The Servants of Twilight

He glanced at Grace. She was staring ahead, through the rain, at the arrow-straight highway, lost in thought. She looked older than she had last week. She had aged ten years in a few days. She seemed positively ancient. Her skin looked lifeless, brittle, gray.

Her face wasn't the only thing that was gray. All her clothes were gray, too. For reasons Barlowe didn't fully understand, she always dressed in a single color; he thought it had a religious significance, something to do with her visions, but he wasn't sure. He was accustomed to her monochromatic costumes, but this was the first time he had ever seen her in gray. Yellow, blue, fire-red, apple-red, blood-red, green, white, purple, violet, orange, pink, rose-yes, she had worn all of those, but always bright colors, never anything as somber as this.

She hadn't expected to dress in gray; this morning, after leaving the motel, they'd had to go shopping to buy her gray shoes, gray slacks, a gray blouse and sweater because she had owned no gray clothes. She had been in great distress, almost hysterical, until she'd changed into a completely gray outfit." It's a gray day in the spirit world," she had said." The energy is all gray. I'm not synchronized. I'm not in tune, not in touch. I've got to get in touch!" She had wanted jewelry, too, because she liked jewelry a lot, but it wasn't easy to find gray rings and bracelets and broaches. Most jewelry was bright. She'd finally had to settle for just a string of gray beads. Now it was odd to see her without a single ring on her pale, leathery hands.

A gray day in the spirit world.

What did that mean? Was that good or bad?

Judging from Grace's demeanor, it was bad. Very bad. Time was running out. That's what Grace had said this morning, but she hadn't been willing to elaborate. Time was running out, and they were lost, driving north on just a hunch.

He was scared. He still worried that it would be a terrible thing for him to kill anyone, that it would be backsliding into his old ways, even if he was doing it for God. He was proud of himself for resisting the violent impulses which he had once embraced, proud of the way he had begun to fit into society, just a little bit, and he was afraid that one murder would lead to another. Was it right to kill-even for God? He knew that was wrong-thought, but he couldn't shake it. And sometimes, when he looked at Grace, he had the unsettling notion that perhaps he had been wrong about her all along, that perhaps she wasn't God's agent-and that was more wrong-thought. The thing was. Grace had taught him that there were such things as moral values, and now he could not avoid applying them to everything he did.

Anyway, if Grace was right about the boy-and surely she was-then time was running out, but there was nothin, to be done but drive, wait for her to regain contact with the spirit world, and call the church in Anaheim once in a while to learn if there was any news that might help.

Barlowe put his foot down a little harder on the accelerator.

They were already doing over seventy, which was maybe about as fast as they ought to push it in the rain, even on this long straight highway.

But they were Chosen, weren't they? God was watching over them, wasn't He? Barlowe accelerated until the needle reached 80 on the speedometer.

The two vans accelerated behind him, staying close.

50

The Jeep wagon was, as Madigan had promised, in fine shape.

It gave them no trouble at all, and they reached Lake Tahoe on Thursday afternoon.

Christine was weary, but Joey had perked up a bit. He was showing some interest in the passing scenery, and that was a welcome change. He didn't seem any happier, just more alert, and she realized that, until today, he had never seen snow before, except in magazine pictures, on TV, and in the movies.

There was plenty of snow in Tahoe, all right. The trees were crusted and burdened with it; the ground was mantled with it.

Fresh flurries sifted down from the steely sky, and according to the news on the radio, the flurries would build into a major storm during the night.

The lake, which straddled the state line, was partly in California and partly in Nevada. On the California side of the town of South Lake Tahoe, there were a great many motels-some of them surprisingly shabby for such a lovely and relatively expensive resort area-lots of touristy shops and liquor stores and restaurants. On the Nevada side, there were several large hotels, casinos, gambling in just about every form, but not as much glitz as in Las Vegas. Along the northern shore, there was less development, and the man-made structures were better integrated with the land than they were along the southern shore.