The Devil's Touch (9 page)

"The Bible says what we—you did—is wrong."

The mist once more drifted over the couple.

"Oh, shit, Patsy! Don't be so stupid. Have you ever in your life experienced anything like when you cummed today?"

The mist touched her. "No," she said.

Jon continued speaking. As he talked, a strange feeling began sweeping over the girl; an alien sensation never before experienced. It was as if she was being transformed from one person to another; her old self being stripped from her just as a snake sheds its skin. All her teachings, all those things once so good and dear to her were being tossed aside.

Patsy was unaware that dark forces were hovering nearby, working their ageless magic on her. And somewhere, squatting near black-tinted flames, the Master of all that is evil howled in triumph, pointing his face Heavenward, screaming oaths toward his enemy.

Patsy's eyes changed as she lost both faith and innocence. Clouds of darkness swept over the sixteen-year-old. She reached out and laid her hand on Jon's penis, her fingers gently caressing the softness. She felt him stir at her touch, the blood coursing through him, thickening him, lengthening him. She felt power beneath her fingertips. She stroked him into hardness. She leaned forward and took him. The Dark One howled. She was his.

The report of the .41 mag was shockingly loud in the early afternoon. A scream of pain from behind the small group spun the chief around. He could not believe what ran limping away, to disappear into the ground.

Little Sam had covered his ears. Now he was tuning up to cry. Nydia comforted him.

The … whatever in the hell it was was the most hideous thing Monty had ever seen. "What in the name of God was that!"

"A Beast," Nydia said, holding Little Sam tightly. "One of Satan's creatures. They live underground; they're probably all over this area. They live in groups, only coming out at Satan's request. It must be getting close to the Black Mass for them to surface."

"The Black Mass?" Joe managed to croak.

"It's a Saturday," Nydia explained. "The High Black Mass could be held tonight. Some covens differ from others in their choosing of a night of the week in which to call upon the forces of darkness."

Joe stood with his mouth hanging open, staring at the beautiful young woman. Monty thought perhaps all this was a dream, and he would soon wake up. He hoped to God it was all a dream. Monty pointed to where the Beast had dropped into the ground.

"Where did that thing come from?" he asked Sam.

"From its lair in the ground. I've been watching it for about a minute, circling around, coming up behind you. It probably was a young Beast. From what I know about them, the older ones would never take such a chance, for as you see, they can be hurt and killed."

"Well, you're goddamn calm about all this!"
Monty screamed.

Sam shrugged his shoulders. "I know what we face, and I know what I have to do."

"Who are we facin' and what is it you got to do?" Joe asked, his face ashen.

"We face Satan and his worshippers. And I have to fight them. It's just that simple."

"There ain't nothing simple 'bout all this!" Joe almost shouted the words. "Man—tell me this is some kind of joke.
Please
tell me this is a joke!"

"It is no joke," Father Le Moyne said, and his words chilled Joe Bennett.

Monty seemed to come out of his trance. He looked nervously around him, as if expecting some other type of monster to come leaping at him from out of the ground. He snapped his fingers. "Whitfield, Nebraska. You were born in Whitfield. That's the town that was destroyed back in 1958. A few survivors were left, and they rebuilt the town. Then about three years ago, a giant meteor struck there, killing everybody and completely wiping out the town and the land around it for several miles."

"It was the hand of God," Sam corrected the man.

' "Lordy, Lordy, Lordy!" Joe said. He looked upward, as if expecting to see a mighty fist forming.

"The Devil's agent in Whitfield, back in 1958, was a man named Black Wilder. My father killed him. Not as you know death, but he sent him from earth. My father agreed to fight Nydia, the witch. He both won and lost."

"Lordy, Lordy!" Joe said.

"And Nydia is your
mother?"
Monty looked at Nydia.

"No," she lied. "My mother's name was Roma. But she was also a witch." She was not about to tell these people anymore about her links with Sam.

The odor of the Beasts was strong in the old orchard. Father Le Moyne grimaced his disgust. "Let us please retire to the house. I don't want you people to think me cowardly, but that smell is making me physically ill."

"You just ain't whistlin' Dixie 'bout that," Joe said.

"I hit it hard," Sam said. "It will probably die. Its own kind will eat it."

Joe's stomach rumbled at the thought. "Monty," he said clutching at the Chiefs arm. "We gotta call the state police or the National Guard, or—hell, somebody.

"It's too late for that," Nydia said in a matter-of-fact tone. "Everything has been set in motion. Satan will allow no interference from this point forward. Not until the game has reached its conclusion."

"Game!" Monty shouted. "This is a
game?"

"I'm afraid it is," Father Le Moyne spoke. "Although some of my collegues would argue that. It is a game that is as old as time and earth itself; perhaps as old as the worlds we know exist in the galaxies, and those we can only speculate about."

"Lordy, Lordy," Joe said. "I gotta go to the bathroom."

Late afternoon in Upstate New York. Already the shadows were darkening pockets of landscape, creating gloom. Street lamps were coming on, and motorists were turning on headlights.

The chief medical examiner of McGray County was surprised to see his assistant enter the room. "I thought you were going home, Max."

"Changed my mind," the young assistant replied.

"My wife is out of town and I thought I'd try to catch up on the backlog of work we have piled up."

"Ah, youth," the M.E. said, leaning back in his chair. "I keep forgetting how it is to be young."

"Fannnntastic!" Max grinned.

The M.E. laughed. "I said young, Max, not over the hill." He stood up, found his topcoat, and shrugged his way in it. "Ridiculous to be working on Saturday. I'm going home."

"See you Monday, John," Max said.

The door hissed. The room was silent, sterile. Max worked at paperwork for a time, but found his mind kept wandering back to the paramedics. Something very odd about them. Very strange. He could not concentrate for thinking about them. So pale and seemingly bloodless. Max finally tossed his ballpoint to the desk in frustration and walked into the cooler room.

Max looked at the vaults containing the backlog of cadavers and then walked to the center vault, pulling it open. He pulled out the sliding tray and stood looking for a moment at the sheet-covered paramedic. Max flipped back the sheet. He leaned closer to get a better look at the marks on the man's neck. Max remained in position, in numb shock, as the man's eyes opened. Hands suddenly grabbed the young doctor's neck and face, pulling him forward. Max struggled for footing on the tile floor, his leather-soled shoes slipping. He could not yell, for his mouth was held tightly together by hands that seemed to possess superhuman strength. Max felt the hands that gripped him pulling his face closer, closer. The paramedic's breath stank of the dead, the breath putrid and evil-smelling.

Max cut frantic eyes downward. He could see the red gaping mouth of the dead man, opening and closing as if in anticipation of the bloodless lips touching living flesh.

Max tried to scream as the hps pulled back, exposing fangs where there were once normal teeth. The undead pulled the living closer, then lunged upward, his mouth closing on Max's neck, fangs sinking into the young M.E.'s neck. He drank and sucked greedily, while Max slowly felt life—as he knew life—leave him. His heart began to strain and convulse in his chest as life-sustaining blood was pulled from him.

The paramedic staggered from the coolness of the mat and allowed Max to slump, still alive, to the tile floor. He opened the cooler containing the body of his friend. The dead man opened his eyes and smiled, looking up into the pale face of living death. He was helped from the mat and the two men lurched toward Max. There, the second paramedic drank thirstily, draining the blood from the young M.E.

Both men smacked their lips and grinned grotesquely at each other.

The paramedic named Dan Golden pointed to the dead—more or less—young doctor. "Can't leave him here." His words were pushed from his mouth, slurred while moving around the swollen tongue.

"I know," his friend, Jerry replied.

Their voices were hollow-sounding, and their breath left the odor of decaying flesh hanging in the sterile room.

The men then spoke silently to one another, the thoughts of the dead yet living transmitted from out of dead brains. They began searching for clothing. They found surgical jackets and pants in a closet and hurriedly dressed. They placed the young M.E. on a rolling gurney and covered him with a blanket. They would get out of the hospital proper first, worry about transportation when that was accomplished. A sense of homing told them they must return to Clark County. To Logandale. To the Master.

No one stopped them in the busy hospital. The shift that had seen the dead men come in had already gone home. The new ground floor shift were busy, and gave the pale-looking men pushing the gurney only a brief glance.

The paramedics found an ambulance with the keys in it, loaded the young M.E. into the back, and drove off. Toward Logandale. Home. To the Master.

Fully dressed, if a bit rumpled, Jon and Patsy walked slowly out of the woods by the river. Patsy had responded even more the second time, with Jon's being much more gentle with her. She had bitten her lips as one shivering climax followed on the heels of another. She could not understand the strange new feelings within her. But she found she did not possess either the will or the strength to fight them.

"I'll pick you up at your house at seven," Jon told her. "We'll go to my house where we can be alone."

"All right, Jon," Patsy said. Whatever the boy ordered her to do, she felt compelled to obey.

"You will not go to your house," a voice spoke to Jon. He knew who it was; all the pieces were falling into place. Everything that had happened to him over the past few months now added up. Jon was a very intelligent young man, and he had silently suspected something of this nature all along. He didn't care.

"You and your recently deflowered young lady friend will come to the Giddon house. You will be there at nine o'clock. Do not be early, do not be late."

"As you command," Jon replied. He glanced at Patsy. She was hearing none of the conversation.

"You do not seem to be overly concerned about silent messages, young man."

"I'm not. I don't care."

"Very good. I think you shall find the events of this evening most interesting and pleasant. We will have a task for you later on."

"Tonight?"

"That, too. But that is not the task I speak of."

"Then what?"

"The young woman of your dreams. The one occupying your mind while you practiced self-abuse in the darkness of your bedroom."

Tired as he was, Jon's heart quickened at the thought. "Nydia?"

"None other."

"Will you answer a question for me?"

"Possibly."

"Are you Satan?"

"Possibly. The Master is always close—one form or another—to those who choose to serve him."

"The
Master!"

"Of course, young man.
I
am now your Master. We made a deal. You said you would return a favor for a favor. My side of the bargain has been—" The voice giggled. "—Consummated. Now it is your turn."

Jon did not give it much thought. He didn't care. "All right," he said.

"Ta-ta, Jon," the voice cheerfully replied, then faded away.

"If you know so much," a badly shaken Chief Draper spoke to Nydia. "If you can read minds and—whatever else it is you do, how come you didn't see all this— whatever is happening—and warn people about it?"

"Because I was blocked out. Because Satan knows I renounced his dark faith and became a Christian. Satan rules the earth, Chief, God the Heavens. But my mother was, remember, a witch, and some of her powers did show up in me."

"Lordy," Joe said.

Monty shook his head in confusion and disbelief.

Sam answered the knock on the front door. Janet stepped in, smiling as usual. "I'm a little early," she said. "But I knew you wouldn't mind." She spoke politely to Father Le Moyne, Chief Draper, and Joe. "Is something the matter?" She looked at Sam.

"Nothing we can't handle, Janet," Sam said, returning the smile.

All could see the afternoon had melted into dusk, with the sky overcast, already dripping moisture and sculpturing hollow pockets of gloom around the land.

"Do you want me to leave, Sam? I get the feeling I'm interrupting some grown-up talk."

"No, you stay, Janet. Nydia and I won't be going to the movies this evening." He glanced at Monty. "We usually drive over to Blaine for dinner and a movie on Saturday evenings," he explained. He swung his eyes to Janet. "But there is some community business we're—involved in. And we might be late. Your parents won't object if you stay over?"

"Oh, no. I'll just call and tell them." She hefted a large purse. "You know I always bring a change with me, just in case you want me to spend the night."

Her eyes were bright and clear and full of innocence, despite the rape she had endured as a child kidnapped and brought to Falcon House in Canada. The teenager had been rescued by Sam and returned to her parents. Rescued, so Sam and Nydia were led to believe. Janet had been Little Sam's babysitter since his moment of birth.

Janet had plans for Little Sam.

Monty, Joe, and Father Le Moyne rose as if on silent cue. Monty said, "Well—Sam, Nydia, we'll see the both of you at the house in about an hour. We'll continue this—discussion there. You'll stay for dinner, of course." The men moved toward the door and the approaching night.