The Devil's Touch

BOOK THREE

We will have no truce or parley with you, or the grisly gang who work your wicked will. You do your worst—and we will do our best.

—Churchill

ONE

MONDAY

Noah had taken a chance and driven out to Sam and Nydia's. He now stood in the den, looking at Sam's collection of guns. "No doubt about it, Sam. You have quite an impressive arsenal here."

"That you can see," Sam replied with a boyish grin. "Take whatever suits you. For I don't believe you will be allowed to leave the town if you tried returning to your house for weapons."

"I'm certain you are correct in that," Noah replied. He selected a twelve gauge shotgun and began filling a sack with shells.

Sam opened the back of his gun case and pulled out an AK-47. The AK-47 is almost universally accepted as the best combat rifle ever made.

Noah looked at the AK. He arched one eyebrow. "My word. Is that—"

"Yes," Sam replied. "Full auto." He went to a storage room and returned, carrying a full case of 7.62 ammunition and several canvas pouch belts.

Noah arched the other eyebrow. "In New York State, too," he muttered. "You really do like to live dangerously, don't you, Sam?"

"No, not really. I just believe it is the right of any law-abiding citizen to own any weapon they might choose to own. I think limits should only apply to howitzers, land mines, and weapons of that nature."

"My sentiments, exactly, Sam," the writer said.

Sam sat down on the couch and began filling clips. Noah sat beside him, filling a canvas loop belt with double ought buckshot shells.

Using the handy-talkie, Nydia contacted the Drapers, speaking with Viv. She clicked off and said to Sam, "Little Sam is all right. Sam—what are we going to do?"

Without looking up from his work, Sam said, "We're going to gather up every weapon I have and every weapon Monty owns, and all the ammunition and food we can steal. That's first. Then we are going—all of us—out to Fox Estate and make them come to us. That mansion is built of native rock; they won't be able to burn us out or starve us out. I think, I believe, that if we can hold out until midnight of the thirty-first, we'll be home free. Sometime between Thursday and Saturday, I may have to enter the Giddon House and try to find and destroy the Tablet of Satan."

""The Tablet?" Father Le Moyne asked.

"There is a Tablet that belongs to the Devil. It is inscribed: 'HE WALKS AMONG YOU. THE MARK OF THE BEAST IS PLAIN. BELIEVE IN HIM. ONCE TOUCHED, FOREVER HIS. THE KISS OF LIFE AND DEATH.' It is said that if the Tablet is destroyed, that person will have some control over the actions of Satan. My father attempted to destroy it. He was killed. Maybe I'll have better luck." (The Devil's Kiss)

"And the Tablet is covered with obscene drawings, cut into the stone?" Noah asked.

"Why—yes," Sam said, looking at him. "Why—how did you know that?"

"I was afraid that was the Tablet you were referring to. I did a great deal of research on the Dark One. I discovered some small reference to the Tablet in an old obscure book. How did you know about the power over Satan supposedly given to the mortal who destroys the Tablet?"

Sam shook his head. "I—I didn't, Noah. Not until just then."

"And your father? Did he know?"

"I don't know. I get the feeling he might have, toward the end."

Mille entered the den, her sister with her, holding onto her hand. Jeanne looked fresh and innocent, her eyes reflecting a renewed spirit and inner strength.

"I lived through a nightmare," the teenager said, speaking softly. "But thanks to all of you, I'm O.K. I want to thank you, all of you."

Father Le Moyne rose and put a gentle hand on Jeanne's shoulder. "All that is behind you now, Jeanne. For now, we must look to the future."

Joe came into the den, walked to the gun cabinet, and picked out a Remington Model 870 Bushmaster with a twenty inch barrel. "I got me a good rifle out in the car. This here will do for close work." He looked at Sam. "You got plenty of shells for this?"

"All we'll need to hold up the sporting goods store and get some more," Sam said grinning.

Joe also grinned. He shook his head in disbelief. "I been a cop for more years than I like to think about. Now I get to operate from the other side of the fence. Should be interestin'."

"Let's start loading up the cars and trucks, people," Sam said. He walked over to the coffee table and picked up the handy-talkie to call Monty and tell him they were on their way.

The telephone rang, startling them all. Sam picked up the receiver. It hummed for a few seconds, then clicked, a voice taking the place of the hum. "You will all die," a man said. "And you will die slowly and painfully, and with much humiliation. Turn on your TV set to the early local news." The voice was gone. The phone went dead.

"Something up?" Joe asked.

"Yeah. And I bet you I know what it is." Sam walked to the TV set and flipped it on, turning to the channel that carried news of local interest to that area the station served.

"—And in news of interest to the residents living in Clark County, especially those who might be considering travel on routes 12B, 12C, or 467, in a word—don't! Those routes have all been closed for one week, effective at six this morning. All you folks up there in Logandale—good luck! The mayor of Logandale, Abe Kowalski, told this reporter the folks in his town have been stockpiling food and other essentials for several weeks, preparing for this event. Most say they are looking forward to it. The clinic there is fully equipped and fully manned—whoops! Excuse me, ladies. Fully personed, that should be. Sorry about that. Anyway, the clinic is prepared to handle any emergency that might arise. The sheriff of Clark County, Pat Jenkins, says medivac helicopters from the hospital in Blaine will be on twenty-four hour alert to handle any situation that might occur. We hope there will not be any of those. So to all those folks up there in Logandale with the pioneer spirit—may the Force be with you."

Sam clicked off the set. "Hell of a choice of words," he said. "Cheerful son-of-a-bitch doesn't realize just how accurate he was."

"Kowalski's lyin' through his dentures," Joe said. "He didn't tell Monty or me about any damn closin' of roads around this area."

"Of course not," Sam said. "The mayor is one of them. But it makes me more certain I'm right about the coven members' plans. I had a hunch—no, that's not it. I guess Dad must have told me. I don't think they're going to wait until the thirty-first. I think the timetable's been altered. I think Saturday night is their deadline. I don't know how I know that. I just do. And I think, from what Satan told me, after he kicked me in the butt and just before he pissed on me, that they're going to play with us for a time. Then they'll try to panic us. But they're going to have a hell of a time doing that if we're bunkered in tight."

"Let's get to it, folks," Joe said. "We got a lot of work to do."

"1 got the same call you did," Monty told Sam. "We all heard the news. No telling how long all this has been in the works." He shook his head. "Stick up the sporting goods store, Sam? Steal guns and food and ammunition? 1 don't know about that."

Sam was mildly amused at the cop in the man. "You think we can just walk into the place and buy what we're going to need, Monty?"

Monty opened his mouth to argue. Before he could speak, there was a knock on the door. Noah opened it and looked into the faces of Father John Morton and his wife, with Byron Price and Richard Hasseling in tow.

"Have the doubting Thomases reversed their positions on the matter of Satan?" Noah asked, waving the group inside.

"Please don't rub our mistakes raw, Mr. Crisp," Richard said. "Believe me when I say that you are looking at a very confused group of people."

"Call me Noah. And you're right. I am sorry for the unwarranted sarcasm. But the past night has been rather harrowing for all of us."

Viv took Barbara Morton's hand and led her into the kitchen for coffee. Richard and Byron told the group of their experience with the invisible shield covering the area. Byron pointed to the knot on his head.

"I lost both my faith and my temper out there," the man admitted. "Several times. But I rediscovered both, never fear."

Sam came right to the point. "Can either of you men use any type of weapon? Rifle, pistol, or shotgun?"

Father John Morton and Richard Hasseling had had some experience with rifles and shotguns when in their teens. But neither had fired a gun in years. Byron was city born and reared and had never fired a gun in his life.

Shit! Sam thought. Another argument for compulsory military training. "Well, you'll just have to learn. A very few of us will have to be covering a lot of ground, and all of us will have to man a perimeter. Let's get to it, people."

The small caravan of Christians made their way slowly into the main part of Logandale. There was not a living soul on the sidewalks when they began the move, but all were conscious of being watched from the houses. Each window seemed to contain an evil face. Each vehicle was equipped with a Logandale P.D. handy-talkie and they kept in constant touch. Each person knew the agenda.

First the sporting goods store for guns and ammunition. The big supermarket on the edge of town for supplies was second. The Catholic church was next for holy water. The service station on the way out of the main part of town was fourth. There they would top off their tanks to be ready for the run for safety. Fifth was the dash for Fox Estate.

Sam led the way in his pickup. Nydia, in her car, with Little Sam and Mille followed him. Mille's pistol was in her hand. And Joe had told Sam that he had no doubts as to Mille's reaction if trouble began. She would shoot first and ask questions later. Desiree and Jeanne rode with John and Barbara Morton. Fourth in the parade was Richard Hasseling and Byron Price. Noah rode with them, his .357 in his hand. Monty and Viv were fifth. Father Le Moyne drove the last vehicle, with Joe riding shotgun.

These, then, were the only organized humans in Logandale opposing the forces of the Dark One.

"Look over there," John said to his wife and Jeanne and Desiree. He pointed.

A naked man had been tortured and then nailed alive over the door of his house. The nails had been driven through his hands, his sides, and his feet. He had died horribly.

Those in the small caravan began to see other sights of horror. A teenager hanging from a tree limb; a woman tied to a chain link fence and whipped to death; the pastor of a small church, crucified.

"Now you people can better understand what we're up against," Sam radioed. "Look at it and don't forget it. We're dealing with rabid animals, not thinking human beings."

As they approached the main street of the small town, they began seeing people leave homes to line both sides of the street, to stand silently and sullenly watching the passing group of Christians. None of the people of Satan made any attempt to stop or to interfere in any way with the movement of the caravan. Several of the Devil worshippers gave the Christians obscene gestures; one man urinated in the gutter as they passed. A woman with a huge dildo in one hand lifted it and shouted to Joe Bennett what she was going to do with the object; and where in his anatomy she was going to shove it.

"Not up mine, you ain't," Joe muttered. "I bet that'd smart some."

Father Le Moyne signed the cross in the woman's direction. She gave the priest the middle finger, waving it at him. Father Le Moyne struggled within, resisting the urge to return the gesture. With both hands.

"Forgiveness," Father Le Moyne muttered. "Always forgiveness. Remember that God is Love, and vengeance is His alone."

"Not in this case, Father," Joe told him. "Go ahead and shoot her the bird. 1 guarantee you, it'll make you feel a lot better."

"You're probably right, Joe," Father Le Moyne admitted. "It would appease the human side of me. But that is not my function here on earth."

"Then I'll do it for you." Joe extended the middle finger of his right hand toward the woman.

The woman, who used to be a member of the Methodist church, Joe recalled, hunched her hips in his direction and shouted curses at him. "Bitch!" Joe muttered, watching the woman in the side-view mirror.

There was not a shop, store, or business open anywhere in Logandale. It was a dead town, Sam thought. In more ways than one. The caravan pulled to a halt in front of the closed sporting goods shop. Parked directly across the street, the three policemen who had supposedly resigned the Logandale P.D. were in a police car, watching the small procession. The three men got out of the car and began walking across the street toward Sam's pickup.

"You there!" Jim Peters called to Sam. "Get out of that truck and raise your hands."

The window down, Sam said, "What have I done?"

"Just get out of the goddamn truck and keep your fucking mouth shut!" Bob Carson told him.

Sam stepped out of the truck and raised the AK., the weapon on full auto. "Stop right there," he told the three men. "If 1 have to repeat it, you're dead meat in the street. Understand?"

The men halted their advance. They seemed disoriented and unsure of what to do. Carl Medley finally spoke. "All right, don't shoot."

"Remove your gunbelts and lay them in the street," Sam ordered. "Then step away from them, to your right, and lay down in the street. Belly down and arms and legs spread wide. Do it and don't move."

The trio belly down on the concrete, Monty gathered up their sidearms and then opened the trunk of the police car, removing two riot guns. The ex-chief put those in his car. He\Jooked at Sam.

"Kick in the door of the sporting goods store and you and Noah gather up every gun in there and all the ammunition you find. Divide it out among the cars. Get tarps, survival gear, knives, rope, lanterns and fuel, axes, dehyde food, and anything else you see you think we might need. For we might have to take to the timber before this is all over. Let's move it."

Monty did not hesitate. There was no doubt in his mind now that this was anything other than pure survival of the best prepared. But he still had doubts as to the need for any killing. That would come home to him later. Monty kicked in the front door of the store, smashed the lock with the butt of his rifle, and with Noah right behind him, entered the shop.

From far up the street, Sam could hear the crowd gathering in strength. They were slowly marching toward the center of town. They were chanting a strange intonation in a language Sam did not understand.

But he knew what it represented.

"Shake it up there!" Sam called. "John, you and Richard and Byron help out. Move it, we don't have much time."

The ministers, frightened looks on their pale faces, jumped from their cars and ran into the sporting goods store and started a modern day fire bucket line, passing down cases and crates and bags of supplies.

"Joe!" Sam called. "Take my truck and get to the church and then the supermarket. Start loading up with food and bottled water. You know what to get. I'll take your car. Nydia, you and Mille go with him in your car. You two stand guard. Take off!"

The ominous chanting of the swelling crowd was growing in volume. Sam checked his AK to see it was still on full auto. "Looks like I get to open this dance," he muttered. "So let's get on with it."

Sam stepped out into the street. "One more minute!" he called into the store. He shifted the AK to combat arms and got ready.

"We'll make it!" Noah returned the shout. "You just give us that minute, Sam."

The chanting was growing louder, the words hateful and evil in the strange tongue. The first column of marchers swung around the corner. They were less than a block away, shouting the evil.

Sam lifted the muzzle of the AK and burned half a clip in their direction.

The rhythmic chanting changed to screaming as the slugs tore into flesh and bone. Three men and a woman flopped on the street, howling in pain. A man and a woman lay still, their faces torn apart by the 7.62 ammo. The crowd turned into a panicked mob, each person trying to shove the other out of the way, seeking refuge from the hail of automatic weapon fire. Behind Sam, men were racing in and out of the sporting goods store, throwing arm loads of goods into cars.

"Let's go!" Sam shouted. "We're all out of time." He burned the rest of the clip at the retreating backs of Satan's followers, dropping three more bodies onto the concrete. He changed clips and blew out a store window on the corner of the block, sending glass and brick chips and lead flying. The caravan was moving, tires protesting on the street as the small group of Christians raced away.

They slid into the parking lot of the big supermarket. Like the sporting goods store, it, too, had been closed. The front doors of the supermarket were shattered. Joe had blown them open with his slug gun. Cases and boxes of food and jugs of bottled water were stacked in front of the big store.

"Everybody!" Sam yelled. "Out of the cars and start helping out."

"We got what Father Le Moyne wanted from the church," Joe panted. "I heard shootin'. You get a few of them?"

"Half a dozen or so. 1 left the cops in the middle of the street."

"Should have shot them," Joe said with a grunt. "Be three less to have to deal with later on."

"I would have if the civilians hadn't been watching me." Already Sam's mind was separating soldiers from civilians; warriors from recruits; noncombatants from fighters.

Then there was no more time for conversation as all bent their backs loading supplies into the cars and trucks of the caravan.

When they had loaded all they could, the caravan moved out. They were meeting no further resistance. The Satan worshippers had been routed, but all knew the lull would not last for long. And the next encounter between them would find the followers of the Dark One well armed and ready and willing for a fight.

They filled their tanks at a service station, after breaking in the doors, turning on the electricity, and unlocking the pumps. They pulled out for Fox Estate. Halfway there, they found the road blocked by heavy trucks.

"Rabble!" Princess Flaubert hissed her anger, the words coming from her mouth like a snake uncoiling. "Cowardly rabble, all."

"They thought it would be easy taking the Christians, Princess." Norman Giddon attempted to sooth the young woman. "They did not know—nor did I—that Sam Balon would open fire on unarmed men and women."

"Well, they should have been warned!" Xaviere snapped. Her words cracked like tiny whips. "Sam Balon is just like his father. God's personal killers. That's all. They must not reach Fox Estate. You will see to that. Now get out!" she screamed at him.

Norman Giddon, trembling from fear, slinked from the room much like a whipped dog.

"God's personal killers," the old warrior said, his voice rumbling across the firmament. "I think it has a nice ring to it, don't You?"

But the Ruler of the Heavens did not find His friend's remarks amusing. He glared at him.

The warrior refused to be intimidated, just as he had been doing for more years than would be imaginable for humans to comprehend. "You began it all, remember? You could have just as easily killed the Son of the Morning, you know. Then all this would have been prevented."

"1 would rather you not refer to that filth as the 'Son of the Morning.' Please."

"Pardon me. Shall we have it stricken from the Bible? Gutenberg is somewhere around this area, I believe."

"You try My patience, old warrior. But I am not deceived by your actions. You're attempting to anger Me so I will order you from the firmament. Then you could meddle in Earth's business. I know all your tricks, Michael, and you should be ashamed."

"Should be, perhaps," the ageless warrior replied. "But I am not."

"All that violence," He muttered.

"You are concerned about the violence in one insignificant little village when the entire planet of Earth is exploding in war daily? I—"

"Speaking of that!" the voice thundered.

"Am I about to get another lecture concerning the Middle Eastern portion of that planet?"

"Yes. You meddled."

The warrior sighed and prepared himself for a scolding. But he was used to it. It had been occurring for thousands of years.

And had not deterred him from single action.

"I know a shortcut," Noah shouted. "Back up and follow me."

The column backtracked, following where Noah drove. He cut off the county road onto a dirt road and roared around the gravel curves, the rear end of the vehicles fishtailing in the loose gravel. They angled back toward the highway, finally bouncing onto the road, north of the blockade. The caravan headed for Fox Estate. Homes were fewer in this part of Logandale, but much more expensive.

They drove past the Giddon House and cut into the curving drive of Fox Estate. They had accomplished the first leg of their journey.

Sam saw Jimmy Perkins shuffle from the rear of the house and run for the thick brush and timber to the rear of the estate. Sam jumped from his pickup and triggered off a long burst from his AK. The slugs hit Perkins in the back, knocking the undead sprawling. The others watched in amazement as the man jumped to his feet and ran into the timber, apparently unhurt from the lead that stitched his back.

"But you hit him!" Monty yelled. "It was a good hit. I saw the slugs dot the back of his shirt. But—Jesus! There was no blood!"

"Bullets won't kill him," Sam explained calmly. Monty stood with an astonished look on his face. "Jimmy Perkins has been dead for almost a quarter of a century."

"What?" Monty yelled the question. "That's not possible, Sam."

"Oh, it's possible. I'll tell you about it later. Let's get this gear into the house. Joe? Check out the house. If there is anybody in there—kill them."

"With pleasure," Joe drawled.

TWO

"Put the vehicles in the big garage around back," Sam told the group. "Secure the garage doors with chains and locks. Find some boards and nails and make damn sure what you build is sturdy enough to keep people out. We're going to be needing those vehicles. When that is done, start going over the nomenclature of the weapons of your choice. You've got to learn how to use them. And we don't have much time to teach you people."

Sam then prowled the big house, inspecting each room. He forced himself to enter the bedroom where he and Desiree had made love. He stood for a few moments, feeling the dark force attempt to cloud his mind and wriggle like a snake into his rational thinking process. Sam fought the Dark One's mental manipulations and smiled victoriously as they fought back each mental thrust from Satan.

"You can't get to me that way," Sam said aloud. "Not anymore. Never again. Not to me, not to Nydia, not to Father Le Moyne, not to Noah. So leave me alone."

"You didn't mention the others, though, did you?" the sinister voice whispered in Sam's head. "Oh, no. Because you can't be sure of them, can you?"

"How can I be?" Sam questioned.

"Then I'll just be on my merry way," the voice spoke cheerfully. "All my magic to perform. Ta-ta, Mr. Balon."

Sam felt the force leave the room. He left swiftly and located Father Le Moyne.

"Satan just attempted to influence my thoughts," he told the priest. "Upstairs. When he found he could not do so, he suggested the others who did not have our faith. He's going to try to shape their thoughts."

"Mille and Joe will stand firm. So will Jeanne. I'm certain the ministers will do the same. I can't be certain about Monty or Viv, Desiree. We'll have to keep close watch on them. I—am hesitant to tell them of Satan's plans. It might prove detrimental; make them so nervous they would be vulnerable to his influence."

"So all we can do is watch?"

"I'm afraid so."

Sam left the priest and continued his inspection of the huge mansion. He saw Barbara Morton sitting alone in a small drawing room. She lifted her eyes from the Bible she was reading and looked at the young man.

"We'll make it," Sam assured her. He could tell the woman was badly frightened. "I won't tell you not to be afraid; that would be foolish. But I can tell you with enough faith, we can make it through this thing."

Barbara was a very pretty woman. In her late thirties, Sam guessed. A knockout when in high school or college, he thought. Cheerleader type. Big blue eyes, soft honey-colored hair, very fair complexion. And a good figure, too. She looked like the picture of a Southern girl. Sam said as much, trying to take her mind off their present danger.

"I'm originally from Tennessee," she told him. Sam picked up just the faintest trace of an accent. "I met John in college. Cambridge. He used to kid me because 1 never took the Devil very seriously. I used to laugh at horror movies. You know, about possession and Devil worship—things like that. John would never watch the shows. He said it was just too real for his tastes."

"And now?"

She met his gaze. "It's—real enough. John told me all about you. He's spoken at length with Noah and Father Le Moyne. You're quite a young man, Sam Balon."

Sam shrugged off the compliment. "1 did what 1 had to do, Mrs. Morton. Just like now—with all of us here. We're doing what has to be done."

"Barbara, please. And I think you're being much too modest, Sam."

Sam began picking up vibes; and he didn't much like the message in the silent pulsations. "All right. Barbara it is, then."

She closed her Bible, laid it aside, and stood up. A very good figure. Sam readjusted his original estimate of the woman. But something in the woman's eyes sent warning signals flashing in Sam's brain.

"I'm so frightened, Sam," she said. Her voice was small in the room.

Just as she stepped toward the young man, Joe called from the foyer. The shout was faint in the huge mansion.

"Excuse me, Barbara," Sam said. "You just take it easy. Everything will be all right. Bet on it. And," he added as an afterthought, pointing at her Bible on the table, "keep your faith."

Sam was relieved to be leaving the woman's presence. Barbara Morton was disturbing to him. Sam said as much to Joe.

"She spreads her legs from time to time," the man informed him in a low voice. "But she's real discreet about it. She don't give it away to just anybody."

"The priest's wife!" Sam was shocked and made no attempt to hide it.

"Yeah. She's human, Sam. 'Way I get the story, she likes more action between the sheets than her husband does. But she tries to be faithful to him. But John has what the doctors call a low sex drive. Barbara's in high gear all the time. But when that woman kicks it into overdrive, look out, 'cause she's gonna find her a man and get him in the saddle for some hard ridin'."

Sam stood for a moment, shaking his head. "Well, that tells me something then. I could swear Barbara was coming on to me in there."

"That don't surprise me none, Sam. She's one we're gonna have to keep an eye on. I just spoke with Father Le Moyne," he explained. "He told me what you told him 'bout the Devil and all."

"Joe, has the—have you heard any strange voices in your head?"

Joe smiled. "No. I think Old Lucifer knows to leave me alone. I think he knows none of his whisperin' would do a damn bit of good far as I'm concerned. I ain't the most Christian feller in the world; I've sinned—mostly with women. And I have asked for His forgiveness. Don't get me wrong, Sam. I never messed around none on any of my wives. All my sinnin' was done before marriage or in between wives. But I never lied nor stole or anything like that. I just don't hold with that sort of doin's. I wasn't raised that-a-way."

And Sam knew then that Joe might be killed by a bullet or knife; he was mortal. But Satan would never sway him by temptation.

"You're a good man, Joe."

"I'm just a man. No better or no worse than most others. Reason I called for you was to tell you 'bout that preacher's wife. But you done put all that together. She's a real looker, Sam. That there is what you'd have to call prime. We'll both watch her close. I think she's a good person in her heart. But to put it bluntly: she just likes to fuck, and that sums it up."

Sam laughed at the man's frankness of speech and continued his inspection of the huge mansion. The field of fire the house afforded was excellent. There was no doubt in Sam's mind they could be overrun by the sheer numbers—if Satan chose to go that route; but Sam did not believe the coven members would be allowed to do that. Too much danger of Nydia, Little Sam, and himself being killed. And he knew Satan had plans for the three of them. So it would be a war of nerves for a couple of days, maybe longer. Satan would attempt to lure the Christians into his camp with mental manipulations. Then, when that failed—and Sam hoped it would fail—only then would a lot of deadly force be used.

He hoped his assessment was correct.

"Sam?" Joe called from the downstairs.

Sam stepped to the balcony's edge and looked down. "Right here, Joe."

"That there Flaubert woman wants to talk to you." Joe pronounced it Flourburt. "She's waitin' by the gate at the stone fence, on the Giddon side of the line. You be careful, now. 1 don't trust that bitch."

My daughter, Sam thought. "All right. Coming down." My daughter. And the daughter of the Devil. And 1 know 1 will have to kill her someday. If 1 can, that is.

Sam carefully checked his weapons. Nydia met him at the side door of the mansion, in the kitchen. "You be careful, Sam," she said, kissing him. "It's a sure bet that while Xaviere is your child, she'll try to lure you into her bed to produce another demon child."

"Tell you what," Sam said with a grin. "Any genealogist who ever tries to trace this family tree will be a sure bet for the funny farm when he's through."

She matched his grin, kissed him again, and gently pushed him toward the door.

"My dear Sam," Xaviere said. She was standing by the gate that was the only opening between the two estates. The gate was locked and chained. She spoke through the heavy steel bars. "Or would you prefer I called you Daddy?"

"You'll be calling me a lot of things before this ordeal is over, Xaviere."

Her laughter was loud and evil, mocking Sam. "1 suppose so, Sam. We all watched you and Desiree. You're very well endowed, Sam. I am looking forward to your making love to me at some later date. Poor Desiree. I had no idea she was a virgin."

Sam said nothing. He continued to stare at the young woman through the steel bars.

"And young Jon Le Moyne had quite a time with Nydia, did he not? The boy is almost a freak in the sex department. But your wife certainly seemed to enjoy it."

"It won't work, Xaviere," Sam said. "Give it up."

"No, Sam. You give it up. It would be the wisest move for you to make. I'll make a pact with you, Daddy. Plant your seed in me and I'll let all of you leave. I give you my word that you all will be allowed to leave in safety."

"No deal," Sam said flatly. "I won't make deals with you or Satan."

She smiled at him. Licked her lips. "Am I that unattractive, Sam?"

"You know you're not, Xaviere. But I wouldn't fuck you with Satan's dick."

She flushed with anger, then caught her emotions and held them in check. She forced a smile. "How crude, Sam. But I won't accept your answer. Not until you have had the time to think it over. For the consequences will be—ah—well, unpleasant, to say the least."

"I can imagine."

"No," Xaviere said softly. "No, Sam. I don't believe you can. 1 know you went through much at Falcon House. But this time is entirely different. You're on your own. No outside help. Let me give you an example. I will order the Catholic priest to be slowly crucified; the priest of the Episcopal church will be raped, by men, in full view of you all. I shall have the prissy little writer skinned alive. That should prove quite amusing, oui, Sam?"

"Go on, Xaviere, act out your fantasies. Have a ball running your mouth."

"Oh, they are not fantasies, dear Sam. I assure you of that. Now let me see—where was I? Ah! I shall have the Baptist minister become a Beast; the Methodist to be beaten into submission and forced to become my slave. Mille I shall give to the men of the coven. Monty, I shall—"

"All right, Xaviere," Sam said, with a curt slash of his hand. "All right. I get your point. All sorts of dire and perverted acts lay in store for us. I'll relay your messages to the others."

She looked at him oddly. "Yes, I believe you will. Honesty. That queer Christian trait. Do tell them, Sam. But please remember, the only way to prevent their torture and abuse is to give me your seed."

"I'll pass the word along. That all you have to say to me, Xaviere?"

"You can't win, Sam. Not this time. Neither your God nor His warrior will interfere this time. And your God has forbidden your earth father to take a hand. You are alone. You and your pitiful little band of weak-sister Christians. It is now ten-thirty." She did not look at her watch but Sam did not dispute her word. "You will have until six o'clock this evening to reach a decision. After that—" She shrugged. "What will be, will be."

Sam grinned. "Yeah. I saw that old movie on TV some years ago."

"What!"

"Never mind. All right, Xaviere, I'll deliver the good word from you. Anything else?"

"Nothing. Except do not be foolish, Sam. You've put yourself into a box at the Fox Estate. I don't know why you did it. But it is done. And you cannot undo it. Believe this, Sam: You cannot, you will not be allowed to leave. Not unless my conditions are met. Goodbye, Sam. We shall be seeing each other again—very soon."

"Yes. I'm rather certain of that, Xaviere. Wish I could say I looked forward to it."

He watched her walk away, disappearing into the Giddon House. He had tried to see himself in any part of the young woman, but could not. It was almost impossible for him to believe she was of his seed. But she was. He walked back into the mansion and gathered everybody in the large study. There, he told them, word for word, what Xaviere had told him.

There were a number of oohhs and aahhs and one or two "gross-out!" and several cuss words. Richard asked, "Do you think she means it, Sam?"

"Every word of it, Richard. Don't any of you doubt it for a second. Those people are unparalleled when it comes to savagery and cruelty. They enjoy it."

"If she were to become impregnated by your seed, Sam," Monty asked, "what would the—baby be?"

"A demon-child," Noah told him. "But Xaviere would not die birthing it, as Roma did. But just as Xaviere is, the child could not be killed. It would be a pure spawn of Satan. And just as Xaviere will, the child would live forever."

"A demon cannot be killed?" Joe asked. "How come that is?"

"They can't be killed by a mortal," Father Le Moyne told him. "Not unless the mortal is blessed." He looked at Sam in an odd way.

Sam did not catch the strange look.

"So what is going to happen to us, and when?" Viv asked.

"For the next couple of days," Sam replied, "my guess would be nothing much. It will be a battle of nerves, mostly. Satan will attempt to sway you with whispered promises, promises of all sorts of things. He'll try to tempt you, play on your weaknesses, anything to make you fall from grace. When that fails, then they use force." He shrugged his muscular shoulders. "But I could be wrong. The coven members might try to beat down the front door tonight. We're just going to have to be very careful and stay alert at all times."

"Let's get some lunch," Nydia suggested. "We could all use a good meal. And this afternoon, we'll take shifts resting. It's the night we have to fear."

"They're out there, aren't they?" Monty asked. He stood beside Sam, in a large room facing the road that ran in front of the mansion. Night had wrapped its cloak over the land, and the gathering purple was deep.

"Yes," the young man replied. "Watching. Waiting for us to make some sort of mistake. But they haven't set foot on this property. Not yet."

"I wonder why they haven't."

"I don't know."

A pitiful howling moan reached the ears of those in the mansion. The sound was that of a human being who had reached the end of his endurance, before sliding off into death or insanity.

"What in God's name was that?" Monty asked.

"They're torturing people." Sam's response was bluntly offered. "Get used to it. You're going to hear a lot of it before this is over."

The voice shrieked once more, the awful yowling of pain ending with a hideous tapering bubble of agony. The sounds of hammering reached the mansion.

Footsteps came up softly behind the two men. They turned to face Father Le Moyne.

"I wonder what they are building in the dead of night?" the priest asked.

"Crosses would be my guess," Sam replied. "They're crucifying people."

Father Le Moyne signed the cross and bent his head for a moment. He sighed deeply and shook his head in disgust and sorrow. "I wish there were something we could do for those poor people in torment."

"Hey, the house!" A man's harsh voice cut the night. The man was speaking through a bullhorn. "We got Old Man Fontaine all nailed up proper. We're makin' bets as to how long he'll last 'fore his heart quits on him. Any of you folks want to buy into the bettin'?"

"There is no limit to man's inhumanity to his fellow man," Father Le Moyne said. "Not when Satan is at the helm of the ship."

"Oh, God, it hurts!" a girl's voice cried into the deep night. "For the love of God, somebody please help me. I can't stand the pain." She screamed piteously. "No!" she wailed. "Not there!" Then she screamed, again and again, the voice soon becoming hoarse as it continued to push out of the young throat, straining in agony.

"It could well be a trick," Sam cautioned the others. "Janet pulled the same thing up in Canada, at Falcon House. Nydia and I thought she was being brutally raped. But it was all just a show for our ears."

Monty curtly nodded his head in the direction of the howling. "But what if that is not an act? What if that is the real thing?"

"Then she is having a bad time of it," Sam said, a coldness to his words. "What would you suggest we do?"

Monty's shoulders slumped. "1—don't know, Sam. But I can't take much more of that poor girl's screaming. It's getting to me."

"It's getting to us all, Monty. But we can't afford to do anything rash or foolish. We can't afford to lose anybody. There are too few of us compared to many of them. And it's going to get worse; much worse. Believe it."

Monty turned away and walked into the center of the mansion without replying. His back was stiff with pent-up anger and frustration.

Sam knew exactly how the man felt.

"What is being done to that poor girl?" Father Le Moyne asked.

Despite himself, Sam was growing weary of the constant barrage of questions. He held his temper in check and said, "Probably being raped and sodomized, Father."

Sam walked away, leaving the priest alone with his prayers. The screaming was getting to Sam, as well.

DAWN. TUESDAY.

First light found the small group of Christians haggard and mentally worn. The screaming, howling, and painful shrieking and the dirty laughter and shouts of obscenities had picked up during the night and continued without abatement until the first faint touches of light filtered past the dark.

Telling the others to stay inside, Sam went outside for a look-around.

The day was cloudy, with low-hanging clouds, gray and black, threatening to spill rain at any moment.

A short scream of fright stopped Sam. "Oh, my God!" he heard Barbara say. "Look over there! It's horrible!"

Sam turned, the AK on full auto, off safety. The body of a naked man hung by a rope over the stone fence to the west of the mansion. The noose was around his neck, his face horribly swollen, blackened tongue sticking out of his mouth. He had been tossed over the fence sometime during the night and slowly strangled.

"Monty!" Sam called. "Come on. I need your help. The rest of you stay in the house." He looked up at the second level of the mansion. Joe stood watching him from a window. "Give me some eyes on the west side, Joe," he called. "Just in case."

"Gotcha," Joe returned the call. He disappeared from view.

Sam walked toward the dead man. He recognized him as the minister of a small church in Logandale. He could not recall the man's name or the church. The man had been hideously tortured. Strange markings covered his naked body, cut deeply into once living flesh. Blood streaked down his inner thighs from the horrible wounds where his testicles and penis had been hacked off.

Monty reached Sam's side. He wore a sidearm and carried a Remington Model Six, .308 caliber. "Dan Abbott," Monty said. "Pastored that little Baptist church over on Davidson Street. 1 didn't know him very well. Seemed like a decent man, though."

"Married?"

"Yeah. Two or three kids. Three, I think. Yeah, that's right. Two girls and one boy. Girls are about thirteen and fourteen. The boy is in grade school. Wife's name is—ah—Nancy."

The men cut the rope and lowered the body to the ground. "I'll get something to wrap him in," Monty said. "A tarp." He looked at Sam. "Next thing is what are we going to do with him?"

"I don't know. Burn him, I guess."

"Jesus Christ, Sam!"

Sam met the man's eyes. "You want to start digging holes, then?"

Monty didn't.

"Ya'll got company on the other side of the fence," Joe called. "Two men and two young girls. Look like teenagers. I think it's the Abbott girls."

"Perhaps we have found, or they have found us, some more Christians," Monty said hopefully.

"Don't count on it." Sam dashed the hopes.

The voice of one of the girls confirmed it. She called from the other side of the tall fence. "What are you people gonna do with the old fucker?"

"What is he to you?" Sam called.

"He was our daddy," the girl replied matter-of-factly. "We tried to give him some pussy. Our pussy. But he didn't want none of it. Hell with him."

"Dear God in Heaven," Monty whispered.

"Get away from this house," Sam warned them.

"Oh, fuck you, Balon," one of the men with the girls called. "You ain't gonna do nothing except run that goddamn Christian mouth of yours."

"I wish I had a grenade," Sam muttered.

"You'd kill the children, too," Monty told him. "My God, Sam. What do you have running in your veins, ice water?"

"Those 'kids,' as you call them, are dead already, Monty," Sam whispered. "Man—you have to accept that. Don't hesitate to shoot when the time comes. I mean it. Let me show you, Monty." He raised his voice. "Who cut off your father's testicles and penis?"

"You mean his cock and balls?" a girl asked.

"Yes."

"Me and mother. We tried to get him to fuck a boy up the ass but he wouldn't do it. So we cut them off. You should have heard him holler when we done it."

"Was the boy his son?"

"Yeah. We give him to some guys. They fucked him all night. I think he's dead, or something."

Sam cut his eyes to Monty. "Now you see what I'm talking about?"

Horror leaped into the man's eyes. "Their own father? Their own brother!"

"Their father is Satan," Sam told him. "I don't know what else has to happen to convince you of that fact. But you'd damn well better get your act together. Because if you don't, you're going to die and take a lot of us with you in the process."

Sam hooked one toe of his boot into a crack in the stone fence and heaved himself up. He burned half a clip into the group standing on the other side. He dropped back to face a horrified Monty Draper.

"You killed those people—those kids! You shot them in cold blood."

"If he hadn't of done it," Joe called from the second floor, "I damn sure was goin' to."

Sam was rapidly getting irritated at Monty. "Like I said, Monty. Get your shit together. And do it quickly."

TUESDAY NIGHT

"Things roamin' around on the other side of the fence," Joe radioed from the second floor. "They ain't them Beasts, but they ain't really human neither, I don't think. I don't know what the hell they are, tell the truth. Look to me like they're all tore up."

"What are they doing?" Sam radioed back.

"Nothin'. Just standin' by the gate lookin' in. Man and a woman, I think. But it's hard to tell. They look familiar to me—kind of."

Sam cut his eyes to Father Le Moyne. The priest stood up. "1 know," he said. "I felt their presence. Now I have to face them."

"What are you two talking about?" Barbara asked. The woman looked as if she was about to come unhinged.

"Daniel's brother and sister-in-law," John told her. "They've become part of the walking dead. They're here, looking for Daniel."

"Oh, come on, John!" his wife blurted. "Now this is getting totally out of hand. This is a nightmare. I'm asleep. None of this is real."

"Barbara—" John opened his mouth.

"No!" she screamed at the roomful of people. "I just, by God, will not take any more of this. I can't. I want out of here, John."

Before anyone could respond, a mocking male voice was heard, speaking through a bullhorn. "Oh, Barbara. Barbara, honey, come on out and play with us, Barbara. You remember me, don't you, Barbara?" He laughed, an ugly, evil ring to the savage bark of dark humor. The voice came from the east side of the grounds.

John Morton sighed and would not meet the eyes of those in the room.

"Cut the lights," Sam told Mille.

She plunged the room into darkness.

"Come on out, Barbara," the voice called. "1 got something long and thick and hard for you. Come on, baby. Don't you remember how you used to love to lick on it?"

John rose from his chair and walked out of the room, a stiffness to his back. He left the room as if that act alone would prevent him from hearing the vulgarities coming from beyond the fence.

Barbara sat with tears running down her face. She sobbed quietly.

"Come on, honey!" the voice boomed through the night. "This is ol' Duke. Don't you remember how you used to love to get on top and sit on it? You said it felt good going in that way. Sure you remember. Come on out and play, Barbara. We'll be waiting."

Viv went to the sobbing woman. She pulled her from the chair and took her by the arm, leading her from the darkened room and into another room just off the hallway.

The bullhorn fell silent. Joe said, "1 feel sorry for both them people. It ain't John's fault the way the Good Lord made him, and it ain't really her fault the way she is. Some folks just can't help the way they are." He walked toward the archway leading out of the room. "I got me a rifle upstairs. I think I'll go see if I can't get that Duke Edwards in gunsights. If I do, 1 guarantee you, he's gonna be one dead son-of-a-bitch."

"Good luck," Monty said grimly, his comment surprising Sam.

Sam glanced at Father Le Moyne standing quietly in the heavy darkness. "You know what we have to do, Father. Are you ready?"

"Yes. Did you get the articles I asked for?"

"I got them," Sam replied. "They're in the hall. One for you and one for me."

"You're a brave young man, Sam."

Sam didn't respond to the compliment. He was as scared as the next person; but he knew fear was contagious, and he could not let his personal fear show. "Come on, Father. Let's do it. Noah? Even though a bullet won't stop them, enough lead will knock them down in case we run into—"

"Sam!" Joe yelled from upstairs. "Them folks that was by the gate—they're gone. I think I seen them walkin' on the grounds."

They all heard the back door open and close. The smell of the grave permeated the house.

THREE

"I sure would like to dip my wick in that Balon woman's snatch," Sheriff Pat Jenkins said to Vernon. "Sexy bitch." They stood a safe distance from the mansion, both of them looking at the hugeness of Fox Estate in the night. "Then I'd stem Monty's wife."

"Fine-looking cunts," Vernon agreed. "But Mille's the one I want."

"Miller Jenkins laughed. "Hell, Vern. She's been spreading that pussy around town since she was twelve/thirteen years old."

"It ain't wore out," the deputy replied. "Other than a woman's mouth, the pussy's the most durable part of her body. Besides, there's only two kinds: big ol' good ones and good ol' big ones."

The crowd of unshaven and unwashed men laughed at the old joke. The stench of them was foul. Dan Evans said, "And you ain't never had no bad, huh, Vern?"

"Nope. Just some that was better than others," Vernon said. He looked at Jenkins. "Why don't we rush them, Pat? Just rush them and take them out of that mansion?"

"The Master says no. The Princess says no. We have to obey. The Master is going to win this time, and he knows it. He wants to play with them for a time."

Vernon nodded his head in understanding. He looked around him. "Anybody here wanna come home with me and fuck my old lady?"

A huge fat man stepped up, an equally fat man with him. "Me and Jesse'll take a whack at her, Vern."

Vernon looked at the pair, an amused look in his eyes. "Yeah. One in front and one in back. That ought to be a sight to see. Wanna come see the show, Pat?"

"Bet she'll holler," the sheriff said with a smile. "Yeah, let's go."

The grounds of Nelson College lay dark and quiet in the purple of Satan's night. A light mist clung to the land, undisturbed by even a whisper of wind. Inside the dark structures, however, it was quite a different story. Low moanings could be heard from nearly every room; weeping and crying out for mercy came from the basements; the begging and pleading for God to put an end to this suffering and degradation whispered and echoed around the deserted halls and corridors of the buildings. The slap of flesh against flesh, the gruntings as male hardness hunched in and out of female softness played a rhythmic tune without melody or meter as dozens of rapes continued into the night.

In the basement of the administration building, a bloody and naked young man clung to life and love of God. Life was rapidly leaving him; but love of God had not. He refused to renounce his God.

Another young man, his clothing blood-splattered, stood over the naked young man, a stained knife in one hand. He turned to a group of men and women. His smile was macabre.

"Are you ready to take the pledge to forever serve the Master?" he asked the crowd of young people.

"Yes." The reply came as one voice. All eyes were on the hideously tortured young man tied to a table. To a person they had enjoyed the horrible cries from the torture. Yes. They were ready to take the pledge of submission.

Professor Edie Cash began intoning the chant that would forever seal the fate of all who repeated the damning words.

And all present repeated the chant of the damned.

Screaming filled the basement as the knife-wielding young man began cutting into living flesh. He removed the still beating heart and held it in his hands, blood leaking from life's muscle, dripping onto the floor.

"Now you are and always will be one with us," Edie told the group. "For you, there will be no turning back. Now, go! Seek out and find all nonbelievers in the word of the Dark One. Bring them to us. Go!"

The room quickly emptied.

Edie looked at what was left of the young man on the bloody table. "Stupid fool," she said. "He could have had eternal life with us." She lifted her eyes to the young man standing with the knife and heart in his hands. "Have him taken to the Beasts."

"Yes, mistress."

Sam and Father Le Moyne ran from the room and jerked up the sharpened stakes leaning against the wall in the hall. Sam paused for a moment at the door.

"Lock all the doors to this room and don't let anybody you don't know inside. No matter what they might say. And be sure it's who you think it is. Father Le Moyne, Noah—let's do it."

The smell of the undead was strong in the mansion. The smell was of rotting flesh and blood. The lights flickered off and on, finally settling into a dimness, shadowing the corners and pockets of the hall.

"Daniel." The whisper drifted through the dim corridors of the lower level of the huge house. "Come, Daniel. We want you, brother. Come to us and we'll go home. Come meet us, now, brother. It's time."

A hissing sound filled the corridor. The hissing was followed by the foulest of smells.

Father Le Moyne began murmuring prayers. He held vials of holy water, one vial in each hand. He whispered to Sam, "The holy water will cause them great agony. But you must strike immediately after the liquid touches their flesh. Give me a stake."

"You handle the holy water, Father," Sam returned the whisper. "I'll handle the stakes. I'm younger and stronger. Are you sure you can go through with this, Father?"

"They are no longer of this world, Sam. That is not my brother nor my brother's wife. They are of the undead, the walking dead. They must be destroyed."

"Look out!" Noah yelled. "To our right."

Creatures from the depths of horror's living reality came lunging at the three men, momentarily freezing them in the grips of stark terror and revulsion.

Noah was the first to react. His shotgun roared, the double ought slugs ripping into already mangled flesh, knocking the man and woman sprawling backward. The sight was more than hideous. Father Le Moyne's brother had only part of his face; one eye dangled from the socket. His chest was ripped open, exposing the rib cage. His wife was torn and mangled from her face to her knees; she had been thrown through the windshield. Bloody tissue and whiteness of bone was evident.

The priest sprang into action. He hurled the holy water onto the flesh of the undead.

The man and woman shrieked in agony as the blessed water burned and seared the unholy flesh. Their gaping mouths spewed forth great belches of stinking breath as they thrashed on the polished floor. A thick yellow fluid began leaking from the smoking holes in their flesh.

Sam jumped forward, a stake in each hand. He drove the first stake into the center of the man's chest, whirled around, and drove the second stake through the heart of the woman.

"Noah," Sam shouted. "Work the stake deeper into his chest."

The writer handed Father Le Moyne his shotgun and jumped into the middle of the stinking gore, grabbing the stake and working it deeper into the man's heart.

The screaming of the undead echoed through the great house, ricocheting off the marble statues, the fine paintings, the old wood, and causing the chandeliers to vibrate, trembling as if in terror.

Dirty yellow smoke began rising from the man and woman. They jerked and screamed as their souls left their bodies. Father Le Moyne prayed to God Almighty to forgive the dead, for what they had become was not of their choosing.

The smoke drifted away; the moaning ceased; the jerking stopped; the man and woman were no more a part of the living dead. Nothing was left of them except a few scraps of stinking rags and the dust of a few bones.

"Noah," Sam said. "Find a garbage bag. I'll get a shovel from the utility shed." He looked at the priest. "You want to say anything over them when I bury what is left of them, Father?"

Le Moyne hesitated for a moment. "No," he said. "I've said all that needs to be said. There is more I could say, but I don't believe it's necessary."

"Barbara." The electronically pushed voice once more found its way into the mansion. "Come on, baby. Come suck ol' Duke's cock again. Then you can bend over and I can stick it to you. I bet you'd like—"

Joe's rifle barked, flame leaping from the muzzle of the .270. A bubbling, choking scream cut a painful scar into the ink of night, followed by a thump and a metallic sound scraping on concrete.

Joe's voice drifted downstairs. "Shot that bastard right in the bullhorn. Drove that sucker slap into his mouth and down his throat. Bet that'll shut him up."

Somewhere in the huge mansion, Barbara began alternately laughing and screaming hysterically.

WEDNESDAY

"What has been done to bring Sam Balon to me?" Xaviere asked the coven leaders.

No one replied. None present would meet the young woman's piercing eyes.

"I see," she spoke softly. "Sam and the others have ignored my deadline. I cannot, for some reason, reach my Master Father, and that disturbs me. For I am unsure as to the proper direction to take. 1 do not know what has happened. He was here only hours ago. Now he is gone."

"Princess!" Jimmy Perkins shuffled into the room. "The Tablet is gone!"

They all knew what that meant. Satan was gone.

But why did he leave?

"You cheating, rotten, no good son of a cosmic whore!" The Dark One hurled the message across the sky in plumes of yellow smoke.

In the firmament, the Almighty yawned.

"Damn You! How dare You interfere with my earthly affairs? That was not the deal we made. You were to keep Your meddling nose out of my affairs."

"I make no deals with the likes of you, wallower in filth. Besides, how have I interfered? The followers of My Word are still surrounded by your rabble. The barrier you erected around the community is still in place and functioning. I have not prevented the torture and rapes and deaths. How can you say 1 have interfered?"

"You son-of-a-bitch!" Satan roared. "I cannot reenter the community. I have been blocked. You have blocked me from entering."

"No, fallen one. I have done nothing of the sort. You are mistaken."

Satan was silent for a time. When he again communicated with the one whom he once served, he had calmed himself. "Which is precisely the reason 1 hid the Tablet before leaving that area. 1 knew somehow You would find a way to jam Your fucking nose into my business."

The Almighty directed His never closing and all-seeing eyes downward. "What are you implying, foul one?"

"That You are a liar!"

"I shall take no umbrage at that. No, Prince of Darkness. It was not I who interfered on Earth. And it was not my warrior, for he is seated beside me." The Ruler of Light looked at his old friend and companion. The warrior was sitting calmly, a smile on his lips. A rather smug smile, the Almighty thought.

Satan began shrieking once more and the Almighty blocked out the howlings from the northernmost regions on Earth and spoke to the warrior. "Where is the elder Balon?"

"I haven't the vaguest idea."

"You tell lies to Me? Here?"

"I have not told a lie in so many centuries I've forgotten how it would feel," the warrior replied. "Well— years, anyway. But I am being truthful with You. I do not know where the Elder Balon is."

"But he is gone from the firmament?"

Without hesitation the warrior said, "Yes. Would You like for me to search for him on Earth?"

"No, 1 most certainly would not\ Perhaps Valhalla was not such a bad idea after all. Warriors can be such a nuisance. They're all so scheming. Very well. So the father has once more gone to help his son?"

"No—I don't believe that is entirely the case," the warrior replied. "I do think that perhaps he has evened the odds a bit. I think that is all he will do. Leaving the rest up to the small band of believers. I think he will stay on, viewing the battleground."

"And you would like to leave here to help Balon— ah—reconnoiter the situation?"

"That thought has occurred to me," the warrior replied blandly.

"Oh, I just imagine it has." The reply from the Almighty was dryly given.

Both were conscious of Satan's furious howlings from Earth. Satan was shrieking for the Almighty to answer him. How dare He block him out?

"Oh, shut up!" the Almighty roared from the heavens.

Minor earthquakes were felt along several fault lines on earth. Hurricanes formed and then died. Volcanoes puffed smoke and ash.

Then all was calm.

"See what happens when You lose Your temper?" Michael said. "You really should try to watch things like that."

The Almighty heaved a mighty sigh. He should be used to the warrior's needling by now. No one else would dare speak to Him in such a manner. "Find out how Balon keeps slipping out."

"The same way he always slips out. He's an adventurous sort. Restless."

"Why would he be restless here?"

"Because he is a warrior. Relax. I don't believe the elder Balon is going to interfere any further."

"Why is it your words somehow fail to comfort Me?"

The warrior stroked his beard. He wished he was down on Earth, with Balon, kicking ass. "I haven't the foggiest," he said.

"Sam?" Nydia asked. "Why are you so uptight this morning?"

Sam had awakened in silence, and he had not spoken more than ten words in an hour. He glanced at his wife. "My father is near. 1 can feel his presence. He is very near."

"He's here to help us?"

"No. 1 don't think so. 1 don't get that feeling at all this time."

"Who's here to help us?" Joe asked, turning from his post at a front window.

"My father," Sam said.

"Your father? But—ain't he dead?"

Noah and Father Le Moyne sat quietly. Jeanne La-Meade sat beside the priest. The rest of the small group were at their posts, maintaining a watch from the upper level of the mansion.

"He came back before," Nydia said. "He met us at the Montreal airport several years ago."

"Lordy!" Joe said.

Flight 127 came in and emptied its load of passengers. Sam knew no one on the flight. He and Nydia sat in the now deserted arrival area, looking at each other, unanswered questions in their eyes.

"Son?" the disembodied-sounding voice came from behind the young couple. Sam was conscious of a burning sensation in the center of his chest.

They turned, looking around. No one was in sight. Nydia dug nervous fingers into Sam's forearm. "Son? Was that what the voice said?"

"Easy now," Sam attempted to calm her. His own nerves were rattled.

"Sam?" she said. "Look on the table in front of us."

A manila envelope lay on the table. It had not been there when they arrived.

They both looked at the deserted area around them. They looked at the envelope.

Sam touched the packet. It was cold. He picked it up and carefully opened it. A picture and several sheets of paper. Sam looked at the eight-by-ten of his father for a long moment, then handed it to Nydia. "My dad," he said.

"I can see where you got your good looks. Your dad was a rugged, handsome man. Sam? Where did the envelope come from?"

There was a slight grimace of pain on Sam's face.

"Sam!"

"I don't know the answer, Nydia. But when that voice spoke, my chest started burning. It's better now, but man, did it hurt for a few seconds."

Sam looked around them. No one in sight. Sam unbuttoned his shirt, exposing his T-shirt. He heard Nydia gasp.

"Look at your T-shirt, Sam. The center of your chest."

The fabric was burned brown, in the shape of a cross. The cross that Sam wore. His father's cross.

Nydia pulled up the T-shirt. The cross had burned his skin, leaving a scar in the shape of a cross. The scar was red, but no longer painful, even though it was burned deep.

Sam opened the pages from the envelope and almost became physically ill. The handwriting was unmistakably his father's scrawl. Sam had seen it many times on old sermons.

"You're white as a ghost, Sam."

"I—think that's what just spoke to me. My father wrote this."

The young man wiped suddenly blurry eyes and began slowly reading, Nydia reading silently beside him.

Son—writing is difficult for me, in my condition. Want to keep this as brief as possible, but yet, there are so many things I must say to you and the girl.

"How—" Nydia said, then shook her head, not understanding or believing any of this—yet.

I have watched you, son—whenever possible— grow through the years. Tried to guide you, help you, as best I could, Nydia, too. The girl beside you, not the Nydia I—knew. Like that time you got drunk in your mother's car and passed out at the wheel. A close one, boy.

"I'm the only person in this world who knew about that," Sam said.

"In this world, yes," Nydia said. She was beginning to believe.

Give the cross you wear around your neck to the girl. Do it, son. Time is of the essence.

Nydia was softly crying as Sam put the cross around her neck.

No one will be able to remove that cross from her. No one. I cannot guarantee she will not be hurt, but—well, you must have faith.

Now then, a cruel blow for each of you, for I know your thoughts: Nydia is your half-sister.

"Oh, my God!" Sam said.

When I knew her mother, Roma was not her name. Her name was Nydia. She is of and for the Devil. She is a witch. After the hooved one attempted to take over the town of Whitfield— and failed, then—during which Wade, Anita, Chester, Tony, Jane Ann, Miles, Doris, and myself killed hundreds of coven members, I made a bargain with our God to save your mother and what few Christians remained. I won, in a sense. But so did the woman you know as Roma. I killed, or at least sent back to Hell, Black Wilder, the Devil's representative. Your half-brother, son, Black, is named for Wilder. And like that spawn of Hell, he is a warlock.

When you leave this terminal, the both of you must go to a Catholic church and get as much holy water as you can. You will need it.

Sam glanced at Nydia. Half-sister?

She met his eyes, read his thoughts. "I don't care."

They returned to the letter.

It would be wrong, son, to say the Devil is back, for that one never leaves the Earth; so I'll simply say he has returned to Whitfield. There will soon be a great tragedy in Whitfield, and I must be there to help your mother, for her ordeal involves both of us—and the girl. There will be no survivors from Whitfield. None.

"Mother—" Sam whispered. And as if the elder Balon had anticipated the question, the letter continued:

She has made her choice. Tony has gone over to the other side. He has done so willingly; indeed, a long time ago. I could not stop him, for his faith is weak, as is his flesh. And that is something you will have to deal with as well.

You have a mission, son, and I do not envy you your task, for it could destroy you—not necessarily physically, and I can say no more about that. But you are as surely set to this mission as 1 was, years ago. You will be tempted, and you will fall to some of those temptations, for you are a mortal, blessed in a manner of speaking, but still a mortal.

A coven is being established at Falcon House. It is a house of evil, and you must return there. Your job is there. You will not be able to contact anyone in Whitfield. Whitfield is dead; past saving. But your mother will speak to you—in some manner—before she slips through the painful darkness to the other side, and to peace and blue and light.

We will meet someday, son. I am certain of that and can tell you no more about my surety.

The feelings you and the girl share is something that you both must cope with. I cannot help you and I will not lecture you. But I will say this: The union that produced Nydia was not a holy union. If anything, it was blessed by the Dark One.

"Riddles," Sam said. "The letter is filled with riddles, and I don't know what they mean."

I love you deeply, Sam, and wish I could be of more help to you in your task. But I have said too much already.

Now I must go. Place the picture of me in the envelope, for that is all of me I can give you that will remain tangible. Put the letter on the table and do not touch it again.

Love, Father

Sam placed the picture in the envelope, the letter on the table. Together, still in mild shock, not knowing what to believe, the young man and woman watched the pages dissolve into nothing. Then they were alone.

Nydia put her head on Sam's shoulder and wept.

"Lordy!" Joe said.

Sam felt his chest begin burning. He put down his AK-47 and unbuttoned his shirt. All could see the brown burn on the white of Sam's T-shirt.

Nydia helped him out of his shirt and Sam pulled his T-shirt off. The cross dangling from a chain around his neck was glowing a golden fire.

Noah, Father Le Moyne, and Jeanne crossed themselves. Joe stood in numb shock.

"The same way the cross you gave me in Montreal did," Nydia said.

"Yeah," Sam said, putting his shirt back on. "He's here, very close, I believe."

"Don't that burn you?" Joe asked, recovering from his shock.

"For a few seconds," Sam told him. "It will just deepen the scar already there."

"Why do you believe your father is not here to help you?" Noah asked.

"It's just a feeling I have. I can't explain it any further than that."

"Nydia is wearing the cross that received the blessing at the airport," Father Le Moyne mused aloud. "And now the cross you wear has been blessed from beyond the veil. I knew none of this. I believe of all of us, Sam, you have the power to destroy a demon."

"My father is not a saint," Sam told the priest. "He is a resident of Heaven, but that doesn't make him a—doesn't give him the power to make me something I am not."

The priest smiled. "I disagree with that, Sam. Very strongly. Did you not tell me you faced down one of the Devil's creatures up in Canada? That you fought a warlock and defeated him? Yes, you did. And yes, Sam, I believe you have been blessed."

A bullet slammed through a window, the lead whining off a wall, finally coming to rest after bouncing around on the carpet. Everybody in the room had hit the floor.

"I may be blessed, Father," Sam said dryly. "But if you don't mind, I'd rather not have to prove it by getting myself shot."

"Lordy!" Joe said.

FOUR

The day dragged on slowly, with the low clouds and occasional mist seeming to wrap a dirty shroud around the landscape. That one shot was, so far, the only hostile move taken by the Devil worshippers.

The people behind the stone walls of the great mansion could occasionally hear the faint sounds of moaning, but could not tell where they were originating or what was happening to cause them.

But all could guess.

And if the elder Balon was near, he did not make his presence known. At least in any manner the humans could fathom.

The day had turned off cool, with the temperature dropping into the upper thirties by early afternoon. The wind had picked up, blowing in from the northwest, as if pushed by a mighty helping hand. The small band of Christians could do nothing but wait; and wonder what was next in store for them.

By mid-afternoon, they knew.

"Hello, the house!" Pat Jenkins's voice roared into the old mansion, pushed through a bullhorn.

Joe keyed his handy-talkie. "He ain't alone," he radioed from the upstairs. "There's a bunch with him, and they're lookin' ugly."

"Armed?" Sam radioed.

"Look like a bunch of dirty pirates about to jump on board ship."

"Hello, the house!" Jenkins again called.

Using a bullhorn taken from the trunk of Monty's Logandale police car, Sam said, "What do you want, Jenkins?"

"The Princess wants to talk to you, Balon."

"Tell her to use the telephone."

"No way, Balon. Face to face."

"Forget it, Jenkins."

"You'd better listen to me, Balon. You'll be sorry if you don't see her, kid. All bets are off. We can handle this situation any goddamn way we see fit. And that's the way it is. You understand what I'm saying?"

"What's he mean, Sam?" Nydia asked.

"I don't know. Unless someone of a higher power has interfered, causing Satan to pull out; something like that."

"Your Dad?"

"I—don't think he has that much power." Sam suddenly smiled. "1 think the old warrior is pulling a fast one and helping Dad, even though God has probably forbidden him—both of them—to do so."

"Why would He do that?" Jeanne asked. "1 mean, forbid us help? All it would take is just one little-bitty miracle on His part and we'd be out and safe."

"I don't think God does miracles much anymore," Sam told her and the group. "I think He gives humans the wherewithal and then pretty much leaves it up to them after that."

"That is correct," the voice spoke in Sam's head.

"Dad?" Sam asked quietly.

The room full of people fell silent.

"Hello, the goddamn house!" Jenkins called.

He was ignored.

"Yes, son."

"Dad, what is happening?"

"Satan is gone, He will not return to that coven. Unless you fail and they are victorious. You need not worry about the Tablet. But you will be under siege for several days. Look to yourself to even the odds. You are trained to do that. The siege of Satan's followers must conclude by midnight, Saturday. And you must be especially careful between six P.M. and midnight on Friday."

"Xaviere?"

"Exactly. I will be able to assist very little, if at all. I will more than likely be punished—chastised is a better word—when I return."

"For helping us?"

"Yes."

"Is it difficult to slip out—of there, I mean?"

The voice seemed to chuckle. "No. But the majority don't wish to leave. I can't explain any further, son. You will see, in time."

"Dad, you will forgive me if I choose not to be in any great hurry?"

Laughter in Sam's head. "The old warrior likes you, son—likes you a lot."

"Michael? What is he, Dad? And how can he get away with the things he does?"

"If you had been born when I was active in the pulpit and asked that question of me, you and I would have had quite a session in the woodshed," the voice said with a chuckle. "Michael, son? Michael is one who is like unto God. He is a Levite; a chief man of Issachar; father of Omri; father of Zebadiah; son of Jehoshaphat. Michael is the archangel; God's warrior. Michael is many things to us all; he sits by the right hand of God. And he loves a good fight and loves warriors. Like you, my son."

And Sam knew then what his father expected him to do. "Dad—I can't fight an entire town."

"I did," the father threw down the challenge with that short statement.

Sam felt the presence of his dad leave him, leave the house. The more astute of the others in the room also picked up on the departure.

"He is gone," Noah said.

"Yes," Sam said. He then informed the gathering of the gist of his conversation with his father. Joe came in the room just in time to catch the last part.

"The whole damned town!" he blurted. "There ain't no way possible, Sam. Good God, boy—think about the odds, will you?"

"Dad seemed to think there is," Sam countered. "And he was adamant on that."

"Sam," Monty protested. "We're outnumbered three or four hundred to one!"

"I know," the young man said. "But so was Dad, back in Nebraska, in the late '50s."

Joe looked mournful. "Yeah. But he got killed."

Sam glanced at him. "Yes. To save the others," he reminded them all.

"You gonna answer me or not, you son-of-a-bitch!" Jenkins yelled through the bullhorn. "I'm damn tired of fucking around with you, Balon."

Sam walked to a window facing the front grounds, opened it, and burned a full clip of ammunition at the gate and the crowd gathered there. Sam watched in grim satisfaction as his burst of fire knocked half a dozen sprawling on the gravel and the concrete. Three of them lay still, dying in bloods of blood. The others twitched and moaned and screamed in pain.

"There's my reply, Jenkins!" Sam yelled.

"We'll get you, Balon!" Jenkins promised. "We'll get you all. You can't get out, none of you."

Then the truth hit Sam. That's right—we can't get out. But for some reason I have yet to understand, you people are very reluctant to come onto these grounds.

He closed the window and turned to Father Le Moyne. He said as much to the priest, adding, "Can you tell me the story behind this house; these grounds? Is there something special about it?"

"Sam, there is something that has been nagging at me ever since the day I met you and your wife. But I can't pull it to the surface. For some reason, I think someone is buried on these grounds, under the house, perhaps. It will come to me, in time."

"I know something about the house," Noah said. "Both this house and the Giddon house were begun within hours of each other, and finished on the same day. So the stories go. For approximately forty years, this mansion was owned by a group of religious people, of all faiths. That was from—oh, 1890 to probably 1931 or '32. Then the mansion was empty for about twenty-five years. Along about 1945, just after the war, it came back on the market. It's been owned by several families since that time."

"A group of religious people," Sam said. "What did they do here?"

"No one seems to know," Noah told him. "And 1 have done extensive research on the matter. But this one interesting fact kept cropping up: Religious leaders from all around the world have met here on more than one occasion. Very secretly. Between 1890 and 1930. People of all faiths; and I mean all faiths. But I do not have the vaguest idea what—if anything—was accomplished by or during those meetings."

"I wonder why they stopped meeting here?" Father Le Moyne asked. "And now that you mention it, I do recall something about that. And also about the name Balon. It will come to me, I'm sure."

"Well," Noah said. "I have shared all the information I know on the subject. I will admit, it fascinated me for a time, but the well ran dry, and one can only butt one's head against a stone wall for so long."

"Desiree?" Sam looked at the beautiful young woman. "Does this place have an attic?"

"I'm sure it does," she replied. "But everything has—happened so fast I haven't even thought of looking for it."

"Monty, you and the others keep your eyes open," Sam said. He looked at Noah. "Want to explore the house?"

"Delighted, Sam."

When questioned, Desiree admitted she had no idea where any keys might be located. She had keys to the entrance doors on the ground floor and to the garage. That was it.

"See if you can find me an axe," Sam said to Richard Hasseling. "If the doors are locked, and I'm betting they will be, we'll break them in. I'll get us some flashlights and we'll be ready to go."

It took four heavy swings with the axe to break down the final door leading to the attic. When the thick oak door was smashed, hanging by its hinges, the two men were met by yawning darkness, the open mouth of the cavernous room greeting them like some prehistoric monster lying in wait for prey.

For the first time Noah showed some hesitation. "I don't like this, Sam."

"Neither do I," Sam admitted. "But I think there are answers somewhere in this room. And I want to know why those Devil worshippers outside so far refuse to set foot on the grounds of Fox Estate."

Sam fumbled around in the entrance of the room until he found the light switch and clicked it on. Naturally, nothing happened. The room remained immersed in darkness, ominously silent.

"Nydia," he called. "See if you can find some light bulbs, honey."

The men clicked on flashlights, playing the beams of light into the room, the narrow lines of light touching the dusty, cobwebbed, sheet-draped contents of the attic.

"A veritable paradise for collectors of junk," Noah observed. He flicked a beam of light upward. "There's the drop cord for the bulb."

"Sure is spooky in there," Nydia said from behind the men.

Neither had heard her footsteps and Noah jumped about a foot off the floor.

"My dear," he said. "You do have a quiet approach. I think I just aged about a decade."

Sam changed the bulb, flipped on the switch, and the attic was filled with light. Dark pockets where the light did not touch crawled around the corners and edges of the big room.

"You search to your right, Noah. I'll take the left side," Sam said.

"I'll explore the center," Nydia said. "What are we looking for?"

"I don't know," Sam admitted. "But I think we'll know it when we see it."

Noah opened a creaking trunk lid and hauled out a pair of women's old-time bloomers. "My word!" he said. "Obviously the meetings conducted here were not all confined to matters of religion."

"Maybe they belonged to a nun," Nydia said.

"Possible," Noah said. "But not likely. These— undergarments were worn about eighty or ninety years ago. Not many women took part in any serious business of any type back then."

"Bring back the good old days," Sam said with a grin, knowing he would get a rise out of Nydia.

"Keep talking, turkey," Nydia responded. She opened a trunk and removed a leather-covered book. She worked at the rusted clasp and finally opened the book. The pages were all handwritten in a beautiful flowing style.

All in Latin.

"Damn!" she said. "I had to take Latin in high school, but this is too much for me."

"Let me see it," Noah said, walking to her. "I read Latin." He studied it for a few silent moments. "Well, now. This is most interesting. Might be what we are seeking. Listen to this, you two."

He carefully turned a page and said, "This is a copy—not the original, of course, this is dated 1901 — of the Compendium Maleficarum. In short, a breakdown on how to become a witch or warlock. It was first written in Italy, in the early 1600s."

Noah quickly and silently scanned more of the old pages, speed-reading.

"All right," he said. "This part concerns the Black Mass, the Sabbat. This next text is in French. It concerns the coldness of the Devil's penis. Excuse me, Nydia." He closed the old book. "Fascinating reading, but I don't believe it's what we're looking for. But I think we're on the right track. So let's continue our search."

A knocking reached the ears of the searchers. The trio froze in place. The tapping seemed to be coming from a dark corner of the dusty attic. Coming from a large crate.

A crate large enough to contain a body, Sam thought.

"I picked up on that," Nydia said. "Thanks a lot, lover-boy."

"Picked up on what?" Noah asked.

"Forget it, Noah," Sam told him. He looked around the attic. His eyes found a rusty, dust-covered old crowbar. Sam picked it up, shook off the dirt, and walked to the large crate. The thumping became louder.

"Sam!" Nydia said.

"It has to be," he told her. "Whatever is in that crate is coming out. Maybe with or without our help."

Noah pulled his .357 from leather and stepped up to the crate, standing beside Sam.

Three thick metal strips, secured by heavy old locks held the lid in place. Sam broke the first lock. The knocking and tapping ceased. Sam looked at Noah. The man's face was sweaty but his grip on the big pistol was firm and steady. Sam pried loose the second lock, then the final lock was broken, freeing not only the lid, but whatever was in the crate.

Sam wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans and gripped the lid in his big hands. He flung it open.

Noah gasped.

Nydia turned loose the scream that had gathered in her throat.

Something dark and bloody flew at the trio.

The news had spread quickly throughout the coven: The Master was gone. The Dark One was no longer in the area. But his daughter, the Princess, was here, so everything had to be all right.

But the seeds of doubt had been sewn, and fertile minds were nurturing the seeds.

For the tenth time that day, Princess Xaviere tried to make communication with her Master Father. For the tenth time she failed.

She sat in her quarters in the Giddon House, in the flickering candlelight, and stared in the direction of the mansion on the other side of the stone wall. She thought she had heard a woman scream just a moment before, but she was not sure. So much screaming from the weak Christians left in the town. She did not know what to do. She could not understand why her Master Father had deserted her when victory seemed so near.

"Very well," she muttered. "Obviously he is testing me. So be it." She made up her mind.

She rang for the coven leaders to come to her.

"Make plans to storm the house," she told them. "It seems the only way left us. But Sam Balon must be taken alive. 1 must have his seed. See to it."

And far away, in his nether region at the far north, Satan screamed his outrage.

"No! You dumb bitch. That is exactly what He wants. You're playing right into Balon's hands. You stupid fucking cunt. You useless daughter of a whore!"

Satan pointed his dark evil face to the heavens and screamed his fury at the Almighty, wrongly blaming Him for what was occurring on Earth.

But the Almighty had grown weary of Satan's tirades, and had blocked the Dark One from His ears.

But the warrior heard. And the mighty warrior could not conceal his victorious smile.

"Kick ass time," the warrior muttered.

An old ragged piece of red silk, attached to the inside of the lid, flapped in the sudden rush of air following the opening of the crate's lid.

But the crate itself was empty.

When their hearts had settled down into a slower pulsing, and jangled nerves ceased ringing, Sam was the first to speak.

"What the hell? I know the knocking was coming from this empty crate."

Noah shone the beam from his flashlight into the dark reaches of the crate. "Not entirely empty," he said. "Put your light in here, Sam."

The twin beams of light played off the interior of the crate, piercing the gloom, settling on the bottom of the huge rectangular box.

"It's a book of some sort," Nydia said.

Noah rose to his tiptoes and reached into the crate, almost falling in. Sam grabbed the smaller man by the seat of his pants and hauled him back.

"It's a journal of some kind," Noah said, carefully opening the old manuscript, bound in leather and worn leather strips. "When was it written?" he muttered. "Ah! Here it is—1666. Three sixes," he said. "How apropos." He visibly paled when he saw the name of the author on the inside of the leather covering.

"What's wrong, Noah?" Nydia asked, looking at the man's sudden loss of composure.

"Samuel Balon," the man said softly. "Samuel Balon wrote this. He started the journal in France, in 1659." He carefully turned the old pages. They were in remarkably good condition for a journal written more than three hundred years before. "This entry was written in a place called Ville Marie."

"Montreal," Nydia said. "Ville Marie was the original name of the city."

"Listen to this," Noah said. "I think this might have some bearing on our predicament. Le cog s'oyt par fois es sabbats sonnat le retraicte aux Sorciers."

"Translate it, please," Sam said.

Father Le Moyne's voice startled them all. The priest stood in black, framed in light in the shattered doorway to the attic. He said, "the cock crows; the Sabbat ends; the Sorcerers scatter and flee away."

"But what message does it contain for us?" Noah threw the question to anyone who might have an answer.

"I think," Sam said, "that it goes along with what my father said. It's telling us to hold out until Sunday. If we can make it until then, we're safe."

"But Sam," Nydia said. "I—what about the town? Even if we do make it—when we make it," she amended that. "All the dead people; the destruction, everything. What do we do? How do we explain it? Are we going to have to run again? Are we always going to be looking over our shoulder, living in fear?"

The young man was silent for a moment, very conscious of Father Le Moyne's eyes upon him. It was as if the priest could see something about him; knew something about him that Sam did not know.

"I can't answer that, Nydia. Maybe—maybe I— we—have been—picked for this job; maybe this is what we were put here to do. Wherever there is a coven, perhaps it's our job to seek it out, destroy it. I don't know. I hope with all my heart that is not the case, but if it is, then we have to obey. I think when this is over, here in Logandale, then we will know for sure. One way or the other."

Her dark eyes searched his strong face. "All right, Sam. If that is the case, where you go, I go."

Father Le Moyne smiled. It was working out well. Michael was going to see his dream become reality. The mighty warrior would have a man on Earth to do His work.

But the heavens would roar when the Almighty discovered what His warrior had done. But, Le Moyne thought, the firmament has shook from the rage of God before—and probably would again.

Nydia tapped the journal Noah held. "But who, or what, was this Samuel Balon?"

Father Le Moyne decided he could no longer hide the truth from the group. He could continue to hide his true identity for a while longer, but even that, in time, would have to be revealed.

"He was a priest," Le Moyne said. He sighed. "Close the crate and come downstairs. I'll tell you what I know about Father Balon." Or what I am allowed to tell you, that is, he thought.

"Curiouser and curiouser," Sam muttered.

FIVE

"Samuel was not the priest's name. His name was Yves. The Church gave him the name of Father Sam. From—what I have been able to gather through the years, Father Sam was a huge bear of a man, and rather a maverick as far as the Church was concerned. One of the reasons he was sent to the New World, I should imagine. I know all this because—well, let's just say I did a paper on the man in college.

"You see, Father Sam—and that is a misnomer—for the man left the Church, married, and when his wife—" He hesitated, seemed to inwardly struggle for a few seconds, then continued, but Sam and Noah both saw the grimace on his face when he said the word, … "died; well, he attempted to once more assume the title of priest. Of course, it was refused him." Father Le Moyne smiled strangely. "But Father Sam, being the type man he—was, did not let that deter him. He came to this part of the New World, established a Church, and went about his business as if nothing had happened. This house is supposedly built over his grave, so the story goes. No one has yet been able to verify that.

"As far as why those religious leaders met here," the priest said, doing his best to wear a sheepish look, "had it not been for Father Sam's leaving the Church and marrying, the man might well have been canonized. It is—said that Father Sam met the Devil face on and beat him. Right here on this very spot where we are sitting. I, ah, don't know all the particulars, but that's it in a nutshell."

The priest is lying, Sam thought. But not lying for any personal reasons. He's lying for a very—pure reason, the phrase came to him.

"You said he married, Daniel," Noah said. "Do you know the name of the woman he married?"

The priest's smile was strangely rueful. "Oh, yes," he said softly. "Very well. Michelle Dubois. The union produced several children. One priest came out of that union. Father Sam killed one of the children with his bare hands; a daughter. The other daughter, named after her mother, Michelle, married a man by the name of Duhon. That union produced a cabin-full of children. Several of the boys became trappers. They went west, out around what is now Nebraska; in that area. The other boys of that union became priests. Those that didn't go into the priesthood married— more children. More priests out of those unions.

"The last record of priests from any marriage of those related to Father Balon was in the late 1700s, in Nebraska. For some reason, the Balons, the Duhons— they left the Catholic faith behind them and joined the Protestant religion. I don't know why."

Sam leaned back in his chair. He was aware of Father Le Moyne's eyes on him. The stories he had heard as a child; rumors and tall tales about the goings-on around Whitfield came to Sam's mind. He began tying them all up into neat little packages.

"You appear to be deep in thought, Sam," Noah said, looking at the expression on Sam's face.

"Yes," he said. Sam then related all the stories he had heard as a child. About Tyson's Lake, Father Dubois, the trapper Duhon, Sam's own father's first wife, Michelle the witch.*

"It keeps coming back to you, Sam," Monty said.

"Unfortunately," Sam muttered, very much aware of Father Le Moyne's intense gaze.

WEDNESDAY NIGHT

"Seventy-eight hours to go," Joe said. "Might as well be seventy-eight years."

Mille put her hand on Joe's arm. "We're going to make it out of this, Joe," she said, gently squeezing his forearm. "And I want you to know I think you are a fine, good man for staying here, helping in this fight."

"I ain't no better than none of the others, Mille. I really don't understand what is happening around here. All this Devil stuff and exorcisms and the walking dead." He shook his head. "Too much for an ol' country boy like me."

"How old are you, Joe?"

"Too damned old for a young chicken like you," he replied, sensing the direction the conversation was taking.

She smiled up at him and something soft touched his heart. "How about you letting me be the judge of that?" she responded, her words gentle.

"Mille—"

"Shut up, Joe. Just put your arms around me and hold me for a minute or two, all right?"

"Be glad to oblige," Joe said, his voice husky.

Father Le Moyne stood in the darkness of the foyer and smiled. He slipped quietly back into the shadows and left the two alone. He approved of Mille and Joe, despite the vast differences in age.

Barbara came to John and put her arms around her husband. "If we get out of this mess, John, I'll walk out of your life. You can tell people I died—anything. I won't disgrace you with a divorce. I'll change my name and move away. You can get another church and—"

"No," her husband said, a new firmness to his voice. "Barbara, I never really tried to understand your—problem. Or mine, for that matter. We'll go to doctors, counselors, anything or anybody you like. But we will work it out, I promise you."

"But the things Duke said."

"Forget about Duke, Barbara. Put all that behind you. It's over."

She put her head on his shoulder and wept.

Monty and Viv sat upstairs, looking out over the darkened sector assigned to them. Sam had referred to it as their perimeter. They were content to be together, touching, their love vibrating between them, constantly reaffirming with silent love messages.

Jeanne and Ginny sat in a darkened bedroom, looking after Little Sam. Both the young women had fallen in love with the little boy. He was such a good child; never fussy or whiny. He was a happy child. Even if he did sometimes get a funny look in his eyes.

"I think Byron Price kind of likes you," Jeanne said.

Ginny laughed softly. "Yeah. I never flirted with a preacher before."

"I think he's cute, in a kind of fumbling way. You know what I mean?"

"Yes. Me, too. And it must have been awful for him, his wife taking off that way."

"I'll stay with Little Sam. Why don't you go sit with Mr. Price. I know you want to."

"You don't mind?"

"Not at all."

"Thanks, Jeanne. 1 owe you one."

Little Sam sat looking at the draped window, as if he could see through the drapes to the other side. There was a very strange look in his eyes.

Richard Hasseling was very conscious of Desiree's presence. Uncomfortably so. He had never seen any woman quite so beautiful as Desiree. And his feelings for her were becoming—well, unnerving. He had to keep constantly reminding himself he was a Baptist minister.

And a virgin.

When Desiree sat down next to him and put a soft hand on his thigh, Richard thought he was going to die. For sure, he couldn't risk getting up. He would stick out in front.

Father Le Moyne found Noah at his post at the rear of the house. "Noah? Maintain your sentry duties and I'll talk. I want to tell you something."

"Very well, Daniel."

"I will not come out of this alive, Noah. No! Don't say anything. It is—well, I am prepared for it. I want you to know I have valued your friendship. And I am sorry that people thought that—well, you and I had some sort of sexual relationship. I know that hurt you as much as it hurt me. It is a strange and unfeeling society we live in where two men cannot have a close friendship without—well, certain people of low intelligence making something different out of that friendship.

"Noah, don't waste your life pining and moping away what time you have left you over a woman you haven't seen in thirty years."

Noah smiled and looked back at the priest. "Marta? My heavens, Daniel. I haven't thought of her in years. No, Daniel, Marta isn't the reason I never married. The years just seemed to march on past me, without my noticing their passage. I grew older, more set in my ways. Then one day I looked up and I was middle-aged. I—am eccentric, to say the least. It would take a woman of exceptional understanding to put up with me, Daniel. And to tell you the truth, 1 really haven't been looking that hard. No. I really haven't been looking at all."

"You haven't had to look," the priest said dryly. "You've been filling your bed with those young would-be writers and artists of the female gender out at your workshops."

Noah laughed softly. "Indeed I have, old friend. I have some marvelously delicious memories, Daniel. And I have absolutely no intention of apologizing for any of them."

The priest smiled. "I should tell you to be ashamed of your behavior and to do penance, but you would probably tell me to stick it in my ear."

"Not quite that crudely put, Daniel," Noah said with a chuckle. "But—close."

Both men were silent for a moment. Noah said, "Daniel, just for the sake of conversation, since we all might be looking at eternity any moment, how many people know you were adopted into the Le Moyne family as a young man?"

"I didn't know you knew, Noah."

"I guessed. Tricked you, old friend."

"Exactly, Daniel, how much do you know, or have guessed over the long years?"

"Let us just say, Daniel—or should I call you Yves?—that you are not of this world."

The priest did not elect to answer verbally. Instead, he rose from his chair and walked to the man. He put his hand on Noah's shoulder. Noah would remember nothing of the encounter. He would not remember anything about his suspicions of Father Le Moyne being anything other than a small parish priest in Logandale, New York.

But Noah's life, from that moment on, would be drastically altered.

The priest removed his hand and offered it to Noah. The writer took it. He could not remember the priest leaving his chair.

"You've been a good friend, Noah. I have enjoyed it."

"I, too, old friend." '

Le Moyne lifted his eyes to the darkness of outside. "Something moved out there, Noah."

Noah jerked his head around and searched the ink of night. "I see it, Daniel. Call Sam and Joe."

Sam came on the run. "Human, Noah?" he asked.

"Yes. I believe so." He pointed. "Right over there, Sam—see it?"

Sam could see the white form lying on the cold wet earth. "I can't tell from this distance if it's male or female. But whatever, it's naked. I'm going after it."

Before anyone could argue, Sam was running through the night. Joe was right behind him. The form on the cold ground was a woman. Sam rolled her over. He had seen her around the small town but did not know her name.

She opened her eyes. They were filled with horror and fright.

"Easy," Sam told her. "You're safe."

"Susie Parish," Joe said. "Vernon's wife. Jesus, Susie. What happened?"

She laughed bitterly. "You name it, Joe. If it's perverted and twisted, it was done to me." She put her head on the grass and began weeping.

"Come on, Joe. Help me get her inside."

Inside, the women took over. Nydia was ready with a blanket to place over the naked woman's shoulders. In the light of the kitchen, all could see the woman had been savagely abused. But despite the whip marks on her body and the bruises on her face, Susie was still a very attractive woman.

Susie was shaking from the cold, exhausted from her ordeal. But when Nydia tried to lead her out of the kitchen and into a bedroom, she pulled away.

"No," she gasped. "Got to tell you what I know. Why I came. It's—it's my oldest daughter, Judy. She's—one of them. I—never saw anything so awful in my life. She's one of the night people."

"Night people?" Viv questioned anyone who might give her an answer.

"The undead," Noah told her. Mrs. Parish, he concluded, was a gorgeous woman. Something about her fascinated the writer. She was so—strong. Brave. She had risked her life to come here, to warn them. What a completely unselfish gesture on her part.

Noah did not notice Father Le Moyne smiling at him.

"My youngest daughter, Anne, and my son, Fred, have gone over to the other side. Both of them rejected God and swore allegiance to Satan." Her eyes found Noah. "The coven members are going to storm this place at dawn. Hoping to catch you all by surprise. They thought I was knocked out. But I was only pretending. I slipped out the back window of the house and came here."

Noah squared his shoulders. "Then, my dear, we shall all certainly be ready to repulse the attack." Although, he silently mused, he hadn't the foggiest idea how.

MIDNIGHT

Sam had slept for a few hours and felt refreshed. As he dressed, an idea began forming in his mind. He dressed in dark clothing, stuffed a dark blue skull cap in his pocket and a dark scarf around his neck. When he went out to do some headhunting, he would pull the scarf over his face, leaving only his eyes exposed.

He could tell the wind had picked up. It was still blowing out of the northwest, but with heavy gusts, maybe as much as thirty-five to forty miles per hour at times.

Look to yourself to even the odds. You are trained to do that. His father's words returned to him.

Sam's smile was a warrior's smile. Right, Dad, he thought. Guerrilla warfare, hit and run, demoralize the enemy. Hit hard and fast and deadly.

"All right, Dad," Sam said aloud. "I get the message."

Sam went downstairs and began gathering up long-necked bottles. He filled those three-quarters full with gasoline and mixed flour with the gas. The flour would stick the burning gasoline to a surface, thus ensuring a longer burning time. He jammed a rag down each bottle neck and carefully wrapped each bottle in a thick towel to prevent breakage. He found a knapsack taken from the sporting goods store and packed his Molotov cocktails.

Sam gathered most of the group in the darkened study of the mansion. Mille was standing guard toward the front of the mansion, second level. Nydia faced the rear of the house, also on the second level. Viv Draper, who it turned out was a crack shot, due to Monty's urgings just after they married, was on sentry duty at one end of the house. And Ginny, who really did not know which end of a rifle the bullet came out of, was at the opposite end of the mansion.

"No way we can hold off a couple thousand people, Sam," Monty said.

"I think we can," Sam told him. "If you people do what I tell you to do." He met each person's eyes in the dark room. "My wife, Mille, and Viv are expert shots. The others can keep the spare weapons loaded. We've got enough arms to outfit an entire company. That is exactly why I asked you men to show the non-combatants the nomenclature of all the weapons that first day here.

"It will be a frontal assault. It almost has to be. The woods behind the mansion are too thick and, from what Desiree tells me, the ground too unstable to permit much activity from that area. There will be some action from back there, but most of it will come from the front. I don't think we have to worry much about men coming at us from the direction of the Giddon House. Too much danger of Xaviere getting hurt. So that leaves the front and the west.

"Monty, you and Viv and Joe will man the west side of the mansion. I'll be at the front, with Nydia and Noah. Richard, Desiree, John, Barbara, and Jeanne will take the back. They'll have shotguns. None of them can hit the broad side of the barn with a rifle or pistol, but with scatterguns they can do some damage. Father Le Moyne, Ginny, Mille, and Byron will face the Giddon House. Susie will look after Little Sam.

"Get containers of water and place near your positions. Where there is hot lead, there is danger of fire. Pull down all the drapes. Get rid of everything you can that is flammable. I want you all to gather up your teams and start boarding up windows on the ground floor. Right now. Pile furniture against the doors and up against the windows once you have them boarded up. Fix what I am about to say in your minds and don't forget it: We open this dance. Whenever one of them comes into view, man, woman, or child—shoot! And shoot to kill. Never let a shot go by. The first rule of survival is this: Shoot first and ask questions later. Remember, the lives of all of us depend on each of us.

"This upcoming battle is going to be the worst thing that any of you have ever experienced. And some of us aren't going to make it out alive. But death is better than being taken prisoner by the forces of the Dark One. Bear that in mind at all times. And this: We are all that stands between Satan taking over this community. It's up to us to make a stand."

The ministers of the Baptist, Methodist, and Episcopal churches rose to their feet. Richard spoke for all of them. "I do not believe it is a sin to kill someone who has forsaken God to worship Satan. And firing a shotgun does not appear to be all that difficult or complicated. If the Good Lord will forgive my language at this time, and I feel certain, under the circumstances, He will, you people have my word that I will kill any son-of-a-bitch who tries to overrun my perimeter."

"I couldn't have said it better," Byron said, sticking out his chin.

"Count me in until the end," John said. "I believe—I know—God is on our side in this fight."

"I saw a carbine among the weapons," Father Le Moyne said. "I'll take that and a .45 pistol."

Mille looked at the priest, astonishment in her eyes. Her mouth formed an O.

"Oh, don't look so amazed, Mille," Le Moyne said with a smile. "I was born and reared in the—wilderness, so to speak. Grew up with a rifle in my hands. I have hunted more than my share of venison, believe me. And bear, too."

"Well, I'll be damned!" Richard blurted.

"I rather doubt your being damned, Richard," the priest said. "But if you don't do something about your thoughts concerning Desiree, you're going to have a heart attack."

Richard blushed.

The wind was roaring with a fury when Sam, despite the objections of almost everyone in the house, announced his plans to do a bit of headhunting.

Only Nydia and Father Le Moyne did not object. The priest nodded his head in approval and Nydia kissed her husband.

Sam took his AK and a dozen clips, his .41 mag with two speed loaders, his knife, the knapsack full of cocktails, and a length of rope coiled around his chest and waist.

He stepped out into the darkness and slipped over the fence at the rear of the mansion. He was immediately surrounded by thick brush and timber. The ground felt unstable under his booted feet.

Sam sensed the presence of the Beasts seconds before he smelled them. He dropped to his knees in the brush and began breathing through his mouth to minimize noise. Then the smell came drifting to him. He cut his eyes and saw the wild red eyes searching the night. Three Beasts, standing almost shoulder to shoulder, their long hairy arms almost reaching the ground.

Sam slowly lifted the AK and burned half a clip at the hideous earthbound servants of Satan.

They squalled and howled and flopped obscenely on the ground and died.

Sam was up and moving before the echo of the AK had died away. Staying close to the stone fence, Sam edged his way toward the street and the sounds of men and women shouting and cursing.

"What the hell's all that shooting?" a man called.

Sam reached the end of the fence and cautiously looked around the corner, into the street. A group of men and women stood in the center of the street. Sam lifted the AK and used the remainder of his clip, knocking the knot of people sprawling. In the confusion of the moment, Sam took that opportunity to shoot out the nearest street lights, plunging that section of the street into darkness. The howling winds covered any sounds he made running across the street.

He darted into a shed and smelled the strong odor of raw gasoline. He found a full five gallon can and smiled a warrior's smile. Taking the can, he slipped behind a house and knelt beside a huge tank of heating oil. He opened the can of gas and spilled some on the ground, splashing some more on the tank. He darted to the next house, the can trailing gasoline. There, he knelt beside the heating oil tank and spilled the rest of his gas. Using his big bowie knife, he slashed and hacked at the line leading from the tank to the house. Oil spilled on the ground. He dipped a handkerchief into the gas on the ground, wrapped that around a thick stick, and ran about fifty feet from the house. He lit the rag with his lighter and hurled the blazing stick, hitting the ground the instant the stick left his hand.

The houses erupted within two seconds of each other, the roaring explosions shaking the ground and sending debris flying in all directions. Sam rolled beside the protection of a concrete block shed and rode out the flaming fury.

From where he lay, he could hear the moaning and whimpering of the wounded and the dying. He jumped to his feet, slung the AK by the leather strap, and was running down the alley, digging in his knapsack for a cocktail. Pausing only long enough to light the

gasoline-soaked rag protruding from the neck of the bottle, he would then hurl the cocktail through a window. He began darting from house to house, skipping every other building. He was successful ten out of twelve times in setting a building ablaze. The winds began roaring, and Sam knew the howling winds were no accident. Soon the entire area around the Giddon House and Fox Estate was blazing, flames leaping into the night sky, fanned by the howling northwest winds, spreading the licking fury onto other homes.

A bullet striking the corner of a building sent painful splinters of wood into Sam's cheek. He jerked back and wiped away the blood.

"There's the son-of-a-bitch!" a woman shouted, pointing in Sam's direction. "Let's get him!"

Sam shot the woman in the stomach with his .41 mag. She slammed onto the concrete of the street and lay screaming her life away, kicking and howling. Her soul went winging into the depths of hell and into the dark arms of the Master she had willingly chosen to serve on God's earth.

Sam picked another splinter out of his cheek, wiped more blood away, and ran down the flaming alley, the AK at combat arms, ready to spit lead death at any who dared challenge the God Sam had sworn to serve.

A crowd of men and women and teenagers picked up the challenge by charging at Sam, waving clubs and guns and knives, shouting their contempt for him.

"Take him alive!" a woman reminded the others. "The Princess wants his seed. Jump on him and drag, him down."

"Not if I can help it," Sam panted. He leveled the Kalishnikov and pulled the trigger, holding it back, fighting to suppress the natural rise of the weapon on full auto.

The flames from the burning homes and sheds were leaping into the air, fiery fingers reaching toward the night sky, devouring everything they touched on the ground that God created and Satan now claimed as his.

A man ran from a burning home, his clothing and hair blazing. His agonizing screaming touched the spine of all who heard him. The man fell face first onto the concrete of the street. He beat his hands in pain and then was silent as his body cooked, the fat from his flesh bubbling as it fried.

"Better get used to the sensation, sucker," Sam muttered. "And you get your feet to working," he reminded himself.

Sam ran across the street, always edging his way back toward the mansion. He kept to the shadows as much as possible, making a seldom seen, very elusive target for the Devil worshippers.

Logandale had a fire department, but it was obvious to Sam that nobody was manning the equipment, for the fires were now out of control, and spreading very quickly, threatening to expand their blistering path of devastation into other areas in that part of town.

Sam lay in the shadows across the street from the raging fires and turned sniper, picking his targets, the AK on semiauto. The roaring of the flames, the cracking and collapsing of structures, the howling of the suddenly rising winds—always out of the northwest, never varying—and the screaming of men and women and teenagers in the grips of pure panic and pain covered his gunfire.

And somebody, or something, was keeping the winds away from Fox Estate and the Giddon House, and steadily pushing them toward more heavily populated residential areas of Logandale.

Sam felt he knew who that person was.

Faintly penetrating the roar of destruction from the flames, Sam could hear the sounds of sirens and the shouting of men and women. The fire-fighting equipment was on the way, but for many blocks, it was too late. All the firefighters could do now was set back-fires and hope that would contain the rampaging conflagration.

Sam lay in his well-concealed position and sniped and watched the action unfold before him. His smile was a grim tiger's snarl. He lifted his AK and shot a fireman off a truck, then knocked another down, forcing the men and equipment back. Sam doubted that after this night anyone would mass to march against the small band of Christians at dawn. At worst, Sam had bought them all a day, maybe two days. He hoped for the latter.

Sam slipped from his concealment and ran down the sidewalk, expecting any moment to feel the impact of a bullet in his flesh, for he was starkly outlined against the glow from the flames.

No lead came his way.

We are all that is left, Sam thought. We are the last Christians left alive in Logandale.

He wondered how he knew that.

Then he realized he had not thought it. It had been spoken to him.

"All right, Dad," he panted the words. "I hear you."

He ran past the Giddon House, then did a turnaround and ran back to the locked gates of the great mansion. Behind him, the woods were on fire across the road, the exploding sap from the tall trees sounding very much like a battleground.

Sam leveled his AK at the big picture windows in the front of the mansion and squeezed the trigger, holding it back, working the weapon from left to right, spraying the windows. Someone in the house screamed, whether in pain or fright, Sam could not tell.

He slipped in a fresh clip and let those on the second floor of the mansion know he was present. The falling of broken glass, the shouting and screaming from the second level gave loud and painful testimony that Sam's presence was not at all welcomed by those inside.

Grinning with satisfaction, Sam ran back to the safety of Fox Estate.

DAWN. THURSDAY.

Sam had slept deeply and soundly, awakening refreshed. He awakened with a feeling that the battle was, somehow, almost over. When he looked out the window, that feeling was heightened.

Sam dressed and joined the others in the upstairs study. The scene before their eyes resembled a miniature replay of the aftermath of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings of 1945.

"Good Lord," Noah muttered, gazing at the sight from the upstairs study. "Sam, you were a one-man wrecking crew last night."

Sam smiled. "I did play hell with the town, didn't I?"

A full three thousand yards, running from the road well into Logandale proper was now reduced to charred, blackened ruins. Small fires still burned, sending black greasy smoke into the air. Bodies littered the soot-covered streets and sidewalks. The carcasses lay in grotesque, stiffening postures of painful death.

There was no wind. The morning had dawned cool and utterly still.

"There is nothing on radio or TV about this, Sam," Monty said, entering the room. "I don't understand that. But what really bugs me is this: How come we still have power after last night?"

"You'll have to ask my dad about that," Sam replied. He once more felt his father's presence.

"I think I'll pass on that," Monty said. "No offense to your dad intended," he quickly added, casting nervous eyes about the room.

"I'll go along with him," Joe said, jerking a thumb toward Monty. "How can we have electricity? All the damn lines are down! You can see them layin' in the street. It's—hell, impossible."

"Don't question," Father Le Moyne said. "It is best to just accept."

Barbara Morton looked out at the scenes of death and destruction. "I wonder how many died last night?"

"Not enough," Richard Hasseling replied, with considerable heat in his voice. Richard's views toward many things were undergoing a rapid metamorphosis.

"Princess?" Edie Cash approached the young woman sitting in the dark room. "Our people are demoralized. The death count from last night is close to two hundred. All because of one man. One man! And he seemed impervious to injury."

"Sam Balon is mortal," Xaviere replied. "He is just very, very lucky, that is all." But the young woman was not that certain—not anymore. Sam's burst of gunfire had killed Frank Gilbert and seriously wounded Norman Giddon. No one among them had expected such a vicious counterattack from the Christians; nothing like that sudden barbarism from the Christians.

It just wasn't like Christians. Not at all. All during her short life Xaviere had been taught to believe that Christians—for the most part—were all wimps.

The Princess was confused, but not personally afraid. She was a demon-child, so no mere mortal could harm her. But she didn't know what to do.

"I want you people to maintain steady gunfire into the Giddon House," Sam told the group. "We'll alternate those firing to minimize the strain. We've got dozens of boxes of ammunition. We'll work on their nerves. Let them get accustomed to one round every thirty seconds, then pick it up to one round every fifteen seconds. Let them grow used to a certain rhythm, then change it. Work on the most vulnerable spots of the house, and keep the pressure on. Let's do it, gang."

Sheriff Pat Jenkins was the first to fall under the hail of bullets, buckshot, and slugs from the Christians. Richard Hasseling literally blew the man's head apart when Jenkins carelessly exposed himself.

"Chalk one up for God," Richard muttered, then threw up on the floor.

Inside the Giddon House, nerves were beginning to fray under the constant whining and cracking of bullets. Everyone had retreated to the far side of the mansion, seeking safety, but secure refuge was elusive when Sam started using Teflon-coated bullets. The super-slug would drive through half a dozen walls and still have the power to kill.

One of the super-slugs snuffed out Norman Giddon's life as the wounded man tried to crawl to safety.

"Joe?" Sam called. "You and Monty get up on the roof with rifles. You'll have a clear field of fire across the burned area. Knock down anyone who tries to approach. I'll join you in a minute."

This time, Monty showed no reluctance in firing. Using scope-mounted rifles, the men began sniping at anything that moved within range. Both men were expert shots, and soon the area was cleared of all living things. Now dead littered the smoking area.

When Sam joined them, with a 7mm magnum, the sniping took on a new ferocity. Soon, none of the Devil worshippers dared venture anywhere near the burn area.

It became a standoff.

THURSDAY EVENING

Satan admitted it. He was beaten unless somehow his followers could rally themselves and charge the mansion where the Christians had barricaded themselves.

But the Dark One knew the odds of that occurring were slim.

Damn Sam Baton!

And Satan knew something else the young man did not know. There were whispered comments among Satan's own forces that Sam Balon had been chosen to lead God's fight here on Earth. And it was all the fault of that meddling old warrior. Things had been going so well here on Earth, too. All that lovely pornography; the lessening of ethics in business; younger and younger kids experimenting with dope and fucking around; teenage suicides increasing; morals at an all-time low; swingers clubs popping up everywhere, everybody fucking and sucking and sodomizing; more and more people cheating on taxes; crime on a rampage; race relations deteriorating ... all that good stuff. Everything had been going so smoothly.

Now this.

Shit!

Satan turned his dark face toward the firmament and screamed, "You son-of-a-bitch!"

"Turn on the floodlights," Sam told Noah.

With a pop, the outside grounds around the estate were bright as day.

Without electricity producing the current.

Sam keyed his handy-talkie. "Everybody in position on the roof?"

They were.

"Stay alert," Sam cautioned them. "Their last rush will be coming tonight. And don't ask me how I know. I just know."

The firing on the house continued without letup, as it had since seven o'clock that morning. And judging from the occasional screams, the bullets were taking their toll, both mentally and physically.

"Here they come!" Monty called from the roof. "What are we going to do when they shoot out the floodlights?"

"Either change the bulbs or fight in the dark," Sam yelled his reply.

And then there was no time left for conversation. The Devil worshippers made no attempt at fancy maneuvering. Theirs was a straight on, frontal, human-wave type of assault. And they paid dearly for it.

Every weapon in the house had been fully loaded that afternoon; every spare clip had been loaded to capacity. But even with all that going for them, the Devil worshippers came very close, several times, to overwhelming the Christians by sheer numbers. Only the high fence around the mansion prevented that.

After an hour, hearing became impaired from the constant roaring of multiple weapons; shoulders were bruised and sore from the pounding of high-powered rifles and shotguns; eyes were red and smarting from gunsmoke.

And still the devotees to the Devil hurled their bodies at the Christians in a frenzied attempt to overpower them. All thoughts of taking Sam and Nydia and Little Sam alive were gone. Revenge and death were uppermost in the minds of those committed to serving the Dark One.

And if the coven members had given their plan some deeper thought, had carefully considered all aspects of the assault, they could have easily overwhelmed the small band of defenders. But determination and cool heads have many times in the past prevailed over brute force.

And so it was this time.

By ten o'clock that night, the human waves had ceased. An eerie quiet fell over the body-littered land.

"Now what?" Noah was heard to question the stillness.

A clump-thump was heard coming up the street, followed by a shuffling type of step; many feet.

"What the hell?" Monty said.

"The undead," Father Le Moyne said quietly. "They are sending the undead after us."

Sam ran to the rear of the house, calling for Joe to come help him.

"What's up, Sam?"

"Help me make some Molotov cocktails. Bullets won't kill those—things. But fire will."

Siphoning gas from Sam's truck, the men quickly fashioned the fire bombs. They ran back to the front of the mansion.

"Oh, Dear God in Heaven!" John Morton said, pointing to the street.

All heads turned.

He was pointing at Ann; at the hammer still tied around her severed ankle. Ann stood beside Max, Lisa LaMeade beside her. Will and Judy and Dan and Jerry and Marie stood behind them.

Pete LaMeade stood behind the lines of undead, grinning at the house.

"That's Mommy\" Jeanne shrieked. "Mommy!"

The girl was off and running toward the rotted form of her mother before anyone in the house could stop her.

The mother smiled grotesquely and opened her flesh-decaying arms in a welcoming embrace for her living daughter.

SIX

"I think the same thing is happening here as happened in Canada," Janet said to Princess Xaviere. "God, or one of His asshole friends is helping Balon; blocking out our Master. 1 think we have to face up to the fact that we have lost."

"All is not lost!" the Princess snapped. "The undead are out there now. They—"

"They will do nothing," Janet said flatly. "I am almost certain Sam Balon has been blessed."

"No!"

"Yes, Princess. And it is time to consider our leaving this dreadful place."

"I so wanted Balon's seed within me," Xaviere sighed.

You wanted his cock in you, is what you wanted, Janet thought, but thought so very carefully, blocking out any mind-projection. "There will be another time. In another place."

"You're right, of course, Janet," the Princess reluctantly capitulated. "When we reach safety, we will begin immediately formulating plans to capture Sam Balon."

"Yes, Princess."

Xaviere Flaubert looked toward the Fox Estate. "There will be another time, dear Father Sam. I promise you that."

"Who do we take with us?" Janet questioned.

"Jon Le Moyne, of course. Jimmy, too. Your earth parents. One or two others. I don't care. I just want to leave this dismal place of failure."

"Yes, Princess."

Joe grabbed Jeanne's ankles and dragged her down from the fence, throwing her to the ground. Mille reached her sister and sat on her.

Sam lit a bottle of gas and hurled it toward the open-armed undead woman. The gas exploded at the dead woman's feet, completely covering her in flames. Her husband screamed his outrage and charged the fence, climbing over the bodies stacked on the street side of the fence. Sam burned half a clip into the man, knocking him backward, but not killing him.

Pete LaMeade jumped to his feet, smoking holes in his chest. He grinned at Sam. His grin exposed needle-pointed teeth and a bright red tongue, swollen with blood. He once more charged at Sam.

Sam threw a cocktail at him, the bottle breaking on the man's chest, the gasoline igniting, covering the man with fire. Pete screamed and ran into the night. The others, now confused and frightened, followed him, lumbering and staggering and clumping away into the night.

Joe and Sam helped Mille with her sister, leading the sobbing young woman back to the house.

Nydia met her husband. She was grimy with gunsmoke, her eyes red-rimmed from smoke and fatigue. "It's over, isn't it, Sam?"

"Almost," he replied. "The beginning of the end starts at dawn."

FRIDAY MORNING

"Sam!" Monty shouted. "Father Le Moyne is gone!"

Sam looked toward the heavens. "No," he said softly. "His job here was over. He just went home."

"What?" Noah asked.

Dawn was lighting the eastern sky, spreading traces of red and pink and gray against a backdrop of purple.

"Father Le Moyne was Father Sam," the young man told a stunned group of survivors.

"Your Dad told you?" Nydia asked, coming to him, to take her husband's hand.

"Yes. He and Father Sam left together, about fifteen minutes ago. Dad said neither of them would be back. It's up to us now, Nydia. You, me, Little Sam."

"Little Sam is—"

"All right. Like you, Nydia, the dark side of his being will only serve to make him stronger in his faith."

"The people at the Giddon House?" Viv asked.

"There is no one there," Sam told them. "Xaviere and a few of the others slipped out during the night. But I will meet them again. That is my purpose for being."

"Lordy!" Joe said. "Your daddy told you that?"

"No," the tall young man said. "Someone else."

"Jesus!" Monty blurted.

Sam looked at him and smiled. "Close," he said.

FRIDAY. NOON.

Even Joe was shocked when Sam calmly and without any display of emotion lifted his AK and shot the man in the stomach. The man flopped on the littered street, screaming in pain.

"Sam—" Monty said.

"We killed probably half of this coven," Sam explained. "The rest are confused and in hiding. Don't ever think we aren't in grave danger. But we've got them on the run. They know they've been deserted by their leaders, and they don't know what to do or where to go, because they've discovered they can't get out. But I'm going to help them."

The two men looked at him.

"1 am going to destroy this town," Sam announced, with no more emotion than if asking someone to pass the butter.

"We gather up all the fifty-five gallon drums in this community," Sam said. "Get all the heating oil and gasoline tanker trucks left around here. Drain every filling station storage tank. Fill the drums. There are sump pumps in this town. Let's find them and get to work."

SATURDAY

It had been a quiet night. Eerie, knowing the community was still filled with coven members, but still quiet, with no action taken against the Christians.

Sam gathered the little band of survivors around him. He had broken them down into three teams of five each. They all knew what they had to do.

"As soon as you have completed your tasks," Sam told the group, "get out of this community. For it's not going to exist much longer. Get your stories straight between you; keep them simple, for you are going to have to live with them the rest of your lives. All the authorities have to know is that you people survived a great tragedy. That much will be the truth. You can't tell them you've been fighting God's war; you'd all end up in the nut house. So I would just tell them you managed to survive a great fire. The stories you tell are up to you. It's doubtful any of you will ever see Nydia, Little Sam, or myself again. Everybody ready? O.K., let's do it."

The teams began pumping raw gasoline and heating oil into the sewer system of Logandale. Thousands of gallons of flammable liquids were dumped into mains. Open drums of gas and oil were left all over the town. Anywhere a heating oil tank was found, the contents were drained onto the ground.

"Good God, don't nobody light a cigarette," Joe warned. "Don't scrape no metal against nothing that'll cause a spark. We'd all go up like a Roman candle."

"That's the general idea," Sam said.

"Lordy, Lordy!" Joe said.

When only one small tank truck was all that was left, Sam told his people to get going. But they were reluctant to leave the young man's side. Sam had led them through a living nightmare, and all had grown accustomed to taking his commands.

Sam looked at the small gathering of Christians. So very few of us, he thought. Out of a population of probably more than four thousand—this is it. Three or four hundred others had been brutally killed, tortured to death, but that still leaves several thousand whose faith was so weak they reached toward the hands of the Dark One, forsaking the Living God.

Dad was right: Heaven will be sparsely populated.

"I don't want to make this sound like an old TV show," Sam said. "But I have a mission. Nydia, Little Sam, and me. 1 don't know where we're going to be sent. But wherever it is, we'll go."

Sam shook hands with everyone, receiving several kisses from the women. Nydia embraced and kissed them all.

Sam looked at Noah. "You're in charge, Noah. Get them out of here."

Noah stood holding hands with Susie. He nodded. "God go with you all," he said. He turned to the others. "Let's go, people. We've got some planning to do. And I've got several books to write."

Sam and his family stood and watched them leave, heading out of town. He waited fifteen minutes.

"Drive my pickup," he told Nydia. "I'll drive the last tanker truck. Meet you at the city limits."

Sam opened the drains and let raw gas spill onto the street as he drove slowly out of the Devil's town. He was aware of being watched; he expected at any second to be fired upon. But nothing happened.

He could not understand that. Then one reason came to him: They are afraid of God's Warrior. Hate has changed to fear and turned inward on the followers of the Dark One.

"I should feel pity," he murmured. "But I do not. I cannot."

And he knew then his future was set before him. His destiny was clearly written.

On the outskirts of town, Sam got behind the wheel of his pickup. He dropped the pickup into gear and tossed a match into the puddle of gas. With a whoosh the gas ignited and fire raced down the center of the highway as Sam floorboarded the pedal.

Less than a quarter of a mile into safety, a great ball of fire leaped into the sky. The force of the explosion actually lifted the rear wheels of the pickup off the concrete for a second. Sam fought the wheel for control, drove on another half mile, then pulled off the road and looked back.

"I don't think that was all gas causing that," he said to Nydia.

He pulled out onto the highway and pointed the nose of the Chevy westward.

Nydia glanced at his rugged features. "Where are we going, Sam, and what is going to happen to us?"

"God only knows," was his truthful reply.