The Devil's Heart

THE FINAL MOMENTS

"Get into Wade's car," Balon projected. "Everybody! Don't ask questions. Do it. I will bring the Clay Man.'

"You?" Miles said. "That golem weighs half a ton. Ask me. I almost gave myself a hernia fooling with it."

"Don't argue with me!"

"Yes, preacher," Miles sighed. "What do we do when we get into the car?"

"Go to The Digging. We will be waiting for you there.'

"This is it then?" Doris asked.

"Yes."

"Ohh," Miles said, putting one hand to his mouth. "Already I feel strange."

"Miles," his wife said. "Be quiet. All right, Sam, I'm ready. Let's go."

"Doris!" her husband said. "Don't be in such a hurry. You got to be so pushy!"

"Don't be afraid," Balon projected. "When you get to The Digging, get out of the car and walk toward the crosses. You won't be seen or bothered."

"Why?" Miles asked, stalling for a little time.

"I'll tell you when you get there. If I told you now, you wouldn't go. Move it, people."

"You were a sergeant, weren't you, preacher?" Miles asked, Doris pushing him toward the door.

"That is correct."

"Once a sergeant, always one. Must be something in the food they serve you guys."

His wife shoved him out the door. No one noticed that when they walked under a bright s!reet lamp on the way to Wade's car … none of them had a shadow.

Sam felt hands on him and he tried to fight them off, finally giving up. He was too weak. He opened his eyes and looked into the beautiful face of Nydia, and eyes of pure love.

"You'll have to help us, Sam," she said. "Try to get up, honey—please?"

"Us?" Sam asked, painfully struggling to get to his feet.

"Janet is with me."

"Where's Linda?"

"Dead. She was … one of them. I told you there was something about her I didn't like. Come on, we'll talk later. Move your legs, Sam, one step at a time."

"Don't forget Dad's Thompson. I want it."

"It isn't here, Sam," Nydia told him. "And neither is the pistol with your dad's name on it."

"Where'd they go?" Janet asked, on one side of Sam, helping him toward the door.

"I don't know," Nydia said. Cool air hit Sam as they reached the front door of the burning mansion. "I do," Sam said.

When Wade and the others drove up to the old dig site, they witnessed the end of the Coven. The golem was indestructible and awesome in his fury. Not even when dozens of Devil-worshipers charged the Clay Man could they move him, stop him, or even slow him in his killing frenzy.

"We're supposed to walk through all that and not be harmed?" Miles asked, looking around him. "Dear God, how?"

But Wade had already guessed. "We're not here anymore, old friend."

They glanced at him, Doris saying, "You mean … we are … ?"

"Yes," Balon's voice came to them. "You are free of this earth. Walk toward the crosses."

They walked across the digging site, littered with the broken bodies of those who chose to live with the Dark One. No one seemed to notice them. Miles stopped by one Coven member who was paralyzed with fear, unable to move or tear his eyes from the sight of the golem in its fury. Miles tapped him on the shoulder.

"Hey, you shnorrer (Chiseler), you still owe me for that living-room furniture you bought ten years ago."

But the man paid him no attention.

"You hear me, you crook?"

The man ran screaming into the night. He ran right through Miles and Doris, Wade and Anita.

Through them.

"So send the money to the JDL, you goniff!" (thief) Miles called after the fleeing, frightened man. Miles turned, once more facing the starkly outlined crosses behind the circle of stones. "Oh my," he said, his eyes finding the tortured form of Jane Ann. "Oh no." He began prayers in Hebrew, his wife joining him.

"Hideous," Anita said. "How could a human do that to another human?"

"Easily," Wade told her. "Ever looked at pictures of Nazi concentration camps?"

The four of them walked through the scene of blood and pain, past the golem who was occupied solely in tearing both arms from a shrieking Devil-worshiper. They paid no attention to him, for the Clay Man was still earthbound, still a part of a world to which they could no longer relate. They walked to a petite figure standing beside the tallest cross, under the ravaged pale naked body of Jane Ann. Beside the figure dressed in a white robe, her hair shining in the glow of the torches, her complexion unmarred by bruises, beautiful and radiant, was the tall rugged form of Sam Balon. The four of them ran the last distance, Wade holding out his hand in greeting.

"No, don't touch," Sam Balon cautioned them gently. "Not just yet. It takes a little time."

"You're speaking … normally," Miles said.

"Yes. Come, old friends. It's over."

But no one wanted to move. Anita smiled at Jane Ann. "I've never seen you looking lovelier, Janey."

Jane Ann returned the smile. "I'm fine, Anita. At last."

"Come," Sam Balon said, motioning them forward.

"This is the part I ain't real thrilled with." Miles looked nervously around him.

Sam Balon laughed at his old friend, a hearty, booming laugh. "You'll never change, Miles."

Miles put his hand on his left forearm, the hand going ihrough the arm as if moving through vapor. "This is not a change?" He looked at Sam Balon.

Balon smiled at him. "Come, we must go. Time is growing short."

Far down a strange-appearing road that angled softly, gently upward, they could see a line of people walking. They were happy, laughing and talking.

"The ones who stood beside me at the end," Jane Ann explained.

Miles took his wife's hand. Together, hand in hand, they walked up the road, Sam and Jane Ann in the lead, Wade and Anita following.

The six of them walked the strangely lighted road, a road with no ruts, no holes, no obstacles; a smooth nonsurface. All around them a misty blue light illuminated their way.

"Don't look back," Balon cautioned them. "Look straight ahead for a time."

"Toward home," Wade said, his words almost a sigh of relief.

"Yes," Reverend Sam Balon said, his big hand seeking and finding the soft hand of Jane Ann.

And the two were together, forever, at last.

When the golem's work was done, he began his lumbering walk to the river, miles from the scene of defilement. At the river, the Clay Man stepped down the bank and stood on the clay that was him. He slowly melted into the earth and became once more that which he was: all things of this earth, a creation of God, with the Almighty once more reclaiming him.

The fireball seared the land, leaving nothing but smoke and fire and desolation. The land would one day grow again, bits of grass popping forth, flowers springing upward, seeking the warmth of the sun. But it would be a long time. Years. And when the first flower would appear, pushing out of the earth toward God's sun … it would be a blood-red rose.

The doctor in the small French settlement finally came out of his small operating room, a smile on his lips. "He's going to be all right," he told the young woman standing beside the young girl.

"Thank God," Nydia said, tears streaming down her face.

"He'll need lots of rest and care," the doctor told Nydia and Janet. "But," his smile was gentle, "I think he'll be in good hands."