The Servants of Twilight

Joey and Chewbacca waited under the rocky overhang while Christine went into the trees to collect dead wood for a fire.

Underneath the huge spreading branches that were green and healthy, close to the trunks, the evergreens provided a lot of dead branches thick with old pine cones and crisp brown needles that would make excellent tinder. These were all dry because the upper, living branches stopped the snow far above. Furthermore, the weight of those snow-bent upper branches had cracked and splintered the dead wood underneath, so she found it relatively easy to wrench and break off the kindling she needed. She swiftly assembled a big pile of it.

In short order, with a squirt of lighter fluid and a single match, she had a roaring blaze in front of the cul-de-sac where she and Joey and the dog took shelter. As soon as she felt the warmth of the fire, she realized how deeply the cold had sunk into her bones in spite of all the winter clothing she wore, and she knew it would have been dangerous to wait here, unmoving, without the fire.

Joey slumped back against a wall of rock and stared at the fire with a blank expression, with eyes that looked like two flat ovals of polished glass, empty of everything except the reflection of the leaping flames.

The dog settled down and began to lick one paw, then the other.

Christine wasn't sure if its feet were just bruised or cut, but she could see that it was hurting a little, even though it didn't whine or whimper.

Around them the stone began to absorb the heat from the bonfire, and because the wind didn't reach into the cul-de-sac, the air was soon surprisingly warm.

Sitting next to Joey, Christine pulled off her gloves, zipped open one of the pockets in her insulated jacket, and took out a box of shotgun shells. She opened the box and put it beside the gun, which was already loaded. That was in case Charlie never came back. and in case someone else did.

60

By the time Charlie reached the top of the ride, he was short of breath, and a stabbing pain thrust rhythmically through his thighs and calves.

His back and shoulders and neck ached as if the heavy pack was still strapped to him, and he repeatedly had to shift the rifle from hand to hand because the muscles in both arms were weary and aching, too.

He was not out of shape; back in Orange County, when life had been normal, he had gone to the gym twice a week, and he had run five miles every other morning. If he was beginning to tire, what must Christine and Joey feel like? Even if he could kill a couple more of Spivey's fanatics, how much longer could Christine and Joey go on?

He tried to put that question out of his mind. He didn't want to think about it because he suspected the answer would not be encouraging.

Running in a crouch because the wind along the ridge had grown violent enough to stagger him, he crossed the narrow rocky plateau. Snow was falling so thickly now that, on the treeless summit, visibility was reduced to fifteen or twenty yards, considerably less when the wind gusted. He had never seen such snow in his life; it seemed as if it were not just coming down in flakes but in cold-welded agglomerations of flakes, in clumps and wads. If he hadn't known exactly where he was going, he might have become disoriented, might have wasted precious time floundering back and forth on the ridge, but he moved unerringly to a jumble of weather-smoothed boulders along the crest and flopped down on his stomach at a place he had chosen earlier.

Here, he could lie at the very lip of the slope, in a gap between two lumpy outcroppings in a long series of granite formations, and look straight down a winding section of the deer trail that he and Christine and Joey had climbed and along which the TWilighters were certain to ascend. He inched forward, peered down into the trees, and was startled by movement hardly more than a hundred yards below. He quickly brought the rifle up, looked through the telescopic sight, and saw two people.

Jesus.

They were here already.

But only two? Where were the others?

He saw that this pair was moving up toward a blind spot in the trail, and he figured they must be the last in the party. The others, ahead of these two, had already gone around the bend and would soon reappear higher on the path.

Of the two who were in sight, the first was of average size, wearing dark clothing. The second was a strikingly tall man in a blue ski suit over which he was wearing a hooded brown parka, his face framed in a fringe of fur lining.

The giant in the parka must be the man Charlie had seen in Spivey's rectory office, the monster Kyle. Charlie shuddered.

Kyle gave him the creeps every bit as much as Mother Grace did.