Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
PART ONE - The Hag
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
PART TWO - The Attack
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
PART THREE - The Hounds
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
PART FOUR - The Chase
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
PART FIVE - The Kill
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
NEW AFTERWORD
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR
An ordinary parking lot in southern California. Christine Scavello and her six-year-old son are accosted by a strange old woman.
“I know who you are,” she snaps at the boy. “I know what you are.”
A scream, a threat—and a grotesque act of violence. Suddenly Christine’s pride and joy, her only son, is targeted by a group of religious fanatics. They’ve branded him the Antichrist. They want to kill him. And they are everywhere. . . .
THE SERVANTS OF TWILIGHT
The acclaimed bestsellers
THE EYES OF DARKNESS
“Koontz puts his readers through the emotional wringer!”
—The Associated Press
THE KEY TO MIDNIGHT
“A master storyteller . . . always riveting.”
—The San Diego Union-Tribune
MR. MURDER
“A truly harrowing tale . . . superb work by a master at the top of his form.”
—The Washington Post Book World
THE FUNHOUSE
“Koontz is a terrific what-if storyteller.”
—People
DRAGON TEARS
“A razor-sharp, nonstop, suspenseful story . . . a first-rate literary experience.”
—The San Diego Union-Tribune
SHADOWFIRES
“His prose mesmerizes . . . Koontz consistently hits the bull’s-eye.”
—Arkansas Democrat
HIDEAWAY
“Not just a thriller but a meditation on the nature of good and evil.”
—Lexington Herald-Leader
COLD FIRE
“An extraordinary piece of fiction . . . It will be a classic.”
—UPI
THE HOUSE OF THUNDER
“Koontz is brilliant.”
—Chicago Sun-Times
THE VOICE OF THE NIGHT
“A fearsome tour of an adolescent’s psyche. Terrifying, kneeknocking suspense.”
—Chicago Sun-Times
THE BAD PLACE
“A new experience in breathless terror.”
—UPI
THE SERVANTS OF TWILIGHT
“A great storyteller.”
—New York Daily News
MIDNIGHT
“A triumph.”
—The New York Times
LIGHTNING
“Brilliant . . . a spine-tingling tale . . . both challenging and entertaining.”
—The Associated Press
THE MASK
“Koontz hones his fearful yarns to a gleaming edge.”
—People
WATCHERS
“A breakthrough for Koontz . . . his best ever.”
—Kirkus Reviews
TWILIGHT EYES
“A spine-chilling adventure . . . will keep you turning pages to the very end.”
—Rave Reviews
STRANGERS
“A unique spellbinder that captures the reader on the first page. Exciting, enjoyable, and an intensely satisfying read.”
—Mary Higgins Clark
DEMON SEED
“One of our finest and most versatile suspense writers.”
—The Macon Telegraph & News
PHANTOMS
“First-rate suspense, scary and stylish.” —Los Angeles Times
WHISPERS
“Pulls out all the stops . . . an incredible, terrifying tale.”
—Publishers Weekly
NIGHT CHILLS
“Will send chills down your back.”
—The New York Times
DARKFALL
“A fast-paced tale . . . one of the scariest chase scenes ever.”
—The Houston Post
SHATTERED
“A chilling tale . . . sleek as a bullet.”
—Publishers Weekly
THE VISION
“Spine-tingling—it gives you an almost lethal shock.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
THE FACE OF FEAR
“Real suspense . . . tension upon tension.”
—The New York Times
Berkley titles by Dean Koontz
THE EYES OF DARKNESS
THE KEY TO MIDNIGHT
MR. MURDER
THE FUNHOUSE
DRAGON TEARS
SHADOWFIRES
HIDEAWAY
COLD FIRE
THE HOUSE OF THUNDER
THE VOICE OF THE NIGHT
THE BAD PLACE
THE SERVANTS OF TWILIGHT
MIDNIGHT
LIGHTNING
THE MASK
WATCHERS
TWILIGHT EYES
STRANGERS
DEMON SEED
PHANTOMS
WHISPERS
NIGHT CHILLS
DARKFALL
SHATTERED
THE VISION
THE FACE OF FEAR
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
The author gratefully acknowledges permission to quote from Something Wicked This Way Comes copyright © 1962 by Ray Bradbury, permission granted by Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020.
THE SERVANTS OF TWILIGHT
A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with the author
PRINTING HISTORY
Dark Harvest edition / 1988
Berkley mass-market edition / May 1990
Berkley premium edition / August 2011
Copyright © 1984 by Nkui, Inc.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
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ISBN : 978-1-101-54328-3
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This book is dedicated to very special people,
George and Jane Smith
—and to their lovely offspring, Diana Summers, and to their cats. May they have all the success and happiness they so well deserve. (I mean, of course, George and Jane and Diana, not the cats.) And may they have much fun catching mice and singing on backyard fences. (That is, the cats, not George, Jane and Diana.)
PART ONE
The Hag
An’ all us other children, when
the supper things is done,
We sit around the kitchen fire
an’ has the mostest fun
A-list-nin’ to the witch-tales
that Annie tells about,
An’ the Gobble’uns that gits you
If you
Don’t
Watch
Out!
—Little Orphant Annie, James Whitcomb Riley
. . . the Dust Witch came, mumbling. A moment later, looking up, Will saw her. Not dead! he thought. Carried off, bruised, fallen, yes, but now back, and mad! Lord, yes, mad, looking especially for me!
—Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ray Bradbury
1
It began in sunshine, not on a dark and stormy night.
She wasn’t prepared for what happened, wasn’t on guard. Who would have expected trouble on a lovely Sunday afternoon like that?
The sky was clear and blue. It was surprisingly warm, for the end of February, even in southern California. The breeze was gentle and scented with winter flowers. It was one of those days when everyone seemed destined to live forever.
Christine Scavello had gone to South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa to do some shopping, and she had taken Joey with her. He liked the big mall. He was fascinated by the stream that splashed through one wing of the building, down the middle of the public promenade and over a gentle waterfall. He was also intrigued by the hundreds of trees and plants that thrived indoors, and he was a born peoplewatcher. But most of all he liked the carousel in the central courtyard. In return for one ride on the carousel, he would tag along happily and quietly while Christine spent two or three hours shopping.
Joey was a good kid, the best. He never whined, never threw tantrums or complained. Trapped in the house on a long, rainy day, he could entertain himself for hour after hour and not once grow bored or restless or crabby the way most kids would.
To Christine, Joey sometimes seemed to be a little old man in a six-year-old boy’s small body. Occasionally he said the most amazingly grown-up things, and he usually had the patience of an adult, and he was often wiser than his years.
But at other times, especially when he asked where his daddy was or why his daddy had gone away—or even when he didn’t ask but just stood there with the question shimmering in his eyes—he looked so innocent, fragile, so heartbreakingly vulnerable that she just had to grab him and hug him.
Sometimes the hugging wasn’t merely an expression of her love for him, but also an evasion of the issue that he had raised. She had never found a way to tell him about his father, and it was a subject she wished he would just drop until she was ready to bring it up. He was too young to understand the truth, and she didn’t want to lie to him—not too blatantly, anyway—or resort to cutesy euphemisms.
He had asked about his father just a couple of hours ago, on the way to the mall. She had said, “Honey, your daddy just wasn’t ready for the responsibility of a family.”
“Didn’t he like me?”
“He never even knew you, so how could he not like you? He was gone before you were born.”
“Oh, yeah? How could I have been borned if he wasn’t here?” the boy had asked skeptically.
“That’s something you’ll learn in sex education class at school,” she had said, amused.
“When?”
“Oh, in about six or seven more years, I guess.”
“That’s a long time to wait.” He had sighed. “I’ll bet he didn’t like me and that’s why he went away.”
Frowning, she had said, “You put that thought right out of your mind, sugar. It was me your daddy didn’t like.”
“You? He didn’t like you?”
“That’s right.”
Joey had been silent for a block or two, but finally he had said, “Boy, if he didn’t like you, he musta been just plain dumb.”
Then, apparently sensing that the subject made her uneasy, he had changed it. A little old man in a six-year-old boy’s small body.
The fact was that Joey was the result of a brief, passionate, reckless, and stupid affair. Sometimes, looking back on it, she couldn’t believe that she had been so naive . . . or so desperate to prove her womanhood and independence. It was the only relationship in Christine’s life that qualified as a “fling,” the only time she had ever been swept away. For that man, for no other man before or since, for that man alone, she had put aside her morals and principles and common sense, heeding only the urgent desires of her flesh. She had told herself that it was Romance with a capital R, not just love but the Big Love, even Love At First Sight. Actually she had just been weak, vulnerable, and eager to make a fool of herself. Later, when she realized that Mr. Wonderful had lied to her and used her with cold, cynical disregard for her feelings, when she discovered that she had given herself to a man who was utterly without respect for her and who lacked even a minimal sense of responsibility, she had been deeply ashamed. Eventually she realized there was a point at which shame and remorse became self-indulgent and nearly as lamentable as the sin that had occasioned those emotions, so she put the shabby episode behind her and vowed to forget it.
Except that Joey kept asking who his father was, where his father was, why his fat
her had gone away. And how did you tell a six-year-old about your libidinous urges, the treachery of your own heart, and your regrettable capacity for occasionally making a complete fool of yourself? If it could be done, she hadn’t seen the way. She was just going to have to wait until he was grown up enough to understand that adults could sometimes be just as dumb and confused as little kids. Until then, she stalled him with vague answers and evasions that satisfied neither of them.
She only wished he wouldn’t look quite so lost, quite so small and vulnerable when he asked about his father. It made her want to cry.
She was haunted by the vulnerability she perceived in him. He was never ill, an extremely healthy child, and she was grateful for that. Nevertheless, she was always reading magazine and newspaper articles about childhood diseases, not merely polio and measles and whooping cough—he had been immunized for those and more—but horrible, crippling, incurable illnesses, often rare although no less frightening for their rarity. She memorized the early-warning signs of a hundred exotic maladies and was always on the watch for those symptoms in Joey. Of course, like any active boy, he suffered his share of cuts and bruises, and the sight of his blood always scared the hell out of her, even if it was only one drop from a shallow scratch. Her concern about Joey’s health was almost an obsession, but she never quite allowed it to actually become an obsession, for she was aware of the psychological problems that could develop in a child with an overly protective mother.