The Servants of Twilight

two-tone, striped blouse. All her jewelry was red: a double strand of crimson beads and matching bracelets on each wrist; a porcelain broach as bright as fire; two ruby rings; one ring with four dazzling ovals of highly polished camelian; four other rings with cheap red glass, vermilion enamel, and scarlet porcelain. Whether precious, semi-precious, or fake, all the stones in her rings glinted and sparkled in the flickering candlelight.

The quivering flames, adance upon the points of the wicks, caused strange shadows to writhe over the basement walls. The room was large, but it seemed small because the candies were grouped at one end of it, and three-quarters of the chamber lay beyond the reach of their inconstant amber light. There were eleven candles in all, each fat and white, each fitted in a brass holder with an ornate drip guard, and each brass candlestick was gripped firmly by one of Grace's followers, all of whom were waiting eagerly for her to speak. Of the eleven, six were men and five were women. Some were young, some middle-aged, some old. They sat on the floor, forming a semicircle around the chair on which Grace sat, their faces gleaming and queerly distorted in the fluttering, shimmering, eldritch glow.

These eleven did not constitute the entire body of her followers. More than fifty others were in the room overhead, waiting anxiously to hear what transpired during this session. And more than a thousand others were elsewhere, in a hundred different places, engaged upon work that Grace had assigned to them.

However, these eleven at her feet were her most trusted, valued, and capable lieutenants. They were the ones she most cherished.

She even knew and remembered their names, although it wasn't easy for her to remember names (or much of anything else) these days, not as easy as it had been before the Gift had been given to her. The Gift filled her, filled her mind, and crowded out so many things that she had once taken for grantedsuch as the ability to remember names and faces. And the ability to keep track of time. She never knew what time it was any more; even when she looked at a clock, it frequently had no meaning for her. Seconds, minutes, hours, and days now seemed like ridiculously arbitrary measurements of time; perhaps they

were still useful to ordinary men and women, but she was beyond the need of them. Sometimes, when she thought only a day had passed, she discovered that an entire week was missing.

It was scary but also curiously exhilarating, for it made her constantly aware that she was special, that she was Chosen. The Gift had also crowded out sleep. Some nights she didn't sleep at all. Most nights she slept one hour, never more than two, but she didn't seem to need sleep any more, so it didn't matter how little she got. The Gift crowded out everything that might interfere with the great and sacred work she must accomplish.

Nevertheless, she remembered the names of these eleven people because they were the purest members of her flock. They were the best of the best, largely untainted souls who were the most worthy of carrying out the demanding tasks ahead of them.

One other man was in the basement. His name was Kyle Barlowe. He was thirty-two, but he looked older-older, somber, mean, and dangerous. He had lank brown hair, thick but without luster. His high forehead ended in a heavy shelf of bone under which his deeply set brown eyes were watchful and shrewd. He had a large nose, but it wasn't regal or proud; it had been broken more than once and was lumpy. His cheekbones and jawbone were heavy, crudely formed, like the plate of bone from which his forehead had been carved. Although his features were for the most part over-sized and graceless, his lips were thin, and they were so bloodless and pale that they seemed even thinner than they actually were; as a result, his mouth appeared to be nothing more than a slash in his face. He was an extraordinarily big man, six-eleven, with a bull's neck, slab shoulders, well-muscled chest and anus. He looked as if he could break a man in half-and as if he frequently did exactly that, strictly for the fun of it.

In fact, for the past three years, since Kyle had become one of Grace's followers and then a member of her inner circle and then her most trusted assistant, he hadn't raised a hand against anyone. Before Grace had found and saved him, he had been a moody, violent, and brutal man.

But those days were gone. Grace had been able to see beyond Kyle Barlowe's forbidding exterior, had glimpsed the good soul that lay beneath. He had gone astray, yes, but he had been eager (even if he hadn't realized it himself)

to return to the good and righteous path. All he needed was someone to show him the way. Grace had shown him, and he had followed. Now, his huge, powerful arms and his marblehard fists would harm no virtuous man or woman but would smite only those who were the enemies of God and, even then, only when Grace told him to smite them.