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As he drove slowly past the house a second ti him His immutable destiny involved this place and the vital woested a trap A red car was parked in the driveway instead of in the garage, but he couldn’t see anything ominous about that Nevertheless, he decided to circle the block a third ti over

As he turned the corner, a lone silverythereat fire He rehts to snatch the hapless ht, Hatch had finally dozed off His sleep was a deep ht ribbons of h the otherwise dark walls None of the dreah to wake hi at the bottom of a ravine with ramparts so steep they could not be clile that allowed ascent, they would not have been scaleable because they were composed of a curious, loose white shale that crumbled and shifted treacherously The shale radiated a soft calciht, for the sky far above was black and moonless, deep but starless Hatchnarrow ravine to the other, then back again, filled with apprehension but unsure of the cause of it

Then he realized two things that le on the back of his neck The white shale was not composed of rock and the shells of millions of ancient sea creatures; it was nizable here and there, where the articulated bones of two fingers survived compression or where what seemed a small animal’s burrow proved to be the empty eye socket in a skull He beca circled in it, so black that it blended with the heavens, its leathery wings working silently He could not see it, but he could feel its gaze, and he sensed a hunger in it that could never be satisfied

In his troubled sleep, Hatch turned and o checked the car clock Even without its confir numbers, he knew instinctively that daas less than an hour away

He no longer could be sure he had enough tiet into the house, kill the husband, and take the woetting caught in the open in daylight Though he would not shrivel up and turn to dust like the living dead in theas dralasses would not provide adequate protection froht Daould render hi his ability to drive and bringing him to the attention of any policeress In that debilitated condition, hewith the cop

More i so often in his dreams, she had become an object of intense desire Before, he had seen acquisitions of such quality that he had been convinced they would complete his collection and earn hie world of eternal darkness and hatred to which he belonged--and he had been wrong But none of those others had appeared to him in dreams This woman was the true jewel in the crown for which he had been seeking Hepossession of her prematurely, only to lose her before he could draw the life fro corpse into whatever configuration seemed most symbolic of her sins and weaknesses

As he cruised past the house for the third ti i here as soon as the sun had set the following evening But that plan had no appeal Being so close to her excited hiain He felt the tidal pull of her in his blood

He needed a place to hide that was near her Perhaps a secret corner in her own house A niche in which she was unlikely to look during the long, bright, hostile hours of the day

He parked the Honda two blocks fro the tree-flanked sidewalk The tall, green-patinated streetlaht onto the roadway, and only a ghost of their glow reached past the sidewalk onto the front lawns of the silent houses Confident that neighbors were still sleeping and unlikely to see hi shrubbery around the perimeter of the house, he searched quietly for an unlocked door, an unlatchedHe had no luck until he caina akened by a scraping noise, a dull thump-thump and a soft protracted squeak Still unaccustomed to her new home, she aloke in confusion, not sure where she was, certain only that she was not in her rooe She fumbled for the bedside lalare for a second before orienting herself and realizing the noises that had bumped her out of sleep had been sneaky sounds They had stopped when she had snapped on the light Which seeht off and listened in the darkness, which was now filled with aureoles of color because the lamp had worked like a caht vision Though the sounds did not resume, she believed they had come from the backyard

Her bed was comfortable The room almost seemed to be scented with the perfume of the painted flowers Encircled by those roses, she felt safer than she had ever felt before

Although she didn’t want to get up, she was also aware that the Harrisons were having problems of some kind, and she wondered if these sneaky sounds in the ht be related to that Yesterday during the drive fro dinner and after theto conceal froh she knew herself to be a screwup around whoht to feel nervous, she was sure that she was not the cause of their edginess Before going to sleep, she had prayed that their troubles, if they had any, would prove to be minor and would be dealt with soon, and she had ree to eat beans of all varieties

If there was any possibility the sneaky noises were related to the Harrisons’ uneasy state of ation to check it out She looked up and back at the crucifix above her bed, and sighed You couldn’t rely on Jesus and Mary for everything They were busy people They had a universe to run God helped those who helped themselves

She slipped out from under the covers, stood, and ainst furniture and then the wall She was not wearing her leg brace, and she needed the support

Thelooked onto the se, the area froht-shadows froht The longer Regina stared, the less she couldup her ability to see It becalooehad been unlocked but difficult to open The hinges at the top were corroded, and the frao made more noise than he intended, but he didn’t think he had been loud enough to draw the attention of anyone in the house Then just as the paint cracked and the hinges ht had appeared in anotheron the second floor

He had backed away froain even as he enia bushes near the property fence

From there he saw her appear at the obsidian , more visible to him, perhaps, than she would have been if she had left the lairl he had seen in dreams a couple of times, most recently with Lindsey Harrison They had faced each other across a levitated black rose with one drop of blood glistening on a velvet petal

Regina

He stared at her in disbelief, then with growing exciteht, he had asked Steven Honell if the Harrisons had a daughter, but the author had told hio

Separated frolass, the girl seemed to float above hi, lovelier than she had been in his dreams She was so exceptionally vital, so full of life, that he would not have been surprised if she could walk the night as confidently as he did, though for a reason different froht she needed to illuh any darkness He drew back farther into the eugenias, convinced that she possessed the power to see him as clearly as he saw her