He shook his head. "I believe you." He looked at the pile of rags across the room. "After that."'

The sandwich was delicious, the coffee as good as the first cup he'd had in the dining area of the mansion-it seemed so long ago. He listened to Roma speak, her words tearing at him as he suspected they were to her.

"Satan broke all the rules, coming here, speaking to us. He told us he would no longer abide by any rules of the game."

"The game?" Sam questioned.

"Of course, it's a game, Sam. A game between the two mightiest players in all the universe. This universe and all the others. A game they have been playing for thousands of years."

"A game," Sam said dully.

"A very ugly game, and a very profane one. The Foul One returned, appearing behind you. He is seldom seen in. his natural form-even by us. He is ... grotesque, hideous. His very presence often kills should human eyes fall on his ugliness. Nydia's did."

Sam touched the side of his head. "Who hit me?"

"The Dark One. He is everywhere at once, as is your-my G.o.d, I hope. Sam?" she leaned forward until her face was only a few inches from his. "Will you teach me how to pray to your G.o.d before you baptize me?"

"If ... you would like that, sure."

"Oh, yes, I would like that. More than anything in this world, for I know my time remaining is very short, and growing shorter."

"My G.o.d might ..."

"No," she shushed him, placing a soft finger to his lips. "I know things you do not. Now finish your sandwich, Sam, and then teach me how to pray." Sam finished the hefty sandwich and drank another cup of coffee. "I feel so guilty, Roma, sitting here eating while ... she is ..." He could not bring himself to say the word: dead.

"Don't be," she slipped a bit closer to him. "Do you think Nydia would want that?"

"No, I suppose not. You're right, of course. She would be happy for you. Is Satan still here?"

^"He is everywhere."

"That's not what I meant."

"1 know. Yes, I can feel his presence. He is furious, but unable to do anything about his anger-at this time. You see, Sam, by merely talking with you about ... our decision to reject Satan and accept your G.o.d ... well, that puts the Dark One in a very bad position. Now he can't make any moves against you; all his earthly allies-that is, we at Falcon House-have switched sides, and the Prince is fearful of your G.o.d's powers should he break any more rules."

"It's all very confusing, Roma. But I'm happy for you, if you're sincere, and I believe you are." Sam waited for the mysterious voice to hammer at his brain, but his head remained free of any silent vocal intrusion.

"I don't resent your doubts, Sam," she said, moving a bit closer to him. He was suddenly very much aware of the woman heat of her. "Of course you have suspicions, why shouldn't you?"

The perfume she wore was a scent Sam had never smelled before: very pleasant, not too heady, not too light. And as it a.s.sailed his nostrils, the essence seemed to relax the young man, wrapping him in fragrant invisible arms.

"You're very tired, Sam," he heard her say. He nodded his head in agreement as fatigue hit him hard. "Why don't you sleep for a while? The rest will do you good."

Sam struggled to remember why he was here, but his mind drew a blank. He could but vaguely remember soft music and the scent of lighted candles and incense. Everything was blocked out of his mind. What does it matter? he thought, as arms of incredible sweetness and softness slipped around him, cradling him gently.

"Here, Sam," Roma whispered, amid the rustling of clothing, the soft snick of a clasp opening. "Rest your head here." She pulled his head to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Somehow, Sam thought, I knew they would be bare and beautiful. He opened his eyes, no more than a slit, found the b.r.e.a.s.t.s to be more than beautiful: the nipples were stiff and erect, set amid half dollar sized rose-colored circles. And it seemed only natural his lips would find the papilla, encircling it. Her hands were at the back of his head, gently holding his mouth to her breast, silently encouraging the young man to suckle her as a child.

Sam felt feverish. Not the unnatural heat of sickness, but that his clothing was an enc.u.mbrance he did not need.

Here," she said, "let me help you." Her fingers worked at the b.u.t.tons of his shirt, and Sam quickly felt coolness of air on his bare arms. Pillowing his head against her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, he could not think of one single reason why he should object as she worked at his belt buckle, loosening the snap at his waistband. The snick of the zipper followed, and he moved his legs, a.s.sisting her in the lowering of his jeans.

She held him close to her for several moments, one hand resting on his flat belly, where his T-shirt had pulled up, exposing just a few inches of bare skin.

He heard her say: "It will be wonderful, Sam. You and I, together."

"Yes," he replied, in a voice that seemed strange to him, alien, not from his larynx. He added, "At last." Although he did not know why he said that.

She moved slightly, and her skirt was gone. She was naked. Sam started to protest that this was wrong, but that strange perfume stifled any objection forming within him.

Why is it wrong? he asked himself.

"It isn't wrong," she said.

"Yes," he said. "It isn't."

Sam was conscious of cool air on his groin, but he felt it wasn't worth the effort to open his eyes and look. Then he realized his underwear shorts had been removed and that seemed all right, as well. Everything seemed all right. Natural. Perfect. A man and a woman together. He moved his head to the satiny smoothness of her naked belly and kissed the indentation of navel, aware of the woman scent of her.

She moved her hand, fingers encircling his growing thickness, stroking him into surging hardness, bringing, him, through the manipulation of her skillful touch, almost to the point of e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n.

Then, with one swift movement, she mounted him, laughing as she did so.

Everything returned to Sam ... coming in such a rush it almost overwhelmed him with its magnitude: his father's warnings, the warnings of the mysterious voice. Nydia! her memory leaped into his brain. Where he was; what had happened; what was happening. He recalled the vision he had shared with Nydia: the scene of his father fighting with the witch ... this woman who now had impaled herself on his maleness, driving her way frantically toward completion.

He began fighting the witch, attempting to dislodge her from his erection, but her strength was incredible. Despite his feelings of revulsion and self-disgust, knowing he had been tricked like a schoolboy, Sam was very close to exploding his s.e.m.e.n into her wetness.

She held his hands to her waist with no more effort than if she were pinning a helpless baby to its crib. And despite himself, Sam felt his juices boiling. They began to spill over, then exploded. Using her inner muscles, Roma milked the last drop of precious s.e.m.e.n from him, pulled away from him, and padded naked to a table. There, she picked up a vial of dark red fluid, opened the small bottle, and drained it into her mouth.

Sam was too weak to move as she began speaking in a language he did not understand, the incantation evil as it rolled from her tongue. Lightning licked around the mansion, as thunder ripped the countryside, the smell of burning sulfur strong in the stormy air.

Laughter reached Sam's ears, spilling from the other room. Hot, wild rage filled him, causing his blood to run strong, giving him the strength to claw on his clothing and stagger from the room where he had been seduced into an unwilling paramour.

The scene that greeted him was of the vilest imaginable: a grotesque real-life panorama more vivid than anything Hollywood could ever produce in its most brutish moods. Nydia had been lifted from the casket, pillows placed under her. She was naked, her lifeless white arms hanging over the sides of the bra.s.s entrapment. Her lovely legs spread apart, knees to feet hanging out of the casket. Falcon was between her thighs, his gross maleness erect, pumping in and out of the young woman.

Shouting his rage, Sam charged the sickness before his unbelieving eyes. He was tripped, sending him tumbling to the floor, where he was kicked and beaten into semiconsciousness. He lay bloodied on the carpet, unable to stop the hideousness taking place.

Falcon's hardness became slick with blood, and Sam could not understand that, for Nydia was dead. Then he decided in his near delirium it was not blood, merely the way the candles cast their dubious flickering light.

Nydia's head was thrown back, her mouth a black gaping hole, eyes closed in surrender on her voyage to the stygian sh.o.r.e.

Falcon continued to ram his maleness into her.

"Why don't you pray, mother-f.u.c.ker?" a female voice screeched at Sam.

He looked up through his pain into the wild eyes of Lana, squatting half naked beside him.

Sam shook his head as the taunts began, profane and loud, exhorting him to call on his G.o.d for help. He fought to get to his feet, but hands turned into fists, pounding him back to the carpet. He watched as the ugly act of necrophilia drew closer to completion, Falcon lunging in earnest, burying his long thickness into the dead flesh of Nydia. The man howled like an animal as he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, spilling into the young woman.

Falcon arrogantly rose from the satin-lined casket like some monster from the grave, and stepped onto the floor, wiping his softening p.e.n.i.s with a towel handed him from one of those as lost as he.

Sam put his head on the carpet and wept.

"Oh, don't be such a crybaby, Sam!" Roma's voice cut at him as a cat-o'-nine-tails would rip the flesh of its victim. "You may have her now." She raised her hand and performed a ritual that was too quick for Sam to follow.

He shifted his eyes to the sounds of someone suddenly weeping and thought he was going utterly mad as Nydia's eyes opened and she looked around her, a bewildered expression on her face, as if she not only did not understand where she was, but why she was crying. She looked down at her nakedness, then at her temporary home, and screaming joined the tears.

Roma laughed. "There is your darling, Sam. Take her, witness what marvelous parturient pops from her womb. You won't have a long wait, for when my Master takes a hand, events such as the one now growing within Nydia's womb develop rapidly, such wonders to perform. Take your darling, Sam, and both of you carry your sniveling selves from this room. So we lost a member from your application of holy water," she answered the puzzled look in his eyes. "No great loss-it is an honor to die for the Master." She cackled like the witch she was. "How does it feel to be beaten, young man and woman of G.o.d?"

The room of lost and d.a.m.ned souls howled with laughter.

Sam pulled himself to his knees and wiped blood from above his eyes. When he turned to look at the witch, she hissed with fright and drew back from the sight of his burning eyes. "We're not beaten, you wh.o.r.e. I'm whipped for now, but I'm not down for the count. I don't understand what has taken place here, for I know Nydia was dead; no one could look that dead and not be dead. I don"t know if I'll ever understand it. But I know this: for some reason you can't or won't kill us ... yeah," he said slowly, his eyes shifting to Nydia. "She's got to be kept alive, right? Sure. I see that. Me ... I don't know why you didn't kill me after you screwed me ... maybe I'll never know. But I'm going to beat you, b.i.t.c.h." His eyes lashed at the witch. "Some way, somehow, I'll win this battle. Bet on it."

Sam rose to his feet and walked to the candle-lighted bier, helping Nydia to the floor. No one tried to stop him, no one attempted to interfere. Sam ripped a drape from behind the bier and wrapped it around Nydia, covering her nakedness. They walked from the room amid the jeering, ugly sounds of the Unbelievers. Party music began playing, a loud raucous noise as the people began dancing in a hunching fashion around the room, the dancing more a lewd profanity than any type of graceful movement of partners.

"Sam?" Nydia spoke in a whisper, even though the room and all the evil of its occupants was farther behind them with each step. "I was ... dead!"

"I know, honey. And don't ask me to explain it, 'cause I can't.

"Sam?"

He looked at her, taking her offered hand.

"I know what you have to do."

They were on the second floor of the great house, walking down the corridor to their rooms. "What, Nydia?"

"You have to make love to me, as quickly as possible."

"I ... don't understand."

"Yes, you do," the voice boomed in his head. "And may your seed be strong."

"1 heard the voice that time, Sam," she told him. "And that's why you have to make love to me."

"You remember remember Falcon raping you?" Falcon raping you?"

"Every awful, ugly second of it. I can't explain it, for I couldn't move-not even my eyes. But I could feel pain. It's ... I was dead, Sam, but I wasn't. I know my heart stopped when I looked up and saw that thing ... what in G.o.d's name was that?"

"I didn't see it, but Roma said it was the Devil. I guess that much of what she said was true. Your heart stopped?"

"Yes. I came back when Falcon ... began raping me. Something else, Sam."

"What?"

"I ... saw you and Roma."

"But you were ..."

"I know. But I could still see you both. I was so proud of you when you fought through the drug and began to resist."

"The food was drugged?"

"No. The perfume she was wearing. An ancient aphrodisiac. She stayed within the rules of the game in using it."

Sam shuddered. "A game. Like no other game in the world."

"While we're here, Sam, we're not of this world. "We're kind of in limbo."

Sam was conscious of that mighty presence near, but no voice sprang into his head. The force withdrew. At the door to their rooms, Nydia stopped him. "You take a shower, Sam. You smell like ... well, like her. I've got to do something; maybe it will help."

"What?" Sam asked innocently.

She looked at him and shook her head. "Douche," she said flatly.

Sam tended to his face after the shower, applying antiseptic to the small cuts. One eye was puffy, the area under it turning a shade of greenish-blue, and there were numerous smaller bruises on his face and chest and legs. But he concluded he would live.

"How long and what for is the question," he muttered.

'How skeptical you are," the voice spoke to him. "Weren't you warned you would be tested? And wasn't it I who told you not to fear should you sometimes fail?"

"I did a pretty good job of failing this night, didn't I?" Sam said glumly.

"So did your father, but he found a place beside G.o.d."

"Am I right in doing what I'm ... we're about to do?"

"I cannot answer that. That is something only you and the young woman can decide."

"What if Falcon's seed takes hold?"

"She would birth something truly awesome and terrible. Your seed within Roma was strong, and she will please her dark master."

"So I have to try and overcome Falcon's seed?"

"I told you: I cannot answer that for you."

"Why do I feel that what I'm about to do is right, but with a nagging feeling of guilt that it is somehow wrong?"

But the mighty force had gone, Sam feeling the invisible presence fade from his brain. He looked up as Nydia entered the room.

"You said we'd know His reasons for throwing us together like this, Sam. And it wouldn't be a moral question ... or issue. Are we facing the real reason; doing what is right?"

"I ... think so, Nydia."

She smiled. "I hate to quote an old line, Sam, but please be gentle with me. I hurt."