Darkfall

Ten-fifteen.

Ten-sixteen.

While they huddled under the stairs, Jack looked at the bite on Rebecca's left hand. Three puncture marks were distributed over an area as large as a nickel, on the meatiest part of her palm, and there was a small tear in the skin, as well, but the lizard-thing hadn't bitten deeply. The flesh was only slightly puffy. The wound no longer wept; there was only dried blood.

“How does it feel?”

“Burns a bit,” she said.

“That's all?”

“It'll be fine. I'll put my glove on; that ought to help prevent it from breaking open and bleeding again.”

“Keep a watch on it, okay? If there's any discoloration, any more swelling, anything at all odd about it, maybe we ought to get you to a hospital.”

“And when I talk to the doctor, what'll I say happened to me?”

“Tell him you were bitten by a goblin. What else?”

“Might be worth it just to see his expression.”

Ten-seventeen.

Jack examined Davey's coat, at which the lizard had clawed in a murderous frenzy. The garment was heavy and well-made; the fabric was sturdy. Nevertheless, the creature's claws had sliced all the way through in at least three places — and through the quilted lining, too.

It was a miracle that Davey was unharmed. Although the claws had pierced the coat as if it were so much cheesecloth, they hadn't torn the boy's sweater or his shirt; they hadn't left even one shallow scratch on his skin.

Jack thought about how close he had come to losing both Davey and Penny, and he was acutely aware that he might still lose them before this case was closed. He put one hand to his son's fragile face. An icy premonition of dreadful loss began to blossom within him, spreading frozen petals of terror and despair. His throat clenched. He struggled to hold back tears. He must not cry. The kids would come apart if he cried. Besides, if he gave in to despair now, he would be surrendering — in some small but significant way — to Lavelle. Lavelle was evil, not just another criminal, not merely corrupted, but evil, the very essence and embodiment of it, and evil thrived on despair. The best weapons against evil were hope, optimism, determination, and faith. Their chances of survival depended on — their ability to keep hoping, to believe that life (not death) was their destiny, to believe that good could triumph over evil, simply to believe. He would not lose his kids. He would not allow Lavelle to have them.

“Well,” he said to Davey, “it's too well-ventilated for a winter coat, but I think we can fix that.” He took off his long neckscarf, wound it overtop the boy's damaged coat, twice around his small chest, and knotted it securely at his waist. “There. That ought to keep the gaps closed. You okay, skipper?”

Davey nodded and tried very hard to look brave. He said, “Dad, do you think maybe what you need here is a magic sword?”

“A magic sword?” Jack said.

“Well, isn't that what you've got to have if you're going to kill a bunch of goblins?” the boy asked earnestly. “In all the stories, they usually have a magic sword or a magic staff, see, or maybe just some magic powder, and that's what always does in the goblins or the witches or ogres or whatever it is that has to be done in. Oh, and sometimes, what it is they have… it's a magic jewel, you know, or a sorcerer's ring. So, since you and Rebecca are detectives maybe this time it's a goblin gun. Do you know if the police department has anything like that? A goblin gun?”

“I don't really know,” Jack said solemnly, wanting to hug the boy very close and very tight. “But it's a darned good suggestion, son. I'll look into it.”

“And if they don't have one,” Davey said, “then maybe you could just ask a priest to sort of bless your own gun, the one you already have, and then you could load it up with lots and lots of silver bullets. That's what they do with werewolves, you know.”

“I know. And that's a good suggestion, too. I'm real glad to see you're thinking about ways to beat these things. I'm glad you aren't giving up. That's what's important — not giving up.”

“Sure,” Davey said, sticking his chin out. “I know that.”

Penny was watching her father over Davey's shoulder. She smiled and winked.

Jack winked back at her.

Ten-twenty.

With every minute that passed uneventfully, Jack felt safer.

Not safe. Just safer.

Penny gave him a very abbreviated account of her encounters with the goblins.

When the girl finished, Rebecca looked at Jack and said, “He's been keeping a watch on them. So he'd always know exactly where to find them when the time came.”

To Penny, Jack said, “My God, baby, why didn't you wake me last night when the thing was in your room?”

“I didn't really see it—”

“But you heard it.”

“That's all.”

“And the baseball bat—”

“Anyway,” Penny said with a sudden odd shyness, unable to meet his eyes, “I was afraid you'd think I'd gone… crazy… again.”

“Huh? Again?” Jack blinked at her. “What on earth do you mean — again?”

“Well… you know… like after Mama died, the way I was then… when I had my… trouble.”

“But you weren't crazy,” Jack said. “You just needed a little counseling; that's all, honey.”

“That's what you called him,” the girl said, barely audible. “A counselor.”

“Yeah. Dr. Hannaby.”

“Aunt Faye, Uncle Keith, everyone called him a counselor. Or sometimes a doctor.”

“That's what he was. He was there to counsel you, to show you how to deal with your grief over your mom's death.”

The girl shook her head: no. “One day, when I was in his office, waiting for him… and he didn't come in to start the session right away… I started to read the college degrees on his wall.”

“And?”

With evident embarrassment, Penny said, “I found out he was a psychiatrist. Psychiatrists treat crazy people. That's when I knew I was a little bit… crazy.”

Surprised and dismayed that such a misconception could have gone uncorrected for so long, Jack said, “No, no, no. Sweetheart, you've got it all wrong.”

Rebecca said, “Penny, for the most-part, psychiatrists treat ordinary people with ordinary problems. Problems that we all have at one time or another in our lives. Emotional problems, mostly. That's what yours were. Emotional problems.”

Penny looked at her shyly. She frowned. Clearly, she wanted to believe.

“They treat some mental problems, too, of course,” Rebecca said. “But in their offices, among their regular patients, they hardly ever see anyone who's really, really insane. Truly crazy people are hospitalized or kept in institutions.”

“Sure,” Jack said. He reached for Penny's hands, held them. They were small, delicate hands. The fragility of her hands, the vulnerability of an eleven-year-old who liked to think of herself as grown-up — it made his heart ache. “Honey, you were never crazy. Never even close to crazy. What a terrible thing to've been worrying about all this time.”

The girl looked from Jack to Rebecca to Jack again. “You really mean it? You really mean lots of ordinary, everyday people go to psychiatrists?”

“Absolutely,” he said. “Honey, life threw you a pretty bad curve, what with your mom dying so young, and I was so broken up myself that I wasn't much good at helping you handle it. I guess… I should have made an extra- special effort. But I was feeling so bad, so lost, so helpless, so darned sorry for myself that I just wasn't able to