By the light of the moon

said with more distress than she
had shown previously.
    'Who do you mean?'
    'Travis. I mean Travis. All he's got is books. Kenny has knives,
but Travis has just his books.'
    'Who's Travis?'
    'Kenny's little brother. He's thirteen. Kenny has a breakdown,
it'll be Travis who gets broke.'
    'And Travis – he's in there with Kenny?'
    'Must be. We've got to get him out.'
    At the far end of the back porch from them, the kitchen door
still stood open. Jilly didn't want to return to the house.
    She didn't know why Dylan had come here at high speed, risking
life and limb and increased insurance premiums, but she doubted
that he'd been compelled by a belated need to thank Marj for her
courteous service or by a desire to return the toad button so that
it might be given to another customer who would better appreciate
it. Based on what little information Jilly possessed and
considering what an X-Files night this had become, the
smart-money bet was that Mr. Dylan Something's-happening-to-me
O'Conner had raced to this house to stop Kenny from doing a bad
thing with his knife collection.
    If a burst of psychic perception had led Dylan to Kenny of the
Many Knives, whom he had apparently never met previously, then
logic suggested that he would be aware of Travis, too. When he
encountered a thirteen-year-old boy armed with a book, he wasn't
going to mistake the kid for a doped-up nineteen-year-old knife
maniac.
    That train of thought, however, was derailed by the word logic . The events of the past couple hours had thrown baby
Logic out the window with the bathwater of reason. Nothing
happening to them this night would have been possible in the
rational world where Jilly had grown up from choirgirl to comedian.
This was a new world, either with an entirely new logic that she
hadn't puzzled out yet or with no logic at all, and in such a
world, anything could happen to Dylan in a strange house, in
the dark.
    Jilly didn't like knives. She had become a comedian, not part of
a knife-throwing act. She desperately didn't want to go into a
house with a knife collection and a Kenny.
    Two minutes ago, when Jilly had entered the kitchen and had hung
up the telephone one digit short of disaster, poor Marj seemed
dazed, numb. Now the candy-striped semizombie was rapidly
transforming into an emotionally distraught grandmother capable of
reckless action. 'We gotta get Travis!'
    The last thing Jilly needed was a knife in her chest, but the next-to-last thing she needed was a hysterical grandmother
barging back into the house, complicating Dylan's situation, most
likely going for the phone again the moment she caught sight of it
and was reminded that the police were always waiting to serve.
    'You stay here, Marj. You stay right here. This is my job. I'll
find Travis. I'll get him out of there.'
    As Jilly turned away, having committed to being braver than she
preferred to be, Marj grabbed her by the arm. 'Who are you
people?'
    You people . Jilly almost reacted to those two innocent
words, you people , rather than to the question. She almost
said, What do you mean – YOU PEOPLE? You have a problem
with people like me?
    During the past couple years, however, as she had gained some
acceptance with her act and had achieved at least a small measure
of success, her hot-tempered knee-jerk reactions to perceived
insults had seemed increasingly stupid. Even in response to Dylan
– who for some reason had the power to push her go-nuts
button as no one before him – even in response to him ,
the knee-jerk reactions were stupid. And under current
circumstances, they were dangerously distracting, as well.
    'Police,' she lied with surprising ease for a former choirgirl.
'We're police.'
    'No uniforms?' Marj wondered.
    'We're undercover.' She didn't offer to produce a badge. 'Stay
here, sweetie. Stay here where it's safe. Let the pros handle
this.'
    * * *
    The boy in the FDNY T-shirt had been overpowered, beaten, and
most likely knocked unconscious, although he had revived by the
time Dylan entered his room. One blackened and swollen eye. Abraded
chin. Blood caked in his left ear from a blow to the side of the
head.
    Pulling strips of adhesive tape off the kid's face, prying a red
rubber ball from the pale-lipped mouth, Dylan vividly recalled
being helpless in the motel-room chair, remembered gagging on the
athletic sock, and he discovered in himself a settled anger like
long-banked coals ready to flare white-hot when fanned by one
breath of righteous outrage. This