JESUS GOD, THOUGHT TYLER, his mind racing and his heart pounding as Brockton’s ravings—his coded message—sank in. How many years since Tyler’s last track meet? Three? No, four: his sophomore year of undergrad. Could he even do it anymore? No point worrying about it; given the situation, it was do or die. More like try and die, he thought grimly.
Squatting beside the concrete angel in the garden—this had to be what Brockton meant—he curled his fingers beneath the wings and hoisted the statue a few inches off the ground, swinging it slowly back and forth like a pendulum, getting the feel of it. It didn’t feel right: The wings were too wide; his hands were too far apart, and the angel’s head was pressing into his belly. Worse, he could tell that if he released one wing before the other—even a microsecond before the other—the statue would tumble out of control and miss its mark. Frowning, he laid it down and studied it, circling it like a wary dog. Halfway around, he had an idea. Squatting again, he gripped the angel by the thin, circular base beneath the feet and straightened, then swayed to set it swinging, this time head down. Better, he thought. Much better. The mass and balance weren’t exactly the same as the hammer’s—the statue felt much heavier; maybe thirty pounds rather than sixteen—but he wouldn’t be throwing for distance, only for accuracy. It would do. It had to do.
He shifted his grip slightly, propping the statue on the patio as he did, the tips of the wings and the sword forming a temporary tripod. The fall of Lucifer, he thought; then—straightening and lifting once more—Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
He did a test throw in slow motion, mentally coaching himself through the movements: the swaying windup, then the four-and-a-half spins—the accelerating dervish dance needed to power the flight of the angel, the hammer of God. Halfway through the practice spins, he stumbled and nearly fell, regaining his balance just in time to avoid a noisy crash. Who are you kidding? he asked himself scornfully, but then he heard another voice—a kinder voice: his high-school coach’s voice wafting across a decade, cheerfully scolding him in exactly the same words he’d used a hundred times or more at practice: Turn off your brain, Tyler. It’s like making love, son—if you’re thinking, you’re not doing it right.
The remembered admonition calmed Tyler; it even made him smile briefly. He drew a long, slow breath, feeling and hearing the air: rushing through his nostrils, flowing down the back of his throat, filling his lungs. He drew another, and a familiar, distinctive mixture of oxygen and adrenaline made its way into his muscles, awakening sensations and skills that lay deep and dormant within him. Turning his back on the window, he began to rock, swinging the statue to and fro, in pendulum arcs that gradually rose higher and higher: left, right, left, right, the wingtips and sword almost grazing the ground at the bottom of each arc. After half a dozen swings, the arc reached shoulder height on each side, and Tyler boosted the angel over the top: above his left shoulder, over his head, and then swooping down to the right. As it swooped he began to spin, shifting the plane of the statue’s motion from vertical toward horizontal. It swung outward now, angling away from his body as he spun. Whirling faster and faster, he leaned back, leaned into the turns, he and the angel counterbalancing one another like skaters or dancers in a dizzying duet—two turns, three turns, four—the winged figure straining to take flight.
As Tyler completed his fourth turn, the back of his left shoe came down on a pea-sized pebble. Pinched between his heel and the patio, the pebble shot free, pinging against the glass of the sliding door. It hit just as Tyler came out of the turn, whirling toward the house, toward his release point—the point where he would relax his fingers and release the statue; where he would let the angel take flight.
At the edge of his whirling field of vision, Tyler suddenly saw Satterfield spinning, too: spinning toward Tyler, a nightmarish reflection of Tyler’s own motion.
Time slowed; Tyler’s vision narrowed, tunneled, excluding all but three things: the sheen of the glass door, the malice on Satterfield’s face, and the pistol in the outstretched, tightening grip.
CHAPTER 52
Brockton
AS I WATCHED IN horror, Satterfield spun toward Tyler, raised the pistol, and fired.