It would not go; if anything, it became stronger.

"d.a.m.n!" Walt muttered.

Walt had this almost overwhelming urge to lick himself.

12.

They met back at the substation, each with their own stories to tell about what they'd seen around town. The painted upside-down cross on the water tower. The cats lined up like soldiers on the stone fence. And the funny feelings some of them had been experiencing.

"How do you feel now, Sonny?" Sam asked.

"Fine, after talking with Father Javotte," the chief said. He looked at Don. "You?"

"I'm all right," the deputy said. "Let's make plans to find Jackson Dorgenois."

Sonny held up a hand. "Wait a minute. I just thought of something. My thinking has been so muddled for the past few hours it just came to me. Where is Mary Claverie inst.i.tutionalized?"

"Who?" Don asked.

"It happened before you were born, Don," the chief said. "Over in the Dorgenois house. There were four kids-about my age. Little younger. Mary Claverie, Bonnie Rogers, Bob Savoie, and Dave Porter. Bob was killed and Mary went crazy. No one knows what happened in there 'cause none of the three left alive would ever talk about it."

"Bonnie Rogers?" Don said. "She's that weird lady who never comes out of her house during the day, right?"

"That's her. Her parents were quite wealthy and Bonnie inherited a lot of money after they ..." He paused. "... died."

"Why did you say it like that?" Sam asked. He looked up as Rita Dantin entered the trailer.

Rita was dressed in jeans and T-shirt, tennis shoes on her feet. Out of uniform, she looked much more vulnerable, much softer ... and very pretty.

"I just saw the oddest thing," she said. "Mr. Slater just hauled it out and took a whiz right on the street corner; right over there." She pointed.

"p.i.s.sed in the street?" street?" Sonny said. "The president of the bank Slater?" Sonny said. "The president of the bank Slater?"

"Yeah," Rita said, astonishment still clear in her tone. "Then he just zipped up and went on walking down the street. Went into his bank like nothing had happened."

Father Javotte looked at Sam. Sam shrugged his shoulders, silently saying, "Be prepared for anything to happen. It's going to get worse."

"What about this Mary Claverie?" Javotte asked.

"Was she in the inst.i.tution that burned last night?"

"I'll find out," Don said, moving to the radio.

"Back to Bonnie Rogers," Sam said.

"Well," Sonny said, "I always felt that her parents' deaths were ... odd. I was gone from here when it happened, but I talked with the trooper who worked the wreck a couple of years later. He said that accident bothered him 'cause there was no reason for it. Nothing was wrong with the car. The insurance people went over it from end to end. The car left the highway and sailed several hundred feet before impacting. It would have had to be traveling a hundred miles an hour to do that. And Mr. Rogers was a menace on the highways because he never, never never got over forty miles an hour. And Mrs. Rogers couldn't drive. That trooper told me it looked to him like, well, these are his words, something just picked the car up and hurled it those hundreds of feet. That trooper worried on that wreck for two or three years. I never seen a man so obsessed with something. And I'll tell you what's really weird about it: that trooper was killed right outside of Becancour, in exactly the same way Rogers died." got over forty miles an hour. And Mrs. Rogers couldn't drive. That trooper told me it looked to him like, well, these are his words, something just picked the car up and hurled it those hundreds of feet. That trooper worried on that wreck for two or three years. I never seen a man so obsessed with something. And I'll tell you what's really weird about it: that trooper was killed right outside of Becancour, in exactly the same way Rogers died."

"My daddy told me about Bonnie," Rita said. "He said she didn't even attend her parents' funeral. My daddy said that girl really changed that night in the Dorgenois house. Took to doin' some really strange things."

"What strange things?" Father Javotte asked.

"She's never been out of that house during the daylight hours," the patrolwoman said. "And she's in the graveyard at least two nights a week, summer or winter, rain or starry nights-she's there."

Sam glanced at Father Javotte. "You know anything about this woman?"

"Only what I've heard. I've seen her, oh, half a dozen times during the years I've lived here. Always at night, walking. She never speaks."

Don stilled the ringing phone. "Sure, Max, he's right here. Hang on." He handed the phone to Sonny. "Encalarde." He had uncovered nothing about Mary.

"Max? What's up?" Sonny listened for a moment, his face turning beet red. "Yeah? Well, the same to you! Look, Max ... quit if you want to, but give me some notice, won't you?" The chief looked as though he might explode any moment. "Fine, Max. I really appreciate this, you ..." He held the phone out. "b.a.s.t.a.r.d hung up on me."

"Patrolman Encalarde quit?" Father Javotte asked.

"Sure did. Told me where to shove my job, desk, chair, badge, and all."

"Expect more," Sam said, recalling the siege at Logandale, New York, and the events leading up to it "Everything might fall apart tomorrow, but I rather expect it to take several weeks."

"Will somebody please tell me what is going on?" Rita asked.

Don brought her up to date.

Rita sat down with a thump. "Last night was bad enough," she said. "Are you people serious?" serious?"

"Yes," Sam told her. "Deadly so. Sonny, how many people do you have working for you ... before Max quit?"

"Including myself, six."

"And the single highway linking the town to the outside is number? ..."

"Six," Rita said.

"And the town was first settled?"

"The French formed the first settlement here," Sonny said. "Back in 1766."

"And the population of the town is? ..."

"Three thousand six hundred and sixty-six."

Father Javotte sighed audibly. "Here is wisdom," he said, speaking from Revelation. " 'Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of man; and his number is six hundred threescore and six.' "

"Father Javotte," Sam said. "Why were you posted to this particular church?"

Did the priest's eyes become cloudy with that question? Sam thought so. He waited.

The priest said nothing.

"Why are you asking that, Sam?" Don questioned.

"I'm curious, that's all. I like to know as much as possible about the people I'll be siding with in any upcoming fight."

"I'm lucky to have a church," Father Javotte finally spoke. "I'm lucky to still be in the Church, for that matter."

"We're all flawed, Padre," Sam said. "And when the final battle lines are drawn, I can just about tell you the names of everyone on the side of G.o.d. And we'll all be flawed in some manner."

"You presume a lot, young man," Father Javotte said, with heat in his voice.

"I'm flawed," Sam said. "But still I was chosen to fight the fight here on earth. I'm flawed, yet I've spoken with Michael; heard his footsteps on earth. Did you know that Satan calls Michael G.o.d's mercenary?"

The priest appeared shaken. "You "You have spoken with Michael?" have spoken with Michael?"

"Yes, and he with me. You have not seen, any of you, what the forces of Satan can muster. But I have. I've seen the two-headed Amphisbaena, the reptilian Basilisks, the winged, clawed Griffins, the deformed and hideous Su, and the Gulon ... straight out of the pits of h.e.l.l. I have personally witnessed human sacrifices, where still-beating hearts were cut out of living human beings ... and I've seen the coven members eat it."

Rita burped and covered her mouth with a hand.

"Yes, I'm flawed, but still I was chosen. My wife is flawed-she was born a witch, daughter of a Princess of Satan-but now she fights on the side of G.o.d. You say I presume a lot, Padre. Then hear me: when the sides are picked, and that's happening now, believe me, here is who-of those I have met-will be standing with me. Sonny Pa.s.son, Don Lenoir, Rita Dantin, Daniel Javotte, Tony Livaudais. Satan will never break that old woman I met, that Mrs. Wheeler. She'll die before she renounces her faith. And she'll be hard to kill. She's tough. The Dorgenoises are not bad people. I think before our trials begin, we'll discover that the Becancour Dorgenoises renounced Satan and accepted G.o.d. That's why they came here. And that is why Satan is here. And Satan is why I am here." Sam sighed. "Oh, there'll be others to join our ranks. Seven or eight others, probably. Perhaps ten. No more than that."

"That is about ... fifteen or so people, Sam," Rita said. "But who will we be fighting?"

"People who were once your friends, neighbors, relatives. Boyfriends, girlfriends, wives, husbands, lovers, brothers and sisters. My father killed his best friend back in Nebraska."

No one had heard Patrolman C. D. Campbell come in through the back door. He had stood in silence in the narrow hall, listening in horror. Finally, he spoke.

"Chief Pa.s.son?"

Sonny lifted worried eyes to the man. "I didn't hear you come in, C. D. How long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough to know Sam Balon is who he says he is."

"How do you know that, C. D.?" Rita asked.

"I told ya'll I'd heard the name Balon before. I went back home and been lookin' through all those old books and magazines I got. Sam Balon, Sr., died up in Nebraska back in the late fifties. Big, big government cover-up about that. When the cops and the National Guard got there, they supposedly found a small group of survivors ... driving stakes through the heart of any coven member who survived. Isn't that right, Sam Balon, Jr.?"

"That's the way it was told to me," Sam said quietly.

"Then," C. D. continued, "a great fireball struck the town of Whitfield. Who sent that fireball, Sam Balon?"

"G.o.d. He gave the town more than enough time to reject the Dark One. They didn't. My mother was tortured and raped and finally crucified. I saw it all, while I was lying on a hill overlooking Falcon House, in Canada."

"And now you're here," C. D. said, very softly.

"Now I'm here."

"Will Becancour be destroyed, Sam?" Don asked.

"It will, or we will," Sam told them all.

Sonny Pa.s.son shuddered violently. "We can all just leave and let them have the G.o.dd.a.m.ned place!"

"G.o.d hasn't d.a.m.ned it yet," Sam said. "But you can leave. I don't think anyone will try to stop you. I'm thinking that this won't be like Logandale. I'm thinking this time around it will be far more insidious; a gradual building of horror. You can all leave. But I have to stay."

"Why?" several asked at once.

Sam stood up and removed his shirt. All present were impressed by his powerful build; but what caught and held their eyes was the deep burn in the center of his chest, burned and scarred amid the thick pelt of chest hair.

It was the outline of a cross.

13.

They were all just into their teen years. Thirteen and fourteen years old. All but one. The girl. She was fifteen.

"Leave me alone," she said softly.

The bayou bank was green and hot. Above the knot of teenagers, the train trestle loomed skeleton-like.

"Take off your shirt, Andrea," the older of the boys said. "Let's have a look at your t.i.ts."

Andrea looked around her. No way she was going into that bayou full of cottonmouths and gators. And no way she could climb up that steep trestle bank without the boys catching her. She was trapped.

"You should have come to the meeting the other night, Andrea," the older of the boys told her. "You blew it. But maybe it's not too late for you."

"What do you mean, Chuck?" Andrea knew what he meant; she was just stalling for time.

Chuck licked his lips, a very strangely dark and evil look in his eyes. "You know," he said.

Andrea had heard of the meetings a lot of the kids were attending. And a little bit of what went on at those meetings. She wanted none of it. And just as soon as she got away from this ... mess she was in, she was going straight to Earl Morris at the church and tell her preacher all she knew.

She felt eyes on her back. Turning her head, she looked at the trestle. The support beams under the tracks were lined with cats, maybe a hundred of them, all looking at her. Their tails were swishing back and forth in unison, like a silent metronome, all in meter, moving back and forth, back and forth.

"You take off your shirt, or we take it off for you," Billy said, his voice in the process of changing, breaking every now and then.

Thirteen-year-old Tommy was rubbing his crotch, his lips wet, his eyes shiny with antic.i.p.ation.

The front of Peter's cut-off jeans were bulging with his erection.

What to do? Andrea thought, sweat beading her forehead. She didn't want to be hurt, but she didn't want to be raped, either. If there was just one of them, she could fight and probably win. But against four of them? ...