Kev raised an eyebrow. "I told you I could, didn't I?"

"Yeah, but we don't want any surprises come tomorrow morning."

"No surprises," said Kevin. "My father lets me drive it on back roads every once in a while. I can do the gears. I can reach the pedals. I can get it to the schoolyard."

"Coast it out quietly," said Dale. "We don't want your folks waking up."

Kevin moved his chin up and down slowly. "Their bedroom's in the basement, and they've got the air conditioning going. That'll help."

Lawrence had been silent but now he leaned into the group. "You guys really think that whatever's in that school's just going to sit and wait for us to do something? That it's not going to fight back?"

Mike snapped a twig. "It's been fighting back. I think it's running out of allies to fight with."

"Nobody can find Dr. Roon," said Harlen. He scratched at his cast. It was scheduled to come off in a few days and the itching was driving him nuts.

"The lady that rents his room says he's on vacation in Minnesota," said Kevin.

"And the Soldier's still out there somewhere," said Mike.

No one made a joke this time.

"And old Double-Butt and her partner," said Harlen. "And the burrowing things. And Tubby."

"Minus his hand," said Dale. "He can't give us the finger." No one laughed.

"That's seven of 'em right there," said Lawrence, who'd been counting on his fingers. "There's only five of us."

"Plus Cordie," said Dale. "Sometimes."

Lawrence made a face. "I don't count girls. Seven of them . . . not counting the bell thing itself . . . and only five of us."

"Yeah," said Mike, "but we've got a secret weapon." He took his squirt gun out of his belt and shot Lawrence in the face.

The eight-year-old spluttered. Dale shouted, "Hey, don't waste it!"

"Don't worry," said Mike, setting it back in his belt. "That's not holy water. I'm saving it for later."

"Did you get the other thing?" said Harlen. "The bread stuff?"

"The Eucharist," said Mike He chewed his lip. "Uh-uh, I wasn't able to. Father Dinmen came over from Oak Hill this morning to say Mass, but he locked the church afterward. I can't get in. I was lucky to grab the last of the holy water after the service."

"You've got that half you kept with your grandmother," Dale reminded him.

Mike's head moved slowly back and forth. "Nope, that stays with Memo. Dad's home tonight, but I'm not taking any chances."

Dale started to say something but at that minute they heard the cry "Kev-INNNN," echoing down Depot Street. They all scrambled down out of the oak.

"See you after dinner!" Dale called to Mike as he and his brother ran for home.

Mike nodded and walked back to the house, pausing by the outhouse to watch the black clouds that were moving low over the fields. Despite the apparent motion of the clouds, there was no breeze. The light had a yellowish tinge.

Mike went in to wash up and to pack his bedroll and pajamas for the sleepover.

THIRTY-SIX

Mr. Dennis Ashley-Montague sat in the back of his black limousine and stared at the passing cornfields and crossroads towns during the hour drive to Elm Haven. Tyler, his head butler, chauffeur, and bodyguard, did not speak, and Mr. Ashley-Montague saw no reason to break the silence. The limousine's tinted windows always imparted a certain element of storm light to the view, so Mr. Ashley-Montague did not take undue notice of the dark skies and sickly light that lay over the forests and fields and rivers like a rotting curtain on the verge of opening.

Elm Haven's Main Street was emptier than usual, even for a Saturday night, and when Mr. Ashley-Montague stepped out of the limousine at Bandstand Park, the darkness overhead was immediately perceptible. Instead of the usual scores of families waiting patiently on the grass, only a few faces watched Tyler carry the massive projector from the limousine's trunk to the bandstand. A handful of other trucks and cars pulled in to park diagonally while Tyler was arranging the speakers and other equipment, but overall the turnout was one of the lowest in the nineteen years that the Ashley-Montagues had been providing this free Saturday-evening entertainment for the dying little town.

Dennis Ashley-Montague returned to the backseat of the limousine, locked the doors, and poured a tall glass of Glenli-vet unblended Scotch from the bar set into the soundproofed partition behind the driver. He had considered not coming tonight-not allowing any more Free Shows-but the tradition ran deep and his sense of being the village squire to this assortment of inbred bumpkins and rednecks served a certain perverse purpose in his life.

And he wanted to speak to the boys.

He had seen them at previous Free Shows over the years; their grimy little faces watching the movie as if it were some bright miracle, their cheeks protruding with gum and popcorn . . . but he had never really looked at one until that fat boy-the one whose friend said he had been killed-had questioned him on the bandstand over a month earlier. Then that amazing little fellow who had shown up at Mr. Ashley-Montague's front door ... he had actually had the temerity to steal a leatherbound copy of Crowley's translation of The Book of the Law. Mr. Ashley-Montague saw nothing in that book that could help the boys if his grandfather's Stele of Revealing were actually awakening from its long slumber. Mr. Ashley-Montague knew of nothing that could help any of them if that were the case, himself included.

The millionaire finished his drink and strolled back to the bandstand, where Tyler had finished his final arrangements. It was not yet eight-thirty in the evening . . . usually the twilight would linger another thirty minutes in these latitudes . . . but the clouds had brought night early.

Mr. Ashley-Montague felt a great sense of claustrophobia seize him: from where he stood the town seemed sealed in by eight-foot-tall corn-to the south beyond the ruins of his ancestral mansion, to the north four long blocks up the dark tunnel of Broad Avenue, west only a few hundred yards to where the Hard Road doglegged to the north, and east down the silent gauntlet of Main Street with its dark shops. The timer had not yet turned on the streetlights.

Mr. Ashley-Montague did not see the boys he was looking for. He saw Charles Sperling, the bratty son of that Sperling man who had had the sheer temerity to approach Mr. Ashley-Montague for a loan for some business venture, and next to him the flat-faced, overly muscled Taylor boy-his grandfather had received capital injections from Dennis Ashley-Montague's grandfather in exchange for some favors of forgetfulness at the time of the Scandal.

But few other children, and not many families tonight. Perhaps they were worried that a tornado was coming.

Mr. Ashley-Montague checked the darkening yellow sky and realized that no birds were making a racket as they usually did in the tall trees here at sunset. There was no insect noise whatsoever. No breeze moved the branches, and even the darkness had a yellowish tinge to it.

The millionaire lighted a cigarette, rested on the railing of the bandstand, and considered where he would take cover if the sirens suddenly warned of an approaching tornado. There were no homes open to him here and he would not go to the ruins of the mansion, despite the wine cellar still intact there, since the workmen clearing the place had found the suspicious tunnels burrowed through solid rock there last fall.

No, Mr. Ashley-Montague decided, if there were solid warning of a tornado or serious storm, he would simply get back in the limousine and have Tyler drive him home. Tornadoes might smash little towns like Elm Haven, but they did not bother with luxury vehicles on the highway, and there was no record of one ever touching down along Grand View Drive.