Seize the Night_A Novel by Dean Koontz

Author:Dean Koontz [Koontz, Dean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780307414113
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2007-06-15T04:00:00+00:00

Therefore to this dog will I,

Tenderly not scornfully,

Render praise and favor:

With my hand upon his head,

Is my benediction said

Therefore and forever.

This tin box was a gift from my mother, given to me on the day that she brought Orson home. I keep special biscuits in it, which he particularly enjoys, and from time to time I give him a couple, not to reward him for a trick learned, because I don’t teach him tricks, and not to enforce any training, for he needs no training, but simply because the taste of them makes him happy.

When my mother brought Orson to live with us, I didn’t know how special he was. She kept this secret until long after her death, until after my father’s death. When she gave me the box, she said, “I know you’ll give him love, Chris. But also, when he needs it—and he will need it—take pity on him. His life is no less difficult than yours.”

At the time, I assumed she meant nothing more than that animals, like us, are subject to the fear and suffering of this world. Now I know there were deeper and more complex layers of meaning in her words.

I reached toward the tin, intending to test its weight, because I wanted to be certain that it was filled with treats for Orson’s triumphant return. My hand began to shake so badly that I left the box untouched.

I folded my hands, one over the other, on the desk. Staring down at the hard white points of my knuckles, I realized that I had assumed the very pose in which I’d first seen Lilly Wing when Bobby and I returned from Wyvern.

Orson. Jimmy. Aaron. Anson. Like the barbed points on a razor-wire fence, their names spiraled through my mind. The lost boys.

I felt an obligation to all of them, a fierce sense of duty, which wasn’t entirely explicable—except that in spite of my good fortune in parents and in spite of the riches of friendship that I enjoyed, I was the ultimate lost boy, myself, and to some extent would be lost until the day I passed out of my darkness in this world into whatever light waits beyond.

Impatience abraded my nerves. In conventional searches for lost hikers, for small aircraft downed in mountainous terrain, and for boats at sea, search parties break from dusk to dawn. We were limited, instead, to the dark hours, not merely by my XP but by our need to gather our forces and to act in utmost secrecy. I wondered whether the members of conventional search parties checked their watches every two minutes, chewed their lips, and went slightly screwy with frustration while waiting for first light. My watch crystal was etched with eye tracks, my lip was shaggy with shredded skin, and I was half nuts by 12:45.

Shortly before one o’clock, as I was diligently ridding myself of the second half of my sanity, the doorbell rang.

With the Glock in hand, I went downstairs. Through one of the stained-glass sidelights, I saw Bobby on the front porch.

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