be no more than fourteen to sixteen percent. Okay, so are you here to change the world for the better or to pretty much destroy it?"

"Oh, Lord, no, my people aren't destroyers. That's the other species of shapechangers. They're evil, and they seek only to serve entropy. They love chaos, destruction, death."

"So being the two most ancient species. it's sort of like angels and demons."

"More than sort of," he said, with a smile as enigmatic as that of the sun god on the ceiling. "Not to say we're perfect. Good Lord, no. I myself have stolen money, orange juice, frankfurters, and a Mercury Mountaineer, although I hope and intend to make restitution. I have picked locks and entered premises not my own, driven a motor vehicle at night without headlights, failed to wear my seat belt, and lied on numerous occasions, though I'm not lying now."

The funny thing was, she believed him. She didn't know exactly why she believed him, but he seemed credible. Having spent her entire life in the company of deceivers, she'd developed perfect pitch when it came to differentiating the sour notes of lies from the music of the truth. Besides, she'd spent half her life being hauled around in search of ETs, and as bogus as the vast majority of the chased-down reports had proved to be, she had nevertheless been steeped in the concept of otherworldly visitors, and unconsciously she had come to accept that, even if elusive, they were real.

Here she stood face-to-face with a genuine space cadet and, for once, not one born on this world.

"I've come here," the boy said, "because my dog told me you were in great distress and danger."

"This keeps getting better."

Shy, peering out from between Curtis's legs, head slightly bowed and eyes rolled up to gaze at Leilani, the cute mutt slaps its tail against the floor.

"But I'm also here," the boy said, "because you're radiant."

Second by second, Curtis appeared to be more the equal of Haley Joel Osment.

"Do you need help?" he asked.

"God, yes."

"What's wrong?"

Listening to herself, Leilani realized that what she was telling him — and what remained to be told — was nearly as incredible as his declaration of his extraterrestrial origin, and she hoped that he, too, possessed the perfect pitch to separate lies from truth. "My stepfather's a murderer who's going to kill me soon, my druggie mother doesn't care, and I don't have anywhere to go."

"Now you do," said Curtis.

"I do? Where? I'm not too keen on interstellar travel."

From the bedroom at the back of the Fair Wind, with an unfailing instinct for spoiling a good mood, old Sinsemilla called, "LaniLaniLaniLaniLaniLani!" in an ululant squeal. "Come here, hurry! Lani, come, I neeeeeeed you!"

So shrill and eerie was dear Mater's voice that Polly, the Amazon behind Curtis, pulled a gun from her purse and held it with the muzzle pointed at the ceiling, alert and ready.

"Coming!" Leilani shouted, desperate to forestall her mother's appearance. More softly to the alien delegation, she said: "Wait here. I'll handle this. Bullets probably wouldn't work even if they were silver."

Suddenly Leilani was scared, and this wasn't the dull grinding anxiety with which she lived every day of her life, but a fear as sharp as the scalpel with the ruby blade that her mother sometimes used for self-mutilation. She was afraid Sinsemilla would burst out of the bedroom and be among them in a wicked-witch whirl, or pursue them in a shrieking fit, all the stored-up flash of electroshock therapy sizzling back out of her in a fury, and that in an instant she would put an end to all hope — or otherwise get herself shot by an alien blond bombshell, which Leilani didn't want to see happen, either.

She took three swift steps past the foot of the sofabed, and then an amazing thought struck her nearly hard enough to knock her down. Halting, she looked at Cass beyond the window, at Curtis, at Polly behind him, and at Curtis again, before she found the breath to say, "Do you know Lukipela?"

The boy's eyebrows arched. "That's Hawaiian for Satan."

Heart racing, she said, "My brother. That's his name, too. Luki. Do you know him?"

Curtis shook his head. "No. Should I?"

The timely arrival of aliens, even without whirling saucer and levitation beam, ought to be miracle enough. She shouldn't expect to discover that the greatest loss in her hard nine years would prove to be no loss at all. Though she saw divine grace and mercy at work in the world every day, and felt its power, and survived always on the strength she drew from it, she knew that not all suffering would be relieved in this life, for here people had the free will to lift one another but also to smash one another down. Evil was as real as wind and wilier, and Preston Maddoc served it, and all the fervent hope in one girl's heart could not undo what he had done. "LANILANILANILANI! Lani, I neeeeeeed you"

"Wait," she whispered to Curtis Hammond. "Please wait."

She moved as fast as ever her inhibiting left leg had allowed her to move, to the back of the Fair Wind, through the half-open door into the bedroom.

ALONG THE COUNTY ROAD, lush meadows trembled in the wind, but no crop circles or elaborate designs formed in the grass as Preston passed.

The sky lowered steadily, as portentous as those in numerous films about alien contact, but no mother ship materialized out of the ominous clouds.

Preston's quest for a close encounter would not end here in Idaho, as he had hoped. Indeed, he might spend the remaining years of his life traveling in search of that transcendent experience, seeking the affirmation that he believed ETs would give him.

He was patient. And in the meantime, he had useful work — which continued now with the Hand.

Aware that the clock was ticking off her last days, the Hand had begun to seek a way out of her trap. She had developed an unexpected bond with the Slut Queen and the ditzy aunt, had extracted the knife in her mattress only to find Tetsy's penguin, and had then developed strategies to fight or evade Preston when he came for her.

He knew all this because he could read her journal.

The coded shorthand that she had invented for her writings was clever, especially for one so young. If she had been dealing with someone other than Preston Maddoc, her secrets would not have been plumbed.

Being a highly respected intellectual with friends and admirers in many academic disciplines, in several major universities, he had connected with a mathematician named Trevor Kingsley, who specialized in cryptography. More than a year ago, that codemaker— and breaker — had employed sophisticated encryption-analysis software to decipher the Hand's journal.

Having been provided with a transcription of one full page from the journal, Trevor expected to get the job done in fifteen minutes, because that was the average time required to crack any simple code devised by anyone lacking significant education in various branches of higher mathematics; by comparison, more ingeniously composed systems of encryption required days, weeks, even months to penetrate. Instead of fifteen minutes, using his best software, Trevor required twenty-six, which impressed him; he wanted to know the codemaker's identity.