The Face

glided without benefit of wings from rafters to attic floor, so now he descended with soundless grace to the carpet only a few feet from Fric.
        “You have this knack for entrances,” Fric said, but his shaky voice belied his cocky Hollywood-kid attitude.
        “Moloch is here,” the guardian declared in a tone of voice so dire that it would have made Fric’s heart clench and then punch his ribs even if the message had been a fraction as terrifying as this. “Run to your deep and special place, Fric. Run now .”
        Pointing to the stained-glass dome, Fric said, “Why don’t you just take me up there, out of here, where you came from, where I’ll be safe?”
        “I told you, boy, you must make your own choices, exercise your free will, and save yourself.”
        “But I-”
        “Besides, you can’t go to the places I go or travel by the means I do, not until you’re dead.” The guardian stepped closer, leaned forward, thrusting his pallid face within an inch of Fric’s. “Do you want to die horribly just to be able to travel more conveniently?”
        Fric’s hammering heart knocked all the words out of his throat before he could speak them, and as he struggled to sputter through his silence, he was lifted off his feet and held high by his weird guardian.
        “Moloch is in the house. Hide, boy, for God’s sake, hide .”
        With that, Mysterious Caller threw Fric as though he were only a bundle of rags, but threw him with a magical knack that prevented [557] him from crashing hard into furniture. Instead, he tumbled in slow motion across the library, over the club chairs and tables, past the islands of bookshelves.
        As he rotated on a curious axis, head over heels, Fric saw the photograph of the pretty lady, his make-believe mom, which had slipped out of his pocket and now drifted lazily beside him through the air, in his sphere of influence. Like an astronaut reaching for a floating tube of food in the gravity-free environment of a space shuttle high in orbit, he grasped for the picture but could not quite close his hand on it.
        Abruptly he hit the floor on both feet, near the Christmas tree that was hung with angels, hit the floor running, whether he wanted to run or not, as if his legs were spellcast to churn him out of here.
        Past the tree, at the open door to the library, he turned to look back.
        The guardian had vanished.
        The photograph was nowhere to be seen.
         Moloch is in the house.
        Fric fled the library, sprinting for the conservatory by the shortest route.

CHAPTER 91
        
        AT ONE OF THE BRONZE-AND-BEVELED-GLASS French doors that looked out on the half-acre of patio, the fountains, and the swimming pool, Corky Laputa used the security guard’s keys to let himself into the grand drawing room.
        With the fine brocade drapes, he toweled himself as dry as he could. When he began moving through the house along limestone-floored hallways, he must not leave a betraying trail that Truman might find before he found Truman.
        He switched on the lights.
        He had no fear of being noticed. Only three of them were afoot in a house larger than some shopping centers. They were not likely to blunder into one another by accident.
        A magnificently decorated Christmas tree graced the room. He was tempted to poke around until he found the string-light switch, to see this spruce beauty in its full twinkling glory. But chaos could at times be a tough taskmaster, and he had to remain focused on the plot that had brought him here by blimp and bluster.
        Crossing the enormous room, he squinched his feet back and forth in the antique Persian carpets with each step, thoroughly drying his boots.
        [559] Two widely separated sets of double doors led to the north hall. Beside one of these exits, a Crestron touch-control unit was mounted flush in the wall.
        He touched the dead gray screen. The panel at once came to life, presenting him with three columns of icons.
        Mick Sachatone had given Corky basic instructions in its use. Mick hadn’t made him an absolute master of the system, but he knew enough to get by.
        He fingered the icon for the interior motion detectors, and a list of ninety-six locations appeared. Per Ned Hokenberry, no motion detectors had been installed in bedrooms and bathrooms, or in any rooms of Charming Manheim’s third-floor