One Door From Heaven

its talents," he says, allowing her to enter first, with her gun drawn, because in fact she edges him aside and gives him no choice.
        Mummies line the downstairs hall. Indian mummies, embalmed in standing positions and clothed in their ceremonial best.
        At the back of the big house, Noah or Cass is kicking down the door, and seconds later, they appear at the far end of the hallway, gaping in amazement at the mummies.
        Polly signals them to check out the rooms on their end, and to Curtis, she says, "This way, sweetie."
        He follows her into chambers more interesting than any he has seen since arriving on this world, but-Oh, Lord-it sure does seem to be the kind of place where serial killers would hang out by the dozen to reminisce about the atrocities they have committed.
        LEILANI WASN'T IN the chamber with the television, but her wet footprints lingered there, with the older, fading prints of Preston Maddoc. Micky could also see where the girl had faltered, fallen, and gotten up again, leaving the damp imprint of her sodden clothes.
        Micky followed this trail from one short passageway into another, then around a second blind corner, moving far faster than prudence allowed, terrified that the girl would blunder into Maddoc.
        Clearly, the bastard had brought her here to kill her, just as he'd brought Micky for that purpose. Couldn't wait for Montana. Not with the complications that Micky had brought to his plans.
        The house shook with three loud, rapid knocks, not peals of thunder, but hard blows, as though someone had struck the building with a great hammer.
        The noise scared Micky, because she had no idea what caused it. A death blow of some kind? Maddoc triumphant? Leilani dead?
        Then Micky turned another corner, and the girl was six feet ahead, bracing herself with one hand against the maze wall, limping but making determined progress, such a small figure and yet somehow towering at the same time, her head held high, shoulders thrown back in a posture of absolute resolution.
        Sensing a presence, Leilani looked over her shoulder, and her expression at the sight of a faithful friend was a joy that Micky would never forget it she lived to be live hundred and if God chose to take all other memories from her in old age. All other memories, he could have if that day came, but she would never give Him the sight of Leilani's face at this moment, for this alone would sustain her even in the hour of her death.
        WHEN HE DISCOVERED that the Hand wasn't in the armchair where he'd left her, wasn't anywhere in the television annex, Preston began to set the maze on fire.
        Ultimately, following what pain he'd wished to put her through, he'd always intended to leave the girl still alive so that she could live her last minutes in terror as the flames encircled her, and as the smoke stole the breath from her lungs. The former cruelty had been denied him; but he might still have the pleasure of standing in the rain outside and hearing her screams as she staggered and crawled helplessly through the baffling, burning labyrinth.
        Bundled newspapers and magazines offered the best fuel. The kiss of the butane lighter ignited an immediate passionate response. The publications were so tightly compacted in the lower portions of the walls that, almost as dense as bricks, they would burn fiercely and for hours.
        He circled the cramped space, bringing flame to paper in half a dozen places. He had never killed with fire before, except when as a boy he tortured bugs by dropping matches on them in a jar. Licking flames, lavishing bright tongues upon the walls, thrilled him.
        When he first found the armchair empty, Preston had noticed the runt's damp footprints made patterns with his own. Now he followed them, pausing briefly every few steps to apply the lighter to the tinder-dry walls.
        NEITHER OF THEM had time to be weepy, but they wept anyway, even though tough babes like Micky B and dangerous young mutants were both averse to giving anyone the satisfaction of their tears.
        Crying didn't slow Leilani as she used the fragment of yellow glass to cut the loops of lamp cord that shackled Micky's wrists. She needed perhaps a half minute to do the job, less than a half minute to clamp the brace around her leg.
        When they were ready to move again, flames bloomed elsewhere in the maze. Leilani couldn't yet