stripped-down model, without options or luxuries of any kind, just a
get-around car, not a racer-and-chaser. The motor pool mechanics had
even put the snow chains on the tires.
The heap was ready to roll.
He backed out of the parking space, drove up the ramp to the street
exit. He stopped and waited while a city truck, equipped with a big
snowplow and a salt spreader and lots of flashing lights, passed by in
the storm-thrashed darkness.
In addition to the truck, there were only two other vehicles on the
street. The storm virtually had the night to itself. Yet, when the
truck was gone and the way was clear, Jack still hesitated.
He switched on the windshield wipers.
To head toward Rebecca’s apartment, he would have to turn left.
To go to the Jamisons’ place, he ought to turn right.
The wipers flogged back and forth, back and forth, left, right, left,
right.
He was eager to be with Penny and Davey, eager to hug them, to see them
warm and alive and smiling.
Right, left, right.
Of course, they weren’t in any real danger at the moment. Even if
Lavelle was serious when he threatened them, he wouldn’t make his move
this soon, and he wouldn’t know where to find them even if he did want
to make his move.
Left, right, left.
They were perfectly safe with Faye and Keith. Besides, Jack had told
Faye that he probably wouldn’t make it for dinner; she was already
expecting him to be late.
The wipers beat time to his indecision.
Finally he took his foot off the brake, pulled into the street, and
turned left.
He needed to talk to Rebecca about what had happened between them last
night. She had avoided the subject all day. He couldn’t allow her to
continue to dodge it. She would have to face up to the changes that
last night had wrought in both their lives, major changes which he
welcomed wholeheartedly but about which she seemed, at best, ambivalent.
Along the edges of the car roof, wind whistled hollowly through the
metal heading, a cold and mournful sound.
Crouching in deep shadows by the garage exit, the thing watched Jack
Dawson drive away in the unmarked sedan.
Its shining silver eyes did not blink even once.
Then, keeping to the shadows, it crept back into the -deserted, silent
garage.
It hissed. It muttered. It gobbled softly to itself in an eerie, raspy
little voice.
Finding the protection of darkness and shadows wherever it wished to
go-even where there didn’t seem to have been shadows only a moment
before-the thing slunk from car to car, beneath and around them, until
it came to a drain in the garage floor. It descended into the midnight
regions below.
Lavelle was nervous.
Without switching on any lamps, he stalked restlessly through his house,
upstairs and down, back and forth, looking for nothing, simply unable to
keep still, always moving in deep darkness but never bumping into
furniture or doorways, pacing as swiftly and surely as if the rooms were
all brightly lighted. He wasn’t blind in darkness, never the least
disoriented. Indeed, he was at home in shadows. Darkness, after all,
was a part of him.
Usually, in either darkness or light, he was supremely confident and
self-assured. But now, hour by hour, his self-assurance was steadily
crumbling.
His nervousness had bred uneasiness. Uneasiness had given birth to
fear. He was unaccustomed to fear. He didn’t know quite how to handle
it. So the fear made him even more nervous.
He was worried about Jack Dawson. Perhaps it had been a grave mistake
to allow Dawson time to consider his options. A man like the detective
might put that time to good use.
If he senses that I’m even slightly afraid of him, Lavelle thought, and
if he learns more about voodoo, then he might eventually understand why
I’ve got good reason to fear him.
If Dawson discovered the nature of his own special power, and if he
learned to use that power, he would find and stop Lavelle. Dawson was
one of those rare individuals, that one in ten thousand, who could do
battle with even the most masterful Bocor and be reasonably certain of