was moving. Tiny trees swayed in the wake of an unseen wind, and the silver thread of a waterfall glinted as, from its base, clouds of mist billowed upward. Even the stars were alive, twinkling like real stars, now bright, now dim, now bright again as they wheeled in the sky.
It wasn’t a picture on the billboard at all. Somehow it had become a window looking into another—what? Another place? Another time? He thought of Sister Mirrim’s words. Another … world?
His thoughts were drowned out as sound sizzled on the air, growing louder every second. He turned and saw, over a rise in the road, a white glow. Even as he watched, the glow crested the hill like some terrible dawn. Then he saw them in the center of the light, coming toward him: sinister, spidery figures. Had they seen him yet? Had they recognized him from the Magician’s Attic? Travis didn’t know, but he couldn’t run anymore, he was too tired. Whatever the things in the light were, in seconds they would have him. He wondered if it would take long, and whether it would be very painful.
“I’m sorry, Jack,” he said. He clutched the iron box through the thick fabric of his coat. “I’m sorry I let you down. But there’s nowhere left to …”
His words trailed off. He turned and stared at the face of the billboard. Maybe that wasn’t true, maybe there was somewhere after all. It was impossible, but so had been a dozen other things he had witnessed that night. Maybe it made sense to try something impossible himself.
There was no more time to think—the willowy figures moved toward him with malevolent speed. Travis clenchedhis jaw. He hesitated only a heartbeat, then he threw himself forward …
… and fell into the billboard.
17.
“All right, Dr. Beckett, I have just a few more questions for you,” the police detective said in a weary voice. He flipped a page of the legal tablet that rested on the cluttered desk before him.
Grace shifted on the hard wooden chair. For the last hour she had sat while the detective took her statement and prompted her for details concerning the deaths at Denver Memorial. Back at the hospital, when a pair of officers had told her they would have to take her to the Denver police station for questioning, Grace had offered no resistance. She had let them pry the gun from her fingers, and was grateful they did not handcuff her as they led her to the patrol car. But the two young officers had been sympathetic, and even admiring, as they bantered in the front seat.
“Bastard didn’t have the sense to know he was dead the first time around,” one of them had said with a low whistle. “Must have been high on something pretty damn amazing.”
“Takes a licking and keeps on ticking,” the other had joked.
The first officer had laughed at that. “Not after the doc here took care of him, he wasn’t.”
The second officer was angry now. “Yeah, she took care of that copkiller real good.” He turned around to look at Grace through the intervening grill. “You did the right thing, Doc, taking him out like that. You did the exact right thing.”
Grace had only squeezed her eyes shut and saw again the man with the iron heart, the way his head exploded outward in a spray of white, and gray, and brilliant red. She had said nothing. Yes, it had been the right thing to do, but these thick-necked boys playing cops and robbers had no idea of the true and terrible reason why. And she would never tell them. How could she?
I’m sorry, Your Honor, I shot him
because he was a creature of perfect evil
. She had a feeling it would not provide much of a defense in a murder trial.
The detective droned on, and Grace listened as best she could. As she often did when nervous, she had drawn her necklace from beneath her blouse and now fidgeted with the pendant. The touch of the cool metal calmed her. It was hard to breathe in the detective’s cramped office. The overhead light seemed to leak its dirty illumination only
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