That thought almost brought her to a stop, but they were already at the Chevy.
George Swarthout yanked open the rear door of the car and shoved them inside, where Chewbacca was barking excitedly.
Vince Fields ran around to the driver's door.
"On the floor!" Swarthout shouted." Stay down!"
And then Charlie was there, piling in after them, half on top of them, shielding them.
The Chevy's engine roared, and they pulled away from the curb with a shrill screeching of tires, rocketed down the street, away from the house, into the night and the rain, into a world that couldn't have been more completely hostile if it had been an alien planet in another galaxy.
Kyle Barlowe dreaded taking the news to Mother Grace, although he supposed she had already learned about it through a vision.
He entered the back of the church and stood there for a while, filling the doorway between the narthex and the nave, his broad shoulders almost touching both jambs. He was gathering strength from the giant brass cross above the altar, from the Biblical scenes depicted in the stained-glass windows, from the reverent quietude, from the sweet smell of incense.
Grace sat alone, on the left side of the church, in the second pew from the front. If she heard Barlowe enter, she gave no indication that she knew he was with her. She stared straight ahead at the cross.
At last Barlowe walked down the aisle and sat beside her. She was praying. He waited for her to finish. Then he said, "The second attempt failed, too."
"I know," she said.
"What now?"
"We follow them."
"Where?"
"Everywhere." She spoke softly at first, in a whisper he could barely hear, but gradually her voice rose and gained power and conviction, until it echoed eerily off the shadow-hung walls of the nave." We give them no peace, no rest, no haven, no quarter. We must be pitiless, relentless, unsleeping, unshakable. We will be hounds. The hounds of Heaven. We will bay at their heels, lunge for their throats, and bring them to ground, sooner or later, here or there, when God wills it. We shall win. I am sure of it."
She had been staring intently at the cross as she spoke, but now she turned her colorless gray eyes on him, and as always he felt her gaze penetrating to the core of him, to his very soul.
He said, "What do you want me to do?"
"For now, go home. Sleep. Prepare yourself for the morning. "
"Aren't we going after them again tonight?"
"First, we must find them."
"How?"
"God will Iead. Now go. Sleep."
He stood, stepped into the aisle." Will you sleep, too? You need your rest," he said worriedly.
Her voice had faded to a reedy whisper once more, and there was exhaustion in it." I can't sleep, dear boy. An hour a night.
Then I wake, and my mind is filled with visions, with messages from the angels, contacts from the spirit world, with worries and fears and hopes, with glimpses of the promised land, scenes of glory, with the awful weight of the responsibilities God has settled upon me." She wiped at her mouth with the back of one hand." How I wish I could sleep, how I long for sleep, for surcease from all these demands and anxieties! But He has transformed me so that I can function without sleep during this crisis.
I will not sleep well again until the Lord wills it. For reasons I don't understand, He needs me awake, insists upon it, gives me the strength to endure without sleep, keeps me alert, almost too alert." Her voice was shaking, and Barlowe imagined it was both awe and fear that put the tremor in it." I tell you, dear Kyle, it's both glorious and terrible, wonderful and frightful, exhilarating and exhausting to be the instrument of God's will."
She opened her purse, withdrew a handkerchief, and blew her nose.
Suddenly she noticed that the hankie was stained brown and yellow, disgustingly knotted and crusted with dried snot.
"Look at this," she said, indicating the handkerchief." It's horrible.
I used to be so neat. So clean. My husband, bless his soul, always said my house was cleaner than a hospital operating room. And I was always very conscious of grooming; I dressed well. And I never would have carried a revolting handkerchief like this, never, not before the Gift was given to me and crowded out so many ordinary thoughts." Tears glimmered in her gray eyes." Sometimes. I'm frightened.
grateful to God for the Gift, yes. grateful for what I've gained but frightened about what I've lost. "
He wanted to understand what it must be like for her, to be the instrument of God's will, but he couldn't comprehend her state of mind or the mighty forces working within her. He did not know what to say to her, and he was depressed that he couldn't conifort her.
She said, "Go home, sleep. Tomorrow, perhaps, we'll kill the boy.
In the car, speeding through the storm-sodden streets, Charlie insisted on having a look at Christine's wound, although she said it wasn't serious. He was relieved to discover that she was right; she had only been grazed; the bullet had left a shallow furrow, two inches long, just above her hip. It was more of an abrasion than a wound, mostly cauterized by the beat of the bullet; the slug wasn't in her, and there was only minor bleeding. Nevertheless, they stopped at an all-night market, where they picked up alcohol and iodine and bandages, and Charlie dressed the wound while Vince, behind the wheel, got them on the road again. They switched from street to street, doubled back, circled through the rain-lashed darkness, like a flying insect reluctant to light anywhere for fear of being swatted, crushed.
They took every possible precaution to insure that they weren't followed, and they didn't arrive at the safe-house in Laguna Beach until almost one o'clock in the morning. It was halfway up a long street, with (in daylight) a view of the ocean; a small place, almost a bun alow, two bedrooms and one bath; quaint, about forty years old but beautifully maintained, with a trellised front porch, gingerbread shutters; shrouded in bougainvillaea that grew up one wall and most of the way across the roof. The house belonged to Henry Rankin's aunt, who was vacationing in Mexico, and there was no way Grace Spivey or anyone from the Church of the TWilight could know about it.
Charlie wished they had come here earlier, that he had never allowed Christine and Joey to return to their own house. Of course, he'd had no way of knowing that Grace Spivey would take such drastic and violent action so soon. Killing a dog was one thing, but dispatching assassins armed with shotguns, sending them boldly into a quiet residential neighborhood. well, he hadn't imagined she was that crazy. Now he had lost two of his men, two of his friends. An emotional acid, part grief and part self-reproach, ate at him. He had known Pete Lockburn for nine years, Frank Reuther for six, and liked both of them a great deal. Although he knew he wasn't at fault for what had happened, he couldn't help blaming himself, he felt as bleak as a man could feel without contemplating suicide.
He tried to conceal the depth of his grief and rage because he didn't want to upset Christine further. She was distraught about the murders and seemed determined to hold herself, in part, accountable. He tried to reason with her: Frank and Pete knew the risk when they took the job; if she hadn't hired Klemet Harrison, the bodies now on the way to the morgue would be hers and Joey's, so she'd done the right thing by seeking help.
Regardless of the arguments he presented, she couldn't shake off her dark sense of responsibility.
Joey had fallen asleep in the car, so Charlie carried him through the slanting rain, through the drizzling night quiet of the Laguna hills, into the house. He put him down on the bed in the master bedroom, and the boy didn't even stir, only murmured softly and sighed. Together, Charlie and Christine undressed him and put him under the covers.