The angel’s brilliance still made her skin itch, but she had the better of it now. Two, three more seconds and Monarch Street had disappeared completely, overtaken by the image of Todd’s manhood.
“Maxine!” she yelled again.
There was still no reply. She put her head down, so when she opened her eyes she would be staring at the ground not at the angel’s light. She half-expected to see Maxine sprawled on the ground at her feet, overcome by the angel’s power. But no. There was nothing below her but the cracked pathway that led from the front door.
She turned on her heels and lifted her gaze a little. The front door was open; the light the angel shed washed the entire scene before her, taking its colour out, and throwing Tammy’s shadow up against the wall.
She felt a perverse imperative to glance back over her shoulder; to put the weapon she’d summoned to the test one more time. But she persuaded herself from such nonsense, and stumbled back the way she and Maxine had come just a little while before.
Even before she reached the steps she heard Maxine sobbing inside. Enraged that she’d been left to face the enemy alone, but at least grateful that Maxine was alive, she climbed the steps, pushed the cracked front door closed as far as it would go, and went back into the house.
Maxine was sitting on the stairs, shaking.
On the floor above, Todd had just emerged from the master bedroom. He’d put on the jeans Tammy had fetched for him, and he was carrying a large gun.
“It won’t do you any good,” Tammy said, slamming the door behind her.
“I’m sorry,” Maxine said, “I left you out there.”
“So I noticed.”
“I was yelling for you to come, but you wouldn’t move. And that thing was just getting closer and closer.”
“It wants me. It doesn’t want you two.”
“Well then,” Tammy said, staring at the front of Todd’s straining jeans and giving up a silent prayer to the efficacy of their contents. “We have two options. We either give you to the angel, and let it take you wherever the hell it intends to take you — ”
“Oh God no. Please. I don’t want to go with that thing. I’d rather die.”
“Stop waving the gun around and listen to me, Todd. I said we had two options.”
“What’s the other one?”
“We make a run for it.”
TEN
It wasn’t really a choice, given their circumstances.
They had to make a run for it, and the way Tammy looked at it, the sooner they did so the better for everybody. The angel could afford to play a waiting game, she assumed. Did it need nourishment? Probably not. Did it sleep or take private little moments in which to defecate? Again, probably not. It could most likely afford to lay siege to the house for days, weeks, even months, until its victims had no strength left to outwit it or outmaneuver it.
Maxine had gone to the guest bathroom to wash her ashen face. She didn’t look much better when she got back. She was still pale and shaking. But in her usual straightforward manner she demanded that everyone agree to what was being contemplated here, in words of one or, at most, two syllables.
“Let’s all get this straight,” she said. “The thing outside is definitely an angel. That is to say, an agent of some divine power. Yes?”
“Yes,” Todd said. He was sitting at the top of the stairs, only partially visible in the light from the dining room, which was the only light that now worked.
“And why’s it here? Exactly. Just for the record.”
“We know why it’s here, Maxine,” Tammy said.
“No, let’s just be very clear about this. Because it seems to me we are playing with fire. This thing, this light — ”
“It wants my soul,” Todd said. “Is that plain enough for you?”
“And you,” Maxine said, glancing at Tammy to see how she was responding to all this, “are blithely suggesting we try and outrun it?”
“Yes.”
“You’re crazy.”
Before Tammy could reply, Todd put in a final plea. “If we fail, we fail But at least let’s give it a try.”