The Servants of Twilight

He tried to squeeze farther back into the corner, but he was already jammed so tightly into the junction of the rock walls that he almost seemed to be a boy-shaped extrusion of them.

She stopped when she was only six or eight feet from him, and she said,

"You will not inherit the earth. Not for a thousand years and not even for one minute. I have come to stop you."

The child didn't answer.

She sensed that his powers had not yet grown too strong for her, and her confidence soared. He was still afraid of her. She had reached him in time.

She smiled." Did you really think you could run away from me?"

His gaze strayed past her, and she knew he was looking at the battered dog.

"Your heilhound won't help you now," she said.

He began to shake, and he worked his mouth in an effort to speak, and she could see him form the word "Mommy," but he was unable to make even the slightest sound.

From a sheath attached to her belt, she withdrew a long-bladed hunting knife. It was sharply pointed and had been stropped until it was as keen as a razor.

Christine saw the knife and tried to bolt up from the floor, but the savage pain in her leg thwarted her, and she collapsed back onto the stone even as the giant was bringing the muzzle of the rifle around to cover her.

Speaking to Joey, Spivey said, "I was chosen for this task because of the way I dedicated myself to Albert all those years, because I knew how to give myself completely, unstintingly.

That's how I've dedicated myself to this holy mission-without reservation or hesitation, with every ounce of my strength and will power. There was never any chance you would escape from me.,$

Desperately trying to reach Spivey, trying to touch her on an emotional level, Christine said, "Please, listen, please, you're wrong, all wrong.

He's just a little boy, my little boy, and I love him, and he loves me."

She was babbling, suddenly inarticulate, and she was furious with herself for being unable to find words that would convince." Oh God, if you could only see how sweet and loving he is, you'd know you're all confused about him. You can't take him away from me. It would be so. wrong. "

Ignoring Christine, talking to Joey, Spivey held the knife out and said,

"I've spent many hours praying over this blade. And one night I saw the spirit of one of Almighty God's angels come down from the heavens and through the window of my bedroom, and that spirit still resides here, within this consecrated instrumepit, and when it cuts into you, it will be not just the blade rending your flesh but the angelic spirit, as well."

The woman was stark raving mad, and Christine knew that an appeal to logic and reason would be as hopeless as an appeal to the emotions had been, but she had to try it, anyway. With growing desperation, she said, "Wait! Listen. You're wrong.

Don't you see? Even if Joey was what you say-which he isn't, that's just crazy-but even if he was, even if God wanted him dead, then why wouldn't God destroy him? If He wanted my little boy dead, why wouldn't He strike him with lightning or cancer or let him be hit by a car? God wouldn't need you to deal with the Antichrist."

Spivey answered Christine this time but didn't turn to face her; the old woman's gaze remained on Joey. She spoke with a fervency that was scary, her voice rising and falling like that of a tent revivalist, but with more energy than any Elmer Gantry, with a rabid excitement that turned some words into animalistic growls, and with a soaring exaltation that gave other phrases a lilting songlike quality. The effect was terrifying and hypnotic, and Christine imagined that this was the same mysterious, powerful effect that Hitler and Stalin had had on crowds:

"When evil appears to us, when we see it at work in this troubled, troubled world, we can't merely fall to our knees and beg God to deliver us from it. Evil and vile temptation are a test of our faith and virtue, a challenge that we must face every day of our lives, in order to prove ourselves worthy of salvation and ascendance into Heaven. We cannot expect God to remove the yoke from us, for it is a yoke that we put upon ourselves in the first place. It is our sacred responsibility to confront evil and triumph over it, on our own, with those resources that Almighty God has given us. That is how we earna place at His right hand, in the company of angels."

At last the old woman turned away from Joey and faced Christine, and her eyes were more disturbing than ever. She continued her harangue: