by Dean Koontz
lark seemed worth the risk.
As though he himself were drifting a fraction of an inch off the dock planks, Ling led them through the lambent candlelight, under the levitated tapers, along the dock and down the gangway. The sound made by water lapping at the pilings might almost have been music.
Ling gave no indication that he found the levitating candles to be remarkable. By all appearances, nothing could disturb either his mental calm or his balletic equilibrium. Evidently, his discretion and his loyalty to his employer were beyond question, to a degree that seemed almost supernatural.
This, too, was as it should be.
At the bottom of the gangway, in the slip, rested a forty-five-foot cabin cruiser from an age when pleasure boats were not made from plastic, aluminum, and fiberglass. White painted wood, decks and trim of polished mahogany, and bracelets and necklaces of sparkling brass brightwork made this not merely a cabin cruiser, but a vessel that had sailed out of a dream.
When all were aboard, the candles on the dock were extinguished one by one and allowed to drop to the planking.
Parish piloted the boat out of the slip and into the lake. The waters would have been everywhere as black as aniline if the generous moon had not scattered silver coins across the wavelets. He dropped anchor far from shore, relying on the amber-paned ship's lanterns to warn other night travelers of their presence.
The spacious afterdeck of the cruiser allowed a table for four and sufficient room for Ling to serve a candlelight dinner. The wild-mushroom ravioli, as an appetizer, were nicely square. On the entree plate, the zucchini had been cubed before it had been sauteed; the serving of potato-onion casserole was presented in a neat block; and the medallions of veal had been thoughtfully trimmed into squares not merely for Shepherd, but for everyone, so as to ensure that the young Mr. O'Conner would not feel that he had in any way been set apart from his companions.
Nevertheless, Ling stood ready in the galley to make a grilled-cheese sandwich if necessary.
Every course proved to be delicious. The accompanying Cabernet Sauvignon rated exceptional by any standard. The cold glass of Coke without ice cubes satisfied as fully as could any cold glass of Coke in the world. And the conversation, of course, was fascinating, even though Shepherd limited most of his contributions to one or two words and made excessive use of the adjective tasty.
'You will have a wing of the house for your own,' Parish said. 'And in time, if you'd like, a second house can be constructed on the property.'
'You're very generous,' Jilly said.
'Nonsense. My radio program is a money cow. I've never married, have no children. Of course, you'll have to live here secretly. Your whereabouts must never be known. The media, authorities, the whole of humanity would hound you ceaselessly, more and more as the years go by. I may have to make a couple staff changes to ensure our secret will be kept, but Ling has brothers, sisters.'
'Funny,' Dylan said, 'how we sit here planning, on the same page from the start. We all know what must be done and how.'
'We're of different generations,' Jilly said, 'but we're all children of the same culture. We're marinated in the same mythology.'
'Exactly,' said Parish. 'Now, next week I'll change my will to make all of you my heirs, though this will have to be done through Swiss attorneys and a chain of offshore accounts, with ID numbers rather than names. Your names are already too well known nationally, and in the years ahead, you'll be ever more famous. Should anything happen to me, or to any of us, the others can go on without tax or financial problems.'
Putting down his knife and fork, clearly moved by their host's easy generosity, Dylan said, 'There aren't words to properly thank you for all this. You are... an exceptional man.'
'No more gratitude,' Parish said firmly. 'I don't need to hear it. You are exceptional, as well, Dylan. And you, Jilly. And you, Shepherd.'
'Tasty.'
'We are all different from other men and women, and we'll never be like them again. Not better, but very different. There is nowhere in the world where any of us truly belongs anymore except here, with one another. Our task from this day forward – a task at which we must not fail – is to make absolutely certain that we use our difference to make a difference.'
'We must go wherever we're needed,' Dylan agreed. 'No gloves, no hesitation, no fear.'
'Plenty of fear,' Jilly disagreed. 'But we can't ever surrender to it.'
'That's better said,' Dylan complimented her.
As Ling poured more Cabernet, an airliner crossed Tahoe at high altitude, perhaps en route to the airport in Reno. If night on the lake had not been silent except for the knocking of the moon coins against the hull, they might have failed to hear the faint exhalation of the jet engines. Looking up, Jilly saw a tiny winged silhouette cross the lunar face.
'One thing I'm grateful for,' said Parish. 'We won't have all the trouble of designing, building, and maintaining a damn Batplane or Batmobile.'
Laughter felt good.
'Being tragic figures with the world on our shoulders might not be so bad,' Dylan decided, 'if we can have some fun at it.'
'Great fun,' Parish declared. 'Oh, I insist upon it. I'd rather we didn't give ourselves silly names with heroic flair, since I've already done damage of that kind to myself, but I'm up for anything else that comes to mind.'
Jilly hesitated as she was about to sip her wine. 'You mean Parish Lantern isn't your real name?'
'Would it be anyone's? It's my legal name now, but I was born Horace Bloogernud.'
'Good lord,' said Dylan. 'You were something of a tragic figure from day one.'
'As a teenager, I wanted to go into radio, and I knew the kind of show I hoped to create. A late-night program concerned mostly with strange and spooky stuff. It seemed that Parish Lantern would serve me well, since it's an old English term for the moon, for moonlight.'
'You do your work by the light of the moon,' Shepherd said, but without the anguish that had wrenched his voice when he had spoken these words previously, as if they meant something new to him now.
'Indeed I do,' Parish told Shep. 'And in a way, we'll all be doing our great work by the light of the moon, in the sense that we will try to do as much of it as possible with discretion and a sense of secrecy. Which brings me to the subject of disguises.'
'Disguises?' Jilly asked.
'Fortunately,' said Parish, 'the fact that I've been cursed like you isn't known to anyone but us. As long as I can do what must be done and enjoy my share of derring-do, while keeping my secret, I can be the interface between our little group and the world. But you three – your faces are widely known, and no matter what care we take to operate discreetly, your images will become more universally recognized as time passes. Therefore you will have to become—'
'Masters of disguise!' Dylan said with delight.
This, too, Jilly decided, was as it should be.
'When all is said and done,' Parish continued, 'about all we'll be lacking are silly heroic names, cumbersome vehicles full of absurd gadgets, spandex costumes, and an archvillain to worry about between all the ordinary rescues and good deeds.'
'Ice,' said Shepherd.
Ling at once approached the table, but with a few Chinese words, Parish assured him that no ice was needed. 'Shepherd is correct. We did in fact have an archvillain for a little while, but now he's just a block of ice.'
'Ice.'
Later, over lemon cake and coffee, Jilly said, 'If we don't call ourselves something, the media will give us a name, and it's sure to be stupid.'
'You're right,' Dylan said. 'They aren't imaginative. And then we'll have to live with something that makes us grind our teeth. But why don't we use a collective name, something that applies to all of us as a group?'
'Yeah,' Jilly agreed. 'And let's be as sneaky-clever as Horace Bloogernud was in his day. Let's use moonlight in the name.'
'The Moonlight Gang,' Dylan suggested. 'Has the right tabloid ring, doesn't it?'
'I don't like the gang part,' said Parish. 'Too many negative connotations with that one.'
'The Moonlight... something,' Jilly brooded.
Although half his cake remained on his plate, Shepherd put down his fork. Staring at this treat postponed, he said, 'Squad, crew, band, ring, society—'
'Here we go,' Dylan said.
'—guild, alliance, association, team, coalition, clan, outfit, league, club—'
'The Moonlight Club.' Jilly played the three words across her tongue. 'The Moonlight Club. That's not half bad.'
'—fellowship, company, troop, posse, family—'
'I assume this will take a while,' said Parish, and indicated to Ling that the time had come to remove three of the four dessert plates and to uncork another bottle of wine.
'—travelers, voyagers, riders—'
Listening with one ear to the good Shepherd's cascade of words, Jilly dared to think about their future, about destiny and free will, about mythology and truth, about dependency and responsibility, about the certainty of death and the desperate need to live with purpose, about love and duty, and hope.
The sky is deep. The stars lie far away. The moon is nearer than Mars but still distant. The lake is a lustrous black, enlivened by the mercurial light of the parish lantern. The vessel rocks gently at anchor. The Moonlight Club, or whatever it eventually will be called, conducts its first meeting with serious intent, laughter, and cake, beginning what all its members hope will be a long exploration of the round and round of all that is.
