In the Dark of the Night

array of instruments, as if someone had put together an entire surgical kit. As he touched each of them, Eric felt the same flow of energy that had come from the table on which the instruments now lay.

“What’s this?” Tad asked, reaching for a small bit of something brown and dried.

“No!” Eric said, and hit his hand away. “Leave it alone. And give me back the hypo. And the scalpel. They need to all be kept together.” He looked over at the valise, which now seemed to have a glow emanating from it. “They need to be back inside the bag.”

Tad pushed the leather valise across the table to him, and as Tad and Kent watched, Eric very gently, one by one, placed the instruments inside it.

When he was finished, Eric closed the bag and snapped the catch, but his eyes remained fixed on it.

“You okay?” Kent asked after several seconds had passed.

Eric finally looked up at the other boys and smiled. “I feel great,” he said.

Outside, Moxie began barking.

“Jeez,” Eric said with a shiver. “Moxie’s out. What time is it?”

Kent looked at his watch, then looked at it again.

Once again they had lost track of the time.

“It’s five to eleven,” he said, his voice hollow.

“Oh, man,” Eric said. “My parents are home.”

Quickly, they doused the lanterns, pulled the plywood back into place across the doorway, and left the carriage house. Eric led them around the back of the structure and along the edge of the woods, so when they finally walked up the lawn, it would look to his parents as if they were coming up from the lake.

His mother was silhouetted in the kitchen light as she held the door open for his father, who carried a sleeping Marci in from the car.

“It’s eleven o’clock,” she whispered loudly as the boys came up to the house. “Time for you to come in the house, Eric, and time for Kent and Tad to go home.”

Eric nodded a good-bye to Kent and Tad, who took off toward the lakefront trail that would take them to their houses, then stepped into the bright light of the kitchen. He didn’t want to talk to his mother, but neither did he want her to wonder if he’d been out drinking by going too quickly up to his room. He compromised by moving to the refrigerator and fishing out a Coke.

“What’d you three do tonight?” Merrill asked.

“Not much. Went into town for pizza. Hung out.”

“You missed a good dinner at the club.”

Eric shrugged. “It’s okay,” he said, picking up the Coke and taking a sip. “I’m pretty tired.”

Merrill Brewster smiled at her son. “It’s late. Why don’t you go on up to bed?”

“Yeah,” Eric agreed, moving toward the door. “Think I will.”

Eric walked quickly and quietly up the stairs and closed the door to his room. He didn’t want to wake up Marci, nor did he want to talk with his father. He just wanted to think about what he and Kent and Tad had found in the hidden room.

Junk — what looked like absolutely worthless junk — had been bought for unbelievably high prices, prices he could barely even imagine.

He kicked off his shoes, stretched out on top of the bed, and instantly felt as though his bones were melting right into the mattress. The moon was too high in the sky to see, but its silvery light sparkled on the lake and spread a calm light throughout his room.

How had it gotten to be eleven o’clock?

It seemed impossible.

Maybe he should call Tad or Kent on their cell phones. Or log on to see if they were online to chat.

But what good would it do? They didn’t know any more than he did, and all it would turn into would be a bunch of meaningless speculations.

But one thing he knew for certain: he was as exhausted after the hours he’d spent in the hidden room as he would have been if he’d been working hard all day long and all evening, too.

Too tired even to undress and get under the covers, Eric pulled his pillow out from under the bedspread, plumped it up under his head, and closed his eyes.

Chapter 12

HE CLUTCHED THE heavy wool cloak tight around his throat to ward off the bone-chilling fog. The street seemed empty, though he knew that wasn’t true.

Somewhere nearby someone else was searching, too.

He felt safe in the fog, knowing that its cold, white shroud protected him from prying eyes.

He was on a narrow, cobbled street that he knew wound down toward the docks. He had hunted here before, and now the smell of the place — the water, the fish, the sewage, even the vomit — all stirred something deep in his gut.

Soon a new fragrance would be added to the mix, and his pulse quickened as he thought about it.

His whole body was tingling as if some kind of current were running through it.

He saw her.

She was barely visible, lurking in a doorway, all but lost in the shadows. But still, despite the darkness and the fog, he knew.

She was the one.

She was perfect.

His hunger flared.

He slowed, feeling his excitement grow.

And feeling the emptiness of the streets around them.

They were alone.

Beneath his cloak, he slipped off a leather glove and slid his hand deep into an inner pocket.

His fingers closed on smooth, cold steel.

He was close to her now, and she spoke, her voice muffled by the fog. “Raw night, ain’t it?”

The mounds of her breasts pushed vulgarly up from the top of her dress, but they were blushing an authentic red from the cold, not from the rouge pot.

Her hair was blond and crumpled messily on top of her head. Garish rouge and bright red lipstick turned what could have been a pretty face into a grotesque mask.

Her blue eyes were outlined with black that had smudged through the course of the night, giving her a look of ineffable sadness.

Sadness he knew he could cure.

“Yes,” he said, moving closer to her. “Raw.”

She offered him a twisted parody of a coquettish smile, ruined by a missing tooth.

He held up a bill between two of the gloved fingers of his left hand, and she eagerly reached for it, but he pulled it back, holding the bill just out of her grasp.

“Someplace warm,” he said.

“All right, then,” she said, “whatever you say.” She pulled her ragged coat closed at the neck. “This way.” She turned and led him down a narrow cobbled alley, crooked and dark, lined with shadows.