St. Martin collapsed to the floor, a quivering heap of a shattered soul. Crowley's rendition of the Lucifer Seal was now seared into the flesh of his forehead.

The Hooded Figure nodded approvingly and knelt beside the preacher. "I told you it might hurt a little." The tone was mockingly sympathetic. "Now just relax. I'm going to prepare you for something special."

The preacher's eyes pleaded for mercy.

"I know, I know. But we're just getting to the good part. You'll like this. Trust me." The Hooded Figure slowly unb.u.t.toned the preacher's shirt, spread it open, rolled the undershirt up to the man's chin and gazed upon the smooth canvas of naked flesh. "Ahhhh, yes. Very, very nice."

The preacher struggled against the psychic straightjacket this monster had strapped around him. It was no use. His inability to move of his own will was pushing him ever further toward the edge of madness. He tried again to catch a glimpse of his tormentor's face but looking into the darkness of the cavernous hood was like staring into the proverbial valley of the shadow of death. I will fear no evil...

"Ah, yes," the Hooded Figure said. "The ol' twenty-third Psalm. Very good. How's it workin' for ya? You know, my dear mother used to read that to me at night, just after making me recite something about 'if I should die before I wake'. I slept real good with that going through my mind. Do you make your kids say that one? I bet you do. I bet you f.u.c.king make your kids say that one."

A pitiful noise gurgled up from St. Martin's throat.

"Yeah, that's what I figured."

The restroom door suddenly rattled.

The preacher's eyes lit up. Someone was trying to open it. I knew there had to be someone else here! Help! Please!

The door rattled again.

Once more the preacher's silent pleas echoed inside his own head. Help! Please, help me!

The rattling stopped. "d.a.m.n it!" came a frustrated voice from beyond the door. The curse was followed by the barely audible sound of fading footsteps. The preacher's last glimmer of hope was walking away.

"Oh, come on. You didn't really think I'd let just anybody walk in here, did you? This is our time, just you and me. Now, be a good little boy and close your eyes. No peeking."

Once again, St. Martin's eyelids fluttered uncontrollably as they struggled to resist the power that was drawing them closed. Dear G.o.d, this isn't happening! Tears squeezed out from behind his clamped eyelids. Don't let... Oh, Jesus... What is that?

The Hooded Figure was pressing its finger against the preacher's bare chest and slowly, skillfully, it was tracing out the sigil of the sixth demon.

The scream that tried to escape from St. Martin's lungs would have shattered the walls. The blistering sensation beneath his skin followed along the winding path of the Hooded Figure's finger like a slow burning fuse. The welts began to rise up on his flesh in the shape of the unholy sign.

"Lalartu!" the Hooded Figure bellowed. "Sixth Offspring of the Old Ones! Blood demon! Dweller amongst the undead! Thou who dost slay mothers at the moment of birth! This is your sign! I give you this soul!"

St. Martin's eyes flew open. His nerves were on fire, his body buckled and twitched as if he were being electrocuted. He saw his wife waving goodbye as he left the house that morningHe heard his children playing and laughingHe saw the dog he accidentally hit with the car ten years agoHe saw his mother packing his lunch for his first day at schoolThe wrist watch his father gave him for his sixteenth birthdayThe Bible he kept by the bed with all the important pa.s.sages underlined... A moment later he was motionless, delirious and defeated, begging G.o.d to let him die.

The Hooded Figure rose up and looked down at the preacher. "'I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things.' Isaiah forty-five, verse seven."

St. Martin barely heard the words through the pounding of his own pulse throbbing inside his ears.

"Do you know the phrase, coup de grace? The stroke of grace? Well, that my dear St. Martin, is the holy gift you're about to receive."

The shadows on the walls of the Inner Sanctum danced wildly in concert with the flickering light of the candles. Droplets of sweat rolled down Rye Cowl's face, his body tense, anxious. The antic.i.p.ation of the approaching moment of ecstasy was nearly unbearable. He could smell it, taste it.

St. Martin was barely conscious. Yet he could clearly hear the Hooded Figure's voice but it was coming from inside his own head. Unfasten your belt. Maybe he'd been hearing it in his head all along. Maybe none of this was real. Maybe it's all been one horrendous hallucination. Maybe it I know you can hear me. Now unfasten your belt and push your pants down. No. This isn't real.

As St. Martin desperately tried to deny what was happening, he felt the cold floor beneath his bare b.u.t.tocks. His body had already complied with the command. Now roll over like a good dog. Dear G.o.d in Heaven, deliver me...

St. Martin found himself face down on the floor, his streaming tears blending with what was left of his own urine smeared across the tiles. Again, he heard the Hooded Figure's voice echoing inside his head.

Alashem-barah-alashem! Lalartu, sixth Offspring of the Old Ones! Blood demon! Dweller amongst the undead! Thou who dost slay mothers at the moment of birth Towering over the preacher, the Hooded Figure loosened its robe, let it fall open, and slowly lowered itself into position to consummate the evocation.

I give this soul to you!

With the initial stroke of grace, a jolting tremor ripped through St. Martin's body. His heart sputtered and seized up like an old motor and, with a final gasp, he was gone.

Rye Cowl's head jerked back, his muscles tensed, his body quaked as a series of o.r.g.a.s.mic spasms rippled through his system. The circle of candles flared. The room lit up like a flash bomb. Cowl's seed exploded onto the floor like a stream of hot wax. A moment later, the candles flickered and died out, one by one, until a thick and heavy darkness consumed the Inner Sanctum and Cowl collapsed onto the floor.

The Hooded Figure rolled the preacher over, pried his mouth open and placed a black plastic coin onto the dead man's tongue like a priest dispensing a Communion wafer.

The Hooded Figure stood up, closed its robe, uttered the final words, 'Aum. Ha', and vanished into the aether.

At that moment, Rye Cowl felt the familiar twitching sensation of that strange part of himself reentering his bodya prodigal son returning home. He shook off the trance and slowly struggled to his feet. Once he gained his equilibrium and was fully conscious, he wiped his sweat-drenched brow and staggered over to the chair behind the desk. He eased himself into it and sat, staring blankly at nothing for several moments. Somewhere in the back of his mind he heard the distant voices of children laughing, taunting him. Hey Rodney! Rodney f.u.c.kworth-not-worth-a-f.u.c.k! He just grinned and checked his watch. His fans were waiting.

CHAPTER 18.

The sodomy scene sent Kane's stomach into a turmoil. He switched off the video. No one said anything for several moments.

Wheeler was the first to break the silence. "Jee-sus. I've seen it all now."

Kane finally tore his eyes away from the blank screen and looked at Wheeler. "Not a word about this to anyone. Not a G.o.dd.a.m.n word. The last thing we need is for the press to get wind of what's really going on here."

"What the h.e.l.l is really going on here?" Wheeler asked.

Kane turned to Ravenwood. She returned his look with a quick glance toward Wheeler and back to Kane again.

Kane nodded. "Wheeler, you got stuff to do. I need that information about that band. And take this tape and lock it up. No one gets access to it without my authorization. Now get out of here."

Wheeler chuckled on his way out of Kane's office. "Be a h.e.l.l of a sensation on YouTube."

CHAPTER 19.

Kane poured a cup of coffee for Ravenwood and one for himself and leaned back in his chair. He looked tired. He closed his eyes, gave them a good hard ma.s.sage and let out a long slow sigh. "Well, Wheeler did ask the question of the day, didn't he? What the h.e.l.l really is going on here?"

Ravenwood raised an eyebrow. "C'mon. With all you've seen, and after everything I've told you, you really have to ask?"

Kane exploded, slamming his hand down on the desk. "Christ!"

"Feel better?"

He got up and paced back and forth, buying a moment to gain control over his frustration. "Okay," he said, finally, plopping back into the chair. He folded his arms and leaned back. "Let's see if you've got an answer for this one."

"Shoot."

"You saw that creep do the nasty with that poor son of a b.i.t.c.h, right?"

"s.e.x magic. Like I told you, but you didn't believe me."

"Yeah, well, maybe there's a little flaw in your theory."

Ravenwood was amused. "Really."

"Yeah. Maybe there's nothing magic about any of this."

"What about the vanishing act?"

"What? Oh, yeah. Well, I haven't figured that one out yet. But this s.e.x thing"

"The flaw in my theory."

"Yeah. The autopsy on the other victims showed no sign of s.e.m.e.n. If I remember right, you said that whole s.e.x magic thing was based on some hocus-pocus that happened at the moment of o.r.g.a.s.m. Right?"

"Right."

"Okay. So tell me, how does a guy have an o.r.g.a.s.m without... you know."

"That's a good question, Detective."

"Ah, ha. See?"

"But I have an answer. And you probably won't like it."

Kane rolled his eyes. "Oh, of course you do and of course I won't."

"The answer is that I don't think the hooded figure is a real person."

"What? You saw it with your own eyes. What the h.e.l.l do you think it was? An illusion? I'm no physicist but I'm pretty sure illusions don't show up on video tape."

"Not exactly an illusion. A phantasm. Sort of a mental representation of a real person. Or, in this case, maybe a better definition would be a mental projection from the mind of a real person. In some esoteric lore it's better known as a doppelganger."

"A doppelganger. What the h.e.l.l do you think this is, a friggin' Stephen King novel?"

"Stephen King didn't make up the idea. Like other writers of paranormal fiction, he just borrowed it from a concept that's been around for ages."

"And you're going to sit there and tell me doppelgangers are real."

"Well, like Don Juan said to Carlos Castaneda, 'What is real?'"

"Casta-who? What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?"

Ravenwood shook her head. I should have known better. "Nothing. My point is, if that hooded figure is in fact a doppelgangerand I'm betting it isthen it explains both the lack of s.e.m.e.n as well as the vanishing act."

"I'll probably regret this, but explain what you mean."

"Pretty simple really. If the psychic energy of the person who is projecting the doppelganger is strong enough then the doppelganger can not only take on what appears to be a physical form, it can also interact physically with other people. Nevertheless, it's still a phantasm. See? An illusion, a mental construct. It's real but it's not real." She noted Kane's jaw tighten. "I know you hate that, but there's really no other way to describe it. At least not in simple terms. Trust me, your eyes would glaze over if I gave you the graduate-level explanation. So just take my word for it."

"I'll think about it. Just get to the point."

"Well, since it's not an actual living being, it doesn't possess the full range of biological functions of a living being. Cut it with a knife, it won't bleed. Shoot it with a gun, it won't die. If you watch the video again you'll notice the hooded figure didn't display any sort of visible o.r.g.a.s.mic reaction at any point during or after the penetration. It was a pretty dispa.s.sionate act. My guess is that all the o.r.g.a.s.mic energy was transferred directly to who ever was projecting the doppelganger."

She could see Kane was having a hard time buying her explanation but she also sensed he was at least giving it some consideration. After all, she thought, he doesn't really have much choice.

"So," he said, finally, "if I buy into this doppelganger thing then I suppose that's also the explanation for the fact that the d.a.m.n thing just appears out of nowhere and disappears into... G.o.d knows where."

"Disappears back into the mind of the person who projected it."

Kane shook his head. "Unbelievable. And I don't mean that as a figure of speech. It's just G.o.ddam unbelievable."

Ravenwood grinned. "But you're beginning to believe it."

Kane didn't respond.

"Well," she said, changing the subject, "I've got something else to show you."

She pulled a sheet of paper from her briefcase and laid it on Kane's desk. "Remember this?"

He looked at the drawing on the paper. "Of course. The Lucifer Seal. The modified one with all the extra lines that now decorates the foreheads of six corpses. What about it?"

"I think I figured out what those additional lines are."

"Is it important?"