Todd sighed. Somehow he'd have to get that thing in the woods before it got to him. He didn't know how, but he knew it was important, that his very life depended on it.

But he was only a little boy and this...this thing had all of the strength and experience of time.

Then, when he realized how small and insignificant he had suddenly become and how hopeless his situation was, only then did the tears begin to flow.

-3-.

After burying the cat, Erik decided it was time to do a bit of research and find out a bit about the history of the place where he now lived. He began by logging into the Providence Journal's online service. Annie from the antique store was right about the bulldozer incident, which had happened just about a year ago.

The driver had been killed when the machine ran over him. It was ruled a freak accident. But it was rather odd that an experienced driver had made such a critical mistake, and questions had been asked, but never really answered.

The dozer had, indeed, unearthed the graveyard, and, in particular, a headstone made of some sort of meteoritic rock, according to a geologist from the University of Rhode Island. The cemetery contained thirteen graves of unidentified colonists from the early 1700's. It was believed to be a small colony of Europeans who had been massacred by the Narragansett Indians. A couple of URI professors were still researching the subject, but so far, there wasn't much specific information. Erik jotted down their names. Maybe he'd give them a call at some point.

The path of Farmington Road had, indeed, been moved after the discovery of the historical cemetery. The final construction of the plaza and the housing development had begun as soon as the road was finished. A look at the police log did show a number of pet disappearances, including that of a Rottweiler, but most of these disappearances had subsequently been explained as road kill.

It was a little bit weird, but there was no mention of anything out of the ordinary, or any reference to cults or devil worship. Erik breathed a mental sigh of relief. The old lady's imagination must have been as vivid as his. There was also no mention of the rock that his son had told him about, though the description did seem consistent with the rock that made up the meteoritic headstone. But the headstone was right out in plain view at the side of Farmington Road, not in the middle of the woods, so that made no sense.

Finally, he checked out Dovecrest's name on the Journal's search engine. There were sporadic references to a Johnny Dovecrest from all the way back to the late 1800's. Dovecrest and his father, Erik assumed, had held tribal offices with the Narragansetts until the 1960's, when Dovecrest seemed to retire even from tribal life. Some of Dovecrest's relatives were still heavily involved in tribal affairs, it seemed.

Erik wondered if it were unusual for Dovecrest to have the same name as his fathera"he didn't know if the Indians used "juniors." He decided it might be worthwhile to visit the small town library, and perhaps even the town hall to check out some of the vital records.

Still, there were some things that didn't add up. Like Todd's mention of the big rock, and his broken geologist's hammer. And how Dovecrest always seemed to be in the right place at the right timea"first to find Todd, and then to find the remains of his cat. Then there was the question of his cata"why hadn't the predator eaten its prey?

Just on a hunch, he decided to do a search on Satanic cults. Even as he typed the keywords into the search engine, he felt a shiver run up his spine.

-4-.

Melissa waited until her mother was busy with a customer ordering fifty "Powerball" tickets, and then she took the opportunity to slip out the back door unnoticed. The lottery jackpot was up to about a zillion dollars and there'd been more people buying tickets than buying food. It was just about supper time, the time when the store got really busy with people stopping on their way home from work, and Melissa knew her mother would be pretty busy for awhile. There was plenty of time for her to sneak out and look for the lost cat. And who knows? Maybe there were some cute boys in town.

She made her way around to the back of the plaza and around the side of the store. The cat wouldn't be wandering around in the parking lota"someone would have seen her by nowa"so she supposed it had either gone off into the woods or had been hit by a car.

She looked at the woods beside the plaza and decided that would be the best place to start. She wouldn't actually go deep into the woodsa"she was really a city girl at heart. But she sure was anxious to get out of the boring store where she'd been cooped up all day. She followed the edge of the parking lot, looking into the woods as far as she could. A blue jay regarded her with interest, and she wondered if it were true what they said about jays, that they'd peck at your head if you came too close to their nests. The bird looked harmless enough, but she wasn't about to find out first hand. She walked away.

The wood grew thick quickly, and before long she realized that her view was blocked by the heavy undergrowth and she found herself standing beside the iron railing that surrounded the cemetery. She'd seen this graveyard before, though she'd never been this close. The place gave her the creeps. Now, as she looked at the ancient, crusty headstones, she felt a sudden chill.

One headstone stood taller than the rest and seemed to stand over her like a statue, casting a long shadow across the ground. There was no doubt that the thing was olda"older than she could imagine. Yet, unlike the other headstones, this one looked new and ageless. With a mixture of fear and fascination, she opened the iron gate and made her way inside the small graveyard. She walked around the edge of the cemetery, looking at the place as if it were another planet.

Unlike the cemetery where Grandpa was buried, this one didn't have green grass or planted flowers. In fact, nothing seemed to grow near this place, as if the very ground were poisoned.

Frowning, she looked back at the largest headstone, the one that was so old, yet looked so new. Unlike the others, this stone was black and shiny, as if it had been polished like the side of a brand new car. While the other stones had funny, blue-green stuff on them, this one was perfectly clean.

Slowly, she walked around the thing, attracted by its strangeness. It had weird lettering on the front. The letters were hard to read. Some were normal, though worn with age. Other letters were different, things she had never seen before.

"I am watching you," she read slowly As soon as she read the words, she imagined the headstone actually was watching her, and she shivered violently. Sudden panic covered her like a blanket, blinding her with fear. She laughed nervously.

"This is like something out of a bad horror movie," she said out loud, and then laughed again.

Then she turned away from the graveyard and a sudden, mindless panic gripped her, squeezing her heart, it seemed. She felt a horrible tightness in her chest and an overwhelming urge to escape. Without thinking, she ran as fast as she could, tripping over the gate, and then stumbling over branches and undergrowth as thorns bit at her legs. She ran with her head down, mute with terror and totally unaware of her surroundings. She imagined the thinga"a nameless, horrible thinga"watching her, chasing her....

Only after it was too late did she realize she had run off into the woods. By then she was already hopelessly lost.

-5-.

Erik was astounded that there were over 4,000 entries under "Satanic Cults" on the search engine. Some were reputed cases of ritual child abuse by cultists. Some appeared to be the lunatic ramblings of paranoids who claimed that either (a) the government was a Satanic plot, or (b) they were personally being tracked down, chased, and persecuted by Satan and his minions. There were some "official" Satanic church sites that claimed that Satanists were really just rugged individualists who worshipped a god that favored "unique individuals," a redundancy in Erik's mind, and that these people used harmless magic to advance themselves and their personal causes, like getting rich, having lots of sex without shame, and obtaining power and control over themselves and their environment.

Then there was the site that required you to be "registered." With some trepidation, Erik applied for a username and password, thinking that this would probably get him put on some sort of FBI hit list. He received the confirming e-mail, but still couldn't log on until he verified his existence twice, confirmed his e-mail address again, and submitted to an age verification. He was just about to give up and move on when the password finally worked and he was able to find his way onto the message board.

There were literally hundreds of posts onto the message board, ranging from satanic theology to a discussion of when a child might be old enough to choose his religion for himself (16 years old seemed to be the consensus). Most of the messages were rather silly, and Erik had the impression that most were written by adult children who were playacting rather than serious.

However, buried deep within the archives of one of the threads he found a disturbing message from a man with the username of "Seti the First" who claimed that the voice of the Master was calling him home, calling him to the east and that he needed 12 disciples to follow him. Erik followed the thread and replies as this Seti plotted his course through the south and through New York and Connecticut. The writer claimed to have been sanctified in the blood of the innocent, and that he was personally going to set the Master free. Some of the replies treated him like the nut case he seemed to be, but there were some who seemed to be cheering this guy on, acknowledging his ideas about the flesh and blood of the innocent, and claiming to also hear voices.

Erik might have dismissed the entire thing as irrelevant were it not for Seti's last post. He read it again.

"The voice is very close now," Seti wrote. "I will find him before the full moon and set him free using the flesh and blood of the innocent. All who follow Him will be rewarded. Those who oppose Him will suffer misery and death at the black stone."

The last entry was datelined Chepachet, Rhode Island.

-6-.

Dovecrest turned off the six o'clock news and sat by the window, listening to the chirping of the crickets in the woods. He disliked the television news, and hadn't even had cable TV connected until a few months ago. Now that it had all started again, he watched out of a sense of duty. He especially disliked the news reporters, who made a drama out of everything, and tried to look grim as they reported tragedy, but were secretly hiding their delight in covering other people's misfortunes. This had been a particularly good news night, he thought, looking out into the woods and wistfully yearning for earlier, less complicated times.

He sighed and wondered how so many years could have passed so quickly, how he could have grown so old and so weak. He was tired of it all. Tired of the waiting and now tired of the responsibility. He felt like he had already lost the battle before it had even begun. If only he could just pack up and move and leave the worries to someone else. But as Medicine Man of the tribe, it was his responsibility, and had been for so, so many years. No one else would take over. No one else even believed. So he shouldered the burden alone.

He sat back in his chair and remembered that time so long ago when Running Deer lay dying in his hut, and how Dovecrest had sat beside his bed to obtain his wisdom. Running Deer had seemed older than the earth itself, then, and Dovecrest had wept to see him dying. But Running Deer smiled and welcomed death.

"It's all right, my friend," he said. "My time has come. I am old and worn out by time as the rock is worn away by the river. It is my time to go and I face my death with joy. It is your time to take over my burden. I give my medicine to you. You will be the watcher now, the guardian of the tribe and of the people."

And when his spirit passed on later that night, his face glowed with the joy of death, as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

Now Dovecrest understood how Running Deer had felt. He, too, would be happy to lie down and die, to let his spirit go to the Great Beyond in peace. It had been long overdue; the years had drained both his spirit and his will. And now, after his last trip to the terrible place of death, he felt even more drained, as if he had been poisoned by his enemy.

This was not good medicine. Not good at all. And worst of all, he could not give up, could not even die, for he had no one to come after him, no one who would take up his heavy yoke of responsibility.

Reluctantly, he flipped the television back on again and channeled to a different station. The news was just going off and the anchor recapped the day's top stories: a three car wreck on I-95 that left two people dead; a murder-suicide in Barrington; and an apartment fire in Cranston.

It had been a good day for the newsa"a busy day with plenty of human tragedy. The newscaster almost gloated in his good fortune. And already the first call had been put in about a single teenage girl missing from a Dairy Mart in Chepachet.

-7-.

Seth was daydreaming when it happened, remembering a time that seemed like a lifetime ago. In the daydream, he was back in high school, a skinny, pimply-faced kid with thick glasses and no dates. This particular daydream had haunted him often, as he recalled just one of the painful incidents of his teenage years.

He was in gym class, which was bad enough by itself, but this was worsea"this was gymnastics and, his worst nightmare, the parallel bars. He stood beside the bars with a half-dozen kids, all of whom hated his guts. They were spotting for Jeff, the school jock and his most-hated enemy, who was showing off all the tricks he could do on the apparatus. The kid moved across the bars as effortlessly as a chimpanzee. And, Seth recalled, he had about the same I.Q. as well.

Seth was useless as a spotter, of course. If the kid did fall he had about as much chance of catching him as he would have had being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. At best he would get in the way just enough to break Jeff's fall, probably killing himself in the process. Not that Jeff was likely to fall. And not that he was likely to even try to catch him if he did.

He snuck a glance over to the girls' side of the gym and saw Jennifer, blonde, blue-eyed, the head cheerleader and every high school boy's wet dream, which meant that she was completely out of Seth's league. For that matter, all the girls in his school were out of his league, even the ugly ones. This, of course, had done nothing to stop him from falling hopelessly in love with Jennifer, lusting after her every waking hour and through much of his sleeping ones as well.

He had watched her from the corner of his eye as she took her turn on the balance beam. The firm muscles of her long, smooth legs tightened as she began her routine. He watched in growing excitement as she did a forward roll on the bar, exposing one of the cheeks of her deliciously firm ass for one short but incredible moment, a moment that Seth would remember forever....

Then he heard his name being called. He blinked and saw Mr. Russo, the gym teacher, glaring at him.

"Come on Seth, you still awake? You're next. Up on the bars."

Seth gave him one of those "what, who me?" grins and the other kids began to giggle, already anticipating the train wreck that was about to occur.

"Come on, Seth. Get up there," the teacher said, and before Seth even realized it, Jeff had come around behind him and hoisted him up and over the bars, one of which was now on either side of him.

He reached out and grabbed one with each hand, while Jeff lifted him up until his arms locked at the elbows.

"Just keep your arms stiff," Mr. Russo said. "Then, when Jeff lets go, swing your legs up over the bars."

Seth sensed the eyes of the entire gym class on him now, even those of Jennifer, watching with the other girls from across the gym.

"Ok, Seth. Are you ready?" Jeff said, his voice filled with contempt.

Seth wanted to scream out, to demand to be let down before he killed himself up here on this horrible torture machine, but everyone was watching, probably hoping that he would scream out in terror so they could use that as ammunition to torment him further, as if he didn't already have enough misery in his life.

No. He wouldn't cry out like a wimp. Not this time. He would do this. He could do this.

He nodded. Jeff let go.

For a split second he held himself up between the bars, looking out at the gym class and thinking that, yes, this wasn't so bad after all. Then his muscles betrayed him and his arms let go.

He felt it and he knew it was happening, but he couldn't stop it. Gravity pulled his body straight down, but his arms, locked at the elbows, flew out to the sides and the space between the bars wasn't large enough to accommodate the impossible angle of his elbows....

He heard the cracking of his bones before he actually felt the pain. But what he saw hurt much worse than the pain he felt, even though each of his arms were being broken in two places, literally ripped apart at the elbow joints. As he fell he saw Jennifer watching him. But not just watching. Laughing. All of them were laughing. But in his own mind, he knew that Jennifer was laughing the hardest.

Later that night, he'd receive a nasty beating from his father, just icing on the cake, so to speak, for being a "wuss" and not a "real man" like Daddy was.

Seth felt the tears running down his cheeks and suddenly realized that the daydream had passed. It wasn't the gym teacher calling his name after all, but someone elsea"make that some thing else.

He blinked rapidly, trying to clear the cobwebs from his brain. He wasn't Seth anymore. He was Seti, and he was the main man here. And his new God was summoning him.

"Don't you want to make them pay?" the voice chimed in his head. "Don't you, Seti?"

"Yes. Make them pay. I'll make them pay."

"Excellent." The voice filled his brain now, inhabiting every cell, every nerve of his being. "Let us begin."

PART TWO: PURGATORY.

Now I shall sing of the second kingdom, There where the soul of man is cleansed, Made worthy to ascend to heaven a"Dante.

Demonic frenzy, moping melancholy, And moon-struck madness.

a"John Milton.

CHAPTER NINE.

-1-.

The sun had just gone down and Erik was reading the newspaper when the doorbell rang. He opened the door to find a uniformed man holding out a badge.

"I'm Sheriff Roy Collins," the man said. "We're looking for a teenage girl and I hoped you might have seen her. She went missing at about six o'clock."

"Come in, Sheriff,"

"Thank you. Call me Roy."

Erik motioned him into the living room, where Vickie and Todd were watching TV together, and he made the introductions.

"Can I get you some coffee?" Vickie asked.

"No thank you, Ma'am. I just wanted to ask a couple of questions."

The sheriff took a small photo from his shirt pocket and passed it to Erik. He recognized it as the young girl he'd seen earlier in the day at the Dairy Mart.

"I saw her this morning," he said. "At the Dairy Mart."

"Do you recall what time?"

"Well...it was this morning. Before lunch. I'd guess ten o'clock or so."

"She was at the store until about suppertime," the sheriff said. "You haven't seen her since then?"

"No," Erik said, handing the photo to Vickie. "I haven't been outside since then. We just had supper and then were relaxing."

Vickie looked at the photo and shook her head. "I'm sorry, Sheriff. Is there anything we can do?"

Collins shook his head sadly. "We may be organizing a search party. We think she may have wandered off into the woods."

Todd leaned over and looked at the photo.

"I know where she is," he said confidently.

"What? You've seen her?" Erik said.

"No. But I know where she is."