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  With a prayer on his lips, Chuck began emptying the gas can into the cottage and onto the creature. Carl lit some dry twigs and grass and tossed the flames into the cottage.

  When the gasoline fumes ignited, the searing whooshing sound knocked all three of them to the ground as the roof lifted off the cottage and the windows were blown out.

  A horrible screaming ripped the burning air as the creature’s flesh began bubbling and it sought escape from the flames.

  Carl ejected the empty clip from his 9-mm and slapped in a fresh one. The creature appeared in the doorway, a burning, shrieking child of Hell. Carl drove it back with gunfire.

  Dee reloaded her 35-mm camera and continued to take pictures as the heat grew more intense, forcing them further back from the cottage, which was now completely engulfed in flames.

  Gary had raced to the house; he returned with a rifle in his hands. “I’ll take the back,” he yelled to Carl. “Case it tries to get out that way.”

  “Right there!” Carl pointed out a spot. “Shoot from an angle so you won’t hit us.”

  The boy took up position.

  But the fire had taken its toll. The devil-child lay on the burning floor and bleated out what was left of its unnatural and evil-born life. The roof finally collapsed, ending the now-all-too-human whimpering that was beginning to grate on the nerves of those outside the inferno.

  Carl stretched out garden hoses and they all wet down the area around the cottage, to contain any fire in case the flames tried to spread. After only a few minutes, there was nothing left except smoking embers and still-intense heat. The body of Linda could be seen clearly, kneeling strangely on her face and knees amid the rubble, the handcuffs still in place around her bony white wrists.

  Father Chuck Vincent fell to his knees and began praying.

  Carl began reloading clips from a box of shells he got from his car.

  Gary and Janet stood side by side, awe and fright on their faces.

  Carl took the camera from Dee. He looked at Chuck, who had risen to his feet. “Chuck, stay here until I get back, will you?”

  “Of course,” the priest replied, his voice shaky. “Where are you going?”

  “To town. I want Daly to get this film developed as soon as possible.” He pointed to the rubble that was once the guest cottage. “Watch this. I don’t want anything rising out of it. I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

  Janet pointed a shaky finger at the smoking ruins. “Who got her pregnant? And what if there are more of them—like me?” She looked at Carl.

  “Why would you think such a thing?” Dee asked.

  “I got to think it, ’cause it may be true. Does the Devil impregnate women, or was it done by a devil-worshipper—a coven member? And if that’s the case, how many more like her are there?”

  “Exorcise her,” Carl said, looking at Chuck.

  “Carl, I don’t know if I can!” the priest protested. “I can counsel people on fidelity and the value of the family; I can help with depression and alcoholism and other earthly matters. Priests nowadays don’t exorcise people. At least none that I know of.”

  “You said you knew the procedure.”

  “Well . . . yes. I do. But . . .”

  “No buts, Father. Dee can help you, or if you’d rather wait until I get back, I’ll help. I’ve seen it done several times before.”

  The priest nodded his head wearily. “All right, Carl. I’ll try. I’ll try to remember what I was taught. We’ll do it when you get back.”

  “Fine.”

  “No!” Janet said. “I won’t have that monster tearing my body apart. I saw what happened to Linda. I’ll kill myself first. Just leave me alone. When you get back, take me to the clinic and let a doctor look at me. If I’m pregnant, I’ll deal with it myself. That’s it, Carl. I mean it.”

  Gary touched her arm. “Janet . . .”

  She jerked away. “Leave me alone, Gary. I got to deal with this myself.”

  Carl held out his hand. “Come on, Janet. I’ll take you in now.” He looked at the others. “Hold the fort down, people.” He walked away, Janet by his side.

  “When this is over,” Chuck said, “I’m going to write a long letter to my professors at the seminary. I’m going to tell them to get off their stuffy asses and start teaching about Satan. For he is very real.”

  * * *

  Daly sent a plainclothes patrolman with the film to state police headquarters to be developed. Carl looked in on the creature he had shot and at what had been the teenage girl. Both were conscious, but just barely, the doctors having injected them with massive amounts of tranquilizers. Carl told them all of what Linda had said, and then Doctor Bartlett took Janet to be examined.

  Jim pulled Carl to one side. “Trouble, Carl. Harry Harrison left the office about three hours ago and hasn’t been heard from since. Mike tossed his house and came up with all sorts of devil-worship material and a lot of signs of heavy drug use.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me; he’s the type. And there have been studies about the type of people who are most easily led into covens. Harry’s a Type A. He was probably using drugs before he got involved with the coven. Any idea what he might be up to?”

  “One,” the chief deputy said glumly. “To kill people.”

  “Any particular person in mind?”

  “Yeah. Me! I’ve stayed on Harry’s butt ever since he hung on a badge. But that would be just one of the reasons. Linda said the plan was to kill the town’s leaders first, then destroy the town. Then they were going to take a few of the upper-level coven members and move out into the county, then on to other towns, right?”

  “That’s what she said. She was talking so fast it was difficult to grasp everything that came out of her mouth.”

  Jim nodded. “Then it stands to reason I’d be on that hit list. They would know that I’d taken over the runnin’ of the department. And everybody with any sense knows Sheriff Rodale is about as competent as a pig tootin’ on a bugle. His wife called about an hour ago. Rodale’s passed out dead drunk in a chair. Max Bancroft would be on the list. The city P.D. would nearabout fall apart without Max. The mayor and the members of the city council and all the preachers would be on the list. The doctors would surely be on the list. And a whole bunch of other civic and county leaders. It don’t surprise me that Oscar MacGuire is part of this devil thing. That’s why the DA was constantly at odds with this department; and until it’s proved otherwise, I ain’t gonna trust nobody from his office neither.”

  The phone rang and a nurse called out that it was for Jim. The chief deputy listened, his face hard. He hung up and shook his head, walking back to Carl. “A slut that lives on the edge of town and one of her lovers have been found dead. By the poor guy that married her. A unit is out there now. They was tore all to pieces by some sort of animals.”

  “Cats,” Carl said. “I saw the same thing in Ruger. Caution your people that not all cats are involved in this thing. Probably a very low percentage of them are taking orders from Anya and Pet. There’ll be cats fighting cats before this is over.”

  “Is it gonna be over, Carl?” Jim asked, a dubious note in his voice.

  “It’ll be over, Jim. But it’s going to be a bloody bitch before the end comes.”

  “You want to ride out to the slut’s house?”

  Carl nodded his head, picking up on the disapproval in the chief deputy’s voice. And he knew that Jim would certainly be on the hit list, for Jim was a straight and moral man, highly disapproving of anything that went against the laws of God. A traditionalist in an era of permissiveness.

  “Let’s go.”

  Carl sat in the back seat with Tolson, Daly in the front with Jim. They had just cleared the department’s parking area when Jim’s radio squawked. “Go to alternate frequency, R-2.”

  Jim changed to the tach frequency and lifted his mike. “Go ahead.”

  “Mike reports those crazy Stinson boys flagged him down about ten minutes ago, Chief. Ho
llerin’ and carryin’ on about their daddy havin’ changed into a monster-man and their momma being killed. Mike says that even Keith was makin’ sense for a change.”

  Jim looked at the speaker as if he couldn’t believe his ears. “God works in strange and mysterious ways,” Jim muttered. “I ain’t never knowed Keith Stinson when he made sense about anything.” He keyed his mike. “Tell Mike to bring them in, John.”

  “Ten-four, Chief.”

  * * *

  The husband was an emotional wreck and the bedroom looked like someone had used it to butcher hogs. Blood had splattered the walls and bits of flesh and guts covered the floor.

  “That damn no-good Paul Nunnery,” Jim said through tight lips. “He carried his brains in his dick. I always knowed he’d come to a bad end.”

  “Burn the bodies, Jim,” Carl said.

  But the chief deputy shook his head. “I can’t do that, boy. The law says there’s got to be an autopsy.”

  “Jim, toss the law books out the window. Toss every rule and regulation and moral code in the garbage pile. There is no place for them in this situation.”

  “What a terrible tragedy,” the DA’s voice boomed from the doorway. “These fine, decent people.”

  “With one exception,” Jim muttered. “You can shoot him.”

  “Who is that?”

  “Oscar MacGuire, the DA.”

  “Now you’re getting the picture, Jim.”

  “You know I can’t do that, Carl. As much as I’d like to. I was only runnin’ my mouth.”

  “I’ll give you twenty-four hours, Jim. Then you’ll change your mind.”

  “I pray God you’re wrong.”

  “I’m not.” Carl walked out of the house to stand on the front porch. A tomcat sat on the porch railing, looking at him through arrogant and mocking yellow eyes.

  “You son of a bitch,” Carl whispered.

  The cat purred and scratched at the railing, then snarled and hissed, showing Carl its teeth.

  Chapter 21

  Anya and Pet rested deep in the woods, near a slime-covered stinking pool of a greenish-yellowish liquid that strongly resembled pus oozing from an infected wound. The pool bubbled and gurgled and spewed forth noxious odors. Both knew the time was very close for the Old Ones to surface. It was now down to a matter of hours. And then the march toward victory could begin.

  Anya and Pet exchanged message-glances, communication without words. A new element had been added, but neither of them knew exactly what it was or what it meant, only that this added development was on the side of the opposition. Neither knew how strong it was, or how it might affect them, only that it was present . . . in some form or another.

  They also knew that a child of theirs was dead, destroyed at the hands of that damnable Christian puke Carl Garrett.

  He had to be killed. Those who had the courage to approach and face the twin horrors of Anya and Pet had told them plans were being formulated to do away with Carl Garrett.

  But as Anya silently observed, the young Garrett had a lot of his father in him, and doing away with him might prove to be a very difficult task . . . if not an impossible one.

  Was there a way to sidestep the young man? Anya didn’t know, but she was giving that a lot of thought.

  The bubbling pool emitted a long stinking fart. The Old Ones were inching closer, the long climb from their ancient entombment deep in the bowels of the earth was nearly over. Their freedom would be soon. Very soon.

  * * *

  “I thought you said Keith was makin’ sense,” Jim said, turning to Mike.

  “Well, he was. Sort of,” the young deputy replied. “He must have popped some pills on the way in. He’s sure off his nut now.”

  Jim grabbed Keith and shook him. “Boy!” he shouted. “Will you put your brain in gear before you put your mouth in motion?”

  “He’s done changed into a monster!” Keith said, managing to string a few intelligible words together and get them out of his mouth in a manner that could be understood—which was no small feat for Keith Stinson.

  “Who’s changed into a monster?” Jim asked.

  “Daddy!”

  “Where is he?”

  “Up yonder on the ridges.”

  “Damn, boy, we got hundreds of miles of ridges in this county—what ridges?”

  But Keith had drifted over into marshmallow land again. He picked a plastic flower from a pot in the office and sniffed at it.

  Jim shook his head in disgust.

  “ ’Bout four or five miles from the home place, Mister Hunt,” Bullfrog said. “And Keith ain’t fibbin’ ’bout this. I seen Daddy with my own eyes.” He waved his hand at his brother. “We all seen him. He’s changed into something awful.”

  Jim glanced out an office window. Not enough hours of daylight left to risk a search. No man among them wanted to be caught out on those lonely wooded ridges after dark, and that included Jim Hunt.

  “You boys plannin’ on goin’ back home for the night?” Jim asked.

  “Hale, no!” Bubba hollered. “They’s hobgobblins and hoodoos and spirit-people and the like up yonder.”

  “Then go get a room at the motel and stay out of trouble,” Jim told the quartet. He looked at Keith. The fool had stuck the plastic flower behind one ear and was grinning like an idiot. “Just . . . leave,” Jim said. The chief deputy could not for the life of him understand why people would voluntarily choose to destroy themselves with drugs. That was one of life’s many great mysteries to the man.

  A deputy stilled the ringing telephone. “For you, Mister Garrett.”

  Doctor Bartlett said, “Janet is pregnant, Carl. The X-rays show a very fast-growing fetus. It ... ah, doesn’t appear to be human.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “Here. I sedated her and she’s sleeping.”

  “How did she take the news?”

  “Stoically.”

  “Can you keep her sedated?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you abort the fetus?”

  “Impossible. None of us here have ever seen a fetus like it. It is literally, and I use that in the strongest sense, a part of her. To abort would be to kill the mother.”

  “So would the birth, Doctor.”

  “So you told me.”

  “Well?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’ll be over in a little while, Doctor. See you then.”

  The dispatcher hollered out of the radio room. “Harry’s been spotted, Chief. He’s highballin’ it out toward the Conners house. In the county unit.”

  A deputy answered the ringing phone and listened for a moment. “Charles Jennings is dead, Chief. Somebody shot him leaving his office just about two minutes ago.”

  “Who is Charles Jennings?” Carl asked.

  “One of the town council members. John, bump Max and tell him what’s going down. Ask him to cease all patrolling and assign officers to protect as many people as possible. You have the list, get to it.” He turned as Carl walked toward a phone. “Where are you going, Carl?”

  “Back out to Dee’s.”

  “You be careful. Harry’s probably full of dope and unstable.”

  Carl nodded and punched out Dee’s number. He told her to arm herself and stay inside. He hung up and walked out the door.

  In his car, he made certain a round was chambered in his 9-mm before he cranked up and drove toward the A-frame. Jim had told him that Harry was a speed freak, and Carl knew that speed-heads were among the most dangerous to deal with, being irrational and unpredictable, with oftentimes violent mood swings.

  Carl felt—wrongly, part of him hoped—that tonight was going to blow the lid off Reeves County. Every fiber in his being told him the old gods were going to surface very soon, and he remembered only too well what had happened in Ruger when they did.

  He checked his rearview mirror. A county unit was right behind him. He could make out Mike’s strained face in the mirror. Jim wanted Harry Harrison taken a
live. Law and order right down to the wire. Carl smiled, but it was not a pleasant curving of the lips. Law and order was just about to go out the window in Reeves County.

  * * *

  “Is that him?” Sonya asked, as Jesse made an illegal U-turn and followed Mike’s unit, which was following Carl.

  “That’s him, Sonya. The coven-buster himself. I’ve been trying to do a feature story on him for over a year, but Carl Garrett doesn’t grant interviews and he’s constantly changing his address. He’s a hard man to keep up with.”

  “It all fits, Jesse. Everything is coming together.” She consulted a small notepad. Linda Crowley is from Ruger County. She is suspected of being a coven leader in the statewide network of cells. Right?”

  Jesse nodded his head. “Right. I’ve been following this devil-worship angle for over a year. She’s a bigwig in the operation.”

  “She was in the house when Ralph Geason is supposed to have raped her and assaulted his wife and then run off the other night, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Carl Garrett was seen by a neighbor leaving the back of the Geason house today. He had a gun in his hand.”

  “Right.”

  “Some kind of big secret goings-on over at Doctor Calvin Bartlett’s office; ambulances seen coming and going and the clinic has been emptied of patients and is under guard. Undercover state pigs are in town. People are being murdered all over the place.” She chuckled. “It’s big, Jesse. Real big. And you and me, we have the story all to ourselves.”

  “Share a byline?”

  “You betcha, Jesse. This is our ticket up from coach to first class. From sandwiches to caviar. We’re on our way, baby!”

  “You better leave Carl Garrett alone, Sonya.”

  “Hell with that, Jesse. A pig is a pig, whether he’s public or private. I hate cops!” She looked up as something stepped between the county unit and Jesse’s car. “Look out!” she screamed, just as Mike’s unit rounded a curve and was gone from sight.

  Jesse saw it at the same time, but he was driving too fast and could not stop or swerve in time to avoid hitting it. The front end of the car impacted against the man with a sickening thud, throwing him up onto the hood. His face spiderwebbed the windshield when he struck. The man grabbed hold of the lip of the hood in front of the recessed wipers and held on, pressing his bloody face against the windshield.