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They stood in the kitchen, listening, but nothing could be heard above the relentless roar of the rain

Einstein was not able to give them a more precise fix on their adversary’s location His sixth sense was still not working up to par They were just lucky that he had sensed the beast at all Hisanxiety had evidently not been related to any presentiment about the man who had coe, caused by the approach of The Outsider

"Upstairs," Travis said "Let’s go"

Down here, the creature could enter by doors or s, but on the second floor they would at least have only s to worry about And et shutters closed over some of those

Nora cliht up the rear,the Uzi aimed down at the first floor The ascent made him dizzy He was acutely aware that the pain and weakness in his injured shoulder was slowly spreading outward through his entire body like an ink stain through a blotter

On the second floor, at the head of the stairs, he said, "If we hear it come in, we can back off, wait until it starts to climb toward us, then step forward and catch it by surprise, blow it away"

She nodded

They had to be silent now, give it a chance to creep into the downstairs, give it tiain confidence, let it approach the stairs with a sense of security

A strobe-flash of lightning-the first of the storm-pulsed at theat the end of the hall, and thunder cracked The sky seemed to have been shattered by the blast, and all the rain stored in the heavens collapsed upon the earth in one tremendous fall

At the end of the hallway, one of Nora’s canvases flew out of her studio and crashed against the wall

Nora cried out in surprise, and for an instant all three of the on the hall floor, half thinking that its poltergeist-like flight had been related to the great crash of thunder and the lightning

A second painting sailed out of her studio, hit the wall, and Travis saw the canvas was shredded

The Outsider was already in the house

They were at one end of the short hall The master bedroom and future nursery were on the left, the bathroo was just two doors away, in Nora’s studio, des

Another canvas flew into the hallway

Rain-soaked, muddied, battered, still someeak from his battle with diste to warn off The Outsider

Holding the Uzi, Travis rabbed his arot to face it"

"On our ter to get"

Two s flew out of the studio and clattered down on top of the growing pile of wrecked canvases

Einstein was no longer barking but growling deep in his throat

Together, theythe hall, toward the open door of Nora’s studio

Travis’s experience and training told hi into a single target But this was not Delta Force And their enemy was not a mere terrorist If they spread out, they would lose so Their very closeness gave theth

They were halfway to the studio door when The Outsider shrieked It was an icy sound that stabbed right through Travis and quick-froze his bone marrow He and Nora halted, but Einstein took twoviolently

Travis realized he, too, was shaking The tre fear’s hold, he rushed to the open door, treading on ruined canvases, spraying bullets into the studio The weapon’s recoil, thoughinto his wound

He hit nothing, heard nothing screan of the eneled paintings and glass fro had entered after cli, Travis stood with his legs spread wide The gun in both hands Blinking sweat out of his eyes Trying to ignore the seething pain in his right shoulder Waiting

The Outsider ht, crouched, ready to spring If he gave it ti and would rush him, and he could cut it down in the doorway

No, it’s as smart as Einstein, he told hih a narrow doorway? No No, it’ll do soent, unexpected

The sky exploded with thunder so powerful it vibrated the s and shook the house Chain lightning sizzled through the day

Colanced at Nora and Einstein, who stood a few steps away from him, with the master bedroom on one side of them and the bathrooain through the doorway, at theglass a the debris on the floor Suddenly he was certain that The Outsider was no longer in the studio, that it had gone out through the , onto the roof of the front porch, and that it was coh another door, perhaps out of one of the bedrooms, or fro, from the top of the steps

He motioned Nora forward, to his side "Cover h the doorway, into the studio,in a crouch He nearly fell in the rubble, but stayed on his feet and spun around, ready to open fire if the thing was looone

The closet door was open Nothing in there

He went to the brokenand cautiously looked out onto the roof of the rain-washed porch Nothing

Wind keened over the dangerously sharp shards of glass still bristling from theframe

He started back toward the upstairs hail He could see Nora out there, looking in at hi her Uzi Behind her, the door to the future nursery opened, and it was there, yellow eyes aglow Its monstrous jaws cracked wide, full of teeth far sharper than the wicked glass shards in theframe

She are of it, started to turn, but it struck at her before she had a chance to fire It tore the Uzi out of her hands

It had no chance to gut her with its razor-edged six-inch claws because, even as the beast was tearing the pistol out of her hands, Einstein charged it, snarling With catlike quickness, The Outsider shifted its attention fro It whipped around on hi arms Were constructed with more than one elbow joint It snatched Einstein up in both horrendous hands

Crossing the studio to the hall door, Travis had no clear shot at The Outsider because Nora was between hi As Travis reached the doorway, he cried out for her to fall down, to give him a line of fire, and she did, immediately, but too late The Outsider scooped Einstein into the nursery and slahtmare-spawned jack-in-the-box that had popped out and popped back in with its prey, all in the blink of an eye