The Chosen

"All right," he said. "You're right. And I don't see what harm it'll do to tell you what you want to know."

"I am right," she said, stifling the urge to grab him and shake him.

A

"All right," he said. "All right, I saw him."

"Who? Byron?"

"No." Another eye slide. "The Holy Child. I guess."

"What?"

"Some little kid dressed like him, anyway." The young man named Quade seemed unhappy. "It was pretty late at night. Sometimes I go there to work on things. It's about the only time I get." From Randy she knew that Quade did metal sculpture. He was also taking classes in welding at the Central New Mexico Community College.

"Go on," she said when he bogged down.

"Well, like, I totally saw him. This kid. All dressed in these fu

"Didn't you say anything to anyone about it?"

He seemed to shake all over rather than just his head. "I don't really believe in all this religious stuff, you know? And anyway I may have been a little stoned the time I saw him."

"Really? Well, thank you, Quade. You've been a real help," A

"Please don't tell Byron about any of this. Please."

She smiled broadly. "And you are who?"

She wondered, as she hopped down from the top of the elaborate ironwork arch over the narrow front gate to the Chiaroscuro Guerrilla Art Compound, if she was trespassing. Or breaking and entering.

Feeling a little gun-shy, literally, about the street north of the gallery, she had parked on a more industrial side street a block south, just up from a gas station that was closed for the night. A quick reco

Getting in this way required A

It was a pleasantly cool evening, tinted with the remnants of the day's chili roasting and some other, less distinctive and also pleasant burn smells that she rather hoped came from the ritual cremation of autumn leaves. A fingernail moon did little to illuminate the area.

Inside the front gate the narrow passage between buildings was dark. She dropped into a three-point landing, froze, listened. Nothing.

She wore her dark jacket zipped over a canary-yellow T-shirt and dark blue ru

There were some floodlights shining sloshing bright light among the buildings and the courtyard. They were not many nor particularly well sited. They left big, irregular bands and blotches of shadow ideal for slipping through on sneaky business. A

Quade said Byron has a studio apartment in the southwest corner of the courtyard, she thought. That's just ahead and to the right.

She reached the end of the dark-stuccoed building to her right, paused, listened. She sensed no sign of any other life within the compound. She slipped around the corner.

A man stood scarcely six feet in front of her. She gasped.

"I believe the line is, 'We've got to stop meeting like this,'" Father Godin said.

"What are you doinghere?" She managed to whisper even as she struggled to breathe again. He'd startled the air clean out of her.

"Steady, there," he said softly. He shook his head in exaggerated reproof. A black watch cap covered his silver plush hair. Other than that, he was dressed as usual. "I thought we were going to be working together."

"Really. Well, it occurred to me that might not be the brightest idea for me," A

"It's better than working at cross-purposes, is it not?"

"Am I going to keep stumbling over you everywhere I go?"

She saw his grin in the darkness. "I might ask the same."

A train began to rock and clatter along the tracks a couple of blocks to the west. By its sound it had not slowed for the station a little way north.

"All right. I should've known you'd be thinking along the same lines I am. And if we're going to be following parallel lines, I'd rather have you on my side," she said begrudgingly.

He held a finger to his lips. It momentarily infuriated her.

He had turned around and started walking along the back of the brown building toward the right edge of the little courtyard. The tree and the twisted-metal sculptures went beyond bizarre to outright menacing in the random mixing of glare and shadow.

She followed. The train sounds subsided. Godin reached the long, slumpy porch shared by the apartments and paused. She moved up beside him. He glanced at her, eyes invisible behind his circular lenses. Then he walked toward Byron's door. He stopped suddenly. Coming up behind, she sensed tension in him, like a hunting dog on point.

The door of the artist's studio apartment stood open just a hands-breadth behind the swayback, fraying screen. Inside it was dark.

From within came a tortured moan.

Chapter 21

Godin's right hand came out of his jacket holding his revolver. He opened the screen slowly. A

None too sure what was expected of her, A

With Godin a dimly sensed presence hard on her right, her attention was drawn by the intense beam of white light angled downward. It illuminated a shape sprawled with its head toward the door. The head had wild, wavy dark hair. Parts of it seemed matted to the big, round skull.

With a cry A

He wore a gray sweatshirt, dark sweatpants. His feet were bare. The shirt was ripped and spattered with blood. He had drying blood trailing down over his mouth, and his skin looked very pale.

"The house is clear," Godin reported, coming out of the back. He clicked off his flashlight, put it away, then moved to right a lamp on its end table and turn it on. The shade, madly askew, cast dizzying shadows up the wall.