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  Jim walked to a chair and sat down, putting his face in his hands. After a few seconds, he sighed heavily and looked around at his fellow officers. “Let’s take first things first, people. Try to put some order into this mess. A list of priorities, if you will. Although I ain’t sayin’ the order I’m puttin’ this in is the way it ought to be. It’s just a startin’ point off the top of my head.

  “First of all, has anybody got any notion of where to start lookin’ for that dopeheaded Harry Harrison?”

  No one did.

  “We got word to all the people we figure might be on a hit list, right?”

  Everyone nodded. All the city and county leaders that could be thought of had been notified . . . although most did not believe what they were told.

  “That’s their problem then,” Jim said shortly; he had never been one who suffered fools well. “I ain’t got the people to send out and hold their damn hands.. Now then, has anyone heard anything from the folks out at the Conners place?”

  No one had.

  “Then somebody get on the horn and find out something.” He pointed to a deputy. “You get a pencil and a notepad. We got to start takin’ down ideas and suggestions on how to deal with this problem. We can’t just continue to run around like a bunch of idiots.” And that brought to mind the Stinson brothers—especially Keith. “Tom, you call the motel; see if them fool Stinson boys is behaving themselves. If they’re not, go down and get them and we’ll stick them in the pokey. Rich, make us a fresh pot of coffee. It’s gonna be a long night.”

  * * *

  “They went in here,” Tom said, pointing to a side door that led to the basement of the two-story building. “I’ve heard Val talk about how the kids get in.”

  “What do they do down there?” Pastor Speed asked.

  “Smoke dope, snort coke, drink booze, and fuck,” Chuck told him bluntly.

  Pastor Speed had never heard that particular four-letter word ever uttered from the mouth of a man of the cloth. “Heavens, Chuck! Your language is positively shocking.”

  “Join the real world, Chris,” the priest suggested. “Come down from your lofty position and get your hands dirty for a change.”

  Chris bit back a sharp retort; after all, the men did have guns.

  Tom turned the doorknob and pushed open the door. The smell of death hit them all, including Chris. No minister stays in the profession long before learning the odor of death.

  “There’s been trouble,” Chris said. “That much is for sure.”

  Darkness and a very unfriendly silence greeted his words.

  “I’ll go first,” Chuck said, taking a flashlight offered him by Tom. He clicked it on, and the pointing beam of light was comforting. The priest stepped onto the landing and began his slow descent. The odor of death became stronger with each step, mixed in with a strong animal-like smell.

  The beam of light picked up what was left of a human arm, the hand closed into a fist.

  Chris began softly reciting the 23rd Psalm.

  “My God,” Tom whispered, as the beam of light touched on the dead body of a girl. Her head had been crushed, with the brains hanging out.

  “That’s not Roseanne,” Chuck said, his voice whisper-low. “I don’t know that girl.”

  Tom took a closer look. “I do. But I don’t know her name.”

  “There’s a maniac loose in town,” Pastor Speed said. “That’s what it is.” But a very small voice deep within the man found his words hollow and told him so. Chris shook his head in the darkness as the beam of light touched on a dead boy, the skull and jaw caved in from a powerful blow. “It looks like he was struck with a baseball bat.”

  But no weapon was in sight.

  “Let’s get out of here and call the police,” Pastor Speed suggested. “There is nothing we can do.” He turned and was the first one up the steps.

  “Man can scoot right along when the spirit moves him,” Chuck said quietly.

  “You blame him?”

  “Hell, no!” the priest said.

  * * *

  And in the darkness of the timber called the Conners Woods, Anya and Pet sat quietly and rejoiced as the bubbling, stinking pools of liquid filth began attempting to discharge their odious inhabitants. Putrid, noxious fumes drifted from the thick bloodlike pools.

  The gurgling foulness bubbled and popped as the inner heat worked its way upward. Something was trying very hard to exit from the stinking liquid. A grotesque, horribly misshapen object that only vaguely resembled a human hand, with twisted and gnarled and clawed fingers, shoved out of the stinking shit-smelling hole.

  In isolated sections of the town, in basements of some of the homes of coven members, cracks began appearing in the concrete floors. Odious wisps of sulfuric smoke wafted out of the cracks. The foul-smelling smoke drifted around each closed basement, gradually spreading out to cover the entire floor. The mist was followed by a thick stinking liquid as slowly oozing as cold syrup, the liquid pulsed with newly freed life. It breathed like a giant leech, swelling and thickening as it gained freedom.

  Then the foulness paused and was still for a moment, resting from its long upward journey, where it had been confined by God for immeasurable years.

  The pulsing began anew.

  The thickness protruding from the crack in each basement floor spread and became larger and better defined. The odor became a sickening stench, a rotten evil from a long-forgotten grave. It was no longer a semi-dead and rotting fetidness. A very audible sigh came from the crack, the sigh fouling the close air with decaying breath.

  Coven members sat on the steps leading to the basements and watched in respectful silence as the growing, pulsing pools of long-stagnant slime grew with fresh, living, and very evil rot.

  They watched through eyes that glowed with wickedness. They watched, and waited.

  Chapter 25

  Jim ordered a deputy to take Pastor Speed home, and then went with Tom Malone and Father Vincent to the high school to view the carnage in the basement.

  It wasn’t nearly as hideous as the men had described it.

  There were no bodies. Plenty of blood and brains splattering the dusty walls. But no bodies.

  “They were here, damnit!” Tom said. “We all saw them, Jim.”

  Jim squatted down in the glare of tripod-mounted spotlights and nodded his head in agreement. “I believe you, boys. I got no reason not to.”

  “Then?” Tom waved his hand at the emptiness.

  “They either was toted off. . . .” He paused. “Or they rose,” the chief deputy said, not able to suppress his shudder at the words.

  “The undead,” Chuck said.

  “The what?” Tom looked at him.

  “The living dead,” the priest told him in a soft voice. “Doomed to forever serve the Dark Master.”

  “Satan.” Tom’s one word was delivered in a very soft voice.

  “Yes.”

  “God help us all,” Jim said, standing up just as Mike walked slowly down the steps to the bloody, dusty basement floor.

  “They had some trouble out at Miss Conners’s place, Chief. But they’re all right.” He very briefly explained what had happened. “None of the cats got inside the house. Those two reporters who stayed around are out there. And some kids too. Tolson and Daly are on the way out there to talk to them.”

  “Any sign of Harry?”

  “Not a sign, Chief. He just dropped out of sight, seems like.”

  “He’s around. He ain’t far. You can bet on that. He’s gone off the deep end like a lot of people in this town.”

  “You still think he’s after you, Chief?”

  “Bet on it.” He glanced up at the yawning darkness just outside the door to the floodlighted basement. Something from out of a book he’d once read came to his mind: Satan was the master of the night. He glanced at his watch and was startled to see how early it was. He’d have guessed it was nearabouts midnight.

  A deputy stuck his head inside the doorway. �
��Chief? Gangs of people gathering down on Main Street. Kids and grownups alike.”

  “What are they doing?”

  “Nothin’. Just standin’ around. Must be seven or eight hundred of them. Bill says it’s the damnest sight he’s ever seen. Spooky was his word. Chief Bancroft says he’s gonna need some help.”

  “Tell him we’re on our way. And get in touch with Daly and Tolson. Tell them we’re gonna need them back in town. They should be out at Miss Conners now. Bump Dispatch and tell him to call them.”

  “You go on with them, Carl,” Dee told him, after receiving the call and giving the message to the state cops.

  “Your dad hired me to protect you, Dee,” Carl reminded her.

  “I’ll be all right. Dingo is here and I know how to use a gun. Besides, you said yourself you didn’t think the cats would be back tonight.”

  “Thinking and knowing are two very different things. I’d better stay.”

  “We’re going,” Sonya said. “We’ve got stories to write and file.”

  The state cops exchanged glances with Carl. Carl shrugged his shoulders.

  Jesse picked up on the gesture. “What did that little shrug mean, Carl?”

  “It mean that I personally think filing any stories would be a stupid idea that would only get a bunch of people in here and killed or hurt. And I can tell you that you’re leaving yourselves open to getting hurt, or worse, if you try to file them.”

  “Screw you and your threats. The public has a right to know,” Sonya said defensively.

  “Enjoy your walk back to town,” Daly said with a thin smile. “It’s only about fifteen miles . . . through the least-populated area with the heaviest timber in the county.”

  “You wouldn’t!” Sonya yelled at him.

  “See you, Carl,” Tolson said with a grin. The state cops walked out the front door.

  “You son of a bitch!” Sonya shouted at the men.

  Tolson turned and gave her the bird.

  * * *

  The gathering was a silent and sullen lot. But they were doing nothing against the law. None of them were drinking. There was no excessively loud music playing. No one was making any profane gestures or behaving in any lewd or lascivious manner.

  They were breaking no laws.

  Jim walked up to the owner of a hardware store. “Will. You wanna tell me what you’re doin’ out here at night?”

  “Am I doing something against the law, Deputy Hunt?”

  “Not.”

  “Then what business is it of yours?”

  Jim arched an eyebrow and moved on to the owner of a drugstore. “Jeff. Ain’t it about time to go home?”

  “No.”

  Jim sighed and walked up the crowded sidewalk. He shoved people out of his way; not roughly, but with enough authority that they felt the shove. They offered no comment or resistance as he pushed them aside.

  “This is totally ignorant,” Mike said to Father Vincent, as they walked behind the chief deputy. “What are these people doing?”

  “Passive resistance for the moment. Subject to change very abruptly.”

  “I agree.” Jim tossed the words over his shoulder. “To hell with this. It could get dangerous in a hurry. We’ll block off the area and watch them; see what they do then. Y’all have noticed that none of the main guns that Crowley woman told Carl about ain’t here, haven’t you?” When he didn’t get a reply, Jim turned around to see if the others were still with him.

  They were gone, vanishing without a trace. Jim noticed then that many of the people standing around him sure did need a bath in the worst way. The body odor was tough. Then, from within the close-packed and strange-behaving crowd, a chanting sprang up, and the mass of unwashed bodies began closing in on Jim.

  * * *

  “You won’t take us back to town?” Sonya asked Carl.

  He shook his head. “I was hired to protect Dee, Sonya. If some of the young people here want to take you back, that’s fine with me. Why not ask them?”

  She looked at the young people. Jack shrugged his shoulders. “If they want to go back, me and Tommy can drive them in. But personally I think it’s a stupid idea. I think the whole town is about to blow up.” He looked at Sonya. “I tell you what. I’ll drive you as far as the town limits and drop you off. After that, you’re on your own.”

  She grabbed her purse. “Let’s go.”

  But Jesse proved to be more cautious than Sonya. “I don’t know about this, Sonya.”

  She did not attempt to question his courage; she knew better than that. Jesse had undertaken some dangerous assignments in his young career, and had written brilliantly about various violent sub-cultures he had infiltrated. “That’s up to you, Jesse.”

  Jesse turned to Carl. “I’m a good shot with a rifle or pistol. Not an expert, but I grew up on a farm and my father was quite a hunter. I’ve never shot a man, but I think I could. If you want to go into town, I’ll stay out here and get an interview with Miss Conners and the young people about what’s going on.”

  “Go on, Carl,” Dee urged. “We’ll be all right.”

  Carl nodded. “All right. I’ll drive Sonya in. You young people stay here and keep a sharp eye out.”

  Dee tossed him car keys. “Take the Jag, Carl. Use the car phone if you need to call.”

  Later, rolling toward town, Sonya broke the silence. “I saw you slip into that shoulder holster rig, Carl. What kind of gun is that?”

  “9-mm.”

  “You’ve used it on people?”

  “Yes.” He did not elaborate. Carl had more than one kill behind him. Many more than one.

  He was still mulling over an offer from Edgar Conners. The man had made the offer just before Carl had pulled out with the equipment.

  “A hundred and forty-five thousand covens in the United States, Carl?” he had asked.

  “At least.”

  “How many of them dangerous to the point of violence toward humans or some sort of dreadful animal sacrifice?”

  “Fifteen to twenty percent of them are extremely dangerous. Mostly with animal sacrifices.” Conners had then told him that none of his labs were allowed to use animals in experimentation. It cost him only a little more money to go that route, and he’d said he sure as hell slept better at night.

  He had then studied Carl’s face for several moments. “I sense a lot of ... well, controlled violence in you, Carl. I also sense that you despise not only Satan but those who profess to serve him.”

  “That is true.”

  “On all counts?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have a job offer.”

  “I thought this might be leading up to that.”

  “How easy is it to destroy a coven?”

  “Once you cut the head off, the organization usually falls apart from within.”

  “By cutting the head off, you mean?”

  “Literally. Yes.” Verbally dancing around without actually saying the K word.

  “I’ve spoken to your boss. He tells me you are much in demand by ... certain religious groups.”

  “Right-wingers. Zealots. I won’t work for them. They are as dangerous—in their own way—as many coven members.”

  Edgar smiled. “That’s what your boss said. He said you usually pretty well work as a lone wolf. That you do extensive research on a coven before deciding to take on the job.”

  “That’s correct. I’m not going in to slap around . . . or terminate a bunch of silly kids who aren’t really serious about devil-worship. And many covens listed in that huge number are just that. They dabble with it for a few months and then come to their senses and leave it alone, without ever harming anything or anybody except perhaps a wall with a can of spray paint.”

  “Terminate.” Edgar had said the word slowly. “Do you sleep well at night, Carl?”

  “Very well, thank you.”

  “When this . . . situation in Reeves County is over, I want to talk to you again. If you decide to take my offer, only
two of us will know of it. You and me. You will be on the payroll as a consultant. And your pay will be more than ample.”

  Carl had met the older man’s eyes. “Be sure you know what you’re getting, Mister Conners. When it comes to people who worship the Devil, I play for keeps and never leave any witnesses behind.”

  “How did you get so hard so young, boy?”

  “Watching Satan destroy a town, and many people in it, and later kill my father brought it all into perspective for me. I realized a few months later that the Dark One is winning. Now, I can’t kill Satan; only God can do that. But I can, and do, destroy many of his followers.”

  “And that’s what you plan to do in Butler?”

  “Yes. If I conclude that is the only way.”

  * * *

  “You went away for a few minutes, Carl,” Sonya said.

  He smiled. “Sorry.”

  “Before we left the house, you put several guns in the back seat, under that blanket, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you plan on using them?”

  “If I have to.”

  “If you do, I’ll write about it.”

  He turned his head and for a short moment, their eyes met. Sonya cringed under the icy stare, and a cold sweat broke out on her face at his words.

  “No, you won’t, Sonya. Because if just one word is written with my name connected with it, I can guarantee that you will never work in journalism again as long as you live.”

  She found her courage and became angry. “That’s the second time you’ve threatened me this evening, Carl. And I don’t like it worth a shit!”

  “I don’t give a damn what you like, Sonya. Let me tell you something. There is a war going on in this area; not just here—it’s international in scope. The battle is between good and evil. And evil is winning. What do you know about devil-worship?”

  “I ... well, not very much. It’s a subject that never really interested me. But it sure interests Jesse, I can tell you that. And for some reason, he wants to leave you alone.”

  Carl filed that away for future reference.

  “And I’d like to know how you could keep me out of work.”