KnockOut

What is your title, Kjell?”
    “I? I am the Master’s right hand.”
    “I can’t say I care much for all the white.”
    Kjell said, “White is the essence of light, it is peace and tranquility, it is life to the devout. That is enough, Sheriff. I believe you are both small-minded, incapable of understanding something so sublime as what we are.”
    Ethan said, “We’re the small-minded people who are going to bring you down, Kjell.”
    Kjell laughed. “Dream your little dreams, Sheriff. All of you will follow me. We will see what the Master wishes to do with you.”
    Joanna asked, “Where are all the cult members? You call them the devout?”
    “The devout are here, but you will not see them. We do not wish them to be disrupted by outside corruption. You need know nothing more. Let us go. You will meet the Master.”

60
    THEY STEPPED INTO a wide corridor, its walls white, the ceiling lower here than in the large room, the low hum of air-conditioning the only sound other than that of their footsteps. Every several feet there were framed photographs, all of them of the sky, each an evocative moment of time. Ethan thought there was real talent here: a magnificent sunset, a slash of lightning with a dying sun behind it, moments he’d tried to capture himself.
    Kjell walked soundlessly behind them, Joanna in front, Autumn pressed against her side, her hand held tightly in her mother’s. Ethan knew he had a gun pointed at the back of his head.
    They passed doors with glass windows and brass door handles, most of them with their blinds pulled tight. He saw a flash as one of the blinds fell, and caught a glimpse of a beautiful young woman’s face through the window before she disappeared. One of the devout? Or someone else? Had they been warned to remain in their rooms to avoid being corrupted by the outsiders? Or did the leaders not want them to know what was happening?
    Corridors veered off to the right and left as they walked. It seemed to be a huge place. They walked another twenty feet before Kjell said, “Knock on this door, Sheriff.”
    Ethan knocked.
    “Enter.”
    “Open the door, Sheriff.”
    There was no window in this imposing door. Ethan opened it and stepped into a library that held books floor to ceiling on all four of its walls. It was twenty feet deep, and against the back wall there was a large mahogany desk, and behind it stood a man wearing a white robe belted at the waist with a gold-link chain. He was a fine-looking man, in his fifties, tall, slim, his eyes a deep, shocking blue, eyes that pinned you. He held a small pistol in his hand.
    Joanna wanted to tell him he looked ridiculous, but the truth was he didn’t. He looked like a biblical prophet. She saw a strange pendant hanging from the belt. She wasn’t close enough to see what it was.
    Ethan said, “Caldicot Whistler, I presume?”
    “Yes.” Whistler held the gun in an elegant hand, an artist’s hand, long-fingered and graceful. If Ethan wasn’t mistaken, it was a Colt-style 1911 .45 semiautomatic aimed at him, not Joanna or Autumn, and for that he was grateful.
    “Blessed told me you were bringing them to me, Kjell. Please stay close. You will be needed again.”
    Kjell gave Whistler a slight bow and left the room, closing the door behind him.
    Whistler stepped from behind his desk, but he didn’t come close enough for Ethan to make a try for him. Smart man. He said, staring down at Autumn for a long moment, “So this is the child.”
    Autumn pressed harder against Joanna’s side.
    “Her name is Autumn Backman,” Joanna said.
    Whistler ignored her. “I did not know if Blessed would manage it. He is immensely powerful, but there were obviously problems for him this time, and so the two of you are here with her.”
    Ethan said, “Did Blessed tell you that Grace is dead?”
    Whistler paled. “Yes,” he whispered. “Blessed gave me that tragic news. And it is you who brings it up, Sheriff? You kill a great man, and you think to mock me with it?”
    “If I indeed killed him, I have no memory of it, since Blessed had stymied both me and Joanna.”
    Whistler closed his eyes an instant, then stared again at Ethan. “Blessed was so upset he ran to see the Father with the news. I knew Blessed was shot in the shoulder by that FBI agent, but this—it is too terrible.”
    Joanna said, “What’s terrible is murdering an innocent man and kidnapping a child.”
    “Shut up, woman, you don’t know what you’re talking