By the light of the moon

reminded him.
    As a second bridesmaid with escort followed the first out of the
narthex, everything in Dylan's view folded away from him.

43
    With the carved frieze to Dylan's right and a
neck-breaking drop to his left, the work platform atop the scaffold
unfolded under their feet, creaked, and trembled with the
assumption of their weight.
    The first of the three gunmen – a bearded specimen with
unruly hair and a big head on a scrawny neck – sat only a few
feet from them, his back against the nave wall. An assault rifle
lay at his side, and six spare magazines of ammunition.
    Although the processional music had begun, the bigot hadn't yet
assumed firing position. At his side lay Entertainment
Weekly , with which he'd apparently been passing time. Only an
instant ago, he'd extracted a thick circlet of chocolate from a
roll of candies.
    Surprised by the shudder that passed through the scaffolding,
the gunman turned to his left. He looked up in amazement at Dylan
looming no more than four feet away.
    As far as the candy might be concerned, the guy was on automatic
pilot. Even as his eyes widened in astonishment, he flicked his
right thumb and popped the chocolate morsel off his index finger,
directly into his open mouth.
    Dylan chased the candy with a kick to the chin, perhaps knocking
not only the chocolate but also a few teeth down the bastard's
throat.
    The chocolate-lover's head snapped back, rapping the plaster
frieze. His eyes rolled up, his head sagged on a limp neck, and he
slid onto his side, unconscious.
    The kick unbalanced Dylan. He swayed, clutched the frieze with
one hand, and avoided a fall.
    * * *
    On the work platform, Dylan arrived nearest the gunman, with
Shep behind him.
    Still feeling how it worked, the round and round of all that is,
Jilly unfolded third in line and released Shep's hand. 'Uh!' she said explosively because she knew no adequate words to express
what she'd come to understand – more intuitively than
intellectually – about the architecture of reality. 'Uh!'
    Under more benign circumstances, she might have sat down for an
hour to brood, an hour or a year, and she probably would have
sucked on her thumb and periodically asked for Mommy. They had
folded not merely from the church floor to the top of the scaffold,
however, but into the shadow of Death, and she didn't have the
leisure to indulge in the comfort of thumb sugar.
    If Dylan wasn't able to handle the human rodent with the gun,
she could do nothing to help from her position, in which case they
were doomed to death by gunfire, after all. Consequently, even as
Dylan kicked, Jilly looked at once into the church, searching for
the other two killers.
    Twenty-two feet below, the wedding guests watched as the maid of
honor followed bridesmaids along the main aisle. They were more
than halfway to the altar. The height of the platform and the
shadows gave cover to Dylan kicking, Jilly scouting, and Shepherd
shepping.
    Below, the bride had not yet appeared.
    Step by thoughtful step, a little boy, serving as ring bearer,
followed the maid of honor. Behind him came a pretty blond girl of
five or six; she wore a lacy white dress, white gloves, white
ribbons in her hair, and carried a small container of rose petals,
which she scattered on the floor in advance of the bride.
    The organist, with nothing but the chords of the wedding march,
blasted promises of marital bliss to the high vaults, and in a rage
of joy at the prospect of the pending vows, seemed to want to shake
down the roof-lifting columns.
    Jilly spotted the second gunman on the west-wall scaffold, above
the colorful windows, far forward in the nave, where he would have
a clean shot down through the chancel colonnade and under the high
transverse arches, into the sanctuary. He lay on the platform,
angled toward the waiting groom and the best man.
    As far as she could tell, given the poor light at this height,
the killer didn't turn to watch the processional, but coolly
prepared for slaughter, scoping targets and calculating lines of
fire.
    Holding an assault rifle by the barrel, Dylan joined Jilly and
Shep. 'Do you see them?'
    She pointed at the west scaffold. 'That one, but not the
third.'
    Their angle of view toward the east scaffold was not ideal. Too
many intervening columns hid sections of the work platform from
them.
    Dylan asked Shepherd to fold them off this south-wall scaffold,
but with an exquisite precision that would bring them to the side
of the prone gunman on