The Servants of Twilight

She sat up straighter in her chair. The sweat from her brow was trickling down her face. Tiny beads of perspiration had popped out of her upper lip. Like a pair of stricken moths, her white hands fluttered in her lap. Color returned to her face, although her eyes remained closed. She was no longer drooling, but spittle still shone on her chin.

"What will we see when we cut his heart out?" Barlowe asked.

"Worms," she said with disgust.

"In the boy's heart?"

"Yes. And beetles. Squirming."

A few of the disciples murmured to one another. It didn't matter.

Nothing could disturb Mother Grace's trance now. She was thoroughly caught up in it, swept away by her visions.

Leaning forward in his chair, his big hands clamped on his meaty thighs, Barlowe said, "What must we do with the heart once we've cut it out of him?"

She chewed on her lip so hard he was afraid she would draw blood. She raised her spastic hands again and worked them in the empty air as if she could wring the answer from the either.

Then: "Plun,e the heart into

"Into what?" Barlowe asked.

"A bowl of holy water."

"From a church?"

"Yes. The water will remain cool… but the heart… will boil, turn to dark steam… and evaporate."

"And then we can be certain the boy is dead?"

"Yes. Dead. Forever dead. Unable to return through another incarnation."

"Then there's hope?" Barlowe asked, hardly daring to believe that it was so.

"Yes," she said thickly." Hope."

"Praise God," Barlowe said.

"Praise God," the disciples said.

Mother Grace opened her eyes. She yawned, sighed, blinked, and looked around in confusion." Where's this? What's wrong?

I feel all clammy. Did I miss the six o'clock news? I mustn't miss the six o'clock news. I've got to know what Lucifer's people have been up to."

"It's only a few minutes till noon," Barlowe said." The six o'clock news is hours away."

She stared at him with that familiar, blurry-eyed, muddleheaded look that always marked her return from a deep trance.

"Whore you? Do I know you? I don't think I do."

"I'm Kyle, Mother Grace."

"Kyle?" she said as if she'd never heard of him. A suspicious glint entered her eyes.

"Just relax," he said." Relax and think about it. You've had a vision. You'll remember it in a moment. It'll come back to you. "

He held out both of his large, calloused hands. Sometimes, when she came out of a trance, she was so frightened and lost that she needed friendly contact. Usually, when she gripped his hands, she drew from his great reservoir of physical strength and soon regained her senses, as if he were a battery that she was tapping.

But today she pulled away from him. She frowned. She wiped at her spittle-damp chin. She looked around at the candles, at the disciples, clearly baffled by them." God, I'm so thirsty," she said.

One of the disciples hurried to get her a drink.

She looked at Kyle." What do you want from me? Why'd you bring me here?"

"It'll all come back to you," he said patiently, smiling reassuringly.

"I don't like this place," she said, her voice thin and querulous.

"It's your church."

"Church?"

"The basement of your church."

"It's dark," she whined.

"You're safe here."

She pouted as if she were a child, then scowled, then said, "I don't like the dark. I'm afraid of the dark." She hugged herself.

"What've you got me here in the dark for?"

One of the disciples got up and turned on the lights.

The others blew out the candles.

"Church?" Mother Grace said again, looking at the paneled basement walls and at the exposed ceiling beams. She was trying hard to get a handle on her situation, but she was still disoriented.

There was nothing Barlowe could do to help her. Sometimes, she needed as long as ten minutes to shake off the confusion that always followed a journey into the spirit world.

She stood up.

Barlowe stood, too, towering over her.

She said, "I gotta pee real bad. Real bad." She grimaced and put one hand on her abdomen." Isn't there anywhere to pee in this place? Huh?

I got to pee."

Barlowe motioned to Edna Vanoff, a short stout woman who was a member of the inner council, and Edna led Mother Grace to the lavatory at the far end of the basement. The old woman was unsteady; she leaned against Edna as she walked, and she continued to look around in bewilderment.

In a loud voice that carried the length of the room, Mother Grace said,

"Oh, boy, I gotta pee so bad I think I'm gonna bust."

Barlowe sighed wearily and sat down on the too-small, toohard wooden chair.