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They’d been loose for two to three years Plenty of time to breed

Orson was on the floor, surrounded by this quartet of goblins, which now began to shriek at hi to watch all of thele that I didn’t have to worry that any stray buckshot would catch the dog Without hesitation, I bleay the creature on which I had a clear line of fire, and the resulting spray of buckshot and uts would cost Bobby , the re three intruders bounded fro toward the s I brought down another one, but the third round in the shotgun only peppered a teak-paneled wall and cost Bobby another five or ten grand

I pitched the shotgun aside, reached to the small of my back, drew the Glock from underthrough the brokenonto the front porch--and was nearly lifted offaroundoffit away fro I kneas off h I were a child I crashed into a coffee table, which collapsed under me

Flat on my back in the ruins of the furniture, I looked up and saw Carl Scorso loole than he actually was The bald head The earring Though I’d dialed up the lights, the room was still sufficiently shadowy that I could see the animal shine in his eyes

He was the troop leader I had no doubt about that He earing athletic shoes and jeans and a flannel shirt, and there was a watch on his wrist, and if he were put in a police lineup with four gorillas, no one would have the least difficulty identifying hi Yet in spite of the clothes and the hu subhuman, not merely because of the eyeshine but because his features were twisted into an expression that h clothed, he h clean-shaven froht as well have been as hairy as an ape If he lived two lives, it was clear that he was ht, with the troop, than to the one that he lived by day, as like hith, executioner style, ai, but Scorso was the quicker of the two He landed a solid kick against the dog’s head, and Orson went down and stayed doithout even a yelp or a twitch of his legs

My heart dropped like a stone in a well

Scorso swung the Glock toward ain and fired a round into my face Or that was how it seemed for an instant But a split second before he pulled the trigger, Sasha shot him in the back from the far end of the room, and the crack I heard was the report of her Chiefs Special

Scorso jerked froet The floor beside h it

Wounded but less fazed thanaround, pu out rounds from the Glock as he turned

Sasha dropped and rolled backward out of the room, and Scorso emptied the pistol at the place where she had stood He kept trying to pull the trigger even after theacross the back of his flannel shirt

Finally he thren the Glock, turned toward me, and appeared to contemplate whether to stofor neither pleasure, he headed toward the broken-outthrough which the last twoout of the house onto the porch when Sasha reappeared and, incredibly, pursued him

I shouted at her to stop, but she looked so wild that I wouldn’t have been surprised to see that dreadful light in her eyes, too She was across the living roo up from the splintered remains of the coffee table

Outside, the Chiefs Special cracked, cracked again, and then a third tih it seemed clear now that Sasha could take care of herself, I wanted to go after her and drag her back Even if she finished Scorso, the night was probably home to more monkeys than even a first-rate disc jockey could handle--and the night was their domain, not hers

A fourth shot boomed A fifth

I hesitated because Orson lay li and falling with his breathing He was either dead or unconscious If unconscious, he ht need help quickly He had been kicked in the head Even if he was alive, there was the danger of brain darief, blinked backroom toward me, one hand clamped to the stab wound in his shoulder

"Help Orson," I said

I refused to believe that nothing could help hiht ensure that it be true

Pia Klick would understand that concept

Maybe Bobby would understand it now, too

Dodging furniture and dead lass underfoot, I ran to theSilvery whips of cold, windblown rain lashed past the jagged frag from the frame I crossed the porch, leaped down the steps, and raced into the heart of the downpour, toward Sasha, where she stood thirty feet away in the dunes

Carl Scorso lay facedown in the sand

Soaked and shivering, she stood over hi her third and last speedloader into the revolver I suspected that she had hit him with most if not all the rounds that I’d heard, but she seeht need a fewhands in the sand, as if he were burrowing into cover, like a crab

With a shudder of horror, she leaned down and fired one last round, this time into the back of his skull

When she turned tono attempt to repress her tears

I was tearless now I told ether

"Hey," I said gently

She caainstdown in such torrents that I couldn’t see the lights of town, three-quarters of a ht have been dissolved by this flood out of Heaven, washed away as if it had been only an elaborate sand sculpture of a town

But it was back there, all right Waiting for this storm to pass, and for another storm after this one, and others until the end of all days There was no escaping Moonlight Bay Not for us Not ever It was, quite literally, in our blood

"What happens to us now?" she asked, still holding fast to me

"Life"

"It’s all screwed up"

"It alas"

"They’re still out there"

"Maybe they’ll leave us alone--for a while"

"Where do we go from here, Snowman?"

"Back to the house Get a beer"

She was still shivering, and not because of the rain "And after that? We can’t drink beer forever"

"Big surf co to be that easy?"

"Got to catch those epic waves while you can get thee, where we found Orson and Bobby sitting on the wide front-porch steps There was just enough room for us to sit down beside them

Neither of my brothers was in the best mood of his life

Bobby felt that he needed only Neosporin and a bandage "It’s a shalloound, thin as a paper cut, and hardly more than half an inch from top to bottom"

"Sorry about the shirt," Sasha said

"Thanks"