“No!” the kid shouted. Tears poured down his face. “Don’t make me see any more!” He slid the pistol to Dhevic’s feet. A trembling hand reached into his pocket and threw Dhevic a wad of cash. Then he brought his face to his hands and cried outright.

  “The FUCK you doin’?” Black Kid yelled.

  “I-I-I just saw my mother…”

  “The fuck you just say?”

  “He made me see my mother!” White Kid wept.

  “What the shit you talkin’ about, man? Your mother’s dead.”

  “No,” Dhevic corrected. “She’s very much alive. Someplace else. Forever.”

  Hitching sobs and gagging, White Kid literally crawled away on his hands and knees.

  Black Kid’s gaze whipped back and forth, between Dhevic and his comrade. His expression kept forming and re-forming, the best he could do to mask his fear and confusion. He looked back at Dhevic, who seemed much more formidable now, and his hand patted his pockets in frustration.

  “No weapons now?” Dhevic’s voice grated. At his feet lay the pistol; he kicked it over to Black Kid. “Before you pick it up, though…look.”

  The kid’s defiant stare began to tremble. Dhevic stepped forward once, twice, baring his gaze down into his opponent’s face. “And what of you? Would you like to see your sister?”

  Their stares locked.

  “Her name is—what? Jerrica? Erika? Something like that? Look. In my eyes. Look and you’ll see her.” His voice ground down like gravel rubbing. “Look and see what they’re doing to her…”

  The kid’s mouth fell open, lips quivering. It appeared that what he saw was making his eyes quiver, too. “No more, no more,” he murmured.

  “It was you who hooked Erika up with the Stoners,” Dhevic said. He said it because he knew it. He knew nothing but everything. “It was part of some deal, wasn’t it? Some kind of gang initiation. Well, that’s what she’s doing now. She’ll die soon, too, and be in the same place as your friend’s mother—but that doesn’t matter. Look. Look.”

  “No. God. Please.”

  “And now Twanna,” Dhevic said. “Your very first girlfriend, right? Right now, she is in the same place as your friend’s mother. You indoctrinated her…very effectively. Look. Look at her now…”

  Black Kid fell to his knees and vomited. Like the other kid, he began to sob from the impact of the catastrophic vision.

  “Those things eating her are called Dentatapeds, a species of Cacodemon from the Lower Orders. They eat her alive and regurgitate her every night, and then start again the next night. It’s part of the entertainment for the Court of Grand Duke de Rais. The entire court rapes her first, of course. Twanna is immortal now. This is how she will spend eternity. Here, let me show you your brother—”

  “NO!” The kid teetered on his knees like a svelte tree in high wind. Eyes bugging, he snatched the gun from the pavement and put it to his head.

  “Don’t do that,” Dhevic said very calmly. “What you have to understand is that you still have a chance, and so does your friend. Keep it all in mind, along with everything you’ve seen tonight.” Then Dhevic gave the kid a selfless smile. “Who knows what the future holds?”

  The kid dropped the gun, stood up, breathing down in his shock. Like the other one, he fumbled in his pocket and threw some cash toward Dhevic. “Please. No more.”

  “Go. Go find your friend and tell him this: ‘O send out your light and your truth. Let them lead me.’”

  Black Kid sobbed as he staggered away.

  Dhevic sighed in relief. This is wearing me out, he thought with a laugh. He looked up and down the motel front; no one had seen the bizarre confrontation. He quickly pocketed the pistol, then scooped the cash off the ground.

  This is a fair shake of cash! he thought.

  Then he thought this: Yep. God works in mysterious ways.

  He stuffed the money in his jacket pocket and walked across the main drag, to get himself to an omelet at Denny’s.

  CHAPTER NINE

  * * *

  (I)

  The night turned sedate, the moon hanging large and low. A comfortable breeze flowed off the bay to knock down some of the mugginess. Crickets could be heard, their chorus making the evening seem to throb. Jane felt tranquilized.

  But still at odds with so many things, so much she didn’t understand.

  She sat out on the back porch, protected from mosquitoes. She let herself be lost in her thoughts, however confusing they may have been. The night breeze sifted through the screens, lifted her hair. She was trying to feel as good as she could under the circumstances.

  She’d already checked on the kids; both Kevin and Jennifer were sound asleep, relieved that her fainting spell hadn’t been serious. She’d checked all the outside doors, made sure they were locked. When her thoughts turned to the calamities of the past few days, she didn’t let them in.

  All but one. What Steve had been saying earlier, just before he’d left: Who else out there is in the cult, too?

  Could it really be a cult? It made too much sense when Steve had been discussing it, but now? The day done, the kids asleep, the doors locked? I just don’t think I can believe it, her naivety dared. Not in an area like this. Not in Danelleton. There were no satanic cults, no ritual murderers in league with one another like some integrated but very discreet cell of terrorists.

  I should just go to bed, she told herself, but when she prepared to do that, a laziness kept her in the porch chair. It was too tranquil right now, too peaceful and serene. She loved that night-breeze against her face, and the feel of the weatherproof carpet against her toes. I could just fall asleep right out here, she realized, and then a stiffer breeze blew in, rustling the backyard trees. It billowed her nightgown, slipped coolly down her warm skin. It felt—again—serene. It made her feel like the night.

  What she didn’t know was that the night was coming for her.

  (II)

  The night was his blood. He took it and lived on it. Technically, this would be called simple subcorporeal channeling. Not so technically: walking-around time for a disembodied spirit.

  The Messenger liked to slip about at night. He liked to see people, to see what they were doing. He liked, too, to get right behind them and puppet them, ooze into their minds till they were essentially one.

  He glided on shadows. He stomped through brushes and brambles but made no sound. Now he was moving around the house, like a shadow himself, like a shadow moving in car lights.

  What is in here? he wondered.

  He stopped and looked into a window, saw a sleeping child, a young boy. The Messenger wanted to slip into the boy’s head and spoil his dreams, make him wake screaming.

  But not tonight…

  I must control myself.

  In the next window, a girl lay asleep, older than the boy. This roused the Messenger. She would be sweet to terrify, to corrupt, to destroy. Innocence was the problem, though, one of the Messenger’s few barriers. He could not machinate her. He knew that if he genuinely exerted himself, he could send her dreaming visions into a tumult, he could drop them right off the precipice into the most foul canyon of the netherworld. He could pollute her dreams to the extent that she would never forget them, never recover. She’d be tainted for life.

  Yes, it would be sweet.

  But not tonight.

  The Messenger smelled something better, just around the corner.

  His blood surged from the smell. He was smelling sweet dreams that lay ripe for ruin. He smelled a woman, a robust woman.

  In the back. Trees shivered in wind. Moonlight lay flat on new-mown grass. The Messenger’s steps left blackened footprints from which tendrils of noxious smoke rose.

  He was looking through a screen.

  At her.

  Jane. Oh, yes. Much fodder there. So much meat for my gullet.

  Bare tan legs sprawled off the slatted chair. The Messenger wanted to lick them all the way up to her fresh sex, his black tongue leaving a sheen of putrid slime. Her breasts gently rose and fell beneath the semi-transparent nightgown. The Messenger wanted to knead them and suck them out. Then he would mount her in the hot muck of his domain and just have her, spend himself in her, and then give her to his mascots.

  Maybe that will happen sometime, he hoped. Who could tell? He hoped that life in this place would bring her down—to eternal life in his place. Then he would have her for his whimsy. Until then, he’d have to be patient, for she wasn’t soiled enough.

  He could machinate her, though. The temptation was overwhelming. His hideous hand reached through the screen, like smoke, and swept through her head. He was killing her dreams at once, showing her the delicious horrors of his own abode—an anticipation, perhaps. An invitation. Would she accept?

  Probably not. Her heart was still strong, her resolve still too pure.

  I can do THIS, though, he thought, chuckling.

  She quivered in the chair, the nightmares he’d bidden infecting her like a virus. When he ran his bodiless hand down her breasts, he felt nothing, but when he placed it over her own hand, they fused together. Now he moved her hand to her breasts and felt the warm, moist skin himself, plucked a nipple hard enough to make her flinch in her sleep. He moved her hand, next, down to her hips, pulled up the hem of the nightgown, then plied her sex, fingers smoothing over the downy private hair.

  He raised his hand to her throat and watched her hand do the same. He squeezed and her fingers constricted. She began to pant and shiver.

  I could make you walk into your son’s room and eviscerate yourself while he watched. I could make you walk into your daughter’s room and snap her neck…

  But not tonight…

  Patience was a virtue, and so was prudence.

  The Messenger was tired. He knew he must conserve his strength. Besides, there was easier fodder out there. The easy ones were always the most fun.

  When he slipped away, the woman named Jane took her hand from her own throat and went lax, gasping. The Messenger was going away now, into some other fissure of the night. But as he passed the boy’s window, something caught his orb-like eye. A glass box, with some sort of tiny creature in it. A reptile.

  The Messenger smiled.

  The boy’s pet, of course.

  The Messenger looked at the lizard and killed it with one phantasmal sigh, and then he was off, away with the breeze and the cricket trills and the night.

  Yes. He was off for easier fodder.

  (III)

  Annabelle felt afire, her silken cinnamon hair dancing in the moonlight which poured in from the bedroom window. A shining, naked whirlwind of flesh and sensation and pure, raw desire. Her hands opened flat against her husband’s heaving chest; her hips squirmed over his, coltish legs clenching. She was riding him as though he were one of the horses of the Apocalypse.

  Her husband’s name was Mark, a good decent man who focused on his wife as his chief priority. He worked for a defense contractor, the presentation director, and he’d be flying to California in the morning, would be away for a week. Annabelle saw it as her own priority, then, to see that he had a memorable send-off.

  The Messenger did, too.

  And as for Annabelle, she was beginning to understand now, that weird flux in her head: her own conscience melting into someone else’s. She wasn’t herself anymore—she was more than herself. She was two, her desires mingling, her nerves being borrowed, for an ultimate coalescence.

  You are part of me, and I am part of you, she heard the words bubble in her ears.

  Not her words.

  Annabelle smiled.

  Her nails were all but digging into Mark’s chest, his own hands sliding in sweat over the curves of her rump and back. His face looked contorted as he staved off his release, grinding his teeth not to climax too fast. All the while, Annabelle bucked and bucked as the Messenger’s shadow-form manipulated her from behind. It was too easy.

  “Baby, oh God,” Mark panted. “You’re…just…the best…”

  Oh, we know, came the shared thought in response.

  Her legs tightened further; his pelvis was vised to hers. Annabelle’s own desire was cresting in what felt like a wave about to break. Her breasts bobbled, her moans flew around the room. Just another minute and she’d be there…

  His thrusts trembled; his face looked absolutely pained, eyes crushed shut.

  “Oh, baby, I can’t hold off any—”

  Mark’s climax released, and his arms snaked around her back, pulled her chest to his during the last spasms. Then he went lax in an instant, letting out the longest sigh…

  “Honey, I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it. It’s just that you turn me on so much I can’t control myself.”

  Annabelle leaned up, her smile full of warmth and love. Her hand stroked his face. “That’s okay, dear. It was wonderful for me, too,” she consoled him, and then—

  CHUNK!

  She rammed the point of the hunting knife straight down into his heart.

  “Yeah, wonderful. In a pig’s ass,” she finished.

  She’d placed the oversized Bowie knife under the pillow before they’d started, and had caught him at the perfect moment of distraction. She remained there, straddling him. Now her true ecstasy came to light, before the blooming eyes of her companion. She’d plunged the knife deep; she kept her hands on its handle and could feel it thumping with the final beats of his heart. He’d never even had time to cry out.

  Beautiful, the Messenger thought.

  A few loops of blood had pumped up, spattering her. Blood dripped off the tingling pinpoints of her nipples. It felt delicious, but what excited her even more was that this was just the beginning.

  Eventually she got up, padded absently about the room, bare feet sinking into plush carpet. Had she ever felt this happy?

  You did very well. I’m proud of you. Let’s go over here now…

  The seductive force that flowed through her limbs walked her over to the large, framed mirror over the dresser. She could see her dappled skin in the darkness tinged by moonlight. She stared, stared harder, until…

  I can see you, she thought.

  I know, and I can see you.

  It took a few moments for her eyes to adjust but soon she could see the figure standing right behind her. No details at all, and scarcely any features save for basic shape.

  Tall, wide shouldered, but gaunt somehow. A head larger than the proportion and oddly angled. It reminded Annabelle of a vise.

  And something… What were they? Two protrudements seemed to curve outward from the forehead, like horns.

  Yes, Annabelle. You’re all mine. Let me luxuriate in you.

  When Annabelle’s hands raised, she could see that it was actually the Messenger’s hands raising them. He brought them around, then began to caress her, to adore the feel of her flesh and the curves of her breasts with her own hands.

  Then he brought the hands lower where they tended to her in the special ways that only she could know.

  But the Messenger knew, too.

  Later, when his bliss was done, she yanked the Bowie knife out of her husband’s chest and began to finish the message.

  CHAPTER TEN

  * * *

  (I)

  Bacon sizzled, eggs over easy sputtering in the aromatic pan. Bread was plunged into the toaster, and fresh orange juice was poured.

  Please, Jane thought to the fates, let this be a normal, perfectly dull day. She milled about the kitchen in a pink terry robe, wearing fluffy bunny slippers that the kids had gotten her for a past Mother’s Day. The kids, pajama-clad, busied themselves too, clanking plates out of the cupboard and setting the table. The sun blared in through the front window, reinforcing Jane’s hope that this just be the start of a regular day with no mishaps, fainting spells, or tragedies. Something didn’t feel right, though.

  “Are you feeling better today, Mom?” Jennifer asked, arranging the silverware.

  Kevin clumsily laid out the patterned placemats. “Yeah, Mom. We were worried yesterday.”

  “I’m feeling a whole lot better,” she replied. “Had a whopper of a headache after Dr. Mitchell left, but I’m great now.” She watched a lump of butter melt in a big non-stick pan. “And now that we don’t have to worry about that anymore, how do you want your eggs?”

  “Scrambled, please,” Jennifer requested.

  “Sunny-side down!” Kevin jumped in. “I don’t want ’em runny! Yuck!”

  “Scrambled and sunny-side down,” Jane acknowledged. “Coming right up.”

  Kevin rushed out of the room, assuring, “Be right back!” while Jennifer sat at the table.

  “Oh, wow, I just remembered, Mom. Last night I dreamed I was riding a unicorn through this big sunny field full of flowers.”

  “Sounds wonderful.”

  “What did you dream?”

  Jane forced her thought. She knew she dreamed quite a bit but often lost the memory shortly after awakening. Did I? she wondered over the eggs. She stood still, spatula in hand. Then something—an image, a memory, something very dark—began to bother her. “Yes, honey, I-I think I did dream last night…”

  “What did you dream about?”

  More images formed in the back of her mind, then some memories of sensations. The sensations were exciting yet unpleasant at the same time. Then her stomach began to turn. She stood there, motionless, staring at the hood over the stove.

  “Mom?”

  “My dreams weren’t very good,” Jane finally said. Better that than the truth. What she recalled was terrifying. She’d felt smothered. Some other consciousness had been inside of her own mind, prowling about at will. The consciousness seemed entirely bodiless so how had it been able to touch her? Something or someone had been touching her, erotically at first but then violently. The impact of those two opposite notions made her stomach turn even more. I dreamed that I was being choked, for God’s sake, she recalled. I was being caressed and then choked. Someone was trying to strangle me.