“No, but you can cross from here to there,” a voice informed from behind.

  Hands latched on to him; Dhevic couldn’t jerk loose. The striker fell to the basement floor and rolled off. Chuckling and shrieks of glee resounded about his head. Dhevic was turned in place, forced to glimpse his attackers: all human, all dead. Martin Parkins, Marlene Troy, Sarah Willoughby, Carlton Spence, and others he didn’t know. Inhuman traits had infused into their features—this close to the netherworld—tiny horns sticking out from their foreheads, grins full of fangs. The clawed hands gripped Dhevic as surely as chains.

  Sarah and Marlene and several other women were nude, breasts gorged from excitement, nipples erect. As the men held Dhevic upright, the women’s hands caroused at Dhevic’s groin.

  “Get his pants off,” Sarah urged.

  “Let’s get it out,” Marlene panted. “I want to bite it off.”

  “Save that for the Spermatademons,” Carlton Spence ordered, gesturing with his eyes the eager things that waited just across the threshold.

  Dhevic was turned about again; a hand clenched in his hair pushed his face out, a half-inch away from the plane. Beyond, the pallid creatures slavered for him, some male, some female, some both. When Dhevic’s head and shoulders were pushed fully through, bone-thin arms wrapped round his neck and putty-like lips sucked onto his. The cold demonic tongue pushed through his teeth then dropped like a live snake to bottom of his belly.

  More claws grabbed him, then, and pulled him all the way through.

  He was lain out on steaming earth, his shirt pulled open, evil fingernails scratching crimson threads into his flesh, forming a campanulation…

  The figures huddled around him, intently kneeling. When his genitals were caressed through his slacks, they withered from the revulsion. The tongue was retracted from his gut and then a penis like a foot-long maggot was thrust before his face. Dhevic squirmed.

  Does a child of God go to Heaven if he dies in Hell? he wondered. He closed his eyes, to shut out the grinning, primeval faces above him, and then he muttered the first intercession to come to mind, from The Gospel According to John…

  “‘God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. There is no fear…’”

  The sudden cannonade of shrieks threatened to implode his eardrums. The monstrous hands flew off him, the equally monstrous bodies crawling away on their knees in total horror. Some preferred to rip out their own throats and hearts rather than hear holy words in the most unholy of places. Others crawled away, vomiting black blood.

  Dhevic stood up and smiled at them, held out his hands. “I live to love and serve the Lord on High. I am His unworthy servant forever.”

  Groans and bellows, like surf, rose up. A final prayer finished them, from Psalms: “‘But truly God has listened; He has given heed to the words of my prayer.’”

  The creatures that hadn’t killed themselves all died then, at those final words, their bellies exploding, their eyes shooting out.

  Dhevic could feel his aura beaming bright around his head, when he stepped back through the Rive.

  Then the Rive closed.

  Dhevic looked around, and—

  “Yeah, I found it in the basement, Jane,” Steve was explaining, stepping closer. “That’s where I met Doreen Fletcher, by the way. She came down to bring up some vending supplies. Cute little thing, huh? Raping her and cutting her throat was fun, but it was even more fun doing it in Dhevic’s motel, so you’d think he was part of it, and so we had dead-on evidence against him. We didn’t even know where Dhevic was staying until the state police gave us a line on his check card.”

  “So Dhevic isn’t part of this?” Jane said, lower lip trembling.

  “No. His only Lord and Master is God, and I’m going to send him to meet God very soon.”

  “And now you’re in the cult.”

  “It’s not a cult.” He kept stepping closer. “It’s a congregation, Jane, a joyous one.”

  “And you’re going to give me a choice, right? I can join your congregation, or die?”

  “Unfortunately…no. The Messenger has already made his mind up. For his message, Jane, his message to the world.”

  “What’s the message?”

  “Atrocity, abomination, everything in the human heart that’s black and wrong and negative. Anything that exists as an antithesis to God. Simple. And tonight, you will help serve the Messenger. You will be part of his next message.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yeah. When I strangle you in front of your kids, and then strangle your kids.”

  —Martin, Carlton, Marlene, Sarah, and everyone else lay dead. Foul steam rose off the askew bodies. Dhevic expected an onslaught when he stepped back through the Rive, but—

  My prayer, he realized. Just words, but words charged by faith. They worked in both worlds.

  So it was over?

  He picked up the striker from the floor, hefted it in his hand. Then he gathered his things and left the building. As he stalked back through the woods to his truck, the familiar pinpoints of pain flared at his temples. Behind his closed eyes he saw crackle-like fringes of bright white, and in his head came the rising sound of something like rusty hinges—

  And he saw one last thing.

  It seemed as though Jane had stopped breathing completely, as she watched Steve step closer. There was only one light on in the kitchen, over the range; the dimness appeared to be merging with something—something immediately behind Steve.

  A shadow?

  No, it’s…

  But what was it?

  Something was tainting Steve’s features—perhaps it was Jane’s fear, or so many powers of suggestion. She remembered little of what Dhevic had told her, some aspect of possession, something called machination. Was Steve really being manipulated by a bodiless spirit? Some entity that merged its mind and borrowed the possessee’s flesh?

  Could that really be happening?

  It really is, she knew now. Dhevic wasn’t lying about any of this…

  “Oh, I forgot to show you this, didn’t I?” Steve said next, the form deepening behind him. He opened a closet to the side, one with a narrow door where one might expect an ironing board. There was an ironing board inside, all right, along with a dead body—or, as Jane discerned more clearly, pieces of a dead body. Severed arms and legs lay about the torso. There was no blood, and the wounds looked blackened. “Pretty good work, huh?” Steve said. “I did the job with a welding torch, cut her up with the flame while she was still alive.”

  The sight dizzied Jane. A once-pretty blond woman she’d seen before. Over her bare breasts, florid third-degree burns formed the campanulation of Aldezhor.

  “She’s not my sister, by the way. She’s a stripper from St. Pete I was fucking.”

  Jane jerked her gaze away, feeling as though she were standing on a precipice.

  When Steve spread his hands out to explain further, so did the shadow-boned thing behind him.

  “For eons upon eons, the Messenger has walked the Earth through us. We fulfill his eternal mission: to deliver the message of Hell unto God’s domain. It never ends, Jane. It goes on forever.”

  The shadow’s hands were on Steve’s hands now, urging them into a pocket, to withdraw a stout folding knife.

  “We’re going to take you back to your house, force your children to watch as we kill you. Then we’ll kill Jennifer, while Kevin watches. Then we’ll kill Kevin. We will spread the message. But first…”

  There was nowhere Jane could go; she was jammed in the corner. Fighting him would be useless—her heart was faltering, and she felt about to pass out. He was right up next to her now, and behind him Jane could see the other face: smoke-like, wavering in form, but she could see its bottomless eyes, its great horns, and the wanton grin.

  “…before we do that, the Messenger wants to feel you, he wants to feel all the pleasures of your body. And we’re going to do that right now, right here—” He held up the knife— “after I cut my lord’s emblem into your skin.”

  Jane brought her hands to her face with a shriek, shut her eyes and went rigid. Steve tore open her blouse, cut off her bra—

  “Behold the Messenger, Jane,” flowed a pitch-black voice that was only partly Steve’s. “The arrival of the Messenger is at hand—”

  He pressed her back against the wall, brought the tip of the knife to her chest, and—

  BAM!

  The window seemed to shatter before she even heard the shot. Jane fainted on the spot, but before she lost consciousness completely, she saw half-a-dozen figures scrambling about the room: police.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  * * *

  (I)

  Landslides of nightmares shocked her awake. She was in a police car, being raced somewhere in the night, red and blue lights pulsing above her. The cop driving was a sergeant named Stanton, whom she’d seen around.

  Jane’s mind felt wiped clean.

  “What happened?” she murmured, but then another landslide spilled into her mind and she remembered.

  “Steve was shot?”

  “Yeah,” Stanton said. “I still can’t believe it. I guess he was part of this cult thing all along. It’s crazy.”

  Aldezhor, the name creaked in her ears.

  The Messenger.

  “How did the police know what he was doing?”

  “Anonymous tip. We traced the call. Guess where it came from?”

  Jane shook her head, having no idea.

  “The BellSouth payphone nearest the West Branch post office.”

  Jane felt too fractured to try to make sense of it.

  “So we sent every cop on the shift to his house. Through the window one of our guys saw him coming at you with the knife, so that was all she wrote.”

  She shuddered, recalling the impact and concussion of the shot.

  “Where are we going now?” she asked.

  “The hospital. The doctor wants to look at you, make sure you’re all right. You could be in shock, plus you fell pretty hard.”

  “No!” she blurted. “I’m fine. I need you to take me to my house! I have to make sure my kids are all right!”

  “No can do,” Stanton said. “I have my orders. First the hospital, then you gotta come in to make a statement.”

  “To hell with that!” she shouted, head throbbing. “Take me to my kids,” and that’s when she noticed that Stanton turned left at the next corner. The sign read HOSPITAL, NEXT RIGHT, and then two hands behind her grabbed her hair and dragged her into the back seat. Jane screamed like screeching brakes.

  “Christ, that’s annoying,” a voice said. “Shut her up, will ya?”

  Martin Parkins placed one rotting palm across her lips, pressed down hard, then squeezed her throat till her eyes bulged. More weight arranged itself over her; her blouse was pulled open, her breasts mauled.

  “Sarah and Marlene at her house?” the voice asked.

  “Yeah, they’re tying up the kids, getting them ready—”

  Jane’s heart felt like a grenade whose pin had just been pulled.

  “Good. I’m gonna start cutting her now, been itching to put the Messenger’s mark on these tits. We won’t rape her till we get back to her house—I want the kids to see that, too.”

  “I get a piece, don’t I?”

  A laugh. “Martin, your dick rotted off days ago.”

  “What about me?” Stanton asked over his shoulder.

  “After me, partner. I get first crack.”

  Jane felt certain she was dying; she wished she would die. An insane glance forward showed her the shadow-shape machinating Stanton’s hands on the steering wheel, then another glance directly upward showed her Steve, with a bullet hole in his head, grinning down, and that’s when he brought the knife-tip to her bare chest and began to carve in the campanulation—

  “—we are, Ms. Ryan.”

  Jane arched her back in the front seat of the police car, gasping for air as though she’d just been saved from drowning.

  “Jesus, what’s wrong?”

  It was Stanton, next to her, looking very concerned. “Sounded like you were having a whopper of a nightmare.”

  Her eyes darted, frantic. “Where are we?”

  “Your house. That’s where you said you wanted to go.”

  Jane rushed out of the car, ran up her drive, and swung open the front door.

  “Hi, Mom!”

  “Hi, Mom!”

  Jane nearly fainted again, from relief. Kevin and Jennifer sat contentedly on the couch, watching poodles jump rope on Animal Planet.

  Both rushed up to her, hugging her. “The police lady said she wasn’t sure when you’d be home,” Jennifer told her, and then Jane saw the female officer sitting in a chair next to the couch.

  “They were good as gold, Ms. Ryan,” the officer said. “Everything’s fine. I was about to get them off to bed—”

  “Not yet, Mom!” Kevin pleaded.

  “Yeah, Mom, can we at least stay up and watch the rest of Animal Planet?”

  Her arms trembled around their shoulders. She wanted to cry and laugh and shriek with joy at the same time.

  “Call us if you need anything, Ms. Ryan,” the female officer said. “I’ll get a ride back with Stanton.”

  “Thank you,” Jane sighed.

  “Good night.”

  The officer left, after which Jennifer and Kevin practically dragged her to the couch. They don’t know about anything that happened tonight, she realized, with even more gratitude.

  “Mom, can we make popcorn?” Kevin asked.

  “Sure.”

  “I’m gonna make it,” Jennifer insisted. “Kevin always does the butter wrong in the microwave—”

  “I do not!”

  “Both of you make it,” Jane suggested.

  “Good idea!” and then the kids were off to the kitchen.

  Just when the comforting silence settled over her, the phone blared. Jane gasped again, clutching her chest. Jesus! If I don’t have a heart attack today, I never will…

  She looked at the phone. Steve, came the most macabre thought. The undertow of her nightmare in the patrol car was seeping back. But, no, it couldn’t be Steve. He was dead.

  She let it ring several more times before summoning the courage to answer it.

  “Hello?”

  “I’m glad you’re safe…”

  Jane recognized the accent at once. “Professor Dhevic…”

  “I called the police when I was finished at the post office—”

  “How did you know what was happening?” she asked, astonished.

  When he didn’t reply, she felt foolish. He simply knew, she realized at once. “Sorry. Dumb question. But thank you. You saved my life.”

  “It was never actually in jeopardy.” Did he chuckle? “Trust me.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you,” she said next. “I thought you were one of them.”

  “That’s understandable, considering what Chief Higgins planted in my motel. But none of that matters now. It’s over. And you and your children are safe.”

  Yes, she finally realized. They were. “What about you? Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Where do you go now? More TV documentaries?”

  Dhevic groaned over the line. “Only when my benefactors pay me late.”

  She paused. “Who exactly are your benefactors, Professor?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “They’ll be very pleased when they next hear from me. But I’ll be leaving town now, to go somewhere else.”

  “Did you find what you were looking for?”

  “Yes.”

  Another pause. She didn’t know what to say to this man who’d just saved her life.

  “So I’m off now, I’m off for the next one. I just wanted to say goodbye.”

  She couldn’t fully understand what he meant. “Goodbye, Professor.”

  “I’m not a very proficient ‘holy roller,’ Ms. Ryan, but please take this quote from the Book of Mark to heart. ‘Your faith has made you well.’ Think about that.”

  Jane kept the phone to her ear even after the dial tone sounded. Has it? she wondered. Has my faith really made me well?

  She supposed she’d find out in time.

  But one thing puzzled her. I wonder what he meant when he said, I’m off for the next one?

  The next what?

  Jane hung up the phone.

  (II)

  Dhevic hung up the phone.

  The new motel was little better than the first, but he wasn’t complaining. His quest was over for now. His mind felt blissfully quiet—no inklings, not a single presage. He let out a great sigh in his chair behind the little desk topped by a Gideon’s Bible. In the briefcase by his feet rested the striker, inert now, harmless against his aura and his faith. Tomorrow his benefactors would meet him at the Tampa airport and would take the striker to Security Depository of the Swiss Guards, at the Vatican, and place it in the locked vault for such relics.

  He winced when he sipped his carry-out coffee from the motel lobby. Behind him, the television babbled innocuously; Dhevic wasn’t much for TV, but he liked to have the set on for the welcome distraction. But then he heard:

  “Welcome to another edition of Satanism and Witchcraft, America’s premier presentation on the occult. Tonight’s guests are master psychic Jeremy Hoty; the lucid-dreaming priest, Father Jason Judd; and the world-renown clairvoyant, Professor Alexander Dhevic—”

  Dhevic yanked the television cord out of the wall.

  Oh, the things we do for money, he thought.

  It had been a relatively short quest this time, yet he felt worn out. Nothing surprised him anymore. He knew, though, that he’d sleep better than he had in a long while. He’d sleep without dreams and without visions.

  The prospect enthused him.

  His folder lay on the desk, the anonymous engraving of the Cymbellum Eosphorus. He looked down at it with a touch of vertigo, and a cringe in his belly. All done for tonight, he concluded and got ready for bed. Five down and one to go…

  Another polycarbonate plate lay under the first, supposedly from the same book; below the frame, its title could be seen: Metallurgous de Aldezhor, or the Metalworks of Aldezhor. Before a fiery furnace, demonic ironsmiths forged and hammered star-ended bell-strikers on mammoth anvils. There were exactly six such strikers being forged.