avalanche of minutes.
In back, Janet and Sammy rode in uneasy silence. The boy slept. The dog seemed restless.
In the passenger seat, Connie switched on the small overhead map-reading lamp. She cracked open the cylinder of her revolver to be sure there was a round in every chamber.
That was the second time she had checked.
Harry knew what she must be thinking: What if Ticktock had awakened; had stopped time since she had last checked her weapon; had removed all the cartridges; and when she had the chance to shoot him, what if he only smiled while the hammer fell on empty chambers?
As before, in the revolver, a full complement of case heads gleamed. All chambers loaded.
Connie snapped the cylinder shut. Clicked off the light.
Harry thought she looked extremely tired. Face drawn. Eyes watery, bloodshot. He worried that they were going to have to stalk the most dangerous criminal of their careers at a time when they were exhausted. He knew
“Who goes into his house?” Sammy asked.
“Harry and me,” Connie said. “We’re the professionals. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“And us?” Janet asked.
“Wait in the van.”
“Feel like I should help,” Sammy said.
“Don’t even think about it,” Connie said sharply.
“How will you get in?”
Harry said, “My partner here carries a set of lock picks.”
Connie patted one jacket pocket to be sure the folding packet of burglary tools was still there.
“What if he’s not sleeping?” Janet asked.
Checking the names on the street signs as he drove, Harry said, “He will be.”
“But what if he’s not?”
“He
2:29. Damn. Time stopped, now going too fast.
The name of the street was Phaedra Way. Letters on the Laguna Beach street signs were too small, hard to read. Especially in the fog. He leaned over the wheel, squinting.
“How can he be killed?” Sammy asked worriedly “I don’t see how the ratman can be killed, not him.”
“Well, we can’t just risk wounding him, that’s for damned sure,” Connie said. “He might be able to heal himself.”
Phaedra Way. Phaedra. Come on, come on.
“But if he’s got healing power,” Harry said, “it comes from the same place all his other power comes from.”
“His mind,” Janet said.
Phaedra, Phaedra, Phaedra…
Letting the van slow because he was sure they were in the area where Ticktock’s street ought to be, Harry said, “Yeah. Will power. Mind power. Psychic ability is the power of the mind, and the mind is seated in the brain.”
“Headshot,” Connie said.
Harry agreed. “At close range.”
Connie looked grim. “It’s the only way. No jury trial for this bastard. Damage the brain instantly, kill him instantly, and he doesn’t have a chance to strike back.”
Remembering how the golem-vagrant had hurled fireballs around his condo bedroom and how instantly white-hot flames erupted from the things he torched, Harry said, “Yeah. For sure, before he has a chance to strike back. Hey! There. Phaedra Way.”
The address they had gotten from Jennifer Drackman was less than two miles from Pacific View Care Home. They located the street at 2:31, slightly more than one hour after the Pause had begun and ended.
It was actually more of a long driveway than a short street, serving only five homes with ocean views, though now the Pacific was lost in fog. Because, from spring through autumn, the entire coastal area was crawling with tourists seeking parking spaces near beaches, a sign was posted at the entrance, sternly announcing PRIVATE — VIOLATORS WILL BE TOWED, but no security gate restricted access.
Harry didn’t make the turn. Because the street was so short and because the van would be loud enough to wake the sleeping and draw attention at that dead hour of the morning, he drove past the turnoff and coasted to a stop two hundred feet farther along the highway.
Everything better, everyone together, so maybe they can all be a family and want a dog to feed and all live in a people place, warm and dry — and then suddenly everything wrong, wrong.
Deathcoming. The woman who has no boy. The not-so-stinky man. Sitting up front in the van, and deathcoming all around them.
He smells it on them, yet it is not an odor. He sees it on them, yet they look no different. It makes no sound, yet he hears it when he listens to them. If he licked their hands, their faces, deathcoming would have no taste of its own, yet he would know it was on them. If they petted or scratched him, he would feel it in their touch, deathcoming. It is one of those few things he senses without really knowing how he knows. Deathcoming.
He is shaking. He cannot stop shaking.
Deathcoming.
Bad. Very bad. The worst.
He must do something. But what? What what what what?
He doesn’t know when the deathcoming will be or where it will be or how it will be. He doesn’t know whether deathcoming will be to both of them or only to one of them. It could be only to one of them, and he senses it on both of them only because it will happen when they are together. He cannot sense this thing as clearly as he can sense the countless odors of the stinky man or the fear on all of them, because it is not really something to be smelled or tasted so much as just felt, a coldness, a dark, a deepness. Deathcoming.
So…
Do something.
So…
Do something.
What what what?
When Harry switched off the engine and doused the headlights, the silence seemed almost as deep as it had been during the Pause.
The dog was agitated, sniffing and whining. If he began to bark, the walls of the van would muffle the sound. Besides, Harry was confident that they were too far from the Drackman house for Ticktock to be disturbed by any sound the dog could make.
Sammy said, “How long before we should figure… you know… you didn’t get him, he got you? Sorry, but I had to ask. When should we run?”
“If he gets us, you won’t have a chance to run,” Connie said.
Harry turned to look at them in the shadowy rear compartment. “Yeah. He’s going to wonder how the hell we found him, and after he kills us, there’ll be another Pause, immediately, while he checks out all of you, everything, trying to figure it out. If he gets us, you’ll know it, because just a few seconds later in real time, one of his golems will probably appear right here in the van with you.”
Sammy blinked owlishly. He wetted his cracked lips with his tongue. “Then, for God’s sake, be sure you kill him.”
Harry opened his door quietly, while Connie left the van on her side. When he stepped out, the dog slipped between the front seats and followed him before he realized what was happening.
He made a grab at the mutt as it brushed past his legs, but he missed.
“Woofer, no!” he whispered.
