Chapter 27

Trevor Kettering stood at the edge of Harmony Village holding a towel and watched his father's Camaro roll out of the parking field and down the road toward the gate. He had, as always, a sense of frustration after talking with his father. Words unspoken, thoughts unvoiced, feelings unshared. It always seemed that just below the surface there was something the old man was trying to tell him. Something the boy wanted to say back.

Not that he expected any big hug and hair-tousling scene. That was strictly for TV sitcoms. Or, what the hell, maybe that was what he did want. Ho harm in wanting something, even a fantasy, as long as you knew it was a fantasy. So his father wasn't Ward Cleaver. Trevor wasn't exactly the Beav, either.

And come right down to it, his relationship with the old man was probably better than most. Some of the kids had real horror stories. At least Trevor's father had never beat on him. That was, if you didn't count some pretty stiff open-handed whacks on the butt when he was little. Trevor readily admitted he deserved those. Some of the other guys had fathers who went at them with fists or worse. One had shown Trevor burn scars on his palms where his mother, for Chrissake, had held his hands to the sandwich grill for swiping a six-pack from the cooler. Another had his jaw broken when the old man came home drunk and clobbered him just for the hell of it.

No, all things considered, Trevor had it pretty good with his father. His mom too, for that matter. It was plain she was into something weird right now, something with Gabrielle Wister that Trevor really didn't want to know about. But overall, she'd taken pretty good care of him and the old man. No, they were not your typical sitcom family, but better than most.

So, let's face the big question ... What the hell are you doing here? Harmony Village had seemed like a kicky adventure when they were all gathered around him at The Pit telling him how cool it was and what a great way to lose all the everyday shit kids had to put up with.

His first sight of the place had been a real downer. Nothing but trees and mountains and those crummy cabins. He was scheming to catch the next ride back down the hill. Then Zoara Sol walked out.

Zoara Sol. Never in his wildest jackoff fantasies had he thought something like her existed. He did not see how anybody could think straight when she was in the same room. And when she walked out to meet him and the other new kids coming to Harmony Village, the whole landscape changed. The sky, the mountains, the trees, the crummy cabins all of a sudden were beautiful. This was the place he had ached to be all his life. You could not then have dragged him back to the city with a tractor.

Now, standing alone at the edge of the rustic one-time Boy Scout camp, Trevor was again having doubts. The scenery was again too empty, the village too rustic.

He used the towel to scrub at his hair, still damp from the Baths. He began to wonder if it wasn't just a little bit chickenshit to run out on your parents when they were having a rough time? Not that he could have done anything about it, but he might have hung around just in case either of them wanted to talk. After all, they didn't run out on him the time the old liquor-store guy fingered him as one of a pair of armed robbers. It turned out to be some asshole who looked faintly like Trevor, but it helped to have his old man and his mom go to bat for him that time.

"Hey, you mad or something?"

Trevor started at the sound of the girl's voice. He turned to see Vicki standing behind him. She wore faded cut-off jeans and a tank top. She smiled quizzically.

"Uh, what?"

"I asked if you were mad. I looked for you after the Baths, but you left in such a hurry. I thought maybe you were pissed off about something."

"No, nothing like that," he said. "My dad was here. I just needed to think."

"I'll bet he wanted to take you away."

"Something like that."

"It's incredible how parents get all upset about what we're doing as soon as we leave the old homestead. While we're around they could care less."

"That's not exactly the way it was. He just ... wanted to know I was okay."

"Sure, that's what they all say." She frowned. "Hey, you're not thinking of letting them take you away now, are you?"

"Hey, nobody takes me anywhere. I go where I want to when I want to."

The girl took his hand. "I love it when you talk like that. Want to go back to your room?"

Trevor looked down the road where his father had driven away. He said, "Not right now, Vicki. I've got to sort some things out in my head."

"That sounds serious." Then, after a moment, "Oh, wow!"

Trevor turned back at her exclamation.

"Look at her, will you."

Coming toward them across the clearing, floating, it seemed, was Zoara Sol. She seemed to be surrounded by an aura of light. Trevor could feel the powerful attraction of the silver eyes even from that distance. Suddenly the trees, the sky, the mountains were poetry again.

Zoara Sol beckoned. Trevor and Vicki floated toward her.

***

Charity Moline came down to meet Kettering when he was halfway up the stairs to his one-room apartment. She stopped in front of him on the second-floor landing and put her hands on his shoulders.

"How did it go?"

"How do I look?"

"That bad?"

"That bad."

"Get inside. I'll fix you a drink and you can tell me about it."

He trudged across the floor and dropped onto the sofa. He could still feel the tension in his arms and shoulders from fighting the steering wheel during the wild ride down the mountain.

Charity disappeared into the kitchen alcove and returned in a minute with a dark amber glass of Wild Turkey and ice. She placed the glass in his hand and felt his brow.

"Poor baby, you're a little feverish."

He took a long swallow of the rich bourbon. "This will help," he said.

She sat down close to him and massaged the back of his neck with strong, cool fingers. "So, tell me what happened."

Kettering took a deep breath and began. He told Charity about the encounter with his son and the subsequent conversation with Zoara Sol, leaving out the more sensual parts of the latter.

She listened intently, easing away the tautness of his muscles. When he emptied his glass, she took it away and refilled it.

He wound up the story by telling her as best he could remember his sensations as the car careered out of control down the mountain until the figure of the Doomstalker loomed in front of him.

"I hit the brakes, and this time they took hold. The car spun around and everything was gone. Nobody was in the road, my hands weren't burned, the wheel wasn't even hot. The car didn't have a scratch."

"What did it?" she said.

"I am damned if I know."

"Did you eat or drink anything? It sounds like a hallucinogenic reaction."

He shook his head. "She gave me a drink, but I didn't touch it."

Charity waited while he stared down into the glass. He swirled it to make a little whirlpool of bourbon.

"All I can tell you for sure is that it scared the shit out of me."

"So you're not utterly fearless."

"Not even slightly."

"I'm glad of that," she said. "It makes you more human."

"Oh, I'm plenty human," he said. "Maybe too much."

"You're a lucky human," Charity said. "You could have very easily gone over that cliff."

"Maybe it's not luck at all."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean if this ... this Doomstalker wanted to kill me, that would have been a perfect time. Or half a dozen other times, for that matter. Look what it did to Al Diaz."

"Okay, so why not you?"

"You tell me."

"Let me take a guess. Maybe it's playing with you."

"Playing?"

"Punishing you. Getting even for ... who knows what."

"Well, whatever it's doing, I've learned one thing. I can't stop it."

"What do you mean?"

"Just what I said. It's too strong for me. Maybe for anybody."

"Would your father have backed down?"

"He had the power of the Church going for him." Kettering closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose as though he had a headache. "And he had something else."

"What?" Charity leaned toward him.

"Something ... Ah, the hell with it. I can't remember."

"So you're giving up?"

"What do you suggest I do? This ... Doomstalker can do anything it wants. It can be anywhere. It can get into your head. I can't fight it."

Charity pulled away from him. "Oh, that's great. That's wonderful. It's a damn good thing Al Diaz can't hear you now."

Kettering whirled on her. "What the hell do you know about it? Have you seen your family ripped apart and brain-blasted? Have you had a friend with his head twisted around backwards? Have you got this ... this thing from Hell dogging your footsteps, controlling your life?"

"No to all of the above," Charity said quietly. "But I did come close to getting barbecued in my own house, and I do have a big, dumb cop I care about who seems to be crumbling in front of my eyes. I do have some kind of a stake in this."

Kettering sighed and sat back. "Shit. I'm sorry. Having you hang with me through this has meant a lot. I guess I haven't told you that."

"No, you haven't."

"Okay, consider it said. So ... what next?"

"You're not quitting?"

"I can't. There's this tough redheaded broad who won't let me."

She reached up and kissed him. "That sounds more like my macho cop boyfriend."

"Okay, so we're back in business. Got any suggestions?"

Charity placed her fingertips on her lips and frowned in thought. After a minute she said, "Maybe ... no, that's probably not it."

"Maybe what?"

"A crazy idea."

"Let's hear it. I'll be the judge of how crazy it is."

"You said a minute ago that your father had the power of the Church and ... something else. What do you think that something else was?"

"I don't know. Everything I saw through the window that day is cloudy. I seem to remember Dad holding something in his hand when he died. But I can't clear up the picture in my mind."

"It could be the weapon we need, Kettering. Maybe you have it now but you don't know it. Maybe the other guy has to get it away from you so nobody else can use it."

Kettering stared at her.

She grinned sheepishly. "Ah, I told you it was crazy."

"Sure it is, but isn't everything? Go on."

"Well, your father used it and he won, didn't he?"

"My father died."

"Think back. You told me your father was inside arguing, fighting with somebody."

Kettering frowned, trying to remember.

"I heard the voices."

"You felt the threat of whatever it was."

"I was six years old."

"But you felt it. Your father was fighting against someone ... something. He had a weapon. You saw him hold it. What was it?"

"I don't know. I can't see it."

"Try, Brian."

Kettering leaned back and closed his eyes. He tried to force his mind back to the long-ago afternoon in Prescott, Indiana, and the front porch of his home. He could summon up again the angry voice of his father. And the other. He remembered being told about how his father was found lying dead. Near his feet an unexplained scattering of ashes. But whatever happened in that room was hidden. It was like a heavy curtain had been drawn forever across the window in his mind.

"It's no use," he said. "I can't remember."

"Try harder, dammit. It might be the difference."

"Don't you think I am trying? Christ, I've lived that day over so many times, awake and in nightmares, but I can never see clearly into that room. What the hell do you want from me?"

She turned toward him and lay a hand on his arm where the biceps bulged into a rigid knot.

"Hey, ease up. I'm on your side, remember?"

"Sorry."

They sat for a minute in silence.

"Can I make a suggestion?" Charity said at last.

"Could I stop you?"

"That doctor you told me about ... the one down at the Police Building?"

"Protius?"

"You said he wanted to try hypnosis."

"He said it was a possibility."

"Why don't you think about it?"

"Even if it worked on me, I don't see what good it would do. They use it for witnesses who get rattled. The idea is to help them - " He broke off.

"Yes?"

He spoke slowly and deliberately. "Help them remember what they saw."

"Well?"

"I don't even think I can be hypnotized."

"You can't know unless you try."

"Uh-huh."

"So will you try?"

"I'll think about it."

"God, you have got to be the most stubborn man I've ever met."

"Okay, I've thought about it."

"And?"

"And I'll try it."