Odd Thomas

with us. The prickled skin on my arms suggested that I should speak in a honk, have webbed feet, and be covered with feathers.
        Stormy's instinct was in sync with mine. Surveying the geometric shadows of pews, aisles, and colonnades, she whispered, "He's closer than you think. He's very close."
        I pushed open the low gate in the communion railing. We passed through, moving in all but absolute silence now, not wanting to mask any sounds of Robertson's approach.
        As we passed the choir enclosure and ascended the ambulatory toward the high altar, I glanced back less and proceeded with greater caution. Inexplicably, in opposition to my head, my heart said danger lay in front of us.
        Our stalker couldn't have slipped around us unseen. Besides, there was no reason for him to have done so instead of assaulting us directly.
        Nevertheless, with every step I took, the tension increased in the cords of muscle at the back of my neck, until they felt as tight as key-wound clock springs.
        From the corner of my eye, I glimpsed movement past the altar, twitched toward it, and drew Stormy closer to my side. Her hand clutched mine tighter than before.
        The crucified bronze Christ moved, as if metal miraculously had become flesh, as if He would pull loose from the cross and step down to resume the earthly mantle of messiah.
        A large scallop-winged moth flew away from the hot lens of the overhead spotlight. The illusion of movement - which the insect's exaggerated, fluttering shadow had imparted to the bronze figure - was at once dispelled.
        Stormy's tower-door key would also unlock the door at the back of the sanctuary. Beyond waited the sacristy, in which the priest readied himself before every Mass.
        I glanced back at the sanctuary, the nave. Silence. Stillness but for the moth's shadow play.
        After using and returning Stormy's key, I pushed the paneled door inward with some trepidation.
        This particular fear had no rational basis whatsoever. Robertson wasn't a magician able to appear by legerdemain inside a locked room.
        Nevertheless, my heart played knock-and-rattle with my ribs.
        When I felt for the light switch, my hand was not pinned to the wall by either a stiletto or a hatchet. The overhead light revealed a small, plain room but no large psychopath with yellow yeast-mold hair.
        To the left stood the prie-dieu, where the priest knelt to offer his private devotions before saying Mass. To the right were cabinets containing the sacred vessels and the vestments, and a vesting bench.
        Stormy closed the sanctuary door behind us and with a thumb-turn engaged the deadbolt.
        We quickly crossed the room to the outer sacristy door. I knew that beyond lay the east churchyard, the one without tombstones, and a flagstone path leading to the rectory where her uncle lived.
        This door also was locked.
        From within the sacristy, the lock could be released without a key. I gripped the thumb-turn… but hesitated.
        Perhaps we had not heard or seen Robertson enter the nave from the narthex for the simple reason that he'd never come into the front of the church after I had glimpsed him ascending the steps.
        And perhaps, anticipating that we would try to flee from the back of the church, he had circled the building to wait for us outside the sacristy. This might explain why I had sensed that we were moving toward danger rather than away from it.
        "What's wrong?" Stormy asked.
        I shushed her - a fatal mistake in any circumstances but these - and listened at the crack between the door and the jamb. The thinnest breath of a warm draft tickled my ear, but with it came no sounds from outside.
        I waited. I listened. I grew increasingly uneasy.
        Stepping away from the outer door, I whispered to Stormy, "Let's go back the way we came."
        We returned to the door between the sacristy and the sanctuary, which she had locked behind us. But I hesitated again with my fingers on the deadbolt release.
        Putting my ear against the crack between this door and jamb, I listened to the church beyond. No teasing draft spiraled down my auditory canal, but no telltale stealthy sounds came to me, either.
        Both sacristy doors had been locked from the inside. To get at us, Robertson would need a key, which he didn't possess.
        "We're not going to wait