"The same person ... thing ... whatever, whose voice I heard earlier. The one I told you about. The message about the period of testing."

She gazed at the young man she loved so desperately. Something about him had changed. He seemed older, stronger. "Your face has changed, Sam. It's ... harder, somehow."

"I know." The reply was quiet but firm.

The trio of young women sat down with them, Lana and Linda bubbling and happy, Judy strangely silent, forcing a smile of greeting, picking at her food.

Sam looked at her neck; the fang marks were partially hidden by makeup, but the bites were visible if one knew what to look for. He lifted his eyes to Nydia, projecting silently: "She is one of them. Be careful."

Nydia nodded her head, a gesture so minute only Sam saw it.

"This is so wonderful," Linda gushed. "Isn't this the grandest house you've ever seen?" She looked around at the new arrivals. "Who are all these people?"

"Some friends of my parents'," Nydia said.

"Mr. Falcon is taking me horseback riding this afternoon," Lana said. "Going to show me the country. I bet it's just beautiful."

And I'll bet that's not all he's going to show you, Sam thought. He wondered how to tell her of what fate awaited her.

"You will not." The voice filled his head. "Neither of them."

Why? Sam silently flung the question to the unknown being or beings that seemed to hover invisibly around the estate.

And the voice came to him: "They were raised in the church and have been washed in the blood. They know their true G.o.d. The choice is theirs to make. There is nothing you can or will do."

"I don't understand," Sam said, projecting his reply. "But I will do what you say. Whoever you are."

Sam was very conscious of Nydia's eyes on him, unspoken questions in them. He projected: "Later."

"What are you two going to do this afternoon?" Linda asked Nydia.

"Read, relax, maybe take a walk. Would you and Judy like to join us?"

"Oh, I'd just love it!" Linda replied. "I ... don't take this the wrong way ... I just can't seem to get close to the others. You know what I mean?"

"I know the feeling," Sam said dryly. He looked at Judy. "How about you?"

The look in her eyes chilled the young man. The look was vacant, not of this earth. And he knew, somehow, she was gone from this world, his faith, his help.

"She is beyond help," the voice rang in his head. "She is one of them. Her thoughts have never been pure, although she pretended they were to others around her. She has denied her G.o.d many times. She is gone. Gone beyond our help."

"I'll find something to do," Judy said. She abruptly rose from the table and walked out of the dining area.

"She's changed," Linda said. "Changed so drastically in just a few hours."

"Oh, that's just your imagination working overtime," Lana said. "Maybe she's worried about something, or just tired." She hurriedly ate her breakfast and dropped her napkin beside her plate. "Well ... gotta go. Mr. Falcon's waiting. See you kids later." Then she was gone.

Linda looked first at Nydia, then at Sam. She put her hand on Sam's arm. "Don't leave me alone in this house," she pleaded. "I mean it. Something is going on around here that's ... I don't know ... just don't leave me alone. Please?"

"Okay," Sam said. "You stick with us."

But preoccupied as he was with the seemingly impossible task that stretched before him, some of it still vague in his mind, Sam did not see Nydia's eyes narrow in suspicion, her dark eyes flitting across Linda's face, as the young woman slowly removed her hand from Sam's arm.

In Whitfield, the crowds began to gather in front of Miles' home in early afternoon. Anita and Doris tried to ignore them; Miles stood guard by the picture window, a shotgun across his lap; Wade totally ignored the silent crowd, writing furiously in a note pad. The pad would soon join the growing pile of legal tablets on the floor beside his chair.

"Maybe somebody will read them," he had explained.

"Those insane people out there," Miles jerked his white-maned head. "Those ... Satanists, they don't bother you?"

"Not as much as your chattering does, old friend," the aging newspaper editor smiled, not looking up from his frantic scribblings.

Miles looked at his wife, looking at him. "Doris, do I chatter? Me?"

"Like a squirrel," she replied.

"Some friends I got," Miles groused, rising from the chair. "I think I'll go sit with the golem." He walked out onto the porch. "Hershel, you want some company?"

The Clay Man looked at him, nothing on his expressionless face. He pointed to the door that led back into the house.

"You don't want my company, either?"

The golem continued his pointing.

"Wonderful," Miles said. "I'm in such demand. I made you, you know?" he said to the huge Clay Man.

The golem shook his head.

"I didn't make you? My hands ached for a month after digging all that clay from the riverbank. Now you're telling me I didn't make you?"

The golem rose from the steps and lumbered toward Miles, towering over him by several feet. He turned him as one might turn a paper doll and gave Miles a gentle shove toward the door.

"You don't have to get physical," Miles complained. "I get the point already."

The golem shook his head, pointed to the shotgun leaning in the corner by the front door, and then pointed to the back of the house.

Miles' face brightened. "Oh! You want me to guard the rear of the house?"

The huge gray man nodded solemnly.

"Wade, too?"

Again, the nod.

"You're a good man ... ah, thing, Hershel. I like you. You don't carry on a conversation worth spit, but I like you. And," he looked up at the expressionless face, "for all of us, I thank you."

The golem looked upward, toward the Heavens.

"Thank Him? Oh, I have, Hershel. A hundred times each day."

The golem nodded and walked back to the steps, slowly sitting down, his ma.s.sive arms dangling by his side, daring anyone to enter the territory he was given life to protect.

Wade was on his feet, shotgun in hand, when Miles reentered the house. "You heard?" Miles asked.

"The golem is smart," Wade said. "To think about the rear of the house."

"Smart?" Miles looked startled. "How can he be smart? He don't have a brain. He's clay, from the river outside of town, and that's dry half the time."

"He's smart in ways we won't ever understand," the editor insisted. "You may have molded him, old friend, but the Almighty breathed life into him."

Miles smiled. "Least I get credit for something."

"This is going to be the most difficult part, isn't it, Sam?" Jane Ann asked. "The waiting, I mean?"

"You've asked me that before. No. I told you: the most difficult part lies near the end. And you are not prepared to face it. Not yet."

She smiled, and she was beautiful. "I try not to think about it."

"It's time you did; time you began preparing. Get my Bible."

She walked to the table, picking up Balon's Bible. "You want me to read the twenty-third psalm?"

Balon smiled through his mist, projecting: "Never antic.i.p.ate a command."

"Yes, Sergeant."

"Read psalm three. Read how the Lord will sustain you. Read it again and again until you know it by heart."

She sat with head bowed, reading aloud, again and again.

Finally, Balon said: "Now read psalms five and twenty."

She read and reread those, then looked at the mist.

"Now the twenty-third," he told her.

Then he had her read 46 and 90, and of the 119th, she read Nun.

Balon thrust: "Now read them again and again. Take comfort and keep the faith as you do so, for His words will sustain you."

She looked at the mist that was all she had ever loved on this earth and said, "I love you, Sam Balon."

"Read!"

"Isn't this lovely, my dear?" Falcon asked. "I find it so mentally refreshing to ride through all of nature's beauty."

"It is beautiful," Lana replied. "I feel ... so peaceful here." She smiled at him. "And I'm glad I'm with you, Mr. Falcon."

"Thank you, dear. But just Falcon, please. I am too conscious of the differences in our ages as it is."

"Oh, that's silly, Falcon. You're the most handsome man I've ever met. Would you be offended if I asked a personal question?"

Would you be offended if I shoved this c.o.c.k of mine in your p.u.s.s.y? Falcon thought. He smiled, riding behind her. And then in your mouth and up your a.s.s? "Of course not, dear."

"Well," she turned to smile at him, "how ... ah ... old are you, Falcon?"

Four hundred and seventy-seven, he thought smiling. Or was it four hundred and seventy-eight? "I am forty-eight years old, dear."

She twisted her lovely a.s.s in the saddle and said, "Oh, that's young, Falcon!"

"Really? I'm glad you think so, dear. Now I have a confession to make: I'm sorry I'm married. For if I were a single man, I'd ask you out."

With her back to him, riding just a few feet in front, Lana said, "What does married have to do with anything?"

Falcon smiled. It never varies, he mused. The dialogue is as old as time. From the grunting of the cave people to the causerie of modern humankind. The language varies from country to country, but the nuances remain the same. "Take the trail to your left, Lana. There is something I want to show you." Other than what is between my legs.

"Where are we going?" she asked, no alarm in her voice.

"A private place of mine. I had it built some years ago. It's a place I use to get away from it all; to be alone."

"I'll bet it's lovely and lonely."

"And very private."

"Good. It's getting crowded back at the house."

Not nearly as crowded as your c.u.n.t will soon be. "I felt the same, Lana. One of the reasons I asked you to come with me." Which you will soon be doing.

A mile farther and the cabin came into view: a picture-postcard dwelling; an idyllic setting for romance.

A perfect locale for evil.

"Oh, Falcon, it's so lovely!" She twisted and smiled at him, the push of her full b.r.e.a.s.t.s against the buckskin jacket he had found for her arousing him, bringing almost to the surface the brute heat and endless depravity that constantly lay smoldering within him, just beneath the surface.

"Yes." His words were soft. "It is. But not nearly as lovely as you." How many times have I said that?

"You're just saying that."

"No, dear. I mean it. I like to be with you." He dismounted, loosening the cinch and looping the reins around a hitch post. He helped her from the saddle, and she deliberately rubbed against him, her hands lingering on his shoulders just a bit longer than necessary, her loins pushing against his crotch.

With her hands on his narrow waist, she asked, "Why do you like to be with me, Falcon? I mean, you have everything: wealth, charm . . . everything anyone could ask for."

"Everything except a loving wife."

"Oh, Falcon. But ... Roma seems so ... how do I say it? So ... s.e.xy."

"Outwardly, my dear. All that is but a show." He inwardly grimaced. This dialogue is maddeningly droll. Soap stuff. "She has not been a wife to me in years."

"That's so sad."