Piercing the Darkness (44 page)

A third man, dressed in dark clothes and smoking a cigarette, started up the stairs after her, quietly, surreptitiously.

SALLY WAS JUST
on the second flight of stairs when she didn’t feel right about something.

Tal was beside her.
Stop
, he said.
Wait.

She stopped. She’d seen that one man standing near the office door when she came around the corner, and now she was sure he was coming up the flight of stairs below her. When she stopped, he hesitated. Now it was ominously quiet.

Tal remained beside her; Nathan stood at the top of the stairs, Armoth at the bottom. They were making themselves clearly visible.

Tal drew his sword slowly and let its light flicker against the wall of the building for all to see. Nathan and Armoth did the same. Now they could see the demonic response: from rooftops all around the motel, the sky lit up with the red glow of enemy swords, and the air was filled with the clatter and rustling of black wings.

There was a standoff.

A taloned hand grabbed Destroyer’s arm.

“Will you not attack? There are only three guarding her!” said the warrior. The demons all around squawked their eager agreement.

“Only three?” Destroyer replied. “You mean you
see
only three.” He pointed his crooked finger at the warrior that had grabbed him, then at another whiner, and then at one more overly anxious fighter. “Very well. You, you, and you, attack! Do your worst!”

They shrieked, raised their swords, and shot from the roof like skyrockets, swooping down toward the motel. They would give Broken Birch all the power they needed, and Sally Roe was as good as dead!

Tal shot from the stairway in a brilliant explosion of wings, and met the three attackers over the parking lot. Two were instantly shredded; the third went careening and fluttering over the print shop, trailing red smoke from what was left of him. Back on the stairs, Nathan and Armoth
closed in on Sally Roe, their wings outspread, their swords ready.

KAWOOOM!
Bursting instantly out of hiding, at least a dozen warriors appeared all around the motel, their wings spreading to form an impenetrable wall.

“OH, MRS. BISSELL!”

It was the office lady. Sally was relieved to hear her voice. “Yes, I’m up here!”

“Could I see you for a minute?”

The man on the flight below dropped his cigarette and crushed it out with his toe. Then he hurried back down and ran across the parking lot. Sally went to the balcony railing and saw him ducking around the corner.

“HMM,” SAID DESTROYER.
“How many more warriors do you suppose he has hidden in there?”

No demon would venture a guess.

“Maybe none at all . . . maybe thousands! Would anyone like to find out?”

THE LADY IN
the office brought Sally’s travel bag out from behind the counter.

“I hope you won’t think me too forward for doing this,” she said, “but before you go up to your room, you’d better know that there’s a man up there waiting for you. He said he was your husband.”

Sally was horrified. “What?”

“Is he?”

Sally backed toward the door. “I don’t have a husband.”

“Don’t go out there, not yet.”

Sally stopped.

“What about that other man, the one following you up the stairs?”

Sally was amazed. She looked out the windows. “He’s . . . I saw him running away.” Then she backed away from the window, afraid of being seen.

“I don’t know who you are, or who he is, but I ran a check and there’s no such thing as a ’79 Mustang with the license number you gave, and no such thing as a Buick Regal with the license number he gave. Maybe two people can be married and have different last names, but when you say you’re from Hawthorne, California, and he says you’re both from Las Vegas, I just don’t like the looks of it.”

Sally didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry.”

“I got your bag out of the room when I let him in; I told him the previous tenant left it there. Is there some kind of trouble? I don’t want anything weird going on in my motel.”

Sally took the bag. “Thank you.”

“Should I call the police?”

“Uh, no. No, I’ll just leave. Keep the rent money—it’s okay.”

“What about ‘Mr. Rogers’ upstairs?”

Sally was backing toward the door. She looked out the window to make sure he wasn’t lurking about. “Uh . . . yes, call the police.”

DESTROYER AND HIS
army could see Sally slip quickly out the front door and run down the street, completely surrounded by the angelic guards.

A demon hissed and pointed. There went Khull, sneaking out of Room 302, hurrying down the back stairs with the “repairman.” The casual vacationer had also disappeared. Somehow they knew the jig was up. Perhaps it was that timely interruption by the lady in the office; maybe they’d felt Sally Roe’s great “psychic power” in the place. Perhaps they could feel their demonic escorts being stalled by the angelic guard. Whatever the case, things did not feel right, and they were calling it quits.

Destroyer blew a stream of sulfur from his nostrils, “Remember,” he said to his warriors, “this Tal is a layer of traps, a setter of snares. No little human as dangerous to us as Sally Roe is going to walk down the street uncovered and alone. He was there. His warriors were ready.” He laughed. “But that will change.”

He looked down the street in time to see Sally Roe disappear around a corner, still heavily guarded. “No, Captain of the Host! Not this time. You are still too strong, but time is on my side! I have your
saints in
my
hands. This game will be
ours. We
will set the rules,
we
will pick the time.”

JUDY WARING WASN’T
spending as much time home schooling her son Charlie as she promised herself and everyone else she would. At the moment, her plucky little third-grader was doing whatever he wanted out in the yard while she tended to some pressing matters on the telephone.

“Well, that’s what I heard,” she said. “He’s had sexual problems ever since Cindy passed away, and I think they were even having trouble in their marriage because of it. Did you ever notice the way he’d always stand so close to Cathy Howard? Maybe she was next on his list, I don’t know.”

Then the other party talked for a while, and Judy kept busy snipping coupons out of the shopping news.

Judy’s turn came again. “Well, that’s what I think too. I mean, how can we be sure what really went on in that classroom? Mrs. Fields is busy enough with all the kids in her class; she can’t possibly be watching Tom all the time.”

Gossip sat on her shoulders, dangling his skinny fingers in her brain while Strife sat on the table and watched.

“A marvelous idea!” said Strife.

“You know,” said Gossip, “this woman will believe anything!”

CHAPTER 24

“HE WAS HARSH,
belligerent, and frightened the children on many occasions,” said Irene Bledsoe, her face defiant, her spine straight as a rod.

She was flanked by the two ACFA attorneys, Jefferson and Ames, sitting in a conference room adjacent to Wayne Corrigan’s office. Across the conference table from her sat Wayne Corrigan, Tom Harris, and Mark Howard. At the end of the table was the court reporter, taking down everything spoken.

Wayne Corrigan scanned his notes. This lady was a tiger for sure, and he was wishing he had more to go on. With the little information he had so far, it was going to be a short deposition.

“But this is based solely on the word of Amber Brandon, is it not?” he finally asked.

“Yes, and she is a bright, truthful, and responsible little girl.”

“But you yourself never saw Mr. Harris displaying any of this behavior?”

“I certainly did: the first time he came to visit his children. He violated the rules we had agreed upon, he was rude, and he was belligerent.”