The Taking

to make a fortress of the bank. They would be leaving in moments.
        The sixth, a girl of nine, had joined her parents among the fence-sitters. She nervously twisted her glossy blond hair between thumb and forefinger, and her lovely sapphire eyes were haunted by all the mangled ghosts that she had seen in the mirror.
        She said her name was Cassie. She tried to smile when Molly complimented her on her hair, but the smile faltered.
        Cassie's parents, especially her mother, reacted angrily to Molly's suggestion that the tavern was not safe and that they should accompany the others to the bank.
        "What the hell do you know?" the mother demanded. "You don't know any more than we do. We're staying here until we know more, until we learn more. It's dry here, we've got candles. We've been safe here. Until the situation clarifies, there's no reason to move, it's crazy to move."
        "Clarify the situation for yourself," Molly advised. "Go to the men's rest room. Inside the janitorial closet. Take a look at what's growing there."
        "What're you talking about?" In spite of her question, the woman had no desire to listen. Clearly, Cassie's mother was frightened by the possibility that Molly might in fact have information that would force her to make a reasoned choice. "I'm not going in the men's room. What's wrong with you? Get away from us!"
        Molly wanted to grab Cassie, take her with them by force, but that would lead to violence and delay, and would further terrify the girl.
        As Russell Tewkes blustered toward them to take up the argument, Neil said, "Molly, let's get out of here."
        Of the eight dogs in addition to Virgil, five were about to leave with the fighters. The other three gathered around Cassie. Two mutts and a golden retriever.
        Molly read each of those three solemn gazes, and felt an uncanny connection with the animals, experienced a communication beyond any that could have been fashioned from words. She knew that they would guard the girl, would if necessary die to protect her.
        Just as Render seemed to be Render but also someone else, just as Derek and Tewkes looked like themselves but acted like someone new, so the dogs at a glance appeared to be merely dogs but were something more. Unlike the murderer, the professor, and the tavern owner, however, the dogs were not agents of despair; quite the opposite.
        With growing wonder that rivaled fear for possession of her heart, Molly touched each of the animals, smoothing the fur on their heads, and each in turn nuzzled her hand.
        "Gentle hearts," she told them, "and courageous."
        "What's going on here?" Russell Tewkes inquired, arriving in a reek of beer breath and sweat.
        "We're leaving," Molly said, and turned away from him.
        She and Neil had almost reached the front door when the rain stopped as abruptly as if a spigot had been shut off.

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    31
        
        SPENT CATARACTS OF WATER DRAINED OFF STREETS and out of gutters. New cataracts, of the blinding type, frustrated the eye and deceived the mind.
        The town had nearly vanished in fog. Thick curdled masses of mist slid down from the higher ridges in a soft avalanche and also rose off the swollen lake below.
        For a moment, Molly held her breath for fear these clouds would prove poisonous. But then she breathed, and lived.
        Along the street, houses and other structures formed a geometry more suggested than seen. The calligraphy of trees, deciduous and evergreen, full of cursives and flourishes, was continuously erased only to be half revealed again by the lazily roiling mist.
        To Molly, the sudden silence, following the long roar of the rain, had all the drama of a roof-rattling thunderclap. Stepping out of the tavern with Virgil, closely followed by Neil, she seemed to have gone deaf, a perception abetted by the muffling effect of the dense fog.
        More than the cessation of the rain, more than the murk or the silence, the arrival of dawn surprised her. A glance at her watch-which functioned when out from under the oppressive influence of the mysterious leviathan-confirmed that daybreak should have arrived.
        The descending light was deep purple, less like a brightening sunrise than like a fading dusk. This glow imparted to the fog a purplish tint with ribbony veins of gold.
        In ordinary times, these royal colors would have been a