"From yesterday. We have five more days."

"To stop it?"

"Yes."

"But that doesn't mean the entire town will suddenly transform on the sixth day."

"Oh, no. Not at all. But I read your thoughts a moment ago. You were thinking that the boiling point will soon be reached."

"Yes."

"I wonder if the Dark One is playing with us, Sam?"

"I thought about that, too. I don't think so, Nydia. He knows we are his sworn enemies. I think this is no longer a game with him. Not like it was in Canada, or up in New York State. I don't think the Prince of Darkness will tip his hand this time."

"I'm amazed that we haven't heard from Xaviere. I wonder why she's waiting?"

"I don't know," Sam said.

"We do nothing," Xaviere said to her followers. "We cannot stop what has already begun, but we do not have to be a party to it."

"Why has it begun so soon?" Janet asked. "We were to have all summer."

"I don't know," the Princess of Darkness said.

Mary had a perfectly awful time figuring out how to operate the car she'd stolen from the parking lot of the inst.i.tution. She had never seen so many k.n.o.bs and b.u.t.tons and funny-looking things. And that d.a.m.n voice that kept urging her to buckle her seat belt almost caused her to jump from the car in fright when it first came on.

But the voice finally shut up and Mary got the car started and was on her way.

She stopped at a filling station to pick up a road map and almost got arrested when she tried to walk out the door with it without paying for it.

"Fifty cents!" she said. "What happened to free?"

"There ain't nothin' free no more," the young man told her. "Gimme half a buck or gimme back the map."

Mary dug in Nurse Somerlott's purse and handed the smart-mouthed young man a dollar bill. "Paying for road maps!" Mary snorted. "I never heard of such a thing."

The young man gave her the change and said, "Will that be all, lady?"

"Don't be rude," Mary told him.

The young man rolled his eyes Heavenward. "Man, 1 am gettin' all the fruitcakes in tonight."

Mary drove the long piece of gla.s.s into the young man's throat and seesawed it, working a hole in his throat from front to back. She looked around the place. They were alone. Mary scooped up all the money in the open cash drawer and then her eyes saw the pistol just below the cash register, on a shelf, a box of bullets beside the gun.

She dropped the gun and the bullets into the purse and walked outside, leaving the young man gurgling and jerking on the floor. She drove for a few blocks and pulled over, studying the map. The roads had not changed very much. She pulled back out onto the highway and headed toward Becancour.

And revenge.

Margie remained in bed for a few moments after Dave left the house, heading for his office. She kicked off the covers and started to swing her feet off the bed. Her eyes caught a smudge of something near the foot of the bed, Dave's side. She scooted onto the center of the bed and looked.

Dirt. And something else. Some sort of green stain.

She couldn't possibly believe Dave had gone to bed with such dirty feet.

Then, with white-hot reality, she knew what had caused the stains. She had not suffered any nightmare. What she had seen was ... real. real. Dave had been standing out in the backyard. With those cats. Dave had been standing out in the backyard. With those cats.

She jumped from the bed and ran through the house. She was alone. She locked all the doors and fixed a cup of coffee with shaking hands. She drank her coffee and showered, feeling very vulnerable standing naked in the closed stall.

She toweled off and dressed very quickly. She slipped her feet into the old tennis shoes she used when working in the yard and went out into the back yard. She walked to where she'd seen Dave during the night and knew, then, it for sure had not been any dream.

The soles of her shoes were slick with cat s.h.i.t.

Sam was not surprised to find Father Javotte sitting with Don and Sonny Pa.s.son in the sheriffs substation.

"Sam," Don said. He waved a hand toward a coffee pot. "Help yourself."

Pouring a cup of coffee, Sam said, "I just heard on the car radio about that fire at the mental inst.i.tution west of here."

"You think it's linked with what's happening here?" Sonny asked the young man he'd met just a few hours before.

"Why should I have any ideas about it?" Sam replied, looking up, a smile on his face. "I'm a newcomer here."

"I have a question, Mr. Balon," Sonny said.

"Sure."

"Why did you and your family come to Becancour?"

"Because we are enormously wealthy and don't have to work," Sam said. Except for G.o.d, Sam silently amended that. "We'd never been to Louisiana and thought it would be a nice place to summer."

"In a little town, at the very end of a dead-end road," Sonny said. "Don't misunderstand me, Mr. Balon. I'm not hostile toward you, and you're not wanted for anything. And you certainly don't have to answer any of my questions. It's just that we don't get many tourists here."

Sam was very conscious of Father Javotte's eyes on him.

Sam was caught up in a mental quandary. If Nydia was right, time was running out and these men should be warned. But would they believe him? No, he thought they would not. Not yet. But did he have the right to withhold the truth from them? No, he did not.

He smiled. "I'll level with you people. My wife and I have a rather, well, macabre hobby."

The two cops tensed; Father Javotte returned Sam's smile.

"We like to explore so-called haunted houses."

Don and Sonny each expelled a breath. Father Javotte was still wearing a smile. "The Dorgenois house," Don said.

'That's right. It was quite a disappointment to us when we learned the Dorgenois place had been rented out."

Sonny Pa.s.son looked at Sam's eyes. The man was smiling, but his eyes were cold and unreadable. Not cold in any criminal way, the chief thought, but ...

He's lying, it came to Sonny. But why?

Sam was saying, "... explored so-called haunted houses in several states."

'What was your most interesting house, Sam?" Father Javotte asked.

Satan-fighters, each with different methods, locked eyes. "Falcon House," Sam said.

The priest paled slightly. When he lit a cigarette, his hands were trembling ever so slightly.

Don noticed the priest's paling, his trembling hands. "Something wrong, Dan?"

The priest inhaled deeply, slowly blowing out the smoke. When he spoke, it was not directed to any one person. "The other evening, as I stepped outside for a breath of air, it came to me what I had been sensing for several months. Evil. Evil in its darkest form. When I first saw you on the street, in front of the department store, I sensed something quite different about you, Sam." He glanced up at Sam.

"Go on, Padre," Sam urged.

"Where were you born, Sam?" Father Javotte asked.

"Nebraska."

"You told me your father was a ... preacher. I should have put it all together then."

"Put what together, Father?" Sonny asked.

"Be silent," the priest told the man. He had not taken his eyes from Sam's. "We're in danger, aren't we, Sam?"

"Yes." Then it came to Sam. Both he and Nydia were wrong. It was not six days; something was going to happen within that time frame, but it was the sixth month they had to fear. It was Little Sam's birthday. He had been born in the sixth month, on the sixth day. And this was 1986.

666.

The Mark of the Beast.

And Satan would try to take the child, one way or the other, between the first and the sixth day of June.

"Yes." Nydia's voice came to him, drifting over the few miles from house to town. "I realized it the same time you did. But how did we know? Who gave us the information?"

She knew she was not expecting a reply. The aura of her mind touching his faded.

Sam blinked to clear his head.

"I felt a ... something in the room," Don said, his eyes wide. "I know I did. What the h.e.l.l was that?"

"My wife communicating with me," Sam said. "We have the ability to read each other's minds."

"Say ... what?" Sonny said.

"Before then," Javotte said, "you were experiencing something, Sam. Important to us?"

"Important to all of us, Padre." Sam, with a sigh, made up his mind. He warmed up his coffee with fresh and sat down with the men.

"All right, gentlemen," Sam said. "I don't know why the devil chose this particular town. I suppose he has his reasons ...

"The devil?" Sonny interrupted. "You mean, like Satan?"

"Yes."

"You got a weird sense of humor, Balon," Don said, none of the previous night's friendliness in his tone.

"When it comes to the Prince of Darkness, I have no sense of humor," Sam informed them all. "And when you see fully what he has planned for Becancour, none of you will have any sense of humor about it, either. I can a.s.sure you all of that."

Sam rose and walked to the front of the trailer. He looked out the window. When he spoke, his voice was husky with emotion. "My father died fighting Satan, in Nebraska. He fought to the death with a Princess of Satan, Nydia. She finally killed him, but not before she impregnated herself with my father's sperm. "Two children were born from that union. A boy, Black, and a girl, Nydia. I killed Black several years ago, in Canada. I married Nydia. Yes. She is my half-sister and daughter of a witch. But our marriage was blessed by G.o.d, and Nydia accepted Him as her one true G.o.d.

"Last year, in upstate New York, I again fought the Dark One, and his Princess ..." Sam smiled; this was getting complicated. "... who happens to be my daughter. Her name is Xaviere. She and her entourage are now living in the Dorgenois house."

Not a word was said for one long minute. Even the two way radio linking the sheriffs substation with the parish seat was silent.

Father Javotte finally signed himself and sighed. "Who was the priest out in Nebraska, Sam?"

"Dubois."

"The Tablet?"

"What tablet?" Don asked.

"Shut up!" the priest told him. "The Tablet, Sam?"

"I've never been able to find it. I don't want to find it. That means certain death. But bet on this: The Prince of Darkness is here in Becancour. That means a new coven is being planned. If that is the case, the Beasts are not far away, and neither is the Tablet."

Don stood up and looked at Sam. "You wanna know what I think, Balon? I think you belong in a f.u.c.king nut house!"

Father Javotte rose and, with his open hand, slapped the deputy.

10.

Margie had driven to a friend's house. She was in a mild state of shock and panic kept touching her. She was alternately crying and shaking almost uncontrollably.

Her relief was almost overwhelming as she spotted Susan's car in the drive. Being the chief R.N. at Livaudais' clinic, Susan sometimes worked some odd shifts. Margie managed to pull in behind Susan's car and stop before she ran into the other vehicle. She jumped out of the car and ran and staggered up the drive to the side door.

Susan was sitting at the kitchen nook, drinking coffee.

Margie pounded on the door, the wild hammering startling her friend.