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Harker ainst the farther side of the counter, waiting for her, but she doubted she would find hiet away She cleared the gate fast, swiveling the 12-gauge to cover the area behind the counter No Harker

A door stood ajar behind the clerical pen She pushed it open with the shotgun barrel

Enough light came from behind her to reveal a short hallway No Harker Deserted

She stepped inside, flicked on the hall light She listened but heard only the thunder and the insistent crash of rain on the roof

To each side stood a door Signs identified them as men’s and women’s lavatories

Harker wouldn’t have stopped to take a pee, wash his hands, or ad herself that he would have no desire to get behind her and take her by surprise, that he only wanted to escape, Carson went past the lavatories toward another door at the end of the hall

She glanced back twice No Harker

The end door featured a traffic-checkthrough which she saw darkness beyond

Conscious that she was a backlit target as long as she lingered on the threshold, Carson cleared it fast and low, scanning left and right in the flush of light that acco her in darkness She backed up against the wall, felt the switches pressing into her back, slid aside, held the 12-gauge with one hand, snapped on the lights

Suspended frohts in cone-shaped shades revealed a large warehouse with goods stacked on pallets to a height of twenty feet A ht across the open ends of the aisles, looking into each No Harker No Harker No Harker Harker

Thirty feet fro away fro his torso with both ar of the makeshift autopsy table in his bedroom, where he had been prepared to dissect Jenna Parker, Carson went after hi to within twenty feet before shouting his naer rather than on the guard

If he dropped like he should, she’d cover hiet backup

Harker turned to face her His wet hair hung over his face The shape of his body see

The son of a bitch didn’t drop From him caony, part excited laughter, part an expression of brute rage

She fired

The pellets hit hi arms crossed his abdomen Blood sprayed

So fast that it seeure but one in a time-lapse film, Harker clambered up a wall of crates, out of the aisle

Carson chambered another round, tracked him as if he were a clay disk in a skeet shoot, and blew a chunk off the top crate,him as he vanished over the palisade

SAYING A PRAYER for the family jewels, Michael jammed Carson’s pistol into his waistband, scaled the fence at thechopped the night, figuring it would whack the steel chain-link and electrocute hiot over the fence, into the alley, unfried, and ran through drenching rain and the rolling echoes of thunder to the rear of the warehouse

A concrete ra roll-up door and a man-door served that deep platform Harker would come out of the smaller door

He drew Carson’s pistol but left his own hol-stered He was not literally going to two-gun the fugitive, one pistol in each hand For the best possible placerip on the weapon

If as advertised Harker proved to be as hard to bring down as a charging rhino, Michaelto pop both his hearts If after that Harker was still on the azine and slap in a fresh one He’d drop Carson’s piece, draw his own, and hope for the kill with the next ten rounds

Eh the Frankenstein story seeerly as if it had been filet e boo one hand into his jacket pocket, he felt spare shotgun shells He’d forgotten to give theazine Now only two left

The 12-gauge booun

Waiting for Harker on the loading dock wasn’t a workable plan any longer

Michael tried the man-door It was locked, of course, but worse, it was steel plate, resistant to forced entry, with three deadbolts

Movement startled him He reeled back and discovered Deucalion at his side --tall, tattooed, tote

"Where the hell-"

"I understand locks," Deucalion interrupted

Instead of applying the finesse his words irabbed the door handle, wrenched it so hard that all three of the lock assemblies pulled out of the steel frame with a pop-crack-shriek of tortureddock

"What the bell," Michael asked, "was that?"

"Criminal trespass," Deucalion said, and disappeared into the warehouse

CHAPTER 94

WHEN MICHAEL followed Deucalion into the warehouse, the giant wasn’t there Whatever heto the word elusive

Calling out to Carson would alert Harker Besides, the stor: Rain roared against the corrugated metal roof

Crates of various sizes, barrels, and cubes of shrink-wrappedsize Michael hesitated only briefly, then went searching for the allon drums of vitamin capsules in bulk, cratedequipment--and one deserted aisle after another

Frustration built until he thought maybe he would shoot up a few boxes that clai Fu Elmo dolls, just to relieve the tension If they had been Barney the Dinosaur dolls, he would more likely have acted on the impulse

From overhead, louder than the rain, caoods The crates and barrels along the right side of the aisle shuddered and creaked and knocked together

When Michael looked up, he saw so that was Harker but not Harker, a hunched and twisted and grotesque foruely hu toward hi the top of the palisade Maybe the speed hich it ht fooled the eye Maybe it was not monstrous at all Maybe it was just old pain-in-the-ass Jonathan, and itation that he wasall the derip, he tried to track Harker, but the fugitive et would be when Harker leaped toward him and was airborne At the penulti off the right-hand stacks,

across the ten-foot-wide aisle, landing atop the left-hand palisade

Gazing up, in spite of the extreot a better look at his adversary He could no longer cling to the hope that he had irotesque transforlimpsed, but Johnny definitely was not in acceptable condition to be invited to dinner with genteel company Harker was Hyde out of Jekyll, Quasimodo crossed with the Phantom of the Opera, minus the black cape, minus the slouch hat, but with a dash of H P Lovecraft

Landing atop the merchandise to the left of Michael, Harker crouched low, on all fours, maybe on all sixes, and hat sounded like two voices quarreling with each other in wordless shrieks, he scrabbled away, back in the direction from which he had come

Because he didn’t suffer from any doubts about his manhood, because he knew that valor was often the better part of courage, Michael considered leaving the warehouse, going back to the station, and writing a letter of resignation Instead, he went after Harker He soon lost track of hi air that had been breathed by the quarry, Deucalion h ra so