Fear Nothing

though it were a crucifix with which I could ward off all that might destroy me, but I forced myself into action. I leaned to the right, turned my head - and saw no one.
        This perimeter passage along the south side of the attic was wider than the one along the east flank, perhaps eight feet across; and on the plywood floor, tucked in against the eaves, was a narrow mattress and a tangle of blankets. The light came from a coneshaped brass desk lamp plugged into a GFI receptacle that was mounted on an eave brace. Beside the mattress were a thermos, a plate of sliced fruit and buttered bread, a pail of water, bottles of medication and rubbing alcohol, the makings for bandages, a folded towel, and a damp washcloth spotted with blood.
        The priest and his guest seemed to have vanished as if they had whispered an incantation.
        Although immobilized by the emotional impact of the longing in the Other's voice, I could not have been standing at the end of the box row for more than a minute, probably half a minute, after the creature had fallen silent. Yet neither Father Tom nor his visitor was in sight in the passageway ahead.
        Silence ruled. I heard not a single footfall. Not any creak or POP or tick of wood that sounded more significant than the usual faint settling noises.
        I actually looked up into the rafters toward the center of the space, overcome by the bizarre conviction that the missing pair had learned a trick from the clever spider and had drawn themselves up gossamer filaments, curling into tight black balls in the shadows overhead.
        As long as I stayed close to the wall of boxes on my right side, I had sufficient headroom to stand erect. Soaring from the eaves to my left, the sharply pitched rafters cleared my head by six or eight inches. Nevertheless, I moved defensively in a modified crouch.
        The lamp was not dangerously bright, and the brass cone focused the light away from me, so I moved to the mattress for a closer look at the items arrayed beside it. With the toe of one shoe, I disturbed the tangled blankets; although I'm not sure what I expected to find under them, what I did find was a lot of nothing.
        I wasn't concerned that Father Tom would go downstairs and find Orson. For one thing, I didn't think he was finished with his work up here in the attic. Besides, my criminally experienced mutt would have the street savvy to duck for cover and lie low until escape was more feasible.
        Suddenly, however, I realized that if the priest went below, he might fold away the ladder and close the trapdoor. I could force it open and release the ladder from above, but not without making almost as much racket as Satan and his conspirators had made when cast out of Heaven.
        Rather than follow this passage to the next entrance to the maze and risk encountering the priest and the Other on the route they might have taken, I turned back the way I'd come, reminding myself to be light on my feet. The high-quality plyboard had few voids, and it was screwed rather than nailed to the floor joists, so I was virtually silent even in my haste.
        When I turned the corner at the end of the row of boxes, plump Father Tom loomed from the shadows where I had stood listening only a minute or two ago. He was dressed neither for Mass nor bed, but was wearing a gray sweat suit and a sheen of sweat, as if he'd been fending off gluttonous urges by working out to an exercise video.
        “ You !” he said bitterly when he recognized me, as though I were not merely Christopher Snow but were the devil Baal and had stepped out of a conjurer's chalk pentagram without first asking permission or obtaining a lavatory pass.
        The sweet-tempered, jovial, good-natured padre that I had known was evidently vacationing in Palm Springs, having given the keys of his parish to his evil twin. He poked me in the chest with the blunt end of a baseball bat, hard enough to hurt.
        Because even XP-Man is subject to the laws of physics, I was rocked backward by the blow, stumbled into the eaves, and cracked the back of my head against a rafter. I didn't see stars, not even a great character actor like M. Emmet Walsh or Rip Tom, but if not for the cushion provided by my James Dean thatch of hair, I might have gone out cold.
        Poking me in the chest again with the baseball bat, Father Tom said, “You! You!”
        Indeed, I was me, and I had never tried to