Relentless

not look much like the writer whose photos were on my book jackets. Penny styles her hair in a different fashion, has made some other changes, and is lovelier than ever.
    Penny, Milo, Lassie, and I use our real names when we are alone with one another, but the rest of the world knows us by names that we chose after much discussion.
    Through a series of clever maneuvers involving foreign banks, Grimbald was able to spirit all of our savings out of the country before the people-of-the-red-arms realized we had escaped Shearman and Zazu. Because I’d enjoyed six bestsellers and because the PurpleBunny books had been earning well for eight years, and because we live simply now, we are set for a long, long time.
    Grim and Clo have retired from the building-demolition business and now live incognito in their canyon.
    I write novels and put them away in a chest of drawers rather than send them to a publisher. I no longer must suffer the shame of excessive self-promotion.
    This story of our encounters with Shearman Waxx and his fellow booklovers may be published by a foundation, staffed by courageous people who believe in the beauty of tradition, in the necessity of truth, in the need for reason in a world of irrational ideologies.
    Penny writes books, illustrates them, and puts them away as well. We hope the world will want her work and mine one day—and will not require of us that we be executed for it.
    We follow the news as much as we can tolerate it. We see the signs, the gathering clouds, the horror that could come upon the whole world.
    In spite of all that we have seen and now know, we have not lost hope, neither has our hope been diminished. We have a dog that teleports. We know what matters in life and what does not. We have a son who will one day provide the means for the sane to reclaim civilization from those who value theories more than truth and utopian dreams more than people.
    Shearman Waxx was not relentless. Evil itself may be relentless, I will grant you that, but love is relentless, too. Friendship is a relentless force. Family is a relentless force. Faith is a relentless force. The human spirit is relentless, and the human heart outlasts—and can defeat—even the most relentless force of all, which is time.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    DEAN KOONTZ is the author of many #1
New York Times
bestsellers. He lives in Southern California with his wife, Gerda, their golden retriever, Anna, and the enduring spirit of their golden, Trixie.
    Correspondence for the author should be addressed to:
    Dean Koontz
P.O. Box 9529
Newport Beach, California 92658

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
    Copyright © 2009 by Dean Koontz
    All rights reserved.
    Published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
    A signed, limited edition has been privately printed by Charnel House. Charnelhouse.com
    B ANTAM B OOKS and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Koontz, Dean R. (Dean Ray), 1945–
  Relentless / Dean Koontz. —1st ed.
    p. cm.
  eISBN: 978-0-553-90653-0
1. Novelists—Fiction. 2. Critics—Fiction. I. Title.
  PS3561.O55R45 2009
  813′.54—dc22   2009009866
    www.bantamdell.com
    v3.0