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Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-one

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critical families themselves be included. Given the primitive medicine of the day, it took them twenty<br />

years to completely eliminate the plague they had started.<br />

7. Seven out of every ten human beings on this planet died during the Black Death. It was the most<br />

destructive thing that has ever happened to humankind. Whole cities, nations, disappeared into the<br />

wilderness.<br />

8. The disease is thought to have been an artificially created hybrid of bubonic plague. Its exact<br />

nature remains to this day unknown.<br />

9. Because of the speed of the contagion (about three hours from first symptoms to death) and the<br />

rapidity with which it spreads, even modern medicine would be taxed by it, should it appear again.<br />

<strong>Chapter</strong> Eight<br />

TERRY QUIST KNEW he was in trouble when he woke up in the middle of the night and smelled<br />

perfume around him. As always, he was al<strong>one</strong> in bed. Women were a thing of the past for him . . . and it<br />

hadn't been much of a past. He was ugly, poor, and full of bad personal habits. He had not d<strong>one</strong> well with<br />

the ladies.<br />

He lay staring into the shadows around him, inhaling and listening.<br />

There came from the living room of his tiny garage apart­ment a steady rustling.<br />

Woman or not, the idea of somebody out there going through the papers on his desk scared the hell out of<br />

him.<br />

Rustle, rustle, rustle. She was turning over page after page. All his story ideas, such as they were, lay on<br />

that desk. Under pseudonyms he moonlighted for a number of raunchy weeklies: The National Tattler,<br />

The Midnight Express, a few others. Naturally his notes were here. They couldn't be kept at the office. If<br />

the Times ever discovered his sin he'd be instantly fired, or so he assumed.<br />

But his notes weren't of interest to anybody—just a bunch of jerkoff ideas. "The Sexual Power of<br />

Celery" was <strong>one</strong>. "Telepathic Cancer Cure" was another.<br />

Oh, God, the notes on the Night Church were there, two pages neatly typed up just this morning!<br />

He became aware that the. rustling had stopped.<br />

By the time he realized she had come into his room she was right beside his bed.<br />

She stood looking down at him. As she bent close he saw her glaring eyes. She was beautiful like a<br />

snake might be beautiful. You can't look, and yet you can't look away.<br />

She was also familiar.<br />

Although his own eyes were closed to slits, he recognized the face swimming in the dark above him. It<br />

was Mike Banion's wife, Mary.<br />

Seemingly satisfied he was asleep, she withdrew from the room, pulling the door almost shut.<br />

A blinding flash filled the crack between door and jamb. Then a rustle of paper. Then another flash.<br />

A moment later he heard his front door click shut.<br />

He lay motionless, waiting for his heart to stop banging. A confusion of thoughts tumbled through his<br />

mind. Mary Banion? Two flashes. Pictures of the two pages.<br />

But Mary Banion?<br />

Oh, Christ. If they were in it together, when he went to Mike he would have been talking to the Night<br />

Church.<br />

The image of Alex's charred body came to mind. Death was bad enough, but a death as hard as that,<br />

God help you.<br />

He was in deep, deep trouble. He had to act on his own behalf or he was a dead man.<br />

Throw himself on the mercy of the Night Church? Maybe the Banions would vouch for him. Sure they<br />

would. God, they had to or he was going to end up just like Alex.<br />

What the hell was the Night Church, that it could com­mand the loyalty of a lady as fine as Mary

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