One Door From Heaven

resembled something tin fact, a hideous tangled mass of several somethings that you might call a pest-control company to deal with, assuming you knew a pest-control company that armed its exterminators with semiautomatic weapons and flame-throwers.
        The dog sure knew what she was talking about.
        USING A LOG-ROLLING TECHNIQUE to get across all the fallen cans of fruit and vegetables, Curtis reaches the front door just in time to see the second killer driven backward between two pumps by a noisy barrage of gunfire. Cass-identifiable by the large purse slung from one shoulder-follows with two pistols, flames spurting from both muzzles. Even in a ten-million-dollar Vegas stage production, surely she had never cut a more dramatic figure than this, not even when she had been nude with a feathered headdress. The boy wishes, however, that he could have had the experience of one of those performances-and at once blushes at this wish, even though it seems to indicate that in spite of his recent problems being Curtis Hammond to fullest effect, he is nonetheless steadily becoming human on a deep emotional level, which is a good thing.
        Here comes Polly with a shotgun, looking no less dramatic than her sister, even though also fully clothed. When she sees Curtis in the open door, she calls out his name with evident relief.
        Maybe he hears relief where he should hear an angrier quality, because as Polly arrives, she levels the pistol-grip 12-gauge at his head and shouts at him. She has every right to be furious with him, of course, for bringing a pair of otherworldly assassins into her life, and he won't blame her if she shoots him down right here and now, though he might have expected her to be more understanding and though he will be sorry to go.
        Then he realizes that she's shouting "Down, dawn, down," and finally the word computes. He drops flat to the ground, and she fires at once into the store. She pumps four thunderous rounds before the bad mom, which he had previously wounded, stops shrieking behind him.
        Scrambling to his feet, Curtis is so fascinated by the sight of Polly plucking shotgun shells from her cleavage with the flair of a magician producing live doves from silk scarves that he turns almost as an afterthought to peer into the store. Something that will strain the county coroner's powers of description lies just inside the door, midst the wreckage of a snack-food display rack, and a golden-orange blizzard of shotgun-blasted potato chips, Doritos, and Cheez Doodles slowly settles in salty drifts upon the carcass.
        "Are there more of these damn things?" Polly asks breathlessly, having already reloaded the 12-gauge.
        "Plenty more," says Curtis. "But not here, not now-not yet."
        Cass has at last dispatched the second killer. She joins her sister, looking disarranged as Curtis has never seen her.
        "The fuel tank's probably just about full," Cass says, staring strangely at Curtis.
        "Probably," he agrees.
        "We should probably be getting out of here real fast," Polly says.
        "Probably," Curtis agrees, because although he doesn't want to further endanger them, he's even more averse to the idea of heading out from here alone, on foot into the night. "And real fast isn't fast enough."
        "Once we hit the road," Cass says, "you've got some explaining to do, Curtis Hammond."
        Hoping he doesn't sound like a sassy-assed, spit-in-the-eye, ungrateful, snot-nosed little punk, Curtis says, "You, too."

Chapter 48
        
        CAFFEINE AND SUGAR, in quantity and in tandem, were supposed to be twin wrecking balls of human health in general and destructive to sleep in particular, but Coke and cookies marginally improved Micky's low spirits and didn't prevent her eyes from growing heavy.
        She sat at the kitchen table, dealing out game after game of solitaire, waiting for Leilani. She remained convinced that the girl would find a way to visit before dawn, even though her stepfather had now been alerted to their relationship.
        Without delay, immediately upon Leilani's arrival, Micky would drive the girl to Clarissa's in Hemet, in spite of all the parrots and the risk. No time remained for strategy, only for action. And if Hemet proved to be but the first stop on a journey of uncertainly and hardship, Micky was prepared to pay whatever ticket price might be demanded of her.
        When eventually