Dean Koontz - By the Light of the Moon

Although the night could not possibly be redolent of anything more exotic than the astringent alkaline breath of the Sonoran desert and the exhaust fumes of passing vehicles, the atmosphere between Jilly and the two O'Conners nevertheless appeared to thicken with a thin haze of incense. This enwrapping spicy perfume – cloves, myrrh, olibanum – was no longer a mere memory of fragrance; it had become as real and as true to this moment as were the star-shot sky above her and the loose gravel of the highway shoulder under her feet. In the cloistered interior of the Expedition, the fine particles of aromatic smoke in the gauzy air refracted and reflected the ceiling light, painting blue and gold aureoles around the O'Conners, until she might have sworn that the two brothers, rather than the small lamp above them, were radiant.

In this tableau, she would have expected Dylan to fulfill the role of priest, for of the two, Shepherd seemed to be the lost soul. But Dylan's expression and posture were those of a penitent, while Shep's blank stare appeared to be not empty but contemplative. As the younger brother began to nod slowly, rhythmically, he acquired the gracious aspect of a cassocked padre spiritually empowered to grant absolution. Jilly sensed that this unexpected reversal of roles revealed a truth of deep significance, but she could not grasp what it might be, and she could not understand why the subtleties of the relationship between these two men should be of such intense interest to her or should, in fact, impress her as being key to her salvation from her current circumstances.

Strangeness upon strangeness: She heard the sweet silvery laughter of children, although no children were present, and immediately as these musical peals of merriment arose, a flutter of wings soared after them. Surveying the vault of stars, she glimpsed no birds silhouetted against the constellations, yet the turbulence of wings increased and with it the laughter, until she rose to her feet and turned slowly around, around, in bafflement, wonderment.

Jilly knew no word to describe the extraordinary experience unfolding for her, but hallucination didn't seem to be applicable. These sounds and scents had neither the dreamlike insubstantiality nor the hyperrealistic intensity that she might have expected of hallucinations, but were of a vividness precisely matched to the elements of the night that she knew to be real: neither more nor less resonant than the grumble and swish of passing traffic, neither more nor less sweet-smelling than the traffic fumes were odorous.

Still turning to the encircling sound of wings, she saw tiers of candles in the desert south of her position, perhaps twenty feet beyond the guardrail. At least a double score of votive candles, racked in small ruby glasses, jeweled the darkness.

If this was dreamlight, it played on reality with a remarkable respect for the laws of physics. The metal rack stood at the foot of a smooth dune, among scattered clumps of struggling sage, casting a precise and accurate shadow made possible by the bright votives that it supported. Prowling chimeras of reflected fire shook their lions' manes and wriggled their serpents' tails across the sand, while the silvery-green leaves of the vegetation lapped at the wine-red light, glistening as though they were tongues savoring a crimson zinfandel. The illumination didn't imprint irrationally on the landscape, as the supernatural radiance of a vision might have been splashed in gaudy disregard for reason, but integrated logically with every element of the scene.

Also to the south but a few yards east of the candles and even closer to the guardrail, a single pew stood in want of a church, and if it faced a sanctuary and a high altar, both remained invisible. One end of this long wooden bench was buried in the slope of a dune; a woman in a dark dress anchored the other end.

This very vista, without pew and candles, had in distant times known the thunder of wild horses; and now Jilly's heart galloped with a sound that seemed to be as loud as hooves pounding across a desert plain. Her flop sweat had become an even icier perspiration than any she had known in failure on a stage, and instead of a mere dread of humiliation, she had been seized by the fear that she might be losing her mind.

The woman in the blue or black dress, perched upon the pew, wore her raven hair to the small of her back. In respect of God, a white lace mantilla draped her head, and incidentally hung forward along the side of her face, concealing her features. Lost in her prayers, she seemed to be oblivious of Jilly and to be unaware that her house of worship had disappeared around her.

Always the air was battered by wings, even louder than before, and ever closer, so that Jilly could clearly identify the particular feathery flutter of pinions and thus be certain that she heard birds rather than the leathery flight of bats. So close they swooped, with an air-cutting thrum and the eerie whisklike sound of wing vanes spreading, folding, spreading like the ribs of a Japanese fan, and yet she couldn't see them.

She turned, turned, she turned in search of birds, until before her once more stood the open door of the SUV, beyond which Dylan and Shep were still elevated on the seat of the false confessional, as radiant as apparitions. Dylan remained unaware of Jilly's encounter with the uncanny, as disconnected from her as his younger brother was perhaps forever lost to him, and she could not call his attention to the candles or to the worshiping woman because fear had stolen her voice, had nearly robbed her of breath, as well. The squall of wings became a storm, more tempestuous by the second, a spiraling rataplan that rapped all the way through her and drummed upon her bones. These sounds, hard as ratcheting gears, turned her, turned her, as did the whirlwind stirred by the ghostly wings, a turbulence that tossed her hair and buffeted her face, until she rotated again to the sight of the votive candles and to the penitent on the pew.

Flash , a pale something flared before her face, followed at once by a brighter flash, by a feathery flicker as luminous as a lambent flame. In but a blink, a frenzied scintillation of doves or pigeons became visible, beating all around her. This fury of wings implied a wickedness of beaks, and Jilly feared for her eyes. Before she could raise her hands to protect herself, a hard crack lashed the night, as loud as a god's whip, terrifying the flock into a greater tempest. A wave of wings splashed her face, and she cried out, but soundlessly because no cork had ever stoppered a bottle as effectively as terror plugged her throat. Dashed by this spray of wings, she blinked, expecting to be blinded, but all the birds were instead banished by the blink, gone as abruptly as they had appeared, not merely invisible as before, but gone with all their sound, with all their fury.

Gone, too, the rack of candles in the dunes. And the mantilla-mantled woman, cast back to an unknown church with the pew on which she had arrived.

A short sharp bark of pent-up air popped from Jilly's uncorked throat. With the first shuddery inhalation that followed, she detected what might have been the dead-last smell that she would have wanted if she'd been asked to make a list of a thousand odors. Blood. Subtle but distinctive, unmistakable, here was the scent of slaughter and of sacrifice, of tragedy and glory: faintly metallic, a whiff of copper, a trace of iron. More than a white wave of wings had splashed her face. With trembling and tentative hands, she touched her throat, chin, cheeks, and as she gazed with revulsion at the evidence on her fingers, she recognized a matching wetness on her lips and tasted the same substance that her fingertips revealed. She screamed, this time not silently.