Odd Thomas Series Books 1-5. Dean Koontz

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СКАЧАТЬ reach it without going through Robertson.

      I will fight when I have to, against opponents who dwarf me if I must. But I turn to physical conflict neither as a first resort nor as a matter of misguided principle.

      I’m not vain, but I like my face just the way it is. I prefer that it not be stomped.

      Robertson was bigger than me, but soft. Had his anger been that of an ordinary man, perhaps pumped up by one beer too many, I might have confronted him and would have been confident of taking him down.

      He was a lunatic, however, an object of fascination to bodachs, and an idolizer of mass murderers and serial killers. I had to assume that he carried a gun, a knife, and that in the middle of a fight, he might begin to bite like a dog.

      Perhaps Stormy would have tried to kick his ass—such a response is not alien to her—but I didn’t give her that option. Turning from the entrance, I held fast to her hand and encouraged her through one of the doors between the narthex and the nave.

      In the deserted church, low pathlights marked the center aisle. The enormous crucifix behind the altar glowed in a soft spotlight directed on it from above. Flames flickered in ruby-colored glasses on the votive-candle racks.

      Those points of light and the fading red sunset behind the stained-glass windows in the western wall failed to press back the congregation of shadows that filled the pews and the side aisles.

      We hurried down the center aisle, expecting Robertson to slam with charging-bull fury through one of the doors from the narthex. Having heard nothing by the time we reached the communion railing, we paused and looked back.

      As far as I could tell, Robertson had not arrived. If he had entered the nave, surely he would have come directly after us, along the center aisle.

      Although logic argued against my hunch and no evidence supported it, I suspected that he was with us. The prickled skin on my arms suggested that I should speak in a honk, have webbed feet, and be covered with feathers.

      Stormy’s instinct was in sync with mine. Surveying the geometric shadows of pews, aisles, and colonnades, she whispered, “He’s closer than you think. He’s very close.”

      I pushed open the low gate in the communion railing. We passed through, moving in all but absolute silence now, not wanting to mask any sounds of Robertson’s approach.

      As we passed the choir enclosure and ascended the ambulatory toward the high altar, I glanced back less and proceeded with greater caution. Inexplicably, in opposition to my head, my heart said danger lay in front of us.

      Our stalker couldn’t have slipped around us unseen. Besides, there was no reason for him to have done so instead of assaulting us directly.

      Nevertheless, with every step I took, the tension increased in the cords of muscle at the back of my neck, until they felt as tight as key-wound clock springs.

      From the corner of my eye, I glimpsed movement past the altar, twitched toward it, and drew Stormy closer to my side. Her hand clutched mine tighter than before.

      The crucified bronze Christ moved, as if metal miraculously had become flesh, as if He would pull loose from the cross and step down to resume the earthly mantle of messiah.

      A large scallop-winged moth flew away from the hot lens of the overhead spotlight. The illusion of movement—which the insect’s exaggerated, fluttering shadow had imparted to the bronze figure—was at once dispelled.

      Stormy’s tower-door key would also unlock the door at the back of the sanctuary. Beyond waited the sacristy, in which the priest readied himself before every Mass.

      I glanced back at the sanctuary, the nave. Silence. Stillness but for the moth’s shadow play.

      After using and returning Stormy’s key, I pushed the paneled door inward with some trepidation.

      This particular fear had no rational basis whatsoever. Robertson wasn’t a magician able to appear by legerdemain inside a locked room.

      Nevertheless, my heart played knock-and-rattle with my ribs.

      When I felt for the light switch, my hand was not pinned to the wall by either a stiletto or a hatchet. The overhead light revealed a small, plain room but no large psychopath with yellow yeast-mold hair.

      To the left stood the prie-dieu, where the priest knelt to offer his private devotions before saying Mass. To the right were cabinets containing the sacred vessels and the vestments, and a vesting bench.

      Stormy closed the sanctuary door behind us and with a thumb-turn engaged the deadbolt.

      We quickly crossed the room to the outer sacristy door. I knew that beyond lay the east churchyard, the one without tombstones, and a flagstone path leading to the rectory where her uncle lived.

      This door also was locked.

      From within the sacristy, the lock could be released without a key. I gripped the thumb-turn ... but hesitated.

      Perhaps we had not heard or seen Robertson enter the nave from the narthex for the simple reason that he’d never come into the front of the church after I had glimpsed him ascending the steps.

      And perhaps, anticipating that we would try to flee from the back of the church, he had circled the building to wait for us outside the sacristy. This might explain why I had sensed that we were moving toward danger rather than away from it.

      “What’s wrong?” Stormy asked.

      I shushed her—a fatal mistake in any circumstances but these—and listened at the crack between the door and the jamb. The thinnest breath of a warm draft tickled my ear, but with it came no sounds from outside.

      I waited. I listened. I grew increasingly uneasy.

      Stepping away from the outer door, I whispered to Stormy, “Let’s go back the way we came.”

      We returned to the door between the sacristy and the sanctuary, which she had locked behind us. But I hesitated again with my fingers on the deadbolt release.

      Putting my ear against the crack between this door and jamb, I listened to the church beyond. No teasing draft spiraled down my auditory canal, but no telltale stealthy sounds came to me, either.

      Both sacristy doors had been locked from the inside. To get at us, Robertson would need a key, which he didn’t possess.

      “We’re not going to wait here till morning Mass,” Stormy said, as though she could scroll through my thoughts as easily as through a document on her computer.

      My cell phone was clipped to my belt. I could have used it to call Chief Porter and explain the situation to him.

      The possibility existed, however, that Bob Robertson had been overcome by second thoughts about the wisdom of assaulting me in such a public place as the church, even though at this moment there were no worshipers or witnesses present. Having reined in his rampant anger, he might have gone away.

      If the chief dispatched a patrol car to St. Bart’s or if he came himself, only to find no smiley psychopath, my credibility would take a hit. Over the years, I had banked enough good will with Wyatt Porter to afford СКАЧАТЬ