Best wishes,

Robin Wayne Bailey

EYES OF MOONLIGHT, TEARS OF STONE

by Robin Wayne Bailey

"Isaac," Alice whispered through the fear that choked her, "please come down."

Twelve-year-old Isaac didn't reply. Unmoving, he perched on the edge of the low wall that bordered the rooftop, balanced on his toes, his fingertips barely touching the old brick between his feet. A black, blistering abyss of concrete yawned below. He stared into it, unblinking, birdlike in the night, seeming not to breathe.

Only minutes before, chancing to look up as she parked her old Toyota at the curb, Alice had seen him. In the dusky evening gloom, the moon had flashed on something, perhaps his tee-shirt, drawing her attention. Her heart still hammered from her frantic run up treacherous stairwells.

Summoning her courage, she dropped her battered purse and scarred leather briefcase, trying to ignore the dried piles of pidgeon shit and the rotting tarpaper that crackled underfoot. The old boards groaned with every shift of her considerable weight; for a moment her knees jellied. She hated heights, and she hated her job with Child Protective Services. Yet she fixed her gaze on Isaac's small, rounded back and curly head, determined to lunge for him if he tried to jump.

Alice forced calm into her voice. "That's no place for you Isaac. What are you doing?"

This time he answered. "Thinkin'. I like to come up here alone and sit," --he turned his head slowly to the right and left-- "with my friends."

On either side of him, a pair of granite-carved gargoyles rose from the cornice. Massive, hunched shoulders and misshapen heads leaned away from the roof, loomed over the abyss. Alice had never really noticed them from the street. Up close, in the rapidly darkening night, they looked like devils.

"Those monsters?" she rasped, hugging herself against a chill October wind that swept across the crumbling tenement rooftops. She thrust her fist against her mouth. That wasn't a smart thing to say. To talk Isaac off that wall she had to win his trust. If he called those things his friends....

Isaac gave a sad little laugh, interrupting her racing thoughts, as he slid safely down to the rooftop without further coaxing. He reached out his small arm and stroked the winged back of the rightmost creature. The moonlight burned upon its pitted and weathered form, igniting a streak of white spray-paint, old graffitti, where some tagger had marked its spine.

The peculiar lunar glow also turned livid the bruises on Isaac's alabaster skin as he pointed beyond the roof to the next building. In a dimly lit window behind yellowed, half-drawn shades a pair of shadows, one larger than the other, struggled. Alice guessed suddenly that Isaac had been watching those shadows for some time.

"Don't you got eyes, Miss Carpenter?" Isaac murmured. "The monsters are all out there." He paused, his gaze on the tableau in the window. "The Preacher's beatin' his woman again," he said. He continued to stroke the gargoyle, to pet it with an unnatural, yet fascinating affection. "Beats her ever night."

Alice thought to creep up on him now, to snatch him back from the wall and hold him hard with all her might. Yet her own fear of that edge rooted her to the spot where she stood.

"You listen real careful," he continued softly, "you can hear the whore workin' her trade in the alley below. An' gunshots comin' like firecrackers from two blocks over on Maple Street. An' sirens all the time, but far away." Once more he paused, and Alice thought she saw his thin frame shiver. "Sometimes you can hear the slide of that ol' needle pushin' easy into someone's arm from right underneath us." He threw his arms around the gargoyle and leaned his head against it. "Ain't no kinda music, Miss Carpenter."

Just a child, she thought, but he spoke like an old man with a world-weariness, and his words cut slices from her heart. Despite her fear, she crossed the roof and put a hand on his shoulder, tried to hug him close. He resisted that stubbornly and backed off a step.

"All I hear," she whispered, "is a little boy crying inside. I know what you're feeling, Isaac. I grew up in a place just as bad as this. I got out, and I'll get you out somehow."

He turned away. "Too late," he said, and the coldness in his voice chilled Alice Carpenter more than the October wind. "I don't cry no more. I've turned to stone, too, inside where it counts. Like my friends here." He stared out past the grotesque statues and down into the blackness of Lichmere Street where a thin fog began to crawl. Alice allowed her gaze to follow his.

The vertigo came like a wave, sweeping over her senses. The nearer buildings began to bend and fold on themselves; the world became a carousel. The wind pushed against her back. For a black instant, she felt herself falling.

Then she was clutching at the wall with both hands, kneeling on the dirty tarpaper, shaking uncontrollably. Isaac stood over her, his face stark with concern. He offered her a hand, and she put her darker one in his.

"Let's go downstairs, Isaac," she said weakly. "Please."

She let him help her up, and gathering her purse and her battered briefcase with its shoulder strap, they moved toward a rusted iron door and a stairway. The knees of Alice's stockings were ruined, her skirt soiled. She felt like a fool for fainting like that. But ten stories - ten stories! At the doorway, with one foot on a metal stair, she forced herself to look back. She wet her lips nervously.

The pair of gargoyles, their broad winged shoulders to her, sat as if in judgment over the city. She hadn't observed before the flakes of mica embedded in the granite catching the moonlight. How they glimmered! The effect was eerie, yet beautiful.

"I tell 'em things I can't tell no one else," Isaac said, his gaze following her own. "Sometimes they talk back."

He looked up at Alice with eyes large and liquid and shining, child's eyes alight with secrets and secret laughter. Then, too rapidly, sorrow filled those eyes again and drowned the light. He took her hand once more and, producing a tiny squeezable flashlight from his pocket, led the way down.

Dante at twelve years old, she thought, and the Livermore Hotel was a kind of hell. Property of an unknown owner who'd abandoned it years ago, it was home now to anyone who crawled in off the street. The tough ones or the wily ones, the longterm tenants, had staked out rooms for themselves. The weak and hapless ones camped on rough pallets of rags and newspapers in the hallways for one night or two before moving on.

The corridors smelled of urine and vomit, of bad wine and crack smoke. Electric light sockets, ripped from the crumbling ceilings, dangled bare and empty from frayed cords. In the glow of Isaac's flashlight, they looked like snakes lunging down to bite the faces of fools who passed beneath them.

The upper floors were empty tonight -- too many stairs for the drunks and bag-people to climb. From behind a closed door on the eighth, however, wafted the pungent, tell-tale odor of heroin cooking.

On the seventh floor, a weak board creaked under Alice Carpenter's foot. Halfway down the corridor, a door charred at the bottom as if someone had once tried to burn their way in opened an inch. A bony face peered out. Eyes hungry for many things settled on Alice's purse, then on Alice herself.

Alice and Isaac had to pass him to reach the next cascade of stairs, but the boy hesitated, his light centering squarely on the blocking figure as he moved into their path. The man's feet were bare, the old chinos and undershirt he wore filthy. He clenched one hand into a fist.

Alice Carpenter reached into her purse. Her gaze never leaving the bony-faced man, she curled her fingers around the grip of a thirty-eight revolver and exposed just a bit of the grip. It meant her job if her bosses ever learned she carried it. But the man noted the weapon. He slid wordlessly back into his room, and a lock snicked shut.

On the sixth floor near the stairway was the door to the pair of rooms that made Isaac's home. He pushed it open; Alice followed him inside. A pair of flickering candles and a neon sign from across the street provided the only illumination. She winced at the smell, and a barely controlled anger surged inside her. That a child should have to live like this!

Someone had knocked a hole in the wall to the next room. That second outer door, she knew, was barricaded with old boards and nails. A scarred chest of drawers stood propped against it as further security. All the furniture was strictly curbside discount. The faint light fell upon a mattress on the bare floor. A woman who slept there.

Slept, of course, was a charitable term.

"Tiffany?" Alice whispered to Isaac's mother. A little louder she repeated, "Tiffany?"

The woman on the mattress stirred. One eye opened and tried to focus. Tiffany Graham struggled to her hands and knees with a little groan, then crawled to where the mattress met the wall beneath the window. She settled down again, her back to the paint-chipped plaster, drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them.

She looked like a child herself, all bone, skin, no meat or muscle on her. Her hair was shiny with oil, in need of washing, as was the thin slip she wore. Confusion filled her darkly ringed eyes. She passed a hand over her face and stared at Alice with a squint. "Miss Carpenter?" she said at last. Her voice was a tiny flower of sound that opened slowly and hinted at a beauty long faded. "What you doin' here?" Her gaze wandered around the dingy room. "I didn't have time to straighten up...."

Alice's stern gaze swept the room, looking for signs of drugs or paraphernalia. Just a pipe or a needle, so much as a roach clip or a rubber tube -- any evidence her superiors couldn't ignore -- and she'd have legal grounds to take Isaac out of this hell-hole. She could have him in a foster home by morning if her division administrator would just sign off on the damn papers.

"I'm authorized to make these spot-checks," Alice interrupted, "as a condition of Isaac's probation."

Tiffany's head jerked up; panic flooded her eyes. "He's been a good boy, Miss Carpenter. He's not gonna get in any more trouble. I'm lookin' after him, I swear!"

Only a month before, Isaac had broken into a grocery store late at night and walked out with a sack-load of canned goods and candy bars right into the arms of the police. A disinterested judge with more serious crimes on his docket had shown leniency for a first-time offense.

Leniency? Alice ground her teeth in frustration. What kind of leniency was it to send a kid back to this?

"Show me your arms, Tiffany," Alice demanded.

Meekly obedient, the young mother extended her arms, wrists up. Small, fresh prick-marks and the mottled bruises of tracks days older told Tiffany's whole life story. "I'm clean," she lied stupidly.

Alice Carpenter bit back a harsh response. Instead, she let go a long sigh and tried to push down her indignation. "Do you have any food here, Tiffany?" she inquired in a gentler tone. "Have you and Isaac eaten anything today?"

She asked more questions; Tiffany became less and less responsive, finally closing her eyes and slumping sideways into the corner to lean there like a rag doll. Alice watched her, wondering if she should call an ambulance. But Tiffany breathed regularly without effort.

A smothering quiet filled the room. In the weak flicker of the candles, Alice Carpenter looked at her own arms and felt again the waves of shame and guilt that came at moments like this. Beneath the sleeves of her white blouse and her K-Mart brand suit jacket, she could feel the fine needle scars that would never quite disappear on her own flesh.

She had spent most of her teen years just like Tiffany, stretched on her back in one shooting gallery after another, trading sex for drugs, living from one fix to another any way she could. Oh, she knew Tiffany well -- she had been Tiffany.

But she'd gotten pregnant. In a charity hospital she'd held her poor addict-born baby and felt it die in her arms. From that tragedy, she had found the strength to clean herself up and begin the long crawl to a real life.

Alice stepped to the window and stared out at the desolate cityscape. A familiar, hard anger grew in her again. There was the enemy - the miles of unfeeling concrete, the uncaring darkness, all its heartless denizens. She knew its pock-marked face; she knew the seductive power in those nighted stone canyons, the allure it held for some.

"Woman," she whispered to Tiffany, "don't let it take a tragedy to open your eyes."

She adjusted her briefcase's strap and hugged her purse as if they were the symbols that separated her from her old life. Her lips drew into a grim line as she moved about the dirty space. Turning over a wrinkled magazine on the kitchen counter, she rifled its pages. Next, she popped open the door of the battered refrigerator. It's shelves held a few canned items, a box of cereal, half a loaf of bread, nothing that required electricity to cool.

Shaking her head, she prepared to leave, but first she bent near the hole in the wall and peered into the next room -- Isaac's room. Nothing there but another crummy mattress and blanket. Not even a pillow. No toys. No books or games. No posters over the bed. Nothing to indicate the room belonged to a little boy.

For an instant she despised Tiffany. Yet there were too many Tiffanys in the world to hate them all; better to try to help them. At least the ones that would accept help.

But where did that leave Isaac? On his rooftop, perhaps, or down in the bleak streets, for there was no sign of him now.

Alice closed the door softly behind her as she stepped into the corridor. There, she hesitated, suddenly nervous. Without Isaac's little flashlight to guide her, she felt her way through the darkness toward the stairway. Earlier, she had raced through these black corridors as fast as her plump body allowed, propelled by her concern for a child in danger. Now, she crept forward, her eyes barely adjusting to the faintest trickle of violet light that seeped through a window at the rearmost end of the corridor, and when a board loudly creaked underfoot, she froze, trembling.

Chiding herself, squaring her shoulders, Alice drew a deep breath. With one hand against the wall, she groped her way to the stairs, found the cool, wooden bannister, and prepared to descend.

Out of the blackness, a voice spoke. "Saviors and angels, Alice Carpenter," it murmured. "All fall down."

Alice's hand tightened on the rail. "Who's there?" she whispered, her pulse quickening.

A match flared, causing her to squeeze her eyes shut momentarily against unexpected brilliance. When she opened them again, a flickering glow illumined the haggard, stubbled face of a man who sat on the top step of the flight just above her. His cheeks were hollow, his look gaunt. AIDS, Alice thought, trying to meet his gaze. Intense eyes reflected the match's glimmering light.

"The times they are achangin'," he said, "and the millenium approaches." The match's flame diminished as he spoke. The circle of radiance around his face grew smaller and smaller. "Some will be lost, but some will be saved, Alice. Hold on to that." The match died and darkness swathed his final words.

Alice's hand clenched and unclenched on the smooth bannister. She waited in uncertainty for another match to strike, for another word, maybe an attack. She felt for the gun in her purse. Then she realized, he knew my name!

"Who are you?" she demanded. No answer came. Another gentler thought occurred to her. Summoning her courage, she moved to the bottom stair. "Are you sick?" Still no answer. The first step creaked under her weight as she dared to ascend. "Mister, you there?"

A chill shivered through her as she climbed halfway up and stopped. She didn't need to go farther to know she was alone. Without so much as a creak or groan from the old stairs to tell it, the man had gone. And yet she felt some gaze upon her, some presence close by -- too close.

With a gasp, she spun about, swinging one arm up to ward off an anticipated grab. Her heel caught in the few remaining threads of carpeting. Briefcase and purse further unbalanced her; shoulder straps tangled her right arm and wrist. She shot out her left hand, awkwardly managing to catch the bannister before she tumbled.

The sound of her ragged breathing echoed in the darkness. Her heart hammered. She stared toward the far end of the hallway toward a grime-smeared window, the source of the violet light. Someone moved there, briefly eclipsing that light.

A slow fire ignited behind Alice's narrowed eyes. She didn't like games, or people who played them, nor would she be intimidated. Adjusting her clothes, shouldering her belongings again, she descended the stairs with a firm tread, not pausing or looking back until she reached the Livermore's lobby.

There she slowed her pace again. A trio of half-melted candles burned on the scarred surface of what was once the front desk. A few more candles burned here and there. In that pathetic light, she set a deliberate course for the front doors.

Dust and filth covered the Livermore's once-beautiful marble floors. Beer cans, liquor bottles, discarded needles and empty crack vials, lay scattered at random among scraps of old newspapers and paper bags. Battered chairs and broken couches, some left from the hotel's closing, others dragged in from the curbs, were situated in the darkened corners.

Sullen eyes watched her from those chairs and couches, but no one made a move toward her. The neighborhood regulars knew Alice and left her alone. The danger came from drifters who saw a plump, middle-aged black lady in a place like this as an easy mark, or from shooters too stoned to remember that she sometimes helped their children. So she watched as she made her way across the lobby, nodding to those she knew, receiving a nod or two in return.

The doors groaned as she pushed them open. Plywood boards had long ago replaced the window glass in the heavy metal frames. Inside and out, they were marred with graffiti. On the sidewalk finally, she paused to draw breath, feeling the oppressive weight of the Livermore Hotel lift from her soul. Without quite knowing why, she gazed up.

The gargoyles on the rooftop seemed to be staring at her. The moonlight caught the chips of mica in their eyes, filled them with a glittering that she perceived impossibly all the way down on the sidewalk. Backing up slowly, the better to observe this phenomenon, she tried to shake the queer feeling the things were actually watching her.

Abruptly, she bumped into the fender of her beat-up '78 Toyota parked at the curb. Easing around the front of the car, she prepared to open the driver's door. Her hand hesitated on the handle. As if a cloud had passed over the moon, the light faded from the gargoyles' eyes. Yet the moon shone down full and bright over Lechmere Street. Alice Carpenter frowned in puzzlement. Tearing her gaze from the stone creatures, she surveyed her surroundings.

At the far end of the block, limned by the amber glow of a lonely streetlight, Isaac stood between a pair of tall black men. Alice recognized one of them -- a man called the Preacher. For a price he could show you heaven, all right. But the way to his heaven was through a syringe or a crack pipe. As she watched, Isaac accepted a package and disappeared around the corner. The two men lingered a moment more, then merged into the darkness.

Alice swallowed and forced herself to remain calm. When she opened the car door, the interior light flickered dimly on, then off, as she slid behind the steering wheel and closed the door again. Starting the ignition, she eased the car forward, glided past the streetlight, spied no sign of the two men -- or Isaac.

Past the next corner she went, then a block northward. Tired to the bone, her thoughts roiling, Alice pulled over to the curb again, leaned her head on the steering wheel and cried. Her sobs shook the small car. Tears streamed down her face, smearing her mascuara and the cheap rouge she wore.

When the tears ended, she sat back, took a tissue from her purse, and dabbed at her face. Why do I let it hurt me? she asked herself. Her job was pointless, futile. I can't save any of them. Why do I try?

She knew too well what had just gone down on that corner. Isaac was running drugs. Her sweet child, the one she had hoped to rescue, was the Preacher's delivery boy.

She recalled the first time she'd seen Isaac, a frail little boy, eyes big and scared, in a police station's holding room. Her heart had gone out to him at once. This one, she had promised herself, this one she would save. This time she'd make a difference.

Isaac was a runner.

She blinked back new tears and resolved to cry no more. In the quiet privacy of her car, she weighed those words, felt their numbing power, whispered them over and over -- they tasted bitter on her tongue.

Thrusting open her car door, she got out, desperate for fresh air. She wasn't a woman given to dreaming, but as she leaned on door, she wondered suddenly what it would be like to leave the city, go someplace far away where the air was truly fresh, where nothing could hurt her anymore.

St. Ann's Episcopal Church stood across the street. A shallow flight of broken concrete steps led up to massive, arched doors. Alice stared toward that gothic facade, recalling a service she had once attended there. She had enjoyed that service, the minister's reassuring voice, the choir, the sweet ringing of the Sunday morning bells.

She no longer went to church. Now she laughed with a silent resentment at the idea of a kindly all-wise old man who would reach his hand down to the poor and unfortunate and lift them up to something better. She had given up prayer -- she had stopped asking for miracles that never came.

Measuring the empty place in her heart where her faith once had been, she crossed the street suddenly and stood at the foot of the broken stairs. She did, in fact, see one miracle on this godforsaken night - stained glass windows that, in a neighborhood like this, remained intact. A mad rage rushed through her as she thought of Isaac and all the people who bought into the pious lies and worthless promises spewed from the pulpits of such churches. Temples of lies! Bending, she scooped up a small chunk of concrete and flung it, intent on smashing one of the stained glass panes. "That for your miracles!" she cried.

Her arm had lost its youthful strength. The stone arched, falling short of the window. It clattered against the wooden doors, rebounded, skipped a few times on the broken sidewalk. For a moment, all was silence.

Then a sound jarred the night, so sudden it made her jump. It came again, and a third time. The bells! St. Ann's bells! But they never rang at night! Her heart pounding, she stared upward, seeking St. Anne's bell tower.

Something else caught her eye. Along the peaked rooftops, couched in the shadows of taller buildings, three watchful gargoyles sat as if in judgment of her deed. The bells continued to ring.

Jaw agape, Alice spun about. Except for herself, the street remained empty. The tenements that loomed above her remained dark. No one raised a window to peer out; no door opened. Nor, she realized, was there any light from the church, not from the tower, nor the rectory, nor from any of the stained glass windows.

Her hands clenched into fists, and she prepared to run back to her car. Instead, she found herself turning once more, seeking in the darkness the barely perceived shapes of those monstrous statues. "Stop!" she shouted, clapping her hands over her ears.

The bells stopped.

A drop of rain splattered on Alice's brow. One by one, droplets kissed the black pavement around her feet. The street began to gleam with wetness. The tower began to gleam. The gargoyles began to gleam and glimmer.

Alice struggled to control herself. Wiping a hand over her face, she turned away from the church, got calmly back into her car, closed and locked the door. Too tired to think, she fastened her seat belt and resolved to dismiss the whole experience. Nothing made any sense anymore. As she let go a sigh, she started the motor and headed for home.

#

The insistent ringing of bells frightened Alice Carpenter. In that strange state halfway between sleep and wakefulness, she dreamed she was back at St. Anne's. The streets were writhing under her feet, and she was falling, falling helplessly toward a a church door that gaped like a black maw.

And the gargoyles sat watching, like judges....

The ringing persisted. Struggling up from the dream, she forced open her eyes. For a disorienting moment, she didn't know where she was. Slowly the details of her unkempt little apartment asserted themselves. She thrust out one hand and fumbled for the phone. "...'lo?"

A voice spoke thinly from the receiver. "Miss Carpenter? It's me, Tiffany."

Alice sat up and rubbed her eyes. Balancing the receiver with one hand, she reached for the bedside clock and turned it to see the digital face -- half past midnight.

"Miss Carpenter," Tiffany hesitated. Her voice was more than apologetic. It was a shy and frightened thing, more a kitten's mewl than a voice. She began again. "Miss Carpenter, I know you been good to Isaac and me, keepin' him out of trouble an' all." She paused again. "I think he's in some trouble again. Bad trouble this time."

Alice came completely awake. She flung back the covers and switched on her bedside lamp. "Where are you calling from, Tiffany?"

"Liquor store on Fifth an' Grand," Tiffany answered. Then, she began to gush. "The Preacher came up to our rooms lookin' for Isaac, but I heard 'im comin' an locked the door, so he kicked it in, but it didn't matter, cause Isaac wasn't there."

Alice's eyes narrowed as she rose from the bed. "Did he hurt you Tiffany?" she asked. "Did he touch you?"

Tiffany's voice rose a notch toward hysteria. "That don't matter, Miss Carpenter. Isaac's all that matters. You got to help him. I don't know who else to call but you!"

Alice juggled the phone while she slipped out of her night dress. "Where's Isaac now, Tiffany?"

"I swear I don't know, Miss Carpenter, I don't." Tiffany stopped talking suddenly. Then in a quieter voice, "You gonna take him away from me, Miss Carpenter? He's all I got. Please don't take him away from me! I'll get clean, I will, I promise!"

Promise, indeed, Alice thought harshly. If she had a dime for every time she'd heard a junkie make a promise, she could feed the world Thanksgiving dinner. "You stay right where you are, Tiffany. I'll pick you up. Don't leave that store, you hear me?"

When Tiffany agreed, Alice hung up the phone. Hurriedly, she pulled on slacks and a blouse, shoes, and snatched up her purse. At the door, before leaving, she paused at her answering machine, hit the memo button, and recorded a message, dictating where she was going and why. Then she flew out the door. Social worker to the rescue, she thought bitterly. She needed a mask and an Indian companion.

Dressed in jeans and a too-tight shirt, Tiffany was waiting nervously by the pay phone just outside the door at Big Papa's Liquors. She wrung her hands and hugged herself as Alice drove up and parked, and Alice regarded her sternly. Whether Tiffany was anxious about Isaac or just needed her latest fix, Alice couldn't tell. She ushered the young mother into the passenger's seat and got back in the car.

Her fingers dug into Tiffany's bony arm. "Did you know Isaac was running for the Preacher?" she demanded.

Tiffany's eyes widened with surprise, then flared with anger. She wrenched Alice's hand away. "If he was doin' that," she hissed, "makin' that kind of money, would I be peddlin' my ass up an' down this block all day an' livin' like we do? Isaac wouldn't do that. I don't let him go nowhere near no drugs."

It was a rare moment of honesty for Tiffany. The shock of it stung Alice like a slap. "Well, he's fooled us both, then. I saw him take a package from the Preacher."

Tiffany looked stricken. She put her face in her hands and hung her head as the tears came. "Oh, my God," she muttered. "What have I done? What have I done?"

"It's what we have to do now," Alice said, shaking her head. "If the Preacher's after him, it's for no small thing. We've got to get to him first." She bit her lip, and her gaze settled on the pay phone. She fumbled in her purse for a quarter. "Stay here," she told Tiffany as she opened and closed the door.

Snatching up the phone, she shoved the quarter in its slot and hit nine-one-one. When the dispatcher at the other end answered, she wasted no time. "Send a car down to the Livermore Hotel on Lechmere," she instructed. "Tell them to shake the Preacher tonight. Shake him hard, and something interesting will fall out of his pockets."

She slammed the phone down on its hook. Forgetting to collect her quarter when the operator returned it, she got back into her car. Tiffany had stopped crying. "Let's go get Isaac," Alice said.

The little Toyota shuddered as she threw it into gear and pulled out onto Fifth Street. Another block over was Lechmere. Swinging onto that, she headed west three blocks to the hotel. Parking at the curb, she switched off the ignition.

A pair of men loitered outside the hotel doors. She didn't recognize them. They had a seedier, meaner look than even she was used to. A bagman sat against a wall, guarding his cart. Another man sat nearby, hunkered over a brown paper bag containing a quart of beer.

Alice had never been down here so late. Still, there was no turning back. Reaching across Tiffany, she popped open the glove compartment and extracted a slender flashlight. Then, clutching her purse tightly, she got out of the car. Tiffany followed.

Moving swiftly, ignoring the men by the doors, Alice shoved through the plywood panels and into the hotel's lobby. Flicking on the flashlight, she froze.

Someone growled to shut off the light. She barely heard. Instead she played the beam around. The lobby floor was covered with people, some trying to sleep, some just passed out. Leaning against a column, an old black man hugged his knees, rocked himself, and hummed Amazing Grace ever so softly. A young white boy, no more than fifteen years old, rose quickly from his bed on a pile of newspapers to regard her with steely and murderous eyes.

Alice gathered her resolve. "Have any of you seen Isaac?" she called boldly. "Tiffany's little boy?"

No one responded. Behind them, the doors opened, and the pair of toughs from outside entered. For a moment, their eyes settled on Alice's purse, but then they were looking past her to the staircase.

Alice whirled, directing her flashlight. The gaunt man with the intense eyes and the AIDS-thinned face stood on the first step. He said nothing, but the toughs seemed to lose some of their attitude as they slunk off into a corner. Tiffany moved toward the stairs, eclipsing the beam. Alice cursed, but when the light lit up the stairs again, the man was gone -- just as before.

She chewed her lip, then hurried after Tiffany, taking the steps as fast as her plump body allowed, driven by a renewed sense of urgency. When they reached the sixth floor, she was quite out of breath. With no thought but for her son, Tiffany left Alice on the landing and dashed ahead into to her rooms.

Her sudden scream, truncated by a harsh slap and a grumbled command, reverberated in the corridor.

The Preacher was waiting for them -- or rather, waiting for Isaac! A second short scream followed another sharp blow. Alice charged into the room. "You leave that child alone!" she shouted, shaking a fist.

But the Preacher wasn't alone. As she pushed into the room, hands clamped on her shoulders, flung her off-balance. She hit the wall hard, her head knocking loose a chunk of old plaster. Sagging to the floor, she caught sight of a shadowy figure -- the second man she'd seen earlier under that streetlight. She tried to crawl away from him. He kicked her in the stomach, knocking the wind from her, and she collapsed.

The Preacher's deep voice seemed to come from under water as he slapped Tiffany again. "Your boy's been skimmin' me, woman," he said. "I seen you leave, so we come back to search around a little, an' guess what we find pushed way back under your little bastard's mattress?" He waved a handful of bills under her nose.

Alice could barely breath, but she spat out words. "I called the police!"

The Preacher smiled patiently at Alice. "I know the police around these parts," he said. "An' it'll be twenty-thirty minutes 'fore any of 'em show up. You trust me on this."

"Plenty o' time," said the second man smugly.

"Plenty of time," the Preacher echoed.

"You got your money!" Tiffany shouted. "Now just get out!"

The Preacher slapped her again. Tiffany spun about like a doll under the force of the blow. Her heel caught on the mattress she slept on, and she fell. "Got the principle back," the Preacher said with mocking gentleness. "Now we got to collect the interest." He reached for his belt buckle and began loosening it.

Alice watched him through blurred eyes, pain giving way to anger, and that to a mindless hysteria that surged up from her own repressed memories and experiences. With a shriek, she flew up from the floor. With flailing arms, she attacked the Preacher while he was still tangled in his pants, hitting him again and again, scratching and kicking, holding back nothing. Like a maddened bird protecting its young, she beat and clawed him.

The second man grabbed her. A blow came from somewhere and set her ears to ringing. The bells! she thought crazily, the bells! She flung up her arms, striking out at both men, and found herself spinning across the room. The refrigerator came up too suddenly.

A loud boom! sounded. At first, she thought it was her head hitting hard metal. Then it repeated -- six hard, loud blasts of thunder. On the floor again, she forced one elbow under her and lifted her head.

Isaac stood just inside the doorway. In his hand, he clutched a smoking gun -- the .38 he had taken from her purse, which lay near his feet. Like a small stone statue, he stood there, unmoving, unblinking, while the blue gunpowder vapor curled about his form.

The Preacher's shadowy pal lay dead in the middle of the room, blood pouring from his head, from his side, from one hand.

A bullet's impact had smashed the Preacher against a wall, and he sat sunk down against the baseboard. Blood poured from his upper chest. Yet his eyes fixed on Isaac. With a grunt, clutching his wound, he rose to his feet.

Isaac woke from his trance. The empty gun fell from his hand. Turning, he ran into the hallway, his footfalls making a loud noise. The Preacher shambled after in pursuit.

Drawing a painful breath, Alice rose to her knees. Her flashlight lay in a corner under a table, it's beam trained grotesquely on the dead man's bloody face. She snatched it up. The gun was of no use now.

Tiffany had retreated to the farthest corner of her mattress, where, hugging her knees, she crouched against the wall, wide-eyed with shock. "Come on!" Alice cried as she lurched toward the door. "Isaac's heading for the roof!"

Tiffany made no move, just whimpered and stared at the body on her floor.

Cursing, Alice ran into the hallway and up the steps. She gave no thought to the old, rotting carpet and crumbling wood under her feet, to the bannister that threatened to give way under her weight. She ran as fast as her body allowed, thinking only of the boy and the monster that pursued him.

She burst through the final door onto the roof. Taller buildings loomed like black monoliths over the Livermore, and neon burned holes in the night. The wind whipped suddenly at her, and overhead the full moon shone down. She froze in mid-step, realizing where she was, as her old fear of heights rose up like a barrier.

Isaac crouched against the low wall between his beloved gargoyles. Despite his wound, the Preacher, moved upon him with a singleminded purpose. Catching the front of Isaac's thin shirt, he lifted the boy, who for the first time, emitted a child's shrill cry. Moonlight sparkled on tears that sprang from his eyes.

Alice matched his cry with her own. Her fear melted in the heat of her need to save her child! She lunged at the Preacher, pummeling him again, forcing him to release his grip on Isaac. Dropping the boy, he turned on her, and still she lashed out with hysterical fury.

Suddenly, her feet left the rooftop. She felt the cold stone wall under her sharply arched back. The moon whirled, and the monolith buildings danced wildly. For a moment, she caught a glimpse of a gargoyle face -- such a misshapen thing of sadness and grief, she thought crazily.

Then she was out in space, the cold air whistling about her, snatching her hair, her clothes. The wind, the wind! -- The wail of sirens somewhere across the city trumpeted her fall, and the echo of her own scream sliced the heart of night.

Thrown over the edge, she fell, she fell! The neon lights and pieces of darkness and fragments of memories jumbled and tumbled like chips in a kaleidoscope -- the needles in her veins, her baby in her arms. The babies! The babies all lost and dead!

And now she was falling. The thought flashed through her mind. At last, an end to trying, to failing.

But what of Isaac? Must he be lost, too? Through her screaming, she cried, "Oh God! Save Isaac!" But the rush of wind drowned her words, and a black wave swept over her senses.

Then from the heart of that blackness, a mighty shape, dimly glimpsed as if through veils of consciousness, surged down upon her; Death, she thought, death with clawed hands, with the gentleness of an angel, with a warming presence that closed about her. A new wind from impossible pinions blew upon her face as she felt herself borne up.

#

Someone shook her. Alice opened her eyes and looked around in a panic, her heart hammering. She lay on the sidewalk, unharmed, and a gaunt man with intense and familiar eyes bent over her. "The times, they are achangin'," he said, and he rolled his eyes toward the rooftop.

Alice didn't question how she had gotten on the ground or why she was not dead. All she thought about was Isaac. Clambering to her feet, she ran back into the Livermore, once more up the stairs, driving herself against all her bruises and injuries. Outside, she heard sirens, the police arriving at last.

On the roof again, she found a shocking tableau. The moon spotlighted a bloody form -- the Preacher. He'd threaten no one else, destroy no more lives with his poison. His flesh lay in neat scarlet ribbons about him; his exposed ribs shimmered wetly.

Sobbing, Tiffany curled against the low wall where the gargoyles loomed. She held her arms stiffly before her, palms up, a disbelieving look mingling with pain and grief. The countless needle tracks on her arms were all open again, and they oozed a milky fluid that dripped onto the tarpaper. Every ounce of filth she had ever poured into her body now poured back out.

Alice knelt beside Tiffany and threw her own arms around the girl. She didn't understand it, any of it. Yet here, she knew, was the miracle she had always hoped for.

"Where's Isaac?" she whispered, rocking Tiffany gently, fervently.

"They came alive," Tiffany said, her wild-eyed gaze seeking Alice's face. "They came alive! One saved you, and the other saved Isaac from the Preacher!" She looked toward the still form in the center of the roof, and the words choked in her throat. "I ran up here in time to see it all!"

Alice clutched the young woman's shoulder. "But Isaac?" she whispered. "Where's our precious boy?"

A pair of policemen rushed through the door onto the rooftop, their guns drawn, their faces unfamiliar. Down below, sirens sang, and the shouting voices of men echoed upward.

"Where no one can hurt him anymore, Alice," came Tiffany's awed whisper. "Where no one can hurt him!"

More police achieved the rooftop now, and hands reached to help Alice and Tiffany. Alice shook them off. She stared at the pair of gargoyles. No longer a pair, she saw. They were three now, one smaller than the others, one sheltered protectively under the wing of the largest.

She began to cry softly, wondering if she were in shock for feeling no horror. Near the door, a ragged man stood, his hair thinned from illness, his body emaciated. Yet his eyes shone with fire. The police seemed to ignore him, if indeed they saw him at all.

Someone set a blanket around her shoulders. Someone else tried to ask her questions. She would answer them all as best she could in time. But now, she turned slowly, scanning the sky, noting the rooftops, and she saw as she had never seen all the gargoyles nested in the shadows, on the cornices, in half-hidden places, gathering, watching, waiting like ...

... guardians.

She drew Tiffany closer and hugged her tight. The girl held up her arms. Together, they watched as the tiny track-marks healed and faded away completely. Then Tiffany's head nestled into Alice's shoulder. Here at last, Alice thought, is one saved child.

She looked around for the gaunt man. There was no sign of him, but now she saw a fourth gargoyle where only three had been.

In the distance, St. Ann's bells began to ring.

THE END