51 Cold Fire by Dean Koontz

Author:Dean Koontz
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Horror
ISBN: 9780425199589
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 1991-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Like a brush of flame, the westering sun slanted through the tilted plantation shutters on the breakfast-nook window, slathering bands of copper-gold fire on the ceiling. Holly slumped in her chair, and Jim leaned forward in his. She stared at him while he stared at his half-finished bottle of Corona.

“Like I told you on the plane, I’m not a psychic,” he insisted. “I can’t foresee things just because I want to. I don’t have visions. It’s a higher power working through me.” “You want to define that a little?” He shrugged. “God.” “God’s talking to you?” “Not talking. I don’t hear voices, His or anybody else’s. Now and then I’m compelled to be in a certain place at a certain time…” As best he could, he tried to explain how he had ended up at the McAlbury School in Portland and at the sites of the other miraculous rescues he had performed. He also told her about Father Geary finding him on the floor of the church, by the sanctuary railing, with the stigmata of Christ marking his brow, hands, and side.

It was off-the-wall stuff, a weird brand of mysticism that might have been concocted by an heretical Catholic and peyote-inspired Indian medicine man in association with a no-nonsense, Clint Eastwood-style cop. Holly was fascinated. But she said, “I can’t honestly tell you I see God’s big hand in this.” “I do,” he said quietly, making it clear that his conviction was solid and in no need of her approval.

Nevertheless she said, “Sometimes you’ve had to be pretty damned violent, like with those guys who kidnapped Susie and her mother in the desert.” “They got what they deserved,” he said flatly. “There’s too much darkness in some people, corruption that could never be cleaned out in five lifetimes of rehabilitation. Evil is real, it walks the earth. Sometimes the devil works by persuasion. Sometimes he just sets loose these sociopaths who don’t have a gene for empathy or one for compassion.” “I’m not saying you didn’t have to be violent in some of these situations. Far as I can see, you had no choice. I just meant—it’s hard to see God encouraging his messenger to pick up a shotgun.” He drank some beer. “You ever read the Bible?” “Sure.”

“Says in there that God wiped out the evil people in Sodom and Gomorrah with volcanoes, earthquakes, rains of fire. Flooded the whole world once, didn’t He? Made the Red Sea wash over the pharaoh’s soldiers, drowned them all. I don’t think He’s going to be skittish about a little old shotgun.” “I guess I was thinking about the God of the New Testament. Maybe you heard about Him—understanding, compassionate, merciful.” He fixed her with those eyes again, which could be so appealing that they made her knees weak or so cold they made her shiver. A moment ago they had been warm; now they were icy. If she’d had any doubt, she knew from his frigid response that he had not yet decided to welcome her into his life.

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