The Servants of Twilight

He opened a briefcase, took an envelope and a penlight from it. He handed her the envelope, switched on the light, and said, "Have a look."

The envelope contained an eight-by-ten glossy. It was a picture of the old woman who had harassed them in the parking lot.

Even in a black-and-white photograph, even in two dimensions, the old woman's eyes were scary; there was a mad gleam in them. Christine shivered.

19

Along the back of the house were windows to the dining room, kitchen, breakfast nook, and family room. A pair of French doors led into the family room. O'Hara tried them, even though he was sure they'd be locked; they were.

The patio was bare. No flowerpots. No lawn furniture. The swimming pool had been drained, perhaps for repainting.

Standing by the French doors, O'Hara looked at the house to the north of this one. A six-foot cinder block wall separated this property from the next; therefore, he could see only the second story of that other house.

It was dark. To the south, beyond another wall, the second story of another house was visible, but this one was filled with light. At least no one was looking out any of the windows.

The rear of the property was walled, also, but the house in that direction was evidently a single-story model, for it couldn't be seen from the patio on which O'Hara stood.

He took a flashlight from the airline flight bag and used it to examine the panes of glass in the French doors and in one of the windows. He moved quickly, afraid of being seen. He was looking for wires, conductive alarm tape, and photo-electric cells-anything that would indicate the house was equipped with a burglar alarm. It was the kind of neighborhood where about a third of the houses would be wired. He found no indication that this place was part of that one-third.

He switched the flashlight off, fumbled in the flight bag, and withdrew a compact, battery-powered electronic device the size of a small transistor radio. An eighteen-inch length of wire extended from one end of it, terminating in a suction cup as large as the lid of a mayonnaise jar. He fixed the suction cup to a pane in one of the French doors.

Again, he had the creepy feeling that something dangerous was moving in on him, and a chill quivered down his spine as he turned to peer into the shadow-draped rear yard. The wind clattered through the thick, somewhat brittle leaves of a huge ficus, hissed in the fronds of two palms, and caused smaller shrubs to sway and flutter as if they were alive. But it was the empty swimming pool that drew O'Hara's attention and became the focus of his fear. He suddenly got the idea that something large and hideous was hiding in the pool, crouched down in that concrete pit, listening to him, waiting for the opportune moment in which to make its move. Something that had coalesced out of the darkness. Something that had risen up from the pits of Hell.

Something sent to stop them from killing the boy. Underlying the myriad sounds produced by the wind, he thought he could hear a sinister, wet, slithering sound coming from the pool, and he was suddenly cold clear through to his bones.

Baumberg returned with the two laundry bags, startling O'Hara.

"Do you feel it, too?" Baumberg asked.

"Yes," O'Hara said.

"It's out there. The Beast himself Or one of his messengers."

"In the pool," O'Hara said.

Baumberg stared at the black pit in the center of the lawn.

Finally he nodded." Yeah. I feel it. Down there in the pool."

It can only hurt us if we begin to doubt Mother Grace's power to protect us, O'Hara told himself. It can only stop us if we lose our faith or if we let our fear of it overwhelm us.

That was what Mother Grace had told them.

Mother Grace was never wrong.

O'Hara turned to the French doors again. The suction cup was still firmly affixed to one of the panes. He switched on the small device to which the suction cup was connected, and a glass-covered dial lit up in the center of the instrument case.

The device was a sonic-wave detector that would tell them if the house was equipped with a wireless alarm system that protected the premises by detecting motion. The lighted dial did not move, which meant there was no radio wave activity of any kind within the family room, beyond the French doors.

Before Mother Grace had converted him, O'Hara had been a busy and professional burglar, and he had been damned good at his trade. Because Grace had a propensity for seeking converts from among those who had fallen the furthest from God, the Church of the Twilight could tap a wealth of skills and knowledge not available to the average church whose members were from the law-abiding segments of the population. Sometimes that was a blessing.