his mates. No. It would be one of his mates. Because there was, quite literally, no one else in the world to save them but them.
It was why, recalled Annabelle, Jack had forbidden wrestling matches. Which were always happening in the stairwells, for some reason. She supposed it was because those broad shoulders were always clipping past one another in a hurry and then one thing led to another and...
Jack wouldn't have it. They were already wrapped far too tightly to be adrenaline-bruising their only kin.
So instead they tore up the house. That time they decided to play indoor golf because of the rain.
She busied herself in front of the lounge mirror, thinking back and trying without success to keep the smile from her face. To be fair, Jack had not even been in town. He and Cat had gone up to San Francisco with Anthony to watch his old team beat the 49'ers. But that didn't mean she believed for one single instant Jack would have stopped them. Probably would have just sat there in that big chair of his and laughed and bet on the winner.
Indoor golf. She sighed. They had broken six windows. Three of them cut glass.
She paused and inspected her appearance before returning to the bar. She supposed she looked fine.
For what she was.
For what was left. For what there was to look forward to. I'm so tired, she thought again. And then she thought: No. That's a lie: I'm frightened. And then she thought: No. I'm both. Both.
Jack! Hurry back. Hurry back to us and still be you!
Father Adam looked to his left, at the seventy-ish man sleeping across the aisle from him and said in his silent TV commentator's voice, There are, for your information, sir, over six hundred exorcisms officially performed in America each year. And to you, it's just something that made a great movie that may or may not have been true once but isn't now.
Adam's gaze slid across the aisle to Jack, dozing in front of him.
And this man, he continued, kills vampires for a living. How about that?
Adam sighed, resting his eyes on Crow a bit longer before turning and viewing the mountains of the western United States sweeping below.
I'm in a dream. But maybe not. This is real and this has been happening, bile flowing from the Beast, since the dawn of man and before. This isn't a dream.
He turned again to look at Jack Crow.
It's simply that this man is a movie. A walking, talking, bleeding, cussing, bigger-than-life bear of a man. He's a movie, just being alive.
But movies aren't real, are they? he asked himself.
Neither is the priesthood. Isn't that why you're here?
He started to ignore himself. But then he decided he no longer had to. He was here now and into it. He was no longer some lanky, dark-curled kid too pretty for his own good hiding out from girls in seminary and from the meat-eaters' man's world in his black-and-white king's X uniform.
He looked again around the cabin. It wasn't the real world of this plane, perhaps. Of men striving to earn first-class seats or pilot's stripes. It wasn't the real world of men at all.
But it was the real world of man.
Of man and God.
And he, Adam the schoolyard trembler, had grown up and come here to fight for them both. At last.
To the last.
He slept.
I don't know who else to get, thought Jack Crow. And I'm tired of getting them. We need the best kind of person around. No one less will do.
But they will die. And that means I have to find the best men I know and condemn them to a certain violent end just because they're the best.
Shit.
And they always said yes. That was the worst part of it. The good ones, once they knew it was being done, had to be doing it.
So they did it and they died.
Doubleshit.
Oh, God! Please don't call us now! There's only four of us left and this kid-priest and one of 'em's a middle-aged woman and another is pushing sixty and fat and damn well not scared enough for me and another is the finest man I've ever known.
And, tripleshit, the last one is me.
Please, phone, don't ring!
The plane landed and Jack Crow shook himself hard and reminded himself that he was supposed to be a leader of some kind so: Rock and roll, goddammit! Off your butt and off this plane and here we go again! Come on!