The Servants of Twilight

Grace knew the enemies of God when she saw them. The ability to recognize a hopelessly corrupt soul in the first instant upon encountering it-that was but one small part of the Gift that God had bestowed upon her. One split second of eye contact was usually all Grace needed in order to determine if a person was habitually sinful and beyond redemption. She had the Gift.

No one else. Just her, the Chosen. She heard evil in the voices of the wicked; she saw evil in their eyes. There was no hiding from her.

Some people, given the Gift, would have doubted it, would have wondered if they were wrong or even crazy. But Grace never doubted herself or questioned her sanity. Never. She knew she was special, and she knew she was always right in these matters because God had told her that she'was right.

The day was rapidly coming when she would finally call upon Kyle (and upon some of the others) to strike down many of those disciples of Satan. She would point to the evil ones, and Kyle would destroy them.

He would be the hammer of God. How wonderful that day would be! Sitting in the basement of her church, on the hard oak chair, in front of her innermost circle of believers, Grace shivered with anticipatory pleasure. It would be so fine, so satisfying to watch the big man's hard muscles bunch and flex and bunch again as he brought the wrath of God to the infidels and Satanists.

Soon. The time was coming. The I.

Now, the candlelight flickered, and Kyle said softly, "Are you ready, Mother Grace?"

"Yes," she said.

She closed her eyes. For a moment she saw nothing, only darkness, but then she quickly established contact with the spirit world, and lights appeared behind her eyes, bursts and squiggles and fountains and spots and shifting-heaving-writhing shapes of light, some brilliant and some dim, all shades of red, naturally,

because they were spirits and spectral energies, and this was a red day in their plane of existence. It was the reddest day Grace had ever known.

The spirits swarmed on all sides of her, and she moved off among them as if she were drifting away into a world that was painted on the backs of her own eyelids. At first she drifted slowly. She felt her mind and spirit separating from her body, gradually leaving the flesh behind. She was still aware of the temporal plane in which her body existed-the odor of burning candies, the hard oak chair beneath her, an occasional rustle or murmur from one of her disciples-but eventually all that faded.

She accelerated until she was rushing, then flying, then rocketing through the light-spotted void, faster and faster, with exhilarating, now sickening, now terrifying speed Sudden stillness.

She was deep in the spirit world, hanging motionless, as if she were an asteroid suspended in a distant corner of space. She was no longer able to see, hear, smell, or feel the world she had left behind. Across an infinite night, red-hued spirits of all descriptions moved in every direction, some fast and some slow, some purposefully and some erratically, on adventures and holy errands that Grace could not begin to comprehend.

Grace thought about the boy, Joey Scavello. She knew what he really was, and she knew he had to die. But she didn't know if the time had come to dispose of him. She had made this journey into the spirit world for the sole purpose of inquiring as to when and how she should deal with the boy.

She hoped she would be told to kill him. She wanted so much to kill him.

9

The double shot of Chivas Regal seemed to have calmed Christine Scavello, although not entirely. She finally leaned back in her chair, and her hands were no longer knotted together, but she was still tense and noticeably shaky.

Charlie continued to sit on the edge of his desk with one foot on the floor." At least until we know who this old woman is and what kind of person we're dealing with, I think we should put two armed bodyguards with Joey around the clock."

"All right. Do it."

"Does the boy go to school?"

"Preschool. He starts regular school next fall."

"We'll keep him out of preschool until this blows over."

"It won't just blow over," she said edgily.

"Well, of course, I didn't mean we were just going to wait it out. I meant to say that we'll keep him out of preschool until we put a stop to this thing."

"Will two bodyguards be enough?"

"Actually, it'll be six. Three pairs working in eight-hour shifts."

"Still, it'll only be two men during any one shift, and I-"

"Two can handle it. They're well trained. However, this can all get pretty expensive. If-"

"I can afford it," she said.

"My secretary can give you a fee sheet-"

"Whatever's needed. I can pay."

"What about your husband?"

"What about him?"

"Well, what's he think about all this?"

"I don't have a husband."

" Oh. I'm sorry if-"

"No need for sympathy. I'm not a widow, and I wasn't divorced, either."

Here was the forthrightness he had seen in her, this refusal to be evasive was refreshing." I've never been married."

" Ah," he said.