Shadowfires. By: Dean R. Koontz

felt as if they were walking not through an ordinary parking garage in

Santa Ana but through the chambers of an alien temple, under the eye of

an unimaginably strange deity.

At that late hour, her red 560 SL was one of only three cars parked on

the entire floor. It stood alone, gleaming, a hundred feet from the

elevator. She walked directly toward it, circled it warily. No one

crouched on the far side. Through the windows, she could see that no

one was inside, either. She opened the door, got in quickly.

As soon as Benny climbed in and closed his door, she hit the master lock

switch, started the engine, threw the car in gear, popped the emergency

brake, and drove too fast toward the exit ramp.

As she drove, she engaged the safeties on her pistol and, with one nand,

returned it to her purse.

When they reached the street, Benny said, “Okay, now tell me what this

cloak-and-dagger stuff is all about.”

She hesitated, wishing she had not brougw him this far into it. She

should have come to the morgue alone.

She’d been weak, needed to lean on him, but now if she didn’t break her

dependency on him, if she drew him further into it, she would without

doubt be putting his life in jeopardy. She had no right to endanger

him.

“Rachael?”

She stopped at a red traffic light at the intersection of Main Street

and Fourth, where a hot summer wind blew a few scraps of litter into the

center of the crossroads and spun them around for a moment before

sweeping them away.

“Rachael?” Benny persisted.

A shabbily dressed derelict stood at the corner, only a few feet away.

He was filthy, unshaven, and drunk.

His nose was gnarled and hideous, half eaten away by melanoma. In his

left hand he held a wine bottle imperfectly concealed in a papr bag.

In his grubby right paw he gripped a broken alarm clock-no glass

covering the face of it, the minute hand missing-as if he thought he

possessed a great treasure. He stooped down, peered in at her. His

eyes were fevered, blasted.

Ignoring the derelict, Beiiiiy said, “Don’t withdraw from me, Rachael.

What’s wrong? Tell me. I can help.”

“I don’t want to get you involved,” she said.

“I’m already involved.”

“No. Right now you don’t know anything. And I really think that’s

best.”

“You promised-” lighted. The The traffic light changed, and she tramped

the accelerator so suddenly that Benny was thrown against his seat belt

and cut off in mid-sentence.

Behind them, the drunk with the clock shouted, “I’m Father Time!”

Rachael said, “Listen, Benny, I’ll take you back to my pla5e so you can

get your car.

Like hell.”

“Please let me handle this myself.”

“Handle what? What’s going on?”

“Benny, don’t interrogate me. Just please don’t do that.

I’ve got a lot to think about, a lot to do…

“Sounds like you’re going somewhere else tonight.”

“It doesn’t concern you,” she said.

“Where are you going?”

“There’re things I’ve got to.. . check out. Never mind.”

Getting angry now, he said, “You going to shoot someone?”

“Of course not.”

“Then why’re you packing a gun?”

She didn’t answer.

He said, “You got a permit for a concealed weapon?”

She shook her head. “A permit, but just for home use.

He glanced behind to see if anyone was near them, then leaned over from

his seat, grabbed the steering wheel, and jerked it hard to the right.

The car whipped around with a screech of tires, and she hit the brakes,

and they slid sideways six or eight yards, and when she tried to

straighten the wheel he grabbed it again, and she shouted at him to stop

it, and he let go of the wheel, which spun through her hands for a

moment, but then she was firmly in control once more, pulled to the

curb, stopped, looked at him, said, “What are youcrazy?”

“Just angry.”

“Let it be,” she said, staring out at the street.

“I want to help you.”

“You can’t.”

“Try me. Where do you have to go?”

She sighed. “Just to Eric’s place.”

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