Midnight

street, because that was the last thing they'd expect. But then she thought: Are you insane?

She did not bother to scream for help. Her thudding heart seemed to have swollen until her lungs had too little room to expand, so she could barely get enough air to remain conscious, on her feet, and moving. No breath was left for a scream. Besides, even if people heard her call for help, they wouldn't necessarily be able to tell where she was; by the time they tracked her down, she would be either torn apart or possessed, because the scream would have slowed her by a fateful second or two.

Instead, limping slightly to favor a pulled muscle in her left leg but losing no time, she hurried across the expansive rear lawn. She knew she could not scale a blank seven-foot wall fast enough to save herself, especially not with one stingingly abraded hand, so she studied the trees as she ran. She needed one close to the wall; maybe she could climb into it, crawl out on a branch, and drop into the alleyway or into the neighbor's yard.

Above the slosh and patter of the rain, she heard a low growl behind her, and she dared to glance over her shoulder. Wearing only tatters of a shirt, freed entirely from shoes and trousers, the wolf-thing that had been Father O'Brien leaped from the edge of the porch roof in pursuit.

She finally saw a suitable tree — but an instant later noticed a gate in the wall at the southwest corner. She hadn't seen it sooner because it had been screened from her by some shrubbery that she had just passed.

Gasping for air, she put her head down, tucked her arms against her sides, and ran to the gate. She hit the bar latch with her hand, popping it out of the slot in which it had been cradled, and burst through into the alley. Turning left, away from Ocean Avenue toward Jacobi Street, she ran through deep puddles nearly to the end of the block before risking a glance behind her.

Nothing had followed her out of the rectory gate.

Twice she had been in the hands of the aliens, and twice she had escaped. She knew she would not be so lucky if she were captured a third time.

10

Shortly before nine o'clock, after less than four hours of sleep altogether, Sam Booker woke to the quiet clink and clatter of someone at work in the kitchen. He sat up on the living-room sofa, wiped at his matted eyes, put on his shoes and shoulder holster, and went down the hall.

Tessa Lockland was humming softly as she lined up pans, bowls, and food on the wheelchair-low counter near the stove, preparing to make breakfast.

'Good morning,' she said brightly when Sam came into the kitchen.

'What's good about it?' he asked.

'Just listen to that rain,' she said. 'Rain always makes me feel clean and fresh.'

'Always depresses me.'

'And it's nice to be in a warm, dry kitchen, listening to the storm but cozy.'

He scratched at the stubble of beard on his unshaven cheeks. 'Seems a little stuffy in here to me.'

'Well, anyway, we're still alive, and that's good.'

'I guess so.'

'God in heaven!' She banged an empty frying pan down on the stove and scowled at him. 'Are all FBI agents like you'

'In what way?'

'Are they all sourpusses?'

'I'm not a sourpuss.'

'You're a classic Gloomy Gus.'

'Well, life isn't a carnival.'

'It isn't?'

'Life is hard and mean.'

'Maybe. But isn't it a carnival too?'

'Are all documentary filmmakers like you?'

'In what way?'

'Pollyannas?'

'That's ridiculous. I'm no Pollyanna.'

'Oh, no?'

'No.'

'Here we are trapped in a town where reality seems to have been temporarily suspended, where people are being torn apart by species unknown, where Boogeymen roam the streets at night, where some mad computer genius seems to have turned human biology inside out, where we're all likely to be killed or 'converted' before midnight tonight, and when I come in here you're grinning and sprightly and humming a Beatles tune.'

'It wasn't the Beatles.'

'Huh?'

'Rolling Stones.'

'And that makes a difference?'

She sighed. 'Listen, if you're going to help eat this breakfast, you're going to help make it, so don't just stand there glowering.'

'All right, okay, what can I do?'

'First, get on the intercom there and call Harry, make sure he's awake. Tell him breakfast in … ummmm … forty minutes. Pancakes and eggs and shaved, fried ham.'

Sam pressed the intercom button and said, 'Hello, Harry,' and Harry answered at once, already awake. He said he'd be down in about half an hour.

'Now what?' Sam asked Tessa.

'Get the eggs and milk from the refrigerator — but for God's sake don't look in the cartons.'

'Why not?'

She grinned. 'You'll spoil the eggs and curdle the milk.'

'Very funny.'

'I thought so.'

While making pancake mix from scratch, cracking six eggs into glass dishes and preparing them so they could be quickly slipped into the frying pans when she needed them, directing Sam to set the table and help her with other small chores, chopping onions, and shaving ham, Tessa alternately hummed and sang songs by Patti La Belle and the Pointer Sisters. Sam knew whose music it was because she told him, announcing each song as if she were a disc jockey or as if she hoped to educate him and loosen him up. While she worked and sang, she danced in place, shaking her bottom, swiveling her hips, rolling her shoulders, sometimes snapping her fingers, really getting into it.

She was genuinely enjoying herself, but he knew that she was also needling him a little and getting a kick out of that too. He tried to hold fast to his gloom, and when she smiled at him, he did not return her smile, but damn she was cute. Her hair was tousled, and she wasn't wearing any makeup, and her clothes were wrinkled from having been slept in, but her slightly disheveled look only added to her allure.

Sometimes she paused in her soft singing and humming to ask him questions, but she continued to sing and dance in place even while he answered her. 'You figured what we're going to do yet to get out of this corner we're in?'

'I have an idea.'

'Patti La Belle, 'New Attitude,' ' she said, identifying the song she was singing. 'Is this idea of yours a deep, dark secret?'

'No. But I have to go over it with Harry, get some information from him, so I'll tell you both at breakfast.'

At her direction he was hunched over the low counter, cutting thin slices of cheese from a block of Cheddar when she broke into her song long enough to ask, 'Why did you say life is hard and mean?'