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"Somehow I don’t think they’ll couy just because he claims to have a supernatural bond with a psychotic killer"
The wind that had harried laurel leaves across the shopping-center parking lot now found a loose brace on a section of rain gutter and worried it Metal creaked softly against ht?"
"What do you atory, Heaven, Hell--those are the basic possibilities for a Catholic, if e say we believe turns out to be true"
"Well … you’ve always said you had no near-death experience"
"I didn’t I can’t re from … the Other Side But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t there"
"What’s your point?"
"Maybe this killer isn’t an ordinary ht so back with me"
"Back with you?"
"Fro?"
Darkness had its advantages The superstitious pris that would seehted place
He said, "A spirit An entity"
She said nothing
"My passage in and out of deaththrough"
"Soain, but with no note of inquiry in her voice, as there had been before He sensed that she knehat he meant--and did not like the theory
"And now it’s loose in the world Which explains its link to er ht back, it’s evidently pure evil What--are you saying that when you died, you went to Hell and this killer piggy-backed with you from there?"
"Maybe I’ot at least Cooper’s blood on ht back Besides, you don’t share in the guilt for that"
"It was er--"
"Bullshit," Lindsey said sharply "You’re the bestin the afterlife includes a Heaven and Hell, you’ve earned the aparthts were so dark, he was surprised that he could smile He reached under the sheets, found her hand, and held it gratefully "I love you, too"
"Think up another theory if you want to keep me awake and interested"
"Let’s just make a little adjustment to the theory we already have What if there’s an afterlife, but it isn’t ordered like anything theologians have ever described It wouldn’t have to be either Heaven or Hell that I caer than here, different, with unknown dangers"
"I don’t like that , I have to find a way to explain it I can’t fight back if I don’t even knohere to throw ical explanation," she said
"That’s what I tellback to the illogical"
The rain gutter creaked The wind soughed under the eaves and called down the flue of the master-bedroom fireplace
He wondered if Honell was able to hear the herever he was--and whether it was the wind of this world or the next
Vassago parked directly in front of Harrison’s Antiques at the south end of Laguna Beach The shop occupied an entire Art Deco building The big display ere unlighted as Tuesday passed throughWednesday
Steven Honell had been unable to tell him where the Harrisons lived, and a quick check of the telephone book turned up no listed number for them The writer had known only the name of their business and its approxihway
Their home address was sure to be on file soht be difficult A decal on each of the big Plexiglas s and another on the front door warned that the prelar alarm and protected by a security company
He had come back from Hell with the ability to see in the dark, animal-quick reflexes, a lack of inhibitions that left him capable of any act or atrocity, and a fearlessness that ht have been But he could not walk through walls, or transforain, or fly, or perform any of the other feats that ithin the powers of a true demon Until he had earned his way back into Hell either by acquiring a perfect collection in histhose he had been sent here to destroy, he possessed only the minor powers of the delar alarm
He drove away from the store
In the heart of town, he found a telephone booth beside a service station Despite the hour, the station was still puht that Vassago was forced to squint behind his sunglasses
Swooping around the lae as ravens on the pavearette butts Ants teamed over the corpse of a beetle
Someone had taped a hand-lettered OUT OF ORDER notice to the coin box, but Vassago didn’t care because he didn’t intend to call anyone He was only interested in the phone book, which was secured to the frame of the booth by a sturdy chain
He checked "Antiques" in the Yellow Pages Laguna Beach had a lot of businesses under that heading; it was a regular shoppers’ paradise He studied their space ads Some had institutional names like International Antiques, but others were named after their owners, as was Harrison’s Antiques
A few used both first and last names, and some of the space ads also included the full names of the proprietors because, in that business, personal reputation could be a drawing card Robert O Loffes cross-referenced neatly with a Robert O Loffo with a street address, which he committed to memory
On his way back to the Honda, he saw a bat swoop out of the night It arced down through the blue-white glare fro a fat ht, then vanished back up into the darkness from which it had come Neither predator nor prey made a sound