Noah glanced back at the man. His eyes were glazed and the minister looked as though he might come unglued at any moment. Noah cut his eyes to Father Le Moyne, then back to Byron.

  "Byron?" the priest said. "This has been a very trying and traumatic day for you. Why don't you rest for a few moments? Just put your head back, close your eyes, and rest. It will do you good."

  "Don't you dare patronize me, Daniel!" the Methodist snapped back. "I am not a child."

  "I know you're not a child, Byron. And I did not mean to patronize you. I apologize for my tone. It's just that you do not know what you are—what we are—facing in this town today."

  "What happened between my wife and I has nothing to do with black magic. And this Sunday was merely a fluke of some sort," the minister stated flatly, his tone revealing his unyielding attitude on the matter. "I do not believe in the black arts. While there very well may be a gathering—a coven, if you will, in this town, of misguided men and women, I refuse to accept the premise of the Devil's actually being in Logandale. The mere thought is ludicrous."

  Noah cut his eyes to the priest. The writer arched an eyebrow and sighed. "I hope you are an open-minded person, Byron. For you are about to be rudely slapped across the face by reality."

  "Nonsense!"

  "Byron," Father Le Moyne spoke softly. "Are you disputing the written word that in Luke the Devil claims authority over all the world?"

  "Not at all, Daniel. But if I am to take that literally, then I would have to accept the premise of the individual's laying on of hands to heal, as well. Luke 4:40, 1 believe."

  The priest smiled. "Are you saying that Jesus did not heal those with divers diseases?"

  'That is not what I meant, Daniel," the Methodist defended his position. "And you know it."

  "I know, Byron. Byron, we could talk of Satan's seeking man's destruction—in Peter. We could discuss Satan's tempting man to disobedience—Genesis. We—"

  "Yes, Daniel," the minister cut him off. "I know all that. That Satan blinds the unbelievers. That he incites men to evil. That he appears as the Angel of Light. That he delights in misusing the scriptures. I am very much aware of all that. The Good Lord knows you and I have spent many a night debating all that—and more. But I do not believe in demonic possession, black magic, exorcism, witches, warlocks, things that go bump in the night, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster—none of that. I am telling you both, before you race about town, making utter fools of yourselves, that today was only a fluke, and nothing more."

  "Like John, Byron, I feel you are about to witness something that will awe you."

  "Nonsense!"

  FOUR

  Worried about Little Sam and Nydia, plagued by a guilty conscience, and wanting to tell Nydia what had happened the previous night, Sam returned home. He found the note.

  "Gone for a drive!" Sam said, his voice echoing around the empty house. He couldn't believe it. Of all the people in Logandale, Nydia should have known how much danger they were facing. And she calmly goes out for a drive. He shook his head in disgust and mounting anger.

  The dark forces began working at him, silently, invisible, insidiously.

  His anger mounted. "All right," he said hotly. "If that's the way she wants to play the game, then two can play as well as one."

  Sam stood for a moment in the den, looking at the chair where Janet had straddled him, taking his hardness into her hot young depths. He vividly recalled the scene: her firm breasts, jutting nipples, and soft skin. He replayed in his mind her tongue probing his lips and mouth. He recalled her hands on him.

  He shook his head, attempting to clear them of those scenes. He found he could not.

  "Well, it won't happen again," he muttered. "I made a mistake, and I'm going to catch hell for it." He laughed ruefully. "More truth in that than 1 might think."

  Then the dark forces entered his mind. Their good friend at Nelson, Xaviere Flaubert. Sam had picked up vibes from her more than once. He felt she was ready for a brief fling … with him. Hell, why not? She was tall and well-built, with soft, long brown hair, lovely gray eyes. And the new girl in town, Desiree Lemieux. Both young women were gorgeous, beautiful. For a moment, Sam allowed himself the pleasure of mental eroticism, wondering how they would look naked.

  He experienced such a heady feeling of lust he had to clench his big hands into fists and shake himself like a dog to clear his mind.

  The forces slipped away and Sam was left with no conscious memory of what he had been thinking. But it was firmly implanted in his subconscious. And it would return … with a vengeance.

  He went to his gun cabinet and took out his .41 mag, checking to see if it was fully loaded. It was. He slipped a handful of cartridges into his jacket pocket and left the house, carefully locking the front door. He looked in the glove box of his pickup. The .38 Chiefs Special was in leather, fully loaded. Sam, like his father whom he had never known, paid very little attention to current gun laws. Like so many law-abiding Americans, Sam believed he had a right to own one gun, or one hundred guns, if that is what he wished. And it was no business of the government, or of anyone else, how many guns he owned. Like his father, Sam was a conservative in much of his thinking.

  Sam drove aimlessly through the small town, not liking the feeling that slowly crept over him as he drove. The Dark One was here, very close. Sam had no doubts about that. The feeling was too strong. And it was the same feeling he had experienced up in Canada, at Falcon House.

  As he drove the nearly deserted streets, he noticed someone had thrown something through a window of the First Baptist Church, shattering the stained glass.

  "It's begun," Sam muttered. "They have started. The campaign of terror will intensify." And with a sinking feeling, he knew the helpless elderly would be the first to suffer.

  The very young and the very old, Sam mused. Always the ones caught in the middle.

  A teenager—Sam guessed him to be about fifteen—shot looks of hate at Sam as he drove slowly past the boy. A hard feeling of dejavu struck Sam, hitting him with such force he pulled off the road at the first intersection and parked by the curb. He put his forehead on the steering wheel as his mind catapulted back in time.

  Sam viewed three men in an old pickup truck. He knew the town he was seeing. Whitfield. And there was Wade Thomas and a man he didn't know in the cab of the truck. Sam's father was behind the wheel.

  Sam felt his spiritual embodiment pulled closer and closer to the slowly moving pickup. God, but my dad was a big one, Sam thought. Look at the arms and shoulders on him.

  Time gripped the young man in firm hands and held him in silent invisible space. He could hear his father and the other men talking, and could, somehow, know what they were thinking. He was there, flung back in time.

  In front of the drive-in, the county road was blocked by milling teenagers and their cars and trucks. The three men in the pickup truck watched as a young man openly and carelessly caressed the buttocks of a teenage girl. The young man cupped both cheeks of her denim-clad buttocks. The girl giggled obscenely, rubbing against his crotch.

  "The preacher's daughter," Wade said. "Margaret Farben."

  "Yes," Sam replied. He cut his eyes. "Look at that."

  A teenage boy had a teenage girl backed up against a car, her Levi-clad legs spread wide, the boy between them, hunching, crotch to crotch.

  "I believe," Sam said dryly, "if memory serves me correctly, we used to call that dry-fucking."

  "Sam!" Wade was shocked. He knew his preacher was a maverick—everybody knew that. But not this much a maverick.

  "Pardon my bluntness," the minister said. "But what would you call it?"

  Wade shook his head. A light, airy sensation had overtaken him at the sight of all this sexual display. He experienced a slight erection. He could not clear his head.

  "Sam!" Wade shouted.

  "Steady, Wade," the minister cautioned him. "Fight it. All this is being staged for us. It's set up by Satan. Fight it."

  "Let's try to get through them without trouble," Chester said.

  Then that would be Chester Stokes, young Sam thought through time and mist. My father's good friend. Dad had finally been forced to kill Mr. Stokes after the man had become one of the undead. (The Devil's Kiss)

  But how do I know all this? And why is this happening to me? And what is the point—the message here?

  Sam drifted, his mind's eyes absorbing the scenes of years past.

  The young people would not let the men through.

  Their profanity was shocking. They shouted things at the men Wade would not have believed had he not been present.

  Chester merely shook his head in disgust.

  "Mother-fucker!" a boy shouted at the men.

  A girl, perhaps fifteen, at most, leaned against the truck. She winked at Sam. She smelled bad. "Want some pussy, preacher?" She opened her shirt, exposing braless breasts to him.

  Sam averted his eyes, looking straight ahead. Suddenly, as if on some silent cue, the crowd of young people parted. The road was empty, the kids returning to the drive-in. A car, bearing out-of-state plates drove slowly down the road.

  "They know," the minister muttered. "I don't know how they do, but somehow all of them knew that car wasn't local."

  "Sam! Let's stop the car and tell the people what's happening."

  "No," Sam told Wade. "Do you want more innocent people to die?"

  "No," the newspaper owner whispered.

  "Then just calm down. I want to see what the kids do after this car passes."

  When the vehicle passed and was out of sight, the young people once more blocked the road.

  "Silent signals," Sam said. "From the Devil."

  "If we let him," Chester said, "the Devil, 1 mean, or those working with him, they have the power to cloud our minds, right?"

  "That's it," Sam replied.

  Young Sam was returned to the present with shocking force. He looked around him. This was not Whitfield. It was Logandale.

  Sam was bathed in sweat. His hands trembled. He willed them to cease their trembling.

  "Dad," he whispered. "Are you here with me? Now? What are you trying to tell me? Show me? I know it's you, Dad. Tell me!"

  But only silence greeted his questions.

  He dropped the truck into gear and pulled away from the curb. He was a very confused young man. Then his mind became once more clouded as forces took control. When he finally shook the clouds away, he was on the outskirts of town, near the Giddon House and Fox Estate. He slowed and gazed at the ominous-appearing stone structure known as the Giddon House. The stone fence surrounding the place was at least ten feet high, with spikes and barbed wire on top of the fence. The gates were massive, looking to be made of thick steel.

  Sam then experienced the hardest thrust of evil he had felt in three years. And it came from the Giddon House.

  Sam drove on past the ending of the stone fence. He stopped when he saw Desiree Lemieux standing in the driveway of Fox Estate.

  She waved at him and Sam backed up, rolling down the window on the passenger side.

  "Desiree," he said with a smile. "Waiting for a bus?"

  She looked confused for a moment, then laughed as she caught the joke. "No. After that horrible night last night, this day is so beautiful 1 wanted to go for a walk. 1 had just left the house. Where are you going? I'm sorry," she quickly added. "I did not mean to pry into your private affairs."

  I'd like to have an affair with you, Sam thought. And it did not appear odd to him to be thinking in that manner.

  Soft gray eyes touched Sam.

  On the upper level of the mansion, Jimmy Perkins peeked through heavy drapes, watching the mistress of the house talk to Sam Balon. He was not afraid of her telling the young man of his presence. Everything had been arranged, set in motion by the Master.

  "No apologies necessary, Desiree," Sam said. "I was just going for a drive. Would you like to come along?"

  Those gray eyes once again touched him. Very intimately, Sam felt. He had heard all about these French women. He wondered if all or part of it was true.

  "Won't your wife object? I can see you're wearing a wedding band."

  Forces battled inside his head. The darker force soon became victorious. "No," Sam heard himself say. "Nydia won't mind." Hell, why should she? She's out doing … something. Then the gossip came to him. Maybe she's doing it with somebody. The gossip. Where had he heard it? He couldn't recall. But it was something about his wife and that young Le Moyne boy. Sam could not know that Janet had planted the thought in his mind while he was making love to the teenager. Sam had heard all the stories about young Le Moyne and his being so well-endowed that about half the women in Logandale were panting after him. But Jon, or so the story went, was supposed to be so religious.

  Hell, Sam thought, if he's any better endowed than I am, he's doing very well for himself.

  So religious, the ugly thoughts once more entered the mind of the young man. Maybe he covers up the Bible when he fucks.

  Sam hid a chuckle at the obscene thought. The sensing of evil from the Giddon House had left him. He did not know the reason for that was because he was so close to the evil, the good in him was outweighed when the darker forces were worked so intensely.

  "In that case," Desiree said, "I would like to take a ride with you." She got in the truck and Sam pulled back onto the road. She said, "I haven't made any friends here in Logandale yet. It's—rather lonesome." She looked at the big .41 mag on the front seat, between them. She said nothing about it. But her eyes lingered long on the weapon.

  "You won't be lonesome very long," Sam assured her. He smiled "Not after the men around here get a look at you, bet on it."

  Desiree returned the smile. "You're very kind. I thank you for the compliment, Sam. But I don't date very much."

  "Oh?"

  "Yes. I find that men all have the same thing on their mind. I am not opposed to a man/woman relationship, but I would rather be the one doing the choosing. Do you find that odd, Sam?"

  "No, not at all. I can understand that." He cut his eyes at her, thinking: So choose me and let's get it on, honey.

  He shook his head, not understanding his thoughts lately.

  Sam did not see Nydia pulling up to an intersection. He did not see her look of shock at seeing her husband with another woman. He was through the intersection before he pulled his eyes back to the road.

  Nydia watched them drive past, heading out into the country. Black rage filled her, compounded—although Nydia, like Sam, did not realize the powers of the Dark One were responsible for it. Nydia was so angry she was trembling. She did not know who the young woman was, catching only a quick glimpse of her. But from Sam's description of Desiree Lemieux, and since they were coming from the direction of Fox Estate, Nydia was sure it was Desiree.

  "You bastard!" Nydia cursed her husband. She gripped the steering wheel so hard her fingers ached. She forced herself into calmness. "All right," she muttered through clenched teeth. "That's just dandy. If that's the way he wants to behave, that's just fine with me."

  "That's right," that whispering voice entered her mind. "He screws the teenager last night, the Frenchwoman today. And you sit about and mope. It doesn't have to be that way. You know where to go. He is waiting for you. Young, virile, handsome. Think what a coup it would be for you to teach a handsome young man all about sex; all the marvels of a man and a woman."

  Nydia sat frozen at the intersection.

  "Go on," the voice whispered. "Go on."

  The voice faded from her mind. She returned to reality. She remembered nothing of the whispering voice. But her subconscious did. She turned toward town. Toward the street where Jon Le Moyne lived. She followed dark silent directions as her anger grew.

  Janet sat in her room, looking at Little Sam playing on the floor. He looked up at her, an unfamiliar light in his eyes.

  Janet stared at him. Something was odd about the boy. Something she did not understand. He suddenly looked mean, almost vicious.

  As quickly as the strange look appeared on the boy's face, it was gone. The child returned to its play.

  "Odd," Janet murmured. "Very odd. Could it be that he is one of us?"

  But no messages came to her. Nothing whispered in her head. No winds blew, containing any sign from her Master. Nothing.

  She continued watching the little boy at play. She was restless, desiring some action. She wanted a man. Last night had only whetted her appetite. But she had her orders from the Master. And she knew she must obey. She was pacified with the knowledge that soon— very soon, hours, perhaps—she could be satisfied sexually by all the men she desired. Including, hopefully, Sam Balon … again.