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  They each held a torch and tiptoed along the corridor, hugging the right wall. Darcy watched their rear for any scoundrels who might be returning from the upper levels, and Billy took point, scanning the tunnel’s face for their first worm.

  But when the first worm didn’t appear, Billy began to wonder if this tunnel had been cleared as well. Where had that sicko put the worms if not here, in his own tunnel? Of course, there were four other tunnels between them.

  The entrance to the big library flickered in the torchlight and Billy drew up. So soon? And not one worm. Not one student, either. They were probably swinging from the chandeliers, ripping the paneling from the walls, and feasting on worm flesh.

  He motioned Darcy forward and crept to the doors. With a deep breath he shoved through the doors and stepped into the library’s outer hall. Nothing yet—that was good. He felt Darcy’s hand on his hip, and he moved down the hall toward the balcony entrance. He reached it, pried the narrow door open, and peered down into the main library.

  The flames of twenty torches burned along the walls, filling the room with dancing yellow light. From his position he couldn’t see the tables below, but the library’s eerie silence struck him as odd.

  “Are they in there?” Darcy whispered.

  “I can’t tell. I don’t hear anything.” Billy eased out onto the balcony and crawled to the railing on all fours. He waited for Darcy to slide in beside him and then edged his head over the three-foot wall that bordered the upper level.

  The first thought that rushed through his mind was that Paul’s band of brats were dead. All of them, dead! Slumped on the floor, surrounded by a thick carpet of worms, twisting slowly on the carpet at their feet.

  Billy caught his breath. Dead? No, they couldn’t be dead! Writing, maybe. Writing in Paul’s swimming pool of worms.

  “What?” Darcy whispered. “What is it?” She raised her head above the railing.

  “Good night! He’s brought the worms here!” Darcy said, dropping back beside him. He nodded, thinking that his heart was pounding with enough force to be heard from below. His vision grew fuzzy, and he blinked to clear it.

  He snaked his head back up and peered down. They’d returned the tables to the floor. Most, if not all, of Paul’s students leaned over the circular tables, writing in books, seemingly unconscious of the thick blanket of slugs at their feet.

  Paul’s lost it. Completely. At least they’re writing. How in the world had Paul managed to get the worms down there? More importantly, how would he and Darcy ever get them out?

  The door latch behind them opened and Billy flinched. A boy appeared on the balcony, pulling and tugging at a slug, and Billy realized that Paul was just now arriving with their worm. How had they passed him? He must have taken another route, through one of the other tunnels.

  He watched with amazement as the boy hauled the creature first to and then over the balcony railing without paying them any mind. The slug slithered over the handrail, writhing in protest, and then fell to the floor fifteen feet below. It landed with a mighty thump.

  When Billy looked back up at the balcony, Paul was gone. There was no way they could get any of these worms. They would just have to find another supply—possibly in the other tunnels or farther in their own hall.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he whispered and crawled for the door. He squeezed through and led Darcy from the library.

  “You see that?” he asked as soon as they cleared the main doors.

  “He’s really flipped his lid, hasn’t he?”

  “Completely. At least he has them all writing. We’ll find some others.”

  She nodded. “Yeah.”

  It took them half an hour to find another batch of worms deep in their own tunnel and drag them near the study. A few minutes later, Billy and Darcy were writing again.

  “Billy?” Darcy said after her first few strokes.

  “Hmm.”

  “You ever get the feeling that this story is, I don’t know, maybe more than just a story?”

  Actually he had. “Why’d you say that?”

  “These tunnels. The worms. So many blank books. I know we’re all writing these subplots that don’t have a lot of meaning by themselves, but they feel like they have meaning. Like they’re really happening.”

  “Yeah, well, I hope it is real. In fact, it is real.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “I can’t tell the difference, can you? When I’m writing, it’s real to me.

  Real, period—that’s what makes it so. That’s why I like it. And I can tell you something, the main plot has more than a little meaning. I’m doing some damage.” He grinned. “I mean, we’re gonna chew them up and spit them out.”

  “Who?”

  “Whoever doesn’t follow us. Whoever rejects our version of hope and grace. Whoever Black wants to, that’s who.”

  “And because they’re the same as the overseers and Samuel and all those pukes upstairs who don’t get it,” Darcy snapped. He was surprised at her tone.

  Billy nodded. “Yeah.”

  A moment passed with nothing to say. Then Billy and Darcy leaned over their books and began to write.

  CHAPTER TWENTY - EIGHT

  PARADISE

  Sunday morning

  JOHNNY AWOKE late Sunday morning—nearly noon by his alarm clock. Not surprising considering he’d stayed awake ’til three expecting Claude Bowers to beat down his door.

  He glanced at the window, half-expecting a grinning face. It took him a few long seconds, squinting his eyes at the blinds to realize that something had changed. For the first time in five days, the sun’s rays replaced the perpetual dusk framed in his window.

  He jumped off his bed, bounded across the room, and yanked the blinds open. A white sky blinded him. In that one blast of light, the fear fell from his heart like loosed shackles and he could hardly stifle a cry of delight.

  Samuel!

  Johnny grabbed his three-day-old T-shirt from the bedpost and pulled it over his head with trembling arms. The town had changed.

  How much, though?

  “Mom?”

  He jumped into his jeans, pulled on his shoes, and ran into the hall.“Mom!”

  No response. He opened her door. She lay unmoving under the sheets.

  “Mom?”

  Dead to the world. Still, the sky had changed. That was a start.

  Johnny hurried through the living room and out onto the porch. Several clouds still dotted the sky, but they weren’t nearly as dark as before. And the wind was only a gentle breeze.

  Johnny walked into the street and looked at Paradise with wide eyes. He saw something like the aftermath of a tornado that had touched down, ripped up the town, then vanished. Rows of miniature sand dunes, each about a foot tall, ran like ribbons over Main Street.

  He looked south. The business section had been trashed. The Starlight Theater’s sign had toppled to the street.

  Then Johnny saw the man standing in the middle of the road next to the theater. He straddled a mound of sand, hands on his hips, surveying the damage from the other end of town.

  He first thought it was Black, and a streak of terror hit him like lightning. But the man wore a blue uniform, not a black trench coat.

  Samuel’s cop.

  Johnny scanned the town, looking for any other signs of life. Only the cop, standing on the same line that Marsuvees Black himself had first followed into town.

  Johnny headed for the uniformed man, praying under his breath that this was Thomas.

  This was a fictional character, he knew that, but looking at him now, Johnny had a hard time accepting it. He didn’t look fictional. The only thing odd about him was that he didn’t seem to notice Johnny.

  Johnny stopped twenty feet from him. Still no sign of recognition. The lawman wore mirrored sunglasses. His hair was short and his face was bronzed by the sun.

  The cop’s legs were spread wide and his hands rested on the butts of two large pistols in hip holster
s. His head moved slowly from left to right as he studied the town. Reminded Johnny of that movie The Terminator. Samuel had said something about a gunslinger, but the man looked more like a regular cop.

  Was this guy really flesh and blood?

  “Closer, son.”

  Johnny’s pulse spiked. He hesitated, then walked up to the man. The cop extended his right hand. “Name’s Thomas.”

  He knew it. Johnny stared into the mirrored glasses, at a loss. This wasn’t a real man. He was standing in front of Samuel’s gunslinger.

  “I don’t bite,” Thomas said. “Not you anyway.” He grinned briefly; then his face went stern again. Was that Samuel talking through him?

  Johnny took the hand. Felt like regular flesh and blood. “I’m Johnny.”

  Thomas released his hand and smiled wide. For a moment he looked like someone different altogether. Same flesh and same clothes, but his face . . .

  “Isn’t this cool?” Thomas said. “I mean who’d have thought this would actually work?” He snapped his fingers and moved his arms and body in a little jive jig. “Cool, baby. Way cool!”

  Johnny stepped back, images of the terminator gone.

  Thomas caught himself and cleared his throat. He looked at Johnny for a moment, then returned his hands to his hips and straddled the road again.

  “Sorry about that. This is all new to me. I have to stay in character. I’m a gunslinger, son. A bona fide blue-suited gunslinger, and don’t you forget that.” He looked down at Johnny. “You won’t tell anybody about that, will you?”

  “About what?”

  “The, you know . . .” Thomas removed a hand from his hip and twirled it in a tight circle. “The little dance thing. It doesn’t fit my image.”

  Johnny grinned. This was more Samuel’s doing than Thomas’s. Had to be.

  “Not a word,” he said.

  “Appreciate it. You want to see some of my moves?”

  He wanted to dance again?

  Thomas’s hands blurred. Then they were cocked on either side of his head and there was a gun in each one. “Pretty fast, huh?” The guns began to spin. His arms moved in steady symmetrical patterns, more like a kung fu master than any gunslinger that Johnny had seen. Jet Li with guns. Thomas snapped the guns back into position on either side of his head.

  “Wow.”

  “That’s nothing, son.”

  “So . . . can you do anything you want?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Fly?”

  “I’m a gunslinger, not a bird. And even if I could fly, it wouldn’t be any good to us.”

  Thomas returned the guns to his holsters. “Now, let’s get down to business. Looks like you’ve had some trouble here. Mind telling me what happened?”

  “Did . . . didn’t Samuel tell you?”

  “Samuel? Never mind anyone named Samuel right now. Just tell me everything.”

  Johnny led the cop behind the old theater and told him everything, starting with Black walking into town and ending with the meeting last night. Everything except his trip to the monastery. He assumed that Samuel wanted to keep Thomas focused on Paradise, although for all practical purposes, Thomas was Samuel, wasn’t he?

  Then again, maybe not. This was new territory. Maybe fictional characters could develop a mind of their own.

  Thomas listened to every word patiently, intently, giving no sign that he doubted a single detail. He just nodded as if he understood precisely what had happened here in Paradise because he had faced a dozen identical scenarios in his time.

  Every now and then he drew his guns and spun them like batons. To keep fresh, he said.

  When Johnny finished, the cop took a deep breath and removed his glasses and twirled them. “You’re braver than most kids. Gotta hand it to you.”

  Thomas placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently. “Don’t worry, we’re going to clean this mess up. Black may have a few tricks, but then so do I.”

  “Yeah, about that. How does the we part work?”

  “You just leave that to me. It may be we, but we follow me, comprende?”

  “Comprende.”

  “Now . . .” The cop withdrew one gun, snapped the safety off, and cocked it up by his right ear. “Where do you suppose we might find these scoundrels?”

  Johnny walked to the corner and looked up the street. “I’d start with the saloon. Either there or in the church. But they might still be sleeping in their houses too. A lot of people are sleeping a lot around here.”

  Thomas nodded at Smither’s Saloon. “Saloon?”

  “Smither’s Saloon.”

  “Follow me.”

  THE SALOON’S exterior was trashed nearly beyond recognition. Of three steps that led to the landing, only the top one remained. Johnny stopped ten yards in front of it.

  The streets were still bare. This surprised Johnny; he thought that people would start coming out of their homes when they saw the change in the weather.

  Then again, Billy had a lot of help now. No telling how much damage they’d inflicted last night. The key now was to keep Thomas’s identity hidden from Black. He had to think Thomas was a regular cop, not a fictional something that Samuel had pulled into the mix. If Billy and Black fought fire with fire, that could get nasty.

  Thomas took his sunglasses off and stowed them in his pocket. His hazel eyes flashed with mischief.

  “When you said that flying wouldn’t help us,” Johnny said, “it was because what matters here is what people think, right? You have to change their hearts and minds, not just throw them all in jail.”

  “That’s right, son. But a little butt-kicking never hurt anyone.”

  “But you don’t want to be too obvious, right? Black’s out there somewhere. We don’t want the wrong idea to make it back up the mountain.”

  He figured talking in code would be acceptable, although there was no one to hear them anyway.

  “Unfortunately, yes.” Thomas cocked his head and studied the door. “Do you think it would be too obvious if I kicked the door in?”

  “Not really. Cops do that all the time in the movies.”

  Thomas held Johnny in his gaze for a second, then winked. “Goody.”

  Then he took three long steps, launched himself effortlessly into the air, planted one foot on the top step, and flew for the door.

  He hit it with both feet extended. Crash! The door popped off its hinges and disappeared into the darkness with Thomas aboard.

  Johnny glanced around the town. Not exactly your typical kicking-down-the- door thing, not even in the movies. He hoped Black wasn’t watching.

  He wouldn’t mind getting his hands on one of those books. Course, it might not work for him. He probably didn’t have the simple kind of belief that Samuel or the other kids in the monastery had.

  Johnny jumped up and peered through the open doorway. Thomas stood on top of the door, like a surfer on his board, gun drawn. It took a second for his eyes to adjust to the dim light, and when they did, he gasped.

  The saloon had been gutted by fire. Blackened wood smoldered around the perimeter. The tables, the pool table, the bar—every bit of it lay in ashes, and Johnny wondered why the frame hadn’t gone up as well.

  “Wow.”

  They both turned their heads to the sound of a muffled cry somewhere down low.

  “You hear that?” Johnny whispered.

  “This place have a basement?”

  “There’s a root cellar.”

  “Show me.”

  Johnny picked his way across the room toward the storage room. Heat rose from the charred floor, although he now saw that someone had doused it with water—probably what saved the building.

  A blackened lock with a Master logo hung stubbornly on the blistered root-cellar door. “Here it is.” Johnny stepped aside.

  “Call out to them,” Thomas said.

  “Just call out?”

  “Don’t tell them I’m here. Just try to get a response so we know who w
e’re dealing with.”

  Pretty smart. “Anybody in there?”

  “Down here! Help me!” a muffled voice cried. Johnny could swear he’d heard that voice a thousand times.

  Thomas cocked an eyebrow.

  “I’m not sure,” Johnny said.

  “Try again.”

  He did. This time he knew the voice. Knew it because he had heard it a thousand times. Stanley Yordon was back in town.

  “It’s . . . I’m pretty sure it’s the preacher.”

  “Black?”

  “No, Father Yordon. He must have come back last night.”

  Thomas twirled his gun. Caught it snug. He shot without aiming.

  The gun boomed and bucked in his hand. Johnny flinched.

  When he looked back, the Master lock was gone. It lay twisted and broken on the floor near the back door.

  Thomas raised his foot and nudged the burnt door. It creaked inward.

  Stanley Yordon bolted from the dark pit. His foot caught on a burnt two-by-four, and he sprawled across the floor with a loud grunt.

  Yordon pushed himself up and attempted to brush himself off. Soot streaked the man’s face. And his hand . . .

  Yordon followed Johnny’s stare to his right hand. A single splinter the size of a ball-point ink refill ran out from under his index fingernail.

  The man’s hand began to tremble and he grabbed it to hold it still. “Oh, dear God!”

  Thomas reached out and placed a comforting arm on Yordon’s shoulder. “Tell you what, Father.” He took Yordon’s hand in his own. “I’m going to have to”—before the trembling man knew what was happening, the cop yanked the stick—“pull this out.”

  Yordon stared at his hand in shock. Then he did a strange thing for someone as uptight and highbrow as he tried to make himself out to be. He rested his head on the cop’s shoulder and began to cry in earnest. For a full minute he sobbed into the officer’s uniform, and Thomas just patted his back, like a father comforting a baby. No soothing words, thank goodness. That would definitely be out of character.