Like his father, but learning it at a much earlier age, Little Sam had been born to combat Evil. Little boys or little girls ... it made no difference to Little Sam.

Little Sam looked up at the open doorway when Bess stepped into his room. Dog never took his eyes off the girl.

"My fight," Little Sam said.

Dog shook his great head as if to say, "I hear the words, but that's about it, little buddy."

The smile that formed on the lips of Bess was Evil at its darkest. Sam slipped off the couch and faced the girl.

"Why don't you yell for your mother to come help you?" Bess asked.

"I don't need her help." The boy returned the whisper.

"You're a foolish little boy," Bess taunted him. She hissed at him like a cat, the expulsion of air fouling the windowless room. Her breath was that of a hundred thousand years of evil, straight from the burning pits of h.e.l.l.

Little Sam leaped at the girl and kicked her, knocking her sprawling on the tile. Before she could recover from her shock of having a little boy attack her, Little Sam kicked her again, this time in the stomach.

Bess squalled in rage, her face changing, her anger betraying her plans to contain her inner self. She leaped to her tennis-shoe-clad feet, her face a mask of evil, her eyes burning with hate. She spat at him, the spittle a yellowish stinking glob that clung to the wall like a leech.

Little Sam infuriated the girl when he laughed at her.

She sprang at him. Little Sam sidestepped and Bess crashed into the wall, stunning herself with the impact.

When she picked herself up, Little Sam knew that playtime was all over.

The little girl was no more. In her place stood a haglike creature that only vaguely resembled something human. The cackling laughter that sprang from the mottled mouth was followed by puffs of breath that smelled fresh from a stinking grave. The creature spoke to Little Sam, but the boy could not understand the words. They were from a time and place that had long since died and vanished from history.

Dog ran out of the room and clamped his powerful jaws around one ankle of the creature and twisted and jerked, spilling the G.o.dless creation to the floor. The hag attempted to break free from Dog's powerful jaws. But Dog held fast. The sounds of ancient bones splintering and shattering filled the corridor. The hag shrieked her pain. Dog jerked once more and ankle separated from leg. A thick yellowish fluid leaked onto the floor from the severed ankle. Dog slid backward, his paws trying to gain some hold on the slick tile. He spat out the stinking foot and charged.

More than a hundred pounds of Cod-sent dog hit the creature as she was attempting to get to her one remaining foot. The force of Dog's charge knocked the creature across the corridor. Little Sam lashed out with one shoe and caught the thing on a kneecap. The kneecap shattered. Little Sam reached down and grabbed a wrist and twisted. The wrist broke free.

Little Sam dropped the wrist to the floor as the creature went scurrying down the hall, trying to reach the exit door.

His nails clicking on the tile, Dog reached the creature before she reached the door. The animal grabbed onto a foot and pulled the hag back. Twisting his head, he broke off the one remaining foot. Frances Lenoir picked that time to step into the hall. The hag sank her yellow teeth into the woman's ankle, biting deeply. Frances screamed in pain as the yellow teeth began working higher and higher up her leg, over the calf, and digging and biting into the softness of inner thigh.

Some adults left their posts until Nydia ordered them back. Only Don Lenoir failed to obey Nydia's orders. The deputy stood in horrified shock and watched as his wife, within seconds, was consumed and transformed and altered and finally absorbed by the now b.l.o.o.d.y creature.

They became as one.

"Frances!" Don screamed in rage. He pulled out his .357 and emptied it into the creature.

The heavy hollow-nosed slugs knocked the hag back to the floor, momentarily stunning her.

Little Sam was the first to react. The little boy ran down the hall to the lobby. He jerked a sharpened stake out of a large potted plant and raced back up the hall. He jumped at the creature just as she was sitting up, laughing and howling and spraying the walls with a stinking yellow fluid. The stench was awful.

The point of the stake hit the hag in the center of her chest and drove deep. She howled and hissed and clutched at the stake with her gnarled hands. Little Sam worked the stake in deeper, sweating from his exertions.

That which had once held the human form of Bess rained h.e.l.l's curses down on the little boy's head.

Little Sam spat in the creature's face.

Where the spittle struck, pockets of steam rose from the hag's skin.

The hag's hands left the stake and tried to reach Little Sam. Dog leaped and ripped one arm to the bone, tearing great hunks of flesh from the arm. Dog jumped over the vibrating stake and tore at the other arm, shredding it, rendering both arms useless.

Little Sam worked the stake in deeper, finally piercing the evil demon heart.

The shrieking abruptly ceased; the hag began changing. The creature spun back in time, almost too fast for human eyes to follow, until all that was left was the human form of Frances ...

... with a stake sticking out of her b.l.o.o.d.y chest.

Don fell to the floor beside his wife and began weeping.

Little Sam walked up the hall, Dog by his side. Little Sam's part was over. He had pa.s.sed the test. G.o.d's little warrior and his animal friend could now rest.

22.

"Oh, my G.o.d!" Jobert screamed. " 'At's Charles and Maurice Ballatin out dere!"

Sam ran to the second-story window and looked out. Jobert was trembling beside him. "Who?"

"Cousins of Ben Ballatin. Them people drowned years ago, with them Yankees come down here to fish."

"Padre!" Sam yelled. "The Undead are walking."

"I see them," the priest said, no fear in his voice.

The second-floor porch decking prevented Sam from seeing what the priest was doing.

Father Javotte stepped out onto the main porch, a large cross in one hand, Holy Water in the other. Javotte lifted the cross.

"Back," he spoke. "Go back to your graves and rest. There is time for you yet. G.o.d forgives what you are not responsible for. Go back into the waters."

All the outside lights were on, flooding the ground with harsh light. The naked, wrinkled, fish-white walking dead were strangely frozen in the light.

Ben Ballatin stepped into the light, b.l.o.o.d.y and torn and ripped ... and dead.

The kids appeared, naked and chalk white and wrinkled.

"All of you," Javotte said, his words gentle but yet firm, "return to your final resting places. Go, while there is still time."

The woman appeared in the light. She walked to her children and stood between them.

"Take your children and go with G.o.d. Your sins are forgiven. For you are blameless. Go, go."

The woman took the hand of the girl, then the hand of the boy. They walked out of the harsh light and into the darkness.

Sam and Jobert had joined Father Javotte on the porch. Sam held stakes; Jobert had fixed a bayonet onto his rifle, the long needle pointed FFL bayonet of years past.

The walking dead screamed, the foulness of the bayou bottom momentarily engulfing those on the porch.

Naked and screaming, the men charged the porch.

Father Javotte tossed Holy Water on one man. The man was suddenly pockmarked and smoking where the water touched his fishy skin. The undead exploded on the front yard, rotting organs and ropy intestines flung about.

Jobert impaled Ben Ballatin on his bayonet, the needle point sinking deep, piercing the heart. With Ben's hands gripping the rifle barrel, Jobert drove the bayonet in to the hilt. Ben died on his naked feet.

Sam plunged the stake into the chest of the third man. The point hit a bone and was deflected off, the point exiting out the man's upper back. The Undead jerked free and ran howling off into the night.

"Two outta t'ree ain't bad," Jobert said.

Brother Malcolm stepped out of the line of singing and prancing and dancing so-called social reformers. He walked into an alley to relieve himself.

Brother Malcolm almost fainted when a great black panther appeared a few feet from him. The panther snarled, exposing long fangs that glistened in the darkness of the alley. And if that wasn't enough, a stark naked, ghostly white woman appeared beside the panther. She crooked a finger at Brother Malcolm.

"Come," she said, her voice low and seductive.

"Not on your life, lady!" Brother Malcolm said, then split as fast as lightning into the mouth of the alley.

Brother Malcolm had been quicker even than the panther, getting the jump on the big cat as he hauled his tail out of there. With his robes held high, his red, skinny knees flashing in the streetlights' glow, Brother Malcolm pa.s.sed the entire line of white-clad Brothers and Sisters. He raced past Brother Lester.

"Come back here!" Lester shouted. Lester knew nothing about the naked woman and the great black cat.

"Screw you!" Brother Malcolm yelled, fleeing for his life.

"Heathen!" Lester shouted. "Backslider! Coward!"

But Brother Malcolm was gone into the night, heading for the clinic. Brother Malcolm had had quite enough of Brother Lester and his nutty ideas. He had taken no part in the burning of those men; indeed, had known nothing of it until it was all over. It had been Brother Malcolm who had vocally questioned Lester's so-called conversation with an angel.

h.e.l.l with the whole bunch of them.

Brother Thad turned around to see what in the world might have caused Brother Malcolm to behave so strangely.

It was to be Brother Thad's last look at anything.

Snarling, the panther leaped at Thad. One clawed paw ripped Thad's face, shredding the flesh and tearing out one eye. Thad did not have the time to even scream his pain and terror before the panther tore out his throat and lapped at the sudden gush of hot blood.

Bonnie grabbed Sister Ilene and flung her to the hot concrete of the street. Falling on top of the woman, Bonnie's teeth flashed in the night and sank into the woman's throat. Bonnie sucked greedily as the woman's legs kicked and jerked and trembled.

And she became one of Them.

Brother Lester whooped his fright and took off running, holding his robes up high. That angel hadn't said a d.a.m.ned thing about this.

Brother Johnny ran into an alley and straight into a pack of cats. The cats rode him down, scratching and clawing and biting. Brother Johnny howled his death cry.

The line of social reformers broke into a ma.s.s of panic and confusion. White-robed men and woman ran in all directions.

Sister Millie ran into an open doorway. Too late, she realized she had stepped into a honky-tonk. Rough hands grabbed her, stripped the robe from her. The nightmare was just beginning.

Sister Bertha was holding her own. After whacking several smelly men over the head with a stick of wood found in the gutter, the large lady was wisely left alone by those that prowled the darkness. Sister Bertha went off in search of Brother Lester.

Brothers Luther, Ira, and Eb, and Sisters Estelle, Helen, and Rose had taken refuge in the office of a service station, after Brother Eb, very unChristianlike, broke the lock on the front door and illegally entered.

The six of them huddled together on the floor, behind a desk and a cigarette machine they had pulled together They were confused and very frightened. And closer to death than they realized.

Xaviere was in a blue rage, storming around her quarters, throwing vases and cups and anything else she could get her dirty hands on.

Guy had failed, Bess had failed, those called from the dark waters of the bayous had failed. The Beasts and the cats were at war with each other; Jackson and Bonnie had gone off on their own-as had Mary-and so far, at least, that d.a.m.ned old woman and her shotgun had managed to remain alive and openly taunting the Master's followers.

G.o.ddammit!

If she failed here, in this hick town in the backwaters of Louisiana ...

... Xaviere did not like to think about that.

But why did she think of it? Failure had not entered her mind before now.

Her hands, clawlike in her rage, gripped the sides of a table. She concentrated, her mind sending out messages to the Beasts to attack the strongholds of the little bands of Christians. But the Beasts ignored her calling. The jealousy of the Beasts had overwhelmed all else in the tiny brains of the creatures. Theirs was one single thought: Kill the cats.

And that they were doing, killing and feasting and enjoying every second of it.

The Princess of Darkness picked up a brush and hurled it through a window.

Leave! The voice entered her head. Get out!

Xaviere spun around, her face mirroring her rage. "No!" she screamed. "No. There is still this night before us."

No good! the heavy voice told her. Another time, another place. For us, it is over here.

Xaviere held her head high. "I am staying here, Master."

There was a long pause. Then the voice once more entered the brain of the Princess. You are that certain, Daughter?

"Yes."

I will give you a few more hours. But you must leave before daylight. Is that understood?

"Yes, Father."

She felt the Dark One's presence leave. And Xaviere knew that unless the force of Darkness held the victory in their unwashed hands, the Master would not return.

She drew a cloak around her bare shoulders. "Janet!" she called.