The Devil's Heart

MIDNIGHT

"You are too close," the voice boomed into Sam's head. "It is dangerous where you are. And it is not advisable for mortals to view this awfulness."

"I have to see what I am to fight," Sam replied, as Nydia and Linda looked at him in surprise. "Stubborn. And young. Very well. Have it your way, young warrior."

The mighty voice faded.

"Who were you talking to?" Linda asked.

"The Other Side," Sam replied.

"The other side of what?"

"Life." Sam thought for a few seconds, then added, "As we know it."

Linda pulled her attention back to the torches. She shook her head in disbelief. Neither Sam nor Nydia knew if the almost indiscernible movement of her head was meant for Sam or the scene before them.

On the fringe of the torch-lit circle, the trio on the top of the ridge watched as shadowy figures moved closer to the light, walking in a peculiar, hunkered manner. Even at this great distance they looked grotesque … not human.

"The Beasts," Nydia said.

"I wonder where they came from?" Sam mused aloud.

"I mean … what was their origin?"

"Hell, I suppose," she replied. "I don't know, Sam. You know as much about them as I do."

Linda was strangely silent.

God's failures! The phrase leaped into Sam's mind.

And the young man questioned that statement: but how can . . . could God fail at anything?

He wished for the mighty voice to return: to answer his questions, but the voice was silent. Then he remembered something his mother had told him, something his real father had told her: nobody knows how many times God tried to make man in His own image … and failed.

Sam pondered that for a few moments, thinking: were the Beasts God's failures? What happened to cause the failure?

"I can't answer that, either, Sam," Nydia said. "Only He can answer that."

"I forgot you can read my thoughts. I wonder if we'll always have that power?"

"I … really hope not, Sam."

"Yeah, me too."

"You two can read each other's thoughts?" Linda asked, astonishment in her voice.

"Yes," Nydia said. "And sometimes other peoples' thoughts as well."

Sam glanced at her. "You know something I don't? he projected.

Nydia refused to reply.

"There's something going on down there," Linda said. "Look."

The participants in the calling of the forces had gathered in circles, several rings of them, each growing progressively smaller inward, the Beasts forming the larger outer circle. The circles began moving, the first clockwise, the next counterclockwise, the third circle clockwise, the inner circle counterclockwise. It was a grotesque form of dancing, the women dancing back to back, the men front to front. They hummed lowly, the faint humming only occasionally reaching the ridge, Standing by the dark altar was Falcon, his face whitened with makeup, in stark contrast to his black robe.

Sam stood with Nydia by his side, both of them watching through binoculars. "Hideous," was her only comment.

The humming changed into a chanting, the dancing becoming more profane. The chanting changed into a low roar as three young girls were dragged screaming through the dancing, leaping, chanting circles of worshipers. One was stripped naked, her clothing ripped from her. She was secured to the altar, her legs spread wide, bent at the knees. She could not have been more than eleven or twelve.

"I don't want to watch this," Nydia said. She lowered her binoculars and turned her face from the scene of depravity and sin.

"I want to see it," Linda said.

"I suspected you might," Nydia said, just loud enough for Sam to hear.

Sam's face remained impassive. He said nothing. He knew something was going on between the two young women, but did not know what. Linda took the binoculars, lifting them to her eyes. Nydia turned her back to the obscenity below her and sat down on a log, zipping up her jacket to her throat for protection against the strengthening wind.

"Call the hyenas!" a voice screamed, and the chanting grew thunderous.

"Dogges, Dogges," the circles screamed. "Hear our cries, 0, Dogges."

"Call the centaur!" the voice commanded.

A bleating young lamb was dragged into the circle. Its throat was cut and the blood sprinkled around the altar, encircling the naked, weeping girl.

"Centaurs, centaurs, those who prance for the Prince of Darkness. Ixion and Nephele, Kentaurus and Magnesian. Come to us now."

"Call the satyrs!"

"Diomedes! Dionysus! Flesh eater and Lord of all that is pleasurable. Come join us."

The flesh of the lamb was ripped from its body and passed about the circles, the dancers gnawing at the bloody strips of meat.

"Call the griffin!"

The chant went up.

"Call the owl and the raven!"

And Sam heard the beating of wings overhead. Something beat close to his head. Instinctively, he ducked, the talons just missing his head.

"Call the Great Rukh!"

The dancers began flapping their arms and shrieking hideously.

"Bring me the basilisk!"

"Where is Sirius?" the circles called.

"Sirius is in place," Falcon answered, lifting his arms skyward.

"Bring to us the double amphisbaena."

The circles hissed ominously.

Falcon threw a great caldron of water into the air, calling: "The hydra—come, hydra, those of you who know the Master."

"Come, hydra," the dancers chanted.

Another dark caldron of water was hurled into the cold air, Falcon shouting, "The Demon Merman."

The circle of leaping, hunching, chanting dancers began a movement that vaguely resembled a huge fish swimming.

"Bring the bats and the rats!"

The forest surrounding them became eerily silent.

Then a faint scurrying sound was heard, and something furry and evil brushed Sam's boots. He kicked it away just as Nydia muffled a scream. Sam whirled: a bat was entangled in her hair. She finally slapped it free and the furry filth went flapping and screeching off into the night, toward the torches and the stones.

"Black!" Falcon shouted. "Now!" he pointed to the terrified girl bound naked to the altar. Black jumped upon the altar.

Like Falcon, he was dressed in a dark robe. He lifted his robe, exposing his erect maleness. Lunging at the girl, he tore her bloody as he bulled his way inside her, laughing at her pitiful screaming.

The circle of dancers laughed with Black, howling their glee at the child's wails of pain. Falcon ran to her, teeth shining brightly in the torchlight. Fanged. He bent his head and tore at the vein in her neck, sucking her blood just as Black began his ejaculation.

Rats, the lower form of creatures that they are, began running and squeaking around the dancers, they, too, taking a joyful part in the evil ceremonies. Bats wheeled and cut the night, squeaking their contentment to be free of the darkness in which they had been confined.

"The merman!" Falcon looked up from the girl's throat, blood leaking from his mouth. He pointed to the sky as a horrible creature sluggishly made its way through the darkness.

Others of the Coven rushed forward to drink at the dying girl's fountain of gushing blood. A male member of the Coven took Black's place between the girl's legs, lunging at her as her body began to pale from the loss of blood.

"I don't believe I'm seeing this," Sam muttered.

"What is that thing?" Linda asked. "It looks like it's half man—or monster—and half fish."

"And part goat," Sam muttered, looking at the horned head of the merman.

"Call the little people!" Falcon shouted. "Come, imps. You have our Master's permission. Come!"

At first, Sam began to sense, more than see, the change in the sky. The change was very gradual, the flush in th sky above the circle of stones changing little by little, from a dark amber, through the color patterns, until finally it settled into a dark, bloody red, the glow transforming the scene before them and around them, their own faces and exposed hands now an ugly red.

"What is that smell?" Nydia asked, still sitting on the log behind Sam and Linda.

"Sulfur," Sam whispered.

"It's more than that," Nydia said. "It's … evil."

Linda looked at her.

The sky was now a color of Hell, the flames—real or imagined—licked the area above them, dancing down out of the sky to touch and mar the earth. The stink from the pits stung the eyes of the three on the ridge, wrinkling their noses against the smell.

As Falcon began another incantation, the sky was suddenly filled with bats, hundreds of them, their excrement falling to the ground with soft plops. The ground around the circle wriggled with rats, their red eyes reflecting dully in the torchlight and the strange coloration of the sky.

"Hear me, 0 Lord of Filth. Hear my cries, 0 Prince of Darkness. Hold us close to your chest, Apollyon. Let us taste more of your foulness; touch us with your lips; let us hear the sounds of your cloven hooves. For we, to a soul, are yours. Send the forces of all that is evil to aid us. Send the serpents and the demons, the denied and the defiled. Come to us, little people!"

And as if Merlin had suddenly waved his wand, the ground around the altar was filled with satanic imps, dancing and leaping and laughing wickedly.

The wind picked up, slamming its strength and coldness over the land, blowing first cold, then hot, confusing the elements. Falcon's voice grew stronger, ringing over the night-draped, red-tinged, evil-enveloped countryside.

"Asmodeus! Belial! Beelzebub! Mephistopheles! We who serve you implore you to rip away the veil and send all the forces to us. We are in need of the help only you can send. We stand in awe of your majestic power, Great One, and pray through the blackness you hear our cries."

Falcon turned, signaling for the second girl to be brought to the altar. She was dragged, screaming, to the dark flat stone, her clothing ripped from her, exposing her nakedness to the cold-hot winds and the hungry eyes of the worshipers of filth. Her breasts had just begun to bud, and only the lightness of down touched her apex. The dead girl, pale and bloodless, ghostly white, was rudely tossed to the ground. A Beast ran forward, grabbed the girl, and raced back to the outer circle. There, she was devoured, the flesh stripped from her, stuffed into drooling mouths.

The screaming girl, no more than a child, was positioned on the altar, legs spread wide apart. Falcon leaped upon the altar, lifting his robe, exposing his maleness, jutting and throbbing with power.

"For you, Master," Falcon said. "Only for you." He positioned himself and hunched savagely.

The girl's wailing echoed around the stones and the barren earth as Falcon split her, blood leaking from her torn vagina. Falcon pushed deeper.

"It's cold," the girl shrieked. "Cold! God—help me!"

Members of the Dark Coven laughed at her pitiful cries for help, shouting profanities and blasphemies at her, their hooting and laughing sullying the red night.

The laughter and the cursing increased with each lunge from Falcon, each push that brought wails of pain from the child. Th« flickering flames from the torches seemed to join and mingle with the bloody red of the sky.

Sam then noticed the third girl. She had gradually slipped back from the men who had brought her, moving no more than an inch or two each time. They had not noticed her, all their attentions riveted on the scene of rape and defilement on the now bloody altar.

"She's going to make a break for it," Sam muttered. "I'll bet you that's Janet. I've got to help her."

"Sam … !" Nydia protested.

"No. It's something I have to do. She's suffered enough."

The look in Linda's eyes was strange: a mixture of loathing and respect.

"I'm going down to that second ridge," Sam pointed, checking the Thompson. The full drum was fitted in the belly of the SMG, the canvas pouch filled with clips on Sam's belt. He turned to look at Nydia.

"I will be back," he said.

"I know," she said, then stood and watched him slowly make his way down the gently sloping hill until he was lost from view, the red darkness swallowing him.

The circle of dancers pushed forward as Falcon began his climax, withdrew, and stepped from the altar, wiping his bloody penis on the rag that was once the young girl's shirt. Janet did not move with the crowd, staying in place, half hidden just outside the limit of the torchlight.

A huge wooden cross was carried to the altar, driven upside down behind the dark and bloodied stone. The girl was jerked from the altar and dragged to the cross. Strong hands held her upside down as hammers and spikes began their gruesome work. Her screaming as she was crucified seemed to fill the small valley. She was left hanging upside down, spikes in her hands and feet, to wail out what life was left in her.

But it was not yet over for the girl. They would return to her one more time.

"Send us the demons!" Falcon said, his voice carrying full and strong. "Send them, 0, Great One."

The sky became entirely red, its bloody hues casting dark shadows over the grounds. The rats and bats ceased their scurrying and flapping, the imps were silent, and the only sound to be heard was the moaning of the girl behind the altar. Nailed to a cross.

Janet slipped deeper into the shadows. She looked toward the ridge where she had seen a flash of light reflecting off metal. She moved toward the high ground, moving slowly, attracting no attention.

Sam waited.

Linda moved up silently behind Nydia, her fists balled.

"Now!" Falcon screamed the one-word plea.

"Now!" the crowded circle, one massed ring of evil, echoed.

The sky seemed to split wide open. Great stinking clouds of evil-smelling gas settled over the estate of the Devil. Janet edged deeper into the dark red of false night, moving faster now, her youth giving added strength to her legs.

Great grotesque creatures filled the sky: two-headed amphisbaena were flung out of the gaseous mist; reptilian basilisks coiled and hissed and rolled to earth; winged, clawed griffins flapped and settled on the ground, fire and filth snorting from the demon head; the deformed and monstrous su, with its feathered tail and horned head suddenly appeared around the circle, its mighty claws digging into the ground; the gulon, a creature so hideous as to be indescribable howled as it came to earth from behind the hot curtain of Hell; the clawed, many-headed hydra came to rest on earth, its hideousness only slightly less than the Great Rukh that beat its way to earth, its feathers still smoking from the pits; the owls and ravens and centaurs and satyrs and hyenas joined the now crowded circle, all gathering around the cross where the girl hung in torment, spikes holding her upside down, the blood leaking from the wounds, dripping into her eyes.

"Black!" Falcon called. "Come. It is time for the final act."

The young man stepped forward, a sadistic gleam in his eyes, a sharp curved knife in his hands. The girl began wailing as the blade cut strips of flesh from her body, cutting tracings of vulgar images in her skin. Black chanted as he worked, with Falcon beside him, calling on all the dark forces of the netherworld. The rite, as old as this world, was finally concluded. Then, with no thought of mercy, Black cut out the girl's heart and he and Falcon ate the still trembling muscle.

The warrior was near, watching, trembling with dark rage and hate swelling within him. But the mighty warrior from the firmament was powerless to interfere. He had to turn away from the bloody scene of sacrilege, for his eyes and thoughts could kill … and as much as he wanted to do just that ... it was not his place to do so.

Yet.

Janet lay beside Sam on the ridge overlooking the scene of outrage. Sam had fought back the temptation to raise the Thompson and blow the Devil worshipers back to Hell. But the range was far too great, and besides, he knew it was not yet time for that. He would have to wait.

"Come on," he whispered to the girl. "Let's go." "Are we going to be all right?" Janet asked. "I'm … kind of hurt from what they did to me, you know?"

"I think we're going to make it," Sam took her small hand in his. "Come on."

On the far ridge, Nydia turned just as Linda's hands reached for her. Their eyes met. "I know what you are," she said. "And I'll knock the shit out of you if you try it."