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  Rodale sat down heavily in his chair. Wilber Purdy was about the only man in the county who could get away with talking to him in such a manner. For the simple reason that Purdy was the richest man in the county. Purdy owned the bank, the biggest store, and more land than anyone else, and had a lot of political clout.

  “Who twisted your tail this afternoon?” Rodale finally asked.

  “Shut up! Let me tell you something, Rodale. There are people in this world you can hassle, and people that you’d damn well better let alone—”

  “Hell, I know that!”

  “And I told you to shut up! I just got off the phone not ten minutes ago, from talking with several attorneys who represent Mister Edgar Conners. Mister Conners is not very happy with the law enforcement in Reeves County. Now Sheriff Rodale, you are aware of Conners Broadcasting, are you not?”

  “Yeah,” Rodale said, getting the drift of where all this was going. “He owns newspapers, radio and TV stations, bunches of factories, and mining stuff—big man on Wall Street. I ain’t stupid, Wilber. I may talk that way, but that’s ’cause the people like it.”

  “Whether you are stupid or not is a matter of opinion. You have done some extremely stupid things in the years I have known you. And that is a lifetime.”

  “Yeah!” Rodale grinned as he leaned back in his chair. “You recollect the time you and me—”

  “Shut up!” Purdy yelled at him. “I did not come here to speak of childhood reminiscences. Rodale, I want a muzzle and a short leash put on Harry Harrison.. . .” He paused as a very foul odor drifted under the closed office door and past his nose. He grimaced in disgust. “What in God’s name is that smell?”

  “I don’t know. I first smelled it plain about two weeks ago. Old Lady Barstow up on the ridges complained about it about the same time. Now she’s up and disappeared. Since yesterday.”

  “Disappeared? Where’d she go?”

  “How the hell do I know? She’s just gone. I got people workin’ on it, but they ain’t turned up nothin’ yet.”

  The smell, and it seemed to be coming from the cell-block area of the jail, vanished. Purdy turned his attention back to the sheriff. “No more hassling of the Conners woman, Rodale. None. Period. You understand me?”

  The sheriff got his back up and his red neck turned even redder. “Damnit, Wilber! We let up on that rich bitch and she’s gonna turn ten thousand acres of the best huntin’ land in the state into some sort of sissified preserve so’s city folks and fags can come in and oohhh and aahhh over a bunch of goddamn butterflies.”

  “I don’t care, Rodale. And you’d better know this, too: That young private investigator her father hired to come in here and protect her is the late Sheriff Dan Garrett’s son. And he doesn’t work for some sleazy operation. The Richland Agency is worldwide and highly respected. And for your information, he’s the young man who killed that rapist down on the line a couple of years back. And the same young man who, when some thugs jumped him in a Richmond parking lot last year, put both of them in the hospital with broken arms, caved-in ribs, and one of them with a skull fracture. With his bare hands, Rodale. Advise young Harrison to stand clear. No more hassling. Is that understood?”

  The sheriff spread his hands wide and sighed. “All right, Wilbur. All right. Message received. The queers and the sissies and the butterflies have won, I reckon.” A sadistic glint came into his eyes. “But I sure never knowed you to back down and knuckle under just ’cause of one man ’fore this day.”

  Purdy stared at the man until Rodale cut his eyes away with a curse. “I think it’s time for you to consider retiring, Rodale. As a matter of fact, were I you, I would begin putting my house in order. You just can’t accept the fact that this is the twentieth century. Now I know for a fact that you are well-fixed. This will be your last term in office, Rodale. Your last chance to turn things around and retire with a good name. I’d do that if I were you.”

  Wilber Purdy walked to the door. “And get that broken sewer line fixed. It’s disgusting.” He stepped out into the hall and closed the door behind him.

  Rodale looked at the closed door and resigned himself to his fate. The sheriff knew that without Purdy’s support, there was no chance of his being reelected. Purdy was the real power in the county.

  Well, hell! he thought. I been in office damn near twenty-five years. Maybe it is time to hang it up and go fishin’.

  “Or go count butterflies with the sissies and the fags,” he muttered, then shuddered at the thought.

  * * *

  Carl checked them into a motel in Lynchburg, adjoining rooms. He stretched out on the bed and began adding up what he would need in order to combat the evil that was about to rip Reeves County apart. It really wasn’t a very long list. Mostly what he needed was the arch angel Michael to come down from God’s side with his mighty sword.

  Carl put wishful thinking aside and got pen and paper and began listing known facts and suppositions.

  Was he certain that this was the same type of evil that had struck Ruger County several years back?

  No, he wasn’t. Only time would prove or disprove that. But time was something that could not be allowed to march on while he sat back and did nothing.

  He had to have allies; where to find them?

  Carl knew better than to approach most ministers with his unsupported theories. They would listen politely and then show him the door, probably with a suggestion that he seek professional psychiatric help.

  He jotted down that he would come back to the problem of allies.

  How many of the godless would he be facing?

  No way of knowing until they began to make their move.

  Could he persuade Dee to leave?

  No.

  He put aside pen and paper, knowing that he was simply delaying the inevitable, stalling because he did not want to return to Reeves County. The evil had killed his father and several of his friends, had changed decent human beings into monsters.

  He looked up at the ceiling. “Why me?” he questioned.

  He received no answer. He hadn’t been expecting one.

  The young man lay back on the bed, his mind busy.

  One thing he could do was try to convince Dee to clear off all ten thousand acres. But that was a short-range solution. Once those ... things—Carl really wasn’t sure what they were or what to call them—in the woods realized what was happening, they would strike, putting the timbermen in danger.

  He rose from the bed, walked to the drape-covered windows, and found the cord, opening the drapes. Night was settling over the land.

  * * *

  The darkness slowly circled the country, spreading its deepening purple shroud over the land. In Reeves County, in the timbered acreage that surrounded the A-frame home of Dee Conners, strange shapes were gathering, human and subhuman alike. They formed a tight circle around a pool of mist and began chanting, faces to the sky. The night seemed to be made of pitch, so dark that movements did not shadow. They chanted ancient words from a language that had been long dead until now. The circle moved to the left, then to the right, in toward the misty pool, out again. Voices called out for assistance, casting vocal pleas to dark gods.

  And the dark gods replied, lancing the sky with vicious streaks of lightning, to be seen by only a selected few. In the small clearing, around the misty pool, the human and subhuman danced and pranced in joy as the silent voices from the darkened sky spat forth the reply they had been waiting for these past four years.

  The Old Ones were near the surface, coming closer and closer. Soon they would break through. Pet and Anya, the twins, were once more walking on the earth, altered somewhat, thanks to Sheriff Dan Garrett and Father Denier, but nevertheless among the living—so to speak.

  The human and subhuman turned their faces toward the wicked lightning and hissed and howled and chanted their pleasure.

  It would be very soon.

  Soon.

  It made no difference that the workmen were
cutting back the forest, away from the house in the woods. They were not cutting back far enough to bother those who gathered around the misty pool of light. Even if the men did try to cut further . . . well, accidents had been known to happen. Subtle accidents. Like those hunters who wandered too deeply into timber only to emerge with their minds forever altered. They looked exactly the same. But they were not.

  * * *

  In Lynchburg, on a bed in a darkened room, Carl Garrett tried to talk to God. He did his best to make some sense out of why he, like his father, had been chosen to fight the good fight against overwhelming odds.

  If God replied, it was in a manner that Carl could not comprehend.

  Yet.

  Chapter 5

  For the most part, it was a silent trip from Lynchburg to Richmond. Dee was determined that Carl meet her father.

  “You’re the boss, Dee. I go where you go.”

  The home—more a mansion—was in the most exclusive section of the city.

  Carl found himself liking both Edgar and Louise Conners. Louise put on a few more airs than Carl was comfortable with, but Edgar was as easy to be around as any man Carl had ever seen. While mother and daughter sat in the house and talked, Carl and Edgar went for a walk.

  “I think my lawyers got things all straightened out in Reeves County, Carl.”

  “There are things going on in Reeves County that your lawyers have no control over, Mister Conners. Not unless they have a direct line to God.”

  Conners pointed to chairs by the pool and both men sat down. “You want to explain that, Carl?”

  Carl was silent for a moment, wondering how in the hell to explain anything this bizarre. Finally he said, “You believe in the Hereafter, Mister Conners?”

  “I sure do.”

  “Heaven and Hell?”

  “Yes.”

  “You believe that . . . well, old gods from long-forgotten ancient religions could resurface?”

  “Ummm,” Conners said, scratching his chin and giving that some thought. “For the sake of getting some sense out of you, let’s say that I do.”

  “Mister Conners, with all your money, with all your power, and with all your connections, did you ever try to find out what really went on in Ruger County a few years back, or did you just accept what was printed in the papers and spoken about on the air?”

  “I hit a stone wall, boy. I was told, damned bluntly, that if I wanted to continue receiving government work for my factories that take government contracts, I had best stop asking questions.”

  “You want to know what happened?”

  Conners thought about that for a moment. He lifted a telephone on the table and requested coffee out by the pool. He cut his eyes to Carl. “This have anything to do with my daughter?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very well. Wait until the coffee is served and then tell me what you know about what happened in Ruger, and what you need to deal with whatever is happening in Reeves.”

  “I need a miracle, sir.”

  “Oh, come on, son! Your boss told me you were one of the best men he had. You’re awfully somber about this. What’s the matter? You and Dee not getting along? She speaks very highly of you.”

  “We’re getting along fine, sir. But it’s not safe for her there.”

  “She isn’t going to leave, Carl. That’s her home. And come what may, she’ll stick it out. Chow-Chow is buried there.”

  “Who?”

  “Her dog. Some . . . damn trashy people poisoned the dog last year. You find out who did that, and there’s a ten-thousand-dollar bonus in it for you.”

  “The law won’t do anything about it, Mister Conners. It’s a misdemeanor at best.”

  “The law, boy,” Conners said in a very cold voice, “won’t have a goddamn thing to do with it.”

  “Yes, sir.” Carl’s reply was softly offered.

  The coffee served, and sugared and creamed and stirred, Carl said, “As close as I can figure it, from what my dad said and some others later informed me, it started just about the time Christ was born. Twins were born into this ancient religion. Two females, one in human form, the other a cat.”

  Ed Conners spilled coffee down the front of his shirt. He wiped at the stain with a napkin and fixed a thoroughly jaundiced set of eyes on Carl. “Are you fucking joking with me?”

  “I’m fucking serious as death. Sir.”

  Conners refilled his cup. “Go on.”

  “Then the pair were entombed alive. Hundreds of years later, archeologists disturbed the burial site and unknowingly set them free. My thesis was to be on this, sir. I did a lot of research, both before and after my father died in hopes of killing the pair. I don’t know whether he succeeded or not.”

  “Are you trying to tell me ...” The words choked on the man’s tongue. He could not force the words out of his mouth.

  “That Pet and Anya are in Reeves County? I don’t know.”

  “Pet and Anya?”

  “The cat and the girl. They are one and the same. They’re both shapechangers.”

  “You ... want to explain that, son?”

  “Each can become the other. That is when they are vulnerable. Any other time, they are impossible to kill. Their cycle used to be to resurface every twenty-five years. But since another Source, or Force, has been found in Reeves County, the Old Ones are breaking free of their entombment. Believe me when I say that when they surface—”

  “Wait a minute! Just hold on. Who entombed these... what’d you call them? The Old Ones?”

  “God, I suppose.”

  “God!” Conners almost yelled the word. “When?”

  “Mister Conners, I don’t know. Thousands of years ago, I guess. They are almost too hideous to look upon. They’re monsters. Anya called them the Master’s Disciples. My dad and Father Denier sacrificed themselves, after enticing Anya and Pet onto a steel grid, allowing themselves to be electrocuted along with the horror.”

  “That’s when the government put a lid on what happened.”

  “Yes, sir. If you’ll wait right here, I want to get something from the car to show you.”

  Carl was back in a few minutes, with the jar containing the maggotlike worm. Conners took one look and shuddered.

  “What is that damn thing?”

  “Part of that which was entombed with the Old Ones. Enough of them can eat your leg off in minutes.” He lowered his sock and showed the man his ankle, and what just one of the thumb-sized creatures of Hell could do. The wound was healing nicely, but the scar would be there forever.

  It took Ed several moments to fully recover, and during those moments the enormity and the awfulness of what the young man had told him and showed him sank in. He pointed to the savage worm. “Are these things susceptible to any type of poison.”

  “I have absolutely no idea.”

  “I’d like to take this to my lab—it’s located just outside of town. Let a few of my lab people do some work with it. See what they can come up with.”

  “I’m glad to be rid of it.”

  Conners lifted the phone and punched out a number, talking for a few minutes. He replaced the receiver in the cradle and looked at Carl. “Someone will be out here in a minute to get this. . . .” He cut his eyes to the snapping, maggotlike worm in the peanut-butter jar. “Whatever the hell it is. Your immediate plans, Carl?”

  “With your permission, I’ll stay here for a couple of days. I have a shopping list of things that I couldn’t obtain, but you probably can with no trouble.” He handed the man a folded sheet of paper.

  Ed looked at the first item and his eyes widened. “You want a flamethrower?”

  “Yes, sir. And as many full containers as you can get me.”

  “Do you know how to use these things?”

  “No, sir. But I can learn.”

  “I’ll show you. I handled one in the Marine Corps.” He sighed and shook his head. “Boy, I’m going to ask you just one time, and I’ll not bring it up again: Are you puttin
g me on with this tale of yours?”

  “No, sir. But I want you to convince Dee to stay here with you and your wife.”

  He shook his head. “I can try. But I can tell you the outcome before I even begin. She’ll tell me to stick it in my ear.”

  Carl smiled. “That what she told me she’d do.”

  “Believe it. Of all my children, that girl has more of me in her than any of the others.”

  Ed loaned Carl a pickup truck from his local factory and Carl began loading the equipment as it came in. Ed pointed out that nearly everything loaded in the bed was highly illegal.

  “If I get stopped and searched by a trooper, I’ll just tell them I was delivering a load for you,” Carl said with a grin.

  “Oh, wonderful!”

  “Have you told Mrs. Conners any of what’s going on in Reeves?”

  “No. I started to do that several times, but each time I shut my mouth before I stuck my foot in it. You do realize how farfetched your story is.”

  “Oh, yes. And don’t think the other side doesn’t know it too.”

  Ed leaned up against a fender of the truck. “Does the, ah, I mean, well, does the Devil show up for this. . . affair? Jesus, I feel like an idiot asking that!”

  “I hope not,” Carl told him. “It’s written that no mortal can gaze upon the features of the Dark One and live.”

  Ed rubbed his temples with his fingertips and sighed heavily. He muttered something inaudible under his breath.

  “Have you convinced Dee to stay here?” Carl asked.

  “Are you kidding! I mentioned it twice. The first time she said no very sweetly. The second time around she turned the cream I had put on my cereal into buttermilk. Carl, I’m sending men into Reeves County. Their cover story will be that they’re in there scouting for a plant site.”

  “I hope they’re both tough and smart,” Carl said, a note of reservation in his voice.

  “They are.” The older man smiled. “You remember when that nut in Iran seized American holdings and held some Conners Industries people hostage—that was just before the embassy takeover?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “These are the same men who went in and got my people out.”