The Servants of Twilight Read Online Free PDF Page A

easy.”
    “Toads eat flies,” he said, grimacing, “and I can’t even stand to eat veal .”
    She laughed, leaned forward, and kissed his cheek. “Even if she was a witch,” he said, “I’d probably be okay because I’ve got Brandy, and Brandy wouldn’t let any old cat get anywhere near.”
    “You can rely on Brandy,” Christine agreed. She looked at the clown-faced dog and said, “You’re the nemesis of all cats and witches, aren’t you, fur-face?”
    To her surprise, Brandy thrust his muzzle forward and licked her under the chin.
    “Yuck,” she said. “No offense, fur-face, but I’m not sure whether kissing you is any better than eating flies.”
    Joey giggled and hugged the dog.
    Christine returned to the den. The mound of paperwork seemed to have grown taller while she was gone.
    She had no sooner settled into the chair behind the desk than the telephone rang. She picked it up.
    “Hello?”
    No one answered.
    “Hello?” she said again.
    “Wrong number,” a woman said softly and hung up.
    Christine put the receiver down and went back to work. She didn’t give the call a second thought.

3
     
    She was awakened by Brandy’s barking, which was unusual because Brandy hardly ever barked. Then she heard Joey’s voice.
    “Mom! Come quick! Mommy! ”
    He wasn’t merely calling her; he was screaming for her.
    As she threw back the covers and got out of bed, she saw the glowing red numbers on the digital alarm clock. It was 1:20 A.M.
    She plunged across the room, through the open door, into the hall, headed toward Joey’s room, flipping up light switches as she went.
    Joey was sitting in bed, pressing back against the headboard as if he were trying to pass through it and slip magically into the wall behind it, where he could hide. His hands were filled with twisted lumps of sheet and blanket. His face was pale.
    Brandy was at the window, forepaws up on the sill. He was barking at something in the night beyond the glass. When Christine entered the room, the dog stopped barking, padded to the bed, and looked inquiringly at Joey, as if seeking guidance.
    “Someone was out there,” the boy said. “Looking in. It was that crazy old lady.”
    Christine went to the window. There wasn’t much light. The yellowish glow of the streetlamp at the corner didn’t reach quite this far. Although a moon ornamented the sky, it wasn’t a full moon, and it cast only a weak, milky light that frosted the sidewalks, silvered the cars parked along the street, but revealed few of the night’s secrets. For the most part, the lawn and shrubbery lay in deep darkness.
    “Is she still out there?” Joey asked.
    “No,” Christine said.
    She turned away from the window, went to him, sat on the edge of his bed.
    He was still pale. Shaking.
    She said, “Honey, are you sure—”
    “She was there!”
    “Exactly what did you see?”
    “Her face.”
    “The old woman?”
    “Yeah.”
    “You’re sure it was her, not somebody else?”
    He nodded. “Her.”
    “It’s so dark out there. How could you see well enough to—”
    “I saw somebody at the window, just sort of a shadow in the moonlight, and then what I did was I turned on the light, and it was her. I could see. It was her .”
    “But, honey, I just don’t think there’s any way she could have followed us. I know she didn’t. And there’s no way she could’ve learned where we live. Not this soon, anyway.”
    He said nothing. He just stared down at his fisted hands and slowly let go of the sheet and blanket. His palms were sweaty.
    Christine said, “Maybe you were dreaming, huh?”
    He shook his head vigorously.
    She said, “Sometimes, when you wake up from a nightmare, just a few seconds, you can be sort of confused about what’s real and what’s just part of the dream. You know? It’s all right. It happens to everybody now and then.”
    He met her eyes. “It wasn’t like that, Mom. Brandy started barking, and then I woke up, and there was the crazy