The Servants of Twilight

"And you reveal your own ignorance and your damning lack of faith when you attribute cancer and death and other afflictions to our Lord, God of Heaven and earth. It was not He who brought evil to the earth and afflicted mankind with ten thousand scourges. It was Satan, the abominable serpent, and it was Eve, in the blessed garden of peace, who brought the knowledge of sin and death and despair to the thousand generations that followed. We brought evil upon ourselves, and now that the ultimate evil walks the earth in this child's body, it is our responsibility to deal with it ourselves. It is the test of tests, and the hope of all mankind rests with our ability to meet it!"

The old woman's fury had left Christine speechless, devoid of hope.

Spivey turned to Joey again and said, "I smell your putrescent heart. I feel your radiant evil. It's a coldness that cuts right into my bones and vibrates there. Oh, I know you, all right. I know you. " Fighting off panic that threatened to leave her as emotionally and mentally incapacitated as she was physically helpless, Christine wracked her mind for a plan, an idea. She was willing to try anything, no matter how pointless it seemed, anything, but she could think of nothing.

She saw that, in spite of his condition, Charlie had pulled himself into a sitting position. Weak as he was, overwhelmed by pain, any movement must have been an ordeal for him. He wouldn't have pulled himself up without reason-would he?

Maybe he had thought of the course of action which continued to elude Christine. That's what she wanted to believe. That's what she hoped with all her heart.

Spivey reversed her grip on the knife, held the handle toward the ugly giant." It's time, Kyle. The boy's appearance is deceptive. He looks small and weak, but he'll be strong, he'll resist, and although I am Chosen, I'm not physically strong, not any more. It's up to you."

An odd expression took possession of Kyle's face. Christine expected a look of triumph, eagerness, maniacal hatred, but instead he appeared. not worried, not confused, but a little of both. and hesitant.

Spivey said, "Kyle, it's time for you to be the hammer of God."

Christine shuddered. She scrambled across the floor toward the giant, so frightened that she could ignore the pain in her leg.

She grabbed for the hem of his parka, hoping to unbalance him, topple him, and get the gun away from him, a hopeless plan considering his size and strength, but she didn't even have a chance to try it because he swung the butt of his rifle at her, just as he'd swung it at the dog. It slammed into her shoulder, knocking her back, onto her side, and all the air was driven from her lungs. She gasped for breath and put one hand to her damaged shoulder and began to cry.

With tremendous effort, nearly blacking out from the pain, Charlie sat up because he thought he might see the situation differently from a new position and might, finally, spot a solution they had overlooked.

However, he still could not think of anything that would save them.

Kyle took the knife from Grace and gave her the rifle.

The old woman stepped out of the giant's way.

Kyle turned the knife over and over in his hand, staring at it with a slightly baffled expression. The blade glinted in the goblin light of the fire.

Charlie tried to pull himself up the five-foot-high face of the ledge that formed the hearth, with the notion of grabbing a buming log and throwing it. From the corner of her eye, Spivey saw him struggling with the dead weight of his own shattered body, and she pointed the rifle at him. She might as well have saved herself the trouble; he didn't have sufficient strength to reach the fire, anyway.

Kyle Barlowe looked at the knife in his hand, then at the boy, and he wasn't sure which scared him more.

He had used knives before. He'd cut people before, even killed them. It had been easy, and he had vented some of the rage that periodically built in him like a head of steam in a boiler. But he was not the same man that he had been then. He could control his emotions now. He understood himself at last. The old Kyle had hated everyone he met, whether he knew them or not, because inevitably they rejected him. But the new Kyle realized that his hatred did more harm to him than to anyone else. In fact, he now knew that he had not always been rejected because of his ugliness, but often because of his surliness and anger.

Grace had given him purpose and acceptance, and in time he had discovered affection, and after affection had come the first indications of an ability to love and be loved. And now, if he used the knife, if he killed the boy, he might be launching himself on an inevitable slide back down to the depths from which he'd climbed. He feared the knife.