“Frankly, I realize I’m outvoted on this, but I think this is insane.” Maxine said. “If you really believe in your immortal soul, Todd, why the hell aren’t you letting this divine agent come and get you?”
“I’m not saying I don’t believe in my soul. I do. I swear I do. But you know me: I’ve never trusted agents,” he chuckled, “Joke. Maxine, lighten up. It was a joke.”
Maxine was not amused.
“Suppose it’s the real thing,” she said. “Suppose it’s God, looking at us. At you.”
“Maybe it is. But then again, maybe it isn’t. This Canyon’s always been full of deceits and illusions.”
“And you think that’s what it is?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t trust it. I’d prefer to stick around here a little longer than go off with it.”
“Here? You want to stay in this dump? Todd, it’s not going to be standing for more than another week.”
“So maybe I’ll set off across America, I don’t know. I just got nothing to do. Even though I’m dead.”
“And suppose we’re pissing off higher powers?” Maxine said. “Have you thought about that?”
“You mean God? If God really wants me, He’ll find a way to get me. Right? He’s God. But if He doesn’t … if I can slip off and enjoy myself for a few years … ”
Maxine threw a troubled glance at Tammy. “And you go along with all this?”
“If Todd doesn’t feel — ”
“You were the one saying prayers out there.”
“Let me finish. If Todd doesn’t feel he’s lived his full life, it’s his choice.”
“The point is: you’ve had all the life you’re going to get,” Maxine said to him. Then to Tammy, “We’re talking to a dead man. Something we would not be doing outside Coldheart Canyon.”
“Things are different here … ” Todd murmured, remembering what Katya had told him.
“Damn right they are,” Maxine said. “But the rules of this place end somewhere north of Sunset. And it’s only because of the power that was once in this house that you’re getting a chance to play this damn-fool game with God.”
“A game with God,” Tammy said, so quietly Maxine barely heard what she’d said.
“What?”
“I was just saying: a game with God. I didn’t think you’d care about something like that. Aren’t you an atheist?”
“Once, I might have — ”
Todd stood up. “Hush. Hush.”
The women stopped talking. Todd looked up towards the vault of the turret, with its holes that showed the night sky.
“Stay very still,” he said.
As he spoke, the light came over the top of the turret, its motion eerily smooth and silent. Three beams of its silvery luminescence came in through holes in the roof. They slid over the walls, like spotlights looking for a star to illuminate. For a moment the entity seemed to settle directly on lop of the turret, and one of the beams of light went all the way down the stairwell to scrutinize the debris at the bottom. Then, after a moment’s perusal, it began to move off again, at the same glacial speed.
Only when it had gone completely, did anybody speak again. It was Maxine who piped up first.
“Why doesn’t it just come in and get you?” she said. “That’s what I can’t figure out. I mean, it’s just a body of light. It can go anywhere it chooses, I would have thought. Under the door. Down through that hole — ” she pointed up to the turret. “It’s not like the house is burglar-proof.”
Tammy had been thinking about that very question. “I think maybe this place makes it nervous,” she said. “That’s my theory, for what it’s worth. All the evil this house has seen.”
“I don’t think angels are afraid of anything,” Maxine said.
“Then maybe it’s just repulsed. I mean, it’s like a dog, right, sniffing out souls? Its senses are really acute. Think how this place must stink. Especially down there.” She glanced down the stairwell, where the angel’s light had lingered for a moment before moving on. “The Devil’s Country was down there. People suffered, died, horrible deaths. If I was an angel, I’d stay out.”